Friends or Family Essay Example for Free

Friends or Family Essay When you have friends and family, you have those who care for you. When you have them, you don’t really need anything else. When you have a family and some really good friends, you know that they will always be there for you. You know that you can always count on them, and you definitely know that you can trust them with a secret or anything personal. When you are surrounded by them, you realize that nothing in the world can ever replace them. Nothing can ever replace the memories that you have. No matter how much money, or how famous, or how glamorous you are, it wouldn’t be that great if you didn’t have friends or a family. I would never trade them in for anything. I would like to be rich, have pretty shoes, expensive purses, own a ton of make-up, and have a whole closet full of clothes. But my family and my friends are much more important. They don’t even care about what I look like or what I wear. I could come to school in pajamas or wake up looking like a freak, and it wouldn’t matter. They don’t care about looks. And, they really don’t care that I’m NOT perfect. I don’t have to put on an act like I’m all that just to hang out with them. I could act like a total loser and dress up in weird stuff a target holding a mop or a huge crown at the mall and they would start laughing. People would be looking at us like we wear crazy. But we would just laugh knowing that we look retarded. They wouldn’t say, â€Å"I don’t know her† or something like that. Okay, maybe they would, but that is the fun part. Sometimes I might do another goofy thing like ride a small bike down the street or dance like a maniac. Sometimes, I’ll get bored and say something random like â€Å"I like eggs† and my friends wouldn’t make a face. My family would start laughing instead. I remember this one time, my friends little brother through my cell phone at my head. It hurt but it was really funny. And then another time, my friends came over and we made dinner for my brother. We mad a whole buffet of Mac and Cheese. Even though nobody ate it, it was still fun. We would have a billion memories we can laugh about from a year from now. If you have only money, you will be lonely and the only thing you can do is buy things that don’t really have any value if you have no one to share it with. Being lonely in a huge house and with lots of stuff just lying around might be great for show and all, but when it comes to things that truly matter, friends and family, are what’s really important. If I were rich, I would like it at first, but then it would get annoying. Not really knowing who your friends are or not knowing who is using you and who is really there for you. Then, only having some friends, only because they were as rich as you. I’m not saying you don’t need money, because everybody needs some. But it’s not the most important thing.

All about star wars :: essays research papers

Star Wars, by George Lucas, is an excellent movie. This movie is filled with archetypal and mythic patterns , and the ideas represented in the film are essential ingredients to human emotion . The most obvious idea represented by the movie is religion. Good versus Evil, Light versus Dark, and the Rebels versus the Empire -- these are all spiritual overtones in the elaborate story line. The religious connections become apparent when aspects of the movie are analyzed. Star Wars opens with a deserted desert planet where the viewer is introduced to the main character, Luke Skywalker, and his aunt and uncle. Luke is a young kid who yearns for adventure, he is gifted with a strong grasp of "The Force", a mystical ability to manipulate the environment with one’s mind. At first, Luke is unaware of his gift, and unsure of his beliefs. He is guided by a old wise man named Obi-Wan Kenobi, A once Jedi Knight. Jedi Knights were once the protectors of the galaxy but are all but extinct. Obi-Wan provides guidance for the young Skywalker, teaching him how to use his gift for good. Once Luke lets go of his mental block, and is able to feel the force, Obi-Wan tells him "You've taken your first step into a larger world." The force is a religion that is not only an idea, but seems to have physical properties to it. It's all powerful, like a God, but yet the Jedi have found a way to interact with it. The force is balanced between good and evil, providing room in the galaxy for both. Obi-wan describes the force as "†¦what gives the Jedi his power... It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.† Also on the good side of The Force, there are the Rebels, and Princess Leia. It is interesting to note that all of the foot soldiers of the Rebel Alliance wear helmets which are open faced, so that the viewer can see the face of the rebel, and humanize them. Princess Leia represents the damsel in distress that is held captive by the evil lord, Darth Vader. The Princess is dressed in a white gown to show innocence, purity, and truth. There are also characters in Star Wars that are somewhat neutral when it comes to The Force.

Read Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol Essay

In 1964, the author, Jonathan Kozol, is a young man who works as a teacher. Like many others at the time, the grade school where he teaches is segregated (teaching only non-white students), understaffed, and in poor physical condition. Kozol loses his first job as a teacher because he introduces students to some African American poetry that questions the conditions of blacks in America. Years later, after holding many other jobs, Kozol misses working with children. He decides to visit schools across America to see what has changed. What he learns is saddening; many schools have student bodies that are still separate and unequal. Kozol’s journey starts in East St. Louis, Illinois. Traveling with a woman from a religious organization, Kozol takes a look around the inner city. The town sits on a flood plain below beautiful homes that have been built on. Furthermore, factories pour sewage and toxic waste into the city. Playgrounds are found to contain heavy metals that can make children ill. An attempt has been made at building a new school in one area, but cheap construction techniques result in a roof that collapses. Local grade school children tell Kozol horror stories of family and friends who were murdered. A visit to the East St. Louis schools reveals an overall lack of facilities. Sewage floods lunchrooms, making it intolerable to serve food there. Students need books, computers, chalk and even toilet paper. Science classes need test tubes, tables, running water and even heat. The ceiling is about to collapse in one school, the gym and locker room stink with toxic mold, and even the arts classes have no tools. Dedicated teachers make poverty wages teaching oversized classrooms and even choose to bring in their own teaching aids and pay for them out of their own wages. Almost every student in every rundown school is not white. Minority students know they are receiving inferior education in ugly, filthy, dangerous buildings but seem most concerned by the fact that they are all pushed aside and not accepted into nearby white schools. They wonder why they are not liked or trusted. Next Kozol travels to Chicago, Illinois, in the area of Lawndale where Martin Luther King has worked and experienced the worst racism of his life. The conditions are similar as in East St. Louis with filth, decay and danger in mostly non-white schools. Kozol focuses on the incompetent and unkind teachers are the only people the Chicago school system have been hired for these segregated schools and offering low wages. The author disagrees with government officials claims that schools don’t need more money, only better teaching methods. To prove his point he talks about a dedicated, brilliant teacher working in the slums who manages to excite students. She is just down the hall from uncaring teachers. If they wish to learn her methods, all they have to do is watch. Lack of money is the problem and racism is the reason these schools are not getting the money they need, Kozol states. Thousands more dollars are spent each year on each white student attending better schools in the nearby suburbs. Blaming teaching methods or parental involvement for the horrible problems in segregated schools is easier than raising money and finding solutions. The author continues on that the way schools are funded allows inequalities to continue. Local property taxes fund schools, meaning the money a school receives is based on the value of the houses in the area. Houses in richer areas can be afforded by whites that pay more property taxes and get better schools (even if they are dumping sewage onto non-white areas situated below them without paying taxes to those areas to help clean up). Richer homeowners also get tax relief for paying their mortgages. Meanwhile, poor black areas are dumping grounds for toxic waste and garbage, which benefit the wealthier citizens, but they tend to be the only places poor non-whites can afford to live. Low properrty values result in badly funded, dangerous schools. Wealthier whites avoid these public schools and move to suburbs where their property taxes go toward building elegant public schools. Trier school is an example. It attracts a highly trained staff, and boasts an Olympic swimming pool as well as other luxuries. An article about this suburban school brags that most of the students in it are white. Kozol says that magnet schools (special public schools built for the most talented students) seem like a good idea, but are also unfair. The inner city disadvantaged non-white students usually don’t provide head start programs or educated parents who can help them push for admittance. Students of magnet schools are mostly white. Disadvantaged students watch television and know they are being treated like something less than human. This is savagely cruel. In the next area, New York, Kozol sees the same pattern of filth, indifference and degradation. The difference between money spent in inner city schools and outlying suburbs is more than double in the New York districts. The school system administrators admit they don’t even know how many kids become discouraged and drop out of these schools. Kozol finds this shocking in a town where every penny stock on Wall Street can be accounted for every day. However, the school system cannot collect a list of names of dropouts. In fact, several school administrators admit that they actually hope kids will drop out because they have so many students, they can’t teach them all. Health care for disadvantaged minorities is pathetic, which shows society’s indifference to the non-whites, says Kozol. As in Illinois, funding inequalities in New York are not just a local problem. The State of New York actually distributes more money to the richer schools. Visiting a fancy school in Rye, NY, Kozol is disappointed to learn privileged kids are uninterested to the suffering of non-white students in other schools. According to Kozol this is not true of students in his day. Media adds to the misconceptions about poor schools, according to Kozol. For instance, The Wall Street Journal claims that minor cuts in class size won’t help test scores much. Kozol argues that if that is the case, why not double the number of children in each white public school classroom? Nobody would stand for this. He visits Camden, NJ, the fourth poorest area in country. At Pyne Jr. High there are no computers. At the local high school the computers have literally melted because of the extreme heat in the non-air conditioned building. Kozol wonders why African American teachers at these schools ignore the issues of race as if they just accept matters as inevitable. High school kids in Camden tell Kozol about being unable to read the classics because pages are missing from their books, and one promising student is told by her guidance councilor to give up her dream of becoming a lawyer because her English isn’t good enough. As in other cities, dangerous chemicals flee from nearby factories (the factories do not pay taxes here) and children suffer major illnesses. The only principal who earns respect from the media s a man who walks around the school with a bat and tosses three hundred students out of school. This doesn’t help the school, but it gets him on the cover of magazines. When parents of a young boy named, Raymond Abbott go to court to protest the inferior education he is receiving as a poor non-white boy in New Jersey. Expensive lawyers are hired by the State to fight the lawsuit. Eventually the court decides that Raymond is indeed being unfairly treated. However, the decision comes too late to save his educational career. Raymond ends up a dropout cocaine addict in jail. Before introducing readers to the problems in Washington, DC, Kozol observes that disadvantaged people ask for totally equal education when they go to court. Why not? Kozol heads to Washington, where the city contrasts with the reality of the non-white slums a few blocks away. A city official observes that the very poor accept a dual system with richer magnet schools so the whites won’t leave altogether and take political power and money to the suburbs. The news media seem to â€Å"blame the victim† portraying the people who live in ghettos as dangerous fools who spend too much on expensive tennis shoes and jewelry. Kozol says TV viewers in the suburbs don’t understand this stuff is being pushed on ghetto residents who have no access to things of real value. One failed method of improving non-white schools has been to hire non-white administrators. Kozol says this cannot help. Detroit has had non-white administration for years and the underfunded schools are still in a predicament. When a U.S. District Court finds that Detroit schools are both separate and unequal, the U.S. Supreme Court is called in to consider the charge. The Supreme Court at this time is heavily packed with conservative Nixon appointees. These judges say that making things fair in the city of Detroit for the poor would unfairly punish the suburbs. An important Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, disagrees with the majority opinion and sees that the country has taken a giant step backward in values. Later, President George H.W. Bush says money is not the answer to solving school problems. Kozol then heads to San Antonio where he begins by claiming that Americans hesitate to directly discriminate against other people’s children because this would make them feel guilty. However, he thinks, laws have allowed discrimination to occur in a less direct form. For example, in the 1920s in America the Foundation program is established. It is supposed to mean that everybody is taxed on local homes and businesses at the same rate, and the federal government comes in to make up the difference in money raised by sending extra subsidies to poor schools. Yet, white schools historically get more of this â€Å"make up† money. Kozol thinks it’s strange that when it comes to equal funding for public schools, officials fight for local control, but the federal government is happy to overrule federal control when it comes to which books should be read, and other important issues. In 1968 in San Antonio, the parents of Demetrio Rodriguez and other students go to court to fight for equal funds for their low-grade school. Justice Powell of the Supreme Court suggests that a quality education is not guaranteed by the constitution, although lawyers argue the students need the skills to vote, which is guaranteed by the constitution. Twenty-one years later it is found that unequal funding is in fact unfair, but of course this decision is too late for the kid who brought the lawsuit in the first place. Kozol visits Alamo Heights near San Antonio where the wealthy live. He then descends to the shacks below the bluffs where 99.3 percent of the kids are Hispanic and poor enough to rely on the school lunch program for their main meal of the day. Down in the valley, the teachers are underpaid, the buildings are crumbling and the schools can spend only a fraction of what they spend in Alamo Heights on each student. Yet most of the State’s extra funding goes to Alamo Heights. Finally Kozol sees that when white children are impoverished and discriminated against, their schools are poor, too. He visits a community of poor Appalachian children thrust into one school. It undergoes overcrowding; the building is in shambles and teachers lack resource, just like all of the non-white schools all over the country. He is told that soon many of these children will be bussed to non-white schools nearby Kozol’s observations are haunting. Time and time again the pattern is repeated; Non-whites pushed into nasty, dangerous conditions through history, whites unwilling to share their prosperity with the people of color they fear, governments endless excuses for doing nothing and actually blocking the success of poor schools in corrupt ways. Kozol’s conclusion is that this is illogical, unpatriotic and deeply unkind. Overall, I truly enjoyed this book and what is has to offer when describing the unequal treatment African Americans and minorities have in urban areas. â€Å"Here’s what we should do. Put more money into preschool, kindergarten, elementary years. Pay college kids to tutor inner city children. Get rid of the property tax, which is too uneven and use income taxes to support these schools. Pay teachers more to work in more places like the Bronx. It has to come from taxes. Pay them extra to go to the worst schools. You could forgive their college loans to make it worth their while.†, this statement spoke to me. It’s the ideal plan, however I don’t see it actually transpiring into our education world. I was ignorant to the true facts of the American educational system. This book, Mr. Kozol, has opened my eyes to the history, suffering and makes a powerful impact on his behalf. He begins by showing specific, terrible injustices then examines how the troubles have come to be, sometimes by reviewing court decisions or by tracing the movement of labor away from a particular area. Next, he talks about those things standing in the way of improvement, often vague attitudes or fears. Finally, toward the end of the book, he begins to outline his vision for getting past the roadblocks and improving all schools. The result is that the reader/I was hooked right away, wondering how in the world such awful things have come to pass.

Essay on Forbidden Desire in Shakespeares A Midsummer...

Forbidden Desire in Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream In his play A Midsummer Nights Dream, William Shakespeare explores the conflict of forbidden desire, as revealed through the experience of four young lovers dwelling in ancient Greece. Hermia and Lysander are two of these lovers, and their desire to marry one another is prohibited by Hermias father Egeus, and enforced by the governor of Athenian law-King Theseus. Hermia is informed that she may only agree to one of three undesirable choices: marry Demetrius unwillingly, submit to an austere, celibate life as a nun, or face certain execution. Confronted with these dreadful options, Hermia agrees to flee from Athens towards the remote house of Lysanders widowed aunt, in the†¦show more content†¦By moving the setting outside of the established law of Athens, closer to the undeveloped, primitive realm of the wood, Shakespeare is allowing his characters the undetermined experience of nature, thus metaphorically allowing them proximity to an uninhibited realm of socially undetermi ned reality through nature. This is important, as a prominent question addressed within this play is: What are the consequences of socially forbidding the desires of lovers? The most immediate consequence of forbidding their desires is witnessed in their fleeing the prohibitions of Athens, and venturing out into the uninhibited mandate of nature, where civil human laws are irrelevant and absent. In venturing away from Athens into the wood, the four lovers encounter both the familiar and the unfamiliar in the darkness, via their dreams. By juxtaposing dream states with wakened states, and scenes of daylight with darkness, Shakespeare is conveying transitions from conscious to unconscious states. In illustration, upon awaking from one dream episode, Hermia exclaims: Methought a serpent ate my heart away, and you sat smiling at his cruel prey (2.2, 155). Here Hermia encounters what Freud describes as the uncanny: that which is paradoxically unfamiliar, and yet familiar. As Freud maintains of the uncanny: Every emotional effect [that one has experiencedShow MoreRelatedEssay on A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Variations of Love900 Words   |  4 PagesLove is only as strong as the people who share it. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are relationships from all different viewpoints of love. Four Athenian lovers are caught in a web of love for the wrong person, according to fellow peevish characters. Along the story line of the play, one will be introduced to additional characters that try to be helpful by committing acts they presume will benefit the young lovers, but these characters actually create plot-twists.Read MoreA Midsummer Night s Dream And Measure For Measure1341 Words   |  6 PagesTwo of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies are A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Measure for Measure. Both plays highlight the importance of marriage in society, even if they do so in different ways. Written sometime in the late 1500s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows the story of a complex love triangle in which a forbidden relationship exists. The play reveals the importance of familial relationships in creating marriage, and shows that marriage serves a specific social function. In some ways, ShakespeareRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream And Romeo And Juliet1502 Words   |  7 Pagesnotion of comedy and tragedy have been interpreted by countless critics as absolute contradictions of one another. For instance, there is a belief that the everlastingly romantic tale of Romeo and Juliet is unambiguously a tragedy, just as A Midsummer Night’s Dream is undoubtedly a comedy. Each possesses separate, defining, characteristics which drastically alter the storyline of a play, and develop the end into either one of comedic proportion: in which there is the promise of character procreationRead MoreEssay on A Midsummer Nights Dream: Critical Analysis3103 Words   |  13 PagesMandy Co nway Mrs. Guynes English 12 16 March 2000 A Critical Analysis of quot;A Midsummer Nights Dreamquot; William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is quot;A Midsummer Nights Dream.quot; They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeares comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, whichRead MoreThe Shrew By William Shakespeare1196 Words   |  5 Pagesbetween Bianca and Lucentio. Without an additional relationship, All’s Well That Ends Well stands out in Shakespeare’s comedies because the entirety of romantic focus in the play is on one, unwanted marriage. This comedic social issue that separates them is part internal and part external, instead of just a forbidden marriage. The play also takes Helena’s subplot from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the woman’s wooing of a man, and makes it the focus of the play. As we read in Montrose’s article, OberonRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s The Elizabethan Era1548 Words   |  7 Pagesindividuals in an arranged marriage would have likely been. A similar theme of arranged marriage is presented in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Once again, Shakespeare presents the audience with a forceful parent, Egeus, who wishes his daughter, Hermia, to marry Demetrius even though she is in love with another man and Demetrius is a â€Å"spotted and inconstant man† (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.106). Hermia’s feelings of love are not even taken into account when she confronts her father because her marriageRead MoreThe power to change feelings Essay3615 Words   |  15 Pagesordinary people, and this virtuous person must be brought from happiness to misery† (Handbook 505). Tragedy as a genre has remained an important motif over time and can be seen specifically in three major works: Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first great tragedy of antiquity and written by Sophocles in circa 5th century BCE, Oedipus Rex is acclaimed as an exemplary drama in the genre (â€Å"Mythological Background† 66). As stated earlier, given strict definition by AristotleRead MoreThe Theme Of Homo Eroticism Within The Play As You Like It And How It Differs From Various Other3688 Words   |  15 Pagesemotions to be centred on a person of the same sex; of or pertaining to a homo-erotic person’. It is crucial to not mistake homo-eroticism as merely a synonym of homosexuality, because it is an entirely different concept. Homo-eroticism refers to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas ‘homosexuality’ implies a more permanent state of sexual preference or identity. The concept of homoeroticism predates the idea that was understood in the 19th century of homosexuality. Homoeroticism is depictedRead MoreEssay on The European Renaissance2182 Words   |  9 PagesShakespeare is rec ognized for his plays, that depicted the immense social, ethical, and political issues of his own age. His literary contributions were an essential measure to Englands transformation. Shakespeares production of the plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Nights Dream were just among many he produced. In addition to his plays, he also composed over a hundred sonnets. William Shakespeare came from humble origins. He was born in the quaint market townRead MoreEssay Revenge in Shakespeares The Tempest3169 Words   |  13 PagesRevenge in Shakespeares The Tempest The nucleus of the plot in Shakespeares The Tempest revolves around Prospero enacting his revenge on various characters who have wronged him in different ways. Interestingly enough, he uses the spirit of Ariel to deliver the punishments while Prospero delegates the action. Prospero is such a character that can concoct methods of revenge but hesitates to have direct involvement with disillusioning his foes. In essence, Prospero sends Ariel to do his dirty