Ridiculousness

here are the other choices my student had:

Laugh, Cry and Think -Jim Valvano

Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left, and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I'll have something that will be important to other people too.

But, I can't help it. Now, I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is changed for me. As Dick said, I'm a very emotional, passionate man. I can't help it. That's being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love. And when people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.

I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I'm gonna say it again: Cancer can take away all my physical ability. It cannot touch my mind; it cannot touch my heart; and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.

I thank you and God bless you all.




She Walks in Beauty - Lord Byron

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light 5
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 15
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!



The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald


Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.



KWAIDAN:
STORIES AND STUDIES OF STRANGE THINGS
by LAFCADIO HEARN
The Story of MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI

"Hôïchi!" the deep voice called. But the blind man held his breath, and sat motionless.

"Hôïchi!" grimly called the voice a second time. Then a third time--savagely:--

"Hôïchi!"

Hôïchi remained as still as a stone,--and the voice grumbled:--

"No answer!--that won't do!...Must see where the fellow is." ...

There was a noise of heavy feet mounting upon the verandah. The feet approached deliberately,--halted beside him. Then, for long minutes,--during which Hôïchi felt his whole body shake to the beating of his heart, there was dead silence.

At last the gruff voice muttered close to him:--

"Here is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see--only two ears!... So that explains why he did not answer: he had no mouth to answer with--there is nothing left of him but his ears.... Now to my lord those ears I will take--in proof that the august commands have been obeyed, so far as was possible"...

At that instant Hôïchi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and torn off! Great as the pain was, he gave no cry. The heavy footfalls receded along the verandah,--descended into the garden,--passed out to the roadway,--ceased. From either side of his head, the blind man felt a thick warm trickling; but he dared not lift his hands....



Before sunrise the priest came back. He hastened at once to the verandah in the rear, stepped and slipped upon something clammy, and uttered a cry of horror;--for he saw, by the light of his lantern, that the clamminess was blood. But he perceived Hôïchi sitting there, in the attitude of meditation--with the blood still oozing from his wounds.