The First Driving-Lesson Day Essay Example for Free

The First Driving-Lesson Day Essay The Cost of Carelessness Driving a genuine car was my initial dream when I was a young child because I really love speed and sports car. Eventually, with a lot of efforts, my dream comes true and the day I got my driver license was one of the happiest days in my life. Hence, I can drive a car and go to everywhere I want, but it also reminds me of the first day I sat behind the wheel. That day was a cool, breezy Sunday with a mild temperature on the morning of February 20, 2011. It was the first exciting driving-lesson I ever took and little did I know, it was about to teach me a practical lesson I will never forget. A week before that day, my mom registered for me a six-driving-lesson package at Pleasant School, a moto school near my house in Chelsea, MA. The first driving-lesson day would be taught next week so I was absolutely excited about what would happen to me in that day. My mind was really possessed with a lot of thoughts about that day and I couldn’t wait to see it coming true. Finally, the day which I dreamed of was about to come. At 7am, I woke up with a happy mood and an eager attitude, and then I had a delicious breakfast with a big bowl of cereals and milk. After that, I changed my clothes and went outside my house to wait for my teacher’s car coming. In front of my house, there is a one-way street with its width that can barely let one car pass another one, and there weren’t a lot of cars rolling on the street at that moment. From outside, I could see that today was really a beautiful day with the vivid sun, the wide-and-high cloudless sky; the breezy wind and the fresh air. That was a good omen for the start of something new. I loosened my whole body, let my mind stay empty, closed my eyes and took a deep breath to enjoy that never-forgotten moment. Finally, my teacher arrived at my house with a black, 2008 model Toyota. I felt really relieved and delighted, and I ran quickly to him with a big smile on my face while he opened the car-door. He was an African-American man in sport clothes with a pair of glasses. He gave me a warm smile and seemed to be a good, patient, experienced instructor because he asked me gently about my information and smiled all the time he talked with me. After that, John, my teacher, told me to get in the car and sit on the driver’s seat position while he sat on my right seat for passenger. I felt absolutely comfortable with the cool air-conditioned system and the soft seat in that car. By seeing my satisfied appearance, John looked at me and asked with a friendly smile, â€Å"Are you ready? † â€Å"Yes, I hope so. I’m actually excited about this moment but I still feel a little nervous and worried about what I’m going to do next,† I answered. â€Å"Well, that’s just a normal feeling because it’s your first time. All you need to do is try your best, stay focused and practice as much as you can. Everything will be fine,† he said. â€Å"Oh, I will, thank you,† I looked at him and said. After that brief and open conversation, John began to teach me about the steering wheel, gearshift, accelerator, clutch, brake, mirror, light signal, etc, and how they work. Then, on the street outside my house, he taught me how to adjust my seat, how to start or stop the car, how to use hand signal, how to check the mirror and the blind spot, how to look over behind my shoulder to check the traffic, how to turn left and right, how to pull over on the right side of the street, etc. He talked slowly to me with a gentle voice. After the verbal instruction, he told me it was time for me to take action about what I just learned. By hearing that, I felt extremely happy because my driving-a-car dream was about to come true, so I couldn’t hold that moment back. Without hesitating, I started the engine; signal left; change the gearshift from P-Park into D-Drive and I did all the preparation before driving a car that was taught by my instructor, except one important step that can cost me my whole life: carefully look over behind your left-shoulder to check the upcoming traffic. Then, without a careful thought, I turned the wheel to the left, directed the head of my car to the traffic lane and try to merge into it. I didn’t see a coming car behind me at a distance of 20 feet. The coming car got to my car closer and closer, and I didn’t realize how terrible it was going to be. But John could foresee what would happen to me next because he kept his eyes carefully to whatever I had done. So he pedaled quickly into the second brake beneath his seat to make the car stop immediately. The coming car just passed my car in a very small space; it seemed like nearly hit the head of my car. By observing what just happened to me, it took my breath away for a while. My whole body was totally and completely frozen, I couldn’t say or do anything else but shivering from head to toe. My face was becoming pale with fear and a lot of goose-pimples rose on my skin. I couldn’t believe that I just got out of an accident which would have hurt me or somebody else badly. After a couple of minutes, I still felt panic about that moment. I tried to take a deep breath and turned my head to my teacher and said, â€Å"I’m so sorry. Thanks for helping me out and saving me. † â€Å"That’s my pleasure and it’s also a lesson for you: You should think carefully and stay focused on what you’re going to do, don’t ever hurry because you always have time to do it,† he said with a beautiful voice just like my father did when he tried to teach me how to ride a bike twelve years ago. â€Å"I appreciate that and I will concentrate more on what I’m doing. Thank you again. Later then, I tried my best to listen to John and to practice what I had learnt from him. And the results not only made him happy but also help me get over that horrible moment. I did all the practices successfully and we had a happy, comfortable time after the incident. Finally, my one-hour driving lesson came to an end and John took me home with a big smile on his face. He seemed so happy right because he kn ew that he did a good job. And to me, I had learned a useful lesson for both my driving skills and my normal life. In conclusion, I never think I can learn a vital lesson from my driving lesson but now I completely change my mind and the way I approach things. So after the first driving-lesson day, I actually grow up my mind with one more experience added to my life to help me pay attention to what I’m doing and what I’m going to do next, and the final purpose is to make me become a good man with better personality. Needless to mention, at the bottom of my heart, I’m really grateful to my driving teacher for what he had taught me that day.

Colonialism and Africa Essay -- African Countries, Post Colonial Afric

Introduction Modern African states have several problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis on African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many aspects. In the first section, I will consider the problems with African states from the level of the state. That is, the nature of the states' inceptions and the underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. Next I examine the development of, or lack of, civil society and the institutions which took place across the continent in the colonial era. In particular, I consider the lack of education and judicial authority and how this affected the formation of the structures which exist in the post-colonial era. Lastly, the econ omic legacy of colonialism is analysed, and whether the failure of African states to prosper can be explained by colonial practices. State Formation Ever since the boundaries of Africa were drawn up in 1884/5, very little has changed in terms of the continent's territorial divisions. Much has been made of the fact that the post-colonial states which constitute Africa were the products of colonial demarcations, and whose territories are not congruent to existing political and ethnic organizations. Ethnic conflict within states is an unfortunate feature of several African states, and one which undoubtedly retards development of any kind. There has been debate surrounding the nature of African ethnicities and whether they were synt... ...provision of education in the colonial period affected the ability to develop from within. The civil institutions were weak, and the judiciary unable to provide a balancing role to the central power of the state. Indigenous Africans were typically not allowed to rise to meaningful levels in the industrial complex, and the infrastructure was built only enough to serve the extraction of wealth. The small number of educated bureaucrats who previously prospered in their positions, found themselves as a new elite class in the absence of the colonialists, and it was perhaps too difficult for them to change their behaviour after inheriting the state. In summary, it could be said that large portions of the inhabitants of the newly independent state had not entered into any sort of stable 'social contract' by the organic process which had been the case for other societies.

Assess the view that we are now living in a secular society Essay

Secularization is described by Bryan Wilson as, ‘the process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance’. Contemporary sociologists argue that society is becoming more secular due to science and rationality, the decline of traditional values and the specialized division of labour. This appears to be confirmed by statistics, who claim that church attendance has fallen from 1,200,000 in 1980 to 850,000 in 2001. However, David Barrett has documented the emergence of some 6,300 New Religious Movements since the 1960s and the number of UK Muslims has increased from 40,000 to 1,400,000 which suggest that religion is developing to meet the needs of people in a modern society rather than decreasing altogether. On an international level Gilles Kepel states that there is little evidence of a general trend towards secularization and that in fact there is much evidence, such as the popularity of the Christian New Right in the US, Islamatization movements in Algeria and the Jewish political group Lubavitch in Israel, to suggest a religious revival. Item A agrees with the views of Gilles Kepel and is critical of the secularization thesis. It cites the popularity of churchgoing in the USA (40% of US adults attend church on a Sunday compared to 10% in England), New Age Movements in Western Europe, the growth in fundamentalist movements and the evangelical revival in Latin America as examples of ‘religious health and vitality’. It also mentions the ‘upsurge of ethno-religious conflict in international affairs’, with all recent conflicts such as the Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Muslims, Serbs and Croats in Bosnia all being based on religion. Islamic terrorism has also ensured that religion is consistently at the forefront of current affairs. However, many sociologists have found that religion is incompatible with modern society. Weber predicted desacrilization in his idea of disenchantment, whereby magic and myth would be less important in modern society. Bryan Wilson felt that the rational organisation of society and greater knowledge of the social and physical world have encouraged the development of a rational view, and that due to this religion is difficult to accept as it cannot be quantified, tested or proven. Steve Bruce agreed, claiming that scientific beliefs undermine religion and that technological advances reduce the number of things that need to be explained in religious terms. Bruce also claims that religion has become less important in society as the majority of its previous functions, such as education, health, social welfare and social control have been taken over by other, non-religious, institutions. Bryan Wilson partially supports this view in terms of the loss of the social welfare and control functions, stating that due to societalization the church is no longer a focal point, people no longer rely upon the local priest for advice and cannot decide what to believe due to cultural diversity. David Matin blames disengagement for society allegedly becoming more secular, saying that the wealth, influence and prestige of the church has declined, it is no longer a major employer (one in thirty adults were employed by the church in previous times) and its ideological power has decreased. Functionalist Talcott Parsons disagrees, arguing that although the church may have lost its functions and become disengaged from the state and politics, religion can still be significant in everyday life and encourages shared values in society. However, Bruce did admit that religion is still used as a last resort when all rational and scientific options have been exhausted, stating that, ‘when we have tried every cure for cancer, we pray†¦ ‘. Postmodernists suggest that society has begun to move beyond the scientific rationality of modernity as they have started to mistrust science, due to its failures and negative effects such as disease and global warming. This suggests that the society we are living in is not secular, and will not become so. However, it is difficult to determine the extent to which society has become more secular. Although statistics suggest that this is the case, with church attendance decreasing from 40% in 1850 to 8% in 2000 and the amount of Christians in the world decreasing by one million between 1970 and 2005, they are unreliable. For example, church attendance is measured in different ways (varying from telephone polls to counting the amount of cars in car parks) and churches have motives to over or underestimate the congregation (for example, the Roman Catholic Church reduce their number to lessen capitation fees). Furthermore, different sociologists have different meanings for the concepts of religiosity and secularization, with those defining religion in terms of the structure and content of people’s beliefs (substantive definitions) being more likely to agree to the secularization thesis that those who consider the functions performed by religion for individuals and society (functional definitions). Glock and Stark believe that in order to measure the degree of religiosity in society (essential for determining whether or not society is secular) the five dimensions of religion must be applied. These are the essential beliefs of society, the acts of worship and ritual, the substantive feelings of being associated with a higher power or being, the depth of understanding of religious teachings and beliefs and the impact of being religious on daily activities. However, these dimensions further illustrate the difficulties of measuring religiosity, such as what needs to be taken into account, whether religion has to satisfy all of these dimensions, and which is the most important. To conclude, the secularization process cannot be proved or disproved, with the term ‘secularization’ being used in many different ways by sociologists. As Glock and Stark pointed out, as we have not adequately defined religion or religiosity, one cannot accurately test the secularization thesis and many sociologists also agree that religion varies according to national, regional, ethnic and class differences and so it is difficult to relate the secularization thesis to the whole of society. Therefore how secular contemporary society has become cannot be determined. However, society is not entirely secular, and with the emergence of New Religious Movements and New Age Movements religion appears to be developing and changing rather than declining altogether.

Reflection Paper On Self Awareness - 1337 Words

The IAT self-awareness reflection paper will discuss personal reactions to the results of the exercise. It will also reflect on personal development towards being culturally competent counselor and the areas of growth. In addition, the paper will identify certain techniques to improvise counseling with LGBTQI+ clients. Reactions: My result of the IAT self-awareness test showed slight preference towards the straight people over gay people. Although the test results showed slight preference towards the straight people over gay people, I wondered about the validity of the test. Some IAT test results have been inaccurate and I wondered if little to no preference to straight people would make me a perfect counselor for LGBTQI+ clients? Would†¦show more content†¦It seemed to me that community would value creativity, freedom, liberty, and justice. Before I read chapters, it appeared that my understanding towards building relationships and connections was unitary. Unfortunately, the flow of love, kindness, and compassion for some people may be prejudiced. It was disheartening to read about discrimination, and lack of freedom, liberty and justice towards LGBTQI+ people. It is a sad demise of a portion of society that disregards autonomy, justice, and integrity for all. According to Ginicola, Smit h, Filmore, and Joel M. (2017), â€Å"Proponents of the liberty laws do not see that the laws are allowing discrimination while taking liberty and freedom away from others† (p. 13). Therefore, it is important for me to advocate for the LGBTQI+ people in counseling and be their ally. The readings helped in raising my consciousness and building awareness about the consequences of discrimination on mental health of the LGBTQI+ people. I learned that certain religious beliefs and structure of the family might manifest shame and guilt in the person with â€Å"variant gender† (p. 13). It was a humbling experience to be aware and generate cognitive shift for advocating for the human rights of the LGBTQI+ people. As a counselor, I learned to be an ally who not only advocates for the Minority rights, but also empowers the gender and affection orientation of the LGBTQI+ people. It is important to me toShow MoreRelatedSelf Reflection And Self Awareness Reflection Paper1054 Words   |  5 PagesCodependency: Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness Reflection Paper In the last several weeks, I had an opportunity to look back and analyze the events that has shaped my life. This was a unique experience where I was emotionally comfortable enough to look back at life. I was able too objectively revisit many events that were often buried and too painful to face. 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