Getting a job done Essay -- essays research papers

Getting a Job From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings My room had all the cheeriness of a dungeon and the appeal of a tomb. It was going to be impossible to stay there, but leaving held no attraction for me, either†¦. The answer came to me with the suddenness of a collision. I would go to work. Mother wouldn’t be difficult to convince; after all, in school I was a year ahead of my grade and mother was a firm believer in self-sufficiency. In fact, she’d be pleased to think that I had that much gumption, that much of her in my character. (she liked to speak of herself as the original â€Å"do-it-yourself girl.†) Once I had settled on getting a job, all that remained was to decide which kind of job I was most fitted for. My intellectual pride had kept me from selecting typing, shorthand, or filing as subjects in school, so office work was ruled out. War plants and shipyards demanded birth certificates, and mine would reveal me to be fifteen, and ineligible for work. So the well-paying defense jobs were also out. Women had replaced men on the streetcars as conductors and motormen, and the thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy. Mother was as easy as I had anticipated. The world was moving so fast, so much money was being made, so many people were dying in Guam, and Germany, that hordes of strangers became good friends overnight. Life was cheap and death entirely free. How could she have the time to think about my academic career? To her question of what I planned to do, I replied that I would get a job on the streetcars. She rejected the proposal with: â€Å"they don’t accept colored people on streetcars.† I would like to claim an immediate fury which was followed by the noble determination to break the restricting tradition. But the truth is, my first reaction was one of disappointment. I’d pictured myself, dressed in a neat blue serge suit, my money changer swinging jauntily at my waist, and a cheery smile for the passengers which would make their own work day brighter. From disappointment, I gradually ascended the emotion ladder to haughty indignation, and finally to the state of stubbornness where the mind is blocked like the jaws of an enraged bulldog. I would go to work on the streetcars and wear a blue serge suit. Mother gave me her support with one of her usual terse asid... ...ouble when you pack double.† She stayed awake to drive me out to the car barn at four thirty in the mornings, or to pick me up when I was relieved just before dawn. Her awareness of life’s perils convinced her that while I would be safe on the public conveyances, she â€Å"wasn’t about to trust a taxi driver with her baby.† When the spring classes began, I resumed my commitment with formal education. I was so much wiser and older, so much more independent, with a bank account and clothes that I had bought for myself, that I was sure that I had learned and earned the magic formula which would make me a part of the gay life my contemporaries led. Not a bit of it. Within weeks, I realized that my schoolmates and I were on paths moving diametrically away from each other. They were concerned and excited over the approaching football games, but I had in my immediate past raced a car down a dark and foreign Mexican mountain. They concentrated great interest on who was worthy of being student body president, and when the metal bands would be removed from their teeth, while I remembered sleeping for a month in a wrecked automobile and conducting a streetcar in the uneven hours of the morning.

Kubler Ross Essay

After reading Kubler-Ross’s On Life after Death, I must say, it’s definitely opened my eyes to a new perspective, and made me realize, that I too, will leave this earth one day. Kubler-Ross was the first in her playing field to open up the subject matter of death. She was able to bring about her ways of ideas through her seminars on what life, death, and transition is. In her counseling of and research on dying patients, Kubler-Ross brings about five stages of dying that an individual experiences when they leave their cocoon. These five stages are denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I think many different individuals can benefit from reading this book, no matter who you are and no matter what your profession is. In this book, Kubler-Ross has mini chapters that are basically a discussion with patients and clients to express the key issues surrounding their illness, where some of the patients know they are certain they will die, and this is where Kubler-Ross exercises one to one therapy to assist throughout the process. A few different topics come up throughout the book about incurably sick patients, near death experiences, and incomplete business. I remember when my grandma passed away, prior to her dying, she’d been through several open heart surgeries, a leg amputation, Parkinson’s disease, and a tremendous amount of stress. Everyone in the family observed and just watched my grandma as she went through Kubler-Ross’s stages. Before something else would arise with my grandma, you can just tell she was in denial about whatever was next to happen. Everyone in the family was very down and out, especially my mom, and she was the strongest one and was the one to take care of my grandmas the most. But she would never let my grandma see her upset; she’d wait until she got home before she cried. Kubler-Ross mentions that it is usually a temporary guard and will eventually be able to reach the stage of acceptance (p. 21). Kubler-Ross points out that when you are angry, it can’t really be sugar coated. And when you have an upset or angry individual in a family, it will make its rounds and the mood will just linger amongst those that are there. During this time it’s important to be very liberal to the way others feel. The process of being open-minded to others will aid in expressing the wishes of the dying patient. I now understand that in more cases than not, the rationale for dying is connected with bargaining for more time. Bargaining, which is one of Kubler-Ross’s (5) stages, is when the individual thinks that if they would have done something differently, God would have given him/her more time to live. I feel we can learn a lot from this section in our day-to-day lives. We all ask ourselves if only and if we are struck with an illness, would we fight for the time we have and try to make it worthwhile. If we did not live with such suffering, like my grandmother had, we may lead different lives. The ways each person individually lives him/her life may be focused on materialistic values or it can be of faith in who we are and faith in God. I do believe that when any individual comes into contact with going through someone passing, it’s ok to be upset, and it’s expected for one to suffer from a heightened state of depression. As human beings, we can make a decision to let that depression take charge of us, or we can choose to accept death. To resolve most conflicts in our lives when we are dying is when we are able to accept the unavoidable events that transpire. It’s very important to be able to come to some terms of agreement with events that happen in our lives not just when death occurs, but also in our day to day lives in this world. If nothing is absorbed in one’s mind after reading these short essays in this book, you will learn to take what each day brings as a new day starts, and to live for the moment. My mom always tells me to not take things for granite, be grateful, because we never know when it’s our time to go, and that God brought us into this world, and he can take you out. I think this book mentions several personal stories, which is a good thing because whoever is reading the book has the ability to identify with the experiences. The book gives you an opportunity to become stronger reading about others experiences as you go through unforeseen events in your own life. One example from the book is the mother whose husband left her with the needy children, and she struggled with the word â€Å"retarded†, and tried to understand the purpose of having a child that was like a vegetable. She goes through several stages with God, and then finds a true meaning to have the child. She identifies herself with her child and talks to her godmother, and she writes a poem, titled â€Å"To My Godmother† (p. 23). The poems express the mother’s feelings of acceptance and her will to continue with her life even though she had a very needy child. An individual that is experiencing similar experiences may read this book and feel comforted in reading the poem, knowing that if someone else could show such strength and hope during hardship then they can as well. These readings clearly can be therapeutic to clients who are  experiencing and dealing with these issues in their own lives. However, this book presents a weakness in that Kubler-Ross can at times display a mixed tone that may come across as her showing more empathy in one story and more clinical in others. I think this book can be woven into psychotherapy a few different ways. The therapist could implement different parts of the book as reflection exercises for clients. Some experiences shared in this book can help clients gain insight into their feelings as they face dying either themselves or through some else’s experience. As mentioned previously, this book will have you taking one day at a time, and dealing with what each day brings as it comes. Kubler-Ross was an innovator in her field and opened the doors to communicating about death. I learned that death is a process and mostly filled with grief, and when loved ones are suffering from an illness, or whatever the case may be, we need to be aware of Kubler-Ross’s five stages as the individual goes through them, and think about how it is going to have an effect on us in the process.

Nationalism and Sectionalism in America During the Late...

America was founded by multiple states, from different regions and subsequently different styles of life, which made the possibility of their union unstable and uncertain. But, because they were united by a common goal- to break free of Britain’s despotic sovereignty- the American colonies were able to win their independence from Britain and become the United States of America. This dichotomy between the states’ different styles of life and their shared goal laid the foundation for the forces of nationalism and sectionalism in the US. The two opposing forces worked hand-in-hand to manipulate Americans’ views of one another and the American political and economic systems, though the force of sectionalism outweighed the force of nationalism†¦show more content†¦However, the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War, increased sectionalism in the US because it did not resolve the impressment of American sailors, which was one of the main causes of the war. Overa ll, the War of 1812 was a huge proponent of nationalism in the US, and that nationalistic feeling carried over into the Era of Good Feelings, bringing about a shift in politics as well as Americans’ national identity. The Era of Good Feelings was a product of and contributed to the force of nationalism in America, characterized by many changes in America’s politics and internal affairs. The Federalist Party disintegrated because of the widespread criticism of the Hartford Convention during and after the War of 1812, making the Democratic-Republican Party the only political party. This meant that the old party animosities and tension would disappear, and there would be less political sectionalism in the government. The Democratic-Republicans underwent changes as well, like their party policies. The party became focused on obtaining a monopoly of government patronage, using fundraisers and events to gain support from the people. During this era, there was an increase in internal improvements, as seen with the American System, an economic plan that consisted of three parts. The first part was a tariff that would protect and promote American industry, known as the â€Å"Tariff of Abominationsà ¢â‚¬  by the Southern states, who were inconvenienced by the tariff. The