Eulogy for Friend
The last time I saw my friend Kevin, was at his wedding in 1997. He was always a late bloomer, (Kevin had been the last of my friends to date), and we were all delighted to see him married for the first time at 44. After years of delay and false starts, his marriage to Diana gave us all the sense that he was finally on his way.
I remember the first time I saw him, entering my second grade class, gangly even then, all arms and legs and elbows akimbo. Years later, those elbows became sharp weapons as we played basketball for hours on end. Son of an Irish-American father and a mother who was the daughter of a Peruvian diplomat, he immediately taught us to chant, "Long live the Irish-Peruvians!"
Kevin was always quick with words. His wit, as Mercutio said, was "most sharp sauce." He used words to make us laugh or to cut us down to size, and as we entered our high school years he became the powerful giver of names. The nicknames he chose for us – like Z-man, Lulu, Summ-ador, Moinbo, Zip, Pooch, and UD helped to populate our black-and-white world with colorful characters. Even his first car – a sky-blue-pink VW fastback – had a nickname: Jezebel, given in recognition of its shameless unreliability. And Kevin became the most interesting figure of us all after he invented the character of Capt. Quixtus Spoon. Captain Spoon was the central figure in a poem that Kevin wrote, and ultimately Kevin became "Spoon" to us.
Kevin was our resident "author" and all of us were confident that one day he would become a famous writer. He was also our resident activity director, (his earliest forays into directing); he organized our playtime as he became the informal leader of what he dubbed the "LSA" (the Landing Sports A...
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..., it was too unreal to comprehend. His humor, which was often irreverent and edgy, would have found his end both tragic and bizarre, exactly the kind of mix he might have included in one of his stories or screenplays. A random moment, caused by the "conceit of old age," as one of our friends called it, left nine former people, including my friend and his wife, strewn, like so much produce, on the bloody pavement.
Kevin always had a charming child-like sweetness – his fifty years seemed more like a beginning than a middle; and he was certainly not ready to be at the end. While this final journey for Captain Spoon came too soon, Kevin and Diana were living their dream – fulfilling their quest to create stories together. Their story was brief, but a joy to all who knew them.
Life's parade goes on, but the world is a lesser place without Kevin and his love Diana.
To begin, the past plays a huge role in Kevin’s life. Kevin Coulson is returning to his hometown. He lived in New York City where he studied Psychiatry but where he lives now is a mystery but now he doesn’t want to be a psychiatrist. “You know the saying, psychiatrists are nutty…” said Mrs. Kittredge. (Page 37, Strout) Why would he want to be in the city helping many people with their problems, but deep inside he’s
When Kevin sees his father dying in the woods and is overcome with grief, he begins to forget a...
Traditionally Kevin, his Father, Gary Hazen, and his brother, Gary David, all go out on the first hunt together at two in the morning after a breakfast of homemade pancakes, but this year is different. Kevin wants to break free from the life of his family and doesn't want to go on the hunt with his father and brother. He can't comprehend why his father is so set in his ways and Kevin doesn’t want to live his father's life. Gary is a forester and finds it important to work hard to most provide for his family and to conserve nature. Kevin, like most kids, doesn’t understand his fathers way of thinking, and wants to live his own life. A life away from Lost Lake. Kevin attempts to break free of his fathers lifestyle by attending a nearby college, in hopes to eventually become teacher. Gary isn't happy with his son's decision to go to school and Kevin can't understand his fathers views, which causes the two to butt heads throughout the novel. But a tragic accident suddenly leaves Kevin fighting for his and his fathers lives. Having to use the knowledge and skills that his father had taught Kevin suddenly suddenly realizes his dad was right after all.
After the 5 years of being apart from Dana, Kevin finally gets the letter that Dana has come back to get him. He was happy to find Dana on the Weylin's Farm and he tries to get away with her so they can leave the negative experiences behind them. When they try to get away, Rufus comes with a gun and tries to force Kevin into giving up Dana, so he could take her as a slave. Kevin didn't want to give up without a fight so he begins to become possessive of Dana. “Kevin stared at him. Until Rufus began to look uncomfortable instead of indignant.” (Kindred,185). Kevin changes from kind to possessive because he sees the way Rufus looks at Dana the same way he looks at Alice. Kevin understands that Rufus would do anything to keep Dana with him, so he must be possessive in order to keep Rufus in check. When Kevin comes back to the present, he does not come back the same. He has a Southern accent and he doesn't seem to remember how to use technology. He seems to be angry with himself because he struggles to get back into the present. When Dana tries to help him ease his way back into the present, he snaps and glares as at her which is something he had never done to Dana. “He stopped, glaring at me... The expression on his face was like... something I was used to seeing on Tom Weylin” (Kindred,194). In the five years, Kevin was in the antebellum south, he could have adopted the ways of the racist slave owners as he did the southern accent. Kevin is already showing their racist ways when he glares at Dana when she tries to help him, His action was like a white person to a black person in the Antebellum South. The experience negatively impacts Dana and Kevin because Kevin is not the same and kind man he was when Dana married him. Kevin comes back to the present as a stranger living with Dana because she doesn't
The legal and historical rationale of Bilingual Education has been around for quite some time and appears to a continuous issue with educators and political figures. Numerous articles have been written in favor and against Bilingual Education. The articles I read and summarized relate to some of the issues that have evolved from various proponents and opponents of how education should be presented to ELs in the United States. Summaries and a brief timeline of legislation up to the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) follow.
The Civil Rights era fostered a rejuvenation of the movement toward bilingual education. Amid with the desire of the nation to eliminate discrimination, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 came into being. Certainly this act was at least in part the result of a growing num...
Policy in the United States towards foreign languages has long been a complicated process. The nation was founded by polyglot immigrants and welcomed, to varying degrees, many subsequent waves of immigrants speaking languages familiar and foreign. Most immigrants learned English and despite efforts to maintain their mother tongue, the “permissiveness and apathy” of American society towards second languages allowed the gradual erosion of many mother tongues. English, although the common language in schools, the courts, government, and the business community in the United States, is not the official language of our country. This fact juxtaposes paradoxically with the necessity of speaking English for success in our society, and the dying out of many languages native to immigrants after the third generation. Since no official policy at the federal level governs the official language of the United States, nor the teaching of foreign languages until after the Second World War, language education in the U.S. remained a patchwork of local policies.
This essay will consist of two analyses of significant legislations. One is the reauthorization of 1994 regarding the Bilingual Education Act (BEA). Two is Title III or English Language Acquisition Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement Act. The three states discussed in this essay regarding English language learner issues are California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. However, these three states share the anti-bilingual education law. California enacted the law in 1998. Arizona initiated the law in 2000. Massachusetts approved by legislature the law in 2002. This essay will also discuss the comparisons with the anti-bilingual law passed in these three states, explanation of challenges with the anti-bilingual law in the three states and an explanation of the benefits of the anti-bilingual law in the three states.
... against whatever obstacles, to live it, and not to give up any particle of it without a fight to the death, preferably not her own. And that this existence, in fact the years in American had created them One Life (Meridian, pg.204).
Sheltered instruction: An empowerment framework for English language learners by Helen Abadiano and Jesse Turner discuss the movement in the early 1900s to develop standards for bilingual education in response to “Goals 2000: Educate America Act” along with other legislation designed to promote higher expectations in academia for all students (Abadiano & Turner, 2003). Abadiano and Turner note that English as a Second Language (ESL) in not listed as one of the federal designated content areas included for standard development. Federal legislation went so far as to imply that English Language Arts would address the needs of ELL students, and that the content standard changes were meant to help all students. The number of students form diverse culture and linguistic backgrounds is increasing and in response to this increase and lack of federal expectations the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) created a taskforce to not only monitor the reform efforts but to encourage “professional groups working on content area standards to address the needs of ELLs. This led to the pursuance of the development of standards for English as a second language. The ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students was published in 1997” (Abadiano & Turner, 2003). Abadiano and Turner also discuss Sheltered Instruction and Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. It is accepted that Sheltered Instruction is an effective method of ELL instruction but the problem lies in what is considered effective sheltered lessons. This inability to come to a conscience “led the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE) to embar...
I would like to thank you all for coming to Arlyn's funeral. I am truly touched that you care enough to show your support for us and your respect for Arlyn this way.
Crawford , James, Bilingual Education : History , Politics , Theory and Practice Crane Publishing Company, New Jersey, 1989 (39) Hardy, Terri, Daily News 147Bilingual grads surpass native peers on test148 June 22, 1998 (front page)
The movie was built from the numerous complications throughout the film, but has two main points of complication that made the story of the movie how it is. Although the focus of the movie is about Kevin, the movie first crucial complication of the McCallister family waking up late for their trip to Paris played a big role for the plot. The family did not realize that Kevin was still asleep in the third floor in the midst of chaos to get to the airport before the flight departs. When Kevin’s oldest sister did a head count, a neighbor boy was present during the count and is mistaken for being Kevin. This first complication is what led to everything else that happened the way it did in the film. If it wasn’t for the family waking up late and forgetting about Kevin, the...
The United States Education System is unique in international comparison because of its goal to ensure that every student receives a high-quality education. It tackles a wide range of major issues to guarantee that every child receives the same educational opportunities, but none have been more challenging than the issue of language barriers. In the United States alone, English language learners are considered to be “one of the fastest-growing populations within the educational system” (Elsworth). The government, state education boards, public/private schools, teachers, parents, and students face the difficult obstacles that language barriers have set. To help minimize the effects of language barriers
Before I begin I would like to thank all of you here on behalf of my mother, my brother and myself, for your efforts large and small to be here today, to help us mark my fathers passing.