The engine of the rickety ferry rumbled as we plowed through the sparkling cobalt water. It was a scorching August mid-morning, one of those summer days you had to be by the water, if not in it. My family and I were on the ferry to Block Island. The engine rumbled again and I felt the steady vibration rise through my spine. I sat up straighter to prevent the direct connection of the engine's oscillation from flowing through my seat to my back. My mother looked over nervously.
"Are you all right, honey?" she asked.
"I'm fine, Mom, really."
"I knew we shouldn't have taken you on the ferry only two months after the surgery," she remarked, using her windbreaker to cushion my aching back. I laid against it and quickly lost myself in thoughts of the beautiful summer day that stretched ahead of me. I wasn't allowed to swim yet, but I could sure shop. I smiled contentedly.
All of a sudden I felt someone looking at me. I glanced up to see a girl about my age staring intently at me. I quickly looked down again. What is she thinking? I wondered. She is judging me by my appearance.
No, I told myself fiercely. She couldn't be that cruel. I gazed back into the green eyes staring in my direction. Yes, I could read her perfectly. She was trying to figure out what the repulsive white brace that encompassed my torso was for. You would have acted the same way if you were her, remember? I told myself reluctantly. Remember?
In the beginning of seventh grade I was your average happy-go-lucky preteen. I had a positive self-image, was in with the "popular" crowd, and had a boyfriend. I must admit I was a follower, but content in being so. I followed all the fads...
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...hen I had my brace.
Instead of being bitter about the whole thing, I try to look at it another way. Because of my experience, now I try to include everyone and reach out to others no matter what they look like. Also, I now believe that, with the right attitude, you can overcome anything. I have developed more of a "I don't care what you think of me" attitude and can now officially categorize myself as a leader.
I know who I am now, and appearance has nothing to do with it, although I am happy I can wear the shirts I like again. I am planning on joining the swim team even though the suit reveals the one-inch-thick scar that runs down my back. I am beyond the point of caring because I have come to terms with my physical flaw. When the going gets tough, the tough don't get going. No, they buckle up their armor and face the world.
The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth is a book by Alexandra Robbins which summarizes the story of seven different teenagers that have many different problems, which many of todays teenagers also have. I found myself having many similarities to the teenagers in the story, for example, when with her group Whitney, the popular bitch, thinks “You didn't day that when we were alone, but now that you're in front of a group you do” (Robbins 21). I can relate to this because I feel as though many people are pressured to say or do things they normally wouldn't whenever they are with their group or ‘clique’. Robbins has this idea that the freaks and geeks, or “cafeteria fringe” will someday grow up and use what they are criticized for to become more successful than the other peopler people. She calls this the ‘Quirk Theory’ (Robbins page 11). This helped me to learn that right now, in high school, not being ‘popular’ may seem like the end of the world, but the reality of it is that after these four years, it wont even matter, but what will be important is how you learned to grow as a person and the true friendships that were made. This makes me want to focus more on my education and learning to grow as a person instead of focusing on how many friends I have or who I sit with at lunch, because truthfully it wont matter once high school is over.
But nearly as soon as Marion's dreams of sailing became reality, the reality became a nightmare. On the voyage home, a whale rammed the schooner, ripping the seams and sending water into the hold. Before the schooner went down, the captain, al...
Robbins, Alexandra. The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive after High School. New York: Hyperion, 2011. Print.
In conclusion of this paper, from the arguments stated above about Humes’ and Descartes philosophical positions, Hume has a stronger position on the existence of the external world.
On July 12th 2005, Heather Tice’s life changed forever. Heather was in the passenger seat of a car driving down a steep hill with her seatbelt unbuckled. The next thing she knew she was laying on the ground, covered in blood, unable to feel her own legs. Heather would later find out that she had received an injury to the C7 section of her spinal cord, which is located in the neck. Heather’s injury was incomplete, so despite the height of the injury she retains the use of her upper body (Car accident causes).
Upon the summation of the debate between Polemarchus and Socrates, Thrasymachus enters into the fray. He states that justice “is nothing other than advantage of the stronger” (Republic 338c), and also that the greatest life is that of perfect injustice, to be found in the life of a tyrant. This definition leaves no room for the common good because it creates a life of compet...
Many people today feel insecure about their bodies. They feel that people will judge them more if they have a crooked nose or eyes that are too close to each other. Some get liposuction if they feel too fat or breast implants because they think it will make them more attractive to the opposite sex. These people who do not feel happy about the way their bodies portray themselves to others often feel that way because, according to psychologist Alan Feingold, “Physically attractive people often receive preferential treatment and are perceived by others as more sociable, dominant, mentally healthy, and intelligent than less attractive people.” (Feingold, 304-341) The individuals who think they are ugly can transform themselves from “ugly ducklings” to “swans” by using plastic surgery.
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
...purpose is “to unmask the hypocrisy and show how the meaning of Justice is being perverted” . He is not prepared to argue, leaving Socrates victorious. Here, Socrates’s method of argumentative questioning is insufficient and naïve against a stubborn, powerful and philosophically certain moral skeptic. This is confirmed by the change in investigative approach in the latter books. Thus the ‘earlier’ Plato cannot adequately respond to Thrasymachus’s immoralist view of Justice.
“I just want to be someone, mean something to anyone, I want to be the real ME”, by Charlotte Eriksson. The quest of my journey is to discover my real purpose, my real goal but most importantly, find my real identity. This is known as the “Identity versus Role Confusion Stage” or as described by psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, the fifth stage of the Eight Stages of Man. It occurs between the ages of 12 to 18, where every person battles to establish a certain roll or skill that provides one with a sense of a sturdy foundation in the adult society. I too am currently going through this stage of life, dodging many obstacles in order to seek out my identity. The hardest obstacle- my attempt to fit in with my peers, but the extremes I took to find it, may have scared me for life. Nonetheless, it showed me a piece of my real identity and helped me figure out how to grow through it and better myself; it showed me the real me. In the past as well as today’s society, individuality is vital. Each teen wants to create a unique identity for ones’ self, and the start to creating that identity is in high school.
Thrasymachus, tired of holding his tongue back, barges into the argument and asks Socrates exactly what justice is; since Socrates cannot answer Thrasymachus offers his perception:
Almost always people are encouraged to change themselves to meet the standards of the media and advertising. There are the few that see nothing wrong with a person for how they look naturally; however, those few usually do not have as much impact as the ones who cause said insecurities. There is so much about the human condition in “The Birthmark” which are still relevant for modern society, even though this story was written 150-200 years ago. One could say that it is sad that things like this are still a problem; maybe even more of a problem than they were before, with people being obsessed with perfection. There is a solace though; the number of those who see nothing wrong with physical diversity is growing. Maybe someday the story "The Birthmark" will no longer be
Plato’s Republic is a dialogue set in Athens, which at the time of documentation was the center of the democratic world. Despite the city’s knowledge and construction of political structures ahead of its time, the main question addressed in the Republic is that of justice. What is justice, and why should we want to be just? Many competing thoughts are outlined within the Republic, notably that of a Sophist named Thrasymachus, who stated that justice is “nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger” (Plato, p. 15, 5c). Socrates, the main philosopher in this dialogue who claims that he “knows nothing” (Plato, p. 35, 354c) disagrees with Thrasymachus and spends the entire book trying to disprove the argument that the unjust person
My first year of junior high, (in our school that was seventh grade) I was not spending all my time trying to be popular like all the other people in my grade. I was just being me how I always had been. One day at I was sitting at the lunch table with a bunch of people I would hang around with sometimes. Some of them were talking about there weekends.
It all started in the 6th grade. I was a young, whimsical, spontaneous ball of energy without a care in the world. I had always seen the other kids in my