Communication 29
My dear Russian readers have this most intriguing term which translates into the English term ‘layings’. Although ‘I’ am not totally fortified in the area of the Russian language (not even slightly) . . . after a bit of quick referencing of various received comments, ‘I’ came to single out the Russian term ‘закладки’.
When first coming into cognitive contact with this term ‘закладки’ and its Yahoo Babeled translation (‘layings’), ‘I’ was tickled and pleased by its usage (“It carried off into the layings” . . . “Утащил в закладки”). And then . . . yesterday, an Understanding occured . . .
One of my students complained that he could no longer focus anymore. He informed: “There is so much to take in, so much to remember, so much to process . . . I can’t keep up. Lately . . . everything is just a big blurr.”
‘I’ stood before this young gentleman, gently smiled into his eyes, and said, “I’ know you can’t see because you do not know how to focus on that which is important.”
You could almost see the smoke trickling out of his ears as he heated in anger. “How can you say that? he shouted. “This professor says, ‘this is important’, that professor says, ‘that is important’, my mother says, my father says, my brother says, my friend says, the doctor, the priest, the dentist, the president, the politicians, the grocery store clerk, my barber . . . . it is endless what everyone says is important!!!”
And . . . quickly remembering this Russian term, ‘I’ replied, “Ah yes, the layings.”
“What do you mean . . . layings?” he shot back.
‘I’ moved over to the overhead projector and flipped it on . . . as such, a light illuminated and was projected onto the wall. ‘I’ positioned a transparency of a lesson (‘I’ had previously taught) onto the glass of the projector. Now . . . although one could still see the light projecting onto the wall, one could also see (quite clearly and legibly) the printed version of a pretaught lesson.
‘I’ turned to the young man and asked him if he could easily decifer what ‘I’ had brought into his focus. ‘I’ received an affirmative response.
Then ‘I’ proceeded to take a small stack of transparencies (imaging previously taught lessons), and one-by-one ‘I’ began ‘laying’ them onto the projector until not a single person in the room (including this young gentleman) could make a single bit of sense from that contained in the projection.
“Do you see?” ‘I’ asked.
“See what? . . . that mangled mess of undeciferable whatever you want to call it?”
“No,” ‘I’ replied. “You asked me to about ‘layings’, and ‘I’ just showed them to you.
“That still doesn’t tell me what is important,” he said, less agressively.
“Oh . . . . . And who are you waiting for to make a decision that only you can make for yourSelf?
