ymca

YMCA

I just started working at the Local Joplin YMCA. Going into this I didn’t know if I would like it at all. Growing up I was the baby in the family so I never had to deal with little siblings. So I have never really had experience with younger kids. So I predicted that it was going to be a great challenge on my first day. Going into my first day I was sitting the cafeteria at the school and was not feeling to good about this. As I’m weighting the girl walks through the door and introduces herself. She would be my other teacher I would be working with. I was still a little scared but I though well at least I get to work with this pretty gal.  The kids started showing up and I begun to realize this other teacher had a pretty good handle on the kids. Well I was thinking this won’t be nearly as bad as I though.  We went outside and played on the play ground. I was thinking this is great I get paid to play old school yard games I miss. Which it turned out to be a little more than that, but I was really surprised there was five little kids that came up to me and said I looked like they had seen me before. I began to figure out that they realized I playing football with The Missouri Southern lions, and they have seen me on game day before.  This was really cool for me because I’m just a redshirt freshman not getting that much playing time but these kids knew who I was.  Can’t imagine what it would be like to be Brandon Williams. Thought out that first day it went really well we played lots of games and the kids had a lot of fun. One of the hardest parts for me did not know everyone’s name. It’s really hard to discipline a kid for doing something wrong when you can’t even call them by their name. You’re not going to get respect from a kid by saying hey you you’re in trouble.  So one day down and I was ok with this job. I still didn’t really know if I liked it or not but it was promising. The next day I got to go back to the same school which I liked. I don’t like going to a different school every day. It’s just not very appealing to me. I like being at one school and getting to know the kids you are with. Which is what I got to do being with these kids for three days in a row. I really started to like a lot of them and you could tell they were starting to like me a lot too. It was nice to because I got to learn a lot of their names and it was a lot easier to be friends with them and play with them, but at the same time it was also nice when it came to being the teacher when you had to be stick with them. Over all I really like it.

interesting Egypt events

Gender Attitudes and Religious Mores in Egyptian Society

                Egypt views on religion, the opposite sex and many other things are very different from how we see them in United States. For example ninety present of their population is Muslim. But most of them have never ever read there holy book. The other ten percent are Christian. Which this was not as big of a surprise to me as what goes on between a man and women; in Egypt it is shamed upon if a woman is not a virgin. Witch was strange for me because the United States that is not a big deal for us we see girls having sex in high school and getting even younger every year. It’s not even that big of a deal. But over in Egypt it is completely different. One man that was interviewed said he would kill his sister if she lost her virginity before marriage. He was not joking at all. He really meant what he said. And he would really do it.  Which even in American there are protective brothers but they would be trying to kill the guy who took her virginity not her. But he might say he would kill her but he really wouldn’t. In Egypt that brother would kill her and go to jail but it would be worth it for his sister would have embarrassed his family’s name. Also in Egypt divorces is a lot different. Woman can apply for divorce but even if they get it they will never get their kids and never get a new husband.

HARAM! Unveiling the Mystery of the Forbidden Dance

                In American when you think of belly dancers there not a big deal, just something some girls do for fun. Some girls even do it to get in shape. But in Egypt it is a crime to be a belly dancer. It puts decrease on your family. So these girls have to do it in secret. It kind of like those underground dog or cage fights in American. But these girls do it because they love it. When I first walked into this event I thought it would just be like five dances. Not a real big number nothing to hard. But came to find out there were fifteen or more dances. This was really impressive for me because I do not know how they remember dancers could remember five dances that are at least five minutes long each. As the night went a long I became more and more impressed with each of these dances there was a story to go along with it. This was kind of nasty. They had a story of a pregnant girl and her birth of her baby. Another big surprise to me was how athletic these girls were. They were doing lots of things in these dances that were just in creditable.  They were fit and built well just like all the dancers are in America. They also must have a great memory. Each of the girls having at least five dances. This was a great event to go to.

if i were to die tomarow

When you gave me this assignment I didn’t think it would help at all. Now after the fact now after doing the three days of writing my mind has changed drastically.  Some night I would lay in bed restless thinking about the things in my life that had not gone the right way, the things that if I had a wish I would change the things that keep me up at night. The first night I started to right about 20 minutes before I went to bed and I got all my though down that I usually lay there for an hour thinking about. It was hard for me to get started but after I started writing it began to flow out of me. After I was done I still laid awake think about things after I was down righting but it was not as bad.  Then the next night I used the same process.  This night with a new topic I wrote with and got in all out. Even this night it was a little hard to get started again but once I got the first few thoughts out there it really just started flowing.  This night I feel asleep ever faster than I did the night before.  Now it was time for the third and final night of this assignment.  I came up with another topic that bothered me at nights and I started to write about it.  This night I had no trouble starting to write it and it just flowed out of me and it was even hard for me just to stop at the time limit.  After I was done I feel asleep faster than I have in a long time because I didn’t have these things going through my head.  This project was very interesting for me.  I have never had the opportunity to do something like this before. I said before into this I was very skeptical of this assignment and if it would work for me or not.  It was hard for me to think of something to write about until I thought about the nagging things I think about every night that keep me from getting to sleep.  Yes I really liked this assignment is very helpful for me to write my thoughts down instead of just thinking though them in my head.  It was very helpful for me, because it let me get everything on paper then after the fact it let me just crumble it up and though it away like I was tossing it out of my mind.  In the way that this help me was much unexpected I thought it might work but not as well as it did.  I chose the topic I did because over all I have had a very successful life and I don’t have a lot of regrets but the things that do keep me up at night are my only problems so I decided to write about those.

Gagudju Australian Aborigines

                The Gagudju Australian Aborigines were simple folk. They have been around for four hundred thousand years. To this day there original tripe culture still exists. This is pretty amazing to me.  The way the Gagudju have been around for this long is for the simple things. The first thing is they respect nature, which is odd to me because of the way Americans are today. The second reason they are still around today is because they respect their elders. The reason this is so important is because they are the only ones that know the true culture of the Gagudju.  Through this they would pass down all the information, but today they don’t have anyone left to pass this great information onto. They last reason they are still around today is because they can live off the land.

                The next thing I found interesting about the Gagudju Australian Aborigines tripe was the animals they were surrounded by.  The first one that impressed me was off course the crocodile. It is the kind of all the rivers down there.  The next animal that caught my eye was the kangaroo. I didn’t know that there were two different kinds of kangaroos there. I always thought there was only one kind. But there are two different kinds and one is calmer and the other is feisty and likes to me more out there and jump all over the place and play around. The next animal I liked was the lizard with the loose skin. Which came for the original being cursed but I will get to that in the next paragraph. I loved how it would just run around and I have never seen anything like it before. Next was the boss of it the entire eagle. The eagle is there to look over everything and really the most respected animal.  It’s just so amazing how it can swoop down and grab fish out of the water with its talon. Some after will go feed their young which I liked. Then when it is Australia is going through its dryer stage and the water lowers in will swoop down and grab these huge fish I don’t know how it even picks it up. Then after it gets it and start eating another bird swoops in and scares it off. This other bird is really smart because its beak is not sharp enough to cut into the tough skin of these bigger fist so it waits till after the mighty eagle has done all the work then it swoops in. The last animal the impressed me was this little bird that would work for two weeks to build a shelter. Then after he is done with that he will go and get all these bones and drag them over there and put them under his shelter. He does all of this just to impress a women. I just couldn’t believe it.  Then his man pad was he is trying to get some women back to get burned down so he has to start all over again. That is just so impressive but yet weird at the same time.

                The most interesting thing I found about the Aborigine people was there believes of the dream time.  Were animals turned into people and people turned into animals. Then sometime animals would turn into the land. This is how they got a lot of their great rock faces. This was just so fascinating to me. I think it would be awesome to turn into an animal. Myself I would turn into a lion, horse or bear and maybe chaetae that would be awesome to run that fast. Most of their traditions rely on them believing in the dream time. This was so just interesting to me.

a fun story

I was born on October 28, 1986 in Maryville Missouri. I was born into this world with to great Parents James and Janet Dolan. I had one older Brother, his name was Jeremy. He was born two years before I was. If you have never been to Maryville, don’t come. It was a terrible down to grow up in. Ok maybe not terrible but it is small and there is not much to do. So when it came to my high school and teen years I had sports to make up most of my times. As a Freshman I was a three sport starter in Football, wrestling and track. I was all state in every one of them. I had such a great future. During the next three years of high school I set all the school record in every sport I played in. My senior year I decided to go to Mizzou to play college football. But sports were not my only great thing I had in high school my freshman year I meet this fantastic girl. Her name was Morgan. We dated all though out high school and it was great we were both great athletes so we were the power couple that everyone wanted to be. So she decides to fallow me to Mizzou. College went great, by my junior year I had two great things happen to me I decided to leave college early for the NFL draft and also I proposed to Morgan. It was so romantic. The next thing we knew she was pregnant. So after a year went by life was so great we had a kid and another that was just born and our marriage was going great! I just had the best rookie season of any NFL running back ever and we made it to the super bowl. Then my luck went downhill during the game I was hit and knocked out. I had to go to the hospital and I found out that I had a brain bleed and could never play football again. So we took this in stride and tried to stay I tight family but then we found out that our accountant was stealing money from use so we didn’t have any left so we were going to have to make drastic life changes. We had to move to this new house that small and drafty.  With being out of the NFL and not having a job I had to go out everyday all day and look for work to try to support my family. It was harder then I though moving having my college diploma really was hurting me. But Morgan was being really supportive. This is why i am so glad i am living this great live with Morgan. Times may be tuff but we have each other. We also have our two wonderful kids!

Pregnancy Discrimination on the Court

Pregnancy Discrimination on the Court

            In Fort Worth, Texas a senior’s worst dream had come true.  She had become pregnant and the dad was not in the picture. Mackenzie McCollum had a lot going on in her life she was a: musician, honor student, community volunteer and finally the varsity volleyball setter.  Mackenzie never came off the court she was one of the team’s best players.  When most teenage girls become pregnant they drop out of everything and do as little as possible besides being pregnant and trying to deal with that.  Mackenzie was different though she wanted to fight and stay on the court and finish her senior season, but with this description came discrimination that she never thought would come.  With her Christian faith it put the talk of abortions to rest and now it was just about having this baby. Also doing what she had to do to gradate and play volleyball. To remain on the team she had to go to a doctor and get cleared to play.  With the great news of being cleared came the start of the first of the controversies.  With her absence from the court until she got cleared her team mates wondered where she was.  She had keep her pregnancy a secret form everyone and didn’t want anyone to know about it, this way no one would treat her different. At a team meeting during her absences the coach received many of questions about where she was. Instead of keeping it to himself he told the whole team and violated student privacy policies.  That day after practice Mackenzie received text from all her teammates asking about her pregnancy.  Even being back on the team it wasn’t the same.  Her coach had cut her time and had tried to tell her it wasn’t because she was pregnant but she knew it was. She believed that he had done it fearing what over schools and teams would think of the school having a pregnant volleyball player.  This whole thing bothered her so much that she almost terminated the pregnancy. This controversy was not over,  after the season Mackenzie’s mother and her fought the school on their polices about pregnant athletes. They wanted this rule to change, that way no one would ever have to go through what she had too.  As Mackenzie’s Mother said it best “just because your pregnant doesn’t mean life is finished and over and you should sit at home and eat bon bon’s and watch soup operas and keep your feet up.”

This story can represent a couple of the theories but I am going to talk about how this fits with the fundamentalist theory.  Mackenzie is a girl who made a bad choice as many high school girls have done and became pregnant. She fought though it and fought to stay on the volleyball team the one thing that she loved the most. She has set a new standard for pregnant athletes and discrimination against them.  This story can be inspiring to many young girls out there who have made a bad choice but yet with this story they can fight though it and be successful like Mackenzie.

A Diamond in the Rough

A Diamond in the Rough

            This is the story of a boy that goes from homelessness to NFL super star. At the age of seven years old Michael Oher’s father died and his mother being a drug addict left him to fend for himself on the streets.  At the age of 16 he was six feet four inches tall and 315 pounds.  After staying with a friend one night, the friend’s father was intent on taking his son to a private school to gain admission.  Michael tagged along, and despite concerns from the school about his academic progress, Michael was also accepted to this private Christian school.  On a snowy Memphis day Michael was getting off the bus in t-shirt and shorts.  He was heading to the gym to get warm when the Tuohy family, drove by and stopped him. They had a daughter who went to the same school he did.  They offered him a ride and took him back to their home.  After time with the Tuohy family Michael’s life turned around.  They supported him and gave him food and clothes and were there for him. When Michael started at the private school he had a .4 gpa.  By the time he left he had a 4.0. Not only did he improve in the classes room he also got a chance to play sports after improving his grades.  He ended up playing football and was the number one offensive lineman recruit in the nation.  By this time the Tuohy family had become his own and they adopted him.  With his new dad being a basketball star and him mom being a cheerleader from Old Miss he decided to go in there footsteps and play football there.  Now in 2011 with the support of his new family Michael is getting ready for his third season in the NFL as a member of the Baltimore Ravens.

            This is a great example of the functionalist theory.  This kid went from homeless to NFL super star.  All he needed was the right family to raise and nurture him.  This is what is good in sports is when you can take a guy like this with a good heart that just wasn’t given the greatest parents to get a second chance at life. Everybody deservers that second chance in life, when the cards they were dealt were not that good. When he started at the private school he couldn’t even read. He went from a .4 GPA to a 4.0, and then when he went to college he made the dean’s list. That part of the story is amazing in its self that a kid with no schooling until he was sixteen could do that much, all he knew were the streets. This was a great story and I wish more kids out there could get second chances like Michael got.