Common Reading Reaction Paper

It’s common knowledge that there will be many people to be encountered in life that you can relate to in one way or another. I find myself relating to Mishna Wolff from â€Å"I’m Down† in many ways. From sharing very similar experiences to having almost identical personality traits, I can without a doubt identify with Mishna. It's inevitable while you're growing up and learning new things in school, you attach yourself to other individuals with similar interests or just share some sort of chemistry. In other words, your â€Å"best friend† or â€Å"BFF† as others would like to call them.I've always had a best friend, even from an early age (3 years-old to be exact). It just so happens that my first best friend was African-American. I never saw myself different from her, where being white or black had no importance in my mind. There were many times where I'd spend the night at her house, and her family would be over. I'd never felt more out of place. The loud and rowdy conversations, the slang I'd never heard, and just the atmosphere was totally different. This is where I feel I can relate to Mishna, when she began â€Å"capping† with the neighborhood kids to fit in.I had always felt the need to change how I spoke and behaved around her family. I had never felt more out of place. In addition to fitting in, Mishna had also joined many different sports to please her father and win back (or an equal amount) of favoritism. I can also identify with this experience as well. All throughout my childhood I had hopped from one sport to another, from taking agonizing ballet classes, swimming, soccer, and finally cheer-leading. At first I started involved myself in them because I wanted to try something new; but it ended up being because I was competing for attention from my younger brother.My brother had been playing baseball since he was six years old. My mother and father, and even some of my extended family would never fail to wa tch every single one of his games. My father would emerge himself in my brother's baseball practice, spending hours after-school coaching him and some of his teammates. With all this attention spent on my brother and his baseball, I had always felt left out. My parents would drop me off at my own practice and neither one of them involved themselves in any sport I was in. Mishna is pictured in the book to be, for the most part, fairly easy-going and doesn't let too many things bother her.When her father says something outrageous or just plain unfair, she resorts to keeping everything to herself. I can also relate to her in this way. There are many times when someone says something I disagree with and I'm able to just shrug it off and not let it affect me. However, there are many things Mishna did that I don't see eye-to-eye with. When Mishna's father told a group of people right in front of her that Anora was â€Å"his girl† and just let it slide like that, see, I wouldn't let that go as easily. To me, that's something extremely disturbing to hear, seeing as your father is supposed to love you unconditionally.Had it been my next to the stairs eavesdropping on that conversation, I wouldn't have thought it over twice to call my mother and go live with her. Moreover, if I was Mishna, I wouldn't have let Anora get away with everything. The unfairness is just incomprehensible and I would never allow it to go as far as it did. If my younger sibling did things that were inappropriate or was doing something wrong and one of my parents just shrugged it off like Mishna's father did, I would have said something or acted in the same manner as Anora until everything was justified.Had Mishna done something about it, I don't think things wouldn't have gotten as bad as they did regarding her sister. Ultimately, Mishna and I are very alike in the things we think and do. I have been able to relate to almost every experience she shared with us in â€Å"I'm Down†, fr om the problems of fitting in to the problems with her father. I feel that all these things make us the person we are today, and for that, we shouldn't be ashamed of any of it. Mishna writing this book just shouts to be proud of who you are and where you come from.

Mistakes are Steps to Success

Many people think that mistakes just make their life miserable. But, ironically, that is not true. I always thought that making a mistake will make me regret that mistake for the rest of my life. But luckily I fell into the learning side of mistakes. Mistakes are like missions in a game, you may not die or you may die. If you die, you may learn from the mistakes that made you die in the first place. So the next time the same mission comes again you may not die because you have already learned from it. I believe that if you make a mistake, be optimistic and learn from the mistake.It makes you learn something about a situation and actually move on positively with it. When you make a mistake, it opens an automatic door to get to know yourself better. People can often learn more from a mistake than success. Some people may do the same mistake 2 or 3 times and then learn, that totally depends upon how seriously the mistake is. For example if you play with a needle, you might not get hurt the first time, but if you do it wrong the needle might poke a hole in your skin. Next time you do it you might think, NEEDLE=BAD.Sometimes we don’t realize we’re doing something bad until we get hurt and that’s usually how we learn. Everyone has made a mistake in their lives. At least just one, I mean if someone has never made a mistake, well that obviously means he/she doesn’t know anything. Why? Because mistakes are mostly the things that teach us in life. If we were perfect, nothing would make us happy, curious or even sad. I guess that’s a good thing, but that’s not true. I feel that mistakes give us more strength and make us stronger to deal with life.From my previous mistakes, I learned to never let anyone hurt me and crush my feelings, I learned to not show my emotions so much in future relationships, I learned about the kind of person I want in the future and the kind of person I don't want, I learned not to be so needy and to depen d on myself and my family for my happiness. Another false step that really taught me something was to lie to my parents. When we turn teenagers we change our path and do far worse mistakes than we do as kids.Something like that happened to me, I started to lie more and more until my parents would find out everything I lied about; I got phone and my PS3 taken away for a long time and that taught me to be truthful and honest to both of my parents so I won’t be able to suffer and have nothing in my life to entertain myself with. Some mistakes can be learned from, but few cannot. For example, if you’re teacher wants you to study on the computer and you start playing games, you might not get the second chance.Instead you probably will get a detention. I know that it is pretty hard to accept mistakes made by us but it’s easy if we can see our mistakes from a different angle. We usually think the negative thoughts about our mistakes, but we need to understand and accep t that the mistakes we do will bring big changes and make our lives distinct in some sort of way, depending on the mistake. I now realize why mistakes are also helpful and not only hurtful.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare Essay

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare - Essay Example Who hasn’t, in the days when we were young, gone to bed seemingly in love with one person only to awake the next day and find strong emotions in our hearts for someone else? This is irrational, but being irrational and silly has its place within each of us. Few people will admit to being so linear and scientific as to deny their lack of rational control when it comes to love. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is so popular because it reminds us all of those days when we could be irrational and fantastic without feeling the least bit foolish. Like all good literature, I believe the play’s appeal also lies in the characters. Reading the play allows me to see a bit of my own silliness in the situations the characters find themselves. The fantasy of fairies and love potions and enchanted forests is so engrained in our culture that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is exactly the antidote many of need for the sterile scientific world in which we currently live.

Political Ideas and Political Change in Britain that Have Affected the Essay

Political Ideas and Political Change in Britain that Have Affected the Nature of Public Service - Essay Example Political ideas play a major role influencing the thinking and conduct of the leaders and when such leaders who when in power institute different approaches to governance which also shapes the public service used to achieve the goals of the electorates. The leader and his or her dominant political ideology determine strategies used handle the human nature and all the challenges facing the society. Government policies therefore originate from the main ideas of the political party that forms the government. At times, a government may modify or create radical change to the existing structure of governance and society as perceived suitable for achieving the desired outcome. Political ideas and Public Service An ideology is a as a set of ideas, visionary images and thinking patters that shapes how an individual or a class of people view society or other matters such as economic, political and governance systems. Political ideologies are therefore a set of ideas that provides a basis for o rganized political action, whether it intends to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power. Ideas give a world-view, provide a model for the future, a vision for a good society, and outline how a political change can be brought about. Although democracy is a common system of governance worldwide, it is ideal governance approach but not an ideology. Ideologies are underlying principles that guide political action of an individual or a political class (Heywood, 2007). A political ideology may describe and interpret the past and present and define what the ideal future should be like, plus the appropriate strategies and policies for achieving the goals. Such political ideas therefore explain the human nature and history about the state in a way that steer political action and provides a plan for action. It also cut across political parties and may a leader may use different ideologies to support their policies. Identifying personal ideology involves having an understan ding of the human history that may have shaped the past and adopting a personal approach to shaping the world in future. This is important in any leader since human beings are controlled by motivation and events and at times structures. The ideas of the leader adopted to solve any situation may change the event and the condition and produce the desired change (Hoffman and Graham, 2006). Public service is an instrument used by the political leadership to achieve political goals and to serve citizens who pay tax to enjoy the common good. The public service therefore changes with the political ideology of the political party, which forms the government. Britain has had a number of ideologies brought by different leaders each of which introduces specific approaches to public service over the years. This is because public service is directly under the control of the political leadership and therefore the agenda of a political party, has to influence the structure and systems adopted by t he public service (Heywood, 2007). The main political ideologies The major political ideas, which have shaped the post war Britain to the present, include Liberalism, Socialism, Conservatism, Welfarism, Neo-liberalism, The Third Way and The Big Society. Each of these varies between two extremes of left which is also known as communism dominated by socialism and liberalism at the centre, then moves to conservatism the extreme right of either fascist or

Understanding Various Dimensions of War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Understanding Various Dimensions of War - Essay Example Leaders who create tough realistic training conditions and ensure psychological protection, continue to fulfill the challenges of a key leader. Moreover, the responsibility also encircles maintaining unit cohesion and demonstrating the quality of humanness (Moseley, 2007). Furthermore, it is important for leaders to ensure appropriate grief counseling and grief work during tough times, as well as to ensure that leaders observe and identify critical warning signs of Soldiers who are in distress. Not to forget how important is communication, since it makes meaning of the risks and sacrifices which are made by the Soldiers while achieving the unit’s missions and objectives. It is important for leaders to realize and embrace the understanding of the moral, ethical and psychological dimensions of war. The training of applied ethics fosters the development of a unique combination of values, principles, knowledge, skills and abilities critical for decision making and effective leadership combat (Moseley, 2007). This training is mostly done through self-study. The critical factors that include everything that is done in war involve the moral, ethical and psychological dimensions of war. An even broader dimension of the psychological aspects of war lies beyond psychological health and psychological fitness, which transcends every performance of the leaders. Within the psychological characteristics of motivation are woven character, presence and intellect along with leads, develops and archives, in a leader. It is because of these psychological factors that become the X-factor under pressure and stress, and therefore this may become the determinant for either success or failure either individually or as a unit (Moseley, 2007). A key ingredient of bravery, valor and warrior ethos can be categorized as psychological fitness.

The Harvard Community Health Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Harvard Community Health Plan - Essay Example In order to deliver high-quality healthcare services to the patients, Harvard Vanguard is focused on establishing a partnering relationship with its patients and community members (Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, 2012c). As part of delivering complete healthcare services to the patients, Harvard Vanguard’s physicians, physician assistants, nurses, and the rest of the medical teams are required to work closely with other specialties such as internal medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics among others (Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, 2012d). This is also the main reason why healthcare professionals at Harvard Vanguard are continuously collaborating with other Atrius health affiliates (i.e. Dedham Medical Associates, Granite Medical Group, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Reliant Medical Group, South Shore Medical Center, and Southboro Medical Group) (Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, 2012e). As part of the Harvard Vanguard ‘s human resource people plan, this report will explore the effectiveness of its organization's commitment to equality and diversity, individual and organizational learning, compensation, pay-for-performance and incentives, employee benefits, and employee rights. After the conclusion, some recommendations will be provided to ensure that the HR manager of Harvard Vanguard will be able to continuously support and implement necessary changes that aim to improve its current HR practices. Equality and Diversity ‘Equality’ means that work-related discrimination should be removed in order to guarantee that each worker within a business organization is given equal work-related opportunities whereas ‘diversity’ is all about the need to value the differences between two or more different people (Skills for Business, 2012). Basically, the human resource of Harvard Vanguard is committed to promoting workforce diversity and Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) (Employee Guide Book, 2012, p. 7). Without any forms of work discrimination (i.e. race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, and handicap or disability veteran status), each and everyone who is currently employed at Harvard Vanguard will be given the equal opportunity for employment (Employee Guide Book, 2012, p. 7). Individual and Organizational Learning Healthcare management is subject to change because of the presence of external socioeconomic factors that could directly affect the way healthcare services are being managed. According to Aspin and Chapman (2001, pp. 39 – 40), some of the reasons why HR managers should provide opportunities for individual lifelong learning includes the need to continuously improve one’s own knowledge and skills for â€Å"economic progress and development†, for â€Å"personal development and fulfilment†, and for â€Å"social inclusiveness and democratic understanding and activity†. Basically, in dividual lifelong learning is a new perspective wherein the modern society is being strongly influenced. In response to the continuous improvements on science and information and communication technology, a lot of educational institutions around the world started promoting the importance of individual lifelong learning (Demirel, 2009).  

Strategy and the Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Strategy and the Strategic Management - Essay Example Knowing the firm’s external environment is important in the strategic management process because it affects how value is generated and how activities could be carried out under the influence of technological change, demographic trends, cultural trends, the economic climate, legal and political conditions, and other global events. Using the structure-conduct-performance (S-C-P) model allows a systematic analysis of the firm and its environment. This model: (1) helps a firm identify the attributes of its industry’s structure that constrains the firm’s strategic alternatives and performance, (2) helps it decide how to conduct itself by crafting the most appropriate strategies, and (3) take into account the performance of the firm, the industry, or the economy. The S-C-P model helps a firm develop the tools it can use to analyze threats in its competitive environment. The â€Å"five forces framework† is a tool that looks at five threats to the firm.These threats affect the firm, its performance, and how its competitors would react, thereby helping the firm determine what strategies it needs to develop and execute to overcome problems arising from each of these forces. Complementors are another important force that a firm has to contend with because these firms add value to the firm’s products. A firm can use compliments as a means of gaining an advantage over other competitors, e.g. Microsoft encouraging software companies to develop games for its X-box game player instead of developing games for its competitors. The S-C-P model can also help firms analyze strategic opportunities by identifying generic industry structures and available strategic opport