I walked past the dark alleyway as usual, rushing frantically to arrive at work on time today as inconvenient circumstances earlier in the morning resulted in me leaving the house much later than usual. Worried I would lose track of the time, I stopped momentarily to check my watch; only to discover that it was much later in the day than I had assumed it to be. I had to make the decision then and there; go through my regular route and be late to work again, or enter the labyrinth of the city’s side streets risking my safety and arrive on time. I decided the risk was worth the reward and plunged in head first into the depths of the labyrinth, unsure of what I would encounter.
Apparently my understanding of the back streets of the city might have been slightly, if not overly exaggerated. It was decent enough, provided you avoided the half-eaten packets of chow mein, fish tikka, chicken nuggets and other restaurant items with their contents strewn on the floor. Furthermore, the soap factory nearby produced a nice mint fresh aroma that penetrated through the whole maze, creating a more uplifting sense to the darkness of the area. Unfortunately I was not adequately prepared for some of the negative sides of life down here. On certain occasions, I would walk past hooded figures hiding in the shadows at my sides. A quick glance at their faces revealed a scarred past, full of misdeeds and misdirection. What could have caused these people to have travelled down such terrible paths, what had led these tortured souls to deserve the life they have now? As much as I loved to ponder about these events, I had somewhere else to be so ran down another street hoping I would end up back on the sidewalks.
On my way there I bumped into a man in a tr...
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... my life that I quit my job the next day and started a new business devoted to helping those poor helpless souls in the cul-de-sacs of the city. I just wished I could have known what his intentions were...
I saw that punk again, this time in my favourite coffee shop. He was all fancy and stuff with that designer brand jacket of his, the only exception being the massive coffee stain on his suit. I would have asked but he left in such a hurry that I was certain he had made up his mind to avoid all contact with me. If it was my smile or something else that caused him to react in such a way, I’m not sure. Whether I got an impression of these ‘surface’ people based on the actions of the man is a different matter. I’ve learnt from this encounter that many things scratch the superficial skin of your conscience whilst very few pierce right into the very heart of your soul.
Autobiography of a Face is a memoir written by Lucy Grealy about her childhood and brave battle with cancer. When she was nine years old, Grealy was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, in her jaw. Because of the cancer, a portion of her job needed to be removed, leaving her face disfigured. Autobiography of a Face tells of her experiences, emotions, and thoughts while battling her illness. While reading the first few chapters, one paragraph that stood out to me was on page 29, the first paragraph of the chapter “Petting Zoo.”
...ls, chiming their ominous message. The village women, perhaps the first to realize the horrible gravity of the situation, weeping, bared their souls as they walked with sorrowful hearts to the cemetery. The religious procession, with their full regalia and stoic expressions, belied the emotions that were surely heavy laden. Their slow, methodical pilgrimage hinted that they were beginning what would ultimately be a funeral procession. The brave young men, escorted by their elder counterparts, were led to their slaughter much like sacrificial lambs. The fact that they were escorted sends the message that they were truly doomed, much like prisoners being led to their executions.
At the age of 9, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In her book, The Autobiography of a Face, Grealy explains the hardships she faces throughout her journey and how she dealt with them. I would highly recommend this book to my classmates because it shows the atrocity of cancer, the importance of having a support system, and puts in perspective how the little things throughout society can mean so much when you're going through such trials and tribulations.
Let’s start with the maze. Everyday at the same time the walls to the maze open and the runners go through it to map this ever changing structure. Every Night, when the walls close the grievers come out. That’s right grievers. They’re pretty much big slugs of blubber held together by slime and spikes that can cause serious injuries.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the speech “Smile or Die,” she uses this speech to inform her listeners about the ideology of mandatory positive thinking and how it is not always the answer. Ehrenreich talks about what people are forced to learn and how they are forced to think: if they want something bad enough, no matter what that thing may be, that wishing for it and having a positive attitude will put it in their possession. Wanting something bad enough is all it supposedly takes, yet Ehrenreich has an opposite perspective and she educates her audience on her opinion of “thinking positively” using her own personal experiences such as cancer, background knowledge and real-life examples. She wants people to understand that being positive
VC. (2010, September 23). The Vigilant Citizen. Retrieved May 05, 2012, from The Esoteric Interpretation of Pan's Labyrinth: http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-esoteric-interprentation-of-pans-labyrinth/
In the title “In This Strange Labyrinth”, the labyrinth is symbolic of love’s maze-like qualities. The speaker describes her predicament by saying, “In this strange Labyrinth how shall I turn/Ways are on all sides” (1-2). A different path on every side surrounds her, and every way seems to be the wrong way. She is confused about which way she should go. Wroth is conveying the theme of love in a decidedly negative way, for according to myth, the Labyrinth was where the Minotaur lived and before it’s demise, death was evident for all visitors of the maze. The speaker is struggling with every choice she may make and cannot rest or find aid until she finds the best way: “Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;/ I must these doubts endure without allay/ Or help, but travail find for my best hire” (10-11). She has several choices and each one is confusing and leaves her feeling helpless.
Ben is one of the main characters in the movie. It all started with the class going to a
Today, Scarlett and I visited the oldest resident of the graveyard, a strange snakey creature called the Sleer, which guards a treasure; a brooch, a cup, and a knife. The Sleer’s home is deep inside a hill. To get there, Scarlett and I had to go through a burial chamber called a mausoleum (a building that holds multiple caskets) and down a passageway. While we were walking down, it only got darker and darker. We finally reached the end of the passageway and met the Indigo Man who was not friendly at all. We tried speaking to him but he only responded to us in a rude manner. It was a scary and exciting adventure, but by the time Scarlett and I made it back up, the graveyard was crawling with cops. We were
In her essay, “Why Women Smile,” Amy Cunningham discusses women’s smile in society. Cunningham states because of the pressure and gender expectations placed on women in modern society, women have to use false emotions and smiles to portray this preferred archetype. The purpose of the essay is to argue whether a woman’s smile should truly her own, to be smiled or not, according to hoe the women felt, rather than according to what someone else needed. She explains the evolution about women’s smile from 15th century Italy to America today, and also some research by psychologists and psychiatrists related the topic of smile. Amy Cunningham has been a magazine writer for 30 years, a website editor, producer, and blogger since 2003. She has lots
Imagine yourself waking up one morning from a good night of rest and upon awaking you realize something has changed drastically, you’ve forever have lost your special voice. This occurrence isn’t due to you over exerting your vocal cords or your body facing the sickness of laryngitis, it’s due to a set of society standards. The voice that symbolizes you as an individual and allows you to properly communicate with others is lost and misplaced forever. In the Play of “¡Bocón!”, we’ve seen this take place numerous amounts of times with the set’s characters. The importance of individual’s voice is a crucial factor in one’s life. We all have to properly use our voices to express our messages in any given situation
The ability to tell one’s own story, to speak one’s mind, is the best antidote to powerlessness. Tan’s writing instills agency and visibility in Chinese American women. The silence is broken, and their new voices are constructed in collective storytelling, a language of community, without denying or erasing the different positions such collaboration encounters. Tan compels each of her characters to tell their own story in their own words, thus (re)creating the meanings of their life. The interrelated narratives make sense only if readers can discern the specificities of each woman’s story as located within the novel.
To stand firm in one’s beliefs is a difficult task. In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, readers are left conflicted with the issue of conformity in a moral situation. Le Guin captures the audience with descriptive imagery of a beautiful city, “a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring” and “the rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags,” however, life isn’t as perfect as the sugar-coated descriptions. Hidden underneath the city in a filthy room, a child suffers the “abominable misery,” so the people of Omelas can live happily. The citizens have a choice to leave and go to a place that is unknown or they can stay in Omelas and live to the standards of the injustice city. Le Guin displays the theme of conformity through diction, mood, and symbolism.
This project control artifact helps to understand the high level communication management plan, high level quality management plan, high level risk management plan and high level change management plan of the” Project Smile”.
The movie, “Mona Lisa Smile” is an inspirational film that explores life through feminism, marriage, and education lead by a modernist teacher at the end of a traditional era. It begins by introducing the lead character, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), a liberal-minded novice professor from California, who lands a job in the art history department at a snobbish, all-girl college, called Wellesley, in the fall of 1953. Despite warnings from her boyfriend Paul that a Boston Brahmin environment was out of her element, Katherine was thrilled at the prospect of educating some of the brightest young women in the country however, her image of Wellesley quickly fizzles after her first day of class, in which, was more like a baptism by fire. Her smug students flaunted their exhaustive knowledge of the text and humiliated her in front of a supervisor. However, Katherine, determined not to buckle under pressure, departs from the syllabus in order to regain the upper hand. She quickly challenged the girls’ idea of what constituted art and exposed them to modern artist not endorsed by the school board. She dared them to think for themselves, and explore outside of their traditional views. This form of art was unacceptable by the students at first however, overtime Katherine penetrated her student’s distain and earned their esteem.