First impressions

Kvitka-Osnovianenko Ukrainian Language and Literature Faculty

Department of Practice of English Oral and Written Speech

Year 3

Independent Study. Term II

Module 4. People and Personalities

I. Reading

THINKING AND FEELING

There is a current belief among many that gut (instinctive) feeling is what really matters and that thinking is just messing around with words. This is based on the experience that so-called logical thinking can be used to prove any point of view. All this arises from our mistaken insistence that logical validity is enough. Since with different starting perceptions perfectly logical thinking can lead to contradictory conclusions, it is not surprising that there has been some disillusionment with thinking in favour of gut feeling.

Ultimately it must be feeling that matters most. Feeling is what makes a human being human. In the end it is to satisfy our emotions and values that we arrange our actions. It is this very importance of feeling that makes feeling so necessary.

A friend of mine was once driving along a country road when he saw a woman being knocked down by a car ahead of him. Perhaps it was a hit-and-run driver or perhaps the driver hadn't even noticed. My friend stopped his car to help the woman. Another driver came up and, seeing the parked car and the injured woman, jumped to a conclusion and, getting out of his car, he hit my friend and broke his jaw. There was no doubt about the strength of the driver's feelings. Unfortunately his perception was faulty and had misdirected his feelings.

Feelings are a sort of actions. The purpose of thought is to prepare us for action, to prepare something for us to feel about. Thinking doesn't mean a laborious calculation as to how much feeling is required, but an attempt to direct attention and clarify perception. Thinking should never attempt to be a substitute for feeling. The job of thinking is to clarify and arrange perception. It is this clearer view that then excites our feeling. The feeling may still be wrong, misplaced or exaggerated, but that is a much lesser danger than trying to abolish feeling.

In practice it is extremely difficult to think first and feel second. The overwhelming tendency is to feel first and then use thinking to back up and support the feeling. The tendency is so overwhelming that even the most intelligent people express an instant feeling-based judgement and then use their thinking to back it up in an essay or discussion.

The very first step in teaching thinking must be to provide a bypass to this instant judgement by requiring the thinker to direct attention to all the relevant and interesting points in the situation. Thus in addition to his natural feelings he directs attention to the other aspects.

A nine-year-old girl was very upset because her long hair had been cut - at her own request. In a sulk she locked herself in her room. In the morning, to her parents' surprise, she emerged smiling and in good humour. She explained that in a thinking lesson at school she had been taught deliberately to look at all the plus and minus points in a situation and she had applied the process to her haircut. As a result she could see that it would make swimming easier and would have many other advantages, so she was happy about it. In this girl's case the technique helped her to use her thinking to explore the situation instead of just backing up her initial reaction. Feelings may change as a result of an enlarged perception.

We trust our feelings because we cannot see how they can be wrong. Feelings are, indeed, always right - but within the universe created by our perception at the time. Unfortunately it is very difficult for us to accept that our perceptions may be wrong. And even more difficult for us to accept that our perceptions may be limited.

a) Find English equivalents in the text:

1. довести будь-як точку зору
2. не дивно, що
3. на користь чого-небудь
4. зрештою
5. задовольнити почуття
6. організувати дії
7. зробити поспішний висновок
8. немає сумніву
9. прояснити сприйняття
10. замінник почуття
11. викликати почуття
12. перебільшене почуття
13. на практиці / фактично
14. спочатку думати, а потім відчувати
15. приголомшлива тенденція
16. підтримати i підкріпити почуття
17. виражати судження, засноване на почуттях
18. спрямовувати увагу на що-небудь
19. крім своїх природних почуттів
20. за власним проханням
21. до подиву батьків
22. застосувати процес до чого-небудь
23. у результаті чого-небудь
24. мати перевагу
25. замість підтвердження своєї первісної реакції

b) Match the meaning and the word.

1) Historical significance and personalized meaning for individuals of certain realities	a) prove
2) Make clear or understandable	b) arrange
3) Show that something is true	c) substitute
4) Put in order	d) universal
5) Person or thing taking the place of or acting for another	e) current
6) Make something seem larger, better, or worse, etc. than it really is	f) satisfy
7) Generally accepted; in common use at present	g) contradiction
8) Belonging to; affecting all	h) clarify
9) Absence of agreement	i) value
10) Give a person what he wants or needs	j) exaggerate

c) Match the words with the opposite meaning

1. advantage	a) reject
2. constant	b) invalid
3. relevant	c) in practice
4. create	d) consistent
5. overwhelming	e) disadvantage
6. contradictory	f) inhibit
7. accept	g) current
8. faulty	h) destroy
9. in theory	i) faultless
10. excite	j) irrelevant
11. valid	k) rare

d) Match the words with a similar meaning.

1. technique	a) connected with
2. instant	b) in the end
3. emerge	c) investigate
4. support	d) momentary
5. purpose	e) arouse
6. relevant	f) method
7. initial	g) decision
8. conclusion	h) supply
9. ultimately	i) appear
10.provide	j) back up
11.excite	k) goal
12.explore	l) first

II. Reading

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

1 My first impression was that the stranger’s eyes were of an unusually light blue. They met mine for several blank seconds, vacant, unmistakably scared. Startled and innocently naughty, they half reminded me of an incident I couldn’t quite place; something which had happened a long time ago, to do with the upper fourth form classroom. They were the eyes of a schoolboy surprised in the act of breaking one of the rules. Not that I had caught him, apparently, at anything except his own thoughts: perhaps he imagined I could read them. At any rate, he seemed not to have heard or seen me cross the compartment from my corner to his own, for he started violently at the sound of my voice; so violently, indeed, that his nervous recoil hit me like repercussion. Instinctively I took a pace backwards.

2 It was exactly as though we had collided with each other bodily in the street. We were both confused, both ready to be apologetic. Smiling, anxious to reassure him, I repeated my question: ‘I wonder. Sir, if you could let me have a match?’

3 Even now, he didn’t answer at once. He appeared to be engaged in some sort of rapid mental calculation, while his fingers, nervously active, sketched a number of flurried gestures round his waistcoat. For all they conveyed, he might equally have been going to undress, to draw a revolver, or merely to make sure that I hadn’t stolen his money. Then the moment of agitation passed from his gaze like a little cloud, leaving a clear blue sky. At last he had understood what it was that I wanted: ‘Yes. Er – certainly. Of course.’

4 As he spoke he touched his left temple delicately with his finger-tips, coughed and suddenly smiled. His smile had great charm. It disclosed the ugliest teeth I had ever seen. They were like broken rocks.

‘Certainly,’ he repeated. ’With pleasure.’

Delicately with finger and thumb, he fished in the waistcoat pocket of his expensive-looking soft grey suit, and extracted a gold spirit-lighter. His hands were white, small and beautifully manicured.

I offered him my cigarettes.

‘Er – thank you. Thank you.’

‘After you, sir.’

‘No, no. Please.’

5 The tiny flame of the lighter flickered between us, and as perishable as the atmosphere which our exaggerated politeness had created. The merest breath would have extinguished the one, the least ludicrous gesture or word would have destroyed the other. The cigarettes were both lighted now. We sat back in our respective places. The stranger was still doubtful of me. He was wondering whether he hadn’t gone too far, delivered himself to a bore or a crook. His timid soul was eager to retire. I, on my side, had nothing to read. I foresaw a journey of utter silence, lasting seven or eight hours. I was determined to talk.

‘Do you know what time we arrive at the frontier?’

Looking back on the conservation, this question does not seem to me to have been particularly unusual. It is true that I had no interest in the answer; I wanted merely to ask something which might start us chatting, and which wasn’t, at the same time either inquisitive or impertinent. Its effect on the man was remarkable. I had certainly succeeded in arousing his interest.

For questions 1 – 5, find the words in the text that mean the same as these words and phrases.

1. (P1) frightened

2. (P2) bumped into

3. (P3) communicated

4. (P4) gently and carefully

5. (P5) suspicious

For questions 6 – 10, choose the best answer (a, b, c, or d).

6. The stranger at first looked

a) frightened b) harmless c) childish d) surprised

7. The narrator had

a) sat down beside the stranger b) sat down opposite the stranger

c) walked across to the stranger d) walked up behind the stranger

8. Before replying, the stranger

a) adjusted his waistcoat b) looked for his lighter

c) thought for a while d) wondered if the narrator was a thief

9. The narrator gave the stranger

a) cigarette b) a light c) a reassuring smile d) his hand

10. The narrator wanted to start a conversation because he

a) found the stranger fascinating b) found the stranger interesting

c) had nothing else to do d) respected the stranger

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