This question was often asked of me while I attempted to get my first “serious” job. It was a difficult, philosophical question to answer. Looking back on those times, I wonder if the enquirer had asked it because he could not remember why he himself had chosen to become an accountant. Nearing retirement, the job interviewer hoped that this young, fresh-faced interviewee might retrospectively give meaning and justification to the previous thirty years of his working life. Unfortunately, there was no blinding flash of wisdom from the mouth of this babe accountant. Shortly after I ...continued...

FIRST CHRISTMAS ©2014 By Rolland Love rtl@kc.rr.com The last sound I heard as I drifted off to sleep was the howling wind. In the middle of the night I was awakened by a scream from the back bedroom. My dog Trouser came over and licked my face. I sat up and draped a wool blanket around my shoulders. Then slid out of bed and walked across a cold hardwood floor. I found myself standing at the bedroom door. The scene was strange and scary, like something in a dream. Sitting on white wicker tables, one on each side of my mother and father’s bed, were ke ...continued...

Ellen Morrell Final Reflection Throughout this semester I learned such a great deal I didn't even imagine we would get through as much interesting material as we did. I felt this class was so special to me because it so important to constantly be learning about the culture and environment around us. Not only will this allow you to be a more well rounded human being but it will help vastly in the health workplace I am trying to achieve. I feel I can move forward in professional goals feeling more culturally aware and effective in the way I can communicate with clients or p ...continued...

From the start it was like a secret society. You needed to know the handshake or password to get information. I guess that is why it took so long to start this incredible journey as a writer. Since the age of six, when I first started to read, a book was always under my nose. This started it, and from that point reading the written word became a very important part of my life. I could not tell you how many books I have read, or plan to in the near or far future. It started in 2011, when an uncontrollable desire to write short stories took over. I would hammer out words between work assig ...continued...

Start Writing! THE BRIDGE TO CARACAS http://thebridgetocaracas.com <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 6.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: ...continued...

Fact can often appear to be well written fiction. How many times have we heard the expression “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” A few years ago I experienced one of these wonderful moments. It occurred in “Iggy’s” pub in Kincasslagh, on the west coast of Donegal. This remote place has two famous sons, Daniel O’Donnell (a very popular country and western crooner) and Packie Bonner (a famous and long serving Irish International soccer player). This is a beautiful and magical part of the world. The road to Kincasslagh is narrow and undulating. This ...continued...

Two similarities I found between the CLAS standards, and the standards for Information Technology in the health field are to provide respectful and effective services to people of other cultures, as well as delivering accurate, accessible, and actionable health information that is targeted or tailored. It was hard to find documentation on the cultural standards of Information Security, which is what I eventually plan to go into, so I chose Heathcare Information Technology, which was a bit easier to find information on. Both the CLAS and the IT standards hold tightly to the idea of raising cult ...continued...

Our 42 hour confinement to our tents was ended today as the storm eased up enough for us to continue north. Our drift over the storm took us further west than we wanted to the 129th Longitude. We ran into many open leads and had to wait until the ice moved back together allowing us to cross. It was incredible to witness and very scary to cross. We gained about 5 miles north today but our progress was halted by thin ice. We made camp and will wait till morning to try and cross. Needless to say that in the north polar icecap there is very little to smell. No plants and so few animals a person ...continued...

Cultural competence is more than an understanding of different cultural groups. Post a reflection of the non-ethnic group prompt provided in the D2L Checklist. The reflection will focus on your broad definition of culture competence. Cultural competence is also vital to understanding effective interaction with people who have disabilities and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender or transexual. My definition of cultural competence has broadened throughout this class and especially after this module 6 unit. I did not expect to include these populations of people ...continued...

There are moments in your life, as you look back, you can say “That was it! That was a pivotal moment!” For me it was my fathers’ Green Box. My father was the patriarch of our family. A depression baby raised in rural Missouri, the city boy just could not adapt to the slow pace of grazing cows, plowing corn and balancing on the railroad tracks. The city called to him so deeply that at the age of 14 he ran away. Kansas City had all the draw a young country boy could possibly imagine. Yet his naivety wa ...continued...

It must have been the wet rainy day that drove me to my cleaning frenzy. “Time to clean out the closets”, I thought to myself. After all, the holidays are quickly approaching and the house will be full of out of town guests! Little did I know that my cluttered closets would open the doors to so many memories tucked away. Amidst the boxes of papers and old framed pictures was a box of various trinkets, cards and perfumes from my mother. Sighing, I remembered this would be the ninth winter without her. I picked up the nearly dried ...continued...

Orcs hate Elves with a passion. (from Lord of the Rings by J. R.R. Tolkien) “Home home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play” According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Wildlife Services, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has killed, through gassing, poisoning and strangulation by snare, 27 million native animals since 1996, including more than 1 million in 2014. The animals have included prairie dogs, gray wolves, mountain lions, black bears, foxes, coyotes and even bald eagles, and possibly a few domestic cats. ...continued...

Do you even look back on all those teenage expereinces you've had, Do you think about those defining moments, sick back in the open air theatre of your mind and just sit back and watch. I think about all those moments and how they have defined me, ok maybe not defined but they played a part in the paving the road that has gotten me this far. ...continued...

A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS EVE &nbs ...continued...

North Pole ...continued...