Exploration 2, Jacob Kroh

       My name is Jacob Kroh, my fun fact was that I want to be a psychiatrist or perhaps a nuerosurgeon as a career after I finish up school. I like the idea of being able to help people with something that people really don't understand like mental illnesses and the problems that can happen with the brain and the nervous system. In my down time I play golf and chess, I read a lot of books and I enjoy being outside, especially this time of year when the leaves are beginning to fall and the weather starts to cool down.

     I decided to do my research on Frederick Douglass, I have always had a deep respect for him and the struggle that he went through on a daily basis. He had a gift that few people have ever had, the ability to stand up in front of large and often hostile groups of people and deliver a stirring and resounding speech. In the article that I read it talked about how he was at one point beaten daily and not fed, he was broken in "body, soul and spirit" yet he always hungered for freedom and once he finally gained it his journey still wasn't over. After he gained his freedom he spend his life as an abolitionist fighting for the equality and rights of his people as well as equal rights for women too. I didn't know that he was an advocate for women as well as an abolitionist.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html

     The poem I liked the most was "Bury Me in Free Land" by Frances Harper. The first time I read through the poems on the sheet I had trouble picking one specific poem to write about. All of them spoke to me in a slightly different way and it was difficult to choose which one I liked the most. When I read "Bury Me in Free Land" the second time it really stuck out and I decided that I would write about it. I don't think this poem was meant to be about land, it is an piece that is talking about wanting the whole country to abolish slavery. The language that she used throughout the poem is very descriptive and she does an excellent job of painting a picture of exactly what slavery is. Her use of similes work together with the overall tone of the poem in a way that I enjoyed reading and at the same time I felt a sadness as well. Based on when she died (1911) she was buried in free land like she had wanted.

     When I was younger, I read a biography of Vincent van Gogh, right away I noticed that he had some psychiatric problems and that contributed to his eventual suicide. During his life time he only sold a few paintings and in most cases he couldn't even give his work away. The thing that stuck out to me the most was the way that all of the people around him treated him consistently poorly when he was alive. I felt a strong connection to his story and I thought that perhaps I could have helped him. That's the driving reason I chose to persue psychiatry as a career. But in the end it was his profound sadness and lack of balance that influenced his many paintings, paintings that today are appreciated by many people today.