Years later, in a prison visitors' room, Mr. Mielke said: "If the party had given me the task, then there would perhaps still be a G.D.R. today.
George W. Bush, a man I believed in, had given me the task of finding him a running mate, and I wasn't fulfilling it.
But when my editor gave me the task of exploring the world of men and makeup -- having read reports of increased use of makeup by male politicians and celebrities -- how could I resist?
Earlier this year, when I was its employee, Halliburton management gave me the task, among other things, to scrutinize all of Kuwait's Kellogg, Brown & Root subcontracts and purchase orders, to report whether legitimate competition took place in more than 5,000 procurement transactions.
My father had given me the task of preserving everything he left behind, but in the end, I helped fill dozens of huge black plastic contractor's bags and let them be taken away to a dump.
By the time Councilmember Hobson gave me the task of researching and drafting "Educational Accountability" legislation for the D.C. Schools as part of my clinical assignment that year, he was already famous for lending his name to the landmark case Hobson v. Hansen that challenged the practice of ability group tracking in the D.C. Public Schools as racially discriminatory.
I told my actors that they had only one task: give me the moments.
Or did Halliburton give me this task because of the credibility that my 10 years as an Army officer with numerous fiscal responsibilities would provide to its reports?
He's a lifelong fan and I'm watching for the first time, which gives me the unenviable task of forming opinions as I deliver them to an audience of existing fans.
I wept to Val about how the women there hated me and gave me the worst tasks (I had to take the molds off the hot puddings — at the end of the first day my fingers were blistered), because I was only a student worker and because I took a book to read during my breaks.
Whether he knew it or not, he gave me the guidance to focus on the task at hand -- each experience was equally overwhelming on its own.
