English week five essay

Momentous occasions

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I haven't had any turning points in my life, I can't exactly say that I have very many. The simple fact is that I haven't had a very 'interesting' life, but perhaps I could name a few.

For one, the decision I made a few years ago to not wear T-shirts or shorts and exclusively wear polo shirts and long pants was fairly big for me. It wasn't 'life changing', but it certainly was a change. But it wasn't very big, and probably not very interesting.

This change, however, is fairly large; we moved from our apartment in New York to a house in Ohio. Now, it was not as big as moves from one state to another often are, as we did not live in New York for very long compared to how long we have been living here in Ohio and we were homeschooled so we did not have any 'friends', but it was quite momentous for me.

The biggest turning point by far, though, was the death of my brother. It was a very big change as I'm sure the loss of a loved one always is. I don't think I can go into specifics.

As I said, I haven't had very many turning points, but these few were big changes for me.

English Week Four Essay

A Story of Note

If I had to pick a single story from Lerher's book A Bus of My Own that grabbed me I would have to pick the story near the beginning of the book where he and a bus driver from his dad's bus company were driving their passengers tot he next stop and the bus had no brakes.

This story stood out to me because I can relate to it; I have been in a vehicle that has no brakes before, on more than one occasion. This story had me tensing and wincing as I recalled my own experiences of fearing a crash at any given moment.

It also struck me during this story exactly how miraculous it was that the bus did not crash on the busy intersection when the driver was unable to stop the bus at the red light on time and the bus went straight into the thick of the cars. Surely, the chances of all of the cars stopping on time and letting the bus through were very slim.

There are, of course, many stories in his book that are worthy of mention, but this one was the one that stood out to me the most.

Government Week Four Essay

Bastiat's Argument

In Bastiat's essay “That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen”, he discusses economics and economic fallacies. A summary of his argument follows.

Basically, he says that in economics, there are the effects of the actions of an individual that everyone sees, and these might be apparently good or bad. For instance in his broken window fallacy, he says that the man whose window is broken will be a benefit to society because he will have to buy a new window and that will give somebody somewhere the job of replacing the window and it will put his money into the system.

The part which is unseen, though, is that the man ultimately loses an opportunity because the wealth that he now has to spend on replacing his window could have been spent on something else that the man wanted or needed and the person who would have sold him this product is the ultimate loser, as he can no longer sell his product to the man.

In accordance with his title, Bastiat's essay was critical of those who look only at that which can be easily observed in economics and encourages people to look for the winners and losers in the economy that are not so easily seen.