A Better Kind of Chance

I learned about patella alta when I was thirteen. I also learned that the condition is simply fancy medial terms for totally messed-up knee caps. While most middle-schoolers were typically taught the concepts of inertia and the Pythagorean theorem, I was showed diagram after diagram of bones and ligaments and tendons. But how bad could it be?† I asked myself as I sat in the doctor’s office, looking at the alien words and unreadable x-rays. I was only there because my knees were feeling a little sore sometimes after practice. My orthopedist spoke of dislocation, warning me of the implications of a torn ACL or meniscus, but I ignored him. I was invincible at the time, like most teenagers see themselves to be. Until I wasn’t. It was days after my fifteenth birthday that I shredded a ligament in my knee. It was a month later that I was walking into surgery to replace it. It was three hours after that when I was wheeled out, and my lens on chance focused. I realized only then, sitting in my wheelchair, that I took a chance doing what I love every day. Gearing up for a game presented dangers I had failed to recognize earlier. Lining my helmet and bat against the fence, lacing up my glove, taking a ballsy lead off first base all a game of chance. My passion for softball had overshadowed this fact. From the moment I stepped on the field to the time the last out was made, everything that wasn’t a part of the game was irrelevant, yet none of my passion mattered when I couldn’t play. I hurt myself half-way through my freshman season, meaning I would miss one-eighth of my high school career. I was devastated when I did the math, which, if you understood my relationship with fractions, took a while to formulate. Everything up to that first one-eighth orchestrated a perfect timeline: little league ball, varsity ball, and, eventually, college ball. There was no room for bad knees in my plan, and I was unprepared to make alterations, so I thought it would be easier to discard it entirely. No more softball, no more getting hurt, no more chances. Almost a year later, though, I somehow found myself at try-outs. My dad made me go. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be carried off the field again, I didn’t want to get injured again. I was every synonym of scared in the thesaurus. My knees screamed at me to leave. But I didn’t Im pretty sure I was paralyzed by fear. I stared at my dusty glove while the coaches began introductions, transfixed by the thoughts of those awful months on bed rest and memories of crutch-induced armpit aches. But I kept those incapacitated skeletons to myself, my daze broken by the cheering of my former teammates and newer recruits. My coach preached his faith in a playoff run for the Bulldogs, how he really thought the team had a chance of greatness this season. There, surrounded by my passion, I was presented with simply the opportunity of another chance. I know I took a chance putting on my uniform again in that that third-eighth of my career. Correction: I take a chance every time I do. But getting back on the field meant more to me than fear. Passion drones out urgent-care nightmares. There will always be a chance of getting hurt, but there will also be a chance of hitting a walk-off home run or winning the play-offs. I choose to believe in those kind of chances instead.

Women in Politics in the Progressive Era Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Women in Politics in the Progressive Era - Essay Example At the end of 19th century women were considered the moral guardians and the protector of the home. During the progressive era, female reformers used ideology that in order to fully protect the home, females should shift to the public scope where they could practice their ethical power over matters such as public hygiene and education which eventually had huge impacts on the homes (Schneide & Schneider 106). Before having the right to vote the women participated in the political arena by joining volunteering organizations to work for reforms in the country. Efforts began to develop at the grassroots level and extended to the state and national level. These women carried out research, executed program, and pushed for the legislature to look into social, political, and economic problem. Middle class club women and settlement workers were to organize and address issues concerning education, healthcare, and political corruption while working women got organized in their own and in partnership with middle class women to raise welfare wages and improve working conditions in America. African American women were in organization to fight racism and provide mutual support. The status of women was beginning to change rapidly in this era, for most part middle class white married women thou they still did not work outside their home. Working women were primarily young and single, widow or divorcees or poor married woman. Most women continued working in agriculture as domestic servants especially the African American women. However, new jobs were opening up and most women began to seek for occupations in department stores. Mid-class women were able to find jobs as clerical workers i.e. typist, clerk, telephone operator, and a few excelled as lawyers, doctors, journalists, and scientist (Schneide & Schneider 146). In the 1930s some reformed women in the era were already in

Effective Leadership in an Organisation. Image Management, Resource Essay

Effective Leadership in an Organisation. Image Management, Resource Deployment And Relationship Development - Essay Example To effectively analyse leadership, it would be critical to decipher its meaning. There has been no standard definition of leadership with Northouse observing that â€Å"there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it† (2004, p.2). The author perceives leadership from a social influence perspective referring to it as a process through which one influences a group of persons, referred to as followers, so as to attain common goals. Keller (2008) defines it as a critical dynamic force which motivates and coordinates an organisation towards accomplishing its objectives. The scholar views it as less of a science but as more of an art which influences by persuasion or example to induce a desired action. Whereas in an organisational setting the term subordinates would be used in place of followers, the term followers indicates that a leader could hold any position or role with bureaucracy not necessarily being implied (Zacca ro & Klimoski 2007). Organisational leadership in particular refers to the management’s ability to acquire and protect the organisation’s benefits by being sensitive to the needs of employees and the targets of the company, bringing them together in a better environment so as to realise common goals (Abbas & Asghar 2010; Sosik, Kahai & Piovoso 2009). Nonetheless, leadership should not be used interchangeably with management. Adopting Kotter’s approach, Packard (2009) and Shapiro and Leigh (2007) noted that management would produce order, consistency and predictability with regard to key results including budgeting, planning, staffing, organizing, problem solving and controlling. On the other hand, leadership would yield change and would encompass establishment of direction through development of a vision, aligning people to the vision and strategies and inspiring and motivating the staff. Leadership encompasses visioning, management of change, development of str ategy, organisation design, management of culture and community collaboration as contrasted to management which includes financial management, program design, human resource management, information systems, project management and program evaluation (Boal & Schulz 2007; Empson 2007; Gill 2006; LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu & Saul 2008). For management functions to be executed effectively, leadership would be a key ingredient. Effective leadership According to Keller (2008) and Pearce, Locke and Conger (2007), effective leadership would entail the development of clear objectives, strategies and beliefs and identification of crucial processes and encouraging participation of employees. But various scholars (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber 2009; DiLiello & Houghton 2006; Yukl 2006) have argued against a particular leadership style considered as effective. Even so, various building blocks to the realisation of effective leadership have been widely accepted. Image management Avolio, Walumbwa and Weber (2009) and Chong and Wolf (2010) appreciate image management for establishment of credibility, borrowing from leadership as a social influence process described by Packard (2009). For leadership to cause any influence, the followers should accept the leader’s persuasion and appropriately respond to it. Followers would be the ones to make the decision as to whether one deserves the leadership status through comparison of the image or characteristics presented by the leader against their assumption of what constitutes a leader. This postulation has been supported by Gregersen