Friendship
What are the requirements for friendship? What allows one person to become a friend and another not? Indeed, friends are made for many qualities and different reasons. Some students reflected on the characteristics of friendship, using a proverb to support their thesis.
Who Is a Friend? by Jose Salazar
A Yugoslav proverb says, Show me a friend who will weep with me; those who will laugh with me I can find myself. I agree with this proverb. It's very difficult to find a true friend. For me, a true friend is a person who remains with you in good or bad moments, or a person who supports you when you need it. On occasions, you think that you have a lot of friends, but later on you find out that they were only casual friends who enjoyed with you just special occasions.
I learned something about friendship in my hometown in Mexico. In Mexico I have a lot of "friends" who want to enjoy parties and celebrations with me, and "friends" who look for me only to invite me to drink beer with them because I'm a funny guy at parties. But only a few responded to me when I needed help. Once, I suffered a serious accident that sent me to the hospital for several days. I needed blood and only a few of my hundreds of "friends" went to visit me and offered me their blood. At that moment, I could see who my friends were and who never were my friends. Since then, I have remembered a short Mexican saying: In the sickbed and in the jail, we know our true friends.
Free Will to Choose Friends by Pat Morgado
"Chance makes our relatives, but choice makes our friends," stated Jacques Delille, a French poet (1738-1813). I like this proverb. We cannot choose our family, but I believe that everybody has free will to select friends. The concept of friend differs for each person. For me, good friends are people who help you disinterestedly and without any recompense or reward in mind; moreover, these people accept you even if you have different values. These are people who understand you, keep your secrets, and give you advice.
One of my best friends is Eva. We both like to talk about different kinds of things. Eva has shared with me her intimate problems, in the same way I have put my trust in her. We know what hurts or makes the other feel sad and therefore we do not touch these subjects; on the contrary, we try to boost each other's morales. In our friendship there is respect and sincerity. I would like to continue being her friend. She chose me as her confidant and I chose her as mine. People, who are good friends, are not perfect, because nobody is perfect. Maybe one day I could have problems with them or vice versa. Therefore I have to decide who is and who isn't my friend. God gives us free will to choose friends.
My Friend, Emily by Phoebe Kwong
I absolutely agree with the quotation "Show me a friend who will weep with me; those who will laugh with me I can find myself." It is very hard to find a friend who can listen to your problems. The friend who can be honest with you and help you to solve your problems is a friend. The friend who is willing to share fortune with you, but not share misfortune is not a good friend.
|
|
|
This reminds me of one my former best friends, Emily, whose behavior was very negative because she made friends with some people who belonged to a gang. At the beginning, she was very happy with her life, which was free and liberated. However, she did not care about he parents, who always worried about her very much. Also, she did not listen to them and even snapped back at them. Emily's parents asked me to talk to her. Later, I did talk to Emily, but she did not listen to me either. One year later, she went to jail for two years because she was a scapegoat for her friends who sat up a trap. When I visited her in jail, I was impressed by her telling me that it was so important to have a friend who could change your life a lot.
II. Read the text, retell it as if you were one of the characters of the story, add some interesting details and use the saying A simple friend, when visiting, acts like a guest. A real friend opens your refrigerator and helps himself in your retelling.
An old friend from abroad, whom I was expecting to stay with me, telephoned from the airport to tell me that he had arrived. I was still at the office at the time, but I had made arrangements for his arrival. After explaining where my new flat was, I told him that I had left the key under the door-mat. As I was likely to be home rather late, I advised him to go into the kitchen and help himself to food and drink.
Two hours later my friend telephoned me from the flat. At the moment, he said, he was listening to some of my records after having just had a truly wonderful meal. He had found a pan on the gas stove and fried two eggs and helped himself to some cold chicken from the refrigerator. Now, he said, he was drinking a glass of orange juice and he hoped I would join him. When I asked him if he had reached the flat without difficulty, he answered that he had not been able to find the key under the door-mat, but fortunately the living-room window just by the apple tree had been left open and he had climbed in. I listened to all this in astonishment. There is no apple tree in front of my living-room, but there is one in front of my neighbours!
