Another Friday Night at the Military School :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

5:00. Another Friday night rolled around. I lay on my bed daydreaming. At fifteen, I left home to become a boarder at the military school, a private school far, far away from home. Since then, every Friday night had become a blurred feeling of boredom coupled with the same repeating people and places. Every time I looked for an answer to excitement, or simple entertainment, I hit a wall of restrictions. Due to these very annoying rules, I had no car or place to go. I lived in room 208 of a three-story dorm with a roommate who was not only thought insane, but also had even less of a social life than I did. My dorm held the image of a swinging tower of terror. Sophomores and new students filled up the first floor. They lived innocently compared to the rest of the dorm. They consistently stayed almost completely shut off from any kind of disobedience or adventure. My best friend Kyle's room unfortunately lay on the first floor. Second floor lived a little bit more dangerously. We learne d a few tricks to stay up late and pushed the rules a little harder than first. But neither first nor second floors touched the craziness contained in the third floor hall. They lived on the edge of the blade. Almost the entire hall consisted of seniors who had more guts then a Bruce Willis movie. I didn't dare venture onto the third floor, not because I felt afraid; I felt more curious than afraid. Being an insecure sophomore, I didn't know the first thing to say to the zoo full of seniors. This Friday began to bring back all the depressing feelings of past nights spent at the mall for 4 hours, or wandering the lonely streets of Chattanooga. "So what do you want to do tonight anyways?" I said with a sigh. "Same old, same old, I mean its not like we have much of a choice! Bus only goes to two places; the mall or downtown," Kyle exclaimed with a laugh. "Well, we better go check-in either way," I shrugged. 6:00. I stumbled down the hill to check-in with my dorm head, who waited suspiciously inside the dinning hall. I made my way through all the assorted trays, scooting chairs, and scrambling students. I finally arrived at my dorm head. He moved his eyes around more than his head to see me. Another Friday Night at the Military School :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay 5:00. Another Friday night rolled around. I lay on my bed daydreaming. At fifteen, I left home to become a boarder at the military school, a private school far, far away from home. Since then, every Friday night had become a blurred feeling of boredom coupled with the same repeating people and places. Every time I looked for an answer to excitement, or simple entertainment, I hit a wall of restrictions. Due to these very annoying rules, I had no car or place to go. I lived in room 208 of a three-story dorm with a roommate who was not only thought insane, but also had even less of a social life than I did. My dorm held the image of a swinging tower of terror. Sophomores and new students filled up the first floor. They lived innocently compared to the rest of the dorm. They consistently stayed almost completely shut off from any kind of disobedience or adventure. My best friend Kyle's room unfortunately lay on the first floor. Second floor lived a little bit more dangerously. We learne d a few tricks to stay up late and pushed the rules a little harder than first. But neither first nor second floors touched the craziness contained in the third floor hall. They lived on the edge of the blade. Almost the entire hall consisted of seniors who had more guts then a Bruce Willis movie. I didn't dare venture onto the third floor, not because I felt afraid; I felt more curious than afraid. Being an insecure sophomore, I didn't know the first thing to say to the zoo full of seniors. This Friday began to bring back all the depressing feelings of past nights spent at the mall for 4 hours, or wandering the lonely streets of Chattanooga. "So what do you want to do tonight anyways?" I said with a sigh. "Same old, same old, I mean its not like we have much of a choice! Bus only goes to two places; the mall or downtown," Kyle exclaimed with a laugh. "Well, we better go check-in either way," I shrugged. 6:00. I stumbled down the hill to check-in with my dorm head, who waited suspiciously inside the dinning hall. I made my way through all the assorted trays, scooting chairs, and scrambling students. I finally arrived at my dorm head. He moved his eyes around more than his head to see me.

Comparison of ‘flight’ and ‘your shoes’ Essay

â€Å"Flight† by Doris Lessing & â€Å"Your shoes† by Michele Roberts deals with conditions of growing up, relationship between generations and most importantly issues of daughter leaving home and how leaving house can affect the whole family. The story â€Å"Flight† revolves around the grandfather who doesn’t want his only granddaughter, Alice to get married with love of her life, Steven as deep down he is afraid she will leave him and he might have to suffer from loneliness. In â€Å"Your Shoes†, a depressed mother imagines a pair of shoes to be her missing daughter who ran away from home after an argument with her father and is describing the memories she had with her daughter. Both the stories shares similar theme over daughter leaving home and growing up. The grandfather in the beginning ignores the reality of children leaving away and he thinks selfishly discarding others happiness. This is because he had only seen his other granddaughters leaving home and they are not always there to stay by his side. Therefore, he is severely affected by the decision of his granddaughter to get married. This is most clearly shown when he says. â€Å"She’s the last one, he mourned. Can’t we keep her a bit longer?†. Similarly, In â€Å"Your Shoes† the mother thinks she knows what is best for her fifteen years old teenager daughter who is getting involved in drugs and sex. She never considered her daughter’s feeling when she was present. In â€Å"Flight† there is a relationship among the grandfather, granddaughter and her boyfriend. He appears to be jealous of Steven knowing that he is going to lose his granddaughter to him as Alice is preparing to marry him. He also feels rejected when his granddaughter goes out him despite he being against it. By the end of the story we gradually see how he begins to accept the reality after seeing the maturity shown by Alice and Steven by gifting him a bird. It is then he realizes that she is no longer a little girl and she is growing up. Similarly, In â€Å"Your Shoes† there is a relationship between mother and daughter. The mother realizes she never really understood her daughter until she’s gone. â€Å"Now I realize how you kept yourself away from me, didn’t know you at all.† This quote explains she was constantly rejected by her daughter because she was being overprotective all the time and never tried to understand her daughter feelings. The theme of jealousy is shown from the comparison she makes of her daughter with her mother. She didn’t get on well with her mother and now it is the same with her daughter. Like the grandfather, she doesn’t accept the reality of daughter leaving home. For example she shuts her daughter’s shoes in wardrobe and always keeps an eye on them. But at the end of the story, she feels a failure as a mother and thinks that her daughter will return which appears to be hope. Languages used in both the stories are very descriptive of bodies and atmosphere to make it easier to understand. For example, â€Å"Above the old man’s head was the dovecote, a tall wire-netted shelf on stilts, full of strutting, preening birds†. This sentence from â€Å"Flight† (line 1) gives good description of the dovecote as well as natural behavior of birds which we are clearly able to visualize what is happening in the scenario. â€Å"Your shoes† is narrated in monologue from first person point of view . Contrastingly â€Å"Flight† is narrated from third person point of view which is why it has dialogues included. The way story is told also makes differences in how recognize the characters. The narrator of â€Å"Your Shoes† is telling her sides of the story .We don’t know whether she is telling the truth or not and have no idea how the other character feels so she could be considered as an unreliable narrator. Both the stories have got their own good narrating style to allow the reader to connect with the character. In â€Å"Flight† pigeon are used as imagery as it has the ability to fly away and leave .The use of this imagery suggest concept of children leaving home and getting married at their certain phase of life. In â€Å"Your shoes†, Shoes symbolizes missing daughter and the way she treats the shoes also describe her as she’s mentally disturbed and has become paranoid. â€Å"Hold you like my mother never rocked me.† This quote implies she is holding it like a baby imagining she is holding her daughter and is trying to show her love she didn’t get from her own mother. Both the stories enlighten a message that growing up as we see it is not simple as it seems. It is more than that. It is as complicated as this world seems to be. Like In â€Å"Your shoes†, daughter running from home affected her mother but we can’t blame the daughter as it is her parents who have failed to understand her and take her in right track. And in Flight grandfather realises his mistake and repent it by accepting his granddaughter’s new relationship. This is a result of children showing more responsible side. Both the stories give us idea that as we grow up we start to develop relationship, go through happiness and sorrows and decisions that sometimes might affect our loved ones and bring profound changes in lives.

Youth Unemployment in Nigeria - 4294 Words

YOUTH UNEMPLOY MENT IN NIGERIA SOLVING THE PROBLEMS FROM THE ROOT SOLVING THE PROBLEMS FROM THE ROOT TABLE OF CONTENTS âÅ"“ ABSTRACT âÅ"“ INTRODUCTION âÅ"“ THE EFFECTS OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA âÅ"“ CAUSES OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT âÅ"“ LIFE INVESTORS FOUNDATION: INTRODUCTION âÅ"“ THE WORK PLAN †¢ ENTERPRISES †¢ WORK STUDY †¢ RESEARCH ACADEMY âÅ"“ OTHER STRATEGIES †¢ ANTICORRUPTION TEAM †¢ COLLATERAL BOARD †¢ RESOURCE AND INFORMATION CENTRE †¢ PROJECT RESUSCITATION †¢ YOUTH PARLIAMENT âÅ"“ CONCLUSION âÅ"“ REFERENCES âÅ"“ ABSTRACT Youth unemployment in Nigeria has eaten deep into the agile and intelligent youths who despite the lack of jobs cannot do without activities.†¦show more content†¦This effect trickle down to the woman in the village, whom all she had known to do all her life is to combine many things together at the same time, like carrying a breastfeeding baby on her laps, using one hand to blow the fire she created with woods which she is using to cook for her family, using the other hand to stir the cassava flour on fire, and at the same time, weaving a basket at intervals. She has it in mind to sell the basket in the market on the next market day. How pathetic it will be for her to go through all that stress, and at the end of the day she loses the profits to a hooligan who was actually turned a hooligan by the youth unemployment crisis. At the other extreme, a rich man in the city gets a large amount of money from a contract and could not deposit it in the bank that day because the mone y came late and banks had closed for the day. He prayerfully takes the money home to deposit it first thing the following morning. That same night, â€Å"Mr. Smart Guy† comes with a â€Å"team† of others to rob the rich man of his money. At the same time, in between the two extremes, lies the average civil servant who stays at home one evening with his family watching a family programme on TV. The entire neighbourhood was actually dark due to power outage. The family only had an exclusive interest in the programme and managed to put on their generating set in order not to miss the program. This was around 8.00pm.Show MoreRelatedYouth Unemployment in Nigeria1200 Words   |  5 PagesYouth Unemployment in Nigeria INTRODUCTION Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world with a population of 154, 729,000 citizens. Our nominal GDP is $207. 116 billion and we have a nominal per capita income of $1, 4011. Nigeria also has the second largest economy in Africa. If I may ask, is this country not blessed? Yet, it is still plagued by youth unemployment which had been one of our major problems in recent years. Both government andRead MoreYouth Unemployment in Nigeria2476 Words   |  10 PagesINTRODUCTION Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world with a population of 154, 729,000 citizens. 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