Was shown this video, it is quite powerful.
What struck me when I first watched it though, was the fact that to quite a few of the images I felt as if was desensitized. Seeing violence so often through, videos,music,internet and film truly does have an affect on the way someone views things.
As if primary school, secondary school, sixth form and university were not enough for me, I have now embarked on a long dark journey through law school. To many, it may just seem I am playing a game of debt accumulation, you know the game where you attain as much debt as possible before you embark on an actual career, and whilst I have and will continue to amass debt at an unfortunate rate, this is not the game I am playing.
I prefer to call what I am doing, dream chasing. As with every dream, at times my dream leads me to self-doubt. There are occasions that I feel nothing can stand in the way of me achieving my ambition of becoming a barrister, but then there are dark days, days that I question why on earth I am bothering to embark on a road of uncertainty, that requires not only a stubborn nature that my Nigerian mother would be proud of, but also the belief of a fundamental (insert appropriate religion here). A great deal of people have tried to discourage me, “Do you know how hard it is to become a barrister”, “you don’t have a steady income”, “Only one in three million gain pupillage” (exaggeration). These people, the doubters, and the pessimists, are an inspiration, partly because I am a sucker for a challenge but also due to the fact I want to prove that I have got what it takes.
But it may be unfair to label them as doubters, they may just be concerned, they don’t want to see me put in so much work to end up with nothing, this is understandable. To get to where I want to be I am going to have to work harder than I have ever done, slacking is not an option and neither is going into it half hearted. Yet I know all of this, and this isn’t what deters me, the prospect of working hard is something I look forward to, I just hope when I get there it is all I hope it to be.
You see, all the debt accumulation, late nights working on essays, trying to remember statutes and constant reminders of the unstable income, will be nothing if I get there in the end. If I eventually find myself standing in the wonderful British courts of the south east circuit in the next few years, I am sure I will barely remember the struggle (even if it is where the nobility lies). Too often, people give up on their dreams, opting to take a different route because the road ahead of them has too many twists and turns, if someone does this, then I believe they don’t want their dream very much at all and in the long run they have done the right thing. As long as it is their own choice, and not because of the doubters they have given up that is, so whilst I will wisely take advice from a lot of people, nobody but me will put an end to what I want to achieve.
In the next 2 years, there will be a number of times that I lament my decision to stay in education. But my moaning will only last a short time, and my dreams will outlive my moments of doubt, this is the most important thing. And it is the reason I stay, chasing my dreams.
I’m in danger of over doing it on the clichés, so I shall leave it here.
A friend of mine tweeted this the other day- “All achievements are transitory... the struggle is where the nobility lies” ------ Carry on chasing those dreams people.
J.Cole- Further reflects my thoughts on chasing a dream....
Peace & Love.
America, a nation with 1 in 31 of its adult population behind bars, there are approximately 7.3 million American adults in jail, on probation or on parole.
These facts alone are astonishing themselves, however, what is most damaging to the American justice system is the fact that America is the ONLY nation on earth that allows juveniles convicted of a non-homicidal offence to be prisoned for life.
In the New York Times, Marc Mauer and Kent Scheidegger debate this controversial issue..
Marc Mauer
There are more than 1,700 people in the United States serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles. No other nation has even a single person serving such a sentence. Now the Supreme Court will consider an extreme outcome of this policy, two cases of juveniles serving no-parole life terms for non-homicide offenses.
There is no question that the two juveniles, Joe Sullivan and Terrance Graham, were convicted of very serious offenses. So why is it problematic to incarcerate them for life?
First, children are different than adults. As the Supreme Court noted in its 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons banning the death penalty for juveniles, children do not have fully matured levels of judgment or impulse control, and are more susceptible to peer pressure than adults. Brain imaging research documents that adolescent brains are not fully developed, particularly in areas that control reasoning and risk taking. It is for these reasons that all states already impose age restrictions on voting, driving and consuming alcohol.