I have nothing against Native Americans.  But, their gas and souvenir scam ticked me off.  Why are so many able-bodied people sitting around making kachina dolls?  There are so many opportunities available for Native Americans.  They can attend college on scholarships for virtually nothing.  They can go to trade schools and learn a skill.  But still they choose to make dolls.  I started to wonder if Native Americans, living on reservations, are perhaps oblivious to the opportunities that areout in the real world?  Maybe they don’t know if they are Native Americans living on a reservation.

I made up a little quiz that may help. If you answer yes to any of the questions below, you may be a Native American.

1. Do your friends live a short horseback ride away?
2. Do people call your grandfather, Chief?
3. Was archery your favorite class in kindergarten?
4. Do some of your relatives have the first name of Running?
5. Are you fond of eating and wearing buffalo, deer and elk?
6.  Does your grandmother wear her hair in a long braid and smoke a pipe?

Your resume should not include entries like this:

1.      Current work history- kachina doll maker

2.       Previous work history-major league baseball mascot, hunter, arrow sharpener

If you are a Native American and would like to further your education, you can.  Climb your kiva ladder and exit the pueblo.  Pack your Navajo blanket and moccasins and head for the college of your choice.  Pick an interesting major and learn things that are not related to your heritage.  Yes, your heritage is important but it is also hindering your ability to exist. 

Get an architectural degree. Learn why not all homes are made of adobe brick.  What about finance?  Learn why trading beads for land was a mistake.  Wampum is no longer used to purchase goods. (I learned that while watching F Troop on TV)  Marketing can be a fun field to get into.  Learn how to sell your turquoise jewelry in chain stores to increase profits.  Outdoor recreation degrees can teach you to build stronger canoes and rafts.  Learn that tents come in a variety of shapes and sizes, not just cone-shaped. A park ranger or wilderness guide can surely intrigue you.  Your people called you a scout but you can evolve into a guide.  Hospitality and hotel management degrees can prepare you to work in a casino rather than be a high-stakes player in one.  Culinary arts can show you how to prepare foods other than wild game.  Fashion design can help to eliminate a wardrobe made up of fringed leather jackets and feather-embellished headbands. An aviation degree can teach you how to fly higher than an eagle.  A healthcare field can educate you in the hazards of smoking a peace pipe and drinking firewater.

 It is time to stop sobbing about the near extinction of the buffaloes and the polluting of the air, water and land.  Learn to increase the buffalo herd and how to clean the air and streams.  Don’t rely on government grants to constantly bail you out. Stop calling yourselves Native Americans, you are Indians, always were and always will be.  Changing your name does not make us feel sorry for you.  We know you lived in the United States before we did.  We can’t help you didn’t have the skills or knowledge to grow and build a mighty nation.  Perhaps you should have gone to college!

For me, I don’t know how my life is going to be, but I can sense that I will have to go through struggles to live happily. I only have financial support for a year and after that I will be on my own. I will have to work for my own living and continue studying at the same time. If grades are to get bad, I will be sent home with nothing. But it is a dream and a path that I’ve chosen.I will not walk away from it, no matter how hard it might get.

Every night, I often come to terms that what if I fail, or what if this, what if that. All the negativity surrounds me. I tell myself to be optimistic but my mind won’t accept it. I’m only counting days now. It’s sink or swim for me. My parents will try their best to give me as much financial support but I don’t want them to get in trouble for me. I already have two sisters. I don’t want to be a burden. I just hope that my risk won’t go as a waste and I’ll be successful and may be someday I’ll be able to pay back my parents all the money.

Since this is my first article, I only wrote what’s in my mind. I guess this is a good way to getting started.

Signing out now,

Sam Khisa

The most important thing is consistency. It’s easy to start something and lose interest later. A good way to avoid this is to limit yourself at the beginning. Don’t allow yourself to burn out. If you want to do 30 minutes, only do 25. Keep yourself wanting more. This is very important especially at the beginning.

Preparation

1. Read Learn Latin in 5 Minutes for a quick primer in Latin. It will literally take you 5 minutes. What do you have to lose? This is easy! And no, you don’t need to have ever seen Latin before to read it in 5 minutes the way it is set out here.

2. Purchase Hans Orberg’s Lingua Latina. There are other Latin texts out there, of course, but for a quick jump into Latin you do not have the time to recite declensions for days on end. You want to read it NOW. This 2-month course is based on Orberg’s book, which can be downloaded here.

3. Think about English. You know that there are verbs, nouns, and adjectives in English, right? Language is a little bit more complex than that. Have you ever thought about the fact that “we” and “us” are basically the same word, but said differently depending on context? And making plurals is a bit weird in English also. Most words just get an “s” on the end, like “cat” and “cats”, but other words change a bit more, like “person” and “people” or “leaf” and “leaves”. In Latin, words have their own rules that change them slightly. Luckily, they are quite regular (moreso than English actually!) and you get used to them pretty quickly. Just like when you learnt your first language as a baby, it’s best to start using Latin first and learn about particulars later.

4. Download a Latin-English dictionary. Freelang is a rather good one (it’s free!), but look around and find one you like. A good reference is Whitaker words. These are 85% of all words in written Latin. There are 1400 of them. If you are familiar with these, then you already have a fantastic foundation in Latin. Actually, of the 1400, many are similar to English (e.g. “leo” means “lion”), which makes the actual number you need to learn lower than one thousand.

5. Download the free Fabellae Latinae from Orberg’s website. It corresponds exactly with Orberg’s book.

The Course

1. Listen to the recording for chapter 1 of Lingua Latina while following along the text. Do this two or three times (you will only have to listen once by about lesson 5) to get familiar with the sound and pronunciation of Latin. The recording for each chapter is about 5 minutes long, so this will take 10-15 minutes at first, but only 5 minutes after a few days of getting used to things.

2. Read over chapter 1 more slowly aloud to yourself. Try to guess the meaning of unknown words from context, and use your downloaded dictionary to check. This is the bulk of your ‘lesson’. It will take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.

3. Look at the exercises for the chapter. These are generally only a page long, and won’t take you longer than 10 minutes to do. Do them carefully!

4. If you have the time, read the corresponding section of Fabellae Latinae. It will be very easy to understand already, and should only take 5 minutes or so!

5. Repeat this each day with the next chapter. There are 35 chapters. Spend 1 day on each of the chapters 1-10 and two days on each of the chapters 11-35. If you can still get one of the later chapters done in a single day, repeat it the next day for a really strong Latin ability.

Notes

You will initially think of what you read in terms of English. This is perfectly normal when you learn a new language! After about chapter 10, you will naturally stop translating in your head and accept the word you see in its original Latin. This is a good sign that you are beginning to develop some good ability with the language.

Remember to restrain yourself each day. If you find the work easy, don’t rush into the next day’s tasks! Take it slow so you don’t burn out. Work out how much time you are willing to spend each day on Latin and stick to it.

This is an intense course, although it builds up from nothing gradually. If you can get through it, you will be almost at the same level as a first year college Latin student. Not bad! You might want to spend more than 2 months, in which case, spend more time on each chapter accordingly.

Finally… Good luck! Feel free to comment if you want any support or extra tips!

What should you do once you have finished school? continue your education or head straight out to work? While their is no clear answer I think most people would benefit from going straight out to work once they have finished their GCSE’s.

The reason? Nowadays employers value experience more than qualifications, you can be train on the job for a lot of things. And if todays statics are anything to go by you will probably be earning more than most of those who went to university.

For some university is still worth while but with the rising fees its not as appealing anymore and it may not even been worth going, once again university is for the rich. But thats just my opinion, what do other people think. For me I would go back and not bother with college I feel its made me worse off.

“ It depends on your major.”

“ in my opinion it is better to get a higher education as you are (usually) more likely to get a job with a higher qualification.”

“ Depends on your goals. A lot of people go straight to a four year, getting it done, all while working a part time. Then there are those that have no intentions on going. They are usually the ones that work right away. A few take a break and then go. It all depends on what you want to do.”

“ It depends on what you want further down in life. Do you have some plan for what you intend to overall with your life. Investing time in educating yourself is good and will give you advantage over the others, however if you go to college for the purpose to avoid working a job – that’s silly. You only need education for the reason of achieving some bigger purpose. On the other hand you can get self educated via books, courses, internet ,etc. (again it is for fulfilling a bigger goal that you might have) . 

Getting a temporary job also might prove helpful (if you never had a job). You will learn new things, some real things from the real life and get some experience. However be careful not to get stuck with a job you dislike. 

Smart people don’t work just for the money. More likely they work to learn and gain experience which they can implement further in life for achieving a desired goal. So yea.. it seems like it boils down to having a clear goal.”

The first thing that you should talk about is how they’re going to organise themselves. Coursework and assignments are very much self led in sixth form, and this means that they are going to have to take the time to consider how they’re going to fit all of their work in without falling behind. You should provide a place for them to work that is away from any distractions, and make sure that they understand just how much they have to work. Most colleges recommend 5 hours per subject per week, which makes around 20 hours of extra study. 4 hours each day, keeping the weekends free for personal activities, usually works the best. If your child has free periods during college, then you have to trust that they’re using these for work if they tell you that this is the case. Sometimes, you can have two or three free periods, meaning that a lot of the work really can be done in college. The only way that sixth formers learn is by their mistakes, and they will realise that they need to put more work into their studies when they come to their first set of exams.

The next thing that you have to do is talk to them about what they would like to do when they finish their A Levels. Although it might seem strange to be talking about this now, they need to be thinking about their future, as the next couple of years will fly by for them. You should find them lots of University prospectuses, and take them on open days if they would like to go, and then you can feel as though you’re being involved in their decision. The more you are involved, the more they are likely to tell you about what they’re deciding, and that will be great for your relationship in the long term.

Although you might not think that there is much you can do to control the behaviour of your yougn adult, you should still try to encourage them not to spend too much time at parties and then not enough time studying. There is plenty of time for that at University, when it is at least legal to drink, so it is important that they get their head down and study hard so that they will be able to get into the course of their choice at the end of their A Levels. Although it is a tricky process, if you work together as a family, you should find that you are all a lot stronger for it. 

As a child, each and every one of us has dreams of becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher or even president of a country. As the time passes by and we grow up, some of us are lucky enough to fulfil those dreams, while others remain behind closed doors and not able to achieve any of their dreams. Let’s imagine for a few minutes, what happens to those of us who are ambitious and have not been able to achieve their goal? Despite the fact they have devoted their whole life to the purpose of achieving one goal.
Let’s take the example of someone I have known for a very long time; he wants to remain anonymous. Ever since, I have known him, he has been a very ambitious and hard-working person. As a child he wanted to work in the media industry as a PR Executive and it was the only job he wanted. He was a good student at school, with an excellent character.
He wasn’t the brightest student in the class, but was average, yet very ambitious and diligent. As we grew up together, he successfully graduated from High School with good grades and proceeded to go to college. After graduating from college, he went to university to study a degree course to follow his dream. While studying full time he was working part time in order to cover his expenses. In addition, he attended unpaid work placements with major PR companies, which would be useful for him to secure a job once he graduated from university.
He graduated from university with a Merit grade, which he didn’t expect. He was shocked and disappointed with the grades because the low grade meant that it might jeopardise his long term goal to become a PR Executive. But he remained hopeful that he could start a career somewhere in PR industry.
After sending thousands of applications and resumes for two years, he didn’t find work in the media industry, so he decided to apply for jobs in the banking sector, as he had previously worked as a part time customer sales person. But it seemed he was running out of luck, as he could not find a full time job in the banking sector.
When he graduated, it was the start of the recession, which made it even more difficult for him to get a job in any sector. Like thousands of other graduates he was also the victim of the recession. After two years of searching for a full time job in all sectors, he was still jobless, although he worked as a part time customer service representative, which wasn’t his ideal job.
During this period, he had been borrowing money from credit cards and banks as he used to hold an excellent credit scoring. But he was unaware that he had borrowed too much. Four years later, he was still working as a part time customer service representative for a company, and he was only earning just enough to cover his rent. He was really worried about his health when he realised that he had borrowed $60,000, which he could not pay back any time soon.
His only hope was to buy lottery tickets, if he could win a lottery to pay back his loans. Although he didn’t consider himself lucky enough to win a lottery, he remained optimistic. Buying lottery tickets was giving him hope rather than anything else.
I had no idea that a degree course would cost you so much. If he had not followed his dream to study, he would not have been at the same position as he is now. Education is supposed to make your life better, not worse, but I have come across several people who have been left without hope after earning their degrees.
There is a question in my mind, after all those years: was it worth dreaming, spending most of your time and money in education?

Job/Internship

Getting an internship is your best bet in getting a job when you graduate. Most employers are looking for someone that has at least a little experience. If you can get an internship in your field or a related field go for it. Some internships are unpaid so be aware of that.

Having a summer job can also help, but doesn’t have the same benefits of an internship. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. You can turn the job into a positive any related skills that can be applied to your current job and your future job is a plus. 

Volunteer

Volunteering is a great resume booster. In fact some internships require that you volunteer. There are many places that you can volunteer. Theres a nice website to find volunteer oppurtunities it is called volunteermatch.org. There are many places to volunteer such as soup kitchens and parks.

Take Classes

One way to get ahead is to take a few courses during the summer. With many institutions offering online classes it has become easier to work and take classes during the summer.

Look for scholarships

During the summer we usually have more free time. So during the summer months I would actually look for scholarships because I know I had the time to apply and do what the shcholarship required.

Work on skills relevant to you major

This is one of the best things you can do and probably should be done throughout the school year not just the summer. If I was going to school to for computer science and I was interested in programming I would work on my programming skills. Such as writing a software during the summer using things that I learned in school or things you may not have learned but are willing to.

Children are wonderful and bring a lot of joy into your life, but along with that comes responsibility and hard work. So with that in mind how many of us are really planning for our child’s future so make sure they grow into happy and successful adults?

Before I write any more I’m not talking about being an insane pushy parents that we see on TV, simply putting a little thought into what type of parent you want to be and what you want you child to turn out. After all everyone needs guidance, especially a young child.

Encourge And Support – but never force your child to do something they don’t want to do, even if you help them with their homework every night, that might seem like like nothing but studies have shown it helps children do better in school.

Set Up A Bank Account – Even if you can only afford a little every month, if you chose the right account it will go along way, it could help pay for college or a car. Just make sure they can be responsible with it.

Support Their Dreams – even if they seem silly to you they are important to your child and you must understand it, don’t be scared into letting your children make their own mistakes. It will benefit them in the long run.

It’s 2 in the morning and the world has already been made to sleep by the sweet and mesmerizing lullaby that this breeze of the mountain brings along with it. The whole world is sleeping without any fear of being disturbed or attacked by any intruders from the border where our very brave soldiers are awake and protecting us sacrificing their sleep, family life, staying away from their loved ones, where many patriots have shed their life to save our motherland from the various threats at frequent intervals; just like the very brave soldier; there are few more of them who are constantly awake fighting the dreaded human beings, more dreadful and more torment people of the world. I can have a million dollar bet that half of the world will agree with me that teachers are the one more dreadful than terrorists and eve teasers.

They are the one who give a NC and put an YB on our future. It’s not the terrorists who put an yb, they just press the trigger and we are finished; no yb, no debar, no anguish, the game’s over with just the push of the trigger. And I said that I can have a bet, because half of the world is students and they are the one who have to face this. Working on my assignment of English, it’s just the gush of letters and alphabets that have forced me to put these words into paper. There is a world far away from the border line that remains awake the whole night and works on projects much bigger than the Kargil and even denser than the Hiroshima explosion. These brave fighters are none other than the “Students” who are awake the whole night completing their assignments and projects which they have been given long back but to prove their strength and power and to disprove the mighty Ceaser; Rome can be built in just 6 hours, with only one condition being apt- you provide the dead-line for construction and we, the great students can pass the exams even by studying just 6 hours of the night and that too with some time to quench our thirst for food, and some extra dose of fun; although it is only of a very short while as it used to be as compared from the post-exam days. With books all around and almost touching those front cover for the first time, one can imagine what it takes to fight for three long hours in the designated rooms along with many other like me and few studious one, well they are present in each and every nook and corner of this world, obviously it will sound pretty much stupid on the part of those guys to call this world as having corners.

It’s always good to face challenges and go by the saying that a brave is a person who fights the dragon just for two more minutes than everyone else, but before going by the above saying only one thing that has to be kept in mind; that you have sufficient back-up during those dreadful three long hours to pass the exam with the average marks so that no one else has the mouth to say later that why did you follow what some magazine said or some stupid fellow like me has manipulated you. Just keep off the back and enjoy the greenery of the college and have fun.

Aidan King

Sylvia Plath Analysis

On: Daddy & Lady Lazarus

            Sylvia Plath, though a talented student and a virtuosic poet, spent the majority of her life combating severe depression, leading to her successful suicide at the tragically young age of thirty. One of the roots of this mental and emotional instability, as seen in Daddy and Lady Lazarus, can be attributed to Plath’s destructive relationship with her father and the years of despise towards society’s patriarchal figures.

            Plath masterfully uses the first person perspective in these two semi-autobiographical poems. As the victim, she uses “I,” evoking sympathy from those who also associate themselves as victims. She refers to the antagonist – and the reader – as “you,” which also produces feelings of remorse, pity, and even guilt. Her confessional hatred in “Daddy,” with the phrases “You bastard” (80) and “Brute heart of a brute like you,” (50) attack the reader as if to compare you to her father. She even italicizes “you” in the line “I have always been scared of you” (41), further adding to the comparison.

            While “Lady Lazarus” contains much subtler references to the Holocaust than in “Daddy,” it does however draw a stark connection between the experiences of Nazi-enslaved Jews and her own suffering. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (4-9, Lazarus). Here, while again describing herself as objects – lampshade, paperweight, linen – Plath details the suffering surrounding her attempted suicides and equates it to the pain that Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

The pain she experienced was caused by her very own “Nazi:” her father. “I have always been scared of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. / And your neat mustache / And your Aryan eye, bright blue. / Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -” (41-45, Daddy). In these lines, Plath refers to her father’s time spent as a tank operator, and the trauma it inflicted on him over the years. This trauma was in turn passed along to her, who was not even ten years old at the time. She symbolizes this with her innocent and childish references to ‘Daddy’, ‘gobbledygoo’ and ‘Achoo’. The rationalization of her concentration-camp-Jew comparison is much more believable when told through the lips of a traumatized eight year old.

Plath sees Nazis the same way she saw her father: sadistic, controlling, and manipulative, and she connotes these traits with those of all men. Examples can be drawn countlessly from both poems. “Lady Lazarus” captures how men view women as aesthetically-appealing objects, showing little concern for any internal flaws. Plath refers to the men as “The peanut-crunching crowd” (26) observing “the big strip tease” (29). This is a criticism of the male obsession with women as sexual objects.  “I am your opus, / I am your valuable” (67-68). After her failed suicide, she felt as though she were merely seen as a specimen of sorts, rather than a real human being – an equal – with severe, distressing emotional problems.

In “Daddy”, Plath uses Nazism and her father as a metaphor of the oppressive force of men. “I thought every German was you. / And the language obscene / An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (29-35). Plath sees all men (Germans) as her father, each one hoping to cause her suffering (Chuffing her off to Dachau). After enough time had passed, and she had been treated like an insignificant pest (like a Jew) for long enough, she began to believe it to be true.

Both “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” serve as great examples of Plath’s intricate and intense metaphorical writing. Without directly chronicling her autobiographical history, she successfully is able to depict her distrust and distaste for men, her father, and the Nazi regime, fitting it into one big analogy.  “Every woman adores a Facist,” (48, Daddy) serves as her mockery towards the men who do in fact believe that one must act like a hegemon to live a fulfilling life. Her father acted that way, the Nazis acted that way, and the men in her life did as well. And although her predisposition may have hastily clumped all men together, it’s undeniable that Plath, who fought a bout of depression as extensive and painful as any, had just-cause to spite the patriarchy surrounding her, and “Eat men like air.”