GEP2

Reading & Speaking Portfolio

Full name Trịnh Thị Mười

ID 225046450
Instructor Do Thi Thuy Van, MA
Class: B027
 READING PORTFOLIO
Story 2: THE UNEXPECTED
It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected.
The tendency of the individual life is to be static rather than
dynamic, and this tendency is made into a propulsion by
civilization, where the obvious only is seen, and the
unexpected rarely happens. When the unexpected does
happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently grave import,
the unfit perish. They do not see what is not obvious, are
unable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting
their well-grooved lives to other and strange grooves. In
short, when they come to the end of their own groove, they
die.
On the other hand, there are those that make toward
survival, the fit individuals who escape from the rule of the
obvious and the expected and adjust their lives to no matter
what strange grooves they may stray into, or into which
they may be forced. Such an individual was Edith
Whittlesey. She was born in a rural district of England, where
life proceeds by rule of thumb and the unexpected is so
very unexpected that when it happens it is looked upon as
an immorality. She went into service early, and while yet a
young woman, by rule-of-thumb progression, she became a
lady’s maid.
The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon
environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity.
The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen.
One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost;
while death, instead of stalking about grewsome and
accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along
a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are
kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept
continually away.
Such was the environment of Edith Whittlesey. Nothing
happened. It could scarcely be called a happening, when, at
the age of twenty-five, she accompanied her mistress on a
bit of travel to the United States. The groove merely
changed its direction. It was still the same groove and well
oiled. It was a groove that bridged the Atlantic with
uneventfulness, so that the ship was not a ship in the midst
of the sea, but a capacious, many-corridored hotel that
moved swiftly and placidly, crushing the waves into
submission with its colossal bulk until the sea was a millpond, monotonous with quietude. And at the
other side the
groove continued on over the land—a well-disposed,
respectable groove that supplied hotels at every stoppingplace, and hotels on wheels between the
stopping-places.
In Chicago, while her mistress saw one side of social life,
Edith Whittlesey saw another side; and when she left her
lady’s service and became Edith Nelson, she betrayed,
perhaps faintly, her ability to grapple with the unexpected
and to master it. Hans Nelson, immigrant, Swede by birth
and carpenter by occupation, had in him that Teutonic
unrest that drives the race ever westward on its great
adventure. He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in
whom little imagination was coupled with immense
initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty and affection
as sturdy as his own strength.
“When I have worked hard and saved me some money, I will
go to Colorado,” he had told Edith on the day after their
wedding. A year later they were in Colorado, where Hans
Nelson saw his first mining and caught the mining-fever
himself. His prospecting led him through the Dakotas, Idaho,
and eastern Oregon, and on into the mountains of British
Columbia. In camp and on trail, Edith Nelson was always
with him, sharing his luck, his hardship, and his toil. The
short step of the house-reared woman she exchanged for
the long stride of the mountaineer. She learned to look upon
danger clear-eyed and with understanding, losing forever
that panic fear which is bred of ignorance and which afflicts
the city-reared, making them as silly as silly horses, so that
they await fate in frozen horror instead of grappling with it,
or stampede in blind self-destroying terror which clutters the
way with their crushed carcasses.
Edith Nelson met the unexpected at every turn of the trail,
and she trained her vision so that she saw in the landscape,
not the obvious, but the concealed. She, who had never
cooked in her life, learned to make bread without the
mediation of hops, yeast, or baking-powder, and to bake
bread, top and bottom, in a frying-pan before an open fire.
And when the last cup of flour was gone and the last rind of
bacon, she was able to rise to the occasion, and of
moccasins and the softer-tanned bits of leather in the outfit
to make a grub-stake substitute that somehow held a man’s
soul in his body and enabled him to stagger on. She learned
to pack a horse as well as a man,—a task to break the heart
and the pride of any city-dweller, and she knew how to
throw the hitch best suited for any particular kind of pack.
Also, she could build a fire of wet wood in a downpour of
rain and not lose her temper. In short, in all its guises she
mastered the unexpected. But the Great Unexpected was
yet to come into her life and put its test upon her.
The gold-seeking tide was flooding northward into Alaska,
and it was inevitable that Hans Nelson and his wife should
he caught up by the stream and swept toward the Klondike.
The fall of 1897 found them at Dyea, but without the money
to carry an outfit across Chilcoot Pass and float it down to
Dawson. So Hans Nelson worked at his trade that winter and
helped rear the mushroom outfitting-town of Skaguay.
*Note: Highlight the words you choose to learn and put them in the table below.

No. Word/Phrase PoS Meaning Sentence

1 the obvious adj Rõ ràng Obviously that's true!
2 The tendency N Xu hướng People the tendency to follow trends
3 the individual n Cá nhân
4 a propulsion v Một lực đẩy I was sitting and suddenly there was a
propulsion from behind
5 civilization n Nền văn minh
6 grave n Phần mộ
7 the unexpected N Điều bất ngờ I'm unexpected at what you've done
8 Incapable of Adj Không thể I incapble of tell what you're thinking
9 well-grooved n Có rãnh
10 the expected n Dự kiến
11 rural adj Thuộc nông There are many provinces that are still in
thôn poor rural areas
12 life proceeds n Cuộc sống tiến
hành
13 an immorality adj Vô đạo đức He lives undisciplined and an immorality
14 rule-of-thumb adj Quy tắc ngón
progression tay cái
15 machine-like n Giống máy
16 regularity. n Sự đều đặn
17 a prearranged n Một cuộc thi
pageant được sắp đặt
trước
18 a well-oiled n Dầu tốt
19 vault n vòm
20 accompanied v Đi với một ai I must ask you to accompany me to the
đó police station
21 direction n Sự điều khiển The art or action of musical or theatrical
directing.
22 uneventfulness n Không yên ổn
23 a capacious N Một năng lực
 24 many- N Nhiều hành
corridored lang
25 submission V Nộp hồ sơ I submission for a job in a big company
26 a millpond N Một triệu ao
27 the land—a V Đất được xử lí The soil here has been heavily polluted
well-disposed tốt but
the land—a well-disposed
28 perhaps faintly N Có lẽ yếu ớt
29 immigrant V Di trú
30 carpenter N Thợ mộc
31 occupation, N Nghề nghiệp His occupation is farming
32 large-muscled N Cơ bắp to
33 the house- N Ngôi nhà nuôi
reared
34 self-destroying Adj Tự hủy hoại
35 baking-powder N Bột nở I need baking powder to make this cake
36 frying-pan N Chảo rán
37 the softer- Adj Da rám nắng
tanned
38 city-dweller N Người dân city-dweller have a different lifestyle than
thành phố rural people
39 outfitting-town N Trang phục thị
trấn

the passage about unwanted problems is simple. when they reach the trench they will die. on the contrary,
those who aim to live a positive life such as Edith Whittlessey in the end she was a lady's maid. After that,
she learned how to make bread, make a fire with wet wood…. in all its guises, she masters the unexpecte
 SPEAKING PORTFOLIO
[Your name and your partner’s name]
Link to conversation 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHFANnSDXruEtARchimlzysUpymNYXR_/view?usp=sharing
Note: Use public links. No access, no point.
Script of Conversation 1
Link to conversation 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHFANnSDXruEtARchimlzysUpymNYXR_/view?usp=sharing
Note: Use public links. No access, no point.
Script of Conversation 2
Link to conversation 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHFANnSDXruEtARchimlzysUpymNYXR_/view?usp=sharing
Note: Use public links. No access, no point.
Script of Conversation 3