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PERSONALITY
Before you read
I. Psychologists and common people think that appearance is somehow connected with peoples personality. There are many English proverbs concerning this problem, comment on some of them or choose your own:
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1. Appearances are deceitful.
2. The face is the index of the mind.
3. A fair face may hide a foul heart.
4. Beauty lies in lovers eyes.
5. Handsome is as handsome does.
II. Answer the following personal questions:
Are you a day person or a night person?
Do you live in the past, present or future?
Do you prefer to work with people, data or machines?
What would your friends say are your best qualities?
How do you relax?
What are your pet peeves?
Are you a procrastinator?
Are you usually energetic or lazy?
What is your favourite food?
What is your least favourite food?
Do you prefer to be a spectator or a participant?
What is something you know how to do really well?
What part of nature do you like most?
Do you love yourself? Why or why not?
What are some things that make your angry?
What makes you cry?
What is your favourite day of the week?
Do you like to travel or stay at home?
What are some of the similarities among people you like?
Do you think with your mind or with your heart?
Do you consider yourself to be an average person or an extraordinary person?
If you had been a much different height, how would your life have been different?
If you could be any age, what age would you be and why?
If you could change one thing about your appearance, what would you change?
If you could change one thing about your character, what would you change?
pet peeve something which you dont like to be reminded of, some memory which annoys you (compare with the Russian expression )
procrastinator a person who delays repeatedly and without good reason in doing some necessary act
Reading tasks
I. Read the dialogue and write the English for:
-; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
After the Party
BESS: I say, who's the boy I've been dancing with most of the time? He introduced himself but I didn't catch the name.
JULIE: Do you mean the lean stooping fellow with an awkward gait, a piercing look and a mop of sandy hair?
BESS: The one I mean is not like that at all. He is tall and slender with a graceful carriage, earnest eyes and smooth blond hair.
JULIE: So that's the way he strikes you, is it? Well, that is Will, my first cousin.
BESS: Is he? Julie, say honestly, do you really find him as plain as you've made him out?
JULIE: I was just joking. Will takes after his father, my uncle Alex, who is still a very handsome man, even though bald and rather stern-looking.
BESS: And as to his stooping, it was natural when dancing with a small person like myself, so much shorter than he, wasn't it?
JULIE: Well, it's funny, but Will came up to me and asked: "Who's that little bright-eyed girl with dimples in her cheeks?"
BESS: He didn't!
JULIE: He did. And he said you were the prettiest girl here.
BESS: He can't possibly have meant it. Jane was certainly the beauty of the party.
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JULIE: Jane? Don't make me laugh. Perhaps, she wouldn't look so bad, if she hadn't put on so much weight. As it is, she is positively fat and looks rather old for her age.
BESS: No, not fat, she is just plump. And she has wonderfully regular features and a lovely complexion.
JULIE: Lovely complexion, indeed! With all that powder and lipstick on, you don't see much of her natural complexion.
BESS: I think you are rather unfair. Jane doesn't make up, I am sure.
JULIE: Anyhow, I quite agree with Will that you are much more attractive than Jane, especially now, that you wear your hair shoulder length parted in the middle.
BESS: Nice of you to say that.
JULIE: Would you care to come and see me next Saturday? I'll invite Will and two or three other girls and boys.
BESS: I'd love to, I'll be looking forward to it. And now I'm off. Good-bye for the present.
JULIE: See you again soon.
II. Read the examples, translate them and compose sentences of your own using the same vocabulary means:
1. She was a slim girl with slender arms and legs.
2. He has an upright carriage (he holds himself upright).
3. I grew thin during my illness and now I want to put on some weight.
4. Sailors often have an awkward gait.
5. Tall people sometimes stoop.
6. I like his clean-shaven face with a noble aquiline profile.
7. She had a turned-up nose.
8. He wears a beard and (a) moustache (moustaches).
9. There is something unusual about his appearance.
10. A woman may do her hair in different ways: she may wear it loose shoulder length parted in the middle, arrange it in a knot at the back of her head, or make it into a plait round her head. If she wears it short (if she has a haircut) she may have a perm.
11. She doesnt look her age, she looks young for her age, but her husband looks his age and even older.
12. A short hair-cut does not become her at all.
Put the question WHAT IS HE LIKE? when you are interested in the persons appearance and character.
Put the question HOW DOES HE/SHE LOOK NOW? w hen you are interested whether any changes have happened to a person since you saw him/her last time.
Put the question WHAT DOES SHE LOOK LIKE? w hen you have never seen the person before.
III. Answer these questions:
1. Do you take after your mother or father?
2. What do your parents look like?
3. Is there anything peculiar about your friends appearance?
4. What complexion do blond people usually have?
5. When do people usually grow thin?
6. When do we say that a person looks healthy?
7. Is your hair wavy, straight, or curly? What color is your hair? Is it your natural color or you die your hair? Do you do your hair yourself or do you have it done at the hair-dressers?
8. What do the words clean-shaven mean?
IV. Translate into English:
1. , . 2. , , . 3. . 4. , ? , . 5. ? , . 6. ? , . 7. . 8. , (seedy) , . 9. , , , - (lively) . 10. , , .
V. Think about the following:
1. What makes a person beautiful? A perfect face? A good body? A healthy attitude to life? A good character?
2. There is a famous tale called The Ugly Duckling. Do you know what happens? The story below has the same title. Can you guess what it is going to be about?
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VI. Read the text to answer the questions after it:
The Ugly Duckling
I realized how cruel life can be for an unattractive child when everybody in my class was invited to a tenth birthday barbecue on the beach. Everybody, that is, except me. At first I thought there had been a mistake and that my invitation had been lost. But when I made inquiries to the hostess, she didnt beat about the bush: Sorry, Susie. You are too fat to wear a swimsuit on the beach and you cant see without those horrible glasses anyway.
I went home and cried for hours. My mother was ready with comforting cuddles, yet even she couldnt bring herself to reassure me I was lovely. I used to spend a long time staring at my brother and twin sisters and feeling extremely hard done by.
The chip that was developing on my shoulder became obvious in my aggressive manner. This, of course, only made things worse. Tea invitations stopped. I walked home from school alone and often found drawings that looked like me in the classroom wastepaper bin. I hated everyone because everyone seemed to hate me.
When I was 14, my mother decided that I should go to the church youth club. I stood alone watching the dancing, feeling embarrassed, ugly and awkward. Then a miracle happened.
A skinny boy called Peter, with glasses and spots, asked me to dance. He also had a brace on his teeth. We didnt talk much but he asked if I would be there the following week. I have to credit Peter with changing my life. He stopped me feeling hideous.
Encouraged, I put myself on a diet, begged my mother for contact lenses and grew my hair. Then another miracle happened, I started looking slimmer. The brace was finally removed and my teeth were even. I was never going to be a beautiful swan, but I was going to try.
beat about the bush waste time before saying smth important
cuddles embraces
hard done by unfairly treated, unlucky
chip...on my shoulder inferiority complex
brace - metal frame for straightening teeth
credit...with be grateful...to...for
1. Do you think the girl was right to exclude Susie from her birthday party? Why/ why not?
2. Which aspects of her appearance did Susie worry about most of all? What other aspects do people worry about?
3. How important is appearance for you when you choose a friend?
VII. Read the text The Beard b y G. Clark:
I was going by train to London. I didnt have the trouble to take to anything to eat with me and soon I was very hungry. I decided to go to the dining-car to have a meal.
As I was about to seat myself, I saw that the gentleman I was to face wore a large beard. He was a young man. His beard was full, loose and very black. I glanced at him uneasily and noted that he was a big pleasant fellow with dark laughing eyes.
Indeed I could feel his eyes on me as I fumbled with the knives and forks. It was hard to pull himself together. It is not easy to face a beard. But when I could escape no longer, I raised my eyes and found the young mans on my face.
Good evening, I said cheerfully.
Good evening, he replied pleasantly, inserting a big buttered roll within the bush of his beard. Not even a crumb fell off. He ordered soup. It was a difficult soup for even the most barefaced of men to eat, but not a drop did he waste on his whiskers. He kept his eyes on me in between bites. But I knew he knew that I was watching his every bite with acute fascination.
Im impressed, I said, with your beard.
I suspected as much, smiled the young man.
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Is it a wartime device? I inquired.
No, said he; Im too young to have been in the war. I grew this beard two years ago.
Its magnificent, I informed him.
Thank you, he replied. As a matter of fact this beard is an experiment in psychology. I suffered horribly from shyness. I was so shy it amounted to a phobia. At university I took up psychology and began reading books on psychology. And one day I came across a chapter on human defence mechanisms, explaining how so many of us resort to all kinds of tricks to escape from the world, or from conditions in the world which we find hateful. Well, I just turned a thing around. I decided to make other people shy of me. So I grew this beard.
The effect was astonishing. I found people, even tough, hard-boiled people, were shy of looking in the face. They were panicked by my whiskers. It made them uneasy. And my shyness vanished completely.
He pulled his fine black whiskers affectionately and said; Psychology is a great thing. Unfortunately people dont know about it. Psychology should help people discover such most helpful tricks. Life is too short to be wasted in desperately striving to be normal.
VIII. Give Russian equivalents for the following words and expressions from the text and use them in the sentences of your own:
Face smb, glance at smth, pull oneself together, keep ones eyes on smb, be impressed with smth, suffer from smth, read books on smth, come across, find smth hateful, make smb do smth, be shy of doing smth, waste life (time), master doing smth.
IX. Discuss the following using the story you have read as the basis for discussion:
1. What do you know about human defence mechanisms? In what situations are they displayed?
2. What kind of world conditions do you consider hateful? What are the ways to improve them?
3. How do you understand the phrase escape from the world? When and why people have to do it? Have you ever thought of escaping the world?
4. Whom do people usually consider to be normal / abnormal? Explain the meaning of the statement: Life is too short to be wasted in desperately striving to be normal.
X. The story Wonderful People by Richard Hagopian is a love story, very briefly sketched, with which almost anyone can identify oneself. Try to understand the authors intention behind the epithets wonderful and tall in relations to the characters. Answer the questions below:
I saw her and liked her because she was not beautiful. Her chin was not just right and something about her nose fell short of perfection. And when she stood up, well, there wasnt much to see but her tallness, the length from her hips to her feet, and the length from her hips to her shoulders. She was a tall girl and that was all. She was the first tall girl I had ever liked, perhaps because I had never watched a tall girl get up from a table before; that is, get up the way she did, everything in her rising to the art of getting up, combining to make the act look beautiful and not like just another casual1 movement, an ordinary life motion.
Maybe I liked her because when I talked to her for the first time I found that she had tall ideas too, ideas which like her chin and nose did not seem just right to me, but like her getting up were beautiful. They hung together. They were tall ideas, about life and people, morals and ethics. At first they seemed shockingly loose to me, but when I saw them all moving together, like her body, they hung together. They looked naturally beautiful. They had the same kind of pulled-out poetry that sometimes defies the extra-long line and hangs together; hangs together when you see the whole thing finished, when you've scanned it up and down and seen all the line endings melt into a curious kind of unity, which makes strange music-strange because everything is long yet compact. She was music. I see it now, her getting up impressed me at the time because for the first time I felt poetry in a person risingmusic in body parts moving in natural rhythms. I liked the tall girl.
By stature I was not tall. I was built almost too close to the ground. Perhaps that is why I had old-fashioned ideas, ideas as simple and as pure as the good soil. Maybe my eyes saw more in the ground than other people's because I was closer to it. I was what you might call compact. Everything was knitted together strongly, like my ideas about life, morals and ethics, all squeezed together, rhyming easily, making music of a strong, dominant sort. Call it smugness if you wish. But I really couldn't move far without taking along everything I had. My ideas were like that too. I could take a radical fling once in a while, but sooner or later, mostly sooner, the rest of me ganged up and compressed the wild motion with one easy squeeze.
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We were a funny pair, the tall girl and I, funny because we were so different in everything. She was a slow walker and I had to hold back. She talked in long lines and I used the short one. She ate easily and I ate hard and fast. We were different.
The tall girl and I fell in love with each other. Why, I do not know. We just did, that's all. We did crazy things: tall things and compact things, like running madly up and down a beach laughing and feeling loose and free, or like sitting down and knitting our minds together to feel after a piece of music or a problem. Something made us agree. We couldn't figure out what, but we agreed. And after looking at each other and seeing our bodies and the stuff behind them, we couldn't quite understand, but we accepted our good luck and we called ourselves wonderful people.
After a while we talked about marriage, children, and a home. For a few months we didn't agree on a couple of things, but, as I said, we were wonderful people, and one day we decided to get married.
But the tall girl and I didn't get married. For one moment somewhere I think we stopped being wonderful people, and she must have felt her tallness for the first time, and maybe the ground came up too close to my face. But that was all; it was the end. Something had come between the tall girl and me. I don't know what it was, but something died and with it went all the funny music and poetry in people.
Many years have passed and sometimes I get a strange feelingI mean about walking and getting up. I don't seem to hang together as I used to. Only last week my best friend told me to pull myself together. And when I looked around, I'll be damned if I wasn't just all pieces and parts, going this way and that, down and... up. Up! That was it. I felt taller. And I felt good. I liked the freedom. I could reach for an idea now without straining everything in me to hold it; and I didn't care about the rest of me. What music there was left in me, what music I heard in others, was the strange kind one finds in long-line poetry. It made me happy.
Sometimes I think of the tall girl; but she doesn't seem tall any more. She just seems naturalarms, legs, ideas, and everything. I wonder what I thought was tall? Sometimes I wonder if she is the same girl I first saw rising from a table. I don't know. But people grow taller, I know that. Perhaps they grow shorter and more compact too. Maybe that's what makes us wonderful people.
1. Why did the girl and the young man call themselves wonderful people? What was unusual about their falling in love?
2. Do you think that two very different people who fall in love and part may grow more like each other in time?
3. In what way do people grow taller? In what way do they grow shorter and more compact?
XI. Substitute the appropriate term from the list below for the boldface term in each sentence from the text you have just read:
annoying, beautiful, believes, challenges, closely examined, closely fitted, disturbing, forcing, moral principles, pleased, pressed, read, self-satisfaction, strongly affected, uncertainty, unplanned, virtues, wide.
1. The girls way of rising was not just another casual movement.
2. She had tall ideas about ethics.
3. At first her ideas seemed shocking.
4. Her ideas were like poetry which defies the extra-long line.
5. Everything is long yet compact.
6. Her getting up impressed me at the time.
7. My attitude was one of smugness.
8. After you scanned the poem up and down you find a curious kind of unity.
9. My ideas were squeezed together.
10. I could reach for an idea now without straining everything in me to hold it.
XII. Choose the word which is nearest in meaning to the boldface word or phrase. Use the boldface words or phrases in the sentences of your own:
1. I had old-fashioned ideas.
a) pure; b) traditional; c)rigid
2. The girl and I did crazy things, like running madly down the beach.
a) wild and unusual; b) unhealthy, dangerous; c) insane, psychopathic
3. Once in a while I would take a radical fling.
a) an immoral idea thrown at me; b) a step in the wrong direction; c) a wild departure from the customary
4. My friend told me to pull myself together.
a) to get hold of myself; b) to stop feeling sorry for myself; c) to avoid worrying about myself
5. Sooner or later everything ganged up on me.
a) came together in; b) went away from; c) got together against
XIII. Give the definition of the term personality as you understand it. Read the abridged extract from Nathan Brody and Howard Enrlichman Personality Psychology. The Science of Individuality and compare the definition given below to the one you have formulated.
What is Personality?
Most people think they know what personality is. But here are some questions that might make you think. Is everything about you part of your personality? Which aspects are and which are not? Do some people have more personality than others? Do animals have personality? Do cars?
Let's deal with the last question first. Of course cars have personality! Alissa's Porsche S/EX definitely has a different personality than Marco's 1970 VW Beetle. But wait, you might say. A car can't have personalityit's just a machine. So what do we mean when we talk about a car's "personality"? Obviously, we are using the term as a metaphor. What we mean is that there is something about these cars that is like personality. We may simply be referring to the fact that they have different characteristics (fast vs. slow; handles well vs. poorly). Or we may be referring to the thoughts and feelings the cars bring out in us. When we say the Porsche is sexy, we mean it excites us, gives us pleasure, is desirable. A car's personality, then, boils down to (1) a description of its characteristics or (2) our reactions to it. Some psychologists would say that when we talk about people's personalities, we are also just describing or summarizing their characteristics. Some would even say that personality exists more in the eye of the beholder than in the beheld. For these psychologists, the term personality is not all that different whether applied to people or to cars.
Other psychologists would disagree. They would say that the term personality implies the existence of a living being with an inner mental life consisting of thoughts, feelings, desires, and goals as well as behaviors. Personality is not merely a description of behavior, but involves processes in the person that are responsible for this behavior. People behave as they do, at least in part, because of their personalities. To say a person is sociable or aggressive or honest is to say there are inner characteristics that cause him or her to be sociable or aggressive or honest.
From this perspective, cars most decidedly do not have personalities. What about animals? When we asked our students this question, the great majority insisted that animals have personalities. They described their pet dog as friendly, or intelligent, or aggressive. And they argued that this is very different from calling a car sexy. What do you think?
Here is another question. Do some people have more personality than others? We sometimes describe someone as having lots of personality, often as a way of saying the person makes a strong impact on others or is charismatic. Do charismatic people have more personality than boring people, or are their personalities just different? Virtually all personality psychologists would answer different, not more or less. But in another way, the idea of some people having more personality than others may make sense. To see this, we need to move on to the question of whether all of a person's behavior is a reflection of his or her personality.
Consider career choice. Some people seem to have a strong sense of what they want to do. They are strongly driven to become an athlete, or a computer scientist, or an artist, or a journalist. Others make their career choices in more haphazard ways. They get a job through a friend or relative, they work 9 to 5, and if they do well maybe they get a promotion. Although both kinds of people are influenced by aspects of their personalities, there is a sense in which inner characteristics in the first kind of person are playing a more influential role. We would argue that not everything we do is equally influenced by personality. Some things we do just because everybody does them. People who sit quietly in church during a sermon are not displaying behavior strongly influenced by their personalities (although the fact that they are in church at all may reflect their personalities). But a person who stands up and starts whistling Dixie during a sermon clearly is. So it is possible that some things we do are more strongly influenced by our personalities than other things.
This brings us to the first question we asked: Is everything about you related to your personality? Is personality just another word for person? If so, personality psychology has a formidable task, because it must be concerned with everything that makes you who you are. From this perspective, personality psychology would not be a subspeciality of psychology, but rather a central discipline drawing not only from general psychology, but from anthropology, biology, sociology, literature, history, cultural studies, and all the other disciplines devoted to understanding people. Obviously, there is no true or correct answer to the question we have raised. We could define personality so that it includes almost everything about people: The sum total of a person's thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and action tendencies, including their unique organization within the person. (In fact, this definition captures much of what is common to definitions of personality given by various psychologists.). Perhaps this is what most people mean by the word personality. Scientists, however, need not define their subject matter in everyday terms. A definition has a purpose in science: it serves to specify the domain that one intends to study and understand. We believe that this definition takes in too much and sets an impossible goal. Our preference is for a more limited definition that can set a more realistic agenda. As a way of specifying the subject matter of personality psychology, we shall define personality as those thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and action tendencies that contribute to important aspects of individuality.
XIV. Answer the question on the text:
1. What definition of personality would allow us to talk about the personality of a car/ a coat/ an armchair, etc.?
2. Would a car or any of the inanimate objects still have a personality if suddenly all human beings are annihilated? Would you say that animals have personalities?
3. Does the behavior of a person who is all alone and waits patiently at a street crossing for the traffic light to turn green although no cars or policemen are in sight suggest anything about his/her personality? If so, what?
4. Is personality quantifiable? What is the problem with the definition of personality which begins The sum total of a persons...?
5. In the definition of personality given by the authors, the word individuality is of central importance. What in general terms is individuality?
5. What are the components of a persons inner mental life mentioned in the text?
6. What people do we call charismatic? Do you know any?
7. How is career choice usually made? In what way is your career choice influenced by your personality? Do you have a strong sense of what you want to do in future?
Vocabulary tasks
VIRTUOUS CHARACTERISTICS: affable, amiable, good-natured, good-humoured, kind, kind-hearted, communicative, sociable, friendly, modest, discreet, generous, considerate, attentive, thoughtful, earnest, sincere, enthusiastic, calm, quiet, composed, self-possessed, honest, merciful, impartial, just, patient, forbearing, sympathetic, respectable, cordial, broad-minded, witty, intelligent, dignified, capable, benevolent, philanthropic, scrupulous, consistent, easy-going, affectionate, devoted, loyal, courageous, persevering, industrious, hard-working, sweet, gentle, proud.
EVIL CHARACTERISTICS: ill-natured, unkind, hard-hearted, reserved, uncommunicative, unsociable, hostile, haughty, arrogant, dashing, showy, indiscreet, unscrupulous, greedy, inconsistent, tactless, insincere, hypocritical, false, vulgar, double-faced, indifferent, dispassionate, fussy, unrestrained, dishonest, cruel, partial, intolerant, conceited, self-willed, willful, capricious, perverse, insensible, inconsiderate, servile, presumptuous, deceitful, harsh, sulky, sullen, obstinate, coarse, rude, vain, impertinent, impudent, revengeful.
I. Study the list of different human characteristics and arrange it in the form of the chart combining antonyms and synonyms. Mind that some of the adjectives are close in meaning and can be used more than once.
II. Learn to discuss different people. Answer the following questions using the topical vocabulary:
1. What kind of person will never arrest anyone's attention / take a risk / spend more than he/she can afford / take anything to heart / lose his/her temper / disobey instructions, wave in the face of danger, fail his/her friend?
2. What kind of people are often lonely / are usually surrounded by people / are quick to see the point / feel uneasy in company / easily lose their patience?
3. What kind of people are called good mixers / poor mixers / colourful / business-like / level-headed / sympathetic / revengeful / squeamish / vulgar?
4. What traits of character would you appreciate in a mother, father, a bosom friend, a teacher...?
5. What traits of character are required to make a good teacher, a good doctor, a good lawyer, a good journalist? What traits must prevent one from becoming a good specialist in those fields?
III. Translate into English using the topical vocabulary:
1. , , , .
2. , , , .
3. , .
4. , , , .
5. , .
6. , .
7. , , .
8. - , .
9. .
10. , , .
Reading tasks
I. Read the story Who by an American writer Shana Onigman. While reading write out of the text all words and phrases used by the author to characterize two teenagers. Arrange these vocabulary means in the form of a chart.
Of course, she knew of him. Nearly everybody in a class maybe everyone in a school knew of someone like that. And there's at least one in every grade: the notorious ne'er-do-well, headed straight for the streets, goin' nowhere, hated by teachers yes, everyone knew Joe Farone. And it figured, Amy thought to herself resentfully, it figured she would end up working with him. Just her luck.
Health class was mandatory for seniors, and there were no levels like honours or standard groups for health, otherwise she would never have come into contact with him. He, of course, knew of Amy too. Everyone knew a girl like Amy: high class rank, captain of the field hockey team, president of the National Honors Society, band captain, president of the drama club, friendly, pretty, popular, smart, involved, she had it all. And though she was over - worked and always busy, she even had time to go to parties and socialize. Naturally, she would never come into contact with Joe.
When Ms. Grant, the health teacher, called out Amy's and Joe's names to work together on the biography project, Amy thought she detected a hint of amusement in Ms. Grant's voice. She had a right to be amused, Amy thought bitterly, as she glanced distastefully across the room at Joe. His hair was disheveled, his clothes ripped and dirty. He tipped his chair back, his sneakers propped up on the desk, a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, ostensibly in lieu of a cigarette. Amy, sitting almost primly in her chair, her carefully styled hair and clothes the epitome of fashion and neatness, was a total contrast.
"The biographies will be due in three days," Ms. Grant said, "and I want in detail! Interview your partner, talk on the phone, really get to know him or her. Be the psychiatrist: don't be scared to analyze, dig deep. He or she doesn't have to read the report. It doesn't have to be well-written, but it does have to be in-depth. Ask questions and take notes..." Ms. Grant rambled on. Amy didn't listen, she was already scribbling questions to ask Joy. Age? Parents? Siblings? Childhood? How did you get that scar on your face? No, she couldn't ask that last one. Too embarrassing, she thought, crossing it out. This wouldn't be as easy as she thought, but she would do well. No matter how hard the assignment, she usually got an "A" almost effortlessly.
The bell rang abruptly, and Amy started collecting her books. Joe sauntered by her, already pulling out a pack of cigarettes to smoke outside. Amy pretended she didn't see them and tried to be friendly.
"Hey Joe, after school today in the Resource Center, okay?" she called after him with an almost ingratiating smile.
"Yeah, sure," he sneered sarcastically, neither stopping nor turning around. Amy gripped her books, controlling her annoyance, and headed toward her next class.
Amy knew that he wouldn't be in the Resource Center after school, but she passed through anyway, on her way to Ms. Grant's room to tell her she wanted a different partner for the project. But, surprisingly enough, Joy was waiting for her at one of the tables in the corner, smoking unobtrusively. Trying rather unsuccessfully to conceal her disgust, Amy sat down across from him.
"Hi," she said, once again attempting to be friendly. Joy grunted.
"Well, I guess we better get to work," she said brightly, setting down her books and pulling out a sheet of paper. She stared, then, openly repulsed that he was not even responding to her and hadn't yet put out his...
"Oh, is this bothering you?" he moaned, motioning to his cigarette in mock concern.
"Smoking isn't allowed"-
"I'm so sorry, I'll put it out," he continued sarcastically, stubbing it out under his boot, burning a hole in the rug.
She decided to let it go and get this over with as quickly as possible. "Can I ask the questions first?"
Joe shrugged. Amy began with some of the basic questions she had jotted down earlier: name, age, parents, family... he cut her off short.
"Why are you bothering with that?" he interrupted rudely.
"What?" '
"That's not important."
"Who's writing this, me or you?"
Amy, who didn't like being told what to do, was losing patience.
"Well, it's my biography. She wants it in-depth."
"And I'm asking you about"-
"My family and other stupid stuff."
"Well" he said.
"Look, Joe, if you're going to be uncooperative"
"I didn't say that."
They glared at each other, in a stand-off.
"Fine, then," Amy said quietly, "if you're so smart, you ask the questions."
She crumpled up her blank sheet of paper. "Go ahead."
Joe took his feet off the desk, leaned forward across the table, and looked Amy straight in the eye. "Who are you?" he asked simply. Amy drew back involuntarily.
"What do you mean?"
"It's a simple question, Miss Priss. Who are you?"
"Amy Kimball."
"That's your name."
"Age 18."
"That's your age."
"Born April 5, 1975, Aries."
Joe spat contemptuously. "Birthday and sign."
"Well, what do you want?"
"Who are you?" Joe intoned again.
She sat back. "Captain of the field hockey team, band captain, president of National Honors Society, actress"-
"No, those are your activities, stupid."
"Daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend."
"Very clever. Your relationships."
"Well, I don't know what you're asking for!" she nearly shouted.
"Who are you?" Joe asked simply for the fourth time.
Amy stared at him, shook her head, and finally shrugged, defeated. "I don't know," she said meekly.
"You don't know. Well, that's all I need". Joe stood up and turned to leave.
"Wait!" Amy cried. "You don't know anything about me! I mean, I know nothing of you."
"Well, hurry up and ask me, I have a bus to catch."
Frantically, Amy searched for a good question. He wouldn't wait around, she knew, nor would he agree to another interview. He had answered all her previous questions in riddles, or just ignored them.
She had no choice but to use the only question available: his own. "Who are you?" she asked in desperation.
He laughed, bitterly.
"Nobody," he said, "nobody at all." And with that, he left.
Amy didn't bother chasing after him, or even calling his name; it would be useless. She figured that, since he wouldn't be reading the report, she could easily make up a biography about him: she would throw in realistic details about problems at home with his parents, drinking, or not having enough money. As long as she spiced it up but didn't overdo it, she thought she could pull off a good grade.
Joe, sitting on the bus, was doing just that. In his one-page, two-paragraph essay, he gave a synopsis of the tragic story of Amy Kimball, typical overachieving teenager, working so hard doing things she didn't like so her friends would accept her and so she would get into an Ivy League school. He wrote about her inner turmoil, resulting in the fact that although she came from a happy, secure home and had a trauma-free history, her life consisted of school, socializing and after-school activities, and she didn't know who she really was. His 15-minute paper was an inadvertent masterpiece.
Amy, on the other hand, was having a harder time. He was just a worthless nobody, like he said, headed for nowhere, wasn't he? What could she write, she wondered, about someone who didn't do anything but smoke and drink and get in trouble? Amy wrote her phony paper, passed it in, and received a "C-", probably the worst grade she had ever gotten. Joe, on the other hand, passed in his paper, complete with grammatical and spelling errors, and got an "A-", the best grade he had ever gotten. Amy shrugged it off, knowing it was Joe's fault, she would make up for it, and hey, it was only health class. But Joe, even after he dropped out of school to work a month later, never forgot the overachiever who didn't know who she was.
health class the school subject where students are given information about psychology, the healthy way of life, etc.
seniors the last year students of American schools
honors or standard groups students in American schools are divided into groups according to their grades and interests
A the highest grade in American schools
C the satisfactory result
Ivy League the oldest and the most prestigious universities in the USA, situated mostly in New England
II. Substitute the boldface words and phrases in the text by their closest synonyms in English. Use the words and phrases from the text in the sentences of your own.
