I have heard them call her “The Crazy Lady” to their parents, her supervisors, and fellow children who have not meet her. She does not always hear them because while they converse, she is focused on the location of the 409 cleaner that has become her side kick. Whether she is wiping off a table that has become the canvas to a future Picasso, a sink that holds their main utensils of dirty paint brushes or quickly wiping a spot off of the floor. The same spot that she just swept to remove the chips, dollar candy and the occasional crust-less peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The current task for her, at this particular moment, is not to mingle with the ones that think she is unstable but to clean up before the next mess occurs.
I do not believe she is crazy like the children claim. It is her unique way of implementing nontraditional activities, the children are not familiar with. Instead of the ordinary games, she is teaching them about different variations of acting such as improv, being a part of democracies, public speaking, and even inventing new games. I have watched her quietly instil leadership skills, goals and acceptance in them, with a smile and catch phrase. I have been with her as she filled up water balloons for the children at night for “Water Days” and organized trips in her free time. In the cases of these children, most who are dependent on government assistance and reside in a low income areas, her ways are initially foreign to them. In time the children stop questioning her ways, adjust to them and enjoy themselves.
It’s through their fulfillment she finds her own, just as she sees the same pieces of her own past. In her early teens, she found herself not in a dire but similar situation as the children she work...
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... and developer.
I have witnessed the different levels of government in action, perfected an understanding of the process in which they work and learned how their decisions affect others or vice versa. In this moment I have the chance to take my knowledge to the next intellectual level, by maximizing the opportunity to master a more intricate part of the law. A class speaker once stated “The best thing you can give to the world is you at you best”. I believe that this institution has more than enough of the proper tools to help me accomplish that. Overtime I‘ve worked at five community centers on a need basis, that is similar to Five different cities. One thing remains constant when camp is over the children all ask if I will see them again, I smile and tell them my catch phrase. When I do see them afterwards, they have forgotten “The Crazy Lady” and know me as Ms.S.
She brings light to an issue that divided her family from her father, his “obsession” with fixing up the house. She states, "I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture" (14). She believes her father was detached, living his life through restoring old furniture and fixing up the family home, leaving little attention for the family that lived there. She was suspicious of her father’s décor saying, “they were lies” (14). This left much to be desired, often leading her to question whether her father even liked having a family. This feeling is expressed when she says, "Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. A sort of still life with children" (13). He occupied his life with fixing up his home almost as if he was trying to cover up the problems going on inside himself. Bechdel suggests that the antique mirrors decorating the home were meant to distract visitors from his personal shame. She says, "His shame inhabited our house as pervasively and invisibly as the aromatic musk of aging mahogany" (20). She states that this shame stemmed from her father’s closeted sexual preferences. This would later connect them in a very powerful
She alludes to the idea that as people we must look deeper into our lives and see were we may have been given unearned privilege whether is be from race, gender, or sexuality.
...ther is losing her daughter to time and circumstance. The mother can no longer apply the word “my” when referring to the daughter for the daughter has become her own person. This realization is a frightening one to the mother who then quickly dives back into her surreal vision of the daughter now being a new enemy in a world already filled with evils. In this way it is easier for the mother to acknowledge the daughter as a threat rather than a loss. However, this is an issue that Olds has carefully layered beneath images of war, weapons, and haircuts.
...ors to describe her life and situation. This comes primarily from the fact that in her therapy sessions that is how she is taught to deal with everything. For example, one metaphor she talks about is “… she comes up with the idea of lighting candles to symbolize my past, present, and future…I’ve noticed my past melting… my present candle has stayed pretty much the same,” (D 266). She explains them as her past is become less controlling, her present is her and concrete ideas and her future is bright and untouched. These metaphors show how much she has grown and allow the things she is learning to have more meaning. All of these combine to make the piece very effective and insightful. They help to get her point across and call people to action to help against these crimes.
She shows the jobs young girls do in the factories, “They spin… they weave… They stamp” By showing a list of work the young girls do, Kelley appeals to her audience’s emotional sense in order to deliver message of dissolving child labor. She also uses rhetorical questions followed by solutions in order to question what must be done and how to do it. She states, “what can we do to free our consciousness?... we can enlist the workingmen… to free the children”. By doing this, Kelley forcefully suggests that her audience consciousness are enslaved with the idea of child labor. She states her and her audience must solve the problem with unity to enlist the workingmen on the jobs. This gets back to to Kelley’s purpose of destroying child labor. By offering
...daries and what belongs to her. She seems to think that objects that are important in Mother and Maggie's life are just aesthetic pieces of art instead of real life tools. Her idea of reality became warped around the lack of respect she showed the rest of her family.
...cts of the mother and the descriptions, which are presented to us from her, are very conclusive and need to be further examined to draw out any further conclusions on how she ?really? felt. The mother-daughter relationship between the narrator and her daughter bring up many questions as to their exact connection. At times it seems strong, as when the narrator is relating her childhood and recounting the good times. Other times it is very strained. All in all the connection between the two seems to be a very real and lifelike account of an actual mother-daughter relationship.
she discovers what it meant for her to be attractive growing up. She was constantly
... integrity. Through the Community Action Program I visited two third grade classes at the elementary school that my company sponsors. The school is sorely lacking in funds and many of the children come from homes where their families are struggling to provide them with the skills necessary to succeed in school. I taught the students for five weeks about the variety of skills one must learn to run a business and how various businesses are needed for a city to function. Each classroom was comprised entirely of children from one of two different ethnic groups, but both were from homes where English was not the first language. I believe my affinity for developing relationships with and between people will be an asset both in the classroom and in the legal profession. I look forward to rising to the challenge of constant change and growth in the ever-evolving field of law.
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.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
At this point of the story it is reflective of a teenager. A teenager is at a time in life where boundaries and knowledge is merely a challenging thing to test and in some instances hurdled. Where even though you may realize the responsibilities and resources you have, there is still a longing for the more sunny feelings of youth.
woman she once knew. Both women only see the figure they imagine to be as the setting shows us this, in the end making them believe there is freedom through perseverance but ends in only despair.
influence all her life and struggles to accept her true identity. Through the story you can
Community service is something that I have always engaged. In college, I worked with chemically dependent children as both a caretaker and a mentor. After I graduated, I taught at-risk children in a community youth outreach program. To remain involved and aware of the focus of my studies during my first year of law school, I volunteered at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center teaching youth their basic legal rights. Essentially, we strove to empower kids by providing practical information about the legal system and to help them develop more favora...