Phrasal Verbs

get down

try out

bring up

take down

put up

call off

see off

run down

rule oout

bear out

put forward

make up

put off

let down

leave out

Rick Little's Quest

(from Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen)
(This story is provided with permission from Chicken Soup for The Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, copyright 1993.)

At 5 A.M. Rick Little fell asleep at the wheel of his car, hurtled over a ten-foot embankment and crashed into a tree. He spent the next six months in traction with a broken back. Rick found himself with a lot of time to think deeply about his life – something for which the thirteen years of his education had not prepared him. Only two weeks after he was dismissed from the hospital, he returned home one afternoon to find his mother lying semiconscious on the floor from an overdose of sleeping pills. Rick confronted once again the inadequacy of his formal education in preparing him to deal with the social and emotional issues of his life.

During the following months Rick began to formulate an idea – the development of a course that would equip students with high self-esteem, relationship skills and conflict management skills. As Rick began to research what such a course should contain, he ran across a study by the National Institute of Education in which 1,000 30-year-olds had been asked if they felt their high school education had equipped them with the skills they needed for the real world. Over 80 percent responded, “Absolutely not”.

These 30-year-olds were also asked what skills they now wish they had been taught. The top answers were relationships skills: How to get along better with the people you live with. How to find and keep a job. How to handle conflict. How to be a good parent. How to handle financial management. An how to intuit the meaning of life.

Inspired by his vision of creating a class that might teach these things, Rick dropped out of college and set across the country to interview high school students. In his quest for information on what should be included in the course, he asked over 2,000 students in 120 high schools the same two questions: 1. If you were to develop a program for your high school to help you cope with What you’re meeting now and what you think you’ll be meeting in the future, what would that program include? 2. List the top ten problems in your life that you wish were dealt with better at home and in school.

Whether the students were from wealthy private school or inner city ghettos, rural or suburban, the answers were surprisingly the same. Loneliness and not liking themselves topped the list of problems. In addition, they had the same list of skills they wished they were taught as the ones compiled by the 30-year-olds.

Rick slept in his car for two months, living on a total of $60.00. Most days he ate peanut butter on crackers. Some days he didn’t eat at all. Rick had few resources but he was committed to his dream.

His next step was to make a list of the nation’s top educators and leaders in counseling and psychology. He set out to visit everyone on his list ask for their expertise and support. While they were impressed with his approach – asking students directly what they wanted to learn – they offered little help. “You’re too young. Go back to college. Get your degree. Go to graduate school, then you can pursue this.” They were less than encouraging.

Yet Rick persisted. By the time he turned 20, he had sold his car, his clothes, had borrowed from friends and was $32,000 in debt. Someone suggested he go to a foundation and ask for money.

His first appointment at a local foundation was a huge disappointment. As he walked into the office, Rick was literally shaking with fear. The vice-president of the foundation was a huge dark-haired man with a cold stern face. For a half hour he sat without uttering a word while Rick poured his heart out about his mother, the two thousand kids and plans for a new kind of course for high school kids.

When he was through, the vice-president pushed up a stack of folders. “Son,” he said, “I’ve been here nearly 20 years. We’ve funded all these education programs. And they all failed. Yours will, too. The reasons? They’re obvious. You’re 20 years old, your have no experience, no money, no college degree. Nothing!”

As he left the foundation office, Rick vowed to prove this man wrong. Rick began a study of which foundations were interested in funding projects for teenagers. He then spent months writing grant proposals – working from early morning until late at night. Rick worked for over a year laboriously writing grant proposals, each one carefully tailored to the interests and requirements of the individual foundations. Each one went out with high hopes and each one came back – rejected.

Proposal after proposal was sent out and rejected. Finally, after the 155th grant proposal had been turned down, all of Rick’s support began to crumble. Rick’s parents were begging him to go back to college and Ken Greene, and educator who had left his job to help Rick write proposal, said, “Rick, I have no money left and I have a wife and kids to support. I’ll wait for one more proposal. But if it’s a turndown, I’ll have to go back to Toledo and to teaching.”

Rick had one last chance. Activated by desperation and conviction, he managed to talk himself past several secretaries and he secured a lunch date with Dr. Russ Mawby, President of the Kellogg Foundation. On their way to lunch they passed and ice cream stand. “ Would you like one?” Mawby asked. Rick nodded. But his anxiety got the better of him. He crushed the cone in his hand and, with chocolate ice cream running between his fingers, he made a surreptitious but frantic effort to shake it loose before Dr. Mawby could note what had happened. But Mawby did see it, and bursting into laughter, he went back to the vendor and brought Rick a bunch of paper napkins.

The young man climbed into the car, red-faced and miserable. How could he request funding for a new educational program when he couldn’t even handle an ice cream cone?

Two weeks later Mawby phoned. “You asked for $55,000. We’re sorry, but the trustees voted against it.” Rick felt tears pressing behind his eyes. For two years he had been working for a dream, which would now go down the drain.

“However,” said Mawby, “the trustees did vote unanimously to give you $130,000.”

The tears came then. Rick could hardly even stammer out a thank you.

Since that time Rick Little has raised over $100,000,000 to fund his dream. The Quest Skills Programs are currently taught in over 30,000 schools in all 50 states and 32 countries. Three million kids per year are being taught important life skills because one 19-year-old refused to take “no” for an answer.

In 1989, because of the incredible success of Quest, Rick Little expanded his dream and was granted $65,000,000, the second largest grant ever given in U.S. history, to create The International Youth Foundation. The purpose of this foundation is to identify and expand successful youth programs all over the world.

Rick Little’s life is a testament to the power of commitment to a high vision, coupled with a willingness to keep on asking until one manifests the dream.

Vocabulary :

Supersede:
verb [T]
if a new idea, product, or method supersedes another one, it becomes used instead because it is more modern or effective or has more authority:
• The new deal supersedes the old agreement.

See Synonyms at replace

tamper verb
tamper with sth phrasal verb [T]
to touch something or make changes to it without permission, especially in order to deliberately damage it:
• Police revealed that the telephone line had been tampered with.


species WORD ORIGIN
noun plural species [C] Written: 2000
a group of animals or plants which are all similar and can breed together to produce young animals or plants of the same kind as them:
• Many species of aquatic plants can exist in very little light. --see also ENDANGERED SPECIES


amok also amuck adverb
1 run amok to suddenly behave in an uncontrolled way in which things are destroyed:
• Troops were allowed to run amok in the villages.2 a sth run amok something that is completely uncontrolled and is causing a lot of destruction:
• Sheep ranches are being put in danger by a coyote population run amok.


buy up sth phrasal verb [T]
to quickly buy as much as you can of something such as land, tickets, food etc.:
• The park land is being bought up by two
corporations

fallow adjective
1 fallow land is dug or PLOWed but is not used for growing crops, in order to let the soil become better
2 not doing anything or not working; INACTIVE:
• They've started producing films again after a two-year fallow period.


stick out phrasal verb
1 COME UP OR FORWARD [I] if a part of something sticks out, it comes out further than the rest of a surface or comes out through a hole:
• It's kind of cute the way his ears stick out. [+ of/from/through]:• A neatly folded handkerchief stuck out of his jacket pocket.
2 PUT STH OUT [T stick sth<-> out] to deliberately make part of your body come forward or out from the rest of your body:
• "Nice to meet you," Pat said, sticking out her hand.
3 stick your tongue out (at sb) to quickly put your tongue outside your mouth and back in again, to be rude
4 stick out (in sb's mind) to seem more important to someone than other people or things:
• One concern that sticks out in everyone's mind is the cost of the new stadium.
5 stick out (like a sore thumb) INFORMAL to look very different from everyone or everything around:
• I'm not going to the party dressed like this - I'd stick out like a sore thumb.
6 stick it out to continue to the end of an activity that is difficult, painful, or boring:
• I'm going to stick it out just to prove to him that I can do it.
7 stick your neck out INFORMAL to take the risk of saying or doing something that may be wrong or that other people may disagree with

English quotes:

"If you can't explain it to your grandmother, you don't really understand it
yourself."( Albert Einstein)

" To do is to be "( socrates)
" to be is to do .( Plato)


"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

"Be very, very careful what you put into that brain, because you will never, ever get it out again. " (Paul Jackson)


"You know you are getting too old, when the candles cost more than the cake. "


"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are."

"Just because something can't be proved doesn't mean it
doesn't exist, it just means that no one has found a way of proving it."

Girl

Girl
Jamaica Kincaid

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharbfflies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okrbafar from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marblebsyou are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowerbsyou might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

Typical Errors 3