Pingo Lingo

Although you may not yet have read or seen Macbeth, you will soon recognize some familiar conflicts and issues, for you have seen them on television and in films, you have read about them in newspapers and magazines. In the play, there are conflicts between heroism and villainy, good and evil, loyalty and treachery, ambition and morality. In addition, there are conflicting loyalties – to king, country, family. You will recognize the murder mystery theme as well as the murderer’s attempts to conceal and lie and cover up, as his fear and desperation grow. You may recognize the ideas that life without love, friendship, and self-respect is meaningless or that guilt can be overwhelming.

We have all become familiar with the consequences of political upheaval, civil and foreign wars, with the grim reality that innocent people – especially children – suffer during such times. Even in our own times, we have seen that civil liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary arrest or execution are quickly eroded by dictatorships.

Even though the play deals with much that is familiar, it leads you to consider some new and unusual ideas, and to learn more about yourself and others. Perhaps you may not expect that a murderer would have a vivid and poetic imagination or that he would, even in defeat, demonstrate conscience and courage. You might not expect that an apparently strong, practical, and determined woman would act in such contradiction to her real nature that madness and violent suicide are the consequence.

To focus your response to Macbeth, you might want to think, write, and talk about some of the following issues. They will lead you to important perceptions – of the play’s characters, of yourself, and of others

1. Think of some people you know or have read about who are/where ambitious. Have their ambitions led to a positive or negative result? Are ambitions sometimes destructive? Explain.
2. What is your understanding of the philosophy, “the end justifies the means”? Give examples of situations in which you would agree or disagree with this philosophy.
3. Would assassination or civil war ever be a justifiable response to rule by tyranny? What would you do if the leader of your country became a vicious tyrant?
4. Are a citizen’s first responsibilities to family, political leader, or country?
5. Describe some examples of what you think is evil behaviour. How should evil behaviour be dealt with?
6. If you suspected, but had no evidence, that a friend of yours had committed a crime, what would you do?
7. How do you deal with your fears? 2 Timothy 1:7 How might you help others to deal with theirs? What are some of the effects that fear can have on people?
8. Describe a time you experienced insomnia (lack of sleep). What did you do about it? What are some of the effects that insomnia can have on people who suffer from it?
9. Describe a women who best represents your idea of “womanliness.” Describe a man who best depicts “manliness.” Are there any similarities between the two descriptions? Why or why not?
10. Explain what your think an ideal marriage would be.
11. Describe a situation in which you or someone you know has been deceived by appearances. How might you advise someone to guard against this trap?
12. What do you want most from life? What are you prepared to do to attain it?

_________
Sources:
Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth” Ed. Margaret Kortes. Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.
Complete text at www.opensourceshakespeare.org
Macbeth eNotes

©2012 Mr. D. Sader | Pingo Lingo | All Rights Reserved

.2 Timothy 1:7
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek7For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of sobriety.2 Timothy 1:7
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek7For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of sobriety. Print PDF

Hamlet raises many questions that you may recognize from your own life. Thinking about some of these issues will make your experience of the play more interesting and rewarding. Discuss one of the following questions in your blog. Write about any ideas you find interesting or thought-provoking.

1. We all have procrastinated about something important that we had to do, sometimes disappointing other people and often disappointing ourselves. Why do we procrastinate?
2. Most people have purposely “played the fool” at some time. Why do people do this? If a person for some reason plays the fool or pretends to be disturbed for a long time, do you think the person eventually can become truly disturbed?
3. Isolation and loneliness are feelings common to most people at one time or another. Sometimes external circumstances create this situation, and sometimes people deliberately withdraw from those around them. What can friends or relatives do when someone has purposely withdrawn and chosen to be alone with his or her problems?
4. Disillusion is a common experience of growing up. We find that people in the adult world whom we once idealized are less than ideal, and that situations we considered innocent are actually corrupt. How do young people encountering the “real world” for the first time handle these discoveries?
5. In Shakespeare’s time, insane people were regarded as sources of entertainment. What is our society’s attitude toward mental illness?
6. What is the difference between “taking revenge” and “getting justice”?
7. Privacy is highly valued in our society. How would you feel if you found out you were “under surveillance” at school, at your job, at home, or among friends because of some change in your behaviour?
8. What are you launching out to believe in your life? What are you seeking to know? How well are you using your mind in discovering the truth that you are here to know?

©2012 Mr. D. Sader | Pingo Lingo | All Rights Reserved

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So, I figured I should share how I recovered a document, an important essay exam, during an “it-must-be-sun-spots” random lock-up of Microsoft Word 2008 on an iMac.

Symptoms:

• Spinning beach ball while otherwise routinely typing in Microsoft Word 2008 on an iMac or Macbook.
• Unable to click on the desktop as the Finder was also locked-up.
• Force Quit-> was unavailable.
• Mouse was responsive, but not clickable.
• Keyboard was unresponsive.

Steps I used to recover:

1. Disconnect mouse and keyboard.
2. Press, more of a tap actually, the power button. Screen “sleeps” instantly. Tap power button again to wake. (DO NOT hold the power button – this will reboot the machine and all will be lost!)
3. Wait for the “no bluetooth mouse” Bluetooth Setup Assistant dialogue pop-up to appear.
4. Plugin the mouse and keyboard.
5. command+shift+4 to take a screen picture of as much of the frozen document as you can.
6. Now go to Force Quit->Finder->Relaunch. Do not force quit anything else.
7. When finder relaunches, navigate to Go->Home->Documents->Microsoft User Data->Office 2008 AutoRecovery.
8. There should hopefully be a file in there created recently, “Autorecovery save of Document1″. Add a “.doc” to the end of the filename. Copy this document to the Desktop.
9. Force Quit->Word
10. Double-click the document to relaunch Word. Voila, there it is.

After following these steps, the user was then able to copy the text into a new Word document and carry on.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892956

©2012 Mr. D. Sader | Pingo Lingo | All Rights Reserved

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Write a scary story in which you explore at least one the following terrors:

1. feeling trapped
2. paranoid
3. afraid of the dark
4. emotional shock
5. freakish natural event
6. the most frightening experience you have ever had
7. a wicked mother in law, a scary mansion, a midnight walk on a wooded path, an abandoned school …
8. ghosts

©2011 Mr. D. Sader | Pingo Lingo | All Rights Reserved

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