Home  -  Back Issues  -  The Team  -  Contact Us
     Volume 4 Issue 54 | July 15, 2005 |


   Letters
   Voicebox
   Chintito
   Cover Story
   News Notes
   Endeavour
   Musings
   Perceptions
   Travel
   Food For Thought
   Reflections
   Perspective
   Time Out
   Impressions
   Education
   Sci-tech
   Dhaka Diary
   Jokes
   Book Review
   Books
   New Flicks
   Write to Mita

   SWM Home


 

Education

As I write this, I have half an eye on an old James Bond film that is showing on my computer. But this is a story about how I stopped watching TV and began reading again for pleasure, after ten years in which I hardly turned a page.

I suppose I was an avid reader of "literature" between the ages of nine and fourteen. I had enough time to be White Fang, Robinson Crusoe, and Bilbo Baggins and Jeeves. Of course there was room in the schoolboy's imagination for some real historical figures: Scott of the Antarctic, all of the Vikings, and Benjamin Franklin were good friends of mine.

Then, in adolescence, I began a long search for strange and radical ideas. I wanted to challenge my elders and betters, and stir up my peers with amazing points of view. Of course, the only place to look was in books. I hunted out the longest titles and the authors with the funniest names, I scoured the library for completely unread books. Then I found one which became my bible for the whole of 1982, it had a title composed of eleven long words and an author whose name I didn't know how to pronounce. It was really thick and looked dead serious. Even better, it put forward a whole world-view that would take days to explain. Perfect. I took it out of the library three times, proud to see the date-stamps lined up on the empty library insert.

Later, I went to university. Expecting to spend long evenings in learned discussion with clever people, I started reading philosophy. For some reason I never found the deep-thinking intellectuals I hoped to meet. Anyway, I was ready to impress with my profound knowledge of post-structuralism, existentialism and situationism. These things are usually explained in rather short books, but they take a long time to get through. They were the end of my youthful reading.

Working life was hard to get used to after so much theory. It was the end of books for me. There didn't seem to be much in books that would actually get things done. To do things you had to answer the telephone and work a computer. You had to travel about and speak to people who weren't at all interested in philosophy. I didn't stop reading, you can't avoid that. I read all day. But no books came my way, only manuals and pamphlets and contracts and documents. Maybe most people satisfy their need for stories and ideas with TV and, to tell the truth, it was all I needed for ten years. In those days I only had a book "on the go" for the duration of aeroplane flights. At first I would come home and watch TV over dinner. Then, I moved the TV so I could watch it from bed. I even rigged up a switch so I could turn it off without getting out of bed. Then, one fateful day, my TV broke and my landlady took it away.

My new TV is an extra circuit board inside my computer. It's on a desk in front of a working chair and I can't see it from the bed. I still use it for the weather forecasts and it's nice to have it on while I'm typing this… but what to do last thing at night? Well, have another go with books.

Now, I just like books. I have a pile of nice ones by my bed and I'm reading about six simultaneously. I don't want to BE any of the characters. I don't care if a thousand people have already read them. I don't have to search through libraries. There are books everywhere and all of them have something to read in them. I have the strange feeling that they've been there all along, waiting for me to pick them up.

A. Some of the words from the text are listed below.
Can you match them with their definitions?

1. You can say ` ........................... ' when you want to express slight uncertainty.
2. If a light or fire is ........................... or goes ........................... , it is no longer shining or burning.
3. If something such as a book or record is ........................... , it is available for people to buy.
4. If someone is ........................... , they are calm and able to control their feelings.
5. If you take something ........................... the container or place where it has been, you remove it so that it is no longer there.
6. If you look or shout ........................... a window, you look or shout away from the room where you are towards the outside.
7. If you are ........................... something, you no longer have any of it.
8. If you say that something happened or is true ........................... , you mean that you know it happened or is true, but you do not know why.
9. If you ........................... something or someone, you become familiar with it or get to know them, so that you no longer feel that the thing or person is unusual or surprising.
10. If you say that someone is always ........................... , you mean that they are always busy and active.
11. You say ` ........................... ' in order to warn someone to be careful, especially when you want to threaten them about what will happen if they are not careful.
12. If something has been true or been present ........................... , it has been true or been present throughout a period of time.

B. Here are some true statements about the text.
Complete the sentences by choosing an expression
from the table. You may have to change the form of the verb.

1. When the writer was writing this article, an old James Bond film ___________ on his computer.
2. The writer looked for completely unread books in the library because he wanted to ___________ his elders and ___________ his peers.
3. When the writer found a thick, serious looking book, he ___________ of the library three times.
4. He started reading philosophy because he wanted to __________ other people.
5. One day when his TV __________, his landlady ________________.
6. He __________ a switch so he could __________ the TV without __________ bed.
7. Working life for the writer was hard to ____________ after studying so much theory.
8. When the writer started his working life, no books ___________. He found himself reading only manuals, contracts and documents.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2005