English Recordings

Part8

Men generally continue to use the study methods they used in college or high school. This is
all very well if those methods are good. As a rule, students have to develop their own methods
based on trial and error and perhaps some good advice from teachers. The schools require
students to do a great deal of studying, but too often they neglect to teach students how to
study. When a student fails, his failure is usually considered to come from the lack of effort
or ability, but sometimes study methods make the difference between failure and success.

Part9

Mr. Jones was never friendly to anyone. He never laughed or smiled. So his family was not
happy, and the shopkeeper he worked for didn't like him. At last he lost his job.Mr. Jones went
to the gate of a parking lot and said, "Can I get a job here?" "Yes," said the man at the gate.
"We need another an to take money from the drivers." "I'll take the job," said Mr. Jones
without a smile. "There's one thing you mustn't forget," said the man. "You must say 'thank
you' when you take the money." "Thank you ! " cried Mr.Jones. "Why should I thank them?
The drivers should say 'thank you' to me." "If you want the job, you must say it," said the
man.The next day Mr.Jones started his new job. The first car came up, and the driver gave
him the money. It was very hard for Mr. Jones to say 'thank you', so he said the words in a
very small voice. When the driver heard that, he smiled. Another driver came, and Mr. Jones
did the same thing. Again, the driver smiled. Then Mr. Jones began to look for smiles from the
drivers. On that day he said it more than a hundred times.After the day's work he came home.
His wife opened the door. Thank you," he said. His little boy came up to him. "Thank you,"
he said with a big smile. Mrs. Jones was so surprised that she fell into the nearest chair.
"My new job is better than any I have ever had," he said to his wife. "It has changed me very
much."

Part10

I was seven when my father took my mother and me out of the village in England. He had a
small shop there, but his uncle who lived in New York asked him to come and help him in his
big store there. My father was young then and decided to leave England and start a new life
in a different country. Our life in a new country was a happy one. But it was difficult for my
father to forget the village in his old country. When he grew old, he often said, "My parents
sleep in the yard of the church there. I will visit it one day." But last autumn he became very
sick and died. I thought he was sorry he could not fulfill his wish. So this summer I flew to
the land of my birth to fulfill it. I hired a car in London and drove for about five hours. But
when I thought I was quite near the village I came to a lake. I tried another road. Again I came
to the lake. I didn't know what to do because I could not find it on the map I had with me.
Just then an old man came along in an old car. I stopped it and asked him the way to the
village. He said, "There's no village now. It went under water last summer." And he pointed
to the lake. I understood everything. It was a man-made lake.

Part6

One Friday night it snowed a lot, and the next day Mr. Smith did not have to go to work. His young son Bobby had a new sledge, which he wanted very much to try out. There was a good slope in a park not far from the Smiths' house, which children often used for their sledges,
so Mr. Smith said that he would take Bobby there in the car. They put the sledge in and went off. When they reached the park, they found that there were already a lot of boys there with their sledges. They were sliding down the slope at great speed, and then pulling their sledges
up again. After a few minutes Mr. Smith noticed that there was one poorly-dressed little boy there who did not have a sledge. This boy made an old cardboard box flat, and was sliding down the slope on that. Mr. Smith felt very sorry for this poor boy, and decided to tell Bobby to lend him his sledge a few times. But before he could catch Bobby to speak to him, he was surprised-and delighted-to notice that several of the older boys in the park were lending the poor boy their sledges. Mr. Smith watched them carefully, and suddenly found that the bigger boys were not doing this because they felt sorry for the poor boy, but because they enjoyed riding on his cardboard box more than on their expensive sledges. They were waiting for a turn on the cardboard box which was made flat.

Part7

Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer, was born more than two hundred years ago in Boston, Massachusetts. When he was born in 1706, Massachusetts was still a colony. At that time candles were used for lights in houses and Franklin's father was a
candle maker. Benjamin was the tenth son of seventeen children. When he was only ten years old he had to leave school to help his father. Benjamin worked in his father's candle shop, but he was not happy. So when he was thirteen his father made him help an older brother who was a printer and publisher. While he was working in his brother's shop, Franklin taught himself to be a writer. He learned to write so well that he often wrote something for his brother's newspaper. Then he left it secretly at night under the door of the printing shop. His brother found what Benjamin wrote, and published it without knowing it was Benjamin's work. Although Franklin was only a boy at the time, his writings were well liked by everyone who read them. Franklin liked the work in the printing shop, but he was not so friendly with his brother. When he was only seventeen, he set out to make his own way in the world. He went to New York, but as he could not find any work there he went on to Philadelphia. As Franklin had to walk part of the way he
arrived in Philadelphia dirty, muddy, and very hungry. At a bakery shop he bought three loaves of bread and walked down the street. He ate one and carried one under each arm. A pretty young girl standing in an
open door laughed at the stranger. She saw him carrying his clothes and eating his breakfast as he walked down the street. The girl's name was Deborah Reed. Later Franklin met and married her.

< Flowers in front of a crosswalk >
The flowers are waiting for the traffic lights to change green.It's not nighttime yet, however the evening is getting darker and darker.
Most people can be seen on the way home after working.
The many colours of flowers planted in front of the crosswalk give people a pleasant feeling.

-<Cheonggyecheon(Stream) >--
Clear and fresh air after the rain.
The sound of rushing water.
I sit at the side of the street, drinking a cup of coffee...
It's a good day for people watching.
Try tossing some lucky coins!Did you succeed?Didn't?

Whose ipod is this ?
Let me see...I know this ipod ! It's Sticker's !
Yes, it's Sticker's ipod ! He loves music.

Introduction
My Genes Made Me Do It! (the title is facetious)is an attempt to
place in the public arena the scientific facts about homosexuality—
particularly the information that the homosexual orientation is not
inborn or hard-wired, and that sexual orientation can naturally
undergo huge change.

The West has been subject to such a campaign of misinformation
and disinformation in the last 20-30 years that its public institutions,
from legislatures and judiciaries to the church and mental health professions widely believe that the homosexual orientation is innate—in
the sense of biologically imprinted—and therefore unchangeable.
The implications of this are that anyone who makes the scientifically true statements below is considered the one who is misinformed.

• sexual orientation is not inborn but develops over some years
in response to an individual’s response to life events— as
many human predicaments do

• homosexual orientation can change, i.e half the homosexual
population naturally moves towards heterosexuality over time
(without any therapeutic interventions), and further and
faster with counselling and support

• The same-sex attracted are not 10% of the population but
(including bisexuals) much closer to 2.5%
The West has lost its way on this issue, and today we are
seeing the outcome.

The outcome
The Mental Health professions
In the West now, mental health professionals in many jurisdictions
are unable to offer “reparative therapy” for people with unwanted
same-sex attraction. They are often under policy constraints to
counsel clients towards acceptance of their sexuality.
The American Psychological Association (which tends to set
the trends in mental health policies in the West) has been under
unrelenting pressure for years to ban reparative therapy for people
with unwanted homosexuality. It tends to rubber-stamp its Gay and
Lesbian Task Force reports and in 2009 endorsed an assessment
of sexual reorientation therapy rejecting it as probably harmful
and change as dubious. The Task Force making the evaluation
was comprised of activists in gay causes, most themselves publicly
identified as gay. Every practitioner of sexual reorientation therapy
(at least five highly qualified people) applying for inclusion on the
committee was rejected by the APA’s President Brehm.*
The report applied ridiculously high standards of proof that
re-orientation therapy worked— standards not required of any
other therapy. In its determination to show that change could not
occur the Task Force ignored the psychological literature showing
evidence of a great deal of change.
Nonetheless, other professional organisations follow suit
with little appreciation that the APA stance on homosexuality is
political, and not scientifically grounded.

The Judiciary
In the judiciary, homosexuality has steadily gained status as an
“immutable characteristic” (like skin colour and gender) so that it
has become widely unconstitutional in many countries to discriminate against it in any way—with the inevitable result that it also
becomes unconstitutional to withhold marriage licences. Marriage
is no longer distinctively a contract between a man and a woman
able to naturally procreate.

The churches
The crises in the Roman Catholic and Anglican denominations are
the outcome of the stance that homosexuality is something that
is innate and impossible to change. The media have presented the
sexual abuse by priests of children as pedophilia; we have rarely
heard the word “homosexuality.” But 99% of the abuse has been
against young men past the age of puberty; in other words the
crisis is not about a few errant priests who have molested children,
but about priests with a homosexual orientation who have sought
sexual connection with post-pubertal males.
The Roman Catholic church has a significant amount of homosexuality in its priesthood (we estimate about 10%; much higher
than in the general population), but though it counsels celibacy in
its priests, it has never (to our knowledge) appreciated the scale of
the crisis, i.e just how many homosexual priests have sought refuge
in its ranks, and the effect on such a number of a policy that fails to
take account of the extent to which sexual orientation can change.
Rather, priests are expected to be celibate.
The Anglican communion has gone further than the Roman
Catholics, particularly in the USA, where the denomination has
divided so thoroughly over the ordination of gay bishops and
priests and the sacrament of marriage for practising gay couples,
that some of the faithful are placing themselves under foreign
bishops, while gay and gay-friendly US bishops and clergy refuse
to back down. Merciful men like Archbishop Desmond Tutu have
been caught in the falsehood. The Archbishop equates homosexuality with skin colour and asks, therefore, why we don’t want
homosexuals “to give expression to their sexuality in loving acts?”,
since “it is becoming increasingly clear they can do little about
[their sexual orientation].” These attitudes naturally filter down to
people in the pews, whose opinions are already shaped by the misinformation that homosexuality is “genetic” and that 10% of the
population is gay. They will also quote the attitude of Christ who is
inclusive and loves all men and women. Compassion is better than
judgmentalism, and anything but full acceptance is judgmentalism
and homophobia. Ordination of practising gays is the compassionate act. This view is also increasingly held in other denominations.

Governments
Governments with strong social agendas have been both victim to
misinformation and propagators of it, so the idea that homosexuality is just another minority category that needs special protections
now runs wide and deep in Western Governments. Political debates
don’t even consider the scientific facts. Few politicians would give
alcoholics or the obese or gamblers special protections in law because
they realise these particular personal difficulties can be overcome.
Homosexuality belongs far more in this company than in that of skin
colour or gender, but that is not generally known or believed.

The United Nations
In the UN the pressure is on non-Western governments by Western
representatives to globally end discrimination against gays. The
message: all member states must pass legislation enshrining homosexuality as a human right in all cultures. The declaration is
non-binding, but has been signed by at least 66 countries, most of
them Western, and the pressure will continue. The debate, driven
by gay activism and its backers in high places takes it for granted
that the issue is one of a large minority denied the right to protection for something as basic and unchangeable as eye colour. This is
not the truth: homosexuals (including bisexuals) are a tiny proportion of Western populations with a condition as responsive as many
other human disorders to support and good counselling, the will to
change and hard work. In this middle ground there is still plenty
of room to make sure people with a homosexual orientation are
protected from the malicious and bigoted.

The media
The media, under pressure to condense information to soundbites
and headlines, or more often because it is frequently a purveyor of
information passed on by special-interest groups seeking publicity,
often gives the public skewed facts.

Usually (in our experience) the science is misrepresented.
We’re left with a headline that says something like, “Gay
gene discovered,” or “Genetic basis to homosexuality,” or
“Homosexuality found in rams.” Any reputable geneticist begins to
cry! But most of the rest of us make a mental adjustment of sorts—
“Well, I guess if it’s genetic there’s not much they can do about it…
and if animals do it too, then it must be just a natural part of life.”
“Most of the rest of us” are Mr and Ms Average Citizen, and
the people in the preceding paragraphs: the bishops, clergy, laity;
members of the judiciary, politicians, psychotherapists, counsellors,
teachers, state servants, community leaders, parents. We are not
specialists in homosexuality. We are busy people who often only
have time to scan the headlines, or absorb the first couple of
sentences on the TV news, or follow the policy directions from
head office.

Education
Students are increasingly provided with counselling support if they
believe they might be homosexual. This has come in response to
pressure from policy makers and the gay lobby to protect “homosexual” students at school. But it is not generally understood that
almost all 16 year olds who think they are homosexual now will,
one year later, believe just as firmly, that they are heterosexual
and in fact go on to develop heterosexually. Some will become
homosexual, but to offer gay-affirmative counselling and contacts
to teenagers finding their way through the wobbly process of
acquiring stable heterosexual gender identity is a stumbling block
to acquiring it rather than a stepping stone. Children (and parents
of children) showing evidence of GID (Gender identity disorder)
can instead be offered solutions to recognise and resolve contributing factors rather than affirm what is probably a developing homosexual orientation.

The gay community
In the gay community itself more than 90% of gays now believe
genes are a significant factor in their orientation—a ten-fold
increase in fifty years**

. Few people know enough to tell them differently. And because of the current climate in the psychological
and counselling professions few know how to help them change
if they want to. The only other path left is the fight for equal
freedoms—and Western human rights-focussed governments are
easy prey to gay activist assertions that they are a minority with
innate and immutable characteristics that need special protections.
So much of what people in the West believe about homosexuality now, is not the truth. The blind are leading the blind. It suits
some people to believe what they do, but many others genuinely
don’t know what to believe and would welcome the truth if they
only knew where to find it.

Here is a very basic piece of truth. There is nothing fixed or
final about the homosexual orientation and its natural expression
—homosexual behaviour. No politician, church leader or member,
judge, teacher or counsellor, or homosexual person, or friend or
family of a homosexual person, needs to feel forced into a position
on homosexuality based on the apparent immutability of the
homosexual orientation. Homosexuality is not inborn, not genetically dictated. Nor for that matter is heterosexuality or any other
human behaviour. In fact our genes do not make us do anything.
Whether it’s homosexuality, a foul temper, bed-wetting or addiction
to chocolate, our genes have very little to do with it.
Any genetic influence is weak and indirect
In human behaviour everything is nature and nurture. Without
genes you can’t act in the environment at all, and without the
environment your genes have nothing to act on. No behaviour,
including homosexuality, results solely from genes. At least for
homosexuality this book argues that the level of genetic influence
could easily be as low as 10%, the balance of 90% coming from the
environment. And that 10% is not a direct genetic influence. Every
human being has a 10% genetic influence on behaviour. A man or
woman may have long fingers but that doesn’t make him a player
of Liszt, a man may have compact build and good co-ordination but
that doesn’t make him another Roger Federer. In homosexuality the
genetic factor can be any physical characteristic that might make
a man or woman feel gender atypical. But many people with SSA
have none of these.
For other human behaviours genetic influence may be as high
as 50%, but nothing about that is fated either. Probably the best
tool for measuring genetic influence on any behaviour (studies
of twins) makes it quite clear that the genetic content of any
behaviour drops commensurately with whatever environmental
interventions of an opposite kind are brought to bear upon it. In
other words, even if homosexuality did have a genetic content of
50%, opposite environmental influences could almost nullify it.
My Genes Made Me Do It! attempts to bring scientific objectivity into the debate about homosexual orientation and its many
implications. In the following pages you will read what orthodox
science tells us about homosexuality, and you can draw your own
conclusions. Don’t let the numerous references persuade you that
this book is for academics and scientists only. The references are
listed for those who want to refer to the original research but the
text is accessible to the average reader.
Because the scientific evidence so clearly shows sexual orientation can and does change we dedicate this book to those heroic
people who, against a strong tide of Western public opinion, have
found the courage to change their sexual orientation.
This is the second edition of My Genes Made Me Do It!; the first
was published 10 years ago. The years since have only strengthened
the book’s original conclusions. Although there have now been
many studies of biological factors none has come close to showing
an overwhelming influence on homosexuality. Twin studies, in particular—which provide the best quantative estimate of the genetic
contribution—have continued over the last decade to lower their
estimates of genetic input into homosexuality. In addition, recent
work on the role of histones (Chapter One) in gene expression
hints at a much greater environmental role than twin studies have
factored in. The first edition of My Genes Made Me Do It ! suggested
a figure of 10% genetic influence, both weak and indirect. Nothing
has happened over the period to make us alter that view.
This edition further emphasises the role of the predominant
random factors, including some indirect random genetic factors. It
also contains quite a number of new arguments not used elsewhere.
They are progressively being published in peer-reviewed journals.

Where's the sweatshirt ?
What colour is the jacket ?
How many T-shirts are there ?
Where are the green socks ?
Where's the cap ?
What's under the bag ?
What's next to the basketball ?
Where's the umbrella ?
a hoody
a coat
a tracksuit

Biography of my brother

Welcome to "VOY" voice of Yeray! Today, I will speak about the life of Xabier Eskolastiko, one of the greatest brothers in the world.
Xabier, more commonly known as "Esko" was born in "Barakaldo", Basque country, on the 26th of February of 1986. He spent his childhood playing Nintendo and developing his skills at videogames, which would eventually lead to his sucess at "Super Mario Brothers 3".

His ability with a joy stick was extraordinary. He discovered all the secret worlds and finished videogames thousands of times.
As soon as the videogame "AOE" was launched into the market, Esko spent day and night mastering it, becoming that unbeatable player during the first decade of 2000. It was just a few years later when his only brother, Yeray, beat him in the international AOE competition of 2011, celebrated in Basauri. It was an epic match.

Afther this defeat, Esko abandoned "AOE" and started playing other games, like "Baldurs Gate" and "Heroes III". These would become his new favorite games.

Later on, he would injure his neck while playing "Mario Bros", and that would determined the end of his career as a profesional videogame player.

That all for today. Join us next week, and discover more interesting things about the life of Xabier in "VOY".

1. Jerry was so nervous he could only pick at his lunch.
2. Wash and pick over the cucumbers.
3. Children quickly pick up on tensions between their parents.
4. Snipers were picking off anyone who came outdoors.
5. I picked up some German when I was in the army.
6. Mary's picked up a cold from her boyfriend.
7. Our TV doesn't pick up channel 5 very well.
8. Actually, police picked him up.
9. Some guy at the bar was trying to pick up Audrey.
10. The dogs were able to pick up the scent.
11. Sales picked up a bit during the Christmas period.
12. Please make a check out to Mr. Smith.
13. Soldiers have to psych themselves up for combat.
14. I guess commissar you'll psych him out pretty fast.
15. The frog was puffed out.
16. My eye puffed up where she hit me.
17. He had to pump $10,000 of his own money into the business.
18. We had to pump the basement out after the pipes burst.
19. We had to pump up that tire.
20. The lively debate really pumped us up.
21. Before my shift, I punched in my time card.
22. After my shift, I punched out my time card.
23. The airport is pushing ahead with its program to expand.
24. Don't let your boss push you around.
25. The others stopped for a rest, but I pushed on to the top of the mountain.
26. The governor pushed through a measure to increase the state sales tax.
27. I didn't get good grades because I played around a lot.
28. I rewound the tape and played it back.
29. The White House tried to play down the latest economic figures.
30. His campaign plays on people's fear of crime.
31. He was too dangerous and clever to play around with.
32. Susan is the teacher's pet because she always polishes the apple.
33. Chicago pulled away in the third quarter to win 105–75.
34. Many of the houses were pulled down to make way for a new highway.
35. Which student will you pull for?
36. Cruz expects to win the fight, but no one else thinks he can pull it off.
37. Kevin pulled in behind me and parked.
38. Investors pulled out, selling all their shares.
39. The highway patrol pulled us over.
40. We pulled over to watch the sunset.

In the United Kingdom, the currency is very unique and famous. Whilst most of the other countries in Europe use the 'Euro', the United Kingdom uses the pound. The full official name for Britain's currency is 'the pound sterling'.

The term 'pound' used as a currency dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, that's over 1000 years ago!

The smallest unit of British currency is the penny, or 'pence' for plural. There are 100 pence in one pound.

Like every other country I can think of, British 'hard cash' comes on both metallic coin and paper forms. All hard cash in produced by the Royal Mint.

In terms of coins: there is the penny coin, the 2 pence coin (tuppence), 5 pence piece, 10 pence piece, the 20 pence piece, the 50 pence piece, the one pound coin and the 2 pound coin.

And for paper notes: there is the 5 pound note, the 10 pound note, the 20 pound note, the 50 pound note and if you're in Scotland, you may even see a £100 note!