Life Changing Experience

The most memorable life changing experience that I can remember happened when I was about 10 years old. I was in the fourth grade doing some kind of work and my teacher asked me to follow her out into the hall along with another student that I don't remember to well. As we were walking out into the hall I was trying to think of what the other student and I might have done wrong to get into trouble. But when we made it far enough into the hall so as to be out of earshot of the other students the teacher told me that I was being selected to join R.A.P. or the Radical Activities Program for the small amount of artistic talent I had in the fourth grade. And the other student was being selected for her exceptional reading skills. When we returned to the classroom there were several people asking us why we had to go into the hall, but I didn't say anything about the R.A.P. program or give an excuse as to why I might have been in trouble. But this program basically gave me all the time I needed to doodle without any restrictions and to develop the talent I had. Because of this I became very fond of drawing, something that I had previously done only as a way of procrastinating when doing my homework.

Now I've become fairly good at art in general, but I'm sure that I wouldn't have the talent I do today if it weren't for the teachers that had selected me for the program. So I'm glad that I was pulled out into that hall with the false sense of shock that was placed on me by the teacher as I was pulled out into the hall. Because being taken out of class once per week to do something that I wasn't very good at, but still enjoyed, was the major turning point in my life as a compulsive "doodler". I think that this just goes to show that practice does indeed make perfect and if you do something you enjoy you'll never stop learning and you'll only improve your skill each and everyday. The person I am today comes directly from having this life changing experience and is definately the most important change that has happened in my life so far.

Achebe Final Writing

3.) I think that Okonkwo is a victim in this story due to the pressure of the war with the British and with his tribesman's inability to bring themselves to fight against the new religion. The reason I think he killed himself is that he knew that a war between his tribe and the British missionaries would never come. Meaning he would never be able to continue a normal life by his standards so, in a sense, his world would be meaningless.

Becuase he saw no other option to get his life back on track the only thing he could do, apparently, was to commit suicide and to save himself from the embarassing laziness of his failing tribe. As well as the gods anger with his tribes unwillingness to fight to save their own culture and values. In doing so he may have hoped to start anew in the afterlife and allow him to do the fighting and the labor that he loved to do.