درسنامه دیدگاه

VIP POV - Anger

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to the point-of-view stories for this month’s VIP lesson. Let’s start with the simple past this time.

​

When Tomoe was two years old she started to train as a ninja, but she had a problem.

She was too cute. Her master said “Tomoe, ninjas can’t be cute. They must be scary.

You must learn to be scary.” And so for the next 20 years, Tomoe trained constantly trying to be scary. She practiced scary faces. She practiced yelling in a scary way and, of course, she learned to kill people with one strike, but still she was cute.

Her master said “Go to America. There are many scary people there, learn from them.” And so she went to San Francisco. She met many crazy, insane, scary people and she met one that was very crazy. His name was Allen. He was crazy and he was scary. He said “I’ll teach you, Tomoe.”

So Tomoe trained with him for 10 long years and every day they practiced being crazy and scary, crazy and scary. And after 10 more years Tomoe was still cute, but Allen became cute too. And so Tomoe quit being a ninja and became a comic book writer and she became a very successful comic book writer.

​

All right, now let’s tell this in a more immediate way, in the present.

​

So there’s this little girl and her name is Tomoe. She’s Japanese and she starts to train as a ninja. The problem is she’s cute. She’s too cute to be a ninja. So her master says “Tomoe, ninjas cannot be cute. They must be scary. You must learn to be scary.” And so she trains. Tomoe trains and she trains. She trains every day. She practices making scary faces. She practices yelling in a scary way and she learns to kill people with one strike, but she’s still cute.

She’s still cute and so her master says “Tomoe, go to America. There are many scary people there, learn from them.” She goes to San Francisco and in San Francisco she meets a lot of crazy, insane and scary people. She meets one guy who’s especially crazy and scary and his name is Allen. And Allen says “Tomoe, I will teach you.” And so Tomoe trains with Allen every day and they train for 10 long years.

Every day she practices being crazy and scary, crazy and scary with Allen. They train for 10 years, but still Tomoe is cute and, even worse, she makes Allen cute too. He becomes cute as well. So Tomoe finally decides that she will quit being a ninja. She quits being a ninja and she becomes a comic book writer. In fact, she becomes a very successful comic book writer.

​

And, finally, let’s go, let’s image that we’re dreaming about this happening in the future.

That it’s something we know will happen in the future. Maybe we’re psychic and we know what’s going to happen in the future. So let’s tell it from a different point of view, that…

​

Ten years from now a little girl in Japan will begin training as a ninja. She’ll begin training as a ninja, but she will have a problem. She’s going to be too cute. She’s gonna be too cute. (And, of course, “gonna” means going to. It’s casual English, gonna. Don’t use gonna in writing, but you can use it when you speak.)

So her master is gonna say to Tomoe “Tomoe, ninjas cannot be cute. They must be scary. You must learn to be scary.” And so she’s gonna train for the next 20 years, train to be scary, train to be a scary ninja.

She’ll (she will) practice making scary faces. She’ll practice yelling in a scary way and she’ll practice killing people with one strike. She’ll practice and she’ll practice for a full 20 years and, yet, after that time period she’s still gonna be cute. (She’s going to be cute; gonna be cute.)

So, at this point her master is gonna say “Go to America. There are many scary people there, learn from them.” And she will. She’ll go to San Francisco and in San Francisco she’ll meet a lot of crazy, insane, scary people. In particular, she’ll meet a guy named Allen. He’ll be especially crazy and scary.

And Allen will say to her “I will teach you, Tomoe. Let us train together.” And so for the next 10 years they’re gonna train together. Tomoe is gonna train with Allen. They’re gonna train and train and train every single day for the full 10 years. Every day they’ll train. They’ll practice being crazy. They’ll practice being scary and, yet, after this long 10 year period, Tomoe will still be cute. Even worse, Allen will become cute. He won’t be scary anymore. (He will not be scary anymore.) He won’t be scary anymore. He’ll be cute too.

And so finally, Tomoe is gonna give up. She’s gonna quit. (To “give up” means to quit.) She’s gonna give up. She’s gonna quit being a ninja and instead, she’ll become a comic book writer. In fact, she’ll become a very successful comic book writer.

​

And that is the end of the story of Tomoe, the ninja.