Over the course of my thirty-eight months at West Point thus far, character development played a prominent role in my successes and failures alike. The Periodic Developmental Review (PDR) system helped me realize which areas needed focus and careful attention to capitalize on my potential as a future officer. The five facets of character – civic, social, performance, moral, and leadership – are essential groups of personality traits for any effective leader to have in mind when considering character development courses of action. In my experience, performance is the facet of character in which I am strongest, while I have several shortcomings in the leadership category, making it my weakest. In order to become a more capable leader of …show more content…
The most relevant display of resiliency during my time as a cadet has come from my constantly changing family dynamic. Growing up, I spent most of my time with my grandparents. I was fortunate that both my paternal and maternal grandparents lived within 10 miles of my home, which led me to virtually daily visits for eighteen years. They served as the baby sitters and taxi service for games, practices, and medical appointments. I was the only grandchild on my paternal side and the only one that lived in the lower forty-eight states on the maternal side, resulting in a closer bond as I was the only grandchild they were able to spend time with. As I got older, the roles started to reverse. As I hit middle school, it became me changing their diapers rather than the other way around. I was driving them to the medical appointments, taking care of their house and lawn care, and so on. Needless to say, my grandparents became the center of my life. Having lived with them when I was younger, I had more or less been raised by them, which contributed to how natural it felt having to take care of them as if they were my own aging parents. Unfortunately, their age began to catch up to them during my time at the Academy. The two grandparents I have left are living down the hall from one another at Vancrest Nursing Home in my hometown, neither
Having an older sibling is rough already, but having a brother that you have to worry about him breaking in and stealing valuables of your own, that's tough and the main character Gordie Jessup has to deal with the betrayal of his older brother, Chase Jessup everyday throughout Katherine Holubitskys’s novel “Tweaked”. Gordie’s efforts trying to fix his family are overwhelmed by Chase’s drug addiction and money debts he has with his dealers. There are many themes throughout the book.
When a bird is put into a cage, it feels trapped. Even if it wants to leave, it can’t. All of it’s decisions have already been made for them. When it tries to speak out, we shut it up. In the book Out of the Easy by Rupa Sepetys, Josie, the main character, was treated like a bird in a cage, trying to escape and always trying to seek help. The decisions her mom made impacted her more than the decisions Josie made for herself. Since her mom was labeled as a “whore” or “a prostitute”, Josie was thought of that as well. But Josie turned her situation around, she had a willingness and such strive to get out of her rusty cage, her miserable town; she didn’t let her past affect her future.
Both Dade and Julian where fixated on proving themselves right and defending their beliefs about
My parents worked hard and strived for their success, people often thought because my mother dressed me very nice that I had money. I recall growing up in a one bedroom apartment, but as my parents worked to gain more knowledge through college and grad school that they would able to provide a better life for me as I grew older. My mother works as a social worker and dad a Veteran of the United States Army and currently possesses a degree in Business Administration society labeled us as stuck up rich girl. My grandparents often told me stories of days on the farm and working for ten cents a day to earn fifty cents a week. I was taught to be thankful for the small things and big things would come. My childhood often bring tears to my eyes as
Countless situations I’ve encountered as a military spouse have provided me with the opportunity to draw upon the resilience that developed within me so many years ago. Enduring multiple deployments, relocating across three continents, giving birth to my first child in a foreign country only to say goodbye to my husband one month later as he deployed, having to wear both “hats” of mom and dad, moving every few years and having to re-invent my career—these situations have required resilience to withstand. Without the experiences I endured as a child, it’s possible I would not have had the opportunity to cultivate this resiliency that has served me so well throughout my life. Reflecting on the experiences I withstood during my youth has empowered me to adopt a perspective of gratitude for where I am today. The challenges of growing up in poverty and dysfunction have given me a lifetime of inner strength and resiliency along with the confident knowledge that I can overcome any obstacle placed in my way. Thus, I do not dwell on the difficulties and dysfunction of my youth. The first chapter of my life story has not dictated the outcome of the rest of my story; I have refused to allow that to
Take a whiteboard and make a character trait study on Cinderella. Put Cinderella’s name in the circle and ask
A mother’s belief in the American dream causes her to incessantly encourage her daughter to be an Americanized prodigy in Amy Tan’s Two Kinds. An immigrant from China, where she lost everyone and everything in her life, Jing-mei’s mother sets about training her daughter to achieve the best quality of life America can offer. At first excited, Jing-mei, tries everything her mother sets before her. The conflict arises when Jing-mei begins to feel the effects of her failed attempts and her mother’s mounting disapproval. The climax of the story is Jing-mei’s abysmal piano performance, and subsequent fight with her mother. Hurling the most hurtful thing she can think of at her mother, a reference to the sacrifice of her twin daughters in
Throughout this meeting, we discussed abundant of things about the importance of the setting, to the development of themes and connections to real life. Debating from interesting quotes and events that occurred throughout. This meeting was phenomenal as everyone had their own opinion and viewpoint of the story.
In a typical Bildungsroman novel is a coming of age story in which the psychological and moral development from the protagonist childhood into adulthood, in which the changes are deeply important to the novel. In Morgenstern’s statement “to depict a human being who develops toward his true nature by means of a collaboration of his inner dispositions with outer circumstances” and Lukacs’s statement “The theme is the reconciliation of the problematic individual…with concrete social reality” does not incorporates the experiences people with different social, ethnic, or gender identities. In these statements about Bildungsroman entitles white male privileges and ultimately in all the novels, the protagonists efforts to integrate into the world of access and mobility which has been previously been denied to them. Bildungsroman as a literary genre is a state of “becoming” and “integrating” into their social world. In these critiques of Bildungsroman: Marxism argues that the the protagonist is a stand in for the nation and that their “becoming” is a symbol of a prosperous country. Feminist Scholars argues that it expunges the female experiences by focusing on areas of which females have been denied such as education, business, and politics. They believed the Bildungsroman is “unbecoming” of the protagonist in female-lead novels and explores the emergence of womanhood.
Washington Irving expertly reflects American history in his piece of 1819 “Rip Van Winkle.” Unbeknownst to Rip Van Winkle, the colonies are now free of British rule as Irving writes, “Here a general shout burst from the bystanders—‘A Tory! a Tory! a spy! A refugee! hustle him! Away with him’” (Matthews, 2007, para. 36). Rip enters the village armed, ignorant of the fact that he presents the look of a loyalist. The question of being a refugee is preferable to accusations of being a Tory, as a colonist refugee would not claim British loyalty which Rip did openly saying “’…And a loyal subject of the king, God bless him’” (Matthews, 2007, para. 35). If Rip had not been justified by one who once knew him, there could have been an
In past times, many African tribes and regions have been colonized by European countries. England, France, Portugal, and Spain were all looking to spread their influences and find good to trade. At first the Africans were curious when they saw these white men because the only white person they had seen was Albinos. There were many different reactions to these foreigners. Some African welcomed them into their villages while other worried that they were dangerous. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart Okonkwo, a clansman of Umoufia, is one of the worried people.
In comparison to academics, I see that the challenges I faced in my military, physical, and character development were significantly easier for me. I found the technical military skills taught to me easy to grasp, and I have formed good habits with my physical development. My perspective on character development mostly agrees with West Point’s character development model. Although I do realize that academics have been my biggest challenge in my development both positively and negatively.
I have been able to feature highlights of general work progress with my personal life, thus being able to achieve Education, in the full parameters of
The characterization of John Tyree in Dear John is the most important part of the novel by far—it is the peanut butter to the rest of the novel’s jelly. Dear John is a romance novel written by the acclaimed Nicholas Sparks, in which main character John falls in love with Savannah while on leave from the army, the “kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who has captured his heart” (Sparks, “Synopsis”). But then John decides to re-enlist following 9/11 and their long separation finds Savannah in love with another man. When John finally returns home after his father passes away, he has to make the hardest decision of his life. Should he fight for her heart
I’ve always thought of myself as having certain personality characteristics and traits, that have stayed the same as I have grown as a person. I consider myself to be extroverted, because I enjoy being around people and making friends. I consider myself to be optimistic, because I tend to look for the “silver lining” when life throw curveballs. I also think of myself as someone that thinks outside-of-the-box, because I think there can be less obvious explanations to questions, especially when it comes to dealing with other people, since people are so different.