How to Expand Your Writing

To write effectively, you must know not only how to write correct sentences but also how to use your sentences to expand and develop your ideas. 

Develop Your Topic 

After introducing your topic, you begin to develop it by giving it more substance. Before you do that, you need to help your readers follow the flow of thought, which is expressed in the following: 

Point of View 

This relates to how you present a subject. It can be explicit or implicit; it can be personal or impersonal.

Personal tone: You play the role of the writer openly and directly. In this approach, you frequently use I, me, and my.

Impersonal tone: You keep your personality below the surface.

Your point of view should be stated or implied in the opening paragraph, and maintained consistently throughout your writing. Remember the following:

Select your point of view appropriate to your subject.

Establish your point of view in the beginning paragraph.

Maintain your point of view consistently. 

Tone 

This reflects your personality in your writing. Your tone is inevitably implied in the choice of words you use, how you use them, and their arrangement within your writing. You reveal your tone towards your subject (it can be objective, subjective, or even angry), and towards your reader (it can be assertive or intimate). 

Plan Your Writing

 Begin your statement of purpose

Now that you have pulled in all your ideas for what you are going to write, begin your statement of purpose. Writing one to two paragraphs describing what you are going to say.

Remember the following:

This statement of purpose is for yourself, not your readers.

You have to think about what you can say before you can think of what you are going to say. 

Ideas have to be sought, and then arranged accordingly. 

Writing the Introduction 

Introductions serve the following purposes:

Setting the tone of your writing

Defining your purpose

Drawing your readers into your writing

Ways for effective introductions

Begin with a relevant quotation that leads to the subject.

Begin with some background information that leads to the subject.

Begin with a relevant question that leads to the subject.

Begin with directly speaking to your readers in an imaginary situation related to the subject.

Begin with a relevant anecdote that leads to your subject.

What to avoid in introductions

Avoid making obvious general statements.

Avoid making personal statements, such as the use of I.

Avoid making statements that lead to nowhere. 

Planning the Outline 

Divide your subject with all its ideas into major parts, and then into subparts. Your plan provides a guideline for you. You can always update and make changes to your outline.

Expanding the Writing

You expand your writing by giving it more substance in different paragraphs, with a topic sentence in each.

A good topic sentence is concise and emphatic.

e.g. The United States is now in an economic expansion.

A topic sentence can be in the form of a rhetorical question.

e.g. Why do people go into debt?

A topic sentence is generally placed in the beginning or near the beginning of a paragraph. 

Writing the Draft

Write your draft, which is an early version of your writing. Keep writing, and don’t worry about making mistakes in your choice of words or in sentence structure. Just keep on writing, editing, and revising.

In revising, read slowly, and read aloud so that you see as well as hear your words. Revision makes you more thoughtful and critical of what you have written; you will spot mistakes in punctuation, spelling and typing, lack of clarity, or inconsistency.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Why Changing Your Emotions

 Help your marriage by changing your emotions and feelings as well as those of your marriage partner.

Emotions and feelings are two sides of the same coin. They’re closely related to each other, but they’re different in that emotions create biochemical reactions in the body, affecting the physical state, while feelings are more mental associations and reactions to emotions.

Harmony and Disharmony

According to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), we all have qi (氣), which is the internal life-giving energy circulating within each of us, giving us internal balance and harmony. Emotions are energy states, which may either contribute to or deplete our own internal life-giving energy, causing harmony or disharmony, and thus leading to positive or negative emotions and feelings.

Diseases and disorders

The truth of the matter is that any “excessive” emotion or feeling may become the underlying cause of many health issues.

Dr. Caroline B. Thomas, M.D., of John Hopkins School of Medicine, discovered that cancer patients often had a prior poor relationship with their parents, attesting to the pivotal role of emotions in the development of cancer.

In another study by Dr. Richard B. Shekelle of the University of Texas School of Medicine, it was found that depression patients were not only more cancer prone but also more likely to die of cancer than the other patients. If emotions play a pivotal role in cancer, by the same token, negative feelings may also adversely affect the symptoms or the prognosis of any human disease. Thoughts and feelings of anger, despair, discontent, frustration, guilt, or resentment are instrumental in depressing the physiological processes, including the human body’s immune response—a formula for promoting the development of an autoimmune disease.

So, an unhappy marriage may negatively affect your mental and physical health.

The seven emotions

According to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there’re seven emotions which are the underlying causes of many internal diseases, and these emotions are: anger, anxiety, fear, fright, joy, sadness, and worry. Because Chinese medicine is all about internal balance and harmony, these seven emotions may even affect different human body organs. For example, excessive anger impairs the liver, causing headaches, while even excessive joy dysfunctions the heart, leading to mania and mental disorders.

Anger

Anger or rage is an ineffective and inefficient way to resolve any issue or to make any problem go away. Anger is a disruptive emotion that may often lead to depression, and worse, the breakup of a marriage or a love relationship, especially if the anger isn’t properly addressed and controlled.

So, how to change your disruptive emotion of anger or rage?

Take a deep diaphragm breath, and just feel your anger as you breathe in.

Look at your anger in your mind. Then review the situation, and ask yourself one simple question: Can your anger change the situation or anything?

Accept that you’re now angry, and then breathe it out. If necessary, use your arm like a sword cutting through your feelings of rage, while saying: “I can see my anger: it is as it was!”

Don’t hold your anger in; instead, let it go, by breathing it out. Don’t let it go as pain; instead, let it go as your acceptance. But your acceptance should be viewed not as a sign of your own weakness but as a statement of your own communication to yourself that getting angry will never solve the problem anyway or right away.

Then, remind yourself that anger is always present to serve a purpose to release some deeper issues, problems, and internal conflicts that you may be carrying in your own bag and baggage all these years. It’s always better to release anger than to turn it around to destroy yourself.

But suppressing your anger is also self-destructive, as the negative energy redirects itself back into your own body. Anger is always a path of destruction. Resolve anger by developing habits that may release internal conflicts in a constructive manner before it can be released as rage.

An illustration

Donna Alexander, the creator of the “Anger Room” in Chicago, first thought of the idea as a teenager living in Chicago. Having witnessed much domestic violence and many conflicts at school as a teenager, Donna Alexander finally decided to create a space where anyone can lash out without serious consequences. While at the “Anger Room,” the guests, after paying a fee, are given a safe space to unleash their anger and rage by smashing and destroying objects, such as glasses or even a TV. In addition, the room can also be set up to look like an office or a kitchen, where anger often becomes totally uncontrollable.

Angry No More: A new book on how to control and eradicate your anger.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Death and Emptiness

 

Death and Emptiness

Death empties anything and everything—that is, the ego and all its attachments to the material world. Emptiness is nothingness in which everything becomes nothing.

For all human efforts, death will come in the end, and this is the way of all flesh.

An illustration

Ernest Hemingway’s famous novel A Farewell to Arms may show you one perspective of death and emptiness:

“Once in camp I put a log on top of the fire and it was full of ants. As it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the center where the fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out, their bodies burnt and flattened, and went off not knowing where they were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do anything but threw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.”

The hero in the story was observing how the ants were swarming back and forth on a log on top of a fire in a futile attempt at survival—just like God watching over mankind’s stubborn struggle to refuse letting go of the impermanent in the material world. Instead of acting as a messiah to help the ants, the hero simply emptied a tin cup of water so that he could have his own whiskey.

The hero’s attitude to death is also a reflection of the author’s own perspective of man’s ultimate fate: death happens no matter how hard one strives to avoid it, and anything and everything then simply become nothing.

Sadly and tragically, author Ernest Hemingway—essentially an atheist, although initially a Catholic—shot himself with a gun when he realized that anything and everything in his life were really nothing after all in spite of all his accomplishments. With his perspective of nothingness, he had lost hope of human existence, including his own. 

Another illustration

Francis of Assisi, the Italian Saint who chose a life of poverty in spite of his family’s wealth, said on his deathbed: “Death will open the door of life.”  He died gracefully, while singing.

To Francis, death or emptiness is everything. Maybe for a believer, death is, indeed, a triumph, a meaningful exodus from this mundane world to the eternal world beyond. The emptiness is just a rite of passage to everything.

Revelation

For a non-believer, life may have little meaning at all, when the end is near, because everything will become nothingness when death strikes in the end. Without God, Hemmingway viewed life as everything is nothing, despite all his fame and accomplishments, and he thus killed himself.

For a believer, the nothingness brought by death may then become everything in the life to come, and that explains why Francis of Assisi was singing on his deathbed.

So, there're only two options. If you're a believer, you could sing with joy while lying on your deathbed, just like St. Francis of Assisi. If you are an unbeliever, you would just pass away and become nothingness, just like Ernest Hemingway.

So, now that the end is near it may also be the right time to be spiritual, and to become a true believer. But how to become a believer?

Angry No More: A new book on how to control and eradicate your anger.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

Effective Writing Made Simple

EFFECTIVE WRITING MADE SIMPLE

Effective writing is a lifelong communication skill. To master this skill, useful information is needed. But information is useful only when you can apply it to your writing. It is the application of useful and appropriate information that makes a difference in learning effective writing skill, and it is what this book is all about.

Learning effective writing requires four easy steps. You need to find out what to do in order to write well. The next step is to do it. Strangely enough, many people know what to do, but they don’t do it. Then, you need to make sure that you are doing the right things when you write. The last step is to practice and practice writing until you become confident and proficient in your writing.

This book provides you with guidelines and the right information, including basic grammar, correct sentence construction, effective use of words, paragraph development, style and usage, with many examples and illustrations to show you how to write well.

Stephen Lau

Books By Stephen Lau

Nothing Is Everything

 

ANYTHING IS EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS NOTHING! NOTHING IS EVERYTHING!

All About . . . .

"Anything Is Everything, Everything Is Nothing, Nothing Is Everything" is a miracle of life and living, based on the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu from China, and the Biblical wisdom.

Live your life as if everything is a miracle. To do just that, you need the wisdom to know how your mind works--especially how it has created your ego-self that demands your attachments to the material world.

Learn how to be in the physical world, but not of the material world. More importantly, get the wisdom to know who you really are, and not who you wish you were. Knowing and understanding the truths of anything and everything may enlighten you so that you intuit the ultimate truth that everything is actually nothing, but this nothingness is your pathway to everything in your life.

The Outline of the Book . . . .

ONE: ANYTHING IS EVERYTHING

A frog in a well
Human wisdom and spiritual wisdom
Oneness of all life
Love and forgiveness
Gratitude and generosity
Sympathy and empathy
Compassion and loving-kindness

TWO: EVERYTHING IS NOTHING

Understanding is everything
The mind and the ego
Attachments and illusions
Control and power
Detachment and letting go

THREE: NOTHING IS EVERYTHING

The paradox
The Way
The miracle
The enlightenment

ANYTHING IS EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS NOTHING! NOTHING IS EVERYTHING!

Click here to get your copy.

An Excerpt from the Book . . . .


NOTHING IS EVERYTHING

The Paradox

”I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” Plato

“The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye.”   Shana Alexande

“The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without a feeling: a paltry mediocrity.”  Soren Kierkegaard

“Nothing is everything” is a paradox. In life, there are many paradoxes. The way of paradoxes is the way of attaining the ultimate truths of anything and everything. Knowing and understanding a paradox requires wisdom to see different human perspectives in anything and everything.

Paradoxes may be the way to wisdom, to the miracle of life, and ultimately to enlightenment.

An illustration

Christopher Paul Gardner, an American  author, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, was very poor and homeless in the early 1980s. Sleeping on the floor of a public toilet, Gardner never dreamt that he would become a multi-millionaire one day. His inspiring life story was made into a hit Hollywood movie: “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

Gardner was brought up with the belief that he could do or be anything that he wanted to do or be. At some point in his life, he was homeless; everything seemed nothing, just emptiness and nothingness, to him. But he was not hopeless. He continued to dream of wealth and success, and his dreams were not mirages. Because of his right doing and right thinking, he made his dreams come true.

Initially, Gardner made his living by selling medical equipment. He did not make enough money to make both ends meet, and his poverty made him homeless for a year.

Then, one day, Gardner met a stockbroker in a red Ferrari, who offered him internship because of his incredible drive and sustained enthusiasm. Thus he began his own successful investment career, and he subsequently even opened his own investment firm, Gardner Rich & Co.

More than two decades later, after the death of his wife, who challenged him to find his true happiness and fulfillment in the remainder of his life, Gardner made a complete career change. He was suddenly awakened to the notion that his fame, success, and wealth seemed like nothing to him then. His feeling of nothingness transformed him completely: he then became a philanthropist and a motivation speaker traveling around the world, focusing not on his own wealth, but on humanity and the needs of others to pursue their own happiness.

According to Gardner, life journey is always a process of lesson learning and forward moving: “People often ask me would I trade anything from my past, and I quickly tell them no, because my past helped to make me into the person I am today.”  Yes, nothingness could be everything to him.

On any life journey, mental focus is essential: focusing not just on the big things in life but also on the small things as well; appreciating what you have, rather than dwelling on what is your nothingness.

What seems to be nothingness in the eyes of the world, when properly valued and put to use, can become anything and everything in the eyes of the beholder. Gardner turned his nothingness into great wealth. His ultimate enlightenment came when he looked at his own wealth in a different perspective-as no more than just nothingness-when he began to refocus his life goals on humanity and on inspiring others to become who they really are.

The bottom line: with wisdom you may know and understand the “nothing is everything” paradox that opens the door to self-enlightenment.

The Way

TAO, the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu, is the way toward knowing and understanding self and others, as well as things and circumstances around self. It may or may not lead to self-enlightenment, but at least it may help you see things as they really are, and not as they should be.

"Not knowing the Way,
but pretending we know,
we remain ignorant, and suffer.

Knowing that we do not know,
we pursue its wisdom:
knowing its origin,
knowing its ending,
and knowing our true nature."
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 71)

TAO wisdom begins with emptiness, or more specifically, with an empty mindset.

The emptiness

Enlightenment has its origin from emptiness. Irrespective of whether or not attaining self-enlightenment, emptiness is the way to go toward attaining profound wisdom of living in this material world.

Emptiness is a way of human perception: looking at life experiences without adding anything to them, or without taking away anything from them. It is the thinking of the mind with no assumption and no presumption -- that is, only an empty mindset.

As previously mentioned, emptiness can be either positive or negative (the glass half-full, or the glass half-empty). Positive emptiness can only occur when you allow yourself to surrender completely to any given circumstance or situation without any previous attachment.

According to Lao Tzu, develop an empty mindset, which is more than just “thinking out of the box”: it is your reverse thinking to create your own empty box of thinking.

"An empty mind with no craving and no expectation helps us letting go.
Being in the world and not of the world, we attain heavenly grace.
With heavenly grace, we become pure and selfless.
And everything just settles into its own perfect place."
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 3)


ANYTHING IS EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS NOTHING! NOTHING IS EVERYTHING!

Prepositional Words and Phrases for ESL Learners

LABOR

Labor for: work on behalf of someone or something.

e.g. I labored for you all day long, and you didn’t even thank me.

Labor over: work hard on.

e.g. The lawyer labored over my case for months.

e.g. The doctor labored over his patient for hours.

ASK

Ask about: find out more about.

e.g. I want to ask about my application for that position.

Ask after: ask about the health and wellbeing of someone.

e.g. My in-laws asked after you.

Ask around: request information from a number of people.

e.g. I plan to ask around to see what people think about the new mayor.

Ask back: invite someone to come again.

e.g. Because of your rudeness, they will never ask you back.

Ask for: request for someone or something.

e.g. The policeman is asking for you.

Ask of: ask of something from someone.

e.g. I want to ask a favor of you.

Ask out: invite someone to go out.

e.g. I asked her out to dinner, but she refused.

Ask over: invite someone to visit.

e.g. I asked my neighbor over to fix my computer.

Therefore, learn more prepositional phrases with different meanings when used with different prepositions.

RUN

Run down: hit with a vehicle

e.g. The old man was run down by the bus.

Run down: stop functioning

e.g. My lawn mower is running down; I need to get a new one.

Run into: meet by accident

e.g. Yesterday, I ran into an old friend that I had not seen for decades.

Run out of: not have any more of something

e.g. Hurry! We're running out of time!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Confusing Words

COULD / MIGHT

Could denotes potentiality; might suggests possibility.

e.g. Don't play with the knife; you might accidentally hurt yourself.

e.g. Could you close the window, please?

Accountable to / Accountable for

Accountable to means responsible to someone; accountable for means responsible for something or having to explain.

e.g. The Manager has to be accountable to the Board; he has to be accountable for all his business decisions.

Genteel / Gentle

Genteel: well-bred, polite; imitating the lifestyle of the rich.

e.g. Your friend is genteel. Is he really rich?

e.g. All along he has been living in genteel poverty. He is not practical.

Gentle:  soft and well-behaved.

e.g. He is a gentleman: he is especially gentle with the ladies.

Ingenious / Ingenuous

Ingenious is clever;  ingenuous is natural, free from deceit.

e.g. I must say that was an ingenious way to fund the project.

e.g. The Mayor's response to the questions from the reporter was sincere and ingenuous.

All / All of

All is used for amount, quantity, distance, and length of time.

e.g. all the money, all the way, all day, all night,

All of is used when a simple pronoun follows.

e.g. all of it, all of you, all of us.

All and all of may be used when it refers to number.

e.g. All or all of the employees are satisfied with the new policy.

e.g. All or all of the children in the family have gone to college.

ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES FREQUENTLY CONFUSED AND MISUSED

Words are neither effective nor ineffective; they just impart different meanings to the sentences in which they are used. It is the writer's effective use of words and phrases that makes sentences effective or ineffective.

The English language is made up of nearly a million words and phrases. A writer, especially one whose English is not his or her first language, may face two major problems in writing: not knowing "enough" words; and not knowing how to choose the "right" words. 

Writing is made up of words. Effective writing requires having a good stock of vocabulary, as well as selecting the most suitable words and phrases to express the intended ideas.

There are many English words and phrases that are frequently confused and misused by ESL learners. This book provides hundreds of those words and phrases with examples.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Autoimmune Disease

 

MY MYASTHENIA GRAVIS

All About . . . .

Myasthenia gravis is one of the many autoimmune diseases, which, according to contemporary Western medicine, offer no known cure, except controlling or suppressing their many disease symptoms.

This book is based on the author's own experience of battling against his myasthenia gravis: how he stopped all his medications through a holistic approach to controlling and managing the disease. This book provides insight and well-researched information that he would like to share with those who are afflicted with myasthenia gravis or any other autoimmune disease.

Albert Einstein once said: "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Believe in the miracle of self-healing. Healing comes only from within, and not from any external source. Every individual should avail every opportunity to initiate the self-healing process, which is innate in the human body. Just believing in the miracle of self-cure, however, is not enough; you must also empower yourself with knowledge and information to overcome myasthenia gravis through a holistic approach to the wellness of the body, the mind, and the spirit.

This book covers every aspect of holistic health to cope with autoimmunity: body detox, diet, lifestyle changes, exercises for muscle weakness, and mental relaxation techniques for vision problems associated with myasthenia gravis. "The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the patient's hopes are the physician's secret weapon. They are the hidden ingredients in any prescription." (Norman Cousins) Find your own ingredients in your prescription for a cure of your myasthenia gravis.

The above is what this book is all about. Click here to get your copy from AMAZON.

The  Outline of the Book . . . .

CHAPTER ONE: AUTOIMMUNITY

AUTOIMMUNITY
Autoimmune Diseases
What are the potential causes?
Who are more at risk?
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
The Cellular Health
How Body Cells May Become Damaged
The Damages by Free Radicals
Boosting Immunity
Protecting the Immune System

CHAPTER TWO: MY STORY

MYASTHENIA GRAVIS
MY STORY
My Conditions
My Treatment
My Rude Awakening
The Road to Self-Healing

CHAPTER THREE: UNDERSTANDING SELF-HEALING

THE MIRACLE OF SELF-HEALING
THE ESSENTIALS OF SELF-HEALING
The Power of the Mind
Changing the Subconscious Mind to Heal
Optimizing Subliminal Messages

CHAPTER FOUR: STEP 1 - STOP ALL DANGEROUS DRUGS

NO CURE FOR AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
Steroid Therapy
The Dangers of Drugs
Take control of your health and escape the sickness industry

CHAPTER FIVE: STEP 2 - INTERNAL CLEANSING

A TOXIC BODY 
Sources of Toxins
Common Symptoms of a Toxic Body
INTERNAL CLEANSING
Different Ways of Detoxification
Fasting to detoxify
Skin brushing to detoxify
Foot patches to detoxify
Hydrotherapy to detoxify
Exercise to detoxify
Foods to detoxify
Herbs to detoxify

CHAPTER SIX: STEP 3 - FOODS AS MEDICINE

USE FOODS TO BALANCE ACID-ALKALINE LEVELS TO HEAL THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Acidification
Sources of acidification
Diseases caused by acidification
Symptoms of excess acidification
Measuring acid-alkaline levels
Foods to balance acid-alkaline levels
FOLLOW THE BASICS OF EATING FOR A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM
Eating to Live, Not Living to Eat
Eating Less, Not More
Eating Frequently, Not Three Time a Day
Eating Living Foods, Not Dead Foods
Eating Sea Salt, Not Table Salt
Eating No Refined Sugar
Eating Raw Occasionally
Chewing Thoroughly
Smart Cooking
FOODS FOR THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Chlorella
Wheat Grass
FOODS TO BOOST THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Apples
Brown Rice
Garlic
Sea Vegetables
Sweet Potatoes and Yams
DRINK TO HEAL THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Burdock and Daikon Drink
Four Greens Drink
Pine Needles Drink
FOODS FOR BALANCE AND HARMONY
The Yin and Yang Diet
The Five Elements
FOODS TO AVOID FOR PROTECTION OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Sugar
Suggested sugar replacements for healthy eating for a healthy immune system
Dairy Products
Soy

CHAPTER SEVEN: STEP 4 - LIFESTYLE CHANGES TO HEAL

CIGARETTE SMOKING
The Health Hazards
Secondhand smoke
Quitting the Habit
ALCOHOL DRINKING
Beer Drinking
STRESS
Understanding the Causes of Stress in Your Life
Ways to Handle Stress
Stress Management
Perceptions of stress
Long-term measures to manage stress
Manage stress the Chinese way
Dealing with Life’s Problems

CHAPTER EIGHT: STEP 5 - RELAXATION TO BOOST IMMUNITY

STRESS
Signs and Symptoms of Stress
SLEEP
OTHER RELAXATION TECHNIQUES
Deep Relaxation
Meditation
How to meditate
How to breathe right to meditate and to relax
Mind Aerobics
Color Therapy
Mental Attention
Intense presence of the mind
Mind training to focus on the present moment

CHAPTER NINE: STEP 6 - OVERCOME MUSCLE WEAKNESS

MUSCLE WEAKNESS
Yoga
Qi Gong
YOGA ROUTINE FOR MUSCLE STRENGTH
CHAPTER TEN: STEP 7 - OVERCOME VISION PROBLEMS
WEAK EYE MUSCLES
DOUBLE VISION
EYE RELAXATION
Relax the Body to Relax the Eye
Self-Massage to Relax the Eye
Facial and eye massage
Rub the eye
Acupressure for eye massage and eye relaxation
Eye Exercises to Relax the Eye
Regular eye relaxation
Palming to relax the eye
The "8" eye exercise for relaxation and flexibility
The Taoist squeeze-and-open eye exercise for blood circulation to relax the eye
Learning how to blink
Yawning to cleanse and relax the eye
Stretching eye muscles for relaxation
Strengthening Vision
CHAPTER ELEVEN: FINAL WORDS OF WISDOM
BIBLIOGRAPHY



MY MYASTHENIA GRAVIS

English and American Idioms

Give someone or something a wide berth: keep someone or something at a distance
e.g. That dog is very fierce. We’d better give it a wide berth.

e.g. Your Mom is in a foul mood; give her a wide berth.

As plain as day: plain and simple
e.g. The briefing was as plain as day; nobody had to ask any question.

All at sea: confused
e.g. The lawyer was all at sea when he read the two conflicting reports of the incident.

Odd man out: atypical person or thing
e.g. Everybody has a partner, and you are an odd man out because you don’t have one.

Take the bull by the horns: deal with the challenge directly

e.g. This is a very difficult situation, but we must take the bull by the horns.

Accountable for: able to explain why

e.g. You have to be accountable for every decision you are going to make.

Actions speak louder than words: do something about it, not just talking about it
e.g. Show me what you have done! Actions speak louder than words.

Vested interest: a personal stake

e.g. He showed a vested interest in his uncle’s business.

Leave someone holding the bag: leave someone to take all the blame
e.g. The manager was responsible for the bankruptcy, but the assistant manager was left holding the bag.

A little bird told me: somehow I knew

e.g. “How did you know what I did?” “Well, a little bird told me.”

Eat like a horse: eat a lot

e.g. They won’t invite you to dinner next time; just now you ate like a horse.

Above all: most importantly

e.g. Above all, you must have a valid visa if you wish to continue to stay in the United States.

Go for broke: make great effort; risk everything

e.g. To win his re-election, the Mayor would go for broke.

Mind one’s p’s and q’s: pay attention to one’s manners

e.g. When you meet the President, you must mind your p’s and q’s.

Run in the family: a characteristic in all members of a family

e.g. Longevity runs in the family: they all live to a ripe old age.

All at sea: confused

e.g. The lawyer was all at sea when he read the two conflicting reports of the incident.

Act one’s age: behave maturely
e.g. Stop behaving like a teenager! Act your age.

You bet: yes, of course

e.g. “Are you hungry?” “You bet!”

AMERICAN IDIOMS

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau