Nestled in the foothills of northern Maine sits a beautiful scenery of flowers, animals, insects, birds. Amongst these organisms a beautifully constructed log cabin of monumental size is nestled in the distance. Much of the land that is surrounding the log cabin has never been touched or even seen by man, but I feel like that is about to change. Many of the animals not ever seeing a human being in their life time are oblivious to humans and foolishly getting themselves in trouble. Much of the time I have spent there is during the summer times with my family. My family is an important part of my life, I have grown to have a close relationship with my grandfather and father and that is something that I could be losing. Most of the surrounding cabins are destroyed now. Logging. We are now in jeopardy of losing our cabin as well and all the family ties, tradition, relationships and secrets will all be lost if our cabin is destroyed. I need that cabin to stay because without it much of my childhood memories of my grandfather will be lost forever.
I can still remember the first time I ...
Getting Serious About Eradicating Binge Drinking is an informative article by Henry Wechsler. Wechsler has worked with the College Alcohol study since its creation in 1992, and he also lectures at the School of Public Health at Harvard. In his article, Weschler discusses the prominent trend of binge drinking on college campuses and how to solve the widespread problem. Binge drinking is a term used to describe the act drinking alcoholic beverages with the intention of becoming intoxicated over a short period of time.
People often have nicknames to describe details about themselves. Nicknames are not self-created but given to the person from friends or even comrades. In “Into The Lake Of The Woods” By Tim O' Brian, this is the case with John Wade, a former soldier that was nicknamed “Sorcerer”. John Wade is named Sorcerer because of use of magic in his youth and how the men is his squad would feel protected because of his magical powers. As Sorcerer is Wade's alter ego, it seems that it goes on to cost him dearly later in his life. Wade eventually ends up becoming governor of Minnesota and tries to run for U.S Senate. He loses in a landslide victory to his opponent as evidence of the My Lai incident is uncovered. His actions as Sorcerer start to make his life for the worse. It is seen later that Wade's wife, Kathy, is missing and Wade is soon suspected as he remains calm and not involved in the search party. O’Brien does not make it clear on how it Kathy's disappearance occurs but it is clear what happens. Sorcerer arrives again in John Wade as he pulls one final magic trick: to make Kathy disappear....forever.
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
Upton Sinclair was the most famous of the American “muckraker” journalists. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 20, 1878. Although his family was poor, Sinclair was able to earn money as a writer from a very early age, and was able to save enough money to go to college. He attended the city college of New York and graduated from there with a B.A. degree. Soon after he went to Columbia University to graduate school. It was there that he began writing full-length novels with important social themes. His novels showed that he was concerned with the conditions of working people. During the early part of the twentieth century businesses had very little to restrain them and working class unions were not nearly as common as they are today. Some of the biggest abuses of labor conditions took place in big cities such as New York and Chicago. It was in the meatpacking district of Chicago that Sinclair found the setting of the book that would bring him to fame. He first won recognition by the jungle in 1906. This book is a powerful realistic study of social conditions in the stockyards and packing plants of Chicago. It aided in the passing of pure food laws.
Lyall, Katherine C., PhD. "Binge Drinking on American College Campuses." August 1995. October 14, 1998. (available online). http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/RWJ_S.htm
Weshler, Henry, and Wuethrich, Bernice. Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on college campuses. Chicago: Rodale Inc., 2002. Print.
We all know what it is like to wake up in the morning, with our head aching, and our body feeling like it was just hit by a train. College students world wide know this feeling. These are the results of binge drinking. The question of why college students continue to submit themselves to alcohol is unknown. While many reasons are given, the cause generally falls into one of three categories, peer pressure, insecurity, or to help solve there problems. But the one thing students don’t realize are the consequences and effects that binge drinking can have, health and social problems are just a few.
In the United States, forty-four percent of persons ages eighteen to twenty-one are enrolled in colleges or universities (1). According to recent statistics released by the Health and Education Center, forty-four percent of college students are categorized as heavy drinkers. Alcohol abuse is one of the biggest issues on college campuses nationwide, but what is it that makes excessive alcohol consumption such a concern in the year 2003?
According to a national survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, 1 and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe” (NIH). Binge drinking culture refers to the recent rise and normalization of college age students drinking excessively. The CDC describes binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol level to 0.08grams within two hours” (CDC). For many young adults, college is one of the first times they will experience complete freedom. This freedom often leads to partying, which goes hand in hand with the consumption of alcohol. However, since the age at which
As I was squatting there in my little ditch while the snow rose about another inch I barely heard the sound of my grandma’s voice yelling my name. The cat had heard it too and scurried away; even though the cat was running away I was still not able to move because my legs would not work and I heard the sound of crunching footsteps coming from behind me looking for me but, I was still so scared that I realized that I came close to a wild animal that could really hurt me even though I thought that no animal could come into my grandparent’s property with the six foot high fence that surrounded the ten
And now it has become a severe problem especially for college students (Forster at el.,2014:1; Hermens at el.,2012:4). The reason for this is that most social interactions now are beer-directed (López-Caneda et al.,2013:464). In this case, students are more likely to have risk-taking behaviours such as binge drinking (López-Caneda et al.,2013:464). As soon as they go into the bars and in a short time, they may get excited and take a large amount of alcohol which is known as binge drinking (López-Caneda et al.,2013:464).
Wechsler, Henry and Kuo, Meichun. College Students Define Binge Drinking and Estimate Its Prevalence: Results of a National Survey. EBSCO Publishing 29 Oct. 2000
Inside the cabin there is nothing for entertainment except two old black and white TV’s and an outdated telephone, which is covered in a year’s worth of dust. Sometimes I like to head out to the thick wood on the other side of the river, to look for exciting animals and interesting leaves or stones on the forest floor. On some days I feel like running through the corn fields to watch the fluffy clouds slowly drift across the light blue sky. But when it gets dark I want to get back inside before the angry mosquitoes bite me unmercifully. If they make their way into my cabin they will bother me through out the whole night. When I can, I sit on the porch and wait until sunset, watch the frogs croaking non-stop and the river racing down the banks.
Being invited to a friend’s house the other day, I began to get excited about the journey through the woods to their cabin. The cabin, nestled back in the woods overlooking a pond, is something that you would dream about. There is a winding trail that takes you back in the woods were their cabin sits. The cabin sits on top of a mountain raised up above everything, as if it was sitting on the clouds.