Surviving School

I never enjoyed going to school. It was always the bane of my life. When sitting in classes I just looked at my watch counting the minutes down until I could leave. Each day, .time seemed to tick slower. It was like being in prison, just counting the days down until you would be released. There was a reason why I hated school so much. It wasn't the rest of my peer group, but one particular teacher who made my life the living hell that for me was my school life personified. Loren was his name – Ralph Loren. He was the Maths teacher who picked on me in every lesson. He even made fun of me in front of my fellow peers, telling them to laugh at me every time I got something incorrect. Maths was a lesson which we had every day and therefore it was almost impossible to avoid his daily burning hatred for me. I felt he treated me differently from the others. It was as though he had this burning desire inside him to make my life a living misery. But for what reason I don't know. Coming from a tough background made me quite a tough cookie, but Mr. Loren made me feel different. I couldn't stand the bullying and physical abuse he gave me. I tried telling my parents but my Mum was too busy with work trying to keep the family afloat. My Dad? Well he used to be a professional boxer before he became brain damaged. He was an excellent professional boxer fighting only the best but he suffered a high degree of brain damage in a championship fight and is now restricted to the use of a wheel chair as he has now nearly lost all mobility and memory. Doctors say it will only be a few more months before he forgets even his own family. Needless to say I learned to look out for myself and fight my own battles after all that we've been through. It's tough but it has to be done if I'm to survive and keep my sanity. . However I still have the problem of Mr. Loren. I decided that strict action was to be taken. I had to fight this battle alone but I needed help. I contacted a few old friends who used to live on the estate with me in Brixton. They didn't like me and I didn't like them but we all had an unspoken understanding and when there was trouble we looked out for each other. We had to for our own safety. These people were the sort of people who you wouldn't want to meet out on a dark night on your own!. These were people who the Mafia wouldn't even want to do business with! They were really that bad. They offered me a few solutions to my ‘problem' and I said I would get back to them with my decision in the next few days. It was a lot to mull over. I decided to leave it a few days in case things got a little better which I sincerely doubted. For the next week Mr. Loren bullied me like never before. He hit me; he even beat me with metre sticks. I had bruises down my body, I was in real agony. I decided to leave him in the grasps of my mates from Brixton. He had to be taught a lesson like never before. For the next week Mr. Loren was absent from school. Everyone thought he was just ill. The school knew nothing of his whereabouts. As time went by people seemed to forget about Mr. Loren as we now had a replacement Maths teacher who was absolutely brilliant and I longed for her to stay on full time if Mr. Loren was not to come back. As time went by I forgot all about Mr. Loren. I just assumed that he had learnt his lesson and fled the country. It wasn't until one night when I really realised what had happened. I was walking back from town one evening when I passed the Television Rentals store. I always liked to have a glance at what was on because I had never owned a television before. I was wandering around the shop glancing at the programs on the various screens. When suddenly I saw the latest news bullet flash up onto the screen. An unidentified man had been reported missing matching roughly Mr. Loren's description and had subsequently been found by police searching the area. Police had scoured sections of woods and lakes when a few passers by had noticed a floating body in an old marshy lake on the outskirts of town.. My heart seemed to stop beating momentarily. I didn't know what to think. I decided that the best course of action was to run to the other side of town to gather what was going on. I had never run so fast in my life. When I reached the crime scene the whole area was cordoned off with tape. I asked whether the body had been identified yet and they said that the corpse was still undergoing identification. After hours of patient waiting the corpse was identified as a one Mr. Loren. I was horrified at the news. I left for home as swiftly as I could escaping without trying to look so suspicious. I didn't know why I was worried though because I never carried out the crime. I never intended for anything like this to happen anyway. All I wanted my mates to do was give him a good beating to get the message through to him that he should leave the country. I got home and went straight up to bed without saying a word to anyone. The next morning I tried for hours to get through to the boys in Brixton. Eventually when I did get a reply it was an elderly woman who had just moved in and knew nothing of any boys that used to live there. The boys had obviously decided to leave and rightly so after what they had done. I thought I was in the clear. I picked up a newspaper on the way to school the following day and it had the horrific build up story of what had happened to Mr Loren the night he had been murdered. It said that he had been shot five times in the head and chest and had sustained serious bruising all over the body. The paper was asking for witnesses to come forward. Even Mr. Loren's family was offering a reward for the capture of his brutal murderer. A shiver ran down my spine. All I hoped was that the murder weapon was still in the safe hands of the Brixton boys. A few weeks later the murder weapon had been found in some nearby woods. The gun was to be checked for fingerprints and I knew that it would have the Brixton Boys' prints all over it. I was wrong I had been framed. I remember as a boy shooting pigeons with a small colt pistol that the Brixton boys had given me. When I left I returned it to them as I no longer needed it and said I was mending my ways. They weren't best pleased as you could well imagine. I now know why they were only too pleased to help me. They wanted to get me back for all those times when they did something wrong and I ratted on them.. I now know never to trust a living soul again. tried life on the run for a few days but eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I handed myself in. I knew I stood no chance of defending myself as the gun had only my prints on. I am now facing a secure unit then when I'm eighteen I will be moved into a secure unit. After a few weeks of life inside I learnt of the sad death of my father, which inevitably lead to the sorrowful suicide of my Mother.

Jackass: Comedy and People

Imagine you are up late one night watching television, and you come across the MTV channel and you start to watch a show where a man is slamming himself to a wall, and then you see another clip where a man is dancing around naked in the street, then you must be watching Jackass. Jackass is a show where people perform dangerous, hilarious, disgusting stunts and pranks, but simply the show is made to make people laugh. The show is really simply comedic, but since the show includes many dangerous stunts and activities, the show receives negative criticism for being the blame for certain accidents where teenagers tried to imitate the show. Even though the show has received a lot negative criticism, the show was still able to maintain its popularity because we have a dark sense of humor, we seek some sort of thrill, and it makes us feel superior to people on the show. Most of us have shown to have a dark sense of humor and we enjoy watching television shows like Jackass. The stunts and pranks performed on the show are cruel and most of the time people performing the stunts end up getting hurt, but we still laugh. Even looking at history, we can see that people have always has a dark sense of humor, like in Roman Empire era when people would fight to the death for other people’s entertainment. Then, we moved from trying to kill each other for entertainment to have animals fight for our entertainment, and now we have television and movies to help feed our craving for dark humor. In Stephen King’s essay, â€Å"Why We Crave Horror Movies†, Stephen explains that a horror movie â€Å"†¦deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidly unchained, our most base instincts set free, our nastiest fantasies realized†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Page 2). Just like a horror movie, shows like Jackass appeals to the worst in us and helps us to take control our dark sense of humor. Jackass is probably still one of the most disgusting and daring show on air and we find it thrilling to watch because for that reason. The shows intensity and excess makes us either want to look away or watch even more. On the show, they go as far as artificially inseminating a cow, swallowing a live fish and throwing it up later, flipping over a port-a-potty while someone is inside, diving into a pool full of elephant feces, and even more ridiculous stunts. The stunts on the show aren’t something that people do on a daily basis and people find it thrilling to watch others try something that hasn’t been done. Some of us would probably want to know what it is like to do some of the stunts seen on the show, but we are too afraid to try. The show help us to see what would have happened if we were to try a stunt seen on the show. The pranks done in the show are truly cruel and unnecessary and in some way makes us happy it isn’t us and makes us feel superior to the people on the show. On the show, someone walks around with an electric razor and randomly cuts out patches on people’s hair, also people on the show go off-roading in golf carts. Even though the show has a warning not to try anything seen on the show at home, most of us know better than to go ice skating naked and makes people laugh to know that there is someone out there stupid enough to try it. Just the watching the people on show, it makes us feel that we are better than them; somewhat feeds to our ego to know that there are others who less incompetent than us.

Water Balance Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Water Balance - Lab Report Example The vegetation and near costal topography of Berkeley is different when compared to the hilly continental Terre Haute which earlier had a facilitating water storage with a longer period. Humid and hot air with high pressure characterize Berkeley, which has dry and hot seasons. The indication to this is through the precipitation levels, which are precipitations less than one centimeter in the region during summer and up to 10 centimeters rise in precipitation in the same region during winter. This simply means that there is a rise in precipitation during winter and a fall during summer. This shifts focus to the earlier mentioned vegetation, which can only survive in one region at a time. When compared to a low-lying coastal stretch California, Indiana has high altitude levels meaning the climatic changes in both regions differ. Precipitation come because of the humid winds that blow from the oceans because of evaporation that continuously take place in oceans. When evaporation takes place in the oceans, winds blowing collect the water in humid form thus bringing about precipitation. The latter statement suggests that without winds there can be no precipitation explaining why precipitation is less in dry areas but very high in moist and icy areas. There is a higher likelihood of Evapotranspiration taking place brought about by high pressure and temperatures. The two figures explain that when there are high speeds of wind, precipitation goes high and vice versa. Therefore, during the months or November to march when the wind speeds are slightly higher than other months, the precipitation levels are high. It is during the months of November to march that high temperature levels force water to turn to vapor which ascends to the atmosphere and falls as conventional rainfall after condensation. Science explains that when water moves up in terms of vapor it

Domestic violence Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Domestic violence - Research Paper Example I would also use movement exercise in which the members would make a circle and run jump around in unison around while holding hands; this is useful since it helps them develop trust as well as remember the activities and discussions that are held on that day owing to the excitement of movement. As a leader, my effectiveness will be judged consciously and unconsciously by the members of the group depending on my ability to conduct this exercise effectively. Thus I must ensure that I am firm but gentle and so that all the members respect my instructions and follow them, that way I will establish my role as the director of activities to all the members. Furthermore, as a leader, the manner in which the members perform their activities will give me invaluable insight into their characters and emotional stability thus I will have a good understanding of the different members which is key if one is to successfully manage a group. For a group to be effective the leader must steer clear of certain common mistakes that; when made in the middle stage can undermine the overall purpose of the group and its objectives, these mistakes include: Overloading or underleading the group; this is when the leader either focus too much on uninteresting material and ends up boring the group or when they literally turns it over to the members in an attempt at democracy undermining the leadership role (Jacobs et al., 2010). Another common mistake is organizing too few exercises; this may go wrong if the excitement meant to be generated by the planned exercise does not materialize and they had no back up. Other mistakes include choosing boring speakers or letting focus on the main objective stray for too long and this often results in the members, either losing interest or the objective of the meeting being overlooked. In my group I would ensure to I avoid these mistakes and use my knowledge in counseling psychology as well the various activities to ensure I remain focused on the object ive; which is to help them help each other cope with their problems while at the same time making the sessions fun enough for them to remain interested throughout. Domestic abuse can be broadly described as when power is used by one adult in a relationship to control the other, it can take a variety of forms ranging from; physical sexual, emotional financial and psychological. This abuse is mostly common among women as they are victimized by their male partners and spouses; according to WHO, the frequency of sexual and physical violence by a partner rangers between 29 to 71 % (Kaur & Garg, 2008). The reason women have been on the receiving end of domestic violence for so long can be attributed to several factors; traditionally, many human societies viewed women as weak and vulnerable and it was the norm to brutalize them. Today, despite the radical changes in the perception of woman, certain social economic factors and in some parts of the world such as India cultural factors seem t o permit and encourage domestic abuse. Abuse in any form often has detrimental effects on women’s health this is because even if they are not physically harmed, they will suffer from a myriad of psychological

Examine the shifting values of civil liberties in the new millennium Research Paper

Examine the shifting values of civil liberties in the new millennium that has seen greater public tolerance of government surveillance and record-keeping - Research Paper Example There have been several events that have triggered the re-evaluation of the way civil privacy protection is balanced with police surveillance. During the period that has passed after the terrorist attack of 9/11, there have been diverse changes being implemented in the technological advances; federal law and the interpretation of privacy safeguards by the courts have created an expansion in the ways through which the police may facilitate surveillance of different civil activities or in the ways through which they can frisk citizens in public places for any particular reason. The rationale of this article is to scrutinize the different factors that may promote the escalation of police surveillance with regards to the type of effects that police surveillance has on civil life and privacy rights while also drawing conclusions on newspaper reports on the situations whereby issues have been raised in regards to stop-and-frisk policy. (http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles4 (3) /escalating.pdf‎) The way people view privacy and surveillance have been dramatically altered over the years and the change has been more evident in the balance between individual privacy rights and police surveillance authority. A significant section of the American public attributes the change to the 9/11 event to have catalyzed the search authority that has been related to the police surveillance. Surveillance has been modified and made quite inclusive of elements that were not previously connected to threat warnings, and with the advances made in the technology platform, a thin line has to be drawn as to what is acceptable by law and what should be considered as interference with the rights of an individual. Any form of threat to the safety of the American public has been defined in the constitution with the recommendations on the specific ways through which these issues of threat to national security have to be handled

Thoreau's views of Nature is primarily subjective in which he Essay

Thoreau's views of Nature is primarily subjective in which he identified himself as a part of Nature whereas those of Darwin and - Essay Example His political view seems to be much closer to the concept of Individualism but at the same time, it is of dangerous effects in terms of the line he drew through the chapters like Civil Disobedience. As any other writer, Thoreau’s writings may bear resemblance to the thoughts of different authors. To see through him from the perspective of an individualist thinker in comparison with some other individualistic ideologists is interesting. John Locke, a prominent English writer and philosopher of the 17th century who questioned the divine rights of the King, triggered a revolution of theorization in the field of political and philosophical thoughts. Locke is strictly an empiricist, who holds the view that the experience of the senses is pivotal in pursuit of knowledge. In this sense, when we turn back to Thoreau and his practical experiment with the simplicity of life in Walden Pond, can we find any similarities or dissimilarities between Thoreau and Locke? Or can we say that did the views propounded by Thoreau derive from the Locke’s writing? This research paper is an attempt to look into Thoreau’s thoughts on nature from this viewpoint. Does Thoreau’s Views of Nature Stem from Locke’s Writings? Let’s start with a quote used by Thoreau in his essay titled Where I Lived and What I lived for. â€Å"I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute† (Thoreau retrieved from http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html) Thoreau asserts that man is supreme in constituting his understanding of nature as we see in the philosophy of empiricism. From these words, it is obvious that Thoreau believes that human beings are absolutely free to lead their life in nature as they wish and a particular government or a law cannot reign over the free will of them. Again in the essay titled Civil Disobedience, one of the most controversial and influential essays by him which inspired the great social thinkers like Mahatma Gandh i and Tolstoy, â€Å"I heartily accept the motto , that government is best which governs least(Thoreau. Retrieved from http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html)†. We can a draw a line connecting the main thought of both of the citations, which accentuates man’s freedom in the state of nature. In this regard, he is obliged to Locke’s views of nature as we read the essay titled Of the State of Nature: TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider,what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. (Locke. retrieved from http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtre). Here, we can see the meeting points of the ideology of both the writers and it is most probable that Thoreau’s views must have shaped from Lockeà ¢â‚¬â„¢s thoughts. According to individualistic ideology man is supreme and above another’s restrictions. The above-mentioned wordings of the both of the writers assert the same line of thought in different manner. It is easy to infer from this similarity in thought that Thoreau should have forged his conception of nature and human freedom from the individualistic ideologists like Locke. Through the analysis of The Second Treatise of Government by Locke it is obvious that he upholds the view that sovereignty is secured in the hands

STRATEGIES USED BY THE POLICE TO DEAL WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN Research Paper

STRATEGIES USED BY THE POLICE TO DEAL WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN BETHLEHEM, FREE STATE - Research Paper Example 72). The sample size is chosen as 20 police personnel from the Namibian Police and the Ethiopian Police departments. The sample size is chosen such because this is adequately representative of the entire population (Moore and McCabe, 2005, p. 136). A purposive sampling process is used for choosing the sample size which is a non-probability sampling process. This sampling process focuses on identifying the sample group which has the characteristics most relevant to the research (Creswell, 1994, p. 52). The collected data for the semi structured interviews are analysed to suitably interpret them. The collected data are interpreted through the use of reasoning as well as comparative techniques of data analysis. Also, comprehending the responses and synthesising the responses with the research objectives is done for proper data analysis. The ethical considerations made in the research are in accordance to the policy of research ethics as defined by UNISA. The principles of human dignity, social justice, equality and morality are adequately considered in the report (Brynard and Hanekom, 1997, p. 69). The dignity and privacy of the participants as well as the groups on which the research is carried out are accordingly maintained. The methods of research and the data analysis techniques have been selected for the research after mapping the research objectives with the scopes and boundaries of the research (Jarrat, 1996). The research process is chosen to be qualitative with the use of semi structured interviews of a sample size selected by purposive sampling. This is deemed to be the most feasible and appropriate way for conducting this research in the social domain (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007, p. 81). According to Amadou (2009), male initiation is common in South Africa (Amadou, 2009, p. 18). The initiation process is a tradition for passage to