Policy research memo Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Policy memo - Research Paper Example ld Left Behind Act was meant to assure the quality of education and develop accountability it seems that its goals are attainable and beyond the scope of the law. The No Child Left Behind Act meant to model education among children from disadvantaged backgrounds and to ensure that irrespective of race, colour or health status, each child had the right to access to quality education. The policy required that the performance of the students be assessed from time to time to ensure that children performed well between 2rd grade and 8th grade (Olivert 23-27). The ability of the policy to set the standards of education and find ways of measuring performance is an important aspect of ensuring that all students become responsible citizens. To ensure that all students, including those from struggling families performed well, the policy stated that all student who do not attain the minimum score be provided with extra tuition or have their study time extended. This would go on until they attain they attain the benchmark grades to proceed with their education. This is crucial in ensuring that all students get good grades to acquire employment despite an y economic constraints. To maintain accountability, the Act required that the teachers regularly report on the performance of students and provide results at the each of year. The Act achieved accountability by compelling the teachers to account for the performance of the student throughout the learning process. The teachers had to monitor the students’ results every time to ensure that all children achieve good grades (Roberts 12). The Act required that the schools and the district boards provide detailed report cards to the parents reflecting the performance of every child. Secondly, the NCLB Act required that strict measures be taken against teachers who do not deliver in terms of education performance in schools. The extreme measures include the change of the worker structure in the learning institutions. The policy

Why Literature Essay Example for Free

Why Literature Essay It has often happened to me, at book fairs or in bookstores, that a gentleman approaches me and asks me for a signature. It is for my wife, my young daughter, or my mother, he explains. She is a great reader and loves literature. Immediately I ask: And what about you? Dont you like to read? The answer is almost always the same: Of course I like to read, but I am a very busy person. I have heard this explanation dozens of times: this man and many thousands of men like him have so many important things to do, so many obligations, so many responsibilities in life, that they cannot waste their precious time buried in a novel, a book of poetry, or a literary essay for hours and hours. According to this widespread conception, literature is a dispensable activity, no doubt lofty and useful for cultivating sensitivity and good manners, but essentially an entertainment, an adornment that only people with time for recreation can afford. It is something to fit in between sports, the movies, a game of bridge or chess; and it can be sacrificed without scruple when one prioritizes the tasks and the duties that are indispensable in the struggle of life. It seems clear that literature has become more and more a female activity. In bookstores, at conferences or public readings by writers, and even in university departments dedicated to the humanities, the women clearly outnumber the men. The explanation traditionally given is that middle-class women read more because they work fewer hours than men, and so many of them feel that they can justify more easily than men the time that they devote to fantasy and illusion. I am somewhat allergic to explanations that divide men and women into frozen categories and attribute to each sex its characteristic virtues and shortcomings; but there is no doubt that there are fewer and fewer readers of literature, and that among the saving remnant of readers women predominate. This is the case almost everywhere. In Spain, for example, a recent survey organized by the General Society of Spanish Writers revealed that half of that countrys population has never read a book. The survey also revealed that in the minority that does read, the number of women who admitted to reading surpasses the number of men by 6. 2 percent, a difference that appears to be increasing. I am happy for these women, but I feel sorry for these men, and for the millions of human beings who could read but have decided not to read. They earn my pity not only because they are unaware of the pleasure that they are missing, but also because I am convinced that a society without literature, or a society in which literature has been relegatedlike some hidden viceto the margins of social and personal life, and transformed into something like a sectarian cult, is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric, and even to jeopardize its freedom. I wish to offer a few arguments against the idea of literature as a luxury pastime, and in favor of viewing it as one of the most primary and necessary undertakings of the mind, an irreplaceable activity for the formation of citizens in a modern and democratic society, a society of free individuals. |[pic] | e live in the era of the specialization of knowledge, thanks to the prodigious development of science and technology and to the consequent fragmentation of knowledge into innumerable parcels and compartments. This cultural trend is, if anything, likely to be accentuated in years to come. To be sure, specialization brings many benefits. It allows for deeper exploration and greater experimentation; it is the very engine of progress. Yet it also has negative consequences, for it eliminates those common intellectual and cultural traits that permit men and women to co-exist, to communicate, to feel a sense of solidarity. Specialization leads to a lack of social understanding, to the division of human beings into ghettos of technicians and specialists. The specialization of knowledge requires specialized languages and increasingly arcane codes, as information becomes more and more specific and compartmentalized. This is the particularism and the division against which an old proverb warned us: do not focus too much on the branch or the leaf, lest you forget that they are part of a tree, or too much on the tree, lest you forget that it is part of a forest. Awareness of the existence of the forest creates the feeling of generality, the feeling of belonging, that binds society together and prevents it from disintegrating into a myriad of solipsistic particularities. The solipsism of nations and individuals produces paranoia and delirium, distortions of reality that generate hatred, wars, and even genocide. In our time, science and technology cannot play an integrating role, precisely because of the infinite richness of knowledge and the speed of its evolution, which have led to specialization and its obscurities. But literature has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life plans, their geographical and cultural locations, their personal circumstances. It has enabled individuals, in all the particularities of their lives, to transcend history: as readers of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dante, and Tolstoy, we understand each other across space and time, and we feel ourselves to be members of the same species because, in the works that these writers created, we learn what we share as human beings, what remains common in all of us under the broad range of differences that separate us. Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and that only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation. Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanitys multi-faceted creativity. Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness. |[pic| |] | his complex sum of contradictory truthsas Isaiah Berlin called themconstitutes the very substance of the human condition. In todays world, this totalizing and living knowledge of a human being may be found only in literature. Not even the other branches of the humanitiesnot philosophy, history, or the arts, and certainly not the social scienceshave been able to preserve this integrating vision, this universalizing discourse. The humanities, too, have succumbed to the cancerous division and subdivision of knowledge, isolating themselves in increasingly segmented and technical sectors whose ideas and vocabularies lie beyond the reach of the common woman and man. Some critics and theorists would even like to change literature into a science. But this will never happen, because fiction does not exist to investigate only a single precinct of experience. It exists to enrich through the imagination the entirety of human life, which cannot be dismembered, disarticulated, or reduced to a series of schemas or formulas without disappearing. This is the meaning of Prousts observation that real life, at last enlightened and revealed, the only life fully lived, is literature. He was not exaggerating, nor was he expressing only his love for his own vocation. He was advancing the particular proposition that as a result of literature life is better understood and better lived; and that living life more fully necessitates living it and sharing it with others. The brotherly link that literature establishes among human beings, compelling them to enter into dialogue and making them conscious of a common origin and a common goal, transcends all temporal barriers. Literature transports us into the past and links us to those who in bygone eras plotted, enjoyed, and dreamed through those texts that have come down to us, texts that now allow us also to enjoy and to dream. This feeling of membership in the collective human experience across time and space is the highest achievement of culture, and nothing contributes more to its renewal in every generation than literature. |[| |p| |i| |c| |]| t always irritated Borges when he was asked, What is the use of literature? It seemed to him a stupid question, to which he would reply: No one would ask what is the use of a canarys song or a beautiful sunset. If such beautiful things exist, and if, thanks to them, life is even for an instant less ugly and less sad, is it not petty to seek practical justifications? But the question is a good one. For novels and poems are not like the sound of birdsong or the spectacle of the sun sinking into the horizon, because they were not created by chance or by nature. They are human creations, and it is therefore legitimate to ask how and why they came into the world, and what is their purpose, and why they have lasted so long. Literary works are born, as shapeless ghosts, in the intimacy of a writers consciousness, projected into it by the combined strength of the unconscious, and the writers sensitivity to the world around him, and the writers emotions; and it is these things to which the poet or the narrator, in a struggle with words, gradually gives form, body, movement, rhythm, harmony, and life. An artificial life, to be sure, a life imagined, a life made of languageyet men and women seek out this artificial life, some frequently, others sporadically, because real life falls short for them, and is incapable of offering them what they want. Literature does not begin to exist through the work of a single individual. It exists only when it is adopted by others and becomes a part of social lifewhen it becomes, thanks to reading, a shared experience. One of its first beneficial effects takes place at the level of language. A community without a written literature expresses itself with less precision, with less richness of nuance, and with less clarity than a community whose principal instrument of communication, the word, has been cultivated and perfected by means of literary texts. A humanity without reading. untouched by literature, would resemble a community of deaf-mutes and aphasics, afflicted by tremendous problems of communication due to its crude and rudimentary language. This is true for individuals, too. A person who does not read, or reads little, or reads only trash, is a person with an impediment: he can speak much but he will say little, because his vocabulary is deficient in the means for self-expression. This is not only a verbal limitation. It represents also a limitation in intellect and in imagination. It is a poverty of thought, for the simple reason that ideas, the concepts through which we grasp the secrets of our condition, do not exist apart from words. We learn how to speak correctlyand deeply, rigorously, and subtlyfrom good literature, and only from good literature. No other discipline or branch of the arts can substitute for literature in crafting the language that people need to communicate. To speak well, to have at ones disposal a rich and diverse language, to be able to find the appropriate expression for every idea and every emotion that we want to communicate, is to be better prepared to think, to teach, to learn, to converse, and also to fantasize, to dream, to feel. In a surreptitious way, words reverberate in all our actions, even in those actions that seem far removed from language. And as language evolved, thanks to literature, and reached high levels of refinement and manners, it increased the possibility of human enjoyment. Literature has even served to confer upon love and desire and the sexual act itself the status of artistic creation. Without literature, eroticism would not exist. Love and pleasure would be poorer, they would lack delicacy and exquisiteness, they would fail to attain to the intensity that literary fantasy offers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a couple who have read Garcilaso, Petrarch, Gongora, or Baudelaire value pleasure and experience pleasure more than illiterate people who have been made into idiots by televisions soap operas. In an illiterate world, love and desire would be no different from what satisfies animals, nor would they transcend the crude fulfillment of elementary instincts. Nor are the audiovisual media equipped to replace literature in this task of teaching human beings to use with assurance and with skill the extraordinarily rich possibilities that language encompasses. On the contrary, the audiovisual media tend to relegate words to a secondary level with respect to images, which are the primordial language of these media, and to constrain language to its oral expression, to its indispensable minimum, far from its written dimension. To define a film or a television program as literary is an elegant way of saying that it is boring. For this reason, literary programs on the radio or on television rarely capture the public. So far as I know, the only exception to this rule was Bernard Pivots program, Apostrophes, in France. And this leads me to think that not only is literature indispensable for a full knowledge and a full mastery of language, but its fate is linked also and indissolubly with the fate of the book, that industrial product that many are now declaring obsolete. |[pic| |] | his brings me to Bill Gates. He was in Madrid not long ago and visited the Royal Spanish Academy, which has embarked upon a joint venture with Microsoft. Among other things, Gates assured the members of the Academy that he would personally guarantee that the letter - would never be removed  from computer softwarea promise that allowed four hundred million Spanish speakers on five continents to breathe a sigh of relief, since the banishment of such an essential letter from cyberspace would have created monumental problems. Immediately after making his amiable concession to the Spanish language, however, Gates, before even leaving the premises of the Academy, avowed in a press conference that he expected to accomplish his highest goal before he died. That goal, he explained, is to put an end to paper and then to books. In his judgment, books are anachronistic objects. Gates argued that computer screens are able to replace paper in all the functions that paper has heretofore assumed. He also insisted that, in addition to being less onerous, computers take up less space, and are more easily transportable; and also that the transmission of news and literature by these electronic media, instead of by newspapers and books, will have the ecological advantage of stopping the destruction of forests, a cataclysm that is a consequence of the paper industry. People will continue to read, Gates assured his listeners, but they will read on computer screens, and consequently there will be more chlorophyll in the environment. I was not present at Gatess little discourse; I learned these details from the press. Had I been there I would have booed Gates for proclaiming shamelessly his intention to send me and my colleagues, the writers of books, directly to the unemployment line. And I would have vigorously disputed his analysis. Can the screen really replace the book in all its aspects? I am not so certain. I am fully aware of the enormous revolution that new technologies such as the Internet have caused in the fields of communication and the sharing of information, and I confess that the Internet provides invaluable help to me every day in my work; but my gratitude for these extraordinary conveniences does not imply a belief that the electronic screen can replace paper, or that reading on a computer can stand in for literary reading. That is a chasm that I cannot cross. I cannot accept the idea that a non-functional or non-pragmatic act of reading, one that seeks neither information nor a useful and immediate communication, can integrate on a computer screen the dreams and the pleasures of words with the same sensation of intimacy, the same mental concentration and spiritual isolation, that may be achieved by the act of reading a book. Perhaps this a prejudice resulting from lack of practice, and from a long association of  literature with books and paper. But even though I enjoy surfing the Web in search of world news, I would never go to the screen to read a poem by Gongora or a novel by Onetti or an essay by Paz, because I am certain that the effect of such a reading would not be the same. I am convinced, although I cannot prove it, that with the disappearance of the book, literature would suffer a serious blow, even a mortal one. The term literature would not disappear, of course. Yet it would almost certainly be used to denote a type of text as distant from what we understand as literature today as soap operas are from the tragedies of Sophocles and Shakespeare. |[pic| |] | here is still another reason to grant literature an important place in the life of nations. Without it, the critical mind, which is the real engine of historical change and the best protector of liberty, would suffer an irreparable loss. This is because all good literature is radical, and poses radical questions about the world in which we live. In all great literary texts, often without their authors intending it, a seditious inclination is present. Literature says nothing to those human beings who are satisfied with their lot, who are content with life as they now live it. Literature is the food of the rebellious spirit, the promulgator of non-conformities, the refuge for those who have too much or too little in life. One seeks sanctuary in literature so as not to be unhappy and so as not to be incomplete. To ride alongside the scrawny Rocinante and the confused Knight on the fields of La Mancha, to sail the seas on the back of a whale with Captain Ahab, to drink arsenic with Emma Bovary, to become an insect with Gregor Samsa: these are all ways that we have invented to divest ourselves of the wrongs and the impositions of this unjust life, a life that forces us always to be the same person when we wish to be many different people, so as to satisfy the many desires that possess us. Literature pacifies this vital dissatisfaction only momentarilybut in this miraculous instant, in this provisional suspension of life, literary illusion lifts and transports us outside of history, and we become citizens of a timeless land, and in this way immortal. We become more intense, richer, more complicated, happier, and more lucid than we are in the constrained routine of ordinary life. When we close the book and abandon literary fiction, we return to actual existence and compare it to the splendid land that we have just left. What a disappointment awaits us! Yet a tremendous realization also awaits us, namely, that the fantasized life of the novel is bettermore beautiful and more diverse, more comprehensible and more perfectthan the life that we live while awake, a life conditioned by the limits and the tedium of our condition. In this way, good literature, genuine literature, is always subversive, unsubmissive, rebellious: a challenge to what exists. How could we not feel cheated after reading War and Peace or Remembrance of Things Past and returning to our world of insignificant details, of boundaries and prohibitions that lie in wait everywhere and, with each step, corrupt our illusions? Even more than the need to sustain the continuity of culture and to enrich language, the greatest contribution of literature to human progress is perhaps to remind us (without intending to, in the majority of cases) that the world is badly made; and that those who pretend to the contrary, the powerful and the lucky, are lying; and that the world can be improved, and made more like the worlds that our imagination and our language are able to create. A free and democratic society must have responsible and critical citizens conscious of the need continuously to examine the world that we inhabit and to try, even though it is more and more an impossible task, to make it more closely resemble the world that we would like to inhabit. And there is no better means of fomenting dissatisfaction with existence than the reading of good literature; no better means of forming critical and independent citizens who will not be manipulated by those who govern them, and who are endowed with a permanent spiritual mobility and a vibrant imagination. Still, to call literature seditious because it sensitizes a readers consciousness to the imperfections of the world does not meanas churches and governments seem to think it means when they establish censorshipthat literary texts will provoke immediate social upheavals or accelerate revolutions. The social and political effects of a poem, a play, or a novel cannot be foreseen, because they are not collectively made or collectively experienced. They are created by individuals and they are read by individuals, who vary enormously in the conclusions that they draw from their writing and their reading. For this reason, it is difficult, or even impossible, to establish precise patterns. Moreover, the social consequences of a work of literature may have little to do with its aesthetic quality. A mediocre novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe seems to have played a decisive role in raising social and political consciousness of the horrors of slavery in the United States. The fact that these effects of literature are difficult to identify does not imply that they do not exist. The important point is that they are effects brought about by the actions of citizens whose personalities have been formed in part by books. Good literature, while temporarily relieving human dissatisfaction, actually increases it, by developing a critical and non-conformist attitude toward life. It might even be said that literature makes human beings more likely to be unhappy. To live dissatisfied, and at war with existence, is to seek things that may not be there, to condemn oneself to fight futile battles, like the battles that Colonel Aureliano Buenda fought in One Hundred Years of Solitude, knowing full well that he would lose them all. All this may be true. Yet it is also true that without rebellion against the mediocrity and the squalor of life, we would still live in a primitive state, and history would have stopped. The autonomous individual would not have been created, science and technology would not have progressed, human rights would not have been recognized, freedom would not have existed. All these things are born of unhappiness, of acts of defiance against a life perceived as insufficient or intolerable. For this spirit that scorns life as it isand searches with the madness of Don Quixote, whose insanity derived from the reading of chivalric novelsliterature has served as a great spur. |[pi| |c] | et us attempt a fantastic historical reconstruction. Let us imagine a world without literature, a humanity that has not read poems or novels. In this kind of atrophied civilization, with its puny lexicon in which groans and ape-like gesticulations would prevail over words, certain adjectives would not exist. Those adjectives include: quixotic, Kafkaesque, Rabelaisian, Orwellian, sadistic, and masochistic, all terms of literary origin. To be sure, we would still have insane people, and victims of paranoia and persecution complexes, and people with uncommon appetites and outrageous excesses, and bipeds who enjoy inflicting or receiving pain. But we would not have learned to see, behind these extremes of behavior that are prohibited by the norms of our culture, essential characteristics of the human condition. We would not have discovered our own traits, as only the talents of Cervantes, Kafka, Rabelais, Orwell, de Sade, and Sacher-Masoch have revealed them to us. When the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha appeared, its first readers made fun of this extravagant dreamer, as well as the rest of the characters in the novel. Today we know that the insistence of the caballero de la triste figura on seeing giants where there were windmills, and on acting in his seemingly absurd way, is really the highest form of generosity, and a means of protest against the misery of this world in the hope of changing it. Our very notions of the ideal, and of idealism, so redolent with a positive moral connotation, would not be what they are, would not be clear and respected values, had they not been incarnated in the protagonist of a novel through the persuasive force of Cervantess genius. The same can be said of that small and pragmatic female Quixote, Emma Bovary, who fought with ardor to live the splendid life of passion and luxury that she came to know through novels. Like a butterfly, she came too close to the flame and was burned in the fire. |[pic| |] | he inventions of all great literary creators open our eyes to unknown aspects of our own condition. They enable us to explore and to understand more fully the common human abyss. When we say Borgesian, the word immediately conjures up the separation of our minds from the rational order of reality and the entry into a fantastic universe, a rigorous and elegant mental construction, almost always labyrinthine and arcane, and riddled with literary references and allusions, whose singularities are not foreign to us because in them we recognize hidden desires and intimate truths of our own personality that took shape only thanks to the literary creation of Jorge Luis Borges. The word Kafkaesque comes to mind, like the focus mechanism of those old cameras with their accordion arms, every time we feel threatened, as defenseless individuals, by the oppressive machines of power that have caused so much pain and injustice in the modern worldthe authoritarian regimes, the vertical parties, the intolerant churches, the asphyxiating bureaucrats. Without the short stories and the novels of that tormented Jew from Prague who wrote in German and lived always on the lookout, we would not have been able to understand the impotent feeling of the isolated individual, or the terror of persecuted and discriminated minorities, confronted with the all-embracing powers that can smash them and eliminate them without the henchmen even showing their faces. The adjective Orwellian, first cousin of Kafkaesque, gives a voice to the terrible anguish, the sensation of extreme absurdity, that was generated by totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, the most sophisticated, cruel, and absolute dictatorships in history, in their control of the actions and the psyches of the members of a society. In 1984, George Orwell described in cold and haunting shades a humanity subjugated to Big Brother, an absolute lord who, through an efficient combination of terror and technology, eliminated liberty, spontaneity, and equality, and transformed society into a beehive of automatons. In this nightmarish world, language also obeys power, and has been transformed into newspeak, purified of all invention and all subjectivity, metamorphosed into a string of platitudes that ensure the individuals slavery to the system. It is true that the sinister prophecy of 1984 did not come to pass, and totalitarian communism in the Soviet Union went the way of totalitarian fascism in Germany and elsewhere; and soon thereafter it began to deteriorate also in China, and in anachronistic Cuba and North Korea. But the danger is never completely dispelled, and the word Orwellian continues to describe the danger, and to help us to understand it. |[pic| |] | o literatures unrealities, literatures lies, are also a precious vehicle for the knowledge of the most hidden of human realities. The truths that it reveals are not always flattering; and sometimes the image of ourselves that emerges in the mirror of novels and poems is the image of a monster. This happens when we read about the horrendous sexual butchery fantasized by de Sade, or the dark lacerations and brutal sacrifices that fill the cursed books of Sacher-Masoch and Bataille. At times the spectacle is so offensive and ferocious that it becomes irresistible. Yet the worst in these pages is not the blood, the humiliation, the abject love of torture; the worst is the discovery that this violence and this excess are not foreign to us, that they are a profound part of humanity. These monsters eager for transgression are hidden in the most intimate recesses of our being; and from the shadow where they live they seek a propitious occasion to manifest themselves, to impose the rule of unbridled desire that destroys rationality, community, and even existence. And it was not science that first ventured into these tenebrous places in the human mind, and discovered the destructive and the self-destructive potential that also shapes it. It was literature that made this discovery. A world without literature would be partly blind to these terrible depths, which we urgently need to see. Uncivilized, barbarian, devoid of sensitivity and crude of speech, ignorant and instinctual, inept at passion and crude at love, this world without literature, this nightmare that I am delineating, would have as its principal traits conformism and the universal submission of humankind to power. In this sense, it would also be a purely animalistic world. Basic instincts would determine the daily practices of a life characterized by the struggle for survival, and the fear of the unknown, and the satisfaction of physical necessities. There would be no place for the spirit. In this world, moreover, the crushing monotony of living would be accompanied by the sinister shadow of pessimism, the feeling that human life is what it had to be and that it will always be thus, and that no one and nothing can change it. When one imagines such a world, one is tempted to picture primitives in loincloths, the small magic-religious communities that live at the margins of modernity in Latin America, Oceania, and Africa. But I have a different failure in mind. The nightmare that I am warning about is the result not of under-development but of over-development. As a consequence of technology and our subservience to it, we may imagine a future society full of computer screens and speakers, and without books, or a society in which booksthat is, works of literaturehave become what alchemy became in the era of physics: an archaic curiosity, practiced in the catacombs of the media civilization by a neurotic minority. I am afraid that this cybernetic world, in spite of its prosperity and its power, its high standard of living and its scientific achievement would be profoundly uncivilized and utterly soullessa resigned humanity of post-literary automatons who have abdicated freedom. It is highly improbable, of course, that this macabre utopia will ever come about. The end of our story, the end of history, has not yet been written, and it is not pre-determined. What we will become depends entirely on our vision and our will. But if we wish to avoid the impoverishment of our imagination, and the disappearance of the precious dissatisfaction that refines our sensibility and teaches us to speak with eloquence and rigor, and the weakening of our freedom, then we must act. More precisely, we must read. MARIO VARGAS LLOSAs new book, The Feast of the Goat, will be published by Farrar, Straus Giroux in November. He is professor of Ibero-American Literature and Culture at Georgetown University.

Sylvia Plaths Poetry Essay -- Sylvia Plath Poem Essays

Sylvia Plath's Poetry Wrapped in gaseous mystique, Sylvia Plath’s poetry has haunted enthusiastic readers since immediately after her death in February, 1963. Like her eyes, her words are sharp, apt tools which brand her message on the brains and hearts of her readers. With each reading, she initiates them forever into the shrouded, vestal clan of her own mind. How is the reader to interpret those singeing, singing words? Her work may be read as a lone monument, with no ties to the world she left behind. But in doing so, the reader merely grazes the surface of her rich poetics. Her poetry is largely autobiographical, particularly Ariel and The Bell Jar, and it is from this frame of mind that the reader interprets the work as a complex, crushing, confessional web that most truly describes the mythic Sylvia Plath. Her two most significant volumes of poetry, The Colossus and Ariel, flesh out her poetic lexicon: wading through the deep, patterned labyrinth of her poetry with her life as a guide. Title piece to her first collection of poems, â€Å"The Colossus† is a daughter’s attempt to reconstruct her dead father in the fallen statue at Rhodes: â€Å"†¦his death nine days after her eighth birthday left an imprint upon her imagination that time did not erase or soften† (Butscher 3). Because Plath never really knew her father as a healthy man (Stevenson 12), she likens him to this decrepit stone which, as an archaeologist, she must piece together â€Å"with gluepots and pails / of lysol† (Plath C. 20). In reality, she must function as an emotional archaeologist in order to reconcile her loss, to revenge herself on her father for leaving her. She attempts, continually, to prove herself to him; as a child she continually showcased her artis... ...Colossus. 1998. New York: Vintage International; New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc., 1962. Rosenblatt, Jon. Sylvia Plath: The Poetry of Initiation. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979. Stevenson, Anne. Bitter Fame. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1989. Van Dyne, Susan R. Revising Life: Sylvia Plath’s Ariel Poems. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. â€Å"Fueling the Phoenix Fire: The Manuscripts of Sylvia Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus’† . Sylvia Plath. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. 133-147. Works Consulted Broe, Mary Lynn. Protean Poetic: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath. Colombia: University of Missouri Press, 1980. Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. New York: Anchor Books, 1998. Strangeways, Al. Sylvia Plath: The Shaping of Shadows. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1998.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Srinivasa Ramanujan Ramanujan was born in India to a poor family in Erode, a city in Madras state. His father was a clerk and his mother a deeply religious housewife. None of these facts reflect who Ramanujan really was. He was a brilliant, self-taught mathematician whose ideas caught the attention of some of the prolific mathematicians of his time to include G. H. Hardy. In this short biography we will cover both his life and his contributions to mathematics. As stated earlier, he was born in south India to a poor family but they were still respectable in the community.This gave Ramanujan the opportunity to attend school and begin learning elementary Mathematics. He was quickly realized as a truly brilliant student with most of his talent directed towards mathematics. Interestingly, his family would sometimes take in student boarders and one of them gave him a trigonometry text when he was twelve and he mastered it within a year. In 1903 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Go vernment College at Kumbakonam. He spent all of his time studying mathematics and ended up failing his other subjects and lost his scholarship and dropped out.He married Janaki in 1909 and acquired a job as a clerk. While the position did not pay much it allowed him much time to concentrate on his research. Ramanujan went to Cambridge in 1914, despite the great strides he made in his work in corroboration Hardy and Littlewood it took a great toll on his body. Ramanujan, being devout to his religion did not eat meat and the lack of quality vegetarian food in England and his long working hours were hard on his body. In 1917, Ramanujan was hospitalized with what was thought to be tuberculosis.While continually working from his hospital bed, he did not show enough improvement to make the trip back to India until 1919. Even with the best medical care available in India, Ramanujan died on April 29, 1920 at the age of 32. Ramanujan’s genius in mathematics is still represented today. His impact on Number Theories, Modular Forms, Statistical Mechanics, and other branches of mathematics have made great contributions not only in math but also in physics and computer science. Ramanujan’s style and methods of mathematics developed from his earlier studies in trigonometry and Carr’s volume of theorems.In his own works, Ramanujan looked for such formulas or identities that he saw in Carr’s works. In his earlier work, when he found a formula or answer he felt to be true by his own mathematical intuition and therefore he provided few proofs for his results. In his works with Hardy, they made great progress in the theory of partitions. â€Å"The partition function p(n); is the function of a positive integer n which is a representation of n as a sum of strictly positive integers. Thus p(1)= 1, p(2)= 2, p(3)= 3, p(4)= 5 ,p(5)= 7, p(6)= 11. (Denbath 628) In some of his last work before his death, Ramanujan discovered what is now known as the Mock Theta Functions. Mock functions are q series with exponential singularities such that the arguments terminate for some power. Srinivasa Ramanujan was a man dedicated to mathematics and had a true love for it. He was also a man entrenched in his religion and a deep commitment to his family. He consistently wanted to improve the education in his community and showed much interest in the poor and orphans who needed help getting an education.With all of the accomplishments and accolades that are attached to his name the truth of who Ramanujan was as a mathematician and a person makes him truly a one of a kind person in history. Works Cited Watkins, Thayer. â€Å"Srinivasa Ramanujan, a Mathematician Beyond Compare. † San Jose University, n. d. Web. 19 November 2012. Debnath, Lokenath. â€Å"Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) and the Theory of Partitiions of Numbers and Statistical Mechanics a Centennial Tribute. † J. Math. & Math & Sci. Vol. 10 No. 4 (1987): 625-640. Web. 19 Novemb er 2012.

An Analysis of Othello by William Shakespeare Essay

In the play â€Å"Othello† by William Shakespeare Iago plays the master manipulator and manages to deceive many of the other characters especially Othello and Cassio. It can be said that his motives are based solely on his insecurities due to the fact his goal in the play was to ruin Othello’s life. He does this by using psychological manipulation on Othello’s thoughts and makes him believe that Cassio and Desdemona are fond of each other. Which basically means that he targets anyone that brings out his insecurities, which gives him a reason to lash out and  kill or harm these people, to make himself feel better. In the beginning of the play Iago makes it seem as if his hatred towards Othello is because he has made Cassio his lieutenant. As the play goes on you later realize that Iago’s hatred extends even more. â€Å"I hate the Moor, and it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets, he has done my office: I know not if’t be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety. †. There seems to be some rumors about Othello and Iago’s wife Emilia, the rumors are that Othello and Emilia have slept together. In the quote above he states that he doesn’t care if the rumors are true and that he is going to proceed with his plan as if they are true. Throughout the play Iago constantly reminds himself of why he’s targeting Othello. â€Å"I do suspect the lusty Moor, Hath leap’d into my seat: the thought whereof, Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards; And nothing can or shall content my soul, till I am even’d with him, wife for wife. † His hatred towards Cassio is more directed. Iago hates Cassio because he has gotten the position of  lieutenant even with his lack of experience in the field as he is a more tactical creating strategies person. â€Å"More than a spinster, unless the bookish theoric†. Iago basically states that Cassio’s lack of manliness add to his hatred towards him. Each person in the play get manipulated in a way that only suits them. For example Roderigo is â€Å"blinded by his love for Desdemona, and is prepared to do anything to win her heat† this give Iago the advantage to take his weakness and use it against him. As innocent as Iago’s words seem Othello lets Iago’s manipulative words counteract with his thinking and this is where  you could say he has officially planted the seed making sure he has Othello’s ear. As Othello asks for proof Iago is once again able to manipulate Othello by making him hide and hear a conversation Iago has with Cassio. â€Å"Now will I question Cassio of Bianca, A housewife that by selling her desires, Buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature, that dotes on Cassio, as ’tis the strumpet’s plague, To beguile many and be beguiled by one. He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain, From the excess of laughter. Here he comes. † Iago says this once Othello withdraws and  once Cassio corners him starts discussing Bianca but allows Othello to believe they are discussing Desdemona. He whispers so Othello would not hear him and by doing that he agitates Othello and that causes him to be delusional. As mentioned before Cassio is also manipulated by Iago. The first way in which Cassio is deceived is when he get pressured into drinking and then starting a fight which consequently ruins Cassio’s reputation. † If I can fasten but one cup upon him, with that which he hath drunk tonight already, He’ll be as full of quarrel and offense, as my  young mistress’ dog. Now my sick fool Roderigo, Whom love hath turned almost the wrong side 1 out, To Desdemona hath tonight caroused, Potations pottle-deep, and he’s to watch. Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits, That hold their honors in a wary distance, The very elements of this warlike isle, Have I tonight flustered with flowing cups, And they watch too. Now ’mongst this flock of drunkards, Am I to put our Cassio in some action, That may offend the isle. † This is Iago’s soliloquy where he actually reveals his manipulative side. At first, Iago told Cassio he  should drink on behalf of Othello although he knew that he did not want to and was not capable of it. Iago has manipulated Cassio to do something unethical. Othello and Cassio both get exploited by Iago because they both find honest, good friend and have a hard time judging character. Iago acts like he truly cares about Othello by giving him warning signs about Cassio. Iago also fools Cassio into thinking he cares whether he has a good time or not. Another way Iago manipulates Cassio is when he plants the handkerchief in Cassio’s chambers. â€Å"I know not  neither, I found it in my chamber. I like the work well. Ere it be demanded, As like enough it will, I would have it copied. Take it and do ’t, and leave me for this time. †. Cassio says this when he gives it to Bianca. Cassio has no idea as to how the handkerchief got into his room. Iago left it there to set him up and make it seem as if he is having an affair with Desdemona. Iago exploits Cassio’s limited knowledge since Cassio did not know that the handkerchief belong to Desdemona. In both scenarios Iago manipulates Othello and Iago by sugar coating the truth from  them. Iago does feel better after manipulating the characters in the story this is shown throughout the story as Iago manipulates and controls every other character so well that they seem like puppets that he controls. At the end of the play, Iago’s manipulation has left a trail of destruction that has killed Othello and Cassio, as well others and has destroyed the lives of many who remain. The motivations and ideas Iago has are very deceptive and cunning, and his ability to influence is very amazing. Iago’s actions define of a man who will stop at nothing until he  exacts revenge on everyone who he feels has threaten him in one way or another. Shakespeare has presented Iago as a kind and noble soldier he has also been known as honest Iago, this showing that everyone is not as what they seem on the outside. Already knowing that Iago has a hatred for his superior Othello and now Cassio â€Å"Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate,† Said Roderigo. â€Å"Despise me if I do not,† Iago replies. This during the opening scenes in the play. Iago fools Othello by providing â€Å"ocular† proof but didn’t allow him to listen or understand properly. As for Cassio, he used his friendship to plant the handkerchief. Both Othello and Cassio are naive have a hard time judging character, are too proud to believe that someone is fooling them and their limited knowledge as to what was going on around them allows Iago to Successfully in the end manipulate the mind of Othello and sent him insane and 2 left Cassio in a situation that he didn’t belong in. Othello and Cassio were both victims of Iago’s manipulation due to the fact that they had something Iago did not. 3 Bibliography William, S. (01. 22. 14). Othello. Great Britain. Oxford University. JONATHAN, L. (28. 01. 2010). HOW DOES IAGO MANIPULATE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE HIS AIMS? OTHELLO. RETRIEVED (02. 27. 2014), FROM HTTP://WWW. MARKEDBYTEACHERS. COM/AS-AND-A-LEVEL/ENGLISH/HOW-DOES-IAGO-MA NIPULATE-DIFFERENT-CHARACTERS-IN-ORDER-TO-ACHIEVE-HIS-AIMS. HTML The Theme of Deception in William Shakespeare’s Othello. Retrieved (02. 27. 2014), from https://sites. google. com/site/thethemeofdeception/home Joshua, A. (2013). Protestant epistemology and Othello’s consciousness. Retrieved (03. 01. 14), from Gale Academic One File.

Essay on Options and Firm Offers

Essay on Options and Firm Offers Essay on Options and Firm Offers Essay on Options and Firm Offers  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The option C is the enforceable contract that Sally and Louie may have upon signing the paper. This contract is enforceable since it contains the promise of Sally to reserve her Monday mow for Louie until 5 p.m. and Louie promises to handle her $5Issue  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The issue is the establishment of the contract between Sally and Louie, where Sally promises to reserve her Monday mow for Louie until 5 pm, when Louie is supposed to take the final decision and enforce the contract by handling Sally $5 and agreeing to the contract’s conditions.Rule  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The rule is the restatement, para. 87 option contract, according to which an offer is binding as option contract if it is written and signed by the offeror and is made irrevocable by the statute.Rule explanation  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The rule means that the parties h ave signed the contract and the binding of the contract makes it irrevocable that means that if either party refuses from the contract by violating its provisions becomes responsible for the breach of contract.Application  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In case of Sally and Louie the application of the rule means that Louie should either agree and accept Sally offer by 5 pm and handle her $5 or, alternatively, he should refuse from the contract and did not accept the offer made by Sally. Sally in her turn should wait until 5 pm and set herself free to choose any other client to contract her Monday mow. She may act in the same way, if Louie refuses to pay her $5, if he accepts her offer.Conclusion  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, Sally and Louie have a binding contract, which is enforceable by 5 pm upon options determined in the written form of the contract.

The Life and Death of a Star

The Life and Death of a Star Stars last a long time, but eventually they will die. The energy that makes up stars, some of the largest objects we ever study, comes from the interaction of individual atoms. So, to understand the largest and most powerful objects in the universe, we must understand the most basic. Then, as the stars life ends, those basic principles once again come into play to describe what will happen to the star next. Astronomers study various aspects of stars to determine how old they are as well as their other characteristics. That helps them also understand the life and death processes they experience. The Birth of a Star The stars took a long time to form, as gas drifting in the universe was drawn together by the force of gravity. This gas is mostly hydrogen, because its the most basic and abundant element in the universe, although some of the gas might consist of some other elements. Enough of this gas begins gathering together under gravity and each atom is pulling on all of the other atoms. This gravitational pull is enough to force the atoms to collide with each other, which in turn generates heat. In fact, as the atoms are colliding with each other, theyre vibrating and moving more quickly (that is, after all, what heat energy really is: atomic motion). Eventually, they get so hot, and the individual atoms have so much kinetic energy, that when they collide with another atom (which also has a lot of kinetic energy) they dont just bounce off each other. With enough energy, the two atoms collide and the nucleus of these atoms fuse together. Remember, this is mostly hydrogen, which means that each atom contains a nucleus with only one proton. When these nuclei fuse together (a process known, appropriately enough, as nuclear fusion) the resulting nucleus has two protons, which means that the new atom created is helium. Stars may also fuse heavier atoms, such as helium, together to make even larger atomic nuclei. (This process, called nucleosynthesis, is believed to be how many of the elements in our universe were formed.) The Burning of a Star So the atoms (often the element hydrogen) inside the star collide together, going through a process of nuclear fusion, which generates heat, electromagnetic radiation (including visible light), and energy in other forms, such as high-energy particles. This period of atomic burning is what most of us think of as the life of a star, and its in this phase that we see most stars up in the heavens. This heat generates a pressure - much like heating air inside a balloon creates pressure on the surface of the balloon (rough analogy) - which pushes the atoms apart. But remember that gravitys trying to pull them together. Eventually, the star reaches an equilibrium where the attraction of gravity and the repulsive pressure are balanced out, and during this period the star burns in a relatively stable way. Until it runs out of fuel, that is. The Cooling of a Star As the hydrogen fuel in a star gets converted to helium, and to some heavier elements, it takes more and more heat to cause the nuclear fusion. The mass of a star plays a role in how long it takes to burn through the fuel. More massive stars use their fuel faster because it takes more energy to counteract the larger gravitational force. (Or, put another way, the larger gravitational force causes the atoms to collide together more rapidly.) While our sun will probably last for about 5 thousand million years, more massive stars may last as little as 1 hundred million years before using up their fuel. As the stars fuel begins to run out, the star begins to generate less heat. Without the heat to counteract the gravitational pull, the star begins to contract. All is not lost, however! Remember that these atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which are fermions. One of the rules governing fermions is called the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which states that no two fermions can occupy the same state, which is a fancy way of saying that there cant be more than one identical one in the same place doing the same thing. (Bosons, on the other hand, dont run into this problem, which is part of the reason photon-based lasers work.) The result of this is that the Pauli Exclusion Principle creates yet another slight repulsive force between electrons, which can help counteract the collapse of a star, turning it into a white dwarf. This was discovered by the Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1928. Another type of star, the neutron star, come into being when a star collapses and the neutron-to-neutron repulsion counteracts the gravitational collapse. However, not all stars become white dwarf stars or even neutron stars. Chandrasekhar realized that some stars would have very different fates. The Death of a Star Chandrasekhar determined any star more massive than about 1.4 times our sun (a mass called the Chandrasekhar limit) wouldnt be able to support itself against its own gravity and would collapse into a white dwarf. Stars ranging up to about 3 times our sun would become neutron stars. Beyond that, though, theres just too much mass for the star to counteract the gravitational pull through the exclusion principle. Its possible that when the star is dying it might go through a supernova, expelling enough mass out into the universe that it drops below these limits and becomes one of these types of stars ... but if not, then what happens? Well, in that case, the mass continues to collapse under gravitational forces until a black hole is formed. And that  is what you call the death of a star.

Expletives and Agents

Expletives and Agents Expletives and Agents Expletives and Agents By Mark Nichol Readers are more likely to engage with writing when it is active, direct, and vivid. To that end, avoid expletives and passive construction and emphasize agents, as described in the discussion and demonstrated in the revision following each example. 1. There are several ways to achieve the desired balance. This sentence begins with an expletive, a filler word such as there (or it) followed by a verb that- for better or worse- enables a writer to get started on a sentence without really saying anything other than supporting the notion that something exists. â€Å"The desired balance can be achieved in several ways† is an improvement because it states the proposition more directly and immediately introduces â€Å"desired balance,† the central concept. However, it is still passive, with no reference to who or what can accomplish the action. Better yet, introduce the agent: â€Å"We can achieve this desired balance in several ways.† 2. There should be increasing rigor applied.   A better rendering of this idea is â€Å"Increasing rigor should be applied,† but although the expletive has been eliminated, the sentence is still passive. One solution is to strip the wording down to an imperative, as in â€Å"Apply increasing rigor,† but this sentence, devoid of context, is likely too severe. Better yet, apply context- who should apply rigor? If the text pertains to management, say so: â€Å"Management should apply increasing rigor.† Simplifying the adjective and inserting an adverb renders the sentence less concise but perhaps more accurate: â€Å"Management should continuously apply more rigor.† 3. Over the last few years, there has been an increasing concern over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place. The modifying phrase that begins this sentence is appropriate, but the presence of that phrase and an expletive delays any substantive wording until about one-third of the way into this thirty-plus-word sentence. Placing a concept immediately after the introductory phrase improves the flow of the sentence: â€Å"Over the last few years, concern has increased over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place.† (Or â€Å"Over the last few years, concern over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place has increased.† Even better, begin with protection, rather than concern about protection, as the central concept: â€Å"Over the last few years, protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place has increasingly concerned government officials.† However, again, to make the sentence more direct, consider opening the main clause with a word or phrase describing the concerned entity: â€Å"Over the last few years, government officials have become increasingly concerned about protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:5 Uses of Infinitives41 Words That Are Better Than Good6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know

International Justice And The International Criminal Court Between Essay

International Justice And The International Criminal Court Between Sovereignty And The Rule Of Law - Essay Example He has addressed in International Law at Columbia University, in addition to at King's College London, since then he holds a Ph.D. He discovers resolutions to most important exceptional troubles of international law (universal jurisdiction, bureaucrat immunities, the association of the ICC to national courts, the function of the United States). This book assess the quick current expansion of international illegal law, and discovers explanations to chief harms of bureaucrat invulnerability, worldwide jurisdiction, the International Criminal Court, and the attitude of the United States, looking for to elucidate how impartiality can be done most excellent n a classification of sovereign States. At the same time as neither the ending of the Cold War nor the 'refusal of sovereignty' in themselves make dependable justice more probable, the ICC might give confidence a civilization of answerability that will hold up additional customary enforcement of international criminal law in the long-standing. This book critically defines the consequences of the Cold War, governments and human rights groups pressed for the formation of international legal systems to grasp persons accountable for war crimes, crimes against humankind, and genocide. The Yugoslav and Rwandan courts set significant models, and the 1998 acceptance of the Rome decree of the International Criminal Court offered latest institutional machines. In this helpful review of the emergent field of global criminal law, Broomhall positions these progressions in a wider situation. What is distinguishing about Nuremberg-enthused international criminal law is that it chairs liability on persons relatively than states and relies on such worldwide customs as "international harmony and defense" and "the communal ethics of mankind." These customs of justice, nevertheless, have heightened much more rapidly than have enforcement systems, which stay decisively in the hands of independent states, and in that laid the massage. Broomhal l however disagrees that globalization and the expansion of international civil culture have shaped a novel "legitimation atmosphere," in which governments are beneath greater than before stress to validate their results and tolerate by global customs of liability. This book by Broomhall clearly states pressures between liability and the law of the international globe and the continuing authority of state dominion. The worries inside and boundaries of a range of advancements to

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN BUSINESS Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 12

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN BUSINESS - Assignment Example By allowing trade with other countries consumers locally can get a wider variety of products or services to choose from. Such healthy competition is a double win for the consumer as it also can lead to reduction in prices as corporations fight out for market-share. A wise man once said that no man is an island. This wise man could well have been talking about countries. The world has grown to a point where it is a global village and nations quite literally depend on each other. Take airbus industry for example which has airplane parts manufactured in factories all across Europe and then brought to France for final assembly. This is only possible because of the conducive trade environment provided by the European Union. The middle east provides the world with most fuel, Europe and America build machinery while Africa and south America provide food. Without free trade, the world would, quite literally, stagnate. Two thumbs up to the World Trade Organization for its gallant efforts in ensuring all barriers to trade are effectively removed. I cannot agree more with my classmate on this matter. As I have pointed out in my arguments, free trade bears more good than harm for our world. On your part, you have pointed out one more benefit that international trade has for the world : assisting developing countries. Free trade allows poor nations access to resources they cannot manufacture on their own and also is a source of income for them through foreign

How does globalisation impact on the management of Chinese firms Essay

How does globalisation impact on the management of Chinese firms - Essay Example The role of globalization in the competitive economic scenario and the environment cannot be underestimated. The firms have to advance themselves with the ever rising challenges in the market and accordingly build up their strategies. It is here the role of globalization plays the prime effect. The foreign policies practiced by China as well as the economic situation across the globe are all factors for a firm to sustain in the market. The focus of the paper will lay upon the needful to be done by the management to be in line with the impacts of globalization. In fact this is the reason behind inclusion of both and negative aspects of globalization. Introduction Globalization and its impact on the management of firms have attracted an effective attention of the international business’ scholars in the past decades. Small family run private owned business organizations have been at the middle of various international discussions on the how the globalization impacts the managemen t of the organizations. Liberalisation of markets, services, standardization and integration of economies are considered as the hallmark of the globalization. Opening of economy and increased interdependence on global market has contributed effectively to the economies of both developing and developed countries. China is considered as one of the emerging economies around the globe. The small family run private owned hospitality firms are achieving significant growth rate due to China’s open economy policy and globalization. On the other hand, it is quite challenging for an organization within this sector to manage the workforce and business performance inside or outside of the country. Recently china achieved potential economic growth rate due to globalization, open door policy and economic reformation. It is true that the business environment in China is becoming highly potential as well as competitive. Several organizations within the small family run private owned hospital ity organizations are adopting different strategies in global market place in order to develop potential client base and gain significant competitive advantages. Despite the financial advantages, the management of these Chinese firms faces several issues in foreign market places due to globalization. Several Chinese small family run private owned hospitality firms are trying to aiming on global expansion strategy. However, globalization has several advantages and disadvantages on the management of these firms that will be discussed in the discussion part. This essay will determine the impact of globalization on the management of small family run private owned hospitality firms outside China. Discussion It s true that globalization and open door policy of China is motivating several small family run private owned hospitality firms to adopt and implement global expansion strategy. These organizations are considered as one of the important contributor of the economic growth of China. C hina is highly focusing on the growth of these business firms due to high potentiality and strong market demand. Therefore, the government of China is supporting these organizations to adopt and implement global expansion strategy. There are several negative and positive consequences of globalization on the management of these firms that are discusses below. Positive Impacts of Globalization Several leading organizations are trying to capitalize on the opportunities that are developed due to

Reality television show is presumbly bad for American society Essay

Reality television show is presumbly bad for American society - Essay Example Reality television can be defined as unscripted form of drama or actual events that do not follow any form of sequence involving ordinary people, instead of actors who are professionally trained (Boyd and Emily 2). The origin of reality television is not very vivid in that several undocumented films or television programs have been done in the past some dating back as early as 1950’s (Dimare and Philips 914). However, in 1999 to 2000 reality television become one of the fastest growing television programming in the entertainment scene. In as much as reality television has some positive significance in the lives of several Americans, it is also possible that the same show has numerous effects that are extremely dire to the lives of the entire American population. Scholars and television producers have constantly argued in favor of reality television, terming it as the best for regular television programming. This is because people want to see other ordinary people just acting normal without having to read from a script. Moreover, they can easily relate to such television programming, since it involves ordinary people placed in an exotic place. During the stay, they carry on with their lives as normal, although their actions aired on national or international television channels (Kirszner and Mandell 215). For instance, one of the flourishing and helpful reality television programs that support this argument is â€Å"Extreme Make Over home edition.† This is because they enable real families to own homes, built by an extremely talented crew. Such reality television serves two purposes; it entertains the viewer and utterly transforms the lives of American families who do not have decent living conditions. It has also encouraged viewers to express their opinions and, in some cases, vote for their favorite contestant. As a result, the viewers get involved in the show, and they feel that they have the ability to

CMM-Media and Society - Discuss Pozner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

CMM-Media and Society - Discuss Pozner - Essay Example Since women are called the jealous gender, they are also given the title of being untrustworthy. And all this is simply a result of television shows making up our minds for us. We regularly watch such shows where women are shown trying to steal other women’s boyfriends and husbands; where they are competing with their own gender and planning against them; where they are trying to harm other women and getting a weird kind of satisfaction through it. And the reason behind television portraying such a view of women is that these kinds of shows are more popular among those who have nothing better to do than pass time. Besides, it serves as comedy and entertainment shows for the less intellectuals. Again, it is mainly about ratings and where there is a catfight there will be bound to be an audience for it. Such has become the mentality of our people and the television takes full advantage of

Descartes holds that we can literally see other people (as opposed to, Essay

Descartes holds that we can literally see other people (as opposed to, say, hats and feet from an upper-story window). Explain h - Essay Example However, in real sense, Descartes actually posits that humans can understand their minds more readily than they can possibly ever understand their corporeal nature, which is subject to doubt (Newman). The theorist bases his arguments on the example of wax in its various forms i.e. solid and liquid form; according to Descartes, the perception senses cannot recognize the semblance in the different forms. In other words, the human senses are inadequate in themselves to effectively describe whether or not the molten wax is similar to the solid wax. Failure by the senses to recognize that both forms of wax are indeed indistinguishable calls us to the overall unreliability of human senses; they cannot provide adequate cognition about the nature of the wax, thus the two different forms of wax are inevitably differentiated. In this regard, Descartes eventually theorizes that perception is a function of the mind alone (Card). In the second part of his argument, Descartes posits that senses pr ovide humans with a better and refined understanding of the nature of things, only that the senses in themselves are not sufficient to determine truth (Newman). Therefore, the senses are constrained by certain limitations thus implying that certain knowledge can only be achieved through judgment, understanding in human minds and thinking. However, it is noteworthy that Descartes, in his almost incredible wisdom, does not at any point rule out the contribution of senses in the process of understanding the nature of things. Rather, Descartes only seems to emphasize that sense perception in humans relies on the mind more than it does on the body. He is nothing else apart from a thinking thing/ a mind/ an intellect/ understanding or reason (â€Å"The Meditations†); this way, Descartes draws an obvious parallel between the mind and the soul. Descartes begins his investigations into perception by disbelieving/ deconstructing his prior knowledge on the nature of things (Newman); he questions even the truth of his own existence thus concluding with certainty that the only possible truth about it was, â€Å"I am, I exist†. However, this conclusion is still constrained with the fact that Descartes does not yet understand the nature of his being. This line of argument also leads him into drawing the second conclusion, equating intellect, reason, understanding, mind and soul with thinking. In this manner, Descartes has successively assigned himself a trait in an attempt to define his nature as a ‘thinking thing’ that can exist independently from the body (â€Å"The Meditations†). Thus, he still advances this further by stating that his thinking encompasses doubting, understanding, affirmation, refusal, imagination and sense. Having successively drawn a supposedly absurd parallelism between thinking and sensing, Descartes clarifies by stating that certain truth is established out of a combination of perceived sensations and thought process es. In other words, Descartes theorizes that that which is knowledge to the human mind, whose nature has been perceived by the senses is more embellished than that which is mysterious or imaginable (Card). In that case, it is easier for us to see people, as opposed to hats and feet, because our thoughts usually form images of human bodies which are then examined by our senses; other things like hats and feet do not

CMM-Media and Society - Discuss Pozner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

CMM-Media and Society - Discuss Pozner - Essay Example Since women are called the jealous gender, they are also given the title of being untrustworthy. And all this is simply a result of television shows making up our minds for us. We regularly watch such shows where women are shown trying to steal other women’s boyfriends and husbands; where they are competing with their own gender and planning against them; where they are trying to harm other women and getting a weird kind of satisfaction through it. And the reason behind television portraying such a view of women is that these kinds of shows are more popular among those who have nothing better to do than pass time. Besides, it serves as comedy and entertainment shows for the less intellectuals. Again, it is mainly about ratings and where there is a catfight there will be bound to be an audience for it. Such has become the mentality of our people and the television takes full advantage of

Emerging Themes in Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Emerging Themes in Marketing - Essay Example Independent research has been carried out on topics such as online shopping, its evolution and current scenario, a brief highlight on the online retail industry of UK and the current issues this industry is facing. The literature review also highlights the consumer behaviour and patterns during online shopping. Findings – Apart from an analysis of the benefits of innovation in online shopping, the paper also highlights the benefits and rising issues of online shopping sites. Originality/value –This paper also expands the literature on the various emerging issues in the field of online retailing and recommends strategies to improve the technological and overall innovations in online shopping, creating a better customer experience. Keywords - Online shopping, innovation, retail, sustainable growth, sales. Contents Contents 3 Introduction 4 Literature Review 5 Critical review 5 Online Shopping and Changing Retail Environment 6 Consumer Buying Behaviour and Drivers of Onlin e Shopping 7 Online Shopping In UK- Emerging Issues 9 Figure 2- Online Retailing As Percent Of UK Shopping. 10 Conclusion and Future Recommendations 11 Reference List 13 Introduction Innovation can be described as establishing ideas in order to create new solutions to meet the requirement of the business or organisation. There is a widespread belief that innovations leads to exploitation of ideas which in turn are responsible for a sustainable and profitable economic growth. However, the exact practices, measurements and course of directions for the innovative activities of an organisation depend largely on their situation. Innovation varies widely in services sector, compared to any other physical or tangible sector. Innovation in retail also requires more support from the government, compared to other sectors (Brown, 1990). But it should also be noted that innovation retailing sector has provided with largest number of value added services and employment opportunities within UK. R etailing can be considered as a cross-functional economic activity acting as a bridge between consumption and production. Online retailing is a sector where organisations bring together products and services relevant to the requirements of the customers (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010). Retailers from UK have become more active in terms of supply chain and innovation. Most of the big organisations in retail industry are managed by professionals and have widespread reach in the developed markets. Now these organisations are stepping into emerging markets to increase their market share. Most of the big retailers have earned a brand name for themselves with some of them having in-house brands which are levelled with branded manufacturers. While it is not possible for these brands to establish brick and mortar shop in every corner of the city or country of target, online retail shopping has given them eminent opportunities which have helped in the overall growth of the market share, p rofits and overall revenue generation for these online retailers. The present article will find useful insights on the present online retail industry; its nature and scope and forces which drive innovation in the online retail industry. Literature is gathered to find out the typology and behaviour of the online shoppers and the

The Role Of Alfieri in A View From A Bridge Essay Example for Free

The Role Of Alfieri in A View From A Bridge Essay This essay that I have written about is from the book A View from the Bridge. And I am going to discuss how Arthur Miller (the Author of this play) has achieved such dramatic impact by using Alfieri. In this play Alfieris role is very important. He tells us more about the characters like a narrator; he sets the scene and the environment. He is an engaged narrator, helping the audience in every way to understand the story. Arthur miller has used the characteristics in Alfieri to divide the play in different ways. The character helps us to understand the background information, which we might have missed. Alfieris role is to unfold the play to the audience. He makes the audience get involved and plays with their emotions and helps them understand the story. The audience, including me, believe Alfieri because he is a lawyer and knows the most. He creates tension and emotion for the audience and the characters. I think he has so much pressure from being told the background information about the characters. I think he is drowned in stress and needs to talk to someone. I think thats why he talks to the audience. Alfieri also gives the feeling that he is retelling the story, because he mostly speaks in the past tense. The community in this play respect Alfieri because he is a lawyer and helps the rest of the characters out. Alfieris role is like a chorus, always reminding its tragedy. He creates suspense in the audience and gets them hooked to the play. The author must have thought very hard about this. The author makes the play feel like its a cliffhanger and makes them addicted to the play and makes them want to watch more. When Rodolpho wins Catherine, Eddie feels left out and jealous. He feels betrayed by Catherine and that she has ran off and lives her own life. This could also be the reason for his fear of Catherine growing up, and that she is not a little baby anymore. Eddie thinks Rodolpho is gay because he has blond hair and does cooking and sewing. Eddie feels justice must be served. Eddie goes to Alfieri (the lawyer) and tells him about Rodolpho. Alfieri is an educated lawyer, this contrast with the characters like Eddie. Alfieris language is very high standards. His role is to be an expert adviser and represents the American law. He is Eddies advisor. Sometimes he uses imagery to describe something. He uses similes and metaphors. He is giving the audience a clearer view and to convey to the audience that this story will end tragically. He keeps the audience thinking and helps them concentrate towards the play. He also uses imagery to tell the audience about his characters. For example: He walked in the room, and his eyes were like tunnels. This is a simile, this could mean Eddie was thinking deeply and like he committed a crime or he had some passion or he was stressed, obsessed or he had a deep desire or he was not aware of whats going on. In most of Alfieris scenes he develops tension, action, he also helps us like a guide. He moves the scene on to the next one. In the first scene in Alfieris office is where the main message of the play comes to light. That is love, morality, law come to life. The way the Arthur Miller done this is very clever. At the start of each scene Alfieri introduces who is in the scene and the setting, plus he creates the time and atmosphere.

Impact of ICT Innovations at NG-CDF

Impact of ICT Innovations at NG-CDF The Board acquired internet from two ISPs (internet service providers), Safaricom and Accesskenya, providing availability of reliable redundant global connectivity. Connectivity therefore has allowed access to internal systems such as email, ERP (Enterprise resource planning) and website at ease. Learning through research on the internet has improved. The Local Area Network (LAN) and Wireless LAN has provided interconnectivity within the office. Resources can be shared among users and computers with minimum movement of staff. Wireless LAN on the other hand has also encouraged BYOD (bring your own device) culture in the organization and improve staff mobility. Recently the Board implemented MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) to regional offices providing access to internet and telephony services at a minimum cost. MPLS is a multipoint connectivity system that allows regions and HQ to communicate to each other like they are in one office. The regional offices can now be reached by a telephone extension. Connectivity through MPLS has also allowed the implementation of SIP telephone services whereby a pilot line is given which in turn allows for configuration of 999 parallel lines hence direct lines. The firewall protects the organization from internal and external threats. These threats come in form of spam messages, phishing sites and viruses. Threats penetrate networks using services or ports that may be or may not be used in the organization. The firewall therefore assists in filtering out those services that may allow threats into the network. In addition, internet bandwidth is a limited resource and therefore need to be controlled, services that consume a lot of bandwidth are then disabled so that users can have a fair usage of internet without affecting their duties. The firewall also allows for scheduling and QOS to prioritize certain services at a certain time. Kaspersky central Management allows the system administrator to monitor threats to the organization systems in form of computer viruses. The central management is an all in one portal where admins can perform certain tasks remotely from a server e.g. install, manage and license Kaspersky remotely, push updates remotely, manage devices, enable or disable e.g. USB To secure the server room CCTV is installed to monitor physical access and intrusion of unauthorized staff members thereby improving on data security and management. The CCTV system allows for live picture and playback options and to save/export a video for future reviews The Board has a registered domain name, cdf.go.ke and subsequently each staff member is assigned an email address. The email system, running on the latest version is accessible 24/7 anywhere anytime through a computer or supported mobile devices. Guidelines and manuals to access the mail portal have been developed by the department to help staff members adapt to the system easily. The Board has installed Spiceworks helpdesk system which is an open source helpdesk system that allows the department to have a bona fide support ticket-tracking system and generate reports of the same to gauge their performance. Users raise tickets by email, telephone call or through the Spiceworks portal, the ICT department then are able to view and prioritize them accordingly. Once the case is solved, the ticket is closed. The bulk SMS system is web based system which the Board uses to disseminate important information through short messages to staff members within the shortest time possible. Within the system, targeted groups and individual contacts have been preloaded to the system; these groups are All Staff, FAMs, directors, HQ Staff etc. The board has seen improvement in communicating matters relating to the board or staff on time without the need for lengthy and slow means of communication; this has improved the accuracy of the information passed and avoided speculations on sensitive Board matters. The system provides information to the Boards customers using USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication technology that is used to send text between a mobile phone and an application program in the network. Information available is allocations and disbursements for each constituency from FY 2013/2014 to date. The USSD is integrated to the bulk sms system so that results can be sent to the end user. The user queries by dialing *483*6# from their mobile phone, then select the constituency by a quick search, they will then choose whether they need allocations or disbursement information. Once confirmed, the results are then sent through SMS to the users phone via the bulk sms system implemented by the board. 100% of individual offices have been connected by a telephone extension, 70% of staff have an extension on their desks. The Board maintains a PBX which interconnects these extensions and the regional office extensions. Staff can communicate within offices on 10th floor, 5th floor and regional offices conveniently and for free. Trunk calls (external calls) can also be made and received by the board via providers like Orange Telkom and Safaricom. Orange provides the landlines while Safaricom provides a SIP line which emulates a mobile number with 1000 lines which can then be configured as direct lines. The SIP trunk therefore allows for multiple calls to be made without engaging or congesting the lines. A unique number is assigned, for the Board, this is 0709894, and the last 3 digits have then been assigned to a specific extension Number for example 0709894000 is configured on the extension at the reception as a pilot line, any other extension has also an incoming route creating a direct line scenario. Web portals are websites that maintain personalized information in a database in the background. Unlike any website, portals allow authorized users access to specific information meant for them specifically. They are even allowed to customize information they want to be displayed in their portal (space). The Boards web portal is integrated portal in that, the fund account managers can create their own websites within the portal by logging in to the system. The public can therefore access information on any constituency from one website www.ngcdf.go.ke by a click of a button. CDFMIS stores, organizes and makes access to project and financial information easy. It not only stores all the information relating to current and past years projects, but also stores the approved budgets for these years, details on inflows and outflows of funds. The CDFMIS Projects database is composed of four different functional aspects, each corresponding to a set of tasks the constituency must carry out as a part of its mission, these include project Information, bursaries Information, budget and Finance Information and Complaints Information. Data and Applications Software are stored in servers at the computer center located at CDF Headquarters in Nairobi. Operations data are entered at the various user locations at the Constituencies and Head office. Interconnectivity of the system is through Wide Area Network between the constituencies and the Servers; and through Local Area Network between the Servers and Head Office workstations. CDFMIS is operated the basis of on-line real-time; that is to say that updates occur immediately a transaction is completed; thus making information as current as the last transaction. Access to the system will be done via the internet/intranet through use of a web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.). Unique user-names and passwords are given by System Administrator. Microsoft Dynamics SL is a financial/accounting system used by the Boards Finance and Accounts Department. Microsoft Dynamics SL is one of Microsofts enterprise resource planning (ERP) software products for project-driven small- and medium-sized enterprises. It is part of the Microsoft Dynamics product family. The functionality includes finance, project accounting, manufacturing, field services, supply chain management, analytics, and electronic commerce. The major module used by the Board is the finance module.

Comparing Coming of Age in The Chocolate War and Boys Life :: comparison compare contrast essays

Coming of Age in The Chocolate War and Boy's Life Cory in Boy's Life and Jerry in The Chocolate War are examples of characters in a bildungsroman Many high school students read coming of age novels, or bildungsromans such as: Kidnapped, The Outsiders, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and many others. What these students, however, do not realize while reading these novels is that the protagonist of the story is growing and changing throughout the novel in many ways. Many of these changes are results of conflicts, which most teens face throughout their lives. In Boys Life, by Robert McCammon, and The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier, the male protagonist encounter many conflicts, in which most teens can relate to in everyday life. These two books are examples of bildungsromans because both, Cory and Jerry change throughout the novel because of their mental tests and physical abuses. The male protagonist, Cory and Jerry, encounter many mental tests, which affect the boy's views on life. The most obvious test which shows this is the dealing with a close one's death. In Boy's Life, Cory shows this best the way he completely changes his views on life and especially faith, when his best friend Davy Ray dies. A good example is when Cory says "I wasn't sure of anything anymore: not life, not afterlife, not God, not goodness." (p454). Cory begins to understand that he must have faith. In The Chocolate War, when Jerry's mother dies he begins to look at life in a new way wondering if he is wasting away his life. He wonders if he is a part of anything special, or if he is "sleepwalking" through life (p20). He later thinks of this often when he thinks about disturbing the universe. He also shares very little intimacy with his father after his mother's death and looks at him in a different way. When Jerry looks at his father one night, he wonders if his father is wasting away his life with everyday ordinary routines, and if he is turning out to be like his father (p52). The deaths involved in these two books challenge Cory and Jerry's beliefs and help them to grow and to mature into young adults. Because of the boy's determination, they are challenged in many ways. This is best shown in The Chocolate War with Jerry's decision not to sell the chocolates.

The Return: Nightfall Chapter 35

Aprison, with filthy rushes on the floor and bars between her and the sleeping Stefan. Between her andStefan! It was really him. Elena didn't know how she could know. Undoubtedly they could twist and change your perceptions here. But just now, perhaps because nobody had been expecting her to drop into a dungeon, no one was prepared with anything to make her doubt her senses. Itwas Stefan. He was thinner than before, and his cheekbones stuck out. He was beautiful. And his mind felt just right, just the right mixture of honor and love and darkness and light and hope and grim understanding of the world he lived in. â€Å"Stefan! Oh,hold me! â€Å" He woke and half sat up. â€Å"At least leave me my sleep. And meanwhile go away and put on another face, bitch!† â€Å"Stefan! Language!† She saw muscles in Stefan's shoulders freeze. â€Å"What†¦did you†¦say?† â€Å"Stefan†¦it's really me.I don't blame you for cursing. I curse this whole place and the two who put you here†¦.† â€Å"Three,† he said wearily, and bent his head. â€Å"You'd know that if you were real. Go and let them teach you about my traitor brother and his friends who sneak up on people with kekkai crowns†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Elena couldn't wait to debate about Damon now. â€Å"Won't youlook at me, at least?† She saw him turn slowly, look slowly, then saw him leap up from a pallet made of sickly-looking hay, and saw him stare at her as if she were an angel dropped down from the sky. Then he turned his back on her and put his hands over his ears. â€Å"No bargains,† he said flatly. â€Å"Don't even mention them to me. Go away. You've gotten better but you're still a dream.† â€Å"Stefan!† â€Å"I said, go away!† Time was wasting. And this was too cruel, after what she had been through just to speak to him. â€Å"You first saw me just outside the principal's office the day you brought your papers into school and influenced the secretary. You didn't need to look at me to know what I looked like. Once I told you that I felt like a murderer because I said, ;;Daddy, look' and pointed to – something outside – just before the car accident that killed my parents. I've never been able to remember what the something was. The first word I learned when I came back from the afterlife wasStefan . Once, you looked at me in the rearview mirror of the car and said that I was your soul†¦.† â€Å"Can't you stop torturing me for one hour? Elena – the real Elena – would be too smart to risk her life by coming here.† â€Å"Where's ;;here'?† Elena said sharply, frightened. â€Å"I need to know if I'm supposed to get you out.† Slowly Stefan uncovered his ears. Even more slowly he turned around again. â€Å"Elena?† he said, like a dying boy who has seen a gentle ghost in his bed. â€Å"You're not real. You can't be here.† â€Å"I don't think I am. Shinichi made a magic house and it takes you wherever you want if you name it and open the door with this key. I said,  ¡Ã‚ ®Somewhere I can hear and see and touch Stefan.' But† – she looked down – â€Å"you say Ican't be here. Maybe it's all an illusion anyway.† â€Å"Hush.† Now Stefan was clenching the bars on his side of the cell. â€Å"Is this where you've been? Is this theShi no Shi ?† He gave a little laugh – not a real one. â€Å"Not exactly what either of us expected, is it? And yet, they didn't lie in anything they said, Elena. Elena! I said ;;Elena.' Elena, you're really here!† Elena couldn't bear to waste any time. She took the few steps through damp, crackly straw and scampering creatures to the bars that separated her from Stefan. Then she tilted up her face, clutching bars in either hand, and shut her eyes. I will touch him. I will, I will. I'm real, he's real – I'll touch him! Stefan leaned down – to humor her, she thought – and then warm lips touched hers. She put her arms through the bars because they were both weak at the knees: Stefan in astonishment that she could touch him, and Elena in relief and sobbing joy. But – there was no time. â€Å"Stefan, take my bloodnow – take it!† She looked desperately for something to cut herself with. Stefan might need her strength, and no matter what Damon had taken from her, she would always have enough for Stefan. If it killed her, she would have enough. She was glad, now, that in the tomb, Damon had persuaded her to take his. â€Å"Easy. Easy, little love. If you mean it, I can bite your wrist, but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Do itnow !† Elena Gilbert, the princess of Fell's Church, ordered. She had even gotten the strength to pull herself off her knees. Stefan gave her half a guilty glance. â€Å"NOW!†Elena insisted. Stefan bit her wrist. It was an odd sensation. It hurt a little more than when he pierced the side of her neck as usual. But there were good veins down there, she knew; she trusted Stefan to find the largest so that this would take the least amount of time. Her urgency had become his. But when he tried to pull back, she clutched a handful of his wavy dark hair and said, â€Å"More, Stefan. You need it – oh, I can tell, and we don't have time to argue.† The voice of command. Meredith had told her once that she had it, that she could lead armies. Well, she might need to lead armies to get into this place to save him. I'll get an army somewhere, she thought fuzzily. The starving bloodfever that Stefan had been in – they obviously hadn't fed him since she had last seen him – was dying into the more normal blood-taking that she knew. His mind melted into hers.When you say you'll get an army, I believe you. But it's impossible. No one's ever come back. Well, you will. I'm bringing you back. Elena, Elena†¦ Drink,she said, feeling like an Italian mother.As much as you can without being sick. But how did – no, you told me how you got here. That was the truth? The truth. I always tell you the truth. But Stefan, how do I getyouout? Shinichi and Misao – you know them? Enough. They each have half a ring. Together it makes a key. Each half is shaped like a running fox. But who knows where they may have hidden the pieces? And as I said, just to get into this place, it takes an army†¦. I'll find the pieces of the fox ring. I'll put them together. I'll get an army. I'll get you out. Elena, I can't keep drinking. You'll collapse. I'm good at not collapsing. Please go on. I can hardly believe it's you – â€Å"No kissing! Take my blood!† Ma'am! But Elena, truly, I'm full now. Overfull. And tomorrow? â€Å"I'll still be overfull.† Stefan pulled away, a thumb on the places where he had pierced veins. â€Å"Truly, I can't , love.† â€Å"And the next day?† â€Å"I'll manage.† â€Å"You will – because I broughtthis . Hold me, Stefan,† she said, several decibels softer. â€Å"Hold me through the bars.† He did, looking bewildered, and she hissed in his ear, â€Å"Act like you love me. Stroke my hair. Say nice things.† â€Å"Elena, lovely little love†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He was still close enough mentally to say telepathically: Actlike I love you? But while his hands were stroking and squeezing and tangling in her hair, Elena's own hands were busy. She was transferring from under her clothes to under his a flask full of Black Magic wine. â€Å"But where did you get it?† Stefan whispered, seeming thunderstruck. â€Å"The magic house has everything. I've been waiting for my chance to give it to you if you needed it.† â€Å"Elena – â€Å" â€Å"What?† Stefan seemed to be struggling with something. At last, eyes on the ground, he whispered, â€Å"It's no good. I can't risk you getting killed for the sake of an impossibility. Forget me.† â€Å"Put your face to the bars.† He looked at her but didn't ask any questions, obeying. She slapped him across the face. It wasn't a very hard slap†¦although Elena's hand hurt from colliding with the iron on either side. â€Å"Now,be ashamed !† she said. And before he could say anything else,†Listen!† It was the baying of hounds – far away, but getting closer. â€Å"It'syou they're after,† Stefan said, suddenly frantic. â€Å"You have to go!† She just looked at him steadily. â€Å"I love you, Stefan.† â€Å"I love you, Elena. Forever.† â€Å"I – oh, I'msorry .† Shecouldn't go; that was the thing. Like Caroline talking and talking and never leaving Stefan's apartment, she could stand here and speak about it, but she couldn't do it. â€Å"Elena! Youhave to. I don't want you to see what they do – â€Å" â€Å"I'll kill them!† â€Å"You're no killer. You're not a fighter, Elena – and you shouldn't see this. Please? Remember once you asked me if I'd like to see how many times you could make me say  ¡Ã‚ ®please?' Well, each counts for a thousand now. Please? For me? Will you go?† â€Å"One more kiss†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Her heart was beating like a frantic bird inside her. â€Å"Please!† Blind with tears, Elena turned around and grasped hold of the cell door. â€Å"Anywhere outside the ceremony where no one will see me!† she gasped and wrenched the door to the corridor open and stepped through. At least she'd seen Stefan, but for how long that would last to keep her heart from shattering again – – oh, my God, I'mfalling – – she didn't know. Elena realized that shewas outside the boardinghouse somewhere – at least some eighty feet high – and plummeting rapidly. Her first, panicked conclusion was that she was going to die, and then instinct kicked in and she reached out with arms and hands and kicked in with legs and feet and managed to arrest her fall after twenty agonizing feet. I've lost my flying wings forever, haven't I? she thought, concentrating on a single spot between her shoulder blades. She knew just where they should be – and nothing happened. Then, carefully, she inched her way closer to the trunk, pausing only to move to a higher twig a caterpillar that was sharing the branch with her. And she managed to find a sort of place where she could sit by sidling and then pushing backward. It was far too high a branch for her personal taste. As it was, she found that she could look down and see the widow's walk quite clearly, and that the longer she looked at any particular thing the clearer her vision got. Vampire vision plus, she thought. It showed her that she was Changing. Or else – yes, somehow here the sky was getting lighter. What it showed her was a dark and empty boardinghouse, which was disturbing because of what Caroline's father had said about â€Å"the meeting† and what she had learned telepathically from Damon about Shinichi's plans for this Moonspire night. Could this be not the real boardinghouse at all, but another trap? â€Å"We made it!† Bonnie cried as they approached the house. She knew her voice was shrill, was over-shrill, but somehow the sight of that brightly lit boardinghouse, like a Christmas tree with a star on top, comforted her, even if she knew that it was all wrong. She felt she could cry in relief. â€Å"Yes, we did,† Dr. Alpert's deep voice said. â€Å"All of us. Isobel's the one who needs the most treatment, the fastest. Theophilia, get your nostrums ready, and somebody else take Isobel and run her a bath.† â€Å"I'll do it,† Bonnie quavered, after a brief hesitation. â€Å"She's going to stay tranquilized like she is now, right? Right?† â€Å"I'llgo with Isobel,† Matt said. â€Å"Bonnie, you go with Mrs. Flowers and help her. And before we go inside, I want to make one thing clear: nobody goes anywhere alone. We all travel in twos or threes.† There was the ring of authority in his voice. â€Å"Makes sense,† Meredith said crisply and took up a place by the doctor. â€Å"You'd better be careful, Matt; Isobel is the most dangerous.† That was when the high, thin voices began outside the house. It sounded like two or three little girls singing. â€Å"Isa-chan, Isa-chan, Drank her tea and ate her gran.† â€Å"Tami? Tami Bryce?† Meredith demanded, opening the door as the tune began again. She darted forward, then she grabbed the doctor by the hand, and dragged her along beside her as she darted forward again. And, yes, Bonnie saw, there were three little figures, one in pajamas and two in nightgowns, and they were Tami Bryce and Kristin Dunstan and Ava Zarinski. Ava was only about eleven, Bonnie thought, and she didn't live near either Tami or Kristin. The three of them all giggled shrilly. Then they started singing again and Matt went after Kristin. â€Å"Help me!† Bonnie cried. She was suddenly hanging on to a bucking, kicking bronco that lashed out in every direction. Isobel seemed to have gone crazy, and she went crazier every time that tune was repeated. â€Å"I've got her,† Matt said, closing in on her with a bear hug, but even the two of them couldn't hold Isobel still. â€Å"I'm getting her another sedative,† Dr. Alpert said, and Bonnie saw the glances between Matt and Meredith – glances of suspicion. â€Å"No – no, let Mrs. Flowers make her something,† Bonnie said desperately, but the hypodermic needle was already almost at Isobel's arm. â€Å"You're not giving her anything,† Meredith said flatly, dropping the charade, and with one chorus-girl kick, she sent the hypodermic flying. â€Å"Meredith! What's wrong with you?† the doctor cried, wringing her wrist. â€Å"It's what's wrong withyou that's the matter. Who are you? Where are we? This can't be the real boardinghouse.† â€Å"Obaasan! Mrs. Flowers! Can't you help us?† Bonnie gasped, still trying to hold on to Isobel. â€Å"I'll try,† Mrs. Flowers said determinedly, heading toward her. â€Å"No, I meant with Dr. Alpert – and maybe Jim. Don't you – know any spells – to make people take on their true forms?† â€Å"Oh!† Obaasan said. â€Å"I can help with that. Just let me down, Jim dear. We'll have everyone in their true forms in no time.† Jayneela was a sophomore with large, dreamy, dark eyes that were generally lost in a book. But now, as it neared midnight and Gramma still hadn't called, she shut her book and looked at Ty. Tyrone seemed big and fierce and mean on the playing field, but off it he was the nicest, kindest, gentlest big brother a girl could want. â€Å"You think Gramma's okay?† â€Å"Hm?† Tyrone had his nose in a book, too, but it was one of those help-you-get-into-the-college-of-your-dreams books. As a senior-to-be, he was having to make some serious decisions. â€Å"Of course she is.† â€Å"Well, I'm going to check on the little girl, at least.† â€Å"You know what, Jay?† He poked her teasingly with one toe. â€Å"You worry too much.† In moments he was lost again in Chapter Six, â€Å"How to Make the Most of Your Community Service.† But then the screams started coming from above him. Long, loud, high screams – his sister's voice. He dropped the book and ran. â€Å"Obaasan?† Bonnie said. â€Å"Just a moment, dear,† Grandma Saitou said. Jim had put her down and now she was facing him squarely: she looking up, and he looking down. And there was something†¦very wrong about it. Bonnie felt a wave of pure terror. Could Jim have done something evil to Obaasan as he carried her? Of course he could. Why hadn't she thought of that? And there was the doctor with her syringe, ready to tranquilize anyone who got too â€Å"hysterical.† Bonnie looked at Meredith, but Meredith was trying to deal with two squirming little girls, and could only glance helplessly back. All right, then, Bonnie thought. I'll kick him where it hurts most and get the old lady away from him. She turned back to Obaasan and felt herself freeze. â€Å"Just one thing I have to do†¦,† Obaasan had said. And she was doing it. Jim was bent at the waist, folded in half toward Obaasan, who was on her tiptoes. They were locked in a deep, intimate kiss. Oh, God! They had met four people in a wood – and assumed that two were sane and two insane. How could they tell which were the insane ones? Well, if two of them see things that aren't there†¦ But the housewas there; Bonnie could see it, too. Wasshe insane? â€Å"Meredith, come on!† she screamed. Her nerve breaking completely, she began to run away from the house toward the forest. Something from the skies plucked her up as easily as an owl picks up a mouse and held her in an unrelenting iron grip. â€Å"Going somewhere?† Damon's voice asked from above her as he glided in the last few yards to a stop, with her neatly tucked under one steely arm. â€Å"Damon!† Damon's eyes were slightly narrowed, as though at a joke only he could see. â€Å"Yes, the evil one himself. Tell me something, my fiery little fury.† Bonnie had already exhausted herself trying to make him let go. She hadn't even succeeded in tearing his clothes. â€Å"What?† she snapped. Possessed or not, Damon had last seen her when she had Called him to save her from Caroline's insanity. But according to Matt's reports, he had done something awful to Elena. â€Å"Why do girls love to convert a sinner? Why can you feed them almost any line if they feel that they've reformed you?† Bonnie didn't know what he was talking about, but she could guess. â€Å"What did you do with Elena?† she said ferociously. â€Å"Gave her what she wanted, that's all,† Damon said, his black eyes twinkling. â€Å"Is there anything so awful about that?† Bonnie, frightened by that twinkle, didn't even try to run again. She knew it was no use. He was faster and stronger, and he could fly. Anyway, she had seen it in his face: a sort of distant remorselessness. They were not just Damon and Bonnie here together. They were natural predator and natural prey. And now here she was back with Jim and Obaasan – no, with a boy and girl she'd never seen before. Bonnie was in time to watch the transformation. She saw Jim's body shrink and his hair turn black, but that wasn't the striking thing about it. The striking thing was that all around the edges, his hair was not black but crimson. It was as if flames were licking up from the tips into darkness. His eyes were golden and smiling. She saw Obaasan's doll-like old body grow younger and stronger and taller. This girl was a beauty; Bonnie had to admit it. She had gorgeous sloe-black eyes and silky hair that fell almost to her waist. And her hair was just like her brother's – only the red was even brighter, scarlet instead of crimson. She was wearing a barely-there laced black halter that showed how delicately built she was on top. And, of course, low-rise black leather pants to show the same thing on the bottom. She was wearing expensive-looking black high-heeled sandals, and her toenails were enameled the same brilliant red as the tips of her hair. At her belt, in a sinuous circle, was a curled-up whip with a scaly black handle. Dr. Alpert said slowly, â€Å"My grandchildren†¦?† â€Å"They don't have anything to do with this,† the boy with the strange hair said charmingly, smiling. â€Å"As long as they mind their own business, you don't have to worry about them a bit.† â€Å"It's suicide or an attempted suicide – or something,† Tyrone told the police dispatcher, almost weeping. â€Å"I think it was a guy named Jim who went to my high school last year. No, this is nothing to do with any drugs – I came here to watch my little sister Jayneela. She was baby-sitting – look, just come over, will you? This guy's chewed off most of his fingers, and as I came in, he said,  ¡Ã‚ ®I'll always love you, Elena,' and he took a pencil and – no, I can't tell if he's alive or dead. But there's an old lady upstairs and I'm sureshe's dead. Because she's not breathing.† â€Å"Who the hell are you?† Matt was saying, eyeing the strange boy belligerently. â€Å"I'm the – â€Å" † – and what the hell are you doing here?† â€Å"I'm the hell Shinichi,† the boy said in a much louder voice, looking annoyed to be interrupted. When Matt just stared at him, he added in an annoyed voice, â€Å"I'm the kitsune – the were-fox, you could say – who's been messing with your town, idiot. I came halfway around the world to do it, and I'd think you'd at least have heard of me by now. And this is my lovely sister, Misao. We're twins.† â€Å"I don't care if you're triplets. Elena said somebody besides Damon was behind this. And so did Stefan before he – hey, what did you do to Stefan?What did you do to Elena? â€Å" While the two strange males were bristling at each other – quite literally in Shinichi's case, since his hair was almost standing on end – Meredith was picking out Bonnie, Dr. Alpert, and Mrs. Flowers by eye. Then she glanced at Matt and touched herself lightly on the chest. She was the only one strong enough to womanhandle him, although Dr. Alpert gave a quick nod that said she would be helping. And then, while the boys were working up to shouting volume, Misao was giggling at the ground, and Damon was leaning against a door with his eyes shut, they moved. With no signal at all to unite them, they were running, instinctively, as one group. Meredith and Dr. Alpert grabbed Matt from either side and simply lifted him off his feet, just as Isobel quite unexpectedly jumped on Shinichi with a guttural scream. They hadn't expected anything from her, but it was certainly convenient, Bonnie thought as she hurtled over obstacles without even seeing them. Matt was still shouting and trying to run the other way and take out some primitive frustration on Shinichi, but he couldn't quite manage to get free to do it. Bonnie could scarcely believe it when they made it into the Wood again. Even Mrs. Flowers had kept up and most of them still had their flashlights. It was a miracle. They had even escaped Damon. The thing now was to be very quiet and to try to get through the Old Wood without disturbing anything. Maybe they could find their way back to the real boardinghouse, they decided. Then they could figure out how to save Elena from Damon and his two friends. Even Matt finally had to admit that it was unlikely that they would be able to overcome the three supernatural creatures by force. Bonnie just wished they'd been able to take Isobel with them. â€Å"Well, we have to go to the real boardinghouse anyway,† Damon said, as Misao finally got Isobel subdued and semi-conscious. â€Å"That's where Caroline will be.† Misao stopped glaring at Isobel and seemed to start slightly. â€Å"Caroline? Why do we want Caroline?† â€Å"It's all part of the fun, isn't it?† Damon said in his most charming, flirtatious voice. Shinichi immediately stopped looking martyred and smiled. â€Å"That girl – she's the one you've been using as a carrier, right?† He looked mischievously at his sister, whose smile seemed slightly strained. â€Å"Yes, but – â€Å" â€Å"The more the merrier,† Damon said, more cheerful with every minute. He didn't seem to notice Shinichi smirking at Misao behind his back. â€Å"Don't sulk, darling,† he said to her, tickling her under the chin while his golden eyes gleamed. â€Å"I've never set eyes on the girl. But of course, if Damon says it'll be fun, itwill be.† The smirk became a full-fledged gloating smile. â€Å"And there's no chance of any of them actually getting away at all?† Damon said, almost absently, staring into the darkness of the Old Wood. â€Å"Give me a little credit, please,† the kitsune snapped. â€Å"You're a damned – a vampire, aren't you?You're not supposed to hang out in the woods at all.† â€Å"It's my territory, along with the cemetery – † Damon was beginning mildly, but Shinichi was determined to finish first this time. â€Å"Ilive in the woods,† he said. â€Å"I control the bushes, the trees – and I've brought a few of my own little experiments along with me. You'll all see them soon enough. So, to answer your question, no, not one of them is going to escape.† â€Å"That was all I asked,† Damon said, still mildly, but locking gazes with the golden eyes for another long moment. Then he shrugged and turned away, eyeing the moon that could be seen between swirling clouds on the horizon. â€Å"We've got hours before the ceremony yet,† Shinichi said, behind him. â€Å"We're hardly going to be late.† â€Å"We'd better not,† Damon murmured. â€Å"Caroline can do an awfully good impression of that pierced girl in hysterics when people are late.† As a matter of fact, the moon was riding high in the sky as Caroline drove her mother's car to the porch of the boardinghouse. She was wearing an evening dress that looked as if it had been painted on her, in her favorite colors of bronze and green. Shinichi looked at Misao, who giggled with one hand covering her mouth and looked down. Damon walked Caroline up the porch steps to the front door and said, â€Å"This way to the good seats.† There was some bewilderment as people got themselves sorted out. Damon spoke cheerfully to Kristin and Tami and Ava: â€Å"The peanut gallery for you three, I'm afraid. That means you sit on the ground. But if you're good, I'll let you come sit up with us the next time.† The others followed him with more or less exclamation, but it was Caroline who looked annoyed, saying, â€Å"Why do we want to goinside ? I thought they were supposed to beoutside .† â€Å"Closest seats not in danger,† Damon said briefly. â€Å"We can get the best view from up there. Royal box seats, come on, now.† The fox twins and the human girl followed him, switching on lights in the darkened house all the way up to the widow's walk on the roof. â€Å"And now where are they?† Caroline said, peering down. â€Å"They'll be here any minute,† Shinichi said, with a glance that was both puzzled and reproving. It said: Who does this girl think she is? He didn't spout any poetry. â€Å"And Elena? She'll be here, too?† Shinichi didn't answer that at all, and Misao just giggled. But Damon put his lips close to Caroline's ear and whispered. After that, Caroline's eyes shone green as a cat's. And the smile on her lips was the one of a cat who has just put its paw on the canary.