Prompt: A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Discuss your experiences and characteristics that you believe would add to a college community.
I have never asked God for help. I have never asked him for wealth, glory, or fame, or for love, comfort, or solace. I have never asked for anyone’s hand to hold. I have been forced to rely on myself for as long as I can remember. This is the hymn which my life sings. Even as a child, I was left to find the means to an end alone. My parents worked shifts from early dawn until midnight to pay for the home we shared with two other families, a snare they fell into, set for them by the greedy, fraudulent, and selfish.
I am the result of two people who fled a country torn asunder by revolution and warfare, joined together thousands of miles from their home, in an English country speaking only Vietnamese. The lack of education and resources set them as the underdogs of their new home, but the desire to create a future for their children led them to sacrifice their livelihoods for their children’s sake. However, caught up in the fervor to provide, they neglected the warmth and tenderness children crave. I was given all I needed to do well in school: pencils, pens, paper, backpacks, and any supply requested by any teacher. In the process, I lost compassion and emotion.
I am the determined, focused axle upon which my life’s goals rotate. Numerous pursuits have forced experience into me and have drawn metamorphoses from me. Each initiation I take on is the beginning of a glorious end. For six years, I played in a school wind ensemble, and for my seventh I took on an individual study of the oboe. Hours into the night practicing has taught me that hard work and desire can achieve anything. It revealed the comfort that culture can provide, and the transient pulse that travels above the planes of reality. For three years, I have been to each and every practice that I could attend at my fencing academy, straining and struggling to perform my best at each one. Fencing honed my precision and grace. Its close parallelism with life taught me lessons that are forever burned in scars and muscle. Working for a company has illustrated the value of toil and even more, it gave me a taste of what my parents drudge through to assure my opportunities for success. For fourteen years of schooling, formal and informal, I have taken on the most rigorous course loads and each undertaking was executed with equal vehemence. Every year marks the totem with success.
I am the innovative and the socially aware. I find new ways each day to make myself a better person, in any way possible. For my last true summer in high school, I attended Harvard University’s summer school and studied diligently for my courses. To counteract financial difficulty, I began to work part time, using my earnings to create an independence that would catalyze my growth into a mature adult. When I outgrew my shell, I started a business, which my partner and I still run jointly. Each friendship and relationship is treated with the zenith of respect and care, resulting in close bonds that even the most gregarious would admire.
I am the first generation college bound student in my family. I am the new world, usurping the old; I am development, I am change; I am the evolution, pure and Darwinist; I am the revolution, chaotic and insurgent. Responsibilities, burdens, and glory are seized in my hands and I have wrung every opportunity out of my life, indulging in its sweet poison, paying in body and effort.
beautiful i love your use of Livda in the main thesis. u are a powerful influential profen in the community. i have forwarded this essay to my colleagues.
From The Fed. Dec. 15, 08 …
"Industrial production decreased 0.6% in November with declines widespread across industries."
At 106.1% of it’s 2002 average, total production in November was 5.5% BELOW it’s level of a year earlier. The capacity utilization rate for TOTAL industry FELL to 75.4%, a level of 5.6 percentage points BELOW it’s average level from 1972 to 2007 !!!
Conservatives, Please take note: THERE ARE NO JOBS being created and those JOBS that do exist are becoming extinct!
As this phenomenon, which is being called an "economic crisis" continues, even you CONSERVATIVES are in danger of losing YOUR OWN financial livelihood.
Some of you Conservatives can talk your talk about Libs being to lazy to work, but that’s NOT the case. Truth is, we are ALL headed down.
If anything Mr & Mrs. Conservative, your cronies in Washington and across Corporate America dropped the ball and No One is there to intercept it. Thank you very much.
I think you are missing the point. It’s not about Libs being lazy. It’s about their policies which promote and encourage an entitlement mentality. Conservatives think you should at least try to work before the welfare handout is made.
I haven’t, but they are a nuisance! I mostly receive e-mail now from bogus addresses (you can’t reply to them). It’s a shame that so many people are gullible enough to ruin their livelihood on this trash. The mafia has a strong presence in these shenanigans. Damn!
## yes, sometimes, but I delet.
uhm i think that before the pre colonial period, they had many different livelihoods.
I know that some people engaged in hunting, others in gathering food (seeds, fruits, honey, grain etc.) people also learned to weave cloth. Some people made jewelry. Others made equipment. And people also learned to make pottery and ceramics.
In the last decades, billions of people have been affected by disasters. The effect on lives and livelihoods is immense, and the economic effect on a country’s development is considerable. Nearly three-quarters of these losses result from storms, floods and drought. While there is evidence that disaster losses can be attributed to climatic and environmental changes due to human actions, rising population numbers and migration to areas at greater risk is contributing to the ever-increasing loss of life and livelihood. The frequency of disasters, particularly in the last decades, has increased at such an alarming rate that vulnerable populations do not always have the opportunity to recover from one disaster before the next one strikes. Staying a step ahead of the next disaster is becoming increasingly important. This is why the Federation has identified disaster preparedness as one of the four core areas of activities for itself and for National Societies under Strategy 2010.
More information: http://www.ifrc.org/disasters
Year: 2003
Duration: 10 minutes 1 second
Duration : 0:10:1
Read the rest of this entry »
The FoSHoL (Food Security for Sustainable Households Livelihoods) project contributes to improvements in livelihoods and especially food security of rural farm households in Bangladesh by increasing availability, improving access, and improving utilisation of food by targeted households.
Duration : 0:3:16
Read the rest of this entry »
“Torchbearer” - A Documentary based on real life Philanthropist.
Conceptualized and presented by Mahesh Bhatt.
Recently a press meet was organized at Taj Lands End, Mumbai on the occasion of the special screening of a documentary –” Torchbearer”, conceptualized and presented by Mahesh Bhatt and written and directed by Ajay Kanchan. Where, apart from Mahesh Bhatt and director Ajay Kanchan actors Anupam Kher and Imraan Hashmi made their presence to grace the event and also the farmer Haji Ajmal Ali on whom this story is based.
A Philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy: that is, someone who donates his or her time, money and/ or reputation to charitable causes. The term may apply to any volunteer or to anyone who makes a donation, but the label is most often applied to those who donate large sums of money or who make a major impact through their volunteering, such as a trustee who manages a philanthropic organization.
The documentary film “Torchbearer” is about rags to riches story of an ordinary farmer of am Haji Ajmal Ali and his commitment to reduce maternal and infant mortality in his hometown Hojai in Nagaon district of am, which led him to set up one of the most modern rural hospital in the country. In the last 13 years his hospital saved lives of hundreds of thousands of people and he ensured that over 60 percent services of his hospital should be provided free of cost to the poor who are in no condition to pay for their costly treatment. His vision is to convert this hospital into a medical college so that it can become a permanent boon for the people living in some of the most backward and remotest parts of am.
Speaking to media, Mahesh Bhatt said, “I get lot of self-satisfaction whenever I work on projects like this. These kinds of works have been my first love and the media always supported and appreciated me for these kinds of deeds only. The commercial movies, which I make, are merely to earn bread for my livelihood”.
Director Ajay Kanchan said, “this is an effort to promote this film in the country to promote the philanthropic activities and corporate social responsibility”.
“I have been ociated with the organizations working for deprived and destitute children, after watching this documentary, I realized the actual meaning of charity and there is lot more to do further. These kinds of documentaries are must to evoke the spirit”, said Anupam Kher on this occasion.
“I really liked it, I am going with lot of inspiration and courage after watching this documentary. These kinds efforts give an inspiration to work for poor and underprivileged. I appreciate the people behind this effort”, said Imraan Hashmi.
H.S. Communication.
Duration : 0:7:45
Read the rest of this entry »
Kate Conroy, one of the facilitators at the May 2009 sustainable livelihoods workshop ‘Making it Happen in Asia’, explains what she feels the workshop achieved and just why it was so successful.
Duration : 0:2:5
Read the rest of this entry »
The Right Livelihood Award: “India’s Soul” - Krishnammal Jagannathan Awarded Right Livelihood for Realizing “Gandhian Vision of Social Justice and Sustainable Human Development”. Gynecologist Monika Hauser Receives Right Livelihood for Work on Behalf of Victims of Sexual Violence in War
Duration : 0:9:52
Read the rest of this entry »
“A single candle can light up an entire room, but no amount of darkness can suppress it.” Let’s turn on the lights, and watch the roaches scatter!
So here’s the NEW RULE:
being as:
Any group or system that is reliant on your contributions is thereby subservient to you.
It shall be that:
The ones in charge of that system shall have NO CLAIM TO PRIVACY WHATSOEVER.
Think about it, you can go as far as demanding satellite surveillance, gps trackers (for more significant institutions like government) anything… and hundreds of thousands will still compete for the job.
So the higher your demands, the higher your expectations, the better these leadership roles will be fulfilled by good honest people with noble intentions.
It sounds serious… but somethings should be taken seriously… for a healthy change.
(p.s. I’m not stupid, I know this idea threatens the livelihood of criminal syndicates around the world, and I’m well aware of the dangers involved in issuing this call… But I really believe that the vast majority of people, even among these criminal syndicates, would prefer a better world if they only believed it was really possible… to see it in their own lifetime… And I really have no choice but to just have faith in them.)
So have ya a thought to spare? Drop it in the comment box and let’s see what happens… =)
Duration : 0:4:53
Read the rest of this entry »