I took a deep breath as I walked my horse into the Greeley Stampede Arena. I told myself just to "relax." I loped a circle around the arena to make sure that my horse was warmed up and ready to go. He was ready but I was starting to get nervous. I stopped in front of the roping box to put my piggin' string in my mouth. I looked at my calf in the chute to make sure that it was number 33, which was one of the best calves out of the whole set. It was, and I was ready to ride into the box and rope my calf, or attempt to rope my calf. I began to get more nervous, more nervous than I ever had been at a rodeo.
The reason for my nervousness was because it was the last rodeo of the High School Rodeo season. The last rodeo just so happened to be the short round of the state finals. The short round was the top 15 cowboys out of the entire state. I had qualified 15th out of about 45 other cowboys in the calf roping. That may sound like it was a great accomplishment, but it really wasn't because I knew I was better than at least ten of the other guys that qualified in front of me. I knew myself that I was someone to watch; even if no one else knew.
That year I had already went to 31 high school rodeos. I had pretty much been all over the state of Colorado. From Cortez, all the way over to Lamar. The whole fall and spring season I accumulated points that went towards the year end State Finals Rodeo. I had some good rodeos and I had some very bad rodeos. I had a few first places and a few second places. Most of my points came from fifth or sixth place finishes.
My goal at the beginning of the year was to have a good start to the season and a good finish to the season. I had a good start at Cortez, where I won the first rodeo and placed ...
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...elf making the perfect run. I put the small loop of my piggin' string over the front leg of the calf and gathered the back legs and stacked them as perfectly as possible. I heard many of the other rodeo contestants yelling "be smooth, be smooth." I didn't hesitate to slow my tie down. I started the perfect run so I decided to finish the perfect run. I made my hands tie as fast as they could. It was over in a flash as my hands shot up in the air to signal that my run was over.
As I got back on Loopy I felt a sense of relaxation come over me. I heard the announcer say that my time was 10.1 seconds. I knew that this was a good time and could possibly win the short go at the State Finals. I sat through the other fourteen calf ropers to listen to no other times faster than 10.1 seconds. Not only did I win the short go but I showed everyone that I was someone to watch.
The first virtue that can be obtained through the world wide sport of rodeo is patience. Because of the fact that rodeo is such a big sport, there are many competitors. With this in mind and the fact that events take more than a few mere seconds, rodeos can be an all day event. In a high school rodeo in Laramie this spring, there were nearly 200 runs or rides being made throughout the course of just one day. So you can imagine the...
I picked up my starting blocks and walked over to the white line along with the seven other girls right beside me. I rubbed the bitter cold from my arms, and took a deep breath. I went to work setting up my blocks, dropping the footholds into the slots that fit my specific measurements. The starter announced that we would have two more minutes to take some practice starts before he would call us to the line. I got down in my blocks, rose up, and finally sprang out of them, just as well as I had been doing in practice the day before. I could not have been more ready for my eighth grade Mid-Southern Conference track meet.
Having studied the calf, the run put together in my head several times, I am ready to rodeo. Jake is anxiously waiting and ready to be saddled. Mounting up, I pat Jake gently on the neck and we make several trips through the parking lot to get warmed up.
The 1830s was a time of serious religious conflict. Many people, especially authors, had different opinions on how to find true spirituality. In the end, authors in America created Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that searches for individual truth through spiritual reflection, complete solitude, and a deep connection with nature. Because this was established by authors, many of them wrote different pieces reflecting and using the beliefs of Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered to be the father of Transcendentalism. He wrote many influential pieces that follow and emphasize major Transcendental beliefs. The major beliefs include the over-soul, nature, and senses. In addition to those, there are minor beliefs and overall ways of living. These beliefs were included in Transcendental pieces as a general way to share the belief and to create a movement. Due to the use of nature, senses, and the over-soul as its three core Transcendental beliefs, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature” successfully explain the fundamentals of Transcendentalism.
...ed to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority” (American 1). The major players in the transcendentalist movement are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They shared ideas such as self-reliance, and ideas about how there is a divine being that controls every person. They influenced many other writers and they even had an effect on the American society, then and now. Transcendentalism was a philosophy and a way of life. It will continue to be this as long as we have access to the great minds of the transcendental movement.
As the days grow longer, the Kansas wind gets warmer, and the school year draws to a close, the thoughts of ranchers and would-be cowboys in Chase County and the surrounding communities turn to rodeo, specifically the Flint Hills Rodeo. The oldest consecutive rodeo of June, the Flint Hills Rodeo draws thousands of spectators from near and far. This two-day event is an experience that is not easily forgotten.
War establishes many controversial issues and problems within society and can often expose an individual to many economic and sociopolitical hardships; thus creating an altercation in the way they view life. Amir, from the novel The Kite Runner and the novel’s author Khaled Hosseini, both saw the harsh treatment toward the people of Afghanistan through a series of wars, invasions, and the active power of a Pashtun movement known as the Taliban. Amir, much like Hosseini, lived a luxurious and wealthy life in Kabul. He is well educated and immerses himself in reading and writing. After transitioning from a life in Afghanistan to a life in the United States, both Hosseini and Amir faced obstacles in order to assimilate to American society. In The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist Amir parallels the experiences and hardships that Hosseini endured in his own lifetime.
Of all of the issues that effect the planet Earth from a Global Change standpoint, one of the most visible and highly publicized is the issue of rainforest destruction. The loss of this emerald on the planet's crown will end life as we know it, if something is not done...
...him. His middle-aged life had then sparked the fire of his transcendentalist personality. The most influential pieces Emerson wrote that are still looked at and inspiring to other transcendentalists, were Self-Reliance and Nature. The idea of transcendentalism began around the 1820s-1830s when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about his ideas about self development, non-conformity, and the individual thought process.
Bartley, Jim. "Kite Catches and Flies High." Globe & Mail [Toronto] 28 June 2003: D3. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 254. Detroit: Gale, 2008. N. pag. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2010.
The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a concept that is used at the point of teachers planning. This idea stems from the field of architecture and attempts to design products and environments so that they are usable by all people, in this case students, to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaption or specialised design. (Ashman & Elkins, 2008) The universal design for learning aims to promote access, participation and progress in regular education for all students and therefore has been suggested as a response that meets the needs of students.
Sliding the barn doors open, I step into a warm, comforting environment. Musty straw mingles with the sharp aroma of pine shavings, complementing each other. A warm glow from sporadically placed incandescent lightbulbs richens the leather tack, all cleaned and hanging ready for the day's use. From it wafts the smell of a new pair of shoes. The fruity essence of "Show Sheen", applied after yesterday's baths, still lingers in the air. Even the harsh stinging scent of urine and manure is welcome at this early morning hour. Breaking open a bale of hay, I sense the sweetness of the dried timothy as it engulfs my olfactory system, making me wish my queasy stomach had not made me skip breakfast. I am nervous, as are many others. I know that the day ahead will bring excitement, dread, triumph, and defeat. The unpredictable nature of horse shows causes frenzied questions, like salmon spawning, to run constantly though my mind. Will the judge like my own particular style? What if the red flowers bordering the first jump spook my horse? What if a piece of paper on the ground blows into the ring? Will this horse show be a success? The outcome depends not just on me; but a...
The start of the 2002 track season found me concerned with how I would perform. After a disastrous bout with mononucleosis ended my freshmen track season, the fear of failure weighed heavily on my mind. I set a goal for myself in order to maintain focus and to push myself like nothing else would. My goal for my sophomore track season was to become a state champion in the 100 meter hurdles. I worked hard everyday at practice and went the extra mile, like running every Sunday, to be just that much closer to reaching my goal. The thought of standing highest on the podium in the center of the field, surrounded by hundreds of spectators, overcame my thoughts of complaining every time we had a hard workout. When I closed my eyes, I pictured myself waiting in anticipation as other competitors names were called out, one by one, until finally, the booming voice announced over the loudspeaker, "...and in first place, your 2002 100 meter hurdle champion, from Hotchkiss, Connie Dawson." It was visions like these that drove me to work harder everyday.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the worlds land surface, however now it only covers a mere 6%. It is estimated that all rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Trees are becoming more needed and used everyday. We need them cut down for many reasons such as paper and timber, while also needing them ‘untouched’ for other reasons like oxygen, we have to ask ourselves, which is more important? At the current rate, most of the rainforests are being cut down for resources like paper and timber, but less importance is being placed on main resources like oxygen.
There are a lucky few in life that can simply speak their thoughts and captivate the mind. Many people, at the same point in time, stopped to ponder the same idea; Transcendentalism. Thanks to its in-depth philosophies Transcendentalism was a movement that affected mystics, writers, philosophers, and scientists such as Emanuel Swedenborg, and influenced literature, politics, and society even to this day.