As another bank statement slipped through under my brown antique door, my body filled with dread. I sat petrified at my desk as the never-ending replays of an unwanted memory, mindlessly crept back into consciousness. I drifted back to when I was twelve and in debt of two and a half thousand dollars with three days to return this sum. The terror of what would happen if failure prevailed saturated my mind. The familiar sound of her voice. The familiar sound of bones breaking. As I pondered over my dilemma, my mind turned to unacceptable ways like prostitution and drug dealing. Perhaps even suicide. Eventually, I reached the heartbreaking decision of pawning what few assets I had to a pawn shop. My trembling body staggered to the tattered phone book. As I scanned for the list of pawnshops, the page seemed to flip itself to the pawnbrokers section instantaneously. It lit up at me with "fast cash", "instant $", "TV’s, jewellery". It all seemed so easy. My heart started to ease and I felt some tension exit my body. It answered all my problems. And so I began. I began hauling everything that was worth anything. I took all my sentimentally valued jewellery, my beloved iPod, my cellular phone, my computer and my only form of transport, a bicycle and headed off to "Fast Cash loanz" in Onehunga one dark December evening. As I sauntered into the store, I had never felt more alone, more vulnerable in my life. I was here, in a pawnshop, doing something a twelve year old child should never have to do. I walked into this place, a world lit by laptop screens and high definition televisions; they stared back at me instead of the sun. My eyelids twitched as my eyes attempted to adjust to this surreal place. The items cradled protectively in m... ... middle of paper ... ...ly, the feathers were bloody and messed. She too, had to fight for the right to live. I stroked her wing gently as she gave a gentle coo before flying away. With the weight of the world weighing me down more than my possessions on my back and little less than 48 hours to the deadline, I prepared once again for the most demeaning, dignity-stripping experience of my life. Life is a game of cards, and some of the cards I was dealt with during my childhood were unbearable, but after being so low and lived life at the street level, the winds of change have started to blow, as I opened the bank statement, and let go a heavy sigh of relief as a pleasing amount in my balance stared back at me. No longer did I have a void in my heart that kept growing each time I sold a piece of my life a way. Scraping past starvation was no longer all I had to live for. I did not break.
“…we’ll both claim we want to die. But we’ll mean: Please someone convince us to stick around… Because last night, we stood on top of fourteen floors of suffering—from the maternity to the morgue. Hundreds of bed buckling beneath the weight of legitimate illness, thousands of plastic sacks of donated blood—we stood above all of it and did not leap” (38). The meaningful words of Eireann Corrigan speak volumes about her past experience growing up with an eating disorder. In her memoir she highlights many ideas of how she felt through not only her experiences, but also those of her boyfriend, Danny. The various poetic devices present within the story come together to create a deep and meaningful novel. Eireann Corrigan, author of the memoir, You
Finally at the end of my escape to "Bookland" (as dumb as it may sound), I decided to go back out to my parents. My mom called my dad, who, unbeknownst to me at that time, was at the car getting our family’s jackets. She told him that she was going to take me down the boardwalk further, and browse more stores. After she hung up, we headed down the long line of shops and restaurants, pausing occasionally to walk inside the quaint, snugly side-by-side stores and browse their individual items on sale. Eventually, my mom got tired, so we found a bench to sit on and patiently waited for my dad.
Connie, a stereotypical fifteen year old girl, views her life and her family with dissatisfaction. Jealous around her twenty-four year old sister, June, despite June’s outward plainness, and tense around her irksome mother, Connie escapes to the mall with her friends. She and her clique of friends feel like they own the place, and the rest of the world: “Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home…” (1-2). The sense of freedom intoxicates them.
“Number 124. From Columbia.” The girl adjusted the label on her. Standing on the auction platform, head bowed, she looked seemingly young. 13 years old. With ruffled hair and caramel complexion, just like any other girls. Except, her eyes, staring at the ground, were overwhelmed with nothing but lost hope. Her stoned face, spoke a thousand words. Her soul, was long gone. “Twenty thousand!! Forty thousand!! Calling once…calling twice…. SOLD!!!” At that very moment, tears streamed down her cheeks. At that very moment, she was devastated. At that very moment, a life is lost.
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
Abagnale soon decided to quit his job with him barely making enough money to support himself. Abagnale started to write bad check to support himself. Abagnale overdrew his account by thousands of dollars. Abagnale soon realized he could cash more bad checks if he dazzled bank tellers, so he did. Abagnale eventually started to create new identities so Abagnale could open different accounts and different banks. Abagnale started printing his
One cold morning Sam Black woke up with aching chest pain. Troubled by this new condition he went to see his Heart Doctor. Little did Sam know that hours later he would be lying on the operating table in route for a triple bypass surgery. The surgery went as planned, but it was not the last of them. Sam was sent to many specialists and rehabilitation centers, building a large bill, which they had no money to pay them with. He still pays several grand a year for the medication he is prescribed. Years after the operation Sam and his wife, Elsie, have narrowly escaped foreclose, however the most problematic debt they have is the hundreds of small term loans with interest rates in the triple digits. Elsie once said in an interview regarding the loans they had to take out, “You can’t really keep up with them” (Wright, 2011). Almost a decade later Sam has trouble speaking and has to carry around an oxygen tank. This is a normal couple that got caught in the continuous cycle of payday loans. Like other millions of Americans The Black family settled for shady overpriced short-term loans.
Oates creates a vision for the reader of a powerless child in need of mental help and reacting violently to a tragedy. The emotional distress Aaron struggles through his entire life demonstrates how severely his life is im...
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
As educators, it is our job to “be the adult” in every situation. In every interaction with the students in our care, it is our responsibility to control our words and actions. We need to be proactive to avoid challening situaitons e nstead of blaming students, parents, community, or society, we need to be aware of realistic challenges to act and plan according. By accepting these obstacles, we can do our part to help students develop positive personality traits and behaviors. Educators need to be strong adults instead of victims. We need to work harder instead of making excuses. We need to model the confidence we want our students to develop.
Health is described as physical and mental well-being and freedom from disease, pain or defect. However, such descriptions only superficially define the actual meaning of health. There may be many occasions when individuals are not necessarily ill or in pain but may be overweight, stressed or emotionally unstable. Health is a quality of life involving dynamic interaction and interdependence among the individual’s physical state, their mental and emotional reactions, and the social context in which the individual exists. There are many factors that influence your health, but three major components contribute to general well-being: Self-awareness, a balanced diet and, regular physical activity.
Did I smell cigarette smoke so strong before? It is a horrid smell. I continue along, passing the play area. I stop and imagine my husband and I playing with our son. I see a sight that concerns me though, all of these precious children hollering for their parents, they aren 't even glancing up? A little curly haired blonde twirling, yelling “Mommy! Look how fast I can spin!” Why isn’t she looking up? I watch as the little curly haired girls’ shoulders slump and she gives up. My heart is shattered. I had to walk away. As I am walking through the mall I can 't help but notice how many people are on their phones. What can be so important on there? It is not going to kill them to unplug for a moment to enjoy this glorious day. Why aren 't they enjoying it? Unpluggedphobia I thought, they are so scared to unplug for a moment. I wonder if that is a real condition. I plan to research it when I get home, but not now, now I am enjoying the butterfly feeling of my son doing cartwheels in my belly. It is the best feeling I 've ever felt. I continue on looking for a t-shirt shop. Finally, it would be at the end of the mall! Henry 's shirt shop. I browse for a
Though the old woman struggled to make a living every day, she still fulfilled with hope towards the life. On the contrary, I grew up in urban areas, but I did not appreciate what I had and usually complain the life that did not meet my expectation. After the conversation, I thought I should cherish my current life rather than being dissatisfied with it. Having decided to live in the mountain huts, we asked the old woman to carry the baggage for us and paid her twice, because I thought her hard work deserved more money. After she took the bills, she showed her gratitude with a sweet smile, and then we both walked up the
Borrowing from Friedrich Nietzsche's statement, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," Kelly Clarkson unleashes an up-tempo empowerment anthem for recovering from bad relationships. Everyone endures a bad breakup at some point in their life, and a pick me up song like "Stronger," written by Jorgen Elofsson, David Gamson, and Ali Tamposi helps listeners pick up the pieces of a broken heart and move on to bigger and better things. Breakups can be extremely difficult, and they can be amicable; no matter what, no one really wants to go through them. The loss of a relationship can bring on intense heartache and stress. After being down for some time, it takes trying to look for the positives of the loneliness, instead of sadness and grief. When the positives are found, the feelings of happiness will overcome.
I walked into Starz hesitantly, looking for a corner seat. Air coming through the open door chilled the shop's interior, which was teeming with customers just fifteen minutes after the shop had opened. The stares from those already seated in the shop's green plastic chairs along the right wall, as well as from those getting haircuts frightened me a bit. It looked as if I didn’t belong. Th...