Who s better? Who s best?

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Violet Strickland
5 years ago
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1 Who s better? Who s best? One of 5 people stands to win a holiday. All the class has to do is to decide who among these people most deserves it. Before you start, write down the name of which contestant you think will win, based on this information: The contestants are: 51 years old - retired police officer married with 2 children. 56 years old Secondary School Principal single. 36 years old building contractor married with 1 child. 31 years old Advertising Executive engaged. 24 years old magician and children s entertainer single. To help the class come to a decision, these five questions can be asked in any order: What s the worst thing you ve ever done in your life? Do you believe in love at first sight? What do you blame most for society s problems? There s a bank error in your favour what do you do? They say you can never judge a book by its cover do you agree? After each response from the contestants, the class will vote on one contestant who will be removed from the competition. The game continues until only one contestant is left.

2 What s the worst thing you ve ever done in your life? I suppose the biggest mistake I ve made in my life is that I ve sometimes put my career before my marriage. I know that it s been very hard for her and to be honest it has placed a strain on our marriage. Thank God that now we ve put it all behind us, but when I think of how close I came to losing her, it makes me shudder. The thing I feel worst about in my career was one occasion when I was far too harsh with a student who, I found out later, had some quite serious psychological problems. Few people can understand the pressure that teachers are under and this student was so difficult to handle, I suppose I just exploded. I still feel bad about it now. Once, I charged a pensioner far too much for a job I did in her garden. I really expected her to argue about the price, but when she didn t, I just took the money and ran. I suppose it s just something you get used to in my business. It s not good to be too sentimental, but I have to say I felt rotten about it afterwards. Well, if I m going to be completely honest, I would have to say it was one night when I drove home drunk. Nothing bad happened, thank God, but when I think about it now What makes it worse is that I d always thought it was something I would never do. I ve stopped taking the car with me now when I go out. I suppose it would have to be when I was unfaithful to my girlfriend. I didn t think she would find out, but when she did well, I ve never seen anyone so upset. I was 19 at the time so it didn t affect me much, but looking back now, knowing that much more about relationships, I do feel very ashamed.

3 Do you believe in love at first sight? Definitely. When I met Margaret I knew that I could never be happy with anyone else. I don t know if it happens to everybody, but I ve been so lucky. It really was a whirlwind romance and, with a few ups and downs, the feeling has never gone away. I can honestly say I ve never even imagined being with anyone else. Frankly, no. To love someone, I mean truly love someone, you have to know them. What people think of as love at first sight is really just infatuation - that soon dies away. No wonder so many people are disappointed. Even though I ve never married, I consider myself very lucky to have had so much real love in my life. Yes and no. When we got married, me and my wife were like two teenagers. Now, even though the flame of passion may have died out a little, I don t think we could be apart. So yes, I do believe in it, because I went with my instinct from the beginning. But no, I don t know if you could call it love in the true sense of the word. Absolutely. I ve just got engaged and I have to say I ve never been happier. It s so hard to explain but I know that I never want to be apart from Gary - not even for a day. And he feels the same way too. I know a lot of people will laugh at that, but I think they re just cynical. I m a romantic I can t help it. Love at first sight is just a myth. I know people - myself included - that fall in and out of love from one day to the next. I just don t think it s very mature that s all. If you go into a relationship with an attitude like that, you re going to get hurt. I hate to see people get so upset because they put so much into a relationship with a person they hardly know at all.

4 What do you blame most for society s problems? The education system. When I was young, we were brought up to have respect for others and self-discipline. All the problems that our society faces stem from the fact that our young people have no direction in life. I ve seen it so often during my life drugs, crime, and joyriding. The education system has to offer them an alternative. Otherwise things are just going to get worse and worse. I think a major reason for people s unhappiness is television. It gives them an unreal sense of what life should be about. No wonder people feel so dissatisfied with their lives. In my day, it was all about hard work and making your way in the world. Nowadays, all people seem to want is instant satisfaction. They d be much happier if they just switched the thing off. If you look at today s society, what you see is a lot of scruffy kids hanging around on street corners with nothing to do. Of course that s going to lead to trouble. Someone should be getting them to do something constructive with their lives. When my boy s old enough, I m taking him out to work with me. That way, he ll know the value of hard work and he ll have a little money that he earned for himself. We re doing so much harm to the environment and most people don t even notice it. You can talk about drugs and crime all you want, but if this generation doesn t start to do something now, there won t be anything for our children to worry about because there will be nothing left. Everyone has to do their own little bit. I bet if we all worked together to save the planet, people would forget the differences between us. Intolerance. It s amazing to me how in this day and age, people can still believe some of the things they do. When I think about all that happened in the 20 th century, I can t believe that the 21 st is going to be the exact same. It may not be different races any more, but people will always find someone to blame immigrants, gays, gipsies and so on. Maybe in time, people will change - but I m not holding my breath!

5 There s a bank error in your favour what do you do? As a police officer, I suppose I d better say I d return it immediately! And my bank has made plenty of mistakes, but never in my favour! But seriously though, I ve got a good pension and I don t need the money so I would draw it to the bank s attention. Anyway, I m sure the bank would notice after a while, so honesty really is the best policy. I d say something. I wouldn t be able to enjoy spending money I knew I hadn t earned honestly. And I would constantly worry about it if I said nothing. Of course, if I came into some money unexpectedly in a competition, for example I d certainly find plenty of uses for it. But in my everyday life, I don t need much to get by. I d say something. Or maybe I d write them a sarcastic letter. It sounds ridiculous, but banks make mistakes all the time. The only thing is, most people don t notice because they don t check their bank statements. They ve lost money out of my account before, and I barely got an apology. It d be worth telling them their mistake just to see their reaction. Anyway, I don t need the money. Well, if it s their mistake, and if it wasn t too much, I d probably say nothing. It s not my fault if the bank can t add up properly. And ordinary people are getting ripped off all the time, so I wouldn t feel at all guilty. I d probably wait a while to see if the bank notices its mistake. If they did, then they could just take the money I spent out of my account. It would just be an excuse to go shopping! It wouldn t happen. Banks never make mistakes in that way. If some money shows up mysteriously in your bank statement one week, you can bet next week it will have disappeared. The only mistakes banks make are when they make charges for services they don t provide, as has happened to me on a number of occasions. If it did happen that they made a big enough mistake, I d take the money and be on the next plane to Cuba.

6 They say you can never judge a book by its cover do you agree? Of course you can. As a police officer, I developed a good eye for when people are up to no good. On the other hand, when a person is a decent law-abiding citizen, it shows in the way they present themselves to society. That s what I always try to teach my two boys, you have to take pride in your appearance. Because, like it or not, people do judge you on what they see. Not always. I must admit to having been surprised more than once at how my students have turned out. Sometimes I ve had a completely wrong first impression of a student and I ve had to re-assess my evaluation. Those that I thought would be hard-working and serious, turn out to be lazy and poorly disciplined and vice versa. I learned to use my judgement when I can, but I try not to let it affect how I treat people. Not at all. I ve known some very tough guys in my work, and been terrified of them. But as I got to know them, I realised they were gentle giants. It s the same with me - no one would believe it to look at me, but I m a pussycat when I get home to my wife and baby. All I m saying is, everyone uses their intuition, but that doesn t mean you re always right. You have to wait and see. Well, I hope people don t always judge me by the way I look, but to be honest I think that they do. It is so hard for a woman like me to be taken seriously in business. People just assume you have no intelligence and you have to work twice as hard to be taken as seriously as everyone else. But I think that, even though people do judge you, if you work really hard, you can prove them wrong. I think it s only natural. What s more, people know it. And we go along with it. Everyone has a choice about how they do their hair, or the clothes they wear. It makes a statement about what kind of person we are. So it s very important to be positive in how you present yourself. I can look at a person and tell in a moment how they feel about themselves. It s really not that hard to do.

HOW DO I BALANCE FAMILY, WORK AND FAITH?

1 HOW DO I BALANCE FAMILY, WORK AND FAITH? If I were to ask you guys to write down your top three priorities in order of importance, 95% of your responses would be: faith, family and work. Unless you re