Being Nonexistent Essay -- Homeless Chicago Personal Narratives Essays

Being Nonexistent Grant Park in Chicago is large enough to get in the way of the city. Where I come from, the parks are contained within and of themselves. They take up a good city block, in my stomping grounds of small city south-west, and they "contain themselves" like a margarita that spills nothing over the rim of the glass. Grant Park, however, is interrupted by streets and railroad tracks and buildings, and these seem to be the ingredients that push the slush of the park over it’s curbs like fruit over a rim, and it seems as though these big cities like to make a park more like an event. Large ovals of flowerbeds enclosed within and without by large expanses of grass. Purple, white, and yellow flowers sleep. Tasteful walkways lead to fancy fountains and massive statues. People sit and read and tan and eat and feed pigeons and loathe pigeons and smoke cigarettes and watch people watch people, and most are quiet, making sure not to wake the flowers. And some look happy, and most look sad. A nd some are bums, and most are sad. And it’s as if this list I’ve written is hanging on a lamppost under an entrance sign, and you have to check in by choosing a collection of things from this list to do, to get in. I chose people watching and the bum.. An old, fat black man as big as the park, his beard all round and full like the flowers, he looks like a black Santa. White Santa gives presents with nothing in return, and this man seems to be expected to receive presents with nothing in return. And then old Chris Kringle is white in the winter, and this man is black in summer, sitting atop powder coffee creamer steps, and I think that black children must be confused as to the descent of Santa Clause come Christmas mourning. It se... ...f our own minds. It seems as though this man lives inside his own head, and that’s a long way to fall. Watching this particular man I wonder weather or not I could lead him to anything but food. I wonder if he is happy. I wonder whether or not he is a good man. I wonder what he has learned from living in this state and how his life has changed so since childhood. I think the how is important. How do we get to this point, individually, and how do we get to this point as a species where we don’t know how to take care of each other enough so that we all have the will to live enough to work and take care of ourselves so that we can, in turn, share ourselves in a positive way with this family. And we must find a beginning. Pardon the revolution of "when(?)." I know only that this man looks like a good man, fallen off the face of the earth like a chess piece off a board. Being Nonexistent Essay -- Homeless Chicago Personal Narratives Essays Being Nonexistent Grant Park in Chicago is large enough to get in the way of the city. Where I come from, the parks are contained within and of themselves. They take up a good city block, in my stomping grounds of small city south-west, and they "contain themselves" like a margarita that spills nothing over the rim of the glass. Grant Park, however, is interrupted by streets and railroad tracks and buildings, and these seem to be the ingredients that push the slush of the park over it’s curbs like fruit over a rim, and it seems as though these big cities like to make a park more like an event. Large ovals of flowerbeds enclosed within and without by large expanses of grass. Purple, white, and yellow flowers sleep. Tasteful walkways lead to fancy fountains and massive statues. People sit and read and tan and eat and feed pigeons and loathe pigeons and smoke cigarettes and watch people watch people, and most are quiet, making sure not to wake the flowers. And some look happy, and most look sad. A nd some are bums, and most are sad. And it’s as if this list I’ve written is hanging on a lamppost under an entrance sign, and you have to check in by choosing a collection of things from this list to do, to get in. I chose people watching and the bum.. An old, fat black man as big as the park, his beard all round and full like the flowers, he looks like a black Santa. White Santa gives presents with nothing in return, and this man seems to be expected to receive presents with nothing in return. And then old Chris Kringle is white in the winter, and this man is black in summer, sitting atop powder coffee creamer steps, and I think that black children must be confused as to the descent of Santa Clause come Christmas mourning. It se... ...f our own minds. It seems as though this man lives inside his own head, and that’s a long way to fall. Watching this particular man I wonder weather or not I could lead him to anything but food. I wonder if he is happy. I wonder whether or not he is a good man. I wonder what he has learned from living in this state and how his life has changed so since childhood. I think the how is important. How do we get to this point, individually, and how do we get to this point as a species where we don’t know how to take care of each other enough so that we all have the will to live enough to work and take care of ourselves so that we can, in turn, share ourselves in a positive way with this family. And we must find a beginning. Pardon the revolution of "when(?)." I know only that this man looks like a good man, fallen off the face of the earth like a chess piece off a board.

The Conflict between the Individual and the Society in A Rose for Emily

One of Faulkner’s most famous short story, A Rose for Emily is based on the theme of the stark conflict between the individual and the impersonal voice of the community. To emphasize this idea, the story is rendered through the collective point of view of the community that includes Miss Emily.Not accidentally, the plot of the story is set in a small town, where the relationship between the individual and the society is a very tight one. Moreover, the narrator of the story locates himself or herself among the people in the town and even speaks in the first person plural, maintaining therefore a collective view of the events.The heroine of the story appears therefore even more singular and isolated, when regarded through the inquisitive lens of the community. The complex relationship between the individual, Emily Grierson, and the society, is emphasized in several ways.This conflict arises because Emily, an aristocratic woman of a high social standing, rejects all the social no rms and conventions and enshrouds herself in her own fantasies and obsessions instead of actively participating in the social life.The psychotic mind of the main character is therefore opposed to the gossiping community, which is limited to the role of a witness in this story. The reason for Emily’s power is precisely her madness which also gives her an absolute and lawless freedom of action.What is striking is that Faulkner draws the portrait of a disturbed and obsessive individual, by setting it at a distance from the reader’s immediate perception.If, in most of his novels, Faulkner employs multiple point of views and the technique of the streams of consciousness to narrate the events, in A Rose for Emily the protagonist is analyzed from the point of view of an entire community.The perspective that the townspeople offer on Emily’s story is, however, equally unreliable. Miss Emily is described from the point of view of the community as a very haughty person, re spected by everyone on account of her nobility but largely misunderstood.The gossiping, ghostly voice of the town is left outside the premises of the house where the woman isolates herself.   Her refusal to pay taxes as well as all her other whims and peculiarities are accepted by everyone without argument, merely because she is part of the upper, aristocratic social class.When she dies however, the same community is shocked when they realize Miss Emily had entertained a perverse obsession during her secluded life, and had slept with the dead body of her former lover, whom she had poisoned herself.Thus, the struggle between the woman’s desires and the opposing forces is now apparent: she stubbornly holds on to the memory of her father and to the body of her dead lover, unwilling to relinquish her feelings for them. Emily’s obsession first with her father’s corpse and with that of the lover is at the core of a morbid marriage fantasy that is the motif of the st ory.Therefore, Emily violates all the basic principles of her community, beginning with the laws of social interraction–she isolates herself and rejects all human contact- and continuing with tax evasion and even with the concealment of the corpse of her lover, Homer Barron in her own room.She is therefore a murderer or in any case an obsessive or mad individual who nevertheless manages to evade social punishment. Through her, Faulkner draws a vivid portrait of madness and the way in which an individual manages to literary live out the most psychotic fancies in the middle of a normal small-town community. By definition, madness is characterized as a serious deviation from the accepted human behavior.Without being openly irrational or incontrollable, Emily Grierson has a definitely obsessive mind which leads her to react against the laws of society. Her purposeful self-incarceration in her own house and her obvious withdrawal from the normal life of the community points to the conflict between the individual and society.Emily revolts against social norms and chooses to live in her morbid dream instead. She prepares for a ritualistic marriage that she feels she cannot fulfill otherwise than through death.Her seclusion from society is also significant, as she withdraws in the safety of her own fantasy and rejects the assumption of a pre-established social role. The morbid gesture of violence that Emily performs is a poignant rejection of social conventions related to gender and marriage.However, her rejection of social existence does not point merely to the ongoing tension between individuality and community: Faulkner represents here the gap between the individual consciousness and the collective voice.Although the impersonal narrator would seem to forbid psychological inquiry in the story, the voice of the community itself creates psychological tension. Despite her willful isolation, Emily’s madness can therefore only be understood as a reaction to social constraint.The author emphasizes the obsessions that consume Emily as part of her response to social pressure. While the woman lives her obsession is silence and solitude, the society watches all her movements keenly and with undiminished interest.The most curious phenomenon in the text is actually her existence as an individual among the other ordinary people of the community, and the way in which she manages to evade the control of society over her own life.The community described here by Faulkner has a gossipy and even haunting voice that hovers over the household where Emily lives in complete isolation.As the story is told from the point of view of this inquisitive and restless community, the reader gets a glimpse of the way in which Emily Grierson moves quietly on, from one generation to another, closely watched by the members of her social environment.What is curious is that, with all its regulating force, the community fails to control Emily and her madness: â€Å"Th us she passed from generation to generation–dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse† (Faulkner 1970, p. 179).Faulkner emphasizes this fact by referring to Emily’s oddly strong and pervasive influence as a conquest of the social power.In this story, the individual seems to triumph over society and madness triumphs over norm. Interestingly, the murder of the lover is in itself an anti-social act as well as a token of Emily’s obsessive nature. However, the fact that Emily manages to escape social control to a certain extent does not make her a free person.Her marriage fantasy is the token that her behavior is determined, at least partially, by her response to social influence.

Texas AM Galveston Admissions Information

Texas AM University at Galveston is a branch campus of Texas AM University focused on marine and maritime studies. It is a selective school, admitting 55 percent of applicants. The 135-acre suburban campuss main location is on Pelican Island, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The university is nearby several of Galveston’s popular beaches and is 50 miles northeast of Houston. It is also home to the Texas Maritime Academy, one of six American maritime academies that prepare future officers of the American Merchant Marines, Academically, Texas AM Galveston has a 15 to 1 student faculty ratio and offers ten undergraduate and three graduate degree programs within the field of marine and maritime studies. Marine biology and marine transportation are two of the most popular areas of study. Students are actively involved on campus, with 27 clubs and organizations and 13 professional organizations for students. The university has several men’s and women’s intramural sports teams and competes in varsity sailing and crew. Admissions Data (2015) Texas AM Galveston Acceptance Rate: 55 percentTest Scores: 25th / 75th PercentileSAT Critical Reading: 500 / 590SAT Math: 520 / 610What these SAT numbers meanACT Composite: 22 / 26ACT English: 21 / 25ACT Math: 22 / 27What these ACT numbers mean Enrollment (2016) Total Enrollment: 1,942 undergraduatesGender Breakdown: 61 percent male / 39 percent female92 percent full-time Costs (2016-17) Tuition and Fees: $10,868 (in-state); $25,618 (out-of-state)Books: $1,054 (why so much?)Room and Board: $13,168Other Expenses: $2,596Total Cost (includes travel expenses): $30,696 (in-state); $46,336 (out-of-state) Texas AM University at Galveston Financial Aid More current data not available, but these figures are from 2011-12. Percentage of New Students Receiving Aid: 61 percentPercentage of New Students Receiving Types of AidGrants: 39 percentLoans: 42 percentAverage Amount of AidGrants: $6,096Loans: $6,434 Transfer, Graduation and Retention Rates: First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 45 percentTransfer Out Rate: 57 percent4-Year Graduation Rate: 19 percent6-Year Graduation Rate: 30 percent Texas AM University at Galveston Mission Statement: mission statement from http://www.tamug.edu/about/ Texas AM University at Galveston is a special-purpose institution of higher education for undergraduate and graduate instruction in marine and maritime studies in science, engineering and business and for research and public service related to the general field of marine resources. The institution is under the management and control of the Board of Regents of The Texas AM University System, with degrees offered under the name and authority of Texas AM University at College Station. Data Source: National Center for Educational Statistics