Thursday, September 3, 2020

Christ Essay Example For Students

Christ Essay Christ: VICTORY!!It is done! John 19:30. What Christ is alluding to here is theaccomplished salvation of the individuals. This means when we are saved,we don't need to put out consumed penances to Him. It is no longer neededbecause Christ kicked the bucket for us, which removed the injustices of our wrongdoing. He didthis out of extraordinary love for us. This is exemplified in John 3:16 For God soloved the world that he gave his solitary conceived child that who so ever conviction inhim will have endless life!. That stanza is critical to us, or ought to be,because as it were, one could base his/her relationship with the Lord upon it. Thereason is on the grounds that God cherished us so much that he did that for us so that is theleast that we could do. In Genesis 3:15 it says that we will be rebuffed for oursins. Indeed, that is valid, yet God will pardon and never revisit them on the off chance that we atone. Yousee this is absurd without Jesus kicking the bucket for our wrongdoings . In Romans 5:6-8 itsays that Christ passed on for us all. Indeed, even the terrible ones, ALL. This is a sign ofthe Victory that Christ had won a triumph here. The explanation is a direct result of all ofthe lives that he spared and will later be spared. In Romans 5 it says that Jesusdied for All Sinners! We are for the most part heathens so his passing was for all. At the point when Jesus says that It is done, he can likewise be alluding to the olderpredictions of Christs life. There is one specifically that it may have beentalking about in Isaiah. That is the one wherein Isaiah discusses the life ofJesus and the torturous killing, in short and brief detail. The languishing where Jesus took over us kept going all as the night progressed, and thenin the morning a blade was pushed into His side to check whether he was alive. Afterthe water spilled out of His side, you can say that it is authoritatively finished. In myheart it isn't totally finished, only that of that time. Jesus will consistently livein my heart and not until the last days is it over in my heart. At the point when the life of Jesus was finished, at the equivalent specific time God tore the material inthe sanctuary from the top to the base. The explanation it needed to have been God isthat nobody would be fit for tearing it from the top. This was to show thewrath of God that He had upon the world right now. I am certain that He felt badfor His child for experiencing the entirety of this. God cherished the world so muchthat He did this for us however. We should all recognize the way that is thereason for the torturous killing. This little message really implies a mess to me. I feel that when he saidthat It is done, he was alluding to the way that we no longer have tosacrifice. I accept this is a solid explanation to adherents, thatthey would recognize the affection and an exercise to the non-Christians that theywould perhaps simply consider it a little and possibly they will likewise contemplate how they are carrying on with their life. I feel that we as a whole DO fallshort of the magnificence of God, yet we an expected to do as well as can be expected to be moreand increasingly like Him. I love my master with my entire existence and will keep on mywhole life.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

International Expansion of Burger King into France Case Study

Universal Expansion of Burger King into France - Case Study Example Among the various components distinguished by this model, we have singled out three that particularly affect the achievement of Burger King. Further PESTLE data is accessible in Appendix 1. 1. The most basic is the socio-social factor. France is a nation with a long culinary convention. French individuals who devour cheap food show inclinations guided by contemplations of wellbeing and healthful assortment (Steele). French ex-representatives of outside inexpensive food chains have recognized such inclinations and effectively set up their own drive-through joints better adjusted to French tastes (Rosenberg). Burger King will thusly need to adjust its social methodology by broadening the menu extend past the essential burger-soft drink blend to deliver suppers to advance both to the client who is keen on oddity and style and to the person who looks for consolation from attempted and confided in works of art. When all is said in done, culture possesses a significant spot in French life and stretches out past dietary patterns. Writing, craftsmanship, way of life, qualities and customs are totally looked out for and impacted by different French establishments just as the administration. As a country, France looks to create and trade its way of life: advancing social impact has been national arrangement for quite a long time (Morrison). In that capacity, a specific social protectionism exists in the French household showcase. Hence, normalization of Burger King activities reached out to France should likewise be tempered by insightful adjustment to the social standards that are profoundly established in the market (Briscoe). 2. The lawful condition and various legislative parts are likewise explicit to France. While somewhat blended with European arrangement, laws are still to a great extent dependent on the Napoleonic Code, which has certain noteworthy contrasts to old English saxon law. The french government has likewise as of late started a national mindfulness crusade for wellness and smart dieting, exemplified by its limited time site (www.mangerbouger.fr). While this has no legitimate weight, it means that the french government's desire to impact dietary patterns and thusly food showcase contributions. This speaks to both a test and a chance to Burger King. For instance, if the organization can adjust its limited time material effectively, Burger King dinners can be situated as the solid inexpensive food elective (Rosenberg). 3. Financial elements including trade rates and swelling will likewise be significant contemplations. Trade rates depend on the euro, which is right now solid against the US dollar. Income streaming back to the parent organization from Burger King in France will in this way be upgraded, however working costs will be higher too. France has perhaps the most elevated number of open occasions in Europe and practically twofold the measure of paid excursion for a salaried representative contrasted with the US. The french working week was reclassified a few years back by the administration as 37 hours out of every week. Where conceivable, the reaction of organizations in France was to turn out to be progressively effective in their working practices. Anyway for cafés, for example, those of Burger King, the repercussion is on higher staffing costs. Adjustment of café working methods might be required. Contenders of Burger King, for example, McDonald's (Briscoe) and

Friday, August 21, 2020

Tips For Writing an Essay on a Movie

Tips For Writing an Essay on a MovieThere are several tips that you should know in order to learn how to write an essay on a movie. Of course, one of the first things that you should do is to understand the purpose of the essay. It is very important to write a well-written essay if you want to be awarded the scholarship.The purpose of the essay is to help you become a better writer and to help the college to assess your ability to write a successful essay. However, when writing your essay, it is essential that you keep it to the topic. Do not try to include too much information or wordiness.An essay should be able to fit the topic of the entire paper. If you are writing about how to make popcorn, your essay is probably not going to be accepted because it is going to be too detailed. On the other hand, if you were to write about how to make popcorn, your essay is probably going to be accepted because it is a lot shorter and you have more space to present the information.You also need to make sure that your essay is effective enough for the college entrance exam. If you want to get into a specific school, then your essay needs to be focused and be able to help a lot of people. Therefore, the content needs to be able to encourage and motivate the reader.Before you actually start writing, you should remember that the essay is your personal experiences that you want to share with the readers. So you should be careful when you read other peoples essays. You need to remember that you are the only one who knows what you want to say so you should be very careful to avoid plagiarism.In order to write an essay on a movie, you will need to keep a few tips in mind. For instance, you will need to come up with a thesis statement. A thesis statement will be the main part of your essay.In addition, if you want to learn how to write an essay on a movie, you should know that there are a few things that you should not do. One of them is misusing writing. The key here is to actuall y be very precise about your topic.Another important tip that you should remember is to write with your audience in mind. If you do not have any idea what your target audience is, you should hire a professional to help you. It is very important to know how to write an essay on a movie because you might get stuck on what to write. In this case, you will be unable to write a successful essay and this is why you need to hire a professional.

Saturday, June 6, 2020

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and the Representation of Southern Black Experience - Literature Essay Samples

Ernest Gaines’s novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman [1] may be considered a representation of the black Southern experience, with the titular heroine serving as a symbol for the collective of her ethnicity as opposed to a character who holds her own individual significance. Indeed, the story told by Gaines through the eyes of Miss Jane is largely reflective of the common lives of black people in the American South, suggesting that it is indeed true that â€Å"Miss Jane’s story is all of their stories and their stories are Miss Jane’s† (v). However, alongside this notion, there simultaneously emerges the sense that Miss Jane’s individuality is in actual fact just as crucial to the rendering of the black Southern experience as her standing as a metaphorical symbol for â€Å"all of their stories† (viii). It is tempting to argue that Gaines’s fictional rendering of a black, Southern woman’s autobiography is primarily a portrayal of the wider black Southern experience, as opposed to the telling of her individual experience. From this viewpoint, the character of Jane Pittman becomes more of a symbol for the collective narrative and history of her race than an individual in her own right. Lisa Hinrichsen categorizes Gaines’s text as a neo-slave narrative as it uses the medium of fiction to underpin the lasting effects of slavery on the black community. She suggests that â€Å"The â€Å"neo-slave narrative† has become one of the most widely read and discussed forms of African American literature. These autobiographical and fictional descendants of the slave narrative confirm the continuing importance of its legacy: to probe the origins of psychological as well as social oppression†[2]. Indeed, Gaines’s novel uses a character who has lived through a century of black Southern history, experiencing both slavery and its aftermath, to â€Å"probe† multiple aspects of black oppression and segregation, including its origins in slavery and its persistence beyond the American Civil War and the subsequent abolishment of slavery. The experiences of Miss Jane, although containing personalised specifics, are also generalized enough to reflect the collective black Southern community. She is born into a slave plantation, much like so many black people born in the American South prior to the abolition. Furthermore, the death of her mother at the hands of her white master emanates the commonplace brutality inflicted on victims of slavery, and the subsequent orphaning of their children. It is not only Miss Jane who stands as a symbol for the black Southern experience, but also the characters around her. For example, the fictional lynching of Ned Douglass for his commitment to social change and his promotion of it via education is refle ctive of the way in which black people who were perceived as ‘dangerous’ to the status quo of Southern white supremacy were brutally eliminated. He can be seen to symbolise the fallen agents of change who emerged from the black community after the American Civil War, as well as the many more black men wrongly lynched for unproven crimes against white people. It can be argued that, while Ned more specifically represents the black male opportunist who advocates social change, Miss Jane can be seen as a representation of the Southern black female, and the collective experience of these women who endured oppression on the basis of both race and gender. Rosemary K. Coffey and Elizabeth F. Howard argue that â€Å"Miss Jane Pittman typifies generations of solid, long suffering black women, the ordinary unsung heroines of a century of slow change†[3]. Indeed, the suffering of black men post-slavery may be more widely recognized, as they stood as the predominant victims o f lynching. However, Jane can be seen as symbol for the forgotten black women, who were forced to continue on and endure the deaths of the men around them, including their husbands, lovers, sons and brothers. She acts as a surrogate motherly figure to Ned from childhood into adulthood until, despite her best efforts to warn Ned of the danger he is in for his teachings, he is shot to death. She previously voices her fears to his wife Vivian that â€Å"they’ll kill him if he keep on† (111), and is soon after proven to be correct. She also tries in vain to prevent the death of her husband Joe, as her dreams foreshadow him being fatally thrown from a stallion. This reflects the powerlessness of black women in the American South, as they are forced to watch helplessly as their male loved ones are made to suffer injury and death. Ironically, her own reactions to this dream lead directly to his death, symbolizing the way in which, even as she tries to take action, her efforts are ultimately rendered futile as her status as a black woman renders her unable to successfully intervene. The idea of Gaines’s focus on the collective over the individual is strengthened by his use of other black characters who fill in the gaps of Miss Jane’s story when her memory lapses make her unable to do so. This creates the impression of one, interchangeably universal experience, shared not only by Miss Jane and her acquaintances, but by the black Southern community as a whole. Their accounts blend together with hers, to form one single orated narrative. Gaines himself described the way in which the novel was originally intended to be presented as one person’s life story, narrated through the eyes of a multitude of acquaintances and witnesses. He states how â€Å"At first, a group of people were going to tell about one person’s life, and through telling this one person’s life, they were going to cover a hundred years of history, superstitions, religion, philosophy, folk tales, lies†[4]. This adds more weight to the notion that Miss Jane is a composite character, a patchwork figure of the interwoven and universal experiences of all of the members of the black Southern community. Even though Gaines later refined the novel so that the finished text contained one predominant narrator, the fact that it was originally split equally between different narrators leads us to view Miss Jane as an embodiment of multiple black viewpoints of the South, in light of the knowledge that this was the format in which her story was originally intended to be told. The historian who interviews Miss Jane remarks that whenever Jane paused in her speech â€Å"someone else would always pick up the narration† (vii), suggesting that the narrative flow of the black Southern experience cannot be altered or interrupted by one individual. This indicates that her experiences were not only her own, but were instead communal experiences, which could just as easily by told by another member of the black community who had lived through them. In thi s sense, it does indeed appear that â€Å"Miss Jane’s story is all of their stories, and their stories are Miss Janes† (viii) as each one them appears interchangeable in the storytelling. They know what Miss Jane means to say when she fails to say it, perhaps because they would be saying the exact same if they were telling their own stories. In addition to this sense that their stories harmonise into one, is the simple fact that in including multiple secondary storytellers, the finished text becomes a stronger representation of the black Southern experience, as the words of many can be seen to carry more weight than the words of one. Further to the idea that Gaines’s novel provides a scope for the collective black Southern experience, is the notion that it actually offers an alternative retelling of American history from the largely untold black perspective. Certainly, the novel is rife with the notion that this fictional, oratory autobiography depicts a far more accurate account of black history than the non-fiction history books of the time. Arlene R. Keizer supports this notion as she argues that â€Å"Memory in these texts clearly functions as a counter-history to mainstream U.S and Caribbean historiography about slavery which, until the 1960’s, has little to say about individuals’ experiences of bondage†[5]. Indeed, this â€Å"counter-history† comes from a figure who is not an external recorder of events, but a representation of those on the inside of slavery. It delivers these events as seen from eyes of one of the victims, one who has therefore seen the damaging repercuss ions in such a way that an outsider could not imagine. The importance of Miss Jane to the telling of black history is delineated in the novel’s opening, as Miss Jane’s friend Mary asks the history teacher â€Å"What’s wrong with them books you already got?† (v), and he responds by telling her that â€Å"Miss Jane is not in them† (v). Here, Gaines uses the history teacher’s character as a medium through which he expresses the lack of black input in the published accounts of their own American history. The frankness with which Miss Jane orates her story creates a sense of authenticity, as she retells the events as she remembers them, in her own African-American folk speech. This further strengthens the view of her as a symbol for her people, as her voice emulates the collective voices of a largely unheard community. Melvin Dixon outlines the way in which Miss Jane is perhaps a far more reliable source of black history than the widely read whit e historians as he states that â€Å"Miss Jane experiences all of history†¦She contains that history, carries it in her memory. Her larger historical participation makes her a metaphor of the witness of the past†[6]. This supports Keizer’s suggestion of the memory’s capability to offer an alternate telling of history, as he outlines the importance of her stance as a witness. Here, Dixon also touches on the importance of age as a factor for determining Miss Jane’s status as an agent of the collective â€Å"counter-history† of which Keizer speaks. Indeed, her century and a bit of living as a black woman in the American South has allowed her to experience not only the events of slavery and its aftermath, but to observe and understand the experiences of over one hundred years’ worth of African-American friends, lovers and acquaintances, all of whom have stories which she tells right alongside her own. However, the text can also be seen to foreground the importance of the individual within the context of the black Southern experience, with Miss Jane existing as a human character in her own right, as opposed to standing simply as a symbol for a people’s collective experience. Throughout the novel, Gaines offers us an insight into a deeply personal account of her experiences, both positive and negative, on a far more in depth level than if she were merely a mouthpiece for her race as a whole. In this sense, Miss Jane’s story may, to an extent, serve as â€Å"all of their stories† (viii), but it is simultaneously a story which is very much her own. Bernard W. Bell notes the way in which â€Å"Rather than a black superwoman, Gaines painstakingly delineates Miss Jane as a complex, dynamic individual†[7]. Indeed, Bell’s view is exemplified as Miss Jane tells Jimmy â€Å"I have a scar on my back I got when I was a slave. I’ll carry it to my grave † (242), as here Gaines further humanizes Jane as an individual through the use of personal, specific details. The assertion that she will â€Å"carry it to [her] grave† (242) reflects the individual impact of each slave’s experiences, and the mental and physical scars they leave behind. Stephanie Y. Evans suggests that to see Miss Jane solely as a representative character for a people’s collective experience, is to condone the dehumanization which was enforced by Southern American prejudices as she argues that â€Å"Self-definition is vital in a country where black people are often portrayed as less than human†[8]. Indeed, reducing Miss Jane to a symbol of black experience, even with the best of intentions, holds implications for the issue of black individuality as the practise of generalization is perpetrated over the value of each person in their own right. The act of the characters naming themselves is crucially important in representing the bla ck Southern experience, as many ex-slaves chose to rename themselves after their liberation from slavery. In this sense, Miss Jane once again becomes a symbol for a wider practise amongst the black community, along with the other characters who rename themselves such as Ned Brown, who ultimately becomes Edward Stephen Douglass. However, it also serves to separate â€Å"their stories† (viii), as they each become self-defined individuals who choose their own paths, embrace their own personalities, and deal with the trauma of slavery in their own ways. This idea becomes more defined as after Jane talks about the scar on her back, she goes on to note that â€Å"You got people out there with scars on their brains, and they will carry that scar to their grave† (242). Here, she highlights the way in which not all ex-slaves share one collective aftermath experience. The depth and nature of their personal repercussions differ, much like their individual slave experiences, perso nalities and coping mechanisms. Philip Bader emphasizes the issues which arise as the characters attempt to reconcile their quest for self-definition and individuality with their need for unification as one communal unit as he argues that â€Å"The characters whose individual stories form the substance of the novel, describe the struggles they experience in their personal development and their efforts to remain connected to their community†[9]. Indeed, the practice of slavery which saw blacks dehumanized and reduced to one single mass of anonymous figures, led to the rise of civil rights movements which adapted but emulated this collectivisation of the blacks even in their attempts to overturn this oppression of self-definition. The importance of Miss Jane being recognised as a defined individual in her own right becomes even more predominant when set against the backdrop of the influence of Black Nationalism. The African-American social movement was largely prominent in the 1960’s and 70’s Ame rican South, and placed focus on a black sense of community along with the idea that strength could be found in unity. The movement promoted ideas of black collectiveness, much like the idea that â€Å"Miss Jane’s story is all of their stories, and their stories are Miss Jane’s† (viii). However, Robert J. Patterson underpins the notion that the text does not necessarily serve to condone such views, and that Gaines actually succeeds at contradicting them, as he argues that â€Å"at a time when Black Nationalism’s emphasis on black unification contributed to the proliferation of discourses that promulgated sameness, Gaines’s text foregrounds difference†[10]. Cathy Cohen supports Patterson’s assertion as she suggests that â€Å"The public agenda of African-American communities was once dominated by consensus issues construed as having equal impact on all those sharing a primary identity based on race†[11]. Here, she touches on the once predominant idea of all black people being perceived as one, both by the oppression and subjugation of white supremacists and by the black civil rights movements which valued black unity and the interests of the collective black community over individual interests. This is further exemplified by Gaines’s portrayal of racism within the black community, as the lighter skinned Creole culture enforce a separation between themselves and the general black population, on the grounds that they believe themselves to be superior. This undermines the â€Å"primary identity based on race† to which Cohen refers, as they deem themselves to be an entirely different people, with Mary Agnes being disowned by her own family for choosing to work at a plantation with the ‘common blacks’. Although the white population of the American South viewed all black people to be the same, the experiences and culture of the Creoles is separate from the rest of the black community. Therefore, the story of one black person cannot be entirely deemed to be â€Å"all of their stories† (viii). In light of this dual nature of Gaines’s text, it is perhaps necessary to appreciate The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and indeed the character of Miss Jane herself, as both a presentation of the individual experience and as a simultaneous symbol of the black collective experience. Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu highlights this resolution as she insists that â€Å"Gaines validates oral tradition by recreating the past through the voice of a storyteller, a representative figure whose chronicle is simultaneously the narrative of her personal story and the collective history of African—Americans†[12]. Indeed, this leads to arrival at the notion that the black Southern experience can only be truly represented through recognition of the individual, as well as the individual’s standing within the bigger picture. A large portion of this experience revolves around the removal of black individuality, as slavery saw them separated from their names, their families and their original culture. Throughout the text, there are repeated indications that Miss Jane is not telling a story of mass suffering, but a story of her own suffering, and her own steps to escape from and recover from that suffering. By doing this, she reclaims her right to self-definition whilst all the while communicating the forgotten and unheard black perspective of the American South. If she is to be viewed as a symbol, she is a symbol for the individual black person, breaking free from the constraints of slavery, Jim Crowe laws and white supremacist brutality, as opposed to an artificial metaphor for an entire race. Melvin Dixon emphasizes this idea of a dually communicated narrative as he suggests that â€Å"By remaining within Luzana and remaining faithful to her individual and collective memory, Miss Jane records a new history†[13]. Here, he again makes reference to the idea of Miss Jane’s autobiography offering up an alternative teaching of history, but also n otes that she does not neglect her personal memories in a bid to communicate a wider scope of historic black experience. Gaines’s novel is indeed a representation of the black Southern experience, as the untold black perspective on Southern history is conveyed through the medium of a fictional character. This character is one who has seen and experienced over a hundred years of collective black experiences, rendering her an ideal spokesperson for their communal story. The assertion that â€Å"Miss Jane’s story is all of their stories, and their stories are Miss Jane’s† (viii) is founded, as her experiences largely ring true for an entire community, and reflect the true state of the American South during Slavery and its aftermath. However, she is far more than merely a metaphorical rendering of collective experience, and her emergence as an individual in her own right proves as valuable to Gaines’s portrayal of the black Southern experience as the legitimacy of her ability to speak for the entirety of her race. Indeed, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman provides a new insight into black Southern history by asserting the idea that these experiences must be considered within the context of the individual’s personality and self. The black struggle for self-definition was as predominant in the South as the struggle for unified equality. Miss Jane’s story is not only â€Å"all of their stories† (viii). It also remains, to an equal extent, Miss Jane’s own personal autobiography. Bibliography Bader, Philip. African-American Writers. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2014. Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann. Writing African American Women: An Encyclopaedia of Literature by and about Women of Color. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. Bell, Bernard W. â€Å"Modernism and Postmodernism (1962-1983)†. In The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches, by Bernard W. Bell, 186 – 249. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Coffey, Rosemary K., and Elizabeth F. Howard. America as Story: Historical Fiction for Middle and Secondary Schools. Chicago: American Library Association, 1997. Cohen, Cathy. The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Dixon, Melvin. â€Å"The Black Writer’s Use of Memory†. In History and Memory in African-American Culture, edited by Genevieve Fabre and Robert O’Meally, 18 – 27. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Evans, Stephanie Y. Black Passports: Travel Memoirs as a Tool for Youth Empowerment. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014. Gaines, Ernest J. Interview with Dan Tooker and Roger Hofheins. In Fiction! Interviews with Northern California Novelists, by Dan Tooker and Roger Hofheins, 86 – 99. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Gaines, Ernest J. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1972. Grenon, Carole. â€Å"Turning Points in Ernest J. Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman†. In Turning Points and Transformations: Essays on Language, Literature and Culture, edited by Christine Devine and Marie Hendry, 133 – 154. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. Hinrichsen, Lisa. â€Å"The Literature of the Delta†. In Defining the Delta: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Lower Mississippi River Delta, edited by Janelle Collins, 271 – 282. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2015. Keizer, Arlene R. Black Subjects: Identity Formation in the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. Patterson, Robert J. â€Å"â€Å"Is He the One?†: Civil Rights Activism and Leadership in Ernest Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman†. In Exodus Politics: Civil Rights and Leadership in African American Literature and Culture, by Robert J. Patterson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013. Kindle edition. 1 Ernest J. Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1972). Subsequent references in parenthesis are to this edition. 2 Lisa Hinrichsen, â€Å"The Literature of the Delta†, in Defining the Delta: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Lower Mississippi River Delta, ed. Janelle Collins (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2015), 277. 3 Rosemary K. Coffey and Elizabeth F. Howard, America as Story: Historical Fiction for Middle and Secondary Schools (Chicago: American Library Association, 1997), 48. 4 Ernest J. Gaines, Interview with Dan Tooker and Roger Hofheins, in Fiction! Interviews with Northern California Novelists, by Dan Tooker and Roger Hofheins (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 88. 5 Arlene R. Keizer, Black Subjects: Identity Formation in the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 6. 6 Melvin Dixon, â€Å"The Black Writer’s Use of Memory†, in History and Memory in African-American Culture, ed. Genevieve Fabre and Robert O’Meally (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 22. 7 Bernard W. Bell, â€Å"Modernism and Postmodernism (1962-1983)†, in The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches, by Bernard W. Bell (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), 206. 8 Stephanie Y. Evans, Black Passports: Travel Memoirs as a Tool for Youth Empowerment (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014), 12. 9 Philip Bader, African-American Writers (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2014), 96. 10 Robert J. Patterson, â€Å"â€Å"Is He the One?†: Civil Rights Activism and Leadership in Ernest Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman†, in Exodus Politics: Civil Rights and Leadership in African American Literature and Culture, by Robert J. Patterson (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), Kindle edition. 11 Cathy Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 8. 12 Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu, Writing African American Women: An Encyclopaedia of Literature by and about Women of Color (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006), 412. 13 Dixon, â€Å"The Black Writer’s Use of Memory†, 22.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Essay - 1636 Words

Women, Courtly Love and the Creation Myth in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight #9;Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a great epic written in fourteenth century Europe by the Pearl poet, emphasizes the opposition of Christian love to Courtly love in the 13th century through the dilemma of Sir Gawain, one of the great knights of the Arthurian round table. By examining the women in the poem, Gawains dilemma becomes a metaphor for the contrast of these two distinct types of love. The poem looks upon the Virgin Mary as the representative of spiritual love, obedience, chastity, and life (Warner 9). In contrast, Morgan le Fay and Bertilaks wife appear to be representing courtly love, disobedience, lust and death. This conflict between†¦show more content†¦On Christmas morning, for example, instead of finding comfort in the spiritual meaning of Christmas, Gawain finds comfort being seated with the lady. The bedroom scenes, however, depict the true moral battles of Gawain. During the three-day period, there is a spiraling trend. The events keep happening in the same way on a higher and higher level until Gawain is forced to give in to her desires. While he is able to see that his chastity is more important than his courtesy, he is still desperately trying to balance the two (DeRoo, 314). His inability to choose between them leads him to accept the girdle. While Mary, representing his spiritual love and faith, saves him from losing his chastity, quot;great peril between them stood, unless Mary for her knight should prayquot; (Adams, 241). Gawain still denies his love for her when faced with the love of the lady. Gawains loss of devotion is the key to his downfall, for it was his faith in Mary, which gave him strength and courage. #9;By giving up the pentangle in exchange for the girdle, which supposedly has magical powers that will protect him, Gawain becomes torn between chivalry and religion. At this point things start to get a bit quot;knottyquot;: Gawain, religion and chivalry become equivalent, intertwined and interdependent. The concept of knots can also be applied to the icons in this story. The pentangle is a knot that has no beginnings or end, symbolizingShow MoreRelatedSir Gawain And The Green Knight1359 Words   |  6 PagesIn the poem â€Å"Sir Gawain and The Green Knight,† a protagonist emerges depicting an Arthurian knight named Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, takes initiative by accepting the challenge requested by the Green Knight in place of his uncle. He undergoes a perilous adventure, seeking for the Green Knight to receive the final blow. Although Sir Gawain is not viewed as a hero for his military accomplishments, he is, however, viewed as a heroic figure b y the Knights at the Round Table for hisRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight862 Words   |  4 PagesIn Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by an unknown author referred to as the â€Å"Pearl Poet,† we are introduced to Sir Gawain. Gawain is a knight of the Round Table and he is also the nephew of King Arthur. As a knight, Gawain is expected to possess and abide by many chivalrous facets. Throughout the poem he portrays many of the qualities a knight should possess, such as bravery, courtesy, and honor among others. Because of his ability to possess these virtues even when tempted to stray away from themRead MoreSir Gawain and the Green Knight1100 Words   |  5 PagesThe poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight compares a super natural creature to nature. The mystery of the poem is ironic to the anonymous author. The story dates back into the fourteenth century, but no one knows who originally wrote the poem. This unknown author explains in the poem of Sir Gawain not kno wing of the location of the Green Chapel and or who the Green Knight really is. This keeps the reader entertained with the suspicion of not knowing. The author then does not give his name orRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1687 Words   |  7 PagesSir Gawain and the Green Knight contains ambiguity and irony that make it interesting to read and teach. Gawain’s conflict arose when he accepted the girdle that could protect him and when he lied to his host, severing fellowship with the lord for courtesy with the lady. By utilizing a social reconstructionist philosophy of teaching that emphasizes personal beliefs and ethics, a teacher will help the students establish their identities and learn to appreciate classic literature. Sir Gawain and theRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1514 Words   |  7 PagesSir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem written in the mid to late fourteenth century by an unknown author. Throughout the tale, Sir Gawain, a Knight at the Round Table in Camelot, is presented with many hardships, the first being a challenge on Christmas by a man in which, â€Å"Everything about him was an elegant green† (161). This â€Å"Green Knight† challenged someone in Camelot to accept his game which they will chop off his head with his axe and the Green Knight will do the same to the playerRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1335 Words   |  6 PagesSir Gawain: The Ironic Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale of the utmost irony in which Sir Gawain, the most loyal and courteous of all of King Arthur’s knights, fails utterly to be loyal and courteous to his king, his host, his vows, and his God. In each case, Sir Gawain not only fails to perform well, but performs particularly poorly, especially in the case of his relationship with God. Ultimately, Sir Gawain chooses magic over faith, and by doing so, shows his ironic nature as aRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight906 Words   |  4 Pagesusually the latter. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we see Sir Bertilak go off to hunt three very specific animals as a game with Sir Gawain. They agree that â€Å"what ever [Bertilak catches] in the wood shall become [Sir Gawain’s], and what ever mishap comes [Sir Gawain’s] way will be given to [Bertilak] in exchange.† (Sir Gawain†¦, ln 1105-1007). In this deal we slowly see Gawain loose his honor as paralleled with Sir B ertilak’s hunt. The first animal that is hunted by the knight is a deer, while thisRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1521 Words   |  7 PagesFall 16 Donnelly Many years ago, knights were expected to form a certain type of relationship with their king, this relationship was otherwise known as fealty. Fealty is a knight’s sworn loyalty to their king (in other words a loyal relationship should be formed between the two). The use of this relationship is shown in the poem called â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† ( the author is unknown). This poem has a classic quest type of formula, with a knight receiving a challenge and then going outRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight1455 Words   |  6 PagesHowever, for Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight temptation existed around every corner while he was playing the game of the Green Knight. Temptation existed every day and each day it existed in a new way. Gawain never knew what was coming his way throughout the grand scheme of the game, but one thing was for certain he was being tested. Without his reliance religious faith and dedication to his reputation, Gawain wo uld not have been able to make it through the game of the Green Knight alive andRead MoreSir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay1020 Words   |  5 PagesBoth Sir Gawain, from â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† translated by Marie Borroff, and Beowulf, from Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel, serve as heroes in different times of Medieval English Literature. Many of the basic principles that describe heroes in Medieval Literature are seen in both of these characters even though they were written in different times. There are distinct similarities, differences, and also a progression of what the hero was in English literature, between Sir Gawain and

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Equal Rights - Argument Essay examples - 1024 Words

Equal Rights Abortion is not a decision to be taken lightly. It is not a decision that the mother should make on her on either. Abortion should be a mutual decision between both parents. It should only be the mother’s choice if the father is not willing to care for the baby. It takes both a man and woman to create a child; therefor it should take both a man and a woman to make the decision to abort their child. After all a child is no more the mother’s than it is the father’s. When a woman makes the decision to keep the child, she expects financial support and help raising the child from the child’s father; therefore, she should ask for the father’s opinion when it comes to abortion, because the father could want to raise the baby on†¦show more content†¦Women may argue that it is their body and their decision, but if they were more careful with their body then they would not be in this position. The Father should have a say in abortion because it is hi s child too. Any decent parent who loves their children will fight for them. So a father should be able to fight for the right that his child exists. A mother can end a pregnancy on her own, or have a baby on her own. A father can do neither. Since they are both equal in creating this baby, why can’t they both have the same right to terminate the pregnancy? A father cannot single handedly decide to end a pregnancy, so the mother shouldn’t be able to either. The father is simply fighting for his right to raise a son or daughter. If a mother makes a decision to have a baby on her own, and the father is capable of providing, he is required to pay child support. If a father makes the decision to keep a baby and raise it own his own, than after the birth the mother, if capable, should have to pay child support as well. The father should however have to pay for all the mother’s medical bills and all of the things needed throughout the pregnancy such as vitamins, mater nity clothes, and doctor visits. I think this is fair because the father does not have to go through what a mother does during pregnancy. I believe that if and only if the father is keeping the mother from aborting. Parents are equal and they should haveShow MoreRelatedThe Amendment And The Rights Amendment1341 Words   |  6 PagesPossibly the most conversational amendment to every make it’s way through the Senate and the House was the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. The Equal Rights Amendment was, â€Å"introduced through the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties without success† (Schneir, 369). Various organizations such as the National Woman’s Party (those who proposed it), National Organization for Women, the Women’s Department of the United Auto Workers, and many other feminists worked most if not all of theirRead MoreThe National Organization for Women and the Struggle for the Equal Rights Ammendment1153 Words   |  5 Pagesstruggl e for the Equal Rights Amendment. This topic will be a great way to learn about the background of how women fought for their rights, and how they gained them. This will be a great way to find out how the gender women established their equal rights. Womens rights are really important in todays society, so this will be a great way to learn a little more about how women came upon equal rights. Womens rights didnt just appear one day, they had to fight for what they thought was right. The firstRead MoreQuestions On The Prison Industrial Complex1510 Words   |  7 Pagesare more blacks in prison today than there were enslaved in 1850. This is what she refers to as â€Å"The New Jim Crow.† In her argument, she states: â€Å"In this era of colorblindness, it was not socially permissible to use race as a tool for disfranchisement, marginalization and discrimination† (Module 9/ Page 6). 2. Summarize the rise and fall of the movement to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Explain the issues and concerns of those who supported and opposed the amendment. What do you think were the concernsRead MoreWomen s Equal Rights Amendment1433 Words   |  6 PagesCampaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment in the early twentieth century, women found it particularly difficult to have their efforts opposed by other women. One of the hovering questions that went along with the proposal of the amendment was whether those supporting equality for women, advocating the equality of opportunity, would also support the enablement of women to be freely different from men without consequence. There were passionate feelings on both sides of the arguments and this debate broughtRead MoreProstitution And The Act Of Prostitution1401 Words   |  6 Pagesthere are plenty of arguments for prostitution and the act of prostitution becoming legal. Coinciding with popular belief, there are more argument s against the act of prostitution being legalized. While some consider the act of prostitution to be an immoral act others will consider it a victimless crime. Most people consider it to be immoral and use arguments such as it cause crimes, spreads social diseases and AIDS and it is extramarital and commercialized. The opposing argument, which is for theRead MorePros and Cons of the Equal Rights Amendment Essay1285 Words   |  6 PagesPros and Cons of the Equal Rights Amendment The Equal Rights Amendment began its earliest discussions in 1920. These discussions took place immediately after two-thirds of the states approved womens suffrage. The nineteenth century was intertwined with several feminist movements such as abortion, temperance, birth control and equality. Many lobbyists and political education groups formed in these times. One such organization is the Eagle Forum, who claims to lead the pro-family movement. OnRead MoreSpeech On Sojourner Truth1191 Words   |  5 PagesWhile attending the Womens Rights Convention in Ohio in 1851, According to Frances Gage, who is the president of the Convention, Sojourner Truth encountered several male ministers who arrived and began stating their arguments for why women should not have the same rights as men. Among their reasons were the facts that women were weak, men were intellectually superior to women, Jesus was a man, and our first mother sinned. (source) As a result of this ignorant onslaught of sexist j ustificationsRead MoreThe Equal Pay Act Is An Anti Discrimination Policy1284 Words   |  6 PagesThe Equal Pay Act is an anti-discrimination policy, which was signed into law on June 10, 1963. The purpose of this policy was to stop gender based pay inequality. During World War Two, more women started to join the paid workforce, because a large amount of the men were away at war. As more and more women entered the work force, the pay differences began to rise. Women would only make fifty-nine percent of what men would make. This social issue brought the Equal Pay Act into law, it was to ensureRead MoreHow Did Women Reach Their Goals Of The Time?1453 Words   |  6 Pagesresponse to the growing radicalism of the time, so I knew I wanted to apply the prompt to that somehow. I think that the best way to show what strategies worked is to compare both sides opposing efforts, because to understand each argument, you must understand both arguments. I think that the tension in the world of women kickstarted both the feminist revolution and its counter-movement of â€Å"dependent wives† and their authority to protect and sustain the domestic sphere. Part 2 â€Å"I’d like toRead MoreWomen in Combat1883 Words   |  8 Pagesreasons. Accountability stating that women are ‘not good enough’ and care because they are ‘too good.’ Allowing women to serve in combat roles on the basis of equal qualifications is the belief behind the ethic of justice (Peach 1). Lucinda Joy Peach in Women at War-The Ethics of Women in Combat [Part 2 of 7] states that the arguments behind the ethic of accountability are that women would create a lower level of effectiveness in combat as well as undermine the male bonding process. It is also

Employment Place of KPMG Free Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Employment Place of KPMG. Answer: Introduction: The main aim of the report is to identify different reason, which makes KPMG a popular place of employment. Relevant research and finding process is conducted to identify the relevant measures that help the company to reduce the employee turnover and raise motivation level of its workforce. The overall structure of the report mainly includes overview of KPMG and relevant evaluation of the findings about measures taken by the organization. Furthermore, adequate recommendations are also presented in the report, which could be used in increasing more productivity of its employees. The assignment mainly portrays the relevant reasons behind the popularity of KPMG among employees. Overview of the company: Founded in 1987, KPMG is mainly considered to be a professional service company which come under the big four auditors of the world (KPMG.com 2017). The company mainly specialises in providing services to its customers, ranging from tax, financial audit, and advisory services. The company employs around 188,982 employees in its vicinity, which directly allowed it to generate revenue of 25.42 billion dollars in 2016. The overall revenue generated by KPMG in 2016 was mainly conducted due to the audit services provided by the organisation. Therefore, it could be understood that KPMG focuses 40% on audit services, while the rest comprises of tax and advisory services (KPMG.com 2017). Performance: Working in KPMG is one of the biggest dreams that an individual employee could have, as it provides all the relevant facilities to its employees. The different types of benefits that is portrayed and provided by the KPMGmanagement to its employees (Bargeron, Lehn and Smith 2015). The first benefit that is provided by KPMG is the lifestyle benefits, where the employees could choose a Lifestyle option. This overall Lifestyle benefits provided by KPMG mainly allows the employees to have relevant services such as home, entertainment, cars, and accommodation. The company also provides client and super discount to its employees, which directly allow them to get discounted health insurance plan, gym facilities, mobile, internet access, computer and software (linkedin.com 2017). These facilities mainly allow the organisation to boost morale of its employees, which directly help in generating higher productivity. Company also provides adequate salary package, which makes the employees want to work in KPMG. with the overall salary package additional motor vehicles, superannuation, and other benefits are provided by the organisation. Moreover, the company also provides its employees development holidays and annually packages, which could be redeemed at the well of the employees (O'Rourke 2015). Reviewing the benefits provided by KPMG to its employees for the amenities that were provided by the organisation are identified. The company also provides flexible work options, where employees are able to work in different shifts according to their leniency. Moreover, the company also provides relevant insurance, social club access and paid parental leaves to its employees. The above defined programs are maintained by KPMG all its employees, which directly helps in motivating the candidate to work for the company. Shields et al. (2015) stated that with the help of motivated employees organisations are able to increase the productivity and generate higher revenue. There are two types of wellbeing benefits and wellbeing programs that are in maintained by KPMG, which directly allows the organisation to attract more and more talented employees to its vicinity. KPMGs aim is mainly to make its employee healthy for which the organisation provides different types of programs where informat ion and health check up conducted (Sikora and Ferris 2014). However, the review from employee depicts that overall colleagues of the organisation prominent, while the overall work culture is relatively.There is no help provided from any kind of superiors or the individuals, which could reduce the burden on the employees.Some of the employees also stated that KPMG makes it employees work more than 12 hours in time of needs, which could directly demotivate potential and current employees (linkedin.com 2017). Moreover, there are strict professional rules, which are riding activities of the employees. However, employees in KPMG do not get the relevant support from its superiors during commencement of the project. Wang et al. (2015)argued that focusing only on productivity provided by employees could increase the overall expenditure of an organisation, which could directory reflect as negative profitability. Recommendation: The evaluation of overall Benefits provided by KPMG relevant loopholes has been identified, which could directly help in improving IQ current services provided to the Employees. The additional services could eventually help increasing demand for walking in the organisation my all the relevant employees, which could help improving motivational level of the work force. The use of adequate corporate culture, where employees directly help each other with their work and gain relative experience needs to be created by KPMG. The evaluation of KPMG depicted that employees are having a relative problem related to help provided in the organisation. Therefore it could be understood that with the use of adequate implementation of different helping measures would eventually allow the company increase the employee's motivational level. Moreover, adequate career growth and chart needs to be presented to the Employees, which could help in reducing the doubt of the workforce regarding their career pa th. There are no other factors that was hampering motivational level of the employee in KPMG. Implementation of the above factors could directly make the organization a popular place for work (Goetsch and Davis 2014). Conclusion: The evaluation of the overall KPMG employee benefits mainly helped in identifying loopholes which was hindering overall motivation level of the employee. Moreover, it is also identified that KPMG provides and benefits to its employees, which directly placed the organisation and second list of LinkedIn profile. However, different types of recommendations also provided, which could allow the organisation to change its current policy and increase motivation level of its employees. Furthermore, being a service providing company KPMG needs to have highly motivated employees, which helps in improving productivity and reduces any kind of slack in its operations. References: Bargeron, L., Lehn, K. and Smith, J., 2015. Employeemanagement trust and MA activity.Journal of Corporate Finance,35, pp.389-406. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014.Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. KPMG.com. (2017).Rewards and Recognition. [online] Available at: https://home.kpmg.com/au/en/home/careers/life-at-kpmg/rewards-and-recognition.html [Accessed 3 Sep. 2017]. linkedin.com, (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-top-companies-2017-where-australia-wants-work-roughol [Accessed 3 Sep. 2017]. O'Rourke, M., 2015. Farm employee management: Getting the new employee off to a good start on day one.Ag Decision Maker Newsletter,17(1), p.2. Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., Johns, R., O'Leary, P., Robinson, J. and Plimmer, G., 2015.Managing Employee Performance Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies. Cambridge University Press. Sikora, D.M. and Ferris, G.R., 2014. Strategic human resource practice implementation: The critical role of line management.Human Resource Management Review,24(3), pp.271-281. Wang, P., Walumbwa, F.O., Wang, H. and Aryee, S., 2015. relationship between family-supportive supervisor and employee performance. Group Organization Management, 38, 258-287.(Original DOI.Group Organization Management,40(5), p.711.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Seniors in High School free essay sample

In recent years, there has been the debate on whether or not seniors should have to take finals. When most people were freshmen, seniors didn’t have to take finals if they met the requirements. When people were sophomores, seniors didn’t have to take finals if they met the requirements. When people were junior, seniors didn’t have to take finals if they met the requirements. Now those freshmen are now seniors, they have to take finals. Those freshmen, now seniors, had been looking forward to not taking finals at the end of their senior year. Now those hopes are crushed unless the policy is changed. It should be said that high school students should not be required to take finals in their senior year of high school with some requirements that have to be met to be exempted from finals. Seniors should not have to take finals because they have been in school for the past 12 years of their lives. We will write a custom essay sample on Seniors in High School or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The past four years especially should have prepared them for college. If students don’t prepare for school now, they’ll never be prepared for college. The people who procrastinate when they have homework in high school will procrastinate in college as well. Students will carry on their habits, whether they are good or bad, when they go to college. Students who have achieved an A before finals should be able to exempt from final exams in that class. They have already shown that they understand the material. Obtaining a good mark takes much more than testing. In order to get an A in a class, a student must demonstrate good work ethic throughout the entire semester, doing homework on a regular basis, paying attention diligently, and thoroughly understanding the material. While the studying and the final itself may reinforce the information, a high-scoring student has displayed that they already know it through consistent high marks. If the material has already been understood, taking the final could be seen as a mere waste of time. â€Å"If I’ve worked hard all semester to get good grades that I’ve already established I can earn, why should I have to further prove that by taking a final? † Amanda Zhang, a junior at LHS said† (Grom). The requirements weed out the people who should have to take finals. If the requirements are set to a high enough level, the people who need to take finals will have to take them. The people who meet these requirements have proved themselves that they know their material and one more test wouldn’t make a difference in how prepared they are for college. Most students believe the requirements for finals should be: No absences in May, no tardies/ISS/OSS, and a student’s lowest grade can’t be lower than a C. Gaining the privilege of not having to take the finals should be like a reward to the students who meet these requirements. People who are in favor of seniors taking finals who argue the following arguments: Taking finals would better prepare students for the rigors of college. College students say high school didn’t prepare them enough for college. All 12th graders should take finals regardless. Some seniors may develop â€Å"senioritis†, but then those seniors should have to take finals because they slacked off at the end of the year. The counter argument against â€Å"senioritis† is for the seniors who didn’t catch â€Å"senioritis,† they should be rewarded for not slacking off for the entire year. Before Walpole High School seniors leave in May, they have to make sure that their final grades for the second semester in each class are above an 80. Anything below an 80 for a class, even a dreaded 79, means they are required to take the final exam for that class. This can be a real drag for a senior that is ready to get out of high school for good. All the freshmen, soph omores, and juniors have to stay in school for over a month and a half more, while the seniors are out joy-riding and enjoying an early release from school. Seniors shouldn’t be the only students who are exempt from finals† (Heiberger). Taking finals would better prepare students for the rigors of college because it shows they have mastered their material and have proved it. As for the college students who say they aren’t prepared for college, they should’ve study harder and not procrastinated in school. Every 12th grader should take their finals regardless of their grades and squeaky clean records and perfect grades. It would better prepare them because they have proved that they have mastered their subjects. Not having final exams would be a radical change for any high school, but these tests would be unnecessary if students learned the material correctly the first time around. â€Å"If they worked harder to receive an A for whatever reason, they should be rewarded by their teacher acknowledging that they already know the material instead of making them prove that they know how to take a test. The absence of exams would not affect teachers, except for the fact that they would not have a huge pile of tests to grade after Christmas break or during those first few days of summer. Instead of pushing for memorization and recitation, they should be teaching information that can be understood and retained. Some people, no matter how knowledgeable they are in a subject, are simply not good test takers. Final exams are not always an accurate picture of what a student does or does not know due to the sheer volume of information that students are expected to memorize for each class† (Reilly). High school students, with exceptions, should not have to take finals. They have proved themselves in the 12 years they have been in school. They have really proven that shouldnt take finals in the last four years. With a list of requirements, the people who have proved themselves don’t have to worry about finals and then bomb the finals. Being exempted from finals should be treated as a privilege, not a right. The students would have to work hard all year to be granted this well-earned privilege. It should be like a gift for working hard for 12 years. This is why most students believe that seniors shouldnt have to take finals, with requirements, at the end of their high school career.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

The Sociology of Consumption

The Sociology of Consumption The sociology of consumption is a subfield of sociology formally recognized by the American Sociological Association as the Section on Consumers and Consumption. Within this subfield, sociologists see consumption as central to daily life, identity, and social order in contemporary societies in ways that far exceed rational economic principles of supply and demand. Modern Context Due to its centrality to social life, sociologists recognize fundamental and consequential relationships between consumption and economic and political systems, and to social categorization, group membership, identity, stratification, and social status. Consumption is thus intersected with issues of power and inequality, is central to social processes of meaning-making, situated within the sociological debate surrounding structure and agency, and a phenomenon that connects the micro-interactions of everyday life to larger-scale social patterns and trends. The sociology of consumption is about far more than a simple act of purchase and includes the range of emotions, values, thoughts, identities, and behaviors that circulate the purchase of goods and services, and how we use them by ourselves and with others. This subfield of sociology is active throughout North America, Latin America, Britain and the European continent, Australia, and Israel, and is growing in China and India. Research Topics How people interact at sites of consumption, like shopping malls, streets, and downtown districtsThe relationship between individual and group identities and consumer goods and spacesHow lifestyles are composed, expressed, and slotted into hierarchies through consumer practices and identitiesProcesses of gentrification, in which consumer values, practices, and spaces play a central role in reconfiguring the racial and class demographics of neighborhoods, towns, and citiesThe values and ideas embedded in advertising, marketing, and product packaging;Individual and group relationships to brandsEthical issues tied to and often expressed through consumption, including environmental sustainability, the rights and dignity of workers, and economic inequalityAnd, consumer activism and citizenship, as well as anti-consumer activism and lifestyles Theoretical Influences The three â€Å"founding fathers† of modern sociology laid the theoretical foundation for the sociology of consumption. Karl Marx provided the still widely and effectively used concept of â€Å"commodity fetishism,† which suggests that the social relations of labor are obscured by consumer goods that carry other kinds of symbolic value for their users. This concept is often used in studies of consumer consciousness and identity. Émile Durkheim’s writings on the symbolic, cultural meaning of material objects in a religious context have proved valuable to the sociology of consumption, as it informs studies of how identity is connected to consumption, and how consumer goods play an important role in traditions and rituals around the world. Max Weber pointed to the centrality of consumer goods when he wrote about the growing importance of them to social life in the 19th century, and provided what would become a useful comparison to today’s society of consumers, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. A contemporary of the founding fathers, American Historical Thorstein Veblen’s discussion of â€Å"conspicuous consumption† has been greatly influential to how sociologists study the display of wealth and status. European critical theorists active in the mid-twentieth century also provided valuable perspectives to the sociology of consumption. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s essay on â€Å"The Culture Industry† offered an important theoretical lens for understanding the ideological, political, and economic implications of mass production and mass consumption. Herbert Marcuse delved deeply into this in his book One-Dimensional Man, in which he describes Western societies as awash in consumer solutions that are meant to solve one’s problems, and as such, provide market solutions for what are actually political, cultural, and social problems. Additionally, American sociologist David Riesman’s landmark book, The Lonely Crowd, set the foundation for how sociologists would study how people seek validation and community through consumption, by looking to and molding themselves in the image of those immediately around them. More recently, sociologists have embraced French social theorist Jean Baudrillard’s ideas about the symbolic currency of consumer goods, and take seriously his claim that seeing consumption as a universal of the human condition obscures the class politics behind it. Similarly, Pierre Bourdieu’s research and theorizing of the differentiation between consumer goods, and how these both reflect and reproduce cultural, class, and educational differences and hierarchies, is a cornerstone of today’s sociology of consumption. Notable Contemporary Scholars and Their Work Zygmunt Bauman: Polish sociologist who has written prolifically about consumerism and the society of consumers, including the books Consuming Life; Work, Consumerism and the New Poor; and Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?Robert G. Dunn: American social theorist who has written an important book of consumer theory titled Identifying Consumption: Subjects and Objects in Consumer Society.Mike Featherstone: British sociologist who wrote the influential Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, and who writes prolifically about lifestyle, globalization, and aesthetics.Laura T. Raynolds: Professor of sociology and director of the Center for Fair and Alternative Trade at Colorado State University has published numerous articles and books about fair trade systems and practices, including the volume Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization.George Ritzer: Author of widely influential books, The McDonaldization of Society and Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Continuit y and Change in the Cathedrals of Consumption. Juliet Schor: Economist and sociologist who has written a series of widely cited books on the cycle of working and spending in American society, including The Overspent American, The Overworked American, and Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth.Sharon Zukin: Urban and public sociologist who is widely published, and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Spaces, and the important journal article, â€Å"Consuming Authenticity: From Outposts of Difference to Means of Exclusion.† New research findings from the sociology of consumption are regularly published in the  Journal of Consumer Culture  and the  Journal of Consumer Research.

Friday, February 28, 2020

Leadrship Development and business Ethics Coursework - 2

Leadrship Development and business Ethics - Coursework Example Therefore, in order to mitigate the issue of malnutrition, WEP took varied types of initiatives such as concentration over the issue malnutrition in the year 2009 as well as high attention on the purchase of the products in 2008. These programs or initiatives are taken by WEP in order to reduce the negative impacts of malnutrition from the developing countries that may decrease the rate of deaths. Therefore, it might be clearly stated that as the issue of malnutrition took place due to lack of inappropriate nutrients in food materials, so it is also considered as an ethical one. However, in order to reduce the negative impacts of the ethical issue, discussed above numerous world famous companies such as Kraft Foods, Unilever and DSM joined hands with WEP in the program (Project laser Beam). The prime cause behind such type of cooperation of these above mentioned organizations is to offer hygienic foods materials. Hygienic food materials and clean drinking water may comprise of high in-tech of varied types of nutrients that might prove effective in reducing the rate of malnutrition from the developing countries to a considerable extent. However, in order to offer highly nutrient food materials, the organization of WEP also tried to produce best quality of plants. Only then, the program of WEP might become successful in offering best quality of products to the malnutrition children in various villages in the entire globe. Hence such type of holistic approach might also prove worthy in reducing the effects of HIV/Aids and TB from the malnutrition children in t he developing countries. Other than this, effective health-care programs are also offered to the children and women in schools and villages in order to improve their level of awareness over hygiene and cleanliness. By doing so, the rate of deaths might get reduced resulting in

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Human Resource Management - You have been recently appointed by the Essay

Human Resource Management - You have been recently appointed by the board to act as a 'Strategic Business Partner' to help t - Essay Example This has caused the supervisor to abuse power and practice nepotism. The organizational hierarchy of Homecare Housing Association (HHA) is complex and ineffective. This essay seeks to analyze the organizational issues affecting HHA for the last two years. The essay also seeks to come up with the appropriate recommendations to avert further organizational turmoil. The top management of the organization is entirely out of touch with the employees. Organizational leadership is meant to be inspirational through shared values and goals. The organizational leadership in HHA functions through coercion and instilling fear. Most leaders are obsessed with self preservation. The result is that employees are left with a sense of confusion and lack of direction. The Homecare Housing association is suffering from lethargy and declining organizational commitment. Rampant job quitting and increased staff turnover are a sign of low job satisfaction. The organization is stuck to policies that have bee n overtaken with time. The organizational policies that led to a strong performance over a decade ago have not been altered. This means the organization unable to adapt to the changing needs. Some of the changes include a large workforce and increased responsibilities. The social climate in the organization is unhealthy. The organization has a weak reward management system. Homecare Housing association has coercive and flat systems. The organization has uniform feedback system which is dysfunctional. This has caused inconsistency and difficulties in the execution of roles. The expressed values and the actual values are not the same. This explains why the policy framework stated in the organizational strategic paper is not implemented when it comes to quality assessment and enforcement. The employees are not involved in the decision making process. The human resource management lacks a clear strategy of getting the employee and the client views of the quality of services delivered by the workers. The conflicts between and values have contributed to uncertainty in the Homecare Housing Association. The customers and employees have conflicts that reveal declining personnel motivation. The organization is suffering from little or no innovation. The organization has no incentives for innovation and risk taking. The value reward system is weak; this has affected the morale of the employees. The human resource management has not established communication between various units or bases. The employees between one unit and another hardly communicate on progressive organizational matters. The high turnover rates in the organization are a clear sign that the organization is losing its competitive edge (Locke and Latham 2002). The organization has been losing its employees to other market players who have better terms and conditions. The human resource management has been accused of favoritism. The subordinates have not voice when it comes to resource allocation. There are concerns that the favoritism is affecting the shift allocation system where supervisors allocate the best shifts to their friends. Homecare is about service delivery and client satisfaction. The clients have expressed concerns of neglect and poor treatment. The organizational culture in Homecare Housing association is bogged down by partisan interest of a religious nature. There is an argument that some of the employees have anti-Jewish sentiments. In a multicultural

Friday, January 31, 2020

Environmental policy Essay Example for Free

Environmental policy Essay Environmental policy cant be based solely on efficiency arguments. Issues of ethics are at least as important. Discuss The above statement is true to a certain extent and in the course of this essay a balanced discussion will be presented in the hope that the outcomes will prove this to be true. To begin, the thoughts of some Russian intellectuals will be put forwards on the subject of Utilitarianism and why efficiency is self-destructive in the long run, thus supporting the statement Environmental policy cant be based solely on efficiency arguments. To lead on from this there will be a dialogue as to the problems faced by old command and control (hence forth referred to as CAC) policies such as direct regulation and emissions fees from an efficiency and ethical viewpoint. Then, these methods of environmental policy and the ideas of Ronald Coase will be highlighted as an example of ethical influence in possible environmental policy as well as from an efficiency standpoint. Following this will be an outlining of the development of the U.S Tradable permits approach to air pollution control and the ethical influences therein. Taking the ethical issues point raised in the title statement one step further then leads onto the idea of ethical considerations. These have been based around an anthropocentric perspective, thus far and so at this point some views from an eco-centric stance will be considered. To do this, A. Leopolds The Land Ethic will be looked at. The rights of nature will be brought under the umbrella of Ethical issues and discussed from a policy perspective. What economists mean by economic efficiency, is that in an ideal economic system, goods worth more than they cost to produce get produced, goods worth less than they cost to produce do not. (D. Friedman. 2004) This holds firm throughout this discussion, along with the idea of efficiency as it is defined as both: The production of the desired effects or results with minimum waste of time, effort or skill, (dictionary.com 2004) and as A measure of effectiveness; specifically, the useful work output divided by the energy input in any system (dictionary.com 2004). In different aspects of environmental policy, these different definitions of efficiency hold true, though it is clear that they all have the same thing in mind when referring to efficiency. As it Stands, Utilitarianism (the theory of Jeremy Bentham) is an example of efficiency if it were to be applied to policy. Valdimir Odoevsky, one of the most brilliant and influential representatives of progressive thought [in Russia] (A. F rolova 1998) of his time, produced a development of the utilitarian theory of J. Bentham, which is illustrated in Alla Frolovas article Ecological reasoning: Ethical alternatives. The utilitarian approach to life as put across by Odoevsky, who states that utility is an essential driving force of all human actions, (A. Frolova 1998) it is said to be the driving force for all laws, legislations, activities and morals. It is also suggested that under the notion of utilitarianism, utility should be allowed to take the place of all notions of so called consciousness, so called inborn feeling, all poetical dreams and fantasies. This is a very powerful tool for the representation of efficiency as the sole driver of any policy decisions, even environmental ones, however it is a valid viewpoint where ethics is not taken into consideration. Odoevsky talks of a civilization called Benthamia where under the concept of utility everything runs in a sustainable way. However it is when a new civilization is founded outside of Benthamia that the problems associated with a system void of ethics emerge. Through the use of political intrigues, deceit, and bribery, as well as organizing quarrels among any rival civilizations that emerge in order to weaken them for the benefit of Benthamia, the Benthamites extend their power. After they have sufficiently weakened a civilization to the point where that civilization is of no further use to Benthamia, the weakened civilization is taken into full possession either by the acquisition of it (at the cheapest efficient price) or by the use of force. All of these points are seen to be ethically wrong in todays world where ethics is A set of principles of right conduct (A. Frolova 1998) and even when there is a call for utilization of deserted islands (A. Frolova 1998) rather than taking over the crushed neighbors of Benthamia, the suggestions are condemned and those who put them forwards are said to be idle dreamers (A. Frolova 1998). In Odoevskys vision of utilitarianism, Benthamia is torn apart from within due to different self interests associated with differing social situations throughout the growing civilization and as it is put by Odoevsky One day glorious Benthamia ceased to exist. (A. Frolova 1998) Odoevsky perceives nature as sensitive and responsive in regard to human morals and this representation of efficiency as the sole driver of decision making shows that ethics are important in every aspect of what we do. Less extreme examples of efficiency in environmental policy can be seen when looking at cases such as the policy relating to dealing with the inefficiencies associated with the production of steel. Classic approaches to the problem of the externalities of steel production include direct regulation by the government based on telling the steel industry how much they can pollute, as well as emission fees (called Pigouvian taxes). Emission fees are based around the concept of charging steel companies for the damage done by its pollution. The idea of direst regulation is seen to be an inefficient environmental policy whereas emission fees are said to produce an efficient amount of steel as well as an efficient amount of pollution control. In the real world however emission fees policy is not efficient as it is difficult to measure what the damage caused is as well as it being inefficient to spend time looking for the damage caused. These two policies are based around the idea of efficiency in the steel industry (as an example), though with the insight of R. Coase and the introduction of what many have dubbed Coase Theorem social cost can be associated with efficiency to create a better overall way of viewing the problem of externalities through the introduction of property rights. Rather than a system whereby the government defines the measures that need to be taken by industry or where it is left to the polluter to deal with the control methods as with the previously mentioned CAC policies, the idea of Coases theorem defines a policy where, if transaction costs are zero if, in other words, any agreement that is in the mutual benefit of the parties concerned gets made, then any initial definition of property rights leads to an efficient outcome (D. Friedman. 2004) The way that his argument is put across in the article entitled the Swedes get it right is based around the cost of abatement of pollution in a steel factory Vs. the cost of changing downwind land use from a resort to a timber forest. The article, written by D. Friedman, puts forwards a very efficient environmental policy whereby the distribution of property rights leads to the internalization of externalities and the most cost effective outcome on a social level. Under the notion of Coase theorem, if it is cheaper for the resort to pay the factory for the cost of pollution abatement rather than change his own land use then this should be done, producing a situation where everybody is happy and the overall conditions are more desirable. This efficiency based policy is seen to be an advancement of old efficiency based policy though there are still problems associated with it due to the fact that ethics are not considered. One of the largest problems noted by Coase is the idea of the Public Good Problem (D. Friedman. 2004). If there are many different people living downwind of a factory and they contribute to the abatement of the pollution, then if one person does not pay because doing so wont make a difference to whether the abatement is paid or not and the abatement does go through, then that person is seen to be a free rider (D. Friedman. 2004) getting abatement for free. This is why air pollution in Southern California still persists, as there are millions of people living in the area it is hard to get a situation where everyone pays for the abatement of pollution and it is not possible to re-locate this vast number of people. Coase argues that it is not the externalities that essentially create the problem, but t hat it is the transaction costs. A policy approach to the environment that has taken ethical issues into consideration can be seen in the US formation of a tradable permit approach to air pollution control. In the discussion about the US system ethical consideration is defined in either of two contexts: (1) when the decisions seem to reflect altruistic concerns which transcend self-interest and (2) when the decisions seem to provide special treatment to rights which seem to have a special moral justification (T. Tietenberg. 1998). The emissions trading program is set out as a straight forwards, flexible market based policy where the trading of permits is allowed and efficiency is increased due to the self interests of the participating industries. Through the acquisition of an emission reduction credit (ERC) (T. Tietenberg. 1998) this trading can take place and to acquire this ERC a company must lower its emissions to a point below the required level put forwards by the Clean air act. Further efficiency is establish ed by the way that the ERC system allows new firms to come into the market, thus, by introducing the offset policy EPA [the Environmental protection agency] allowed economic growth to continue whilst insuring progress toward attainment. (T. Tietenberg. 1998) The efficiency of the tradable permits system can be seen by analysis, which concluded that the proposed 0.01 g per leaded gallon (gplg) standard would result in $36 billion ($1983) in benefits (from reduced adverse health effects) at an estimated cost to refining industry of $2.6 billion. (T. Tietenberg. 1998) As well as being implemented at a national level. Tradable permit systems have also been applied at a regional scale, with air pollution in California being an example of this. RECLAIM (Regional Clean Air Incentives Market) shifts the burden of identifying the appropriate control strategies from the control authorities to the polluter (a point that made direct regulation an inefficient policy based solution, as previously mentioned), and thus the system again proves to be effective due to the fact that now, pollution prevention is given an economic underpinning. Along with these examples off efficiency, the tradable permits system, when compared to emissions charges and emissi on standards comes out as a far more effective environmental policy. Ethics can be observed in the Tradable permits approach however, and evidence seen in the paper Ethical influences on the evolution of the US tradable permit approach to air control suggests that ethical considerations have played a role in shaping the environmental objective, the choice of instruments, the definition of the tradable commodity, the treatment of shutdown credits, the relationship to traditional regulation and the rules governing permit trades. Thus it is the opinion of the author T. Tietenberg, that ethical influences on the evolution of the US tradable permit approach have been blended with pragmatic and political concerns to forge a compromise approach (T. Tietenberg. 1998). This means that even if ethical issues are considered they do not hold as much weight as efficiency arguments and result in efficiency bias compromises. This can be seen in the case of shut down credits. Among the various ways of creating credits this has been the most controversial point. It is controversial, ethically, because the economic incentive should be targeted at positive actions to reduce pollution through the investment of new control equipment and not through shut-down (which is where a factory is shut down to create a large number of tradable ERCs). As a result the compromise has produced a situation whereby all shut-down credits either revert to the control authority or they could be freely transferred to buyers (T. Tietenberg. 1998). This is a result that doesnt stop the process of shut-downs (as would be ethically acceptable) but allows the process to continue but with efficient outcomes rather than hoarding of ERCs. The ethical issues that have been represented in the case study of Tradable permits in the US have been examples of human-centric ethics focusing on welfare. Some environmentalists, such as A. Leopold focus more on eco-centric ethics and present an argument that through social evolution the land itself should be considered as a member of the community which is taken into account in environmental policy. Leopold, in his article, The Land Ethic explains his concept and the problems associated with achieving this goal. It is said to be the case that our educational and economic system is heading away from, rather than towards an intense consciousness of land (A. Leopold. 1949) . Leopold shows through the use of specific examples how there are essentially two different types of conversationalists, as Leopold puts it there are the economic value grabbers (A. Leopold. 1949) and those that see land as biota (A. Leopold. 1949) and worry about the secondary functions of things such as forests . Leopold gives a good illustration of this through the use of sport and meat. Group A, the economic value grabbers, when presented with the idea, will think efficiently about the subject, being satisfied with the thought that these are things that come from nature. Group B however, worries about biotic side issues, for example the cost in predators of producing a game crop. Whereas the ideas associated with Coases theorem are related to the health issues and other things that affect humans living downwind of the factory, it is the conclusion of Leopold that, A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land (A. Leopold. 1949). This view holds that the land is to be conserved or protected as some sustainability policies are currently leading towards. It is the opinion of Leopold that sustainability policy should be based around ideas of eco-centric ethics rather than being based around the idea that it is a necessity to promote sustainable polici es from a human centric point of view. To conclude it can be said that efficiency is still the main focus of environmental policy making however over time the emergence of ethics in policy has emerged, though ethical issues are not considered to be at least as important as efficiency arguments. It has been said that without some kind of ethic (a theory of right and responsibility) and some kind of axiology (or value theory) we lack guidance and direction for tackling problems, whether global, environmental, or otherwise (R. Attfield. 1999). The discussion in this essay has led towards an outcome that supports the statement to a certain degree. It has been shown through the use of the utilitarian argument and some CAC policy methods that efficiency is not the only thing that has to be considered in environmental policy making, and the US case-study supports the notion that a certain amount of ethics has to be involved. But the nature of the ethics that is applied is essentially Human-centric and to consider ethical issues in environmental policy to be as important as efficiency the idea of a land ethic is an important one. As Leopold says himself the idea of a land ethic is not yet public opinion and in fact is only being kept alive by a minority who has revolted against modern trends of efficiency and human-centric ethics. Ethical issues are not as important as efficiency arguments in environmental policy though if the land ethic were to become a popular opinion through re-education and a shift in social thinking then there is a hope that in time the statement will be completely justified. References A. Leopold (1949) The Land Ethic. In: A Second County Almanac. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Alla Frolova (1998) Ecological reasoning: Ethical alternatives. Ecological Economics, 24. p.169-182. Dictionary.com (2004) http://dictionary.reference.com/ David Friedman The Swedes get it right. http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/The_Swedes.html (2004) Robin Attfield (1983) The Ethics of Environmental Concern. Basil Blackwell. Oxford. Robin Attfield (1998) Existence value and intrinsic value. Ecological Economics, 24. p. 163-168 Robin Attfield (1999) The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. Robert Elliot (1995) Environmental Ethics. Oxford University Press. Oxford. Tom Tietenberg (1998) Ethical influences on the evolution of the US tradable permit approach to air pollution control. Ecological Economics, 24. p. 241-257. Student no. 00020854702E

Thursday, January 23, 2020

How computer viruses work :: essays research papers

How computer viruses work Computer viruses are not understood very well, but they get your attention. Viruses show us how vulnerable we are, but they also show how open and worldly human beings have become. Microsoft and other large companies had to shut down all their e-mail systems when the â€Å"Melissa† virus became a worldwide event.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A computer virus is passed on from one computer to another computer. A virus must ride on top of some other program to document in order to perform an instruction. After it is running, it can then infect other programs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Viruses were first seen in the late 1980s; the first factor was the spread of personal computers. Before the 1980’s home computers were non-existent or they were used for toys, and the real computers were very rare and they were locked away to only be used by the â€Å"experts.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second factor was the se of the â€Å"bulletin boards†; any one could get to a bulletin board if they had a modem and download programs. Bulletin boards led to the precursor of the virus known as the Trojan Horse. It is a program that sounds really cool when you read it, so then people download it, and when people run the program, however, it does something uncool like erasing your disk, so people think that they are getting something neat, but it wipes out their system.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The third factor to viruses is the floppy disk. Programs were small and they could fit the operating system, or a word processor onto the floppy disk, and then turn on the machine and it would load the operating system and everything else off the disk. Viruses took advantage of these three facts to create the first self-replicating programs!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Early viruses were pieces of code attached to programs like games or word processors. People could download an infected game from a bulletin board and run it, and a virus like this is a small piece of code embedded in a larger, legitimate program. The virus loads its self to memory and looks around to see if it can find any programs on the hard disk. When it finds one it modifies it to the virus’s code to the program. Then the virus launches the â€Å"real program,† and the user has no way of knowing that it is infected. The next time this program is executed, they infect other programs, and the cycle continues.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Focused on the sport Essay

â€Å"This is perfect! Just like I had dreamt of it; the lush green grass, the beautiful uniforms, a brilliant coach and a team full of exuberance. This is my day; I am living my dream to be the best soccer player! † Andi could not control his ecstasy of being at a soccer practice club on this bright day under the clear sky after finally having convinced his father after months to let him excel in this field of sport. With the whistle of the coach, the boys started chasing the ball and striving to get to the goal by saving their moves very closely from their competitors. Andi, a tall and lanky 16 year old boy with tanned skin and hair falling at his forehead, was one player that stood out of the team because of his incredible swiftness and strategic positioning while he was tackling players. The soccer coach named David has immediately pointed him out in his head as somebody who could even be the captain of the team. After the practice, David approached Andi and asked, â€Å"Wow! You were brilliant out there at the field; great work, Andi! What inspires you to be so focused on the sport? † Andi responded beaming, â€Å"My grandfather. In my opinion, he was the best soccer player alive on planet earth – and that’s what I want to become. One day, I will show the world what I have in me. I would love to talk to you, coach, but I have to rush home because my homeroom teacher is waiting to prepare me for my final exam next month. See you tomorrow! † As Andi walked out of the club, David watched him with a gratifying smile on his face and said to himself, â€Å"The future of soccer looks bright with these little hero around† After a short walk home, Andi was engrossed into his books in no time and listening intently to whatever his teacher, Mr. Jeremy was explaining along with questioning actively whenever he was baffled by the complications of mathematics. The teacher was genuinely impressed by Andi’s concentration and complimented Mr. Budiman, â€Å"If all parents groom their kids the way you did, sir, no power on earth can stop this country from prospering. † This left Mr. Budiman’s chest heavy in pride for the rest of the two weeks, when things were perfect and he was happy that he let Andi go for soccer practice 5 days a week. After the two weeks of perfection had passed, Andi returned home after furious, intense and extremely tiring soccer practice and slumped on couch without being bothered about Mr. Jeremy waiting for him. â€Å"Aaaaah, can’t I get a day off today? I am in no state of solving math problems or understanding scientific theories. The practice left my entire body aching; it’s horrible, sir! † Before Mr. Jeremy could respond, Mr. Budiman glared at Andi with his face turning red and fists clenched and before even he could say something, Andi shot up from the couch within a millisecond and sat across Mr. Jeremy on the study table. â€Å"I better watch out for daddy; he will jeopardize my soccer practice if I fail this stupid exam,† Andi mumbled under his breath while opening his books. Andi managed to put up a straight face and seem interested with lines on his forehead but clearly, he was sleeping with his eyes open. Not only did he manage to fool Mr. Jeremy, but also David, when he lost focus and concentration on the game but pretended to be vigorous about it. It would not have been this disappointing if the entire team was not suffering because of his performance. The radiance from his face had vanished and was replaced by constant yawning, heaving and frequent â€Å"Oh god, when will this practice end? † expressions. While running towards the soccer ball, Andi ran out of breath and slowed down and eventually bent with hands on his knees to catch his breath and regain his strength. During the act, a team member came running passionately towards the ball and bumped into Andi with such an impact, Andi toppled over twice. David blew the whistle instantly and the team members gathered around Andi in no time to find a sprained ankle. David came running with a sprain spray and held Andi’s Ankle, â€Å"Ouch! Don’t touch it, it hurts! Oh no, not this spray, it burns like no tomorrow! Don’t! STOP! DAVID! NO! † But David was wise enough to ignore Andi and spray on his ankle. David lifted Andi in his arms and took him to the first aid corner of the club and laid him on a bed. â€Å"Sssh! Just stay right here. Rest until you think you can go home, I will call your father till then and ask him to get you† said David sternly. â€Å"Don’t call my dad; you will put my soccer career on stake! † blurted Andi. â€Å"What are you talking about, young man? Injuries are part of sports† said David calmly. â€Å"You don’t get it! My dad didn’t want me to play soccer because my grandfather was a soccer player himself and got paralyzed during a match injury. My father will never let me play if he hears about this† expressed Andi exasperatedly. Listening to his plea was definitely not what a good coach should do, thus, David called Mr. Budiman explaining the entire situation; he also added, â€Å"I’m very worried about Andi personally; he doesn’t seem to be the same fire starter Andi anymore. He’s losing his concentration and is always exhausted; in fact, he is not as fit as he used to be, which means his health is also suffering. He should take time off and rest till he’s fresh and ready to be back on the field† The next week was tense – the air around the house was tough on Andi; suffocating at instances. Andi’s vibrant face was melancholic and he would just stay in his room and only come out for meals (which he would skip at times) and when Mr. Jeremy came for lessons. Mr. Budiman naturally did not like the state his son was in, so he entered Andi’s room one day, sat besides him on the bed and after relieving a long sigh, said, â€Å"Look son, I want the best of the future for you. The decisions I make for you are all based on what’s best for YOU. Just concentrate on your exam for the time being. Things will be better soon. † Andi nodded lightly. Andi worked hard for the exam with Mr. Jeremy but could not take his mind off the green fields and the smell of victory, so he went and watched his team play at times. The soccer competition has 8 teams, if Andi’s team can go through to the finals, they will have 4 games in totals (Huddleston, N. D). Andi’s team clears the first two rounds despite facing challenges and hurdles due to Andi not being present. Andi’s depression grew when he imagined the semi finals and finals without him even after knowing that his recovery had been quick and smooth. But something inside of him rekindled the fire and passion for soccer and he decided to speak to his father. â€Å"Dad, you have seen me work hard for the exam; I did what you wanted. Can’t I deserve another chance? Soccer is my dream, dad! How can I just let it go? † After a long discussion, Mr. Budiman agreed but on the condition of Andi clearing the finals with good grades. David had a hard time deciding too, because a new player cannot enter the match at this stage, but thinking in favor of the team, he knew it was sensible to let Andi play. Before he knew it, Andi was in the team once again with the zeal and fervor doubled! The big day was here and the entire team was pumped up to get the cup; the audience was cheering loudly for Andi’s team on the bright sunny day of Sunday. Mr. Budiman was also surprisingly very charged up for the match and was waving a banner that said â€Å"Go Andi! † in the air. The next 50 minutes for which the match lasted were extremely magical; Andi was like a rocket on fire and his performance kept soaring higher like a bird; expectations grew and the crowd was fanatically cheering for Andi who very shrewdly, strategically and athletically earned goal after goal. Mr. Budiman could not help but jump on his seat and sing victory songs for his son with face shining and a permanent smile. To nobody’s surprise, Andi’s team won the finals before the competitors could even gear up. Andi, the best player, was summoned in the air on the team’s shoulders after which the players hugged each other so tight that the bond seemed to be unbreakable. Mr. Budiman could not control and he ran into the field and hugged his son teary eyed saying, â€Å"You played just like your grandfather, like a true hero! I’m so very proud of you, son! † Celebrations were inevitable but Andi focused on making his dad even more proud by taking a great final; which he clearly managed to do. He got an A grade on his exam and announced it proudly with a â€Å"I did it, dad! †, which resulted in a father-son relationship that was incredibly beautiful. Andi and Mr. Budiman both realized the importance of balancing life between studies and sports, taking up challenges, risking life, living for each other and most importantly, loving life! Works Cited David and Kay Huddleston (Copyright 1999-2009) From www. soccerhelp. com