Finally I made it to the 7th grade, and although I never got to be at BJ, it was just as good to walk through the doors at the J. I had what I wanted from school. That close community feeling, the relationship with everyone, the feeling that everyone really cared about you. When I would cry, teachers would comfort me. They would involve themselves in whatever it was that was causing these tears, and try to solve my problem. It wasn't until later in my journey that I realized they had overstepped boundaries that certainly weren't meant to be overstepped. I looked up to these teachers when I started; they were the best there could be. Most of them seemed totally dedicated to nothing but our learning. The example they set

Although the initial philosophy and the experiences leading up to this ultimate idea are insanely different, Candide ends up pretty much in the same place as me. We both reach the conclusion that we aren't in the best possible place, and we can't just let things lie as they are.

There was more than one experience that ultimately led up to the change in Candide's philosophy. The most important one was that Cunegonde turned into an ugly shrew. The one thing that he held on to through his whole journey was her. He had all these incidents that led him to believe that Pangloss might have been wrong, but he didn't fully give up on his philosophy until he the one thing he had lived for finally evaded him. He had survived on the thought that eventually he would be with this beautiful, perfect woman, so when she no longer existed, neither could anything else off of which he had based this survival.

The philosophy that Candide decided to live by was this: He must cultivate his own garden". This can be interpreted in a number of ways. It is either that you have to work for what you want, and what's best for you will not just come and find you. Or, it can be taken as, be happy with what's simple. Don't go looking for something you think might be better if you have enough to make you happy right where you are. I think that Candide chooses to live by the second part of this. I think he says he won't go looking for riches any more. He doesn't need to go theorizing everything that happens. All the wants to do is stay in one place and be happy with what he has. He will work for what he needs so that when he stops to look around, he is in the best possible place for himself, and he was put there by no one but himself.

In my life, I am unhappy with the values and actions that my "superiors" (yeah right) show. In his life, he is unhappy with the values and actions that the world around him shows. Therefore, we both have a similar task in front of us. We must both make the best of what we are given. The key word here is MAKE. We are clearly not given the situation that we want. We are put somewhere we don't really want to be, and the only thing left to do is to fix that. However, I don't mean fix the world. That is an impossible task. What I do mean is we need to fix our environment so that we have what we want.

appeared to be the appropriate one.

So my philosophy is no longer that everyone has the best of intentions. It no longer consists of the pleasant feeling of comfort one gets when

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1703
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)