PEOPLE CHANGED

Ex. 9. Read the description of a woman in her past and now:

 

I was quite shocked to see how much a friend of mine had changed when I saw her recently. I first knew her oh... about 20 years ago when we were both about 22 or so. And she was a bright, fun-loving person with long brown hair and hazel-coloured eyes, which were smiling eyes, they were eyes which lit up when you met her and always attracted people to her. And she was a heavyish sort of person, not tall, she was about 5’03” - 5’04”, and she used to wear dresses long, long skirts with flower designs, but I was quiet amazed when I saw her recently to see that she was physically different and she was wearing very different clothes. She was much slimmer, much fitter looking, her eyes of course were still as wonderful sparkling eyes, but their focus was a little bit more serious now and her hair was now short, it was... it had changed colour, it had highlights in it: little streaks of colour and... but it was short. And where she had an all-around sort of almost baby face now it was a much tighter, sharper look. And her clothing, she was wearing jeans and T-shirts and trainers and she said that she most often wore that kind of clothing now. So I was quite surprised how much she’d changed.

 


heavyish - тяжеловатый

to sparkle - сверкать

a streak - прядь, прожилка

tighter - строже, серьезнее


 

Ex. 10. Fill in the table on the text above and describe the woman then and now using the table:

 

Features: Then: Now:

· Face

· Hair

· Build

· Eyes

· Clothing

 

Ex. 11. Read the text:

 

It is strange how much people change. Ionce had a friendwhom I knew from my childhood. When I knew him he was this young hard teenager, concerned with his cool image. And he was terribly skinny, wore tight trousers, had really short hair, which was shaved at the back. He had these big heavy black boots, that he used to wear, and a tough leather jacket. And he always wore the same clothes, he never ever changed, never wore a suit for even a special occasion, or smart trousers.

I think that big change in my friend happened when he went to college. I think his dad persuaded him to go and study there, and he got accepted onto a business course. And from that moment on he really changed drastically: he became interested in the business world, he read newspapers, he watched TV, and he even studied quite hard. He dropped his cool image, and changed physically quite a lot as well, he let his hair grow much longer and he put a bit of weight on him, he started wearing normal clothes: jeans and smart trousers, even more offices sometimes, when he had to go to an interview or meet with people in companies. I think he realised that it was really not enough just looking cool.

 


cool - крутой

skinny - тощий

tough - жесткий

to persuade - убеждать

to put on weight - набирать вес to accept – принимать

drastically - решительно

to drop - бросать, оставлять



Ex. 12. Describe the cool fellow before and after he went to college.