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- hello Stephen Thergesen
- Username: stiophain
- In response to: "Who are you?" Adult educator. Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Polyglot. Polymath.
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stiophain's latest answers
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- What I'll Remember Most About 2011
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In a year of personal and professional crisis, my students carried me along with them to the shores of a new year.
I will always cherish the compassion, dedication, and generosity of my students. We share a bond that goes beyond friendship, beyond family.
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- One of the Best Celebrity Voiceovers in an Animated Movie
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Suzanne Pleshette provided the voices of Yubaba and Zeniba in the English dub of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away
For me, one of the best celebrity voiceovers in an animated film was performed by the late Suzanne Pleshette in the English version of the Academy Award-winning anime film "Spirited Away," written and directed by acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. In the film, Suzanne provided the voices of the twin sisters, Yubaba and Zeniba, both witches, but exhibiting diametrically opposed personalities. As Yubaba, Suzanne played a malevolent, egotistic exploiter of child laborers; while as Zeniba, she portrayed a champion of justice and fairness, as well as an exemplar of compassion and redemption. Typically, actors are selected to play a single role in a film, either a hero or a villain. In "Spirited Away," Suzanne was afforded the rare opportunity to play two polar opposite characters. From one perspective, it could be said that she was playing two aspects of a single character. In any case, her talent and experience enabled her to pull off a convincing, credible performance of both characters. For this reason, she remains one of my favorite character actors, in animated and live action feature films.
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- My Parents' Influence on My Personality
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Parental influence, both genetic and environmental, has a powerful effect on personality development, not only in childhood but throughout one's life.
I am my mother's firstborn child. Like her, I am highly intuitive, which complements, not merely supplements, my sensory awareness. I also share her love of music, though not her talent (I sing, but I don't play a musical instrument). I have limited knowledge about my father: I know he served in the army; I know he worked as a hair stylist all of his adult life. I am considered the artistic one in our family, since I draw, so perhaps I get my style from my father.
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- Someone Who Has Influenced the Way I See the World
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The author Arundhati Roy wrote in her book "The Cost of Living": "The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget."
When I read this passage by Arundhati Roy, I was taken by surprise -- not by its starkness, but rather by its profundity, its ineluctability, its provocation -- not just to thought, but to action. I realized I could never look at the world the same way again. I could never again be merely a casual or disinterested observer of events. I was in fact an agent, a catalyst, a nexus of possibilities, not only for myself, but for all of existence.
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- Living in Other Countries
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While I have not lived or even traveled widely outside the country of my birth, I would consider living in another country.
Although I have never lived outside the country in which I was born, the United States of America, one of the countries I would consider living in is Canada. One of my considerations would be familiarity, since Canada is one of only two countries outside my native country that I have even visited, albeit only once. Another consideration would be culture, based on the shared history of the United States and Canada. A third consideration would be language, since English, my native language, is spoken in both countries. These are not my only considerations, but they are primary for me in any consideration of immigration.
- About stiophain
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- Location:
- Denver, Colorado
- Site:
- www.ultimateenglish.us/
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