Feature Article

 

Taifoor Ahmad

Professor Amy Rasmussen

AP English Language and Composition

28 March 2014

Neurosurgeon

It was a gloomy, rainy day. I could hear the thunder storm pondering on earth. Suddenly, I heard a phone call from one of my mom’s  best friend who happens to have brain tumor. At that instance, there was chaos all over the house, at one side I could see people crying like babies crying when they can’t find their mom. The other side was the family getting ready to take her to the hospital. My mom’s friend Seema had dark brown hair, very tall, and always had a beautiful smiling face. We rushed to the hospital, and quickly the doctors took her to the ER and performed brain surgery. During this time interval our hearts were pounding like if they are going to fall apart from our body. Both of our families waited, waited, and waited to see if Seema’s going to be fine. As soon as we heard the footsteps of the doctor everyone raced to the door like a Usain Bolt running in a olympic. When the neurologist came and told us what is going on in her body we were contented by the news because they have successfully removed her tumor. After couple of months passed prior to her surgery Seema, started having severe migraines and she was constantly vomiting. Due to this she lost tremendous amount of weight because as soon as she ate she would throw up so her body couldn’t get the nutrients that it needed. Secondly, after couple of days Seema had another problem in which her arms and legs had no support, due to this she couldn’t do anything forcing her to take help from other people.

In my life I have faced many difficult challenges, and saw many people suffer from cancer, from my uncle to my best friend’s dad who had a Parkinson’s disease at an early stage of his life, which took his life leaving his friends and relatives behind. Seeing this I was determined to change people’s lives as much as I can, in any way I can. When my uncle was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease it completely changed my life because I saw the pain he had to go through, the emotions that were around him, and most importantly living in a constant fear of “am I going to live or die? My family took him to the best hospitals that was known for treating people who have Parkinson’s disease, I don’t remember leaving any hospital that we knew, and as soon as we heard people telling us that “ hey you should go here, that hospital is very good”, at that instance we took him there. After long time the surgeries that the doctors did was unsuccessful, at that point he was left to die. The loss of my uncle hit hard on me personally and my family because I was missing the care he gave, the smile, the kindness he showed not only to us but the whole community. I kept thinking to myself why did he had to go? Why? There was no answer.

Every year people in the United States are diagnosed of having more than 180,000 different brain tumors. ( US News & National Brain Society). Neurosurgery refers to a medical specialty which deals with, of course, the brain, spinal cord, nervous system, and much more. Although there are many fields in which a person can go while pursuing his study in neurology, such as doing brain research, research of brain tumor, and doing research of spinal cords. I want to pursue the field of brain tumor. The topic brain tumor already looks interesting because every day it’s going to be a mystery, everyday I am going to find new ways of how to treat people who have brain tumors.

Brain Image Citation: http://www.pbbsneuro.com

While I am young right now and don’t have any experience of what goes on in the medical field, I try to read the news that are related to health especially towards neurology. For example, last summer I went to Baylor Medical Center in Carrollton, and surprisingly I found this neurologist by the name of Dr. James. While I was visiting I learned an abundance of information due to the fact that the neurologist was very kind, and didn’t bother sharing his personal life as to how he became a successful neurologist. While I was “ interviewing” Dr. James I asked him many questions ranging anywhere such as what kind of school do I have to go, how long does it take to become a neurologist, job ethics, how’s the life working as a neurologist, grades that I need to have in order to get into a good medical school, and how do you maintain a good relationship between the family and the work. But there’s one thing that he told me which boosted my love towards becoming a neurologist  is that he told me “ In life you will face many challenges, people will tell you you can’t become a neurologist, you can’t do this or that, but don’t listen to them instead go FORWARD, let your dream come true”. Hearing this I was determined to change my life around. I will do whatever it takes to reach my goals. That’s the reason I stay up until 2 in the morning everyday not because I have APUSH homework but I am determined to achieve what I want to achieve in my life.

People who are considering to become a neurologist should have the true love of becoming a neurologist because you are there to help someone. Just imagine what would happen to 180,000 people who have brain tumors each year? What would happen to people if the number of neurosurgeons just keeps decreasing? What impact it’s going to have on the society? What would those 180,000 Americans and many more around the world would do? When a person becomes a health professional that means he’s giving up his time, life, and family for the will of his patients. That’s the reason not everyone can become a doctor or a nurse. Wouldn’t you want your doctor or nurse to be educated, to be determined on what they are doing so that you don’t die like my uncle did fighting brain tumor? We want our future doctors to be well educated, confident, determined, and passionate on what they are doing.

In order to become a well educated, confident, determined, and passionate neurosurgeon a person has to go through grueling school from the beginning of his high school career. The first step to become a neurosurgeon starts at high school; as soon as a person enters high school he should already made up his mind that he wants to become a neurosurgeon because at that point you will know what classes to take, what kind of GPA you need to have, what AP classes you will need take so you are a head of the game. Basically as soon as a person enters high school he should already planned what he’s going to do as one neurologist explains in his biography  “ I didn’t have a drivers license,” says Sisti, “and Dr. Lovelace said he’d drive me. So, at the age of 17, I was being chauffeur driven by a professor of neurology to and from work at the Neurological Institute—you see, my future was already mapped out.” ( The Making of a Neurosurgeon: Dr. Michael Sisti). Many students think that becoming a neurologist or going into any other field is very simple but in reality it’s very laborious as stated by a book written by a neurologist where he states “ A subject difficult to master, and it takes most of you leaving no space for anyone else. Those who have practiced this subject know that out of all surgeons, the maximum adrenaline has been secreted by them”. (First Do No Harm : Reflections on becoming a neurosurgeon). Now this should tell you what kind of life do neurologist have, and how challenging their life is; I mean every second of their life they are working or training- leaving their family and friends behind as Dr. Rainer describes that neurologist are so busy that they don’t have time for others.

After graduating from high school, the next step is a four year college/ university which are necessary because you need Bachelors and Masters in order to get into Medical school. Going to college or four year university is the second step toward becoming a neurologist. In college one has to work like a slave working in a plantation because slaves worked day and night in which all day long they worked in extremely immense  plantations and after a tiring day they would come home and make food, clean their houses, etc. same thing goes here with the students who are trying to pursue their career in neuroscience. A person who is thinking about becoming a neurosurgeon can’t waste time because there’s no time to waste; every second of your life counts, every moment of the breath you inhale or exhale needs to be wasted on reading and studying and because of these criterias there’s about the same number of neurosurgeons as there were in 1950s. ( Health. US News/ Neurosurgeons). A person who is trying to become a neurosurgeon can’t be the guy who is partying every weekend, going to every football games, hanging out with his friends, skipping classes, and doing his homework whenever he feels like to. If that’s the case then you probably have picked the wrong career because you would NOT survive medical school.

Data of how many people have become an actual neurosurgeons http://www.neurosurgery.org

Hopefully, those four years of your college experience was great with all those studying and not being able to party every weekend, not being able to hang out with your friends, above all not being able to go to every football games. But that was nothing it was a piece of cake. The next step toward becoming a neurologist is the one and only MEDICAL school. Before I start talking I want to give an idea of how medical school actually looks like by a neurologist who had the same experience as many of us will soon have he says “ You want to become a neurosurgeon?” he asks. “Your gonna have to walk from Maine to Georgia and you know what? Along the way, your going to break your arm and you better just slap a cast on and muddle through it, because that is what its like.” ( Columbia Neurosurgery). Now you can understand the difficultness of neurosurgery medical school; if you think college was wearying than you have no clue what’s going to happen in medical school. First of all, in order to get into medical school one has to score very high in MCAT ( Medical College Admission Test) so you can get into a prestigious medical school such as John Hopkins, Yale, Stanford, SMU, and many others.There are many criterias that a medical school looks at when they open the door of admissions such as extracurricular activities, grades that a person had while they were in college, and MCAT which is one of the test that medical schools look at as one newspaper explains “ In 2012, approximately 43.8 percent of people who applied to medical school were accepted, which means that being accepted to medical school is no easy feat”. ( Global Post). The reason why medical school is very tough because this the place where everything starts to get serious, this is the place to see if you really qualify to become a neurologist. While attending medical school one will learn many aspects of neurology such as how the brain works, what are the different parts, and most importantly you will be working in a real life hospitals in which professional neurologist will monitor every moves of yours they are like hawks watching constantly on it’s prey. Now in medical school what’s different is that students will be loaded with homeworks, homeworks, and homeworks; some day one might not even get to sleep. You might be thinking how does this dude knows this? Good question. Well I have many older friends who went to medical school and became a doctor, and since I’m planning to become a doctor I have asked them many questions and guess what they told the exact same thing as the doctor I quoted above.

Finally, the last step towards becoming a neurosurgeon is doing residency. Many of us don’t know what residency is. That’s good because I have asked myself and my older friends who went to medical school and became a doctor is what is residency? Guess what they told me?  It’s a place where you live and you are training to become a professional neurologist. This is the place where everything is tested- mentally, physically, and emotionally, this is the place where you feel like you can’t do anymore but those doctors who are trained like Navy SEALS put you the place where you have never thought you could do. The work days are tremendously long as some shifts will be 12 to 14 hours and the next day you have class to attend as one doctor by the name of Dr. Tom who resides in Atlanta says that “ Like many aspiring surgeons, Tom worked insanely long hours, typically averaging 120 hours per week”, telling what he had to go through in order to become something.( Rising Stars: Neurosurgery: Long Hours, Making A Difference).  This is the place where every kind of scenarios are tested  this is the place where those quick drills you had in medical school comes in handy. Luckily, I have a friend who is doing  residency in Pittsburgh for the past two years and he told me that the life of residency is miserable- every other day he has to work for at least 12 to 14 hours. When I heard this I fell to bottom of the earth because there’s no way I can survive doing 12 hours knowing that I have to attend classes the next following day. ( Muhammad Yasir).  In fact one doctor who is also in the process of becoming a neurosurgeon has schedule laid out because each second of his life counts as he states “ I’m presenting this under the shadow of the 30 hour straight rule and the 80 hour work week”,  if you go to his website he has laid out his plans as to what he’s doing in each hour because he’s counting by an hour because the shifts are counted as an hour. ( KevinMD.Com- A neurosurgical resident’s typical day)   After some wearying, grueling, and tiring years of doing residency it’s finally time to move on.

After residency that’s when everything for real starts because it makes sense that after those wearying, grueling, and tiring years that you have spent doing residency you have to put that into practice. Now finally WELCOME to the real world of business, and medical. Now it’s the time to get real because there’s no more fake patients you have to cure but now you have to treat real life people who have diseases that needs to be cured. If you screw up there’s no saying sorry, one mistake can kill that person and because of this doctors in medical and residency go super hard because they want to make the best of the best. Now let’s talk about your daily life as a neurosurgeon. Now people have to understand that becoming a neurosurgeon is not an easy job. Many neurosurgeons have multiple jobs at different hospitals. According one Neurosurgeon by the name of  Farhad M. Limonadi he states that “ It varies every day. It varies every year, in Neurosurgery your first year is different than your second which is different than your third”, so everyday you are going to have different challenges and different things. ( Farhad M. Limonadi, MD (Dartmouth).. One of the most important thing that people should remember about becoming a doctor is balancing your work life to your family life because you can’t just spend 24 hours at work you have to give some time to you family. Money is not the most important thing in life.

Student working during his residency

Typical schedule of a person doing his residency http://www.neurosurgery.ucla.edu

Process of Becoming a Neurosurgeon

Get High School Diploma

Four Years of accredited college/ university   Enroll in a pre-medical bachelor of science program at the undergraduate school of your choice Complete your pre-medical degree, maintaining the highest possible grade point average.

Four Years of Medical School Apply to medical schools beginning in your junior year. Complete four- year doctoral program in accredited medical school. Choose electives related to neurology or surgery

Four to six years of Residency Choose electives that are pertinent to neurology or surgery.

Write your board exams once you’ve completed the residency. If you pass, you’ll be a certified neurological surgeon.

Work as a Neurosurgeon

 

In order to become a neurosurgeon there’s a lot of steps involved because neurosurgery is one of the most dangerous and most challenging medical field. If a person really wants to become a neurosurgeon they should start very early and be determined because it take a  lot of manpower as well as dedication. Most importantly a person must be able to balance the time between work and family.

Final Reading Evaluation

In the beginning of the year my plan was to read at least 10 books by the end of the year. But guess what I have gone above that; this year I have read 14 book.

Books I read from easiest to hardest to read:

• Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins
• MockingJay- Suzanne Collins
• Purple Heart-  Patricia McCormick
• The Great Trouble-  Deborah Hopkinson 
• Mexican White Boy-  Matt de la Peña
• Flush-  Carl Hiaasen
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
•  The Juvie Three-   Gordon Korman
• Outliers-  Malcom Gladwell
• Sold-  Patricia McCormick
• Divergent- Veronica Roth
• Godless- Pete Hautman
• Little Bee- Chris Cleave
• The Road-  Cormac McCarthy
• Ella Minnow Pea- Mark Dunn

Although I loved all the books I read this year; there were some books who gave me a hard time mainly because of the syntax and what type of genre they were. I personally like non-fiction books because I know they are true and it happened sometime, somewhere. Because of this reason I was able to read Sold very easily because as soon as I turned the first page I knew it was worth reading, I knew that somewhere on this planet  this kinds of activities was going on . On the other hand, Ella Minnow Pea gave me a hard time due to it’s content and mainly because it was a fiction.

This year I read so many good books that it’s very hard to choose which book is my favorite. But the book I have truly enjoyed is Little Bee. You are probably asking yourself ” why does he like this book? I like this book because I can connect with my life. Like Little Bee once I was an immigrant to America, I had to fight with myself to come here because it’s not easy to leave your families, friends, your house you lived in, the place where you were born,  and your old teachers behind. In order to achieve something one must sacrifice their time, money, belongings and that’s exactly what Little Bee and I did. We left our home country so we can become successful people, we left our home country because we knew  the place where we were going had more to offer, and we left our home country because we knew the place where we were going had more opportunities.

As part of Book Club discussions and Craft Studies we did this year I read Ella Minnow Pea, Little Bee, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and The Road. Each book has taught me things which I didn’t know before, and each book has taught me how to enhance my writing. For example, reading Ella Minnow Pea has taught me how to come up with ideas and how to show them from different perspectives because in the book the author has to come up with different of ways of writing since the words are fallen from their root. Little Bee has taught me how to use emotional appeal in my writing, it has taught me the importance of having voice in your essay. Lastly from The Road I learned the importance of ending my essay with emotions. From all these books, I liked Little Bee because when a person reads this book it brings them hope, it teaches them the importance of determination, and it clearly gives the message about the effect of hatred on a society. From this study group I felt I learned the most.

It is so amazing how reading can have a significant impact on a person’s life. By me reading this year I was able to conquer the knowledge of different things which I never learned before. It made me aware of things that goes on around the world such as the book Sold taught me how people treat women in southeast Asian Countries like India, Taiwan, and Bangladesh.Each book that I read this year has helped me in some different ways. Little Bee helped me realize what people do to achieve freedom, The Road helped me realize what sacrifices parents do towards their beloved children’s. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime taught me what effect it has on kids when their parents separate. There is no other material that teaches a person better than a book. Reading this year in AP English made me realize what I was missing in my life, it opened the door of ideas that I didn’t have before.

Thank you so much Mrs. Rasmussen for making me read because without your guidance I wouldn’t have achieved what I have achieved this year.

 

 

 

 

Cover of some of the books  I read this year:

 

Most Challenging Book

 

Favorite Book

 

Most Challenging book

Quote about reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courage

What does it mean to have a courage?

To be courageous means to have faith in your self. To be courageous means to have mental and moral strength. To be courageous means to fight with in one’s self. To be courageous means take a bullet in order to bring a change in the world as well as the society. To be courageous means stand for what’s right no matter what’s the situation is.

Throughout the humanity many people have displayed the true meaning of courage such as Malala Yousafzai, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln- and many more- the list wont stop.

According to Save the Children Foundation they say that “Two-thirds of the world’s 880 million illiterate adults are women. Girls are more than 70 percent of the 125 million children who don’t have a school to attend”.  That’s the reason Malala Yousafzai is fighting for the freedom of education towards women. People don’t understand the importance of women in a society- they think that whenever a baby girl is born it’s going to bring unhappiness, it’s going to bring a burden on the family- in reality it actually brings happiness. Women play crucial role in a society because from them a family starts, from them the baby learns to speak, from them the baby gets the right advice- if a mom is educated then her offspring’s will be educated. Malala Yousafzai who was shot by the Taliban’s last year showed the true meaning of courage because has the world ever seen a young girl fight for the freedom of education towards girls? I don’t think so. I haven’t seen a girl ready to take a bullet so girls not only in her country but around the world can get education.  I haven’t seen any other girl have the same sympathy, mentality, and kindness for the Taliban’s daughter as she has the same goal towards. If it was me and you we will show our hatred towards them, we would kill them- instead we find a girl by the name of Malala Yousafzai showing sympathy for her enemies as well as her fellow human beings. That’s a true example of a person who displays courage.

In the United States Martin Luther King Jr. showed the same courage as Malala Yousafzai showed in Swat Valley, Pakistan. While King was growing up in America he saw the injustice, cruelty, and hatred towards African American in the early 1960s. Because of this King found a courage to change America-America which will be known as the land of freedom, an America which will be known by not the color of people’s skin but instead as a land of  unity, togetherness. To achieve his dreams Mr. King had to make sacrifices, challenge people’s thinking which told him he can’t do this, he can’t bring equality in America. The only way Mr. King could have achieved his ideas was through courage because courage brings success, courage bring greatness, courage elevates human’s spirit.

Courage is vital to one’s self because it brings happiness and success in a person’s life. Everyone must have a courage so they can change themselves as well as their society.

Who Should we Blame

” The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.” – Simon Mainwaring

Responsibility, the basic definition of this is ” the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.” In Miami Herald Leonard Pitts talks about Justin Bieber where he asks questions to himself ” self, what happen to this kid, why isn’t he taking responsibility for his own actions”? For the last two months or so Justin Bieber has been appearing in the news quite frankly because of his ” stupid” actions.

Having a responsibility shows a person’s characteristics, it defines who we truly are because not everyone out there has responsibility. In life we will see failures, in life we will see hardships, in life we will see success- success can’t happen unless one fails and tries to reach his goals.

Now days teenagers are the biggest sector of society in which they lack significant amount of responsibility. There could be many factors such as while they were growing up they didn’t have the right parents to teach them about responsibility, the didn’t hang out with the right people who inhibited responsibility. This is where the question comes- who should we blame? There are many people who display great amount of responsibility.

In the world there are tons, tons, and tons of examples we can see where people displayed or display great amount of responsibility such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and President Obama- the list can go on and on- it will never stop.

Let’s take a closer look at Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi  was the person who help India gets it’s independence in 1947 from Great Britain. To demonstrate his anger towards the British he didn’t eat food only drinking water for 21 days while he was in jail, he boycotted the salt industry. He worked tirelessly day and night to create an effective independence movement where they would protest peacefully. Hence, this is how Martin Luther King Jr. got the idea of peaceful protest in Civil Rights Movements in America. In the beginning, Gandhi failed many times, and sometimes he just felt giving up, but when you have a dream, a goal, a mentality that you have set in your brain then nothing can stop even if Mt. Everest comes in your way. Here, that’s what Mr. Gandhi had in his mind- get India it’s independence. Because of the failures he had in his early life it made him more determined to become a successful person who will be remembered for ever. Now, one must understand that Mr. Gandhi didn’t achieve his goals by sitting home and doing nothing; but indeed by taking ownership of his mistakes and working on them so he can help himself as well as his fellow Indians.

There are many athletes out there who truly define responsibility such as Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Lebron James. When we see them we are like WOW- how did they become such an amazing, well-talented players. But we as humans never go into deep analysis as to how they became such an amazing player, we never realize how much work they had to put in order to become who they are right now, we never realize how many failures they had in order to achieve the status they currently hold, we never realize what kind of challenges they had to face. People don’t become a VIP, or All- Star player by just working out once or twice a month, or having big dreams as we all do, but have we ever put that much effort to reach our goals like many other athletes do? Do we hold the same amount of responsibility to become like Kobe Bryant? I don’t think so. Kobe Bryant became the youngest player to score 30,000 points in NBA history. Now, one must realize that he just didn’t achieve this great status just by working here and there, he had to work his butt of, he had to go through grueling training’s, suffer many pains and once he did all those things mentioned above, he got the status of becoming the youngest player to score 30,000 point. By all this, one must think that in order to become a successful person- he has to go through a lot of pain, failures which will force him to go down the ladder like a plane goes down when it’s hit by a missile.

Responsibility brings success because if one has responsibility they will do anything, I mean anything to conquer the dream or the goals they have in their minds. They get up, learn from their failures and mistakes and from that moment they just keep moving until they have reached their destiny.

 

Humanity

What defines human?

Human have many characteristics and different moods which can be defined as the human race; human beings collectively, or humaneness; benevolence. Each and every individual define humanity in number of ways.

But one journalist by the name of Leonard Pitts of Miami Herald claims that there’s only two ways that defines human and that is ” Pain and Laughter”.  Now, here Pitt is being conservative because there’s no way that 7 billion people can be define as pain and laughter. Yes, these are the two things that define humans but there’s more to it.

Now days we humans only care for ourselves not others, we have the mentality that if we help others we are going to waste our time, money, and energy which is not acceptable.  Our society is becoming more and more conservative where we just look for our own benefits and not for others, and this is the place where we lack humanity because we as humans suppose to help out each other in each and every way we can because if you look the true meaning of humanity it basically states that you care for others before yourself.

Now one must understand that in each and every society there’s going to be magnanimous people as well as people who don’t care for others.  For example, there’s a guy by the name of Aga Khan who has the largest development  network in the world in which he spends around  US$500 million early to help the people where he built schools, prestigious universities, hospitals, homes for the needy , religious worship places such as mosques and churches. Due to his actions he was named top 100 most influential people in the world.  Now that’s what I call a true human because he’s giving up everything for the sake of the humanity so they live a happily lives like we do in the western countries. There are also many small groups that help in India in which they create schools, teach teachers to tell their students how teach their students in a engaging learning community as one girl by the name of Priyanka  Gupta who resides in Maryland raised several thousands of dollars to help fight poverty in India. All of these wont be possible if it wasn’t for these people who give up their time, money so people who are less unfortunate can enjoy some luxury. This is what a true humanity is.

As time goes by, humans are achieving more than ever before and because of this mentality we have accomplished many things, this couldn’t be done without the help of one unified humanity. Instead of caring too much for ourselves we should go out of the box and reach out to other people, other countries who are less unfortunate, and if we do this we will become one unified humanity trying to achieve the same goals.

Reassessment of Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Since the starting of humanity on earth, humans have always tried to conquer nature even though they knew nothing about nature- how it works, what types of nature are there, etc. While some part of the world were busy in conquering nature, many enjoyed nature especially in Asian countries like China and Japan. People in these regions believed nature had all the power; it could cure diseases, find love, and because of this emperors such as in Han dynasty came up with a religion called Confucianism which centers around nature.  With that same thinking Edward Abbey who is a essayist  explains his feelings towards nature when he visits the Aravaipa Canyon in New Mexico. While Abbey is at the Canyon he praises a lot about nature, romanticizes, and at the same time telling humans no matter what we do, how much we try we can’t go to the core of nature.

Throughout the whole passage Abbey is praising nature, noticing the smallest changes that is taking place while he’s staying in Aravaipa Canyon, he’s refusing Fuller’s comment ” The world is big but it is comprehensible”, displaying his love for nature. While he’s staying in Aravaipa Canyon Abbey is noticing the smallest changes that’s taking place ” we see no mountain lions this evening, nor any of the local deer, the little heart-shaped tracks of the former apparent”, examining the constant changes that’s been taking place since he put his first foot on the land. Secondly, who would even take the time to look at the smallest changes that’s been taking place such as why there’s no mountain lions in the evening or any deer’s, do we really care why- no but for Abbey definitely. At the same time he’s examining how different types of animals such as ” oversized heads, pig like animals with tusks, and tapering bodies”, can closely live together in that same Canyon with harmony and peace.

While Abbey praises a lot about nature he romanticizes about nature. Abbey is describing his time at the Aravaipa Canyon in which time is travelling like a bullet with so much to see ” we reach the mouth of the canyon and the old the old two uphill to roadside to see come out…. night falls quickly and the climate already feels cold”, telling himself how things are changing so fast at point he’s at the hills next he notices that it’s already night and the temperature is dropping, telling himself how nature has it’s own ways of  making the habitats life more amusing.

Aside from Abbey praising and romanticizing nature he states what humans can’t achieve with nature. No matter how much humans try, what kind of technology we built we can’t go to the core of nature as he states  ” in details and relationships, in wonder, beauty, mystery…. the very existence of existence is itself suggestive”. Scientists and multitude of companies around the world such as NASA are spending billions and billions of dollars to explore our universe but have they found any examples where it tells how everything began, we can’t even figure out what’s inside of our galaxy how we can find the core of nature. While some companies are spending money to go to space some companies like National Geographic are sending people to discover earth, but still scientists can’t prove how everything works. there’s significant number of places where to this day it remains a mystery. So, it doesn’t matter how much we try, we can’t truly understand nature.

 

Civility

As soon as we enter the life of education the first thing we learn is to respect others, treat each and everyone with kindness like you want to be treated. But now in modern days these things are gone, there’s no ” Yes sir or Yes Ma’am” as we would find if we went back in time where each and every kid would say Yes Sir or Yes Ma’am to their parents and their teachers, but now what we see is kids arguing with their parents, talking back to their teachers. What kind of respect or civility is this? In our modern world we hear kids saying ” you’re ugly, you have no friends, get a life,  why are you so stupid, why are you fat”, the list can go on and on it will never stop.

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another “- Napoleon Hill. When we speak we don’t care what kind of words  come out of our mouths, we might think the words we are saying might be funny but that one word can become a grave to some person, that’s the reason the rate of teenagers committing suicide has drastically climbing to the peak of Mountain Everest. According to the department of Education and Justice around 160,000 fellow teenagers don’t go to school simply because they are being bullied, now I don’t know about you guys but for me it’s heartbreaking to see this many people not going to school because of our stupid behaviors. How would you feel if you were bullied? How would you feel as soon as you walk through the front doors of the school people start laughing at you? How would you feel when you see so many people eating lunch with their friends, but you are left alone? Where’s our civility that our parents, teachers, and our religion taught us.

With the creation of social networking sites and the internet people no matter where they are, what part of the globe they are- as long as they have internet access they can see everything that is going in the world. While this is a good thing at the same time it’s a bad thing. The users of the social networking site constantly write harsh comments on famous celebrities and world leaders like Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, and President Barack Obama and the comments that people make on celebrities, presidents can have huge impact on their lives. Just imagine how many ugly comments does President Obama gets everyday or Kim Kardashian who quite surprisingly was the front cover of Vague magazine and as soon as people saw that they started criticizing her, writing harsh comments. Before creating a new trend of whether liking ” Kim Kardashian” or any other celebrities, people should consider thinking twice before candidly expressing the first thought that comes to their mind.

While many individuals think writing a bad comment or talking negative about them would bring people down as we can clearly see on the internet with people commenting on President Obama’s administration, but the reality is that when we common people write negative things about other it actually gives them hope and motivation to prove people wrong. That’s the reason our society has become so negative on everything, parents are not teaching the importance of civility and because of this we can see on the internet  where teenagers and adults are typing whatever that comes to their minds. Why does everything has to be criticizing people? Why can’t we have harmony and peace? If people can start turning those ugly, stupid, obnoxious comments into pleasing, wisdom’s, uplifting- trust me our society would become so exuberant, filled with civility- where we care for others and bring hope to them instead bringing them down.

We humans need to be courteous and show civility to others as if we would like to be treated with respect and kindness. So, in the future when you are about to say something bad, or about to comment on something which you know it’s going to be bad think twice and make it into pleasing comment where it’s shows civility.

 

An Open Letter to an Author

Dear Chris Cleave,

Recently I have finished your wonderful book Little Bee.  I was amazed by your writing,  I don’t  think there is any word out there the in the world to describe the feelings I had while reading Little Bee.  By reading Little Bee I got the chance to learn how people face difficulties in every part of the part of the world whether people living in Nigeria or people living in India; everyone faces challenges. But this should not be the reason to put yourself down as Little Bee showed in the book in which she fought the hardest time of her life but she still managed to escape from the anguish of the British Oil Company to Britain.

I can compare my life to Little Bee because once I was a immigrant to this country and as I was growing up I face a lot of challenges. I know exactly what kind of preparing it takes to move out of your mother country, leaving your friends, families, everyone behind only for the sake of opportunities and freedom. No one wants to leave their families or friends behind, would you leave your family and friends? As I was reading Little Bee, it reminded me my older scars that to this day I have in my heart but what really got me motivated was this ” We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’. (146). Everything that happens in life there is always some sort of purpose in them, but we as humans don’t realize that. Maybe all the scars that I have to this day might lead me to a successful life in the future because whenever I am going to face any unfortunate challenges I can handle situations more calmly.

In the book there were many parts where I felt like crying because it made me realize what kind of problems face on a daily basis. No one should be forced to leave their houses, families, friends, schools, just because someone wants to take over their land especially when it’s not even their country. Every person has the right to live happily in their homeland. There will be people who will tell you can’t do this or that but you have to prove them wrong as Little Bee showed “This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.”( 220). When I came to America I had to do the same thing; I had to leave what I loved, I had to leave the things I did everyday because I want to move on in my life as Little Bee did where she had to leave her beautiful place where she was born to an unknown place where she never seen or heard of that place. In life people will always be telling  you you can’t do this, you can’t become a neurologist, you can’t achieve this, etc. But on the other side you have this mentality to move on, to succeed so in the future you can become another Einstein or Mahatma Gandhi.

This book has taught me many important lessons which are very valuable to a person’s life. Mr. Cleave thank you so much for teaching me valuable lessons.

Sincerely,

Taifoor Ahmad

Little Bee

Little Bee what an astonishing book. Full of fascinating things. Due to this I have engaged myself reading this book as much as I can. This book is packed with 271 pages, and today marks the day in which I have successfully completed the book; so I have read 271 pages.

While living in Nigeria Little Bee faced the impenetrable situation which people like us will die at that instance, but this girl had the courage to move on even leaving her family, friends behind. Leaving her country was a burdensome task, but she already set her mind of moving forward. As she moving out Lee says, “This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.” This quote stands out to me because I can relate this to my life. Being a student, I have same feelings everyday where after long, tedious, grueling hours at school, I finally come home and as soon as I enter my home I run to my bed like a mom running when she finds her lost son.  When I am in my bed I don’t feel like coming out because I want to relax, and do nothing, but after couple of hours My brain wakes me up and tells me “hey Taifoor you got homework’s to do”, hearing this I throw my blanket away like a baseball player throws his ball to his opponent. Not that my favorite hobby is doing homework, but indeed I have set a goal in my mind that I want to MOVE ON in my life; I want to make my life as luxurious as I can but in order to this I have to sacrifice things which I really love as Lee did in Little Bee. This quote connects to the novel because as the war started between Nigerian people and the oil drilling company Lee is forced abandon things which she loved once but now she can’t because  she’s forced to migrate to Britain due to the rising conflict in Nigeria.

This novel was great read because it incorporated many figurative languages such as imagery, flashback, similes, descriptions, as well as characters different point of view which really helped the reader to imagine in his/her head what kind of situations, and what kind of emotions were going on. For example, on page 52 the author had a perfect simile ” “warm sunshine dripping from the holes between the clouds like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it”, this simile shows how capable the author is at creating figurative language. On a different place on page 138 there is another great simile ” trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world”. On page 213, Cleave uses powerful imagery to describe the situation that Sarah and Little Bee were when they got lost ” there was a very old jeep in the undergrowth. Its tires had rotted away to nothing…….the black plastic seats were growing out trough the aches of its wheels”. Throughout the book Cleave has exceptional way of describing places, people, and the situations the characters are facing. For instance, on page 203 the author is describing a person by saying ” we stood for long time. In the streets below, an Italian-looking boy was cycling past the traffic queue. Mid-twenties, shirtless and tanned, in short white nylon shorts”. Secondly, what I really loved about this book is the author’s capabilities of creating suspense, mystery, as well as love in the book. Astonishingly, this book is told from first person point of view between Sarah and Little Bee. As the point of view alternates between characters, the voices also changes, which serves to make the story more realistic while allowing the reader into the hearts and minds of both characters.

What I didn’t like about the book is that the author is trying to tell a story about these two sisters and what happened to them, but instead he starts talking about sex. Yes, I know it’s part of the story but you can’t incorporate sex with your writing. For example, on page 203, it says ” and yet something in your tone tells me you’re not talking about women refugees with sex toys”. This kinds of things give bad impressions because the author doesn’t know who is his readers; what if a 6th grader wants to read and as he is reading suddenly he finds the author talking about sex.

The ending of the story is very emotional, and very thrilling because Little Bee and other characters are in great danger of getting caught by the Nigerian police as well as getting killed. I am very satisfied with the ending of the book because it keeps me thinking what would happen to Little Bee when she’s in Nigeria; it keeps me hanging.

Massachusetts teen indicted on new charge of raping teacher

Right now in the news there are so many things going on from President Obama’s State of the Union address to a teen raping a teacher in Massachusetts. All these incidents makes our world villain; I mean who really rapes a teacher; are people out of their minds. Teachers, the most important person in a society who gives up everything for their students so they can become successful. They are suppose to work for eight hours a day but they work for like 9 to 10 hours so their students can get any help they want. Students are not giving the respect, kindness teachers should receive. For example, how many of us give something to our teachers on teachers appreciation week? Hardly anyone.

Everyday on the news we hear about teens getting raped, shooting in some high school, teens giving up lives in Pakistan so other’s can live happily. What things are we going to keep doing so the humanity keeps looking deleterious? When I read this article I was passed out because I couldn’t believe this actually happens; I mean I couldn’t believe my eyes, my lips, my mind reading this. As most of you know that last year a girl who was going to college and coming back from her school was RAPED in a moving bus. This incident caused riots all over India, and forced the government to take extreme measures, and make harsh laws for it’s citizens so no incident like this happens in the future. But after couple of weeks another women was raped in India. After looking at all these examples I quickly came to a conclusion that this is caused by media, and celebrities. You might be thinking why? Most of the people listen to music, whether it’s a 5 years old kid or 90 years they listen to music. But have you ever notice what’s in the music? Go look up Rihanna, Katy Perry, Eminem, and Beyonce’s music you will find it’s all about sex. So these are the people who are creating an image, teaching them about sex at an early age; and because of this we see these kinds of cases where a teen is raping his teacher and after that killing her what kind of humanity is this.

Every year there’s always hundreds of cases which involves around sex and rape. While I was living back in India I saw many things which I shouldn’t have but now I thank myself because it had let me become a better person. One day as I was walking home from school with my friend Aaliyah suddenly these two gigantic, long mustache, very tall approach us and without any question they take my best friend Aaliyah. Seeing this I ran home like a cheetah runs for his predators, when I got home I told them the news. After couple of hours I saw her at the same place where she was kidnapped. When I saw she was crying like a baby lost her mother, and she told us that she was raped. Hearing this I felt like falling at the bottom of the earth because I couldn’t believe what happened to her. That’s the reason whenever I hear this kind of news where a teen is getting raped or there is a shooting somewhere I go back to that moment and wonder what they are going through.

Every minute, every second our humanity is getting worse and worse. If we compare to 1920s to current time we will see huge differences because people are constantly changing. People we have to respect each other especially the elders but above all is teachers because without them there will be no education, whenever there is no education then people wont be successful and when people are not successful the country falls apart and becomes corrupted. RESPECT

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/justice/massachusetts-chism-indictment/index.html?hpt=ju_t2