Shark Valley
Shark Valley … Where were the sharks and the valley? Grass, alligators, birds…they were all there but the sharks were missing in action. Anyways, I may have missed the sharks but I did come away from Shark Valley with two lessons learned. One is that determination pays off and second that it is never too late to try something new.
Fifteen miles sounded like a challenging ride but I figured I could do it. I thought to myself, “you're young and in decent shape it shouldn't be so bad.” Lets just say that the dark sky and threat of rain were an ominous warning of what lay ahead. I jumped on my bike and the first couple of miles went by easily. There were birds to see and alligators to avoid. Then the wind started to take its toll. I felt like I was peddling and going nowhere. The wind was determined to keep me from making any forward motion. Miles started passing slower and slower. The tower, the halfway mark and my refuge, seemed a distant dream. It was frustrating and tiring. I started to empathize with Chaz's character from Skinny Dip . The everglades changed from a place I once liked to one I couldn't wait to get out of. I understood Chaz's eagerness to get home and be comfortable and away from the sweat and labor. Then I realized that I was identifying with a whining, lazy con artist and I straightened myself out. I told myself that the tower wasn't that far away and that if I kept pushing I would be there in no time at all. My mind said keep going but my legs were saying stop right here. Determination to reach my goal carried me to that tower and onto a comfortable bench. After lunch I was feeling rested and my legs were ready to go. The ride back went a little smoother because the wind was not a factor. It no longer teased me as I struggled to move forward. Not even the rain could stop me. I was on a roll and I wasn't going to stop rolling until I reached the end of the trail. It was a challenging ride for me but I was determined to complete it. Needless to say, I have never been so happy to see my car before.
The Jump-Off Creek introduces the reader to the unforgiving Blue Mountains and the harsh pioneer lifestyle with the tale of Lydia Sanderson, a widow who moves west from Pennsylvania to take up residence in a rundown homestead. She and other characters battle nature, finances, and even each other on occasion in a fight for survival in the harsh Oregon wilderness. Although the story is vividly expressed through the use of precise detail and 1800s slang, it failed to give me a reason to care because the characters are depicted as emotionally inhibited.
After looking into the journey and obstacles he faced to scale this dangerous and intimidating mountain, I noticed with each stop at each rest area he had learned something different about himself or established a new outlook about the journey. But it was not until they were in the final leg of the journey in which he learned his greatest lesson about himself. It was during the last leg that he realized he had spent most of the day looking at “how far he had to go,” instead of relishing in “how far he had come.” After stating he normally views things as “the glass half empty” I realized, I too, have a similar outlook on life. It was in this moment that I realized perception has a large impact on how I maneuver throughout life, bringing the popular phrase “mind over matter” to my
Surprisingly, our parents had beaten us to the top and we all stopped in awe, mesmerized by the great waterfall in front of us. My mouth felt like the Sahara desert. I vividly remember reaching for the chilling water bottle that hid underneath the tons of clothes stuffed in my father’s black backpack to quench my thirst. I took off my beaten down shoes and stinky socks covered in dirt from the trail and blood from the blisters on my feet and dove into the refreshing lake. After swimming through the lake for a few seconds, I abruptly jumped out of the freezing water. My toes turned into a blue that reminded me of the blueberry muffins from breakfast that morning. My body shivered as I exited the lake and threw on a warm towel over my shoulders. Gradually my body heat increased, escaping the risk of hypothermia. At that point, I just wanted to go home. My family and I gathered all our belongings and I dragged my energyless body into the large, gray shuttle. The shuttle smelled of sweat from previous passengers. It drove us down a rough, bumpy trail, causing my tall father to constantly slam his head on the roof of the car. After we finally got back to our hotel, we all let off a sigh of
One of the common diseases in the respiratory system that many people around the world face is emphysema or also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is a chronic lung condition where the alveoli or air sacs may be damaged or enlarged resulting in short of breath (Mayo Clinic, 2011). If emphysema is left untreated, it will worsen causing the sphere shaped air sacs to come together making holes and reduce the surface area of the lungs and the amount of oxygen that travels through the bloodstream, blocking the airways of the lungs (Karriem- Norwood, 2012). The most common ways a patient can get emphysema are by cigarette smoking or being exposed to chemicals, dust or air pollutants for a long period of time. Common physical exams reveal a temperature of 100.8 Fahrenheit, 104 beats per minute, a blood pressure of 146/92, and a respiratory rate of 36 breaths per min (Karriem- Norwood, 2012). (see appendix A.1,A.2, A.3, A.4 for complete proof.)
Cheryl Strayed gained strength through the long grieving process from the loss of her mother. The unexpected, horrid journey on the Pacific Crest Trail has changed her character in a way that she can now bear living another day in life; she now is married with two kids. The wilderness taught her how to find her own inner self-actualization. From heroin abuse to multiple sexual encounters, Strayed was finding different paths to feel something within her again; to feel alive. “I get to do this. I get to waste my life. I get to be junk” (Strayed 53). It took strength, motivation and determination to start working extra shifts to save up for the expense of the hiking equipments, to then quit her job, and set out on this “preposterous” journey to hike 1100 miles without realization of what she was really asking for.
...opious evidence suggests that children as well as adults appear to revert to magical thinking when compelled by anxiety-inducing or generally uncontrollable situations. Moreover, there are telling commonalities between the constraints placed on both ordinary and magical causal reasoning that suggest a precedent process is at work behind the scenes of human cognition. Subbotsky ties these similarities together in what is known as the “coexistence model”, wherein scientifically-based causal reasoning is not a usurper of the mind, as has been previously speculated, but merely a later-developed method of reasoning against a submerged background of alternate ways of reasoning. Magical thinking is one such causal reasoning process, and it can be spurred to the forefront as a way for the mind to regain control in distressful situations that threaten the self or selfhood.
In order to make sense of the ambiguous and complicated world we live in we need a way in which to perceive phenomena. For any given event there could be numerous causes, and instinctively we choose the cause of most significance. These causes are generally ones that represents a humanlike agent. As these agents are not always easy to detect - we often assume there is a humanlike agent behind phenomena regardless of whether we can identify their presence. He notes that Wegner and Mar and Marcae propose we are inclined to see agency even in things such a geometric figures or 'abstract non living
We sat down, on the ride, and the warm bars hugged around our chest. . I screamed one million times more than the little kids sitting next to me. The day went on and the sweet winds danced through the air. The excitement of Bailey, I, and the other people grew as we approached the bigger rides. After riding everything, the sky was starting to go to sleep. Because my stomach was in a whirl, I had to face my fear. We were standing in line of the Top Thrill Dragster. When I was standing there I was nervous with big eyes and my jaw wide open it could touch the ground.
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
I looked forward to the journey down that was in front of me. I realized I had been missing something very important. I was so busy looking forward to the culmination of the experience that I wasn’t paying attention to the fantastic adventure I was part of. It was never about peaking The Grand. It was about embracing the experience the best I could be despite what Mother Nature threw at us. Marshall’s enthusiasm motivated me to be the guy that inspires, rather than dampens the experiences in life. And Mother Nature taught me there is more than one path to accomplishment and
For hundreds of years women helped each other to abort their pregnancies. Without legal prohibitions, women in Europe and the United States provided abortions and trained each other to perform the procedures. In the past century different states had begun to outlaw any procedure that would terminate or avoid pregnancy. In 1973(?) the United States Supreme Court asserted a woman's constitutional right to abortion in determining Roe v. Wade. After several decades of quiet disagreement, abortion has once again become a political hotbed. Under the direction of religious fundamentalists and fanatical anti-abortionists, this privacy right is in jeopardy. While both sides present strong arguments, these same positions have already been exhaustively debated and ruled upon by the Supreme Court. To turn back the clock on this issue would discriminate not only against women, but even more so against those in lower socio-economic groups. Therefore, the United States should protect a woman's Constitutional Right to choose.
It was sunny out, but there was a slight breeze blowing the tent around, making it hard to set up. Friday evening was the practice run, where all the riders got the chance to pre-run the course for the race the next day. When the announcer announced that it was my class’ turn to practice my stomach dropped. It felt as if I was going 100 mph and just hit a dip in the road. I felt like it was time to race. I put on my helmet and difficulty strapped the chin strap. It was difficult with my hands trembling. My knees were weak and I felt like I was going to drop my bike when I was starting it. I gave it a good kick and a fair amount of throttle and it fired up. I could instantly smell the fumes of high quality race gas. That seemed to calm me down. I pulled out of the pits and up to the starting line. All of the riders began to start their bikes. The roar of the engines made me nervous. My hands were sweating and my mouth was dry. The official said, “Remember this is just practice, don’t kill yourself.” That relaxed me reminding me that I could just putt around out there having no worries of winning, losing, or most importantly, crashing.
As I inched my way toward the cliff, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the coldness of the rock beneath my feet when my toes curled around the edge in one last futile attempt at survival. My heart was racing like a trapped bird, desperate to escape. Gazing down the sheer drop, I nearly fainted; my entire life flashed before my eyes. I could hear stones breaking free and fiercely tumbling down the hillside, plummeting into the dark abyss of the forbidding black water. The trees began to rapidly close in around me in a suffocating clench, and the piercing screams from my friends did little to ease the pain. The cool breeze felt like needles upon my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. The threatening mountains surrounding me seemed to grow more sinister with each passing moment, I felt myself fighting for air. The hot summer sun began to blacken while misty clouds loomed overhead. Trembling with anxiety, I shut my eyes, murmuring one last pathetic prayer. I gathered my last breath, hoping it would last a lifetime, took a step back and plun...
Natural Disasters can occur anywhere at anytime. Some are more predictable than others, but they all bring hardship to everyone’s life. Examples of natural disasters are Earthquakes (Haiti 2010), Tornadoes, Tsunami, Hurricanes, Wild Fires, Winter Storms, Heat waves, Mudslides and Floods. Regardless of what kind of disaster occurs, bottom line, everyone needs to be prepared mentally and physically to deal with the aftermath. Education is the first step to prepare you to deal with any major disaster. Three of the major disasters that can potentially disrupt normal day to day operations in our lives, are Hurricanes, Tsunamis and Tornadoes.
Sometimes one phase of the emergency management tends to overlap of adjacent phase. The concept of “phases” has been used since the 1930’s to help describe, examine, and understand disasters and to help organize the practice of emergency management. In an article titled Reconsidering the Phases of Disaster, David Neal cites different examples of different researchers using five, six, seven, and up to eight phases long before the four phases became the standard. (Neal 1997) This acknowledges that critical activities frequently cover more than one phase, and the boundaries between phases are seldom precise. Most sources also emphasize that important interrelationships exist among all the ph...