[00:00.00] How do some women manage to combine a full-time job with family responsibilities and still find time for doing other things?

[00:08.72]Adrienne Popper longs to be like them, but wonders whether it is an impossible dream.

[00:15.49]I'M GOING TO BUY THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE Adrienne Popper

[00:20.61]Not long ago I received an alumni bulletin from my college. It included a brief item about a former classmate:

[00:30.04]"Kate L. teaches part-time at the University of Oklahoma and is assistant principal at County High School.

[00:38.71]In her spare time she is finishing her doctoral dissertation and the final drafts of two books,

[00:47.12]and she still has time for tennis and horse riding with her daughters.

[00:52.40]" Four words in that description undid me: in her spare time. A friend said that

[01:02.07]if I believed everything in the report, she had a bridge in Brooklyn she'd like to sell me.

[01:08.21]My friend's joke hit home. What an idiot I'd been!

[01:13.22]I resolved to stop thinking about Kate's incredible accomplishments

[01:18.18]and to be suitably skeptical of such stories in the future.

[01:22.91]But like a dieter who devours a whole box of cookies in a moment of weakness,

[01:28.89]I found my resolve slipping occasionally. In weak moments I'd comb the pages of newspapers and magazines

[01:37.75]And consume success stories by the pound:

[01:41.88]My favorite superwomen included a politician's daughter who cared for her two-year-old and a newborn

[01:49.82]while finishing law school and managing a company; a practicing pediatrician with ten children of her own;

[01:58.99]and a television anchorwoman, mother of two preschoolers, who was studying for a master's degree.

[02:07.14]One day, however, I actually met a superwoman face to face. Just before Christmas last year,

[02:15.08]my work took me to the office of a woman executive of a national corporation.

[02:21.19]Like her supersisters, she has a hus- band, two small children and, according to reports,

[02:28.40]a spotless apartment. Her life runs as precisely as a Swiss watch. Since my own schedule rarely succeeds,

[02:38.41]her accomplishments fill me with equal amounts of wonder and guilt

[02:43.66]On a shelf behind her desk that day were at least a hundred jars of strawberry jam,

[02:49.93]gaily fled with red-checked ribbons. The executive and her children had made the jam and decorated the jars,

[02:59.51]which she planned to distribute to her staffand visiting clients.

[03:04.69]When, I wondered aloud, had she found the time to complete such an impressive holiday project?

[03:12.05]I should have known better than to ask. The answer had a familiar ring: in her spare time.

[03:20.20]On the train ride home I sat with ajar of strawberry jam in my lap. It reproached me the entire trip.

[03:29.68]Other women, it seemed to say, are movers and shakers-- not only during office hours,

[03:37.18]but in their spare time as well. What, it asked, do you accomplish inyour spare time?

[03:45.57]I would like to report that I am using my extra moments to complete postdoctoral studies in physics,

[03:53.20]to develop new theories of tonal harmony for piano and horn,

[03:58.42]and to bake cakes and play baseball with my sons. The truth of the matter is,

[04:06.31]however, that I am by nature completely unable to get my act together.

[04:11.66]No matter how carefully I plan my time, the plan always goes wrong.

[04:17.80]If I create schedules of military precision in which several afternoon hours

[04:23.71]are given over to the writing of the Great American Novel, the school nurse is sure to phone at exactly the moment

[04:32.22]I put pencil to paper. One of my children will have developed a strange illness

[04:39.67]that requires him to spend the remainder of the day in bed,

[04:43.74]calling me at frequent intervals to bring soup, juice, and tea.

[04:49.04]Other days, every item on my schedule will take three times the num- ber of minutes set aside.

[04:56.28]The cleaner will misplace my clothes. My order won't be ready at the butcher shop as promised.

[05:04.54]The woman ahead of me in the supermarket line will pay for her groceries with a check drawn

[05:11.07]on a Martian bank, and only the manager (who has just left for lunch) can OK the matter.

[05:19.29]"They also serve who only stand and wait," wrote the poet John Milton,

[05:25.36]but he forgot to add that they don't get to be superwomen that way.

[05:30.92]Racing the clock every day is such an exhausting effort that when I actually have a few free moments,

[05:38.26]I tend to collapse. Mostly I sink into a chair and stare into space while I imagine how lovely life would be

[05:46.75]if only I possessed the organizational skills and the energy of my superheroines. In fact,

[05:55.11]I waste a good deal of my spare time just worrying about what other women are accomplishing in theirs.

[06:02.58]Sometimes I think that these modern fairy tales create as many problems for women

[06:08.77]as the old stories that had us biding our time for the day our prince would come2.

[06:15.51]Yet superwomen tales continue to charm me. Despite my friend's warning against being taken in,

[06:24.10]despite everything I've learned, I find that I'm not only willing,

[06:30.97]but positively eager to buy that bridge she mentioned. Why?

[06:36.72]I suppose it has something to do with the appeal of an optimistic approach to life

[06:42.86]and the fact that extraordinary deeds have been accom- plished by determined individuals

[06:49.97]who refused to believe that "you can't" was the final word on their dreams.

[06:56.52]Men have generally been assured that achieving their heart's desires would be a piece of cake.

[07:02.48]Women, of course, have always believed that we can't have our cake and eat it too -- the old low-dream diett .

[07:12.61]Perhaps becoming a superwoman is an impossible dream for me,

[07:17.68]but life without that kind of fantasy is as unappealing as a diet with no treats.

[07:24.50]I know the idea of admiring a heroine is considered silly today;

[07:29.72]we working women are too sophisticated for that. Yet the superwomen I read about are my heroines.

[07:38.08]When my faith in myself falters,it is they who urge me on, whispering, "Go for it, lady !"

[07:46.39]One of these days I plan to phone my former classmate Kate

[07:51.25]and shout "Well done !" into the receiver. I hope she won't be modest about her achievements.

[07:58.41]Perhaps she will have completed her dissertation and her two books

[08:04.02]and moved on to some new work that's exciting or dangerous or both. I'd like to hear all about it.

[08:13.69]After that I'm going to phone the friend who laughed at me for believing all the stories I hear.

[08:20.85]Then I'll tell her a story: the tale of a woman

[08:24.92]who bought her own version of that bridge in Brooklyn and found that it was a wise investment after all.

[08:32.55]Language Sense Enhancement

[08:34.98]2 Read aloud the following poem

[08:38.79]I Look At Myself In The Mirror Jacki

[08:44.09]I look at myself in the mirror,and what do I really see?A woman of forty-seven,or the true essence of me?

[08:55.09]I can see me in my twenties,the mother of children galore,and there is me in my thirties,scarred by the loss that I bore

[09:06.51]And there is me in my forties,older now,tolerant and wise marked by love and affection,and bags under my eyes

[09:18.11]So yes that's me in the mirror,me,as the person I am,and if I'm no more than an image,none of it matters a dam!

[09:30.04]3 Read the following quotations.Learn them by heart if you can.You might need to look up new words in a dictionary.

[09:40.02]One is not born a woman,one becomes one. Simon de Beauvoir

[09:49.22]There is no female mind.The brain is not an organ of sex.As well speak of a female liver. Chalotte Peerkins Gilman

[10:02.85]What is a woman I assure you, I do not know I do not believe that anybody can know

[10:12.05]until she expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to humar skill. Virqinia Woolf

[10:21.85]Men always want to be a woman's first love.

[10:27.77]Women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance. Oscar Wilde

[10:39.56]4 Read the following humorous story for fun. You might need to look up new words in a dictionary

[10:49.56]My wife and her friend Raren were talking about their labor-saving devices as they pulled into our driveway.

[10:59.25]Karen said, "1 love my new garage-door opener."!I love mine too," my wife reprled;