English 51
February 10, 2010
Two Sides of the Coin
One day, in my home country Russia, we were talking about an earthquake during our math class. Every student expressed their thoughts and feelings about it, but we would never forget our math professor’s response. His reaction shocked us at first, but which we understood later, had really deep meaning. Our professor, who was an extraordinary person-- his thoughts and answers to any questions were always unique-- responded that way to drive home his point. He started to talk about an earthquake with a delight. He said, “You should be happy when you hear that somewhere an earthquake is happened.” We looked at each other and thought that he lost his mind. He continued, “It is bad when people die and also the destructions after an earthquake, but you also should understand that our planet is still healthy, still alive.” We were in doubt for several minutes. Then he looked at the class and asked, “What is the point of my response?” One of the students raised his hand and said,” The point is if we want to be noticed, we should think differently than others do.” Mr. Sargsyan said that it is not his point. I took a coin from my wallet and stood next to the professor. I showed it to my classmates and said, “The point is that we should see not only the bad sides of what happens in our life but also try to find the good sides, which sometimes may not be easy to do. But looking at two