MOSAIC: voices from Polson High School

Welcome to Mosaic.
Be honest. Be kind. Be temperate.

Candace Durham: My American Dream

The world is cold. Weve all heard of rape, abuse, Meth, alcoholism, and violence. Why do these terrible things even exist? Simple, people are stupid.

Have you ever seen a new born infant? Their little fingers twitching, eyes struggling to open and view the world they were so forcefully brought into. Their skin as soft as can be. Their hair is so thin and frail. The smile they flash at you, toothless and adorable. Everything about them is so innocent.

Day after day, night after night, this infant grows. Everything they sense with any of their five senses is stored away in their undeveloped brain. These are all learning experiences. Growing up is a scary and difficult thing for every child. On the other hand they learn the most during this period of their life.

When I was a child, I began learning from the day I was born, as does every child. I was taught who my parents were, who my sister was, that fire is hot, what is and isnҒt food, and most important, what noӔ means. At the age of two I learned what immense physical pain is.

My sister and I were wrestling around in the post office while our mother stood patiently in line. She briefly scolded us to stop before someone gets hurt. Within a matter of seconds I was screaming bloody murder. My sister had gotten the last shove and I fell over and landed on the old sharp metal lining around full sized glass windows. It split the back of my head open to the skull. It was only about two inches long but very deep. My mom, who had already been frustrated with us, grabbed us both without even looking, briskly walked us out of the post office to the car. As she stepped off the sidewalk she scooped me up, seeing as how I was only two years old and may be only thirty pounds. As she got close to the car she felt something wet trickling down her forearm to her elbow. She looked down to see her toddler gushing blood out of her head. She got us all in the car and asked my four year old sister to hold a diaper wipe onto my head. Naomi, who was terrified, refused and my mom was forced to hold pressure on my head while driving. We drove to the dentist office where my dad was just sat down in a room to be seen. My mom hurried him out the door, me still in hand. When we made it to the ER it was busier than ever. There must have been lots of traumatic accidents happening that day for me to had to have sit in the waiting room for a half hour and another half hour in the room waiting for a doctor.

Finally my parents were informed that I was going to have to get staples. The only doctor that was available was a very new doctor. She had never operated on a patient this young before, or with an injury as serious. I still to this day do not know why the hospital would put a brand new doctor on a child, who is only two years old, and this seriously injured. This doctor buckled under pressure. She asked the nurses if she should five me numbing before she stapled. Of course, the nurses werent sure, it wasnҒt their job to know, it was the doctors. So she just decided to go ahead and staple my head without any numbing. So lying on a table, face in a pillow, I felt six head pounding staples go straight into the back of my head. Somehow I managed to keep consciousness long enough to scream louder, for a moment or two. It was the most horrific physical pain I have ever experienced.

After that painful rendezvous with an idiot, I continued on with my life with much milder physical ailments; however, I did manage to make my way into a very awkward adolescent phase.

Around my third or fourth grade year, I began to develop a sense of style; a style that slightly disturbed my parents. I began wearing pants that were black, and lots of gray shirts. This did not affect them, but the fact that those became my only articles of clothing in my wardrobe began to worry them. AT this time I also began to isolate myself from my family and friends. I would participate in activities with my family only if it was something I chose; I became miserable on a regular basis. I spent a lot of time in my room by myself, thinking. I dont remember these years very much, but I remember coming out of that phase really well.

I overcame my awkward stage after being enrolled in Polson Middle School. When I went school shopping I tried to avoid black pants and gray shirts. When I started school I had no friends. I was separated from my sister for the first time. We had been in the same grade since before I could remember and essentially we grew up as twins. The school held my back a year because of my age. They could have held me back two years, but they were afraid that that would make me loose academic potential. So they decided on a happy medium and enrolled me in Mrs. PetersonҒs sixth grade class.

I finally was accepted by some girls and made some friends. I was even asked to be in their friends groupӔ. This group was just some friends in a group and we would take our lunch to the counselors office and eat there and play games. I felt accepted for the first time even though I was labeled as a ғnerd. About half way through the third quarter of my sixth grade year, I made new friends. I then got to sit at their table, a ԓcool table. Dakota and I always sat on the end of the table across from Erin and Ashlee. Dakota and Ashlee were friends, so naturally Erin and I hated each other. In seventh grade, however, I stopped sitting there and began sitting with girls like Megan, Anna, and lacey. At the same time I ԓconverted so did Erin. Soon after we started hanging out with them, Erin and I became best friends. We even started a ԓnew table by the middle of eighth grade. We also shared a locker in our glorious last year of middle school. Our normal locker, as opposed to our band locker, was the epitome of disgusting. At one point I think there was a total of nine latte and hot chocolate cups in the top of our locker. All of these cups were not completely finished. Erin and I eventually drifted away to where we were still friends, but not best friends about our sophomore year in high school. This was just doe to lack of much in common.

As my life goes on there seems to be a pattern every time I come out of a phase I go straight into a different one. I am currently in a phase that began around the middle of my sophomore year. IԒm not quite sure of the cause, maybe it was high school, maybe it was family, or even boyfriends. Whatever the case may be, it began a vicious cycle. In this phase I have acquired a disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). For example, the volume in my car has to be on a multiple of five. I have to color coordinate my skittles, I can just stop doing whatever Im doing, and I have to have my cell phone on my person, always. I also have deathly fears of weird things such as feet, electrical tape, stink bugs, and rolling up body parts in a car window. When my compulsions are out of order I get very upset to make them right and I have to get away from my fears. This has put an impact on my relationships with family and friends. When I get upset I get violent. It is very stressful on me. I wish I could just let things go without blowing out of control. Again, I do not know what the cause of this, but I hate it. I donҒt like having to just deal with it all the time. I hope that this will not affect me for the rest of my life. It would definitely put an impact on my work life.

I want to go college and major in business management and minor in architecture, or vice versa. Then eventually start a family. This is my American dream and how it came to be.

American Dream for Success-Amanda

Most Americans think of the American Dream as money or other types of material positions but the American Dream to me is none of those things. To me the American Dream has always been more centered on myself. I want for myself to live a happy life. I feel that to achieve this I have to have a successful job that I love doing.

I have always excelled in math. When other kids were playing games on the computer I was busy playing with numbers. That was my way of having fun. In fourth grade I was doing math the middle school kids were doing, and in eighth grade I was doing math the high school kids were doing. Even know as a high school student I am in advanced math classes, and am able to tutor kids at lower math levels. Math has always been a passion for me because I understand it so well. My teachers, especially, saw this in me, and they have always told me that I should look into a career that is very involved with math. They suggested stuff like becoming a teacher, but the one thing that really caught my eye was accounting. After hearing this over and over again, through my years in high school, I did research on the career of Accounting. I fell in love with the job after finding that most Accountants are very successful in what they do. I new this was the job that was going to help me obtain my American dream of having a successful job that I love.

I have done many things to help me become an Accountant. The one thing I know I did that helped me keep on trying for my dream was the Montana State Math competition in Missoula. This is a competition Missoula holds every year for high schools around the state. Anyone can sign up for the competition but you have to do well to place. I was only in the 8th grade but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I was determined to go. They had four different types of test. A pot luck test which is all subjects in one test. Then they had a geometry, algebra, and group test. When they sat me down to take the test I remember looking through it and knowing that I was going to do well. I never thought that I was going to do as well as actually I did. When all test were over we had to wait a week before getting the results, but when we got the result I found out that I did really well. I didn’t take 1st or 2nd not even 3rd, but as an 8th grader I got Honorable Mention in two of the test categories. I got honorable mention in pot luck and in group team. If you got an Honorable Mention that meant that you had placed in the top ten. This wasnt the best, but out of more than 100 kids taking the test that was pretty good.

I still have a lot to do to become an Accountant, but this is stuff I know I can get past. The things I know I must do to become an accountant are things like going to college taking the five years program and passing the national test. I also think it would be fun to do and internship for a couple summers just to get a little taste of what it will be like when I am on my own.

I just know this is the job I was made for, and hope that this will make me achieve my all time American dream of having a successful job that I love. If not then I guess I’m out of luck because this is what I have been preparing myself for all my life.

My American Dream

I was raised a true southern girl. Growing up I was always around animals, mainly reptiles and dogs, and had a true passion for them. My father had all sorts of venomous snakes. Anywhere from king cobras to eyelash vipers. My dad had a huge impact on my life and my dreams. I’ve always wanted to be daddy’s little prodigy.

I was in Florida for most of my life. I was a city girl, but my heart always wanted to be near nature. I never felt quite at home in the middle of all the commotion going on around me. When I would get bored of being the stereotypical city girl, which was just about all the time, I would go out into the woods with my brother and his friends. We would climb trees, build forts, and look for animals. Of course we would always find trouble some where, but it was always worth the adventure. I have always loved being around nature.

In fact we basically had a lot of nature at home. We had up to 30-40 different types of snakes when we lived in Florida. We kept them in our garage where my father would do something called “milking” the venomous snakes. I loved it when he did this because it was so intense, and I never knew what would happen. I think this was the point in time where I fell in love with snakes. Though these were not the only animals my father would bring home. We would go ‘hunting’ down in Florida. The typical animals we would find were mostly reptiles like snapping turtles, snakes of course, and miscellaneous things. I never got bored of doing this. I was always captured by the beauty of animals and their habitats.

With my dad’s help and guidance I one day hope to be a veterinarian. This way I will be able to enjoy my work. With hard work and dedication I hope to make my father proud of me and my dreams.

My “American” Dream-Juho

I can say that I’m living my American dream right now, in sort of way. Well, mostly it is that I’m living in America, but for many people I know, it is a dream.

My name is Juho. I am an exchange-student from Finland, the country of forests, thousands and thousands of lakes and technology. I have lived there all my life, until this summer. One year ago, in September, I talked with my dad about going to an exchange program. I decided fast, applied to the program and they accepted me. I came here in the end of July.

My main reasons for coming the United States were that I want to learn to speak English more fluently, get to know the new culture and get a bunch of new friends. All those things are happening all the time. I could say all those things were my American dream. However, I didn’t consider it that way. To me, American dream means the same thing as to everybody else, a same boring good education, a well-paid job, a beautiful wife, a pretty house somewhere in deep forest nearby a little lake and a bunch of awesome kids. That could be my Finnish dream also. Like it is to me. So there’s no point calling it the American dream.

So let’s go deeper. What is my dream, whether it’s American or Finnish? My dream is to be a good, interesting and wise person, who will be remembered by his family, relatives and friends after his death. Basically I’m saying, that I want to leave a memory of me to this world. How this could be done?

As always, it starts from myself. I have to realize what are my goals, and more importantly, how I want to achieve them. Let’s say there is an English test. If I want to pass it, I don’t have to probably even read on it, just guess and write what comes into my mind. If I want to get a good grade of it, but I don’t want to read on it, I could cheat, ask and check what my friend wrote.

It’s obvious that those ways to achieve anything are the wrong ways. If I want to get a good grade from that test, I should read on it and concentrate on test and do my best. That’s the way to do it. And that is just example, which works in every situation. If you want to achieve something, you have to do work for it.

In my life with other human beings I believe in the golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. Whenever my old neighor needs to cut his lawn, I would go over there and do the job. Whenever my friend needs help with his car, I would go over there and check that problem with him. Whenever my kids are having problems with homework, I would help and work with them through them.

I wouldn’t ask anything back for those chores. If my friends think in same way, I will get my prize. And the prize is not always needed. You can help each other sometimes just because it makes you feel good. It is sad that this kind of thinking is dying in the modern life. But if everybody would think that way, everybody would help each other. A good example of that kind of thinking is my grandpa. He lives in small village where everybody knows everybody. If somebody needs some help with their potato field, he would take his tractor and plant all seeds in a field. And he wouldn’t ask anything back. It is just the old manner and that’s the way it has been for always.

My other grandpa died two weeks ago. He was also just one great guy. Everybody in town knew him. And everybody mourned his dead. He was loved. He also helped people, asking nothing back. My grandma has had so many visitors who had came to ease her sorrow and just to tell her how great guy my grandpa was and how much they miss him now.

I want to be that kind of guy. That is my dream. When I die, I want to be remembered by people I dealt with and who I helped. People I loved. I don’t want to be remembered about how much property I had or what did I do for living in this life. And it is possible achieve all these goals. It depends from yourself. You need other people on your way but it all starts from you. Just like Pilgrims surviving their very first year in America. They were not alone. The Indians were there for them even they knew how cruel the white people can be and how they have kidnapped and killed many of their sons. The Indians gave what they had, asking nothing back. I just admire that from bottom of my heart.

Whether it is in America or in Finland, to achieve your dreams, you need other people to make those dreams come true. It starts from you. You have to realize what you want, what you want to be, what you want to do and with who you want to be. Getting there is a beginning.

The End

Megan’s American Dream

What is an American Dream? I used to think that it was the perfect family: mom, dad, two children, the white picket fence surrounding the large yard and the just right size house that I could call home.
But the truth is that an American Dream can be whatever an individual considers to be a goal, which one sets hoping to achieve that one thing in life he or she would love most to pursue. For some, that is to have the same American Dream as everyone else. They just want to be accepted, living what society may call the “perfect life”. Others want the dream that sets them apart from the rest of society, where they can achieve greatness. But as for me I want the dream that is mine, the one that belongs to me.
When I was just five years old my parents got a divorce to this day I still blame myself for it. It might be because the cause of the divorce is still unknown to me. The day my mom walked out on my dad and us was the day I grew up, the day I became the other, the other parent. My days playing with my friends and watching cartoons were gone, for I became responsible. Responsible for my brothers, cleaning the house, and making sure that my dad wasn’t going to go insane! These are things that no child, no five year old should ever have to deal with.
The day the divorce became final, was the day that my first grade Christmas recital was to be on. That day was just like any-other day, I woke up, my dad took me to school after dropping off John and Steven, my brothers at the daycare. There was nothing out of the ordinary. When dropping me off I asked him if he was going to make to my recital, and he said he would try. When the time for my recital rolled around I began to look for my dad in the audience, but there was no sign of him. I went through the whole recital wondering whether or if he was ok, where he was, if he forgot, for my dad was a police officer and anything could have happened. After the recital was over I walked around with my teacher looking for my dad, but I couldn’t find him. Eventually a couple of women approached us, it was my mom and my grandmother was with her. They told my teacher that I was going home with them for Christmas. What I didn’t know was that what they were really doing was taking me to Belle Fourche for the rest of my life. My mom got custody of the kids, my brothers and myself. I never saw my dad at my recital, I didn’t get to say goodbye, from that day on the visits to see my dad became limited and my life, friends and family changed. That day was the day I started to hate my mom for running out on my family, our family and for taking me away from my dad.
From the very moment my mom walked out on our family, was the day I decided never to fall in love, have a family, or get married. But if I were to do so that I would be blessed my God with the man for me, and stable marriage for if divorce was ever to cross my mind that may I be punished before ever doing so, for I am never going to put my children through what I went through.
My dream is that wherever life may take me, I will have the blessings of life, filled with the abundance of family, friends, love, a home to call my own, and God’s guidance in my presence. I know throughout this dream, my American Dream that I have yet to discover, there will be many trials, sacrifices, victories, achievements, losses, and gains, but every bit of that will be all worth it when I reach my dream, whatever it may be.
But why be like everyone else? Why not be different, not necessarily achieving greatness, but living the dream that is set for you? The truth is that we all have a dream, an American Dream, something that we all hope to achieve, but how many of us will go and make it reality!

My Dream of the Future

Everyone has their own idea of an “American Dream”.  There are many different dreams, but I would say mine is a typical one.  I don’t want to be remembered for who I was, but for what I did for other people.

I was born last in my family, making me the youngest.  I lived in California until I was four, then moved to Montana in 1995.  I started school in Dayton, Montana, until the fourth grade, when I went to Polson.  I am now a junior in Polson High School.

Now that I am getting older I am planning my future.  I see myself going to college and becoming an Elementary Teacher.  I have worked with kids my whole life. I used to work at a day care.  On Thursday, November 1st, I went down to Cherry Valley to read to a few Kindergartners.  I watched their teacher work with them and interact with them too.  This made me want to become a teacher even more.  I might not use my teachers degree for long but for the time I a not married I will use it.  At first I was not sure I wanted to go to college.  I thought it would be a waste of money to go get a degree and then not use it.  My mom told me about a friend of hers that thought the same way and she didn’t go to college and her husband ended up dieing.  Leaving her with no money and no way to support her family.  That is why I am chosing to go to college, in case the unexpected happens.

I will get marred after college.  I don’t want to get married to soon because I want to travel and see the world.  I would like to go to New Zealand, to see where my mother was born and raised.  After being married for two or three years, I plan to have some kids. I am going to follow in my mother’s foot steps and become a stay at home mom.  My parents have raised me in a way that I think is right and even though people think you have to have money to be happy; I know that that is a lie.  I was raised with just enough money to get by and now and then a little extra, but that little extra money came from many hours of long hard work.

When my kids are grown up and have moved out of the house, I would like to start an animal shelter.  I have been an animal lover my whole life and I get tired of seeing animals being abused and neglected.  I will make it open to any animal that needs a home.  There is no reason that there should be an animal with no home. People my look at this and think she is dreaming, this could never happen but, if you want something that badly and put your mind to it you can achieve it.

I will also do research on how to cure diabetes, in my spare time.  My sister has had diabetes since she was four years old.  I want to give my sister a chance to live a life without having to worry about what she eats.  People need to realize there are so many other problems out there.  There is so much research for breast cancer that I think people forget about diabetes and other diseases.  It is time we make a stand for diabetes.  In my research on diabetes I will start a program that goes around the United States and inform them on what goes on with diabetes and how to help in finding a cure. 

I see myself in Montana when I am older, living on a farm full of horses and other animals.  I want to have a huge family reunion, full of family and close family friends from all over the world.  It will be a western theme, where anyone can ride and interact with the animals. I want my land to reach as far as the eye can see.  I want to be surrounded by the people and the land I love, that is where all my dreams lie.

There is not enough time in one’s life to do what I would like to do and achieve.  The only thing I hope for is when I die my research will go on and the animal shelter will still be here.  To all the people that I love will not cry when I am gone but rejoice because I have gone home to my Heavenly Father.  I hope to one day see the rest of my family and friends there too. 

Just living for a dream

My dream started when I was just a kid. I was five years old when my great grandfather passed away. That year-was a life changing one. I started to realize more than before, others’ emotions, and behaviors, as well as my own reasoning. My mom never hid reality from me. It was always there. Standing in that room with him on the hospital bed sorrow laid cold and desolate. As a kid I might not have always understood everything, but the emotions in that room lay unhidden, and barren for all of us to see and feel.

It was coming to the fall of 1996, I was swinging on my swing-set, given to me before his passing. Somehow, something felt Arri. I saw people coming down the drive way. I recognized them to be the father and the brother of my best friend, Jordan. My father greeted them. After they had left, I learned that they were moving to be closer to their oldest son. I never saw them again. Sure, I kept in contact as best as I could, but I would never see them face to face. The year after, which was fourth grade for me, well that’s when I thought I might as well give up, because of reasons I’ve partially forgotten by now, but at that point dreams felt to have no use, no purpose. I had given up on hopes of becoming a better student. Everything I did I felt I did wrong, thus everything that had gone wrong in my life was my fault. It was all my doing. I had lost all self worth, I felt like I couldn’t help anyone, not even my family, and that’s what hurt the most.

As I got older, I took in traits that I knew would not only help my family, but also give others the self worth that I had lost, and give them the feeling that they were just as important as anybody else. That’s when I realized more so than ever what my calling, what my dream really was, what made me happy. It was to give and give till you couldn’t give anymore. Which made the statements “It’s better to give than receive,” and “you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar” all the more true.

Even though my family has never owned a home, has had several illnesses, and has been in debt, I have come to see that happiness can make the biggest difference. Laughter seemed to heal the biggest wounds, especially when it came to my uncle passing away, a year ago, of cancer, which he had been battling for more than 30 years. I had never known this until his passing. It started making me thinking about all the other things I had never known about him, as well as all my other family members who had passed before him. Who else was I leaving out of my life? How much longer would I allow this to continue?

I believe we are all influenced by the ones we love and care for the most. The traits I have learned and acquired from those ones I have loved and cared for most, are ones I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life. My dream is not only to keep those I care about close to me, near or far, but in hopes that when I die, I will have died knowing that I made a difference in someone else’s life, that I made some one else’s life better, as well as my own. Dying with a legacy of happiness is my dream.

Chance’s American Dream

The American dream has almost always been a want and not a necessity. It’s what we want out of life and who we want to be, not what or who we need to be. This is what makes America, well, America. Our wants and expectations of our selves are always moving up; we are always pushing the bar just a little higher. Each generation wants what the last one had- with a cherry on top. And I suppose that I am not any different.

My number one priority is to graduate high school with a 3.5 GPA or better. It will be extremely hard but I think that I will be able to pull it off. Another top priority is my car, a 1972 Plymouth Satellite. It’ll have a semi-chromed engine, with black and yellow engine accents. It will have a black body with yellow racing stripes that will slide over it, a black and yellow interior and re-chromed front and rear bumpers.

For me, this car will be more than a car, because my grandpa and I are rebuilding it together. So this gives it a rather high sentimental value as well as a big dollar sign, not that I would ever sell it. After my home school mechanic teachings and high school, I want to put myself through a tech school and become a certified mechanic and auto body specialist. I want to learn enough to take a piece of junk car found in the woods, and turn it back into an American classic to sell at a high profit. Classic car restoration would only be a hobby though. Opening up a mechanic/auto body shop in the valley is what I would really want to do. A good mechanic that doesn’t over charge in a small town almost sounds too good to be true.

Speaking of too good to be true, you can’t forget about the perfect day. It’s either on a Saturday or Sunday, playing catch with your kids or talking with your friends and family around the grill. The type of day where work just seems to disappear and you have no worries whatsoever. The smell of the BBQ pork chops in the air and you just don’t want it to end. That’s the real American dream isn’t it? A loving wife, your family and friends close to you in a place that you call home, guess it doesn’t get much better than that.

The phrase life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are all equally important to the nation, but to me as an individual the most important might just be the pursuit of happiness.  Pursuing and obtaining our wants and self-fulfillment are what make us happy. Or, is obtaining them directly out of the question, can we only care for our family and friends and enjoy life to make our selves happy? I don’t know, but thirty years from now when I’m standing around the barbecue with my wife and friends, and somebody brings up the question of where I would want to be, I’d reply, “Right here my friend, right here.”

Joe’s Dream (read this or I’ll hunt you down)

People often try to define what the “American Dream” is, but is there one right answer? Some say life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is what the American dream is all about; however, I personally believe that a persons true dream lies in his heart and is different for everybody.

My American dream starts with how my parents raised me. Education has always been very important to my family and even though neither of my parents attended any formal education after high school, they have never quit encouraging my siblings and me. They have never tried to point me in the direction that they found fit; rather, they encourage me to look into many fields and to think my way through any obstacles I may find in my journey. There have been bumps along the way and I know there will be many more to come that are much more challenging than anything I have gone through yet. I do not fear them. I know with the love and support of my family that I will be able to overcome anything life throws at me.

To further my education after high school, I plan (or for at least this moment) to attend the University of North Dakota-Grand Forks in search of a Bachelors of Science degree in their flight training program. In addition to attending college I plan to join one of the armed forces--which one has yet to be decided.
At the moment I am most interested in the United States Coast Guard or a special program the University of North Dakota offers through the Army ROTC. The best reason I have for wanting to join one of these is the fact that I want to help people in some way, and becoming a rescue pilot in either of these would certainly let me achieve that goal. The ABC program offered by the ROTC through UND will aid with flight training expenses and college tuition.

I was referred towards this program from a previous student of UND. Although he had not personally attended the ABC program, he had classmates and friends that did. He explained to me that UND is one of the finest flight colleges in the nation and joining the Army ROTC was definately a rewarding experience for him.

Along with meeting my goal, enlisting in the United States Coast Guard would quite possibly keep me near my family on the north-western seaboard. If my mind changes a million more times in the next two years, helping the public and staying close to those I love will be two constant requirements for any occupation I pursue. Family is very important to me and I plan on keeping them close in my life.

Personally I do not know if a family of my own is in my future but I am not counting it out. Children, especially infants, have an overwhelmingly positive power on my emotions. My mother runs a daycare out of our house and being able form bonds with the children as they grow from infants with their new baby smell to teenagers who believe they know it all when in reality, all they see of the world is the tip of the ice-burg, has had a very influential impact on my life. These kids have given me the opportunity to see how much people need each other to survive. I believe love is something that you can’t live without. It is necessary to find somewhere in your day to day schedule.

If that comes from creating your own family and the unbreakable love between each other, or from a single person in your life, it is essential to our survival. So far, my love consist of my family. I have developed a strong relationship with my father through hunting and it is one of the few hobbies we share with each other. My father and I have a lot in common but we see things very differently as you would suspect from the diverse ways we were raised. We both love working with our hands but I prefer to do so in a more modern way. I love power tools, table saws, routers, and using them to turn pieces of wood into something priceless yet practical. I love working on cars, doing such tasks as simple as changing the oil to those more difficult such as replacing a motor or transmission. I love my father and in result, I love hunting and working with my hands because they keep my dad in touch with each other. Along with my dad, my mom has also gotten me to love working with my hands by working in the yard and cooking with her because they are hobbies she has passed to me which keep us close.

These are nothing but hobbies. I have never had any intentions of turning these into professions. I would hate to become sick of doing them by relying on them week to week to pay the bills. I plan to do them for as long as I live for personal enjoyment and nothing less.

My dream consists of me and mine; a house with my neighbors being no closer than the horizon; a field where I can build a shop to work on any projects I can conjure up; and a life that I find just. Hoping to enjoy waking up every day, looking forward to whatever life throws at me. 

Jackie’s American Dream

My American dream after High School is to go to college. I’m still trying to decide what for still. I can remember when I was younger and someone would ask what do you want to be I could always answer them with something. Now if they were to ask me that I wouldn’t have an answer for them.
If I do go to college I hope to stay close to my family. I always enjoyed doing thing with my family. They are important to me and I hope not to lose them.
I also want to go to the same college as some of my friends. My friends are just like my family. We are always together. I think it would be hard for me to go to a college with out any of my friends there with me. I could see my self being a loner with out any one there to talk to. If I didn’t go to college with my friends I would really hope that I would be close to my family then.

My American Dream

My dream comes from a love for babies; I can remember growing up with 27 baby dolls and always taking care of them as if each and every one of them were real.  I have never lost this love for the innocent little babies and feel that in my nursing education I will focus in the neonatal field.  With my mother in the nursing field I know of many opportunities that exist and I also know of the education necessary to achieve these goals.  I feel that I am a very caring, loving and helping person; this will help me in understanding and caring for these very special and fragile lives.

My American dream is to be able to create a healthy life for myself while being able to help others.  As I work through my last two years in high school I have a focus of becoming a nurse.  This choice helps me to become financially healthy, while being in a position to help others in their time of need.  It is important to my dream that I am able to support myself and not rely on the help others, especially financially.

My dream of being a nurse is also something I get from my family.  My mother cared for the wounded soldiers in the Iraq War for a year in Germany.  Many of the soldiers that fought next to her lost their lives so that we could live our American dream.

Being born in America offers all of us the opportunity to live our own American Dream.  With many of my family members having served for our country gives me a huge appreciation for this opportunity. For example, my great grand father who fought in World War Two in Germany, my grandfather who fought in Vietnam, and my mother who cared from the wounded soldiers from the Iraq War for a year in Germany. 

I know that my family will always a part of this dream. It is important to me that I can be in a position to help my family.  My family has always been there for me and has helped shape the dreams that I have.  The community that I grew up in and that has shaped who I am, I want to be able to go away to school and come back to help families that I know personally.  Community is a big part of the American Dream you are able to share your ideas, lead projects that will better your community.  An example of this is my volunteer work at Cherry Valley while in high school; it means a lot to be able to help the little kids at lunch and to do the right thing on the playground. 

At some point when I am through with college and a year or two into my career I would like to start a family of my own.  I have thought about this a lot and know that I would like to have a stable relationship and start out with a small family.  I think it is important that when you take on the responsibility of having children that you are able to give them the skills and values to be able to appreciate where they were born.  My dream is to work hard and be financially responsible so that I am able to retire at the age of 55 and enjoy my retirement, my children and if I am very lucky my grandchildren.

My American Dream: Rochelle Woods

As the nation grows older and technology evolves people are falling more out of touch with earlier ideas of the American dream. Growing up in the modern world has had it effects on the outlooks of the descendants of those colonial dreamers.

My American dream is shaped by the big themes of American literature. Those themes being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe that in order to be cared for you must first show respect and consideration for your community and your family. For without them life would not be possible, and if it were it would not be worth living. Exercising disrespect in our family is not an option, my parents always enforced the golden rule of treating others the way that I wanted to be treated. Thus bringing me to two other important aspects of my American dream, equality and justice. With all that our country has gone through to circumvent intolerance much of our human population still finds it convenient and amusing to show their ignorance towards the subjects. These topics are so vital to the survival of our society, and I feel that our generation and generations to come are so oblivious to these facts. This problem will generate more problems to come in the future.

People are often fooled into believing that money is the key to success in life. That is what is portrayed in today’s society. The key to life is knowing that God is always there for you. Religion and spirituality are what make this world and life possible. Without them we would not be here today. I believe that God has a plan for everyone. When I was younger my grandma would often tell us stories of the Lord and the Bible. She taught us that God would always love us no matter what, and if we were to stumble or lose our way he would be there to guide us in the right direction.

In the future I see myself helping others. I want to be in a hospital practicing medicine as an anesthesiologist. Over the years I have been developing more of an interest in this occupation. This is a dream of mine and it does grow out of my family. No relatives of mine have pursued this field. My relatives have occupations such as teaching, working in the food industry, and entrepreneurship. These jobs satisfy and make my relatives happy. I feel that if I were to become an anesthesiologist I would too be happy because the feeling of helping another person is a truly rewarding experience.

I feel that we all need to take part in the well being of others. We do determine the fate of our own lives and one day we will see that if we do not take this into consideration the destruction of mankind will subdue the world. 

American Dream: Van Atta

Many different people have dreams and all most all of these dreams are different from one another, but the important thing is that people have them. A dream is very similar to a goal and with out these we would have nothing to live for and no initiative. It doesn’t really matter if you have one big dream or many small ones, because they are all equally important.

My dream for the future is very simple.The only thing that I want is to be happy. I think the things that it will take to make this dream come true are a family, a nice place to live, and a good job.

I am looking forward to having a family when I grow up. I want to get married and have at least one child. I hope to have a nice place to live with plenty of land so we can ride horse, ride dirt-bike or atv, have pets, shoot, and do what ever we want without people complaining. All that I would need is a few acres.

There are many different jobs that I would be interested in. They include private investigator, a pilot, lawyer, accountant, video game designer, or even a construction laborer. I think I would be fairly pleased with most of the jobs for a long time. Most of those jobs would require me to go to college, which I think has a fairly good chance of happening anyways. I don’t really want to make lots of money. I just want to make enough to live how I want to with no worries.

The typical American Dream I think is to get a important, powerful job and make so much money that you don’t have to think of the word work for the rest of your life and even your children wouldn’t have to work, but that’s not really what I want. The typical person would also dream of having all the nice, expensive things that come to mind. Do not get me wrong that would would be nice and everyone wants things, but I’m not really interested in being that kind of person. I don’t think that my dreams are as close to the average American Dream as other people’s, but I find them to be of more importance. Happiness attained through hard work and perseverance.

Jessica’s American Dream

There are many different kinds of people in the diverse country of America. Divided into some sections, there are the rich, the common, and the poor. Divided further into sections, there are the kind, the neutral, and the selfish. Among these are the students of Polson High School. Nevertheless, let us focus on what we want the world to be, or what I would think the world should be like.

I could imagine myself in an adult form in the next twenty years or so being a happy millionaire in a stuck up world, but I will not. Most of us understand logic and what it means to survive in this world alone. One would hope to be able to live in a world where they were popular, had enough money to survive, and were in an area full of modern people. I only wish for a family and enough money that I would be able to have some enjoyment of life and yet not too much to the point where I live a stuck up life and look down on others due to their financial crisis. Of course, in order to even come close to this dream one would need to struggle. Everyone needs to struggle once in his or her lives in order to learn. Without struggle, the harder it is to actually proceed in ‘making’ a useful way of living.

I wish to live in a world where people would not judge each other harshly due to skin color or ethnic background. Even after Martin Luther King Jr. made his point, racism will never end. My own grandparents judged my sisters’ boyfriend, who was Mexican, with so many racial comments that he, in turn, left her. After witnessing this, I too noticed how I had started to become slightly racist against others. Today, on TV you would see comedians poking fun at races like the people from Iraq. People tend to classify people into categories. When they see Arabs, they think: Everyone check to make sure they will not blow up in the next three seconds! It sickens me.

Pollution also sickens me. I hope that within the next few centuries, we will find a way to put pollution to an even further, than we already have, stop. If we destroy the planet we live on, we will have nowhere to go. Do you really want to go to Mars and live with the aliens? I know invention is a cool thing, but waste is not. All waste must go somewhere, and if some people do not like it, they send it up into the air. Really, people, think of what you are doing. Look at pictures of Los Angeles or New York during a sunset and the picture will seem cloudy. Believe me, the picture is not cloudy. That is pollution “as clear as day” and people in those cities wonder: Why can I breathe so much better somewhere other than in town? Everything causes some sort of pollution; especially hairspray, nail polish and axe.  Try picturing a scene with a family having a get together for thanks giving and with smiles on their faces. Add more pollution than what we have already into this small little family and see everyone wearing masks because the air is too toxic. No one is smiling now, are they?

As for me, I would only wish that people would look at me and see me as an individual instead of categorizing me in a group. I really think that I am a nice, caring person when you dig into my personality a little more. I want to have friends that will ask me for help when they need it and that will not be scared to tell me what they are truly thinking. I know I can be a bit in the clingy side, but I am a person who really does not mind to hear about peoples’ problems if you catch me at the right time. Mainly, for my American dream, I wish to live an ordinary life filled with people not trying to guess what I am like when they first look at me. Maybe, in all of us, we might feel the same.

World Domination

The concept of power is one that always lingers in a person mind. No matter how giving or loving a person is he or she will always have the thought of power over others. It is basic human nature to want to be in control of the environment around you. Although a person may not think about lording over a country or vast empire he or she will have the concept of maybe being head of their local church or club of some sort. My dream is to take that very human need for power one step further: total planetary domination. Some may question why I would want such a thing, because people would want me dead and I would have to make decisions for the whole planet etc. The answer is simple. The world as we know it is slowly in decline. If I could change the way people think away from the concept of “me” toward one of “us” with the world united as a whole, then we could focus on advancing beyond our wildest dream.

Achieving such a massive goal is sure to be a daunting task but I believe that I am up to the challenge. By exploiting the way people act and feel at this moment in time I think that I can take up the torch of Rome and take it beyond the dreams of Caesar. Power and money would be the focal points of such a dream. With a goal like world domination the only parts that spirituality and justice play would be as blinders for the majority of the people on earth to keep them on a set course and keep them in line. Equality is something for the people that aren’t in charge to dream about, because so long as there is someone holding more power than another there is no such thing as equality. In retrospect I guess you could say that my dream is taking Ben Francklin’s concept of “healthy and wealthy” to as far as it could possibility go.

Although right now I am only 17 years old I have a list of goals that must be met before I can rule this planet. First I must finish my secondary undergraduate schooling, and move on to a law school of some kind. After finishing school I will get a job working for the government, something small like maybe a local mayor by the age of 26. Then after 4 years working I will run for U.S. Senator, this is the critical point for the next step. After working tirelessly as a Senator until the age of 40 I will announce that I have decided to run for President, while gaining the support of the people and also partnering with as many large companies that want to sponsor me. Then, I will steel myself for the events ahead, for this will make or break my plan. If I manage to get elected then, I will serve my first term in office as a normal President working the best that I can while keeping my true aims secret from everyone. At the beginning of the second term (presuming I am re-elected) I will know that I have gained the support of the people and will put my secret plans into action. The plans start with peace meetings in third world countries that are still ruled by dictators. Partnering with them and letting them know my true aims will be a dangerous but necessary step. Having the countries I partnered with launch an attack on the U.S. will have the people of the U.S. in uproar and ready for war. Although it will probably require the sacrifice of American lives a dream this big is not going to be attainable without some sacrifice. War will break out and spread across the world as countries such as North Korea and Iran will launch their small arsenals of nuclear missiles at large power countries that might pose a threat to overthrowing my power. Russia and the UK will retaliate by launching whatever nukes either country has at the small third world countries obliterating them. The US will go untouched since we haven’t used a single bit of our nuclear arsenal. At this point when Russia has used up the majority of their munitions the US will spring into action taking out what might be left of the largest and most destructive countries and holding all the smaller less powerful ones under our thumb. The final step would be to have my most loyal followers work on disbanding what might remain of the U.S. government leaving me at the top of a destroyed world. Then since the people of America trust me wholeheartedly I would play the “good guy” and claim that it is up to us to take control of the devastated planet and hope to god that we can somehow persevere. Then by the age of 70 I would have the smoldering remains of the world in my grasp and little to no resistance in front of me, all that is left now is to rebuild.

In the writings of William Bradford, A History of Plymouth Plantation, he tells of how the pilgrims move to the new world for freedom of religion and to escape the oppression of England. They wanted to liberate themselves from restraints so they could further advance their religion. Though my objectives are about gaining power I am trying to help the world in the way the pilgrims tried to help it so many years ago. By freeing people from the blinders they have on now I can open their eyes and show them how great we could be if we would set aside our differences and just work together. The pilgrims would probably not approve of my methods but what choice has the world left me, nothing is settled through peace and love anymore. “Therefore they resolved, for sundrie reasons, to take in all amongst them, that were either heads of families, or single yonge men, that were of abillity, and free, (and able to governe them selvs with meete descretion, and their affairs, so as to be helpful in ye comone-welth,) into this partnership or purchases. In this passage we can see that the pilgrims “resolved” to take control of the land around them and work for a better local environment to “governe them selvs with meete descretion” though it would not be on a grand scale they would fulfill that human need to have command over their surroundings.

In the end though I am still only human. With a mortal body I will eventually die and be forced to pass on my legacy to another. Although I may have brought about what many will probably see as the end of the world, if people would just step back and look at the big picture they can see my true aim. Once the world is united under one power, a power that can gently push it on a course to advancement and growth, all the living creatures of earth will be better off. It may take hundreds of years but if people are willing to wait and think less about themselves and more about the collective group they will eventually reach a point that their children’s children will be thankful for.