Looking For Alaska Challenges

Describe the most challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

Throughout the past couple of months my fellow peers and I have been studying the topic ‘challenge’ and how it affects our lives and people around us. In our everyday lives we are confronting challenges, some are as small as walking up a few steps, and some are larger and more challenging that could be life or death circumstances.

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” What the Roman poet Horace was saying was that when there is an obstacle in our way, our true colors will radiate. I could not agree more. When we as human beings feel passionate about achieving a goal, we may learn something new of ourselves, maybe a new trait that we did not know we possessed, when we reach new heights we did not know we could push ourselves towards. Challenges are similar to tests. Challenges are faced every day, but how we respond to them determines how strong we really are. Prime examples are superheroes and students that move dramatically.

What challenges has your character struggled with in life? Has he or she overcome them or is he or she still working them out?

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How did this challenge affected your academic achievements?

of the day. Whether the challenges are mental or purely physical. We have found more

In the book, Race Across Alaska, by Libby Riddles, Libby is an up and coming musher who has no sponsor and no money. However, she takes her love of adventure and the sport to the Iditarod and ends up winning. The first few years, after moving to Alaska, were hard for Libby. She had moved to Alaska from Wisconsin when she was 16 with her brother and decided to become a professional musher. Due to this she's paid very little and her track record was not great, so she was forced to live in a trailer with no heating or electricity. She could only eat the food she hunted. After years of living like this and training Libby decides to race in the Iditarod, an 11,049-mile race .through the tundra, for her third time in 1975, and she ended up winning.

challenges but think of the challenges Mr. Frank and Mr. Kraler had to do to get prepared. They had to

Challenge means ‘A task or situation that tests someone's abilities’ (Google Dictionary) and David Suzuki has experienced such tests many times in his life. David was born in Vancouver on the 24th of March 1936. He is a third generation Canadian. His grandparents were from Japan and his many life challenges were due to his nationality because of the attack in Pearl Harbour brought upon by Japan. Because of David’s nationality, he, his parents and his three sisters were taken to an internment camp where is troubles began. But despite all of his troubles David went on to become the “greatest living Canadian” (National Review of Medicine, 2008).

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

PROMPT: What do the characters of your book struggle with and how does their story of struggle and resilience compare to a current struggle today?

Just like Phoenix Jackson, this story’s main character, most people find their way through challenges, time after time, because of their strong sense of determination.

of the day. Whether the challenges are mental or purely physical, we have found more

challenges, however, are the most difficult ones to face and overcome. Some environmental issues that

Challenges are the structure of self-development, so people could to develop critical-thinking skills to overcome those challenges. For example, workers are constantly encountering new set of challenges. The challenges help workers to gain more knowledge of their career and will prepare them for future challenges. According to a journal written by Doody discussed on jumping out of comfort zone in a medical field, “issues pertaining to patient safety and operative outcome targets may restrict the amount of autonomy that a trainee may be given to move from his or her comfort zone to the learning zone” (Doody). This prepares workers to encounter challenges, and how they will handle the situation either on their own or help from others. By doing so medical trainees will be able to adjust to their jobs on a medical field. It can help them learn and develop new tactics dealing with the situation because “advanced learners who require more complex, unpredictable challenges with higher stakes to maximize their learning” (Doody). People who are set in complex challenges will be able to handle the situation, which it can increase their ability to handle similar challenges they will encounter in the future. Comfort zones limits people from handling challenges, but enforcing challenges within their work can help them overcome the comfort zone. Challenges are necessary for people