An experience that made me value myself more

A while back I went and visited a school my Dad used to go.

I was in my father’s childhood home and we were looking through photos, as you do, of him when he was younger. A bit of back ground history: my father was not from a well to do family. There were 4 children including himself and they were living in a 3 bedroom council house. His father was a miner and part time taxi driver whilst his mother sewed for a living. My father went to a school called St Ambrose, as did his other siblings. St Ambrose was the local catholic school. There were two schools in his village one for Catholics and one for Non Catholics.

    As I was looking through these photos with my grandparents, I asked, “Where’s that place Daddy’s in?” They replied that was his school. I’ll tell you now; this certainly did not look like a school. There were two smashed windows in the background of this photo and beside my father was a large burning fire to heat up the playground. This would certainly not pass nowadays health and safety regulations. We later went to visit this school, which was still a school a few years ago. It made me think and realize how privileged I am and some children that go to this school don’t have the same opportunities as I do as may not enjoy school. This really made me value myself more.

Is it impossible for man to act without Self-Interest?

There is debate whether everything we do involves some sort of Self interest. I believe it is possible to to preform selfless acts but they may not be entirely selfless. I believe you are always thinking about yourself in one way or another because this is the way the mind functions. But I don't believe this to be selfish. A selfish act to me, is one where you are only thinking about your self.
   A selfless act in my opinion is an act where the person performing the act doe not get anything out of doing it. Some widowers of  9/11 believe that their husbands (firemen) were being selfish as they weren't thinking about there families when they went into the towers to rescue people. I do not think this is true because they were thinking of the people inside and not themselves, there for it is selfless. I can understand why they may think it is selfish because the widowers may have thought the firemen wanted to be a hero so they might have been thinking of themselves, so it would not be selfless if this was the case. But I certainly don't think they should be called selfish because if you are doing an act that would take your life then I would think this to be selfless.
   You can do selfless acts but they are never 100% selfless because it's the way we think. We are always thinking about are self in one way or another. Even if we are just thinking about how are day was, that still means we are thinking about are selves.

Service Learning- Where am I now?

Service Learning- Where am I now?

These past few weeks I have been looking into service learning, especially into one aspect that I would like people to know more about. And this is on a girl called Marcie Loader. Marcie discovered she had Ewings Sarcoma (bone cancer) when she was 8 in 2004 and later developed leukaemia as a result of her Chemo-Theropy and sadly died in 2009 aged 13. I think she should be commemorated because she didn't live a normal life that a child would. I would also like to inform people about the type of cancer she suffered from as it is quite a rare form of cancer. Marcie is true inspiration to all young people suffering with cancer as it didn't effect the way she lived as she remained light hearted and didn't let her cancer hold her back.

I wrote a 50 word summary about her story:

She was 8 when she was diagnosed. She underwent several types of treatment all over the country and spent most of her time with The Sebastian’s action trust; she underwent Chemo when she was 10, which didn’t work in the long run. Sadly she lost her battle aged 13. 

I wrote some words that would describe her and her life:

courageous 

bitter-sweet

heart breaking

I also wrote some questions I would ask her if she was here, these questions were focusing on what advise she would give to other young people suffering from cancer. I had to imagine what she would say in response. I though she would tell them to live their life to the 'max' and not let anyone or their condition to hold them back too much. 

One of the main things that would knock someones self confidence would be loosing their hair. This would make you feel very self conscious and not want to go out as they will be fearing others thoughts and what they may say. But Marcie was a strong person therefore I think she would tell other people not to worry and just go for it.

I have done some research on Marcie's own page and the Sebastian's trust page which she was associated with. It tells her and her mothers story which I will hopefully create a piece of writing out of. 

This is what she said "I stayed in Reading for a few days, while they did loads of tests on me. I met some excellent people including the big rugby-playing consultant Mr Sean O’Leary. I saw him on 7th February, and he told mummy and daddy the MRI scan had showed that I had a growth, the size of a snooker ball, in my spine, at the very bottom, in the sacrum (just above the coccyx). He said the tumour was malignant which means it was a dangerous one, a cancer which will carry on growing until I go pop basically, so it needed to be stopped.” (from http://sebastiansactiontrust.org)