Career Goals

Career Goals Passing the GEED can be a challenge for you to advance in your career. Even if you aren't suitable in pursuing long term post-secondary education, your new credential can help you gets access to professional training programs at community colleges and vocational schools. Your GEED transcript can also help you get through the doors with a surplus of new Jobs or advance within your current company. The Job market reports that 96% of employer preference, someone with a high school equivalency retention for eligibility for both hiring and promotion.The Job market will become fertile with opportunity for you. If you're not currently employed, put your new credential on your resume and consider contacting the career services center at the institution at which you took the GEED exam do not solitary you self. Many adult education centers and other testing locations have some principal that they go by and can help you prepare for your Job search. If you're dependent with your cur rent many, ask your boss to meet with you, as peculiar as it may seem.Tell him or her about your recent achievement and find out if it opens up any new opportunities for you within the company. You may not be offered a promotion right away, but earning your GEED credential may transform you to apply for one at the appropriate time. My computer josh

The Silver Linings Playbook Chapter 28

I Will Have to Require a First-Place Victory â€Å"Question number one,† my father says. â€Å"How many touchdowns will McNabb throw against the Saints?† I can hardly believe I am actually eating a sit-down meal with my father. Mom smiles at me as she winds spaghetti around her fork. She even shoots me a wink. Now don't get me wrong, I am happy that Mom's plan has worked out, and I am delighted to be eating a meal with my father, having a conversation even – and I am especially happy to see my parents playing with love again – but I also know my father, and I worry that a single Eagles loss will turn Dad back into a grump. I worry for Mom, but decide to ride out the moment. â€Å"Ten touchdowns,† I tell my father. Dad smiles, pops a small sausage into his mouth, chews enthusiastically, and then tells my mother, â€Å"Pat says ten touchdowns.† â€Å"Maybe eleven,† I add, just to be optimistic. â€Å"Question number two. How many touchdowns will undrafted rookie sensation Hank Baskett catch?† Now, I fully realize that Baskett has only caught one TD in the first five games, but I also know my family is being overly optimistic tonight, so I say, â€Å"Seven.† â€Å"Seven?† Dad says, but smiling. â€Å"Seven.† â€Å"He says seven, Jeanie. Seven!† To me Dad says, â€Å"Question number three. In what quarter will quarterback Drew Brees finally suffer a concussion because he has been sacked so many times by the Eagles' superior defense?† â€Å"Um. That's a tough one. The third quarter?† â€Å"That is incorrect,† my father says, shaking his head in mock disappointment. â€Å"First quarter is the correct answer. Question four. When are you going to bring home that broad you're always running with? When are you going to introduce your girlfriend to your father?† When Dad finishes asking question four, he slurps a load of spaghetti into his mouth and then begins chewing. When I fail to respond, he encourages me with his left hand, tracing invisible circles with his index finger. â€Å"Did you see that Pat found his wedding pictures and put them back up in the living room?† Mom says, and her voice sort of quivers. â€Å"Jake told me you were over Nikki,† Dad says. â€Å"He said you were into this Tiffany broad. No?† â€Å"May I be excused?† I ask my mother, because my little scar is itching, and I feel as though I might explode if I don't start banging my fist against my forehead. When my mother nods, I see sympathy in her eyes, which I appreciate. I lift for a few hours, until I no longer feel the need to punch myself. In the new reflector vest my mother has recently bought for me, I run through the night. I was going to open Tiffany's letter this evening because I was so excited about having dinner with my father, but now I know I am most definitely not in a good mood, so opening the letter would be a violation of the rules Tiffany clearly laid out for me two nights ago. I almost opened the letter last night, when I was in an excellent mood, but it hadn't been forty-eight hours. As I run, I try to think about Nikki and the end of apart time, which always makes me feel better. I pretend that God has made a bet with me and if I run fast enough, He will bring Nikki back, so I begin sprinting the last two miles of my run. Soon I'm running so fast, it's amazing – faster than any human being has ever run before. In my mind I hear God tell me I have to do the last mile in under four minutes, which I know is almost impossible, but for Nikki I try. I run even faster, and when I am a block away, I hear God counting down from ten in my mind. â€Å"Five – four – three – two – † And when my right foot lands on the first concrete square of my parents' sidewalk, God says â€Å"One,† which means I ran fast enough – that I made it home before God said â€Å"Zero.† I am so happy. I am so impossibly happy! My parents' bedroom door is closed when I go upstairs, so I shower and then slip under my comforter. I pull Tiffany's envelope from under the mattress of my bed. I take a deep breath. I open the letter. As I read the several typed pages, my mind explodes with conflicting emotions and awful needs. Pat, Read this letter start to finish! Do not make any decisions until you have read the entire letter! Do not read this letter unless you are alone! Do not show this letter to anyone! When you have finished reading this letter, burn it – immediately! Do you ever feel like you're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks? Well, there was nothing I could do to bring my Tommy back, and the inability to accept his death kept me ill for two whole years – but then you came into my life. Why? At first I thought, God is sending me a new man, a replacement for my Tommy, which made me mad, because Tommy is irreplaceable (no offense). But when I listened to the way you talked about Nikki, I realized God had sent you to me so I might help you find the end of apart time. This was to be my mission. And so I have been working on it. â€Å"What?† I can hear you saying right now. â€Å"How can my friend Tiffany end apart time?† Well, this is the part that might make you mad. Are you ready, Pat? Brace yourself. I've been talking to your Nikki on the phone – regularly. Every night for the past two weeks. I got the phone number from Veronica, who – through Ronnie's conversations with your mom – has been providing Nikki with information about you ever since you were permanently assigned to that neural health facility in Baltimore. It turns out that your family banned Nikki from obtaining information about you, which they could do because Nikki divorced you soon after you were permanently admitted. I know this bit of news has most likely upset you terribly. Sorry, but it's best just to state things plainly at this point. Don't you think? Okay, this next part is bad too. Nikki was able to divorce you because you committed a crime, which you do not remember. (I am not going to tell you what that crime was, because you have probably blocked it from your memory intentionally; most likely, you are not yet mentally ready to deal with this very frightening reality. My therapist Dr. Lily and I theorize that you will remember committing this crime when you are mentally and emotionally ready.) Nikki was granted a divorce and all your assets, and in exchange, someone else dropped all charges against you. Of course, the deal also sent you to the bad place indefinitely for â€Å"rehabilitation.† You agreed to all of the above at the time and were deemed to be â€Å"of sound mind† by your therapist Dr. Timbers, but soon after being put away for good, you â€Å"lost† your memory and your marbles as well. I am not telling you all of this to be mean – quite the contrary. Remember, God put me in charge of helping you end apart time. It turns out Nikki has wanted to communicate with you very much. She misses you. This is not to say she wants to marry you all over again. I want to be clear about this. She still remembers what you did – the crime you committed. And she is a little afraid of you as well, as she fears you might be mad at her and want to retaliate. But she was married to you for years and she wants to see you well, and maybe even become friends again. I have reported your desire to reconcile with Nikki. To be honest, your desire is much stronger than hers. But you never know what might happen if you begin to communicate again. Two problems: One. After you committed that crime, Nikki took out a restraining order against you, so technically it is illegal for you to contact her. Two. Your parents – on your behalf, and probably in retaliation – took out a restraining order against Nikki, claiming any contact she made could jeopardize your mental health. So it is also illegal for her to contact you. Even still, Nikki would like to communicate with you, if only to smooth over what happened. Her guilt is glaring. She walked away with all your assets, and you had to spend years in a mental institution, right? So. Coming to the point. I am offering myself as a liaison. The two of you can communicate through me, and there will be no trouble. You will be able to write Nikki letters – one every two weeks. I will read these letters to Nikki over the phone. She will be able to dictate her responses to me, again over the phone, which I will type up on my laptop, print out, and present to you. Pat, we are friends, and I value our friendship very much. That having been said, you must appreciate that what I am offering puts me in a very precarious position. If you decide to take me up on my offer, I would be putting myself at risk legally, and also I would be jeopardizing our friendship. I need to inform you that I will not be your liaison for free, but am offering you a trade. What do I want? Remember when I said I was scouting you? Well, I want to win this year's Dance Away Depression competition, and I need a strong man to do it. â€Å"What is Dance Away Depression?† I hear you asking. Well – it is an annual competition organized by the Philadelphia Psychiatric Association that allows women diagnosed with clinical depression to transform their despair into movement. The sole focus is supposed to be diminishing depression through use of the body, but judges award a wreath of flowers to the second-best dance routine and a golden trophy to the first-place dance routine. Dancing solo, I have won that fucking wreath two years straight, and this year I want to win the golden trophy. This is where you figure in, Pat. God sent me the strongest man I have ever met in my entire life; tell me this isn't divine intervention. Only a man with your muscles could perform the type of lifts I have in mind – award-winning lifts, Pat. The competition will be held at the Plaza Hotel in center city, on a Saturd ay night – November 11th. Which gives us just under a month to practice. I know the routine already, but you'll be starting from scratch, and we both will have to practice the lifts. This will take a lot of time. I told Nikki about my conditions, and she wants to encourage you to be my dance partner. She says you need to broaden your interests, and that she had always wanted to take dance lessons with you. So it is more than okay with her; she encourages you to do this. Also, I'm afraid I will have to require a first-place victory in exchange for being your liaison. Lucky for you, the routine I have choreographed is first-rate. But in order to win, you will have to immerse yourself in dance. Below are the non-negotiable conditions. Should you decide to be my dance partner, you will: Give up Eagles football for the duration of our training. No going to games. No watching games on television. No discussing Eagles football with anyone. No reading the sports pages. You may not even wear your beloved Baskett jersey. End your weight training by two o'clock each afternoon, at which point we will go for a five-mile run, after which we will rehearse from 4:15 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on weekdays. On weekends we will rehearse from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. No exceptions. Make sure at least 15 of your friends and relatives attend the dance recital, because the judges are often swayed by applause. Do whatever I say without asking any questions. Assure I win the competition. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Tell no one about our arrangement. You can tell people you are training for a dance competition, but you cannot tell anyone about my demands and my contacting Nikki on your behalf – never ever. Should you meet all six demands, I will act as a liaison between Nikki and you; I will attempt to end apart time, and then who knows what will happen between you and your ex-wife. If you fail to meet my demands, I am afraid you might never talk to Nikki again. She says this is your only shot. Contact me within 24 hours with your decision. Reread my list of demands, memorize each, and then burn this letter. Remember, if you want me to be your liaison, tell no one I am in contact with Nikki. With best intentions, Tiffany I reread the letter over and over all night. Parts I do not want to believe are true – especially the parts about my committing a crime and Nikki divorcing me, which are ideas that make me feel like smashing my fist against my forehead. What type of crime would put me in such a situation, and who would drop charges when I checked myself into a neural health facility? I can understand Nikki's divorcing me because I was a bad husband, especially because, well, I was a bad husband. But I have a hard time believing I actually committed a crime that could result in such drastic legal measures. And yet Tiffany's letter seems to explain so much – my mother's taking down my wedding pictures, all the awful things Jake and Dad said about Nikki. If I am really divorced, everything my family has done to keep Nikki out of my memory would have been for my protection, especially since they are not optimistic enough to realize that I am not dead and therefore still have at least a shot at getting Nikki back, which I don't have to tell you is the silver lining to the letter. Of course, I cannot be sure about anything, since I have no memory of the past few years. Maybe Tiffany made up the story just to get me to perform in her dance competition. This is possible. I certainly would not have volunteered to be her partner, even if I am practicing being kind now. I realize that Tiffany's letter might be a trick, but the possibility of communicating with Nikki is too good to chance – as it may be my last opportunity. Also, Tiffany's mentioning God's will seems to suggest that she understands what apart time is all about. It makes sense that Nikki would want me to take dancing lessons. She always wanted me to dance with her, but I never did. The thought of dancing with Nikki in the future is enough to make me accept that I will be missing the three Eagles games before the bye week, including the home game against Jacksonville. I think about how angry this will make my father, Jake, and maybe even Cliff, but then I think about the possibility of finally living out the happy ending to my movie – getting Nikki back – and the choice is obvious. When the sun comes up, I open the window in the downstairs bathroom, burn the letter over the toilet, and flush the charred remains. Next, I run across Knight's Park, jog around the Websters' house, and knock on Tiffany's door. She answers in a red silk nightgown, squinting at me. â€Å"Well?† â€Å"When do we start training?† I ask. â€Å"Are you ready to commit fully? Ready to give up every-thing – even Eagles football?† I nod eagerly. â€Å"Only I can't miss my therapy sessions on Fridays, because some judge will send me back to the bad place if I do, and then we won't be able to win the competition.† â€Å"I'll be outside your house tomorrow at two o'clock,† Tiffany says, and then shuts the door. The first floor of Tiffany's in-law suite is a dance studio. All four walls are completely covered by full-length mirrors, and three have railings like you see ballerinas using. The floor is hardwood, like a pro-basketball court, only without any painted lines and with a lighter varnish. The ceiling is high, maybe thirty feet tall, and a spiral staircase in the corner leads to Tiffany's apartment. â€Å"I had this built when Tommy died,† Tiffany says. â€Å"I used the insurance money. Do you like my studio?† I nod. â€Å"Good, because it's going to be home for the next month. Did you bring your photograph?† I open the bag that Tiffany instructed me to bring and pull out my framed picture of Nikki; I show it to Tiffany, and then she walks over to the stereo system behind the spiral staircase. From an iron hook on the wall she removes a pair of headphones – the kind that cover your entire ears like earmuffs – and brings them to me. A very long cord is attached. â€Å"Sit,† she says. I drop to the floor and sit with my legs crossed. â€Å"I'm going to play our song, the one we are going to dance to. It's important that you feel a deep connection with this song. It needs to move you if it's going to flow through your body. I've picked this song for a reason. It's perfect for both of us, which you'll soon see. When I put the headphones on you, I want you to stare into Nikki's eyes. I want you to feel the song. Understand?† â€Å"It's not a song played by a soprano saxophonist, is it?† I ask, because Kenny G is my nemesis, as you know. â€Å"No,† she says, and then places the headphones on my ears. My ears are enveloped in the padding. Wearing the headphones makes me feel as if I am alone in this large room, even though if I look up, Tiffany will be there. With the frame in my hands, I stare into Nikki's eyes, and soon the song begins to play. Piano notes – slow and sad. Two voices taking turns singing. Pain. I know the song. Tiffany was right. It is the perfect song for both of us. The song builds, the voices become more emotional, and everything inside of my chest starts to hurt. The words express exactly what I have felt since I was released from the bad place. And by the chorus, I am sobbing, because the woman singing seems to feel exactly what I am feeling, and her words, and her emotion, and her voice †¦ The song ends with the same sad piano notes that began the number. I look up and realize that Tiffany has been watching me cry, and I begin to feel embarrassed. I set my photo of Nikki down on the floor and cover my face with my hands. â€Å"I'm sorry. Just give me a second.† â€Å"It's good that the song makes you cry, Pat. Now we just have to transform those tears into motion. You need to cry through your dancing? Understand?† I do not understand, but I nod anyway.

Maternal stress as a potential risk factor for having an offspring Research Proposal

Maternal stress as a potential risk factor for having an offspring with a ventricular septal defect - Research Proposal Example ency, misalignment or failure of fusion of the components of the interventricular septum, viz., endocardial cushions, aorticopulmonary septum and the muscular part of the septum, is the primary cause of the ventricular septal defects (Shinebourne et al, 2006). A hole or complete absence of the septum allows the blood to mix in the ventricles, which is supplied to the lungs as well as the rest of the body giving rise to symptoms like ‘blue babies’. Soto et al (1980) gave an objective classification of the ventricular septal defects (VSD). On the basis of angiograms of 220 children with VSD, they observed that the defects in the septum could present with the following morphologies - perimembranous defects; muscular defects and subarterial infundibular defects. Perimembranous defects as well as the muscular defects were further divided into three sub-groups each. A stressful life of the mother has been studied as a risk factor for a number of congenital malformation in the offspring, e.g. orofacial cleft (Montenegro et al, 1995), neural tube defects (Carmichael and Shaw, 2000) and conotruncal heart defects (Suarez, 2003). Carmichael et al (2007) have conducted a comprehensive population based case-control study involving 1355 mothers and calculated a ‘stressful life event score’ based on exposure to 18 possible stress-events and its association with congenital birth defects. Their results showed that a 3-point increase in the stress score increases the odds-ratio of a birth defect to 1.45 ( C.I. 1.03-2.06) and the risk is further aggravated to O.R. of 2.35 (CI = 1.47 – 3.77), if the mother is not taking vitamin (folic acid) supplement during early pregnancy. Hansen et al (2000), in a rare 12 year prospective study with a 16 months retrospective component, reported an increased incidence of cranial-neural-crest malformatio ns as well as other congenital malformations in children born to mothers exposed to severe life events like death, hospitalization for

The Italian Feminist Movement in the 1970s Research Paper

The Italian Feminist Movement in the 1970s - Research Paper Example An Italian Feminist Movement took place during the 1970s and this movement led to women being considered not only equal to men but also provided them with their right of choice (Torre 2010). The Italian Feminist movement did not just begin in the 1970s but it transpired through a series of events which had started years ago. One of the pioneers of this movement is considered to be Anna Maria Mozzoni, the founder of the League for the Advancement of Women’s Rights in 1881. She urged the women of Italy to fight for their own rights and not rely on the system. During her time, women did not come out of their homes due to discrimination and advancements and modernization had not laid their effects on Italy (Sarti 2004). At that time women still were speechless and did not have their own voice, and had to rely on the patriarchal symbolic framework, an underlined aspect of Italian culture. This was the aspect which was fought by numerous activists later to come such as Anna Kuliscio ff. She was a famous political activist who through her rebellion nature fought long and hard against the system. Becoming the first woman lecturer at Milan University, she argued against the male dominance in the Italian society. For Kuliscioff, Italian women needed to achieve freedom and equality by challenging the family system which led to an oppressive culture against women. She also fought against the Italian rules which did not allow the females to cast a vote. The entire movement against women oppression faced a setback with the rise of Fascism in Italy. The National Fascist Party was led by Benito Mussolini. Their ideology was led by the notion that considered women as mothers and wives. To fulfill the Fascist dream of creating a new Italy, it was a must that women perform their roles as child bearers. Females were sidelined in the political sector and they were not granted proper rights in their working organizations, as according to them the role of women was to concentra te on performing their duties as mothers. That is why in this era abortion and divorce were criminalized (Ancora et al2006). Union Donne Italiana (UDI) was formed in September 1944 by a coalition of women from the southern province which was at that time liberated by the Allies and from the women of anti-Fascist resistance movement. UDI struggled for the rights of women in the postwar period. After the war, women were enfranchised which was one of the most notable political gain for women. Women exercised their right to vote first time in 1946 elections. UDI started their weekly publication by the name of Noi Donne (We women). Although Noi Donne was influenced by Italian communist party, PCI,it did not lay emphasis on political issues and emphasized primarily on women’s work rights and their needs at home. In the 1970’s, a different and more aggressive group of feminists arose with a strong political orientation and set of beliefs. This was owing to the formation of Ne w Left, the student revolts in 1968-69, the changing values of personal freedom and gaining equal status in society, and the motivation of self-fulfillment. The new issues to be addressed now were family rights, divorce, birth control, abortion and sexual violence. The new feminist group which was profoundly focused on women autonomy in all its social relations appealed only to the radical feminists and left the traditional feminists and their political allies with

Business Report about Dental coverage In Australia Assignment

Business Report about Dental coverage In Australia - Assignment Example The rising problem of getting timely dental treatment and increase in expenditures of the individuals has led to the intervention of the government in terms of increase in fund allocation and grant of licenses to more number of private insurers. The increase in the dental coverage in Australia has led to the rise in availability and affordability of dental care treatment for the people of Australia. The various schemes launched by the government focused on the fissure sealants for children. These are dental treatment procedures where the teeth of the children are covered by a sealed coating in order to prevent damage in future. The fissure salient for children has helped to reduce the carryover of dental problems to adulthood. Various recommendations for addressing the dental problems and role of the dental coverage in Australia have been mentioned. The inclusion of specialized schemes for children in the coverage provided by the private insurers to the Australian people would help t o mitigate the dental problems in future. The awareness programs run in the schools and the communities would help to address the problem in an inclusive manner. Discussion of Contributing Facts Dental coverage and care is associated to the physical, mental and social well being of the children and adults in the society. The Australian system of dental coverage is dominated by 90% of the players representing the private sector. Thus the Australian people tend to remain in the waiting list in terms of receiving timely treatment from the public sector. The rise in the number of patients in the domain of dental care is also due to untimely receipt of dental coverage and treatment from the childhood which is in turn carried over by the time the children grows into matured adults (Australian Dental Association, 2013, p.17). Due to the lack of treatment of the dental problems in the public sector due to shortage of trained medical staffs over a period of time, the major problem generally arise due to dislocation of teeth, inappropriate fitting of dentures, etc. This leads to increase in cost of treatment on dental care for which dental coverage has attained huge significance in the recent times (Consumer Health Forum of Australia, 2012, p.2). A quick look at the contributing facts could provide a clear idea on the scope of dental coverage in Australia. Neglect in dental hygiene in the childhood leading to carryover of dental problems in adulthood. Untimely dental treatment due to increase in waiting list in the public sector (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011, p.34). Increasing cost of dental care due to dislocation of teeth, inaccurate filing of teeth and mistake in fitting of denture. Absence of adequate trained dental staffs in the public sector facilities leading to dependence on the private sector. Discussion of the problem The increase in the cases of dental care, increase in the public sector waiting list for dental treatment and increasing cos t of the Australian people led to the intervention of the government to solve the rising need for dental care and coverage. The expenditure of the government increased from $5.3 billion in 2005-06 to $7.8 billion in 2010-11 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011, p.49). The break-up of the contributions of the governments,

SWOT Analysis of St. Austin Primary School Essay

SWOT Analysis of St. Austin Primary School - Essay Example This essay stresses that the school enjoys a good relationship not only with the neighbors but also with the school stakeholders. Periodic audience between the school administration and the students ensures that problems are solved as soon as they arise. There are periodical meetings between the teachers and the parents and this ensures that the two parties act in a synchronized manner as far as bringing up the child is concerned. There are parent days once per year where the students, teacher and students come together. This paper makes a conclusion that the school possesses a lengthy history, been in existence for thirty years now. This means that the school has laid down infrastructures as far as education provision is concerned. It has a fully stocked library and laboratories. It also has a powerful network of alumni. These are prominent people in the society and provide inspiration to our student and staff. The school is very expensive, it been a private enterprise. This locks out students that deserved an opportunity to study at our school since they cannot meet the costs. The school is said to be rigid as far as religion goes. It is run exclusive on Roman Catholic principles. This alienates students of other faiths like Muslim and Protestants. The school has been in existence for a period of thirty years. Due to this, it finds it very hard to deviate from its tradition and embrace new ways of life. It is accused of still running the business of education the old school way.

Racism against African American in the education system in United Research Paper

Racism against African American in the education system in United States - Research Paper Example Hence, one cannot help but wonder when racism will become a history, especially in the current education systems. The following essay will focus on racism as witnessed in the current education systems in the American education system as well as some of the problem’s practical solutions (Carol, p.18). Since the time when racial segregation in the American education system was deemed unconstitutional by a Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education nearly six decades ago, a lot has changed. For instance, the landmark civil rights legislation and the civil rights movement have enabled the participation in our independent system possible for millions of African Americans and members of other marginal groups. Also, the national government commenced a War on Poverty and also, the United States voted its first Black president. However, despite the development, what has remained unaffected is the persistent racial prejudice in the United States public learning systems. The prejudice is patent in a number of ways such as unrelenting racial segregation in the American schools, the enormous imbalance in resource distribution between majority White schools and majority-minority schools. In addition, it is manifested in the uneven treatment of racial minority students within the schools, in spite of the degree of unification. Consequently, these factors contribute towards undermining the social, economic, and political prospective and chances of racial minorities in the United States. Moreover, the facts are responsible for the second-class nationality that has defined this group in America for centuries (Dorinda, p.10). In large part, since the United States public education system has failed them, compared to their white peers, racial minority students in the United States lag behind radically. However, although various statistics present verification for this conclusion, the inequality in high school

The differences between reading content area material and literature Essay

The differences between reading content area material and literature - Essay Example The reading of the content areas is mainly divided into three parts. The students draw upon a prior experience or knowledge about the text, during reading they identify with the text and after reading they make interpretations. The strategies of the teacher depend on the activities of the students. (Literacy matters, n.d.). The appropriate strategies of the teachers are as follows: The content materials have a different structure than the other varieties of texts. If the preview of the structure is provided to the students beforehand with headings and sub-headings, pictures and captions then it will benefit the students to understand the nature of the text beforehand. A teacher can discuss these features before beginning starting the lesson. Before starting a new lesson, it will be beneficial for the students if the teachers give an idea of the concepts present in the lesson. The teachers should enquire the students about their knowledge of the subject, which will help in the flow of teaching. Various techniques like the Concept mapping can be used to know the prior knowledge of the students about the subject. The content readings have a high level of vocabulary, which has to be made familiar to the students. The meaning of the new words should be clearly explained to the students. (Abromitis, 28th July, 2009). Reading literature is of great importance because it is through reading of literature that the student learns to view the thoughts and actions of the character compassionately. It develops a sense of emotion in the minds of the reader. Therefore, reading of literature is of utmost importance. The appropriate strategies of teaching literature are as follows: The teachers may teach the whole literature through creating mini lessons about the text. It will be easier for the students to relate to the bigger picture and form a generalized idea about the text. This strategy is helpful for both the

Practicum Report Essay Example for Free

Practicum Report Essay A. Introduction I. Introduction of University of Technical education Ho Chi Minn City 1. Brief History The University of Technical Education Ho Chi Minn City (UTE) evolved from the Board of Technical Education, first founded on 5 October 1962, renamed Nguyen Truong To Center for Technical Education in Thu Duc on 21 September 1972, and upgraded to Thu Duc College of Education in 1974. On 27 October 1976, the SRV Prime Minister issued a decision to establish Thu Duc University of Technical Education on the basis of Thu Duc College of Education. This was amalgamated with Thu Duc Industrial School in 1984 and further merged with Technical Teacher Training School No 5 in 1991 to become the present University of Technical Education Ho Chi Minh City. At 1 Vo Van Ngan Street, Thu Duc District, only 10 km north-east of the center of Ho Chi Minh City, UTE enjoys the combined advantages of a spacious, comfortable, and peaceful suburban study environment and excellent bus service, with easy access to the city center, the airport, and the surrounding areas. 2. Duties. Responsibilities. The University of Technical Education Ho Chi Minn City assumes the following functions: To train and upgrade technical teachers for technical universities and colleges, professional and vocational schools, and comprehensive middle schools To train technological engineers and technical manpower adaptable to the labor market To promote scientific research and production development in the field of professional education and technological science To expand cooperation relationships with international scientific organizations and technical teacher training institutions. 3. Missions Specialized in training technical teachers at university and post-university levels for the whole country, UTE ought to provide competent trainers directly responsible for training and upgrading qualified manpower for the process of modernization and industrialization of the country and building up a knowledge-based economy. Being the leading technical education training institution in the whole country and having access to new methodologies and innovative teaching aids, UTE ought to train and upgrade technical teachers, sound in theory, skilled in practice, and competent in pedagogy, and to provide skilled manpower, adaptable to production realities and able to meet the ever-increasing needs of society. As a center for research and experimentation in vocational education, UTE ought to be a reliable counseling agency for the government in planning relevant policies and to dependably support other training institutions in improving their teaching methods and equipment. 4. Quality Policy Constantly improve the quality of teaching and learning to offer students the best conditions to develop their creative potentials, broaden their knowledge, and perfect their skills to meet the needs of society. Quality Policy (based on the ISO 9001:2000 standards) 5. Training Programs. An experienced and dynamic state-run university, UTE offers quality technology-oriented training programs in a supportive and student-caring environment UTE, with its 13 Faculties, offers students a large choice of programs and specialties delivered at various levels of training and in different modes of study. The current enrollment amounts to over 25,000 students at 5 different levels Masters degree, Bachelors degree, Associate degree, Technician diploma, and Technical worker certificate -, studying in 2 different training systems Regular and In-service. With the approval of the MoET, UTE has been offering Masters programs since 1592. Based on its traditional fortes in science, engineering and technology, UTE is now offering 7 Masters programs: 1. Machine building technology 2. Mechanics of machinery 3. Operation and maintenance of automobiles and tractors 4. Electrical equipment, network and power stations 5. Technical education science 6. Electronic engineering 7 International vocational education. (In association with Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, FRG) Together with the development of the countrys economy on the way of industrialization and modernization, UTE has expanded its scope of training Together with the development of the countrys economy on the way of industrialization and modernization, UTE has expanded its scope of training to meet the demands of the new socio-economic reality and is now offering 34 Bachelors programs: 1. Electrical and electronic engineering 2. Electronic technology Telecommunications. 3. Computer technology 4. Industrial electricity 5. Electrical automation 6. Mechanical engineering 7. Industrial technology 8. Mechatronics 9. Automation technology 10. Automotive engineering 11. Thermotechnics Refriferation 12. Info mechanics 13. Machine design 14. Home and Industrial civil engineering 15. Home economics 16. Garment technology 17. Food technology 18. Fashion design 19. Printing technology 20. Information technology 22. Accounting 23. Industrial management 24. English for engineering 25. Technical education in Electrical and electronic engineering 26. Technical education in Industrial electricity 27. Technical education in Mechanical engineering 28. Technical education in Industrial technology 29. Technical education in Mechatronics 30. Technical education In Automotive engineering 31. Technical education in Thermotechnics Refrigeration 32. Technical education In Computer technology 33. Technical education in Home and industrial civil engineering 34. Technical education In Electronic technology Telecommunications Associate. programs: 1. Electrical and electronic engineering 2 Industrial electricity 3. Mechanical engineering 4. Automotive engineering 5. Garment technology For the dual purpose of developing human resources for the society and providing a teaching practice environment for our graduates, we arc also actively involved in delivering Technician diploma and Technical worker certificate programs. Technician diploma programs are offered in: 1. Industrial and household electricity 2 Electronic technology 3. Thermotechnics-Refrigeration 4. Garment technology 5. Automotive engineering 6. Operation and maintenance of mechanical equipment 7. Accounting Informatics Technical worker certificate programs are offered in: 1. Industrial and household electricity 2. Electronics 3. Metalworking (Turning, Milling Planning) 4. Automotive repair 5. Refrigeration 6. Industrial Mewing This multi-level, multi-mode and multi-disciplinary training structure allows us to take the initiative in all work from research to applications. It also facilitates the organization of transfer programs, helping students fulfill their lifelong learning dreams in the most economical and effective way. Students can choose either to study on the main campus or in the provinces to suit their conditions. Constantly improve the quality of teaching and learning with this guiding training principle, over the past half century of development, UTE has been training qualified manpower, sound in theory, skilled in practice, and  equipped with a good sense of morality, able to stand on various fronts in lecture halls, on construction sites, in factories, etc to serve the process of industrialization and modernization of the country. Many of our graduates over 400 Master degrees holders, 30,000 engineers, and 2,000 technicians and high-qualified workers -, brought up and trained at UTE, are now holding key positions in various training institutions, business and industry. 6. Facilities In addition to our main 17-ha campus at 1 Vo Van Ngan Street, Thu Duc District, we have another 4. 5-ha campus at 484 Le Van Viet Street, District 9, HCMC. We are planning to establish a new 80-ha campus in Dalat, LamDong Province. UTE provides students with adequate facilities in a creativeness-inducing learning environment, giving each and every individual the opportunities for study and practice. The University library has spacious reading rooms with sufficient publications and periodicals for study and research needs 26,092 titles of books with 299,247 copies, 253 titles of newspapers and magazines, averaging 115 titles of books per one program of study. Library management and services have been computerized and modernized to meet the ever-increasing needs of the readers. Recently, the University has heavily invested in modern practice and experiment equipment. We now have 72 practice workshops (12,708m2) and 20 laboratories (lr908m2), enough for our present training needs. We have installed 1,363 computers; 944 of these are for teaching, learning and research; the remaining 419 ore for management and administration. Our computer systems are regularly upgraded. Our local network operates reliably at 512 Kbps; the ADSL lines enable high-speed networking and Internet access. We have 150 claasrooms with a total area of 9,698m2, each varying in size from 64m2 to 175m2 to suit specific training needs (averaging 6,66m2 per student). New buildings to be constructed include a Central Building with 30,000m2 of floor area, a High Technology Center with over 5,000m2 of floor area, and a Multi-purpose Classroom Building with over 4,000m2 of floor area. For 7 consecutive years 2002 2009, UTEs dormitory has been granted  the title City-level Cultural Unit. For sporting activities, we have a football field (12,600m2), 7 volleyball courts (756m2); a tennis court (240m2); and a sporting event hall (720m2). Staff UTFs faculty and staff currently total 698. Nearly 60% percent of the more than 538 faculty members have postgraduate qualifications. Over 100 lecturers are working towards a Ph. D. or a Masters in the country or abroad. Faculty members actively take part in scientific research and strive to apply innovative teaching methods to activate students. In addition to creating favorable conditions for individual self-improvement, UTE regularly organizes upgrading courses in foreign languages, computing and professional skills for all staff (averaging more than 10 courses per year). 7. Cooperation UTE maintains effective multiform cooperation relationships with domestic as well as international organizations. We have provided on-campus training to thousands of core technical teachers for technical and vocational schools in the provinces across the country. In addition to local training institutions, business and industry, we have also established bilateral ties with various international organizations, the governments of many countries, NGOs and international universities and colleges. Some of our cooperation projects have been highly appreciated-the Viettnam-Germany Center for training vocational teachers and qualified workers funded by the State of Baden- Warttemberg (FRO), the Masters Program delivered in association with Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and supported by InWent (PRO), the Bachelors Program in Clothing Design Manufacture delivered in association with Heriot-Watt. University (UK), the Bachelors Program in Electrical and Electronic Engineering delivered in association with Sunderland University (UK), the joint-training programs with Siemens, MTZ (FRG), Omron (Japan), Rockwell Automation, Foxconn, General Electric (US), and others. Among our other partners are about 20 other foreign universities, institutes, and international organizations in many countries around the world, including Dresden University (FRG), Trier University (FRG), LENSET de Cachan  (France), Universite de Metz (France). Guangxi Normal University (China), Tianjin University of Technology and Education (China), Sydney University of Technology (Australia), Universite de Liege (Belgium), Universite de Sherbrooke (Canada), DSE DAAD GTZ (FRG), Yeungnam University (South Korea), Chungwoon University (South Korea), Sejong University (South Korea), Hanbat National University (South Korea), Quilin University (China), Kunming University (China), Yuan Ze University (Taiwan), Southern Taiwan University of Technology, National Taiwan Normal University, and others. II. Introduction of faculty of foreign languages The Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) is in charge of delivering a Bachelors program in Technical English and teaching General English and ESP to students of all the other faculties in the university. Faculty members total 23, including 1 Ph. D. , 1 Ph. D. candidate, 12 Masters, and 6 premaster students. The teaching staff consists partly of highly experienced lecturers with many years of leaching at UTE and other large national universities and partly of young teachers full of enthusiasm, energy and creativity. FFL encourages and creates favorable conditions for all staff members to upgrade their qualifications either in the country or abroad. Within the common trend of regional and internal integration, English has assumed an ever more important role in a multilingual and multicultural working environment. The Technical English program delivered by FFL aims to provide the labor market with white collar workers, knowledgeable about ESP, and able to work in industrial parks, export-processing zones, companies, factories and plants, as well as for foreign offloces, international and non-governmental organizations, where English is required. FFL actively engages in compiling and adapting ESP textbooks to suit the students requirements, as well as the Universitys and employers expectations. FFL has been seeking assistance from domestic counterparts as well as support in information and teaching materials from universities in English-speaking countries, gradually expanding cooperation relationships and railing the teaching and learning quality, FFL is getting ready to offer new programs in Japanese, Korean and Chinese to meet the ever-Increasing needs in these languages. III. The aim, the learning outcomes and the pro-requisites of TEFL teaching practicum course 1. The aim Applying the understanding aspects of foreign language learners, methods, and approaches in language teaching and learning, observation, execution of lesson in a specific context, to classroom management. Special emphasis is given to the planning and execution of technically-related lessons. It also provides students a further opportunity to reflect upon their work as professionals. 2. The learning outcomes. Upon successful completion of teaching practlcum, students should be able to: Gain insight into EFL students motlvatlon, frustration, and strategles in learning English as a foreign language. Recognize how theories of language learning and teaching underlie classroom practice, implicitly and explicitly, based on knowledge gained through 8-week observation and leashing practice. Begin to develop a personal view of what constitutes effective EFL teaching. Gain confidence in ability to devise and carry out EFL classroom learning activities by engaging in observation, teaching and tutoring in a diversely educational setting. 3. The pre-requisites Successful completion of Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing 4, Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, Semantics, British Literature, British Civilization, TEFL Methodology, and Media in ELT. B. Content I. Teaching practicum planning Date (Feb 6th Mar 31st)Content Week 1 (Feb 6th -Feb 11th)1. Confirm the practicing place; receive specific plan, purpose and requirements, rules and regulations of teaching practicum course. 2. Divide teaching practice groups, meet instructors and members in groups, assign tasks for each person. Week 2 (Feb 13 -Feb 18)1. Receive teaching schedule. 2. Make plan for teaching practicum in 7 weeks 3. Get acquainted with students. 4. Observe instructors class on Tuesday, Feb. 14th , 2012 (Period 1-4, Room A2. 202) and Thursday Feb. 16th. 2012 (Period 1- 4, Room E1. 505) 5. Make the first lesson plan (Unit 7) Week 3 (Feb, 20 -Feb. 25)? Feb. 20th. 2012 1. Observe others classes of Thu Hue, Cam Lien, Yen Nhi, Ngoc (February morning 20lh 2012) 2. Observe Mr. Luans class (February afternoon 20th 2012) Period 1-4 ? Feb. 21st. 2012 3. Observe the first teaching of Ha Word Power (Air travel file + Word group) Period 1 Room A2. 202. 4. Observe the first teaching of Tuy? n Focus on Function (Making arrangements) Period 2 – Room A2. 202. 5. Give the first lesson plan for instructor and receive the feedback. 6. Correct the first lesson plan.  ¦ Feb. 23rd, 2012 7. Observe the second teaching of Ha Word Power (Air travel file + Word group) Period 1 Room E1 . 505. 8. Observe the second teaching of Tuyen Focus on Function (Making arrangements) Period 2 – Room E1. 505. 9. Receive the feedback from instructor and correct the first lesson plan again Week 4 (Feb. 27 -Mar. 03)Feb. 28th. 2012 1. Observe Huongs class, Changing lives on 27th February 2012, Period 1 2. Observe Vys class, Changing lives on 27th February 2012, Period 2 3. Observe Bao class, Changing lives on 27th February, Period 3 4. Observe To Lins class. Changing lives on 27th February 2010, Period 7 5. Observe To Liens class, Changing lives on 27th February 2010, Period 8  ¦ Feb. 28th. 2012 6. Observe the first teaching of Duy- Grammar point -Past and present perfect simple, period 1, Room A2. 202. 7. Observe the first teaching of Tr? ng- Word Power (Trends file + The language of graphs) -Period 2- A2. 202. 8. , Get the feedback from instructor and groups members to correct some mistakes in the second lesson plan for a better teaching period on March 1st, 2012. 9. Give the second lesson plan for instructor and receive the feedback.  ¦ March 1st. 2012 10. Observe the second teaching of Duy- Grammar point Past and present perfect simple, period 1, Room El. 505. 11. Observe the second teaching of Tr? ng Word Power (Trends file + The language of graphs) Period 2 -Room El . 505. 12. Get the feedback from instructor and groups members. 13. Prepare the third lesson plan (Unit 10) Week 5 (Mar. 5 -Mar. 10) ¦ March 5th. 2012 1. Observe Hieus class, unit Crossing cultures. Period 7 2. Observe To Linhs class, unit Crossing cultures, Period 8 3. Observe Cuongs class, unit Crossing cultures, Period 9  ¦ March 6th. 2012 4. Observe the first teaching of Kim Language Focus (Modal Verbs) Period 1 Room A2. 202. 5. Observe my instructors class, period 2-3, Room A2. 202.  ¦ March 8th. 2012 6. Observe the second teaching of Kim – Language Focus (Modal Verbs) Period 1 Room E1. 505. 7. Observe the third leaching of Trong Focus on Function (Invitation)- Period 2 Room E1. 505. 8. Research mora information to make lesson plan for third teaching. Week 6 (Mar. 12-Mar. 17) ¦ March 12th. 2011 1. Observe the third teaching of Duy- Word Power -Business headlines file -f Word family, period 2, Room A4. 103. 2. Observe the third teaching of Tuyen Language Focus, (Present perfect simple and continuous) -Period 1 Room A4. 103. 3. Observe the third teaching practice of Ha Focus on Functions (Offers and requests) Period 3 Room A4 103 4. Give the feedback for groups members to correct some mistakes in the last lesson plan for a better teaching period on March 15th . 2012 5. Give the third lesson plait for instructor and get feedback from her to correct it. ?March 13th 2012 6. Observe the fourth teaching of Duy-Word Power -Business headlines file Word family, period 2, Room A2. 202 7. Observe the fourth teaching practice of Tuyen Language Focus (Present perfect simple and continuous) Period 1- Room A2. 202. 8. Observe the fourth teaching practiceof Ha Focus on functions (Offers and requests) Period 3- Room A2. 202 9. Give the feedback lor groups members. Week 7 (Mar. 19 Mar. 24)? March 9th, 2012 1 Observe the third teaching practice of Kim Language Focus (Prepositions) Period 2 Room A4. 101. 2 Observe the fourth teaching practice of Tr? ng -Focus on Function (Invitation) Period 3 Room A4. 103. 3. Get the feedback from instructor and members in Week 8 (Mar. 26-Mar. 31)group, correct the third lesson plan and prepare for the fourth one.  ¦ March 20th. 2012 4. Observe the fourth teaching practice of Kim -Language Focus (Prepositions) Period 2 Room A2. 202. 5. Create a game and small party to say goodbye to students. II. Teaching schedule NO. DATEPLACECONTENTNOTE. 1Tuesday, February 28th, 2012Room A2. 202Unit 7: Changing Lives Part: Focus on function Opinions and suggestions; agreeing and disagreeingGeneral English 3, 51 students, pre-intermediate level. 2Thursday, February 1st, 2012Room E1 . 505Unit 7: Changing Lives Part: Focus on function Opinions and suggestions; agreeing and disagreeingGeneral English 3, 31 students, pre-intermediate level. 3Monday, March 20th, 2012Room A4. 103Unit 10: Will our planet survive? Part: Language focus Future with will; the first conditional; if and whenGeneral English 3, 51 students, pre-intermediate level. 4Tuesday, March 13th. 2012Room A2. 202Unit 10: Will our planet survive? Part: Language focus Future with will; the first conditional; if and whenGeneral English 3, 45 students, pre-intermediate level. III. Teaching materials 1. Lesson plan 2. Textbook 3. Student teaching evaluation form 4. Student teaching observation form C. Conclusion I. Reflection paper Through 8-week observation and teaching practice, I recognised that the teaching practicum give me useful first-hand experience and practical knowledge of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language. Actually, this course helped me to apply the theory, methods and approaching, ets in real class. Moreover, it is important to know my own strengths and weaknesses. It also provided me a further opportunity to reflect upon my works as professionals. All these things are valuable experience for me to strive for the career in the future. First of all, I made a clear and specific plan for the course. So, I spent 47 periods in observation. Thanks to this, I had a chance to get familier with my students, such as ability, level, gender, interest, number of students, asmostphere and facilities in class. When I observered I noted down who are active and passive, equipments need to bo used. Then, I considered lesson plans with which activities I could apply in the class, which methods are suitable, what strategies were used to support my teaching and students learning. Secondly, I apprehened a lot of things from the intructors and other student teachers, I understood that there are three significant things which teachers should focus when teaching: interaction between teacher and student, professional responsibilties and knowledge and time mangement I found that although the knowledge is good, teaching method is not good. Ultimately, the job is not successful. Thirdly, when I observed I learnt a lot of useful things from the failure and success of my friends. The common mistake is the instructions were ineffective, which made students confused. However, I learnt a nice way from my peer to give intructions such as giving short sentences, using familiar words as well as emphasizing the important words. After the teacher gives intructions for an activity, he or she could make sure sudents have been about what to do in the activities by asking them some questions. Until he or she has check students understanding about it or her instructions, starts the activity. Furthermore, many student teachers did not give any samples or examples when they asked students to make conversation about some topics, so it was hard for students to know how they should do. In time management, most of apprentices lacked of it. Specifically, we could not divide reasonable time. Obviously, teacher talked more than students talked. Thus, my instructor suggested, let students practice more. I really appreciated her advice, it helped me improve a lot after that. The worse thing was we often went into overtime. It was the reason made us lose our self-control. Besides, few student teachers were not confident about their own ability and knowledge. I realized that it could have equally disastrous consequences. Hence, I reminded me look for more information or documents relating to the lesson. The speciality is know thoroughly the grammar points which we teach because if we are not clear what we say, how can we make others understand deeply? The benifits of utilizing multimedia in teaching are countless. Student teachers carefully considered to take full advantage of them. And so did I. Yet, we completely seemed to be bad at blackboard presentation. According to a lecturer, she suggested that the blackboard should be divided into two or three parts at the start of the lesson. For example: Additional example or explanationLesson Unit: Title (different color) (page no. ) I. Language focus grammar structure -use/ meaningAdditional example OrOr Students exercise or feed backexplantion This is a layout with 3 parts. If the board is small, we can divide as follow. Lesson Unit: Title (different color) (page no. ) I. Language focus grammar structure -use/meaning -etcAdditional example or explanation. Even something seems trifling like the way erase the board, gesture, manners and behaviour, etc. I was also instructed by my consultant. Thanks to her consideration, I made my own pedagogic style. Consequently, my instructor praise me tor this. Over two months, I look back what I got and what I did not. I evaluated my strength and weakness. My strong point is confidence. Thus, I could manage class well, designed task effective, engage all students in learning. The weak point was my pronunciation. Though I tried to correct it later classes, I still pronounced wrong. So, I made a plan for practice pronounce more to be better. Additionally, I learnt how to solve the problems that can occur in the classes, predict them problems and anticipate the solutions. That was very important for an effective teaching class. In short, base on knowledge gained through 2-month observation and teaching practice, the help of instructors and peers, I gained confidence in ability to devise and cary out EFL classroom learning activities. I applied the theory in school in real environment. In fact, the invaluable lessons and experience underlie for career in the future, I had a straight judge myself.

The tragedy of Antigone Essay Example for Free

The tragedy of Antigone Essay The tragedy of Antigone is the culmination of Sophocles’ line of troubles for the Oedipan line, beginning with the unmasking of the King’s tragic secret. The last tale of the doomed Theban family, however, was different from the other two stories; here, the main theme was not the unfolding of tragedy as willed by fate, but a defiant challenge to mortal pride. Antigone faced Creon to challenge the dishonorable sentence to her brother, and also to unmask the pride by which the Theban King defied the gods. Dante’s Divine Comedy follows a similar theme: driven by the despair of wrath and pride, the poet-pilgrim is led by the spirit of Virgil through the recesses of his soul to see first-hand the ugliness of sin and pride that moves his despair. Through analysis of the two stories, it will be revealed that they share similar devices in narrative, and a common theme: Mortal Pride blinds its owner, turns it against those he holds dear, and offends the Divine. The first recognizable similarity between the two stories lies in the role of the women in unmasking the folly of mortal pride. Antigone begins in the aftermath of a great battle and the decision of the Theban King, Creon, to disgrace the dead of the besieged and withhold the honor of proper burial. Antigone represented divine admonition and retribution, in her defiance of the law forbidding the burial (Watling, 1959, p. 125). The purpose was two-fold: one was to give redeem the lost honor of her brother, who was one of the doomed, and the other to dare the King to do his worst and in so doing, and thus expose the extent of his folly. The heroine of Dante’s Divine Comedy is Beatrice, who, seeing the despair and error that Dante found himself in, sent for the ancient writer Virgil to guide him through Inferno into the gates of Paradise (Ciardi, 1960, pp. 28-30). This journey through the bowels of Inferno represents the soul’s examination of self, revealing that at the center of the blackness of his despair was sin, and at the core of that was pride. Beatrice is fulfilling the same two-fold purpose that Antigone bore for herself: she wished to redeem Dante, by exposing the folly of his own pride. The devices of both stories are also similar in their approach to curbing mortal pride: initially there is the advice of Reason, and then the chastisement by the Divine. King Creon is approached by his son, Haemon, in the hopes in him seeing the error of his ways (Watling, 1959, pp. 143-147). His careful admonition of speaking for Creon’s benefit and that he could still admit to his mistake, is similar in Virgil’s firm but gentle handling of Dante, as the latter is led through the depths of Hell and the scourges of Purgatory. Mortal pride, in both stories, has blinded too much the protagonist; Creon would not heed to the warnings of his son, and would even trade barbs with the blind prophet Teiresias (Watling, 1959, p. 154). Similarly, throughout Dante’s journey through the nightmarish landscape of the Inferno, he could see tormented souls who are too blinded by their pride to realize the gravity of their sins and its consequences. One memorable scene is in Inferno’s Canto VII, where, in the dregs of a swamp, the souls who were wrathful in their lives continue to tear each apart even in Hell. There is also Vanni Fucci’s defiant cry to God in Canto XXV of Inferno, in the midst of his torment from vipers (Ciardi, 1960, pp. 75, 213). Even Dante himself, later in Purgatorio’s Canto XIII, admits of continuing lapse to pride, despite the horrors he had to face in Inferno (Ciardi, 1960, pp. 143-144). Mortal pride, however, eventually shrinks before the glare of Divine wrath, the second and more effective narrative device used to quelling the former. Teiresias, having been rebuffed in his gentle words of advice to Creon, reveals the extent of Heaven’s curse. His final barb at the King (â€Å"Let us leave him to vent his anger on younger ears/Or school his mind and tongue to a milder mood†) exposes Creon’s fury for what it is: nothing before the eyes of the Divine (Watling, 1959, pp. 154-155). Beatrice, in a similar office, released righteous fury upon a Dante that seemed to have gotten off easy in Hell and Purgatory—incidentally at the same time that Virgil finally leaves him. Dante, suddenly naked before Divine Wrath, swoons in grief and guilt (Ciardi, 1959, pp. 304-307, 310-313). Thus, the two stories share the same lesson: Pride that is defiant before the Law of the Divine eventually is humbled against Righteous Wrath. Thus is Antigone the same with the Divine Comedy. Through the device of Reason (Haemon in the former, Virgil in the latter), the Divine sought to redeem the soul caught in the despair of pride. The act of pride is exposed for its absurdity, and the sinner shrinks before the realization of the extent of his error. Pride, that it may be scourged from its wielder, is then met with the punishment of the Divine. Creon faced it in the multiple tragedies of son, mother and would-be daughter-in-law. Dante, though, could not yet suffer this burden as he was still alive (though Beatrice’s denunciations would have sufficed), but he could at least see it from the Proud preparing themselves in Purgatorio, as was illustrated in Canto X (Ciardi, 1960, p. 115-117). The sins of Mortal Pride are not thrust upon Man by fate, but it is taken up by choice. It is a grotesque thing that blinds its possessor and thus in turn possesses him. Only by seeing clearly how small, insignificant, and foolish it is and how it hurts those held dear, can it be overthrown and the soul thus redeemed.

US Negotiations with Iran

US Negotiations with Iran The United States should negotiate with Iran The subject of US involvement in Iranian affairs is something which has been in existence for quite a while now. The intriguing thing is that in as much as this is a topic I discussed so much, very little is known about the very facts that come into perspective when looking at this issue (Parsi, 25). In as much as the United States is one of the most powerful and influential nations in the world, there are some aspects that are associated with Iran which cannot just be overlooked. The following are some of the issues which are pointed out by the US Department of State: The Iranian Nuclear Challenge The nuclear activities which are associated with Iran are some of the things which have become significant concerns which the world is having to face in the modern age. At the moment, the country is capable of producing nuclear weapons. This is something very dangerous considering over the past the nation has been having very rogue leaders. Some of the activities associated with these leaders can lead to the emergence of an arms race in a region which is already lit up with violence. At the same time, there is unrivalled hatred between Iran and Israel, one of the United States’ greatest allies. Having the leaders of such nation have such weapons at their disposal could spell doom in the region (Bahgat, 150). Time and time again it has always been the policy of the United States to ensure that Iran does not come to be in possession of nuclear weapons. In this same regard, the United States is willing to do anything within its power for the purpose of ensuring that indeed Iran does not own nuclear weapons. There are several reason why this is the case. However, the one which stands out significantly is the fact that Iran tends to keep its nuclear activities so secret (Parsi, 67). The country has become so secretive to the extent that it has even concealed these happenings from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The ultimatums which have been given to Iran by the US seem not to be having any impact on the position which the country takes with regard to its nuclear activities. The main idea in this case was to compel Iran to own up to its nuclear responsibilities and become a full member of countries associated with nuclear activities or risk being further isolated or having sanctions imposed against it. It has become rather clear that the country has opted for isolation. Supporting Terrorism-related activities Away from the nuclear activities in Iraq, it has also become rather clear that Iran is in support of Bashad Asad of Syria. In this same regard it should be understood that it is Asad who has been responsible for some of the destabilizing activities which have been witnessed in the Middle East. Some of these activities have led to widespread suffering of many innocent civilians in the world. These Iranian terrorism-related activities are not only seen with the Iranian government. There are some other instances where the citizens of the country come into view. For example, in the year 2012, there are Kenyan authorities who arrested Iranian nationals who had explosives and they were targeting the Western and Israeli spots. In this same regard, the Iranian government continues to fund terrorist groups both in and around Iran. Outreach to the Iranian People It is without a doubt that the Iranian people are indeed suffering. This is majorly because of the regime which is in their country. In this same regard, there are various ways which the United States seeks to communicate to the Iranian citizens in a bid to keep them informed and empowered. These are through online platforms and even social media. There is one outstanding feedback which comes out from these interactions. The people of the country are going through significant detriment as a result of misplaced priorities by the government, corruption and mismanagement. The leadership of the country has opted to spend huge sums of money in arming its terrorist and military proxies all over the world at the expense of local development in the country (Bahgat, 145). It is of importance to let these citizens know of the many opportuinities which they have outside their entrapments. At the same time, they should be made aware of the significant potential which they have. There are very many examples of Iranian Americans who have made very significant developments in the country. Need for Negotiation From the discussions, it can be seen that Iran is indeed a nation that has a lot of potential which when not well handled, there may be a lot of repercussions not only on the United States but all over the world. Some of the influence which this country has is already being felt in the country itself and also in regions where affiliates of Iran operate, more specifically ISIS. Most of the dealings with the country has been to do with the rule of thumb. So far, these have proved not to work as the country has proved not to be shaken. It would be advisable to try and look at aspects to do with negotiation. This is an option which has not been tried and it is actually unknown whether the results may be any different if indeed this option gets to be considered (Parsi, 23). One of the probable reasons why the Iranian authorities have become so defiant is because they have been isolated by a significant section of the world. For this reason, they may be of the opinion that proving defiant may be a way of showing these other nations that indeed the Iranians can take care of themselves. However, this action is something that may boost the egos of the leaders but will have severe repercussions for the people of the country. It is also on such grounds that indeed there is need for negotiations. The reason for this is because the hardliner stand which the United States may be taking may be for the purpose of punishing the leaders or sending some kind of message but ultimately the people who end up suffering are the citizens of the country. The United Nations has for a long time been a nation that influences almost all the activities that go on in the world. It will indeed be in order if the country can also be on the forefront of championing for the liberatio n of the people of Iran. In as much as there may be involvement of Iranian nationals on some terrorist activities, it should be understood that these opinions shared by these individuals do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire population of the people in the country. In this same regard, it should be noted that the cooperation of the country itself when it comes to matters to do with negotiation will mean that the neighboring allies of the United States will have peace and tranquility. The United States will also not incur expenses for the purpose of ensuring that the region is stable. These expenses majorly come about as a result of military deployment in the area not forgetting matters to do with humanitarian aid. Works Cited A Single Roll of the Dice Obamas Diplomacy with Iran. Yale UP, 2012. Print. Bahgat, Gawdat. Iran and the United States: Reconcilable Differences? Iranian Studies: 139-54. Print. Parsi, Trita. Treacherous Alliance the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. New Haven: Yale UP, 2007. Print. Bahgat, Gawdat. Iran And The United States: Reconcilable Differences?. Iranian Studies 41.2 (2008): 139-154. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Apr. 2015. SASLEY, BRENT E. A Single Roll Of The Dice: Obamas Diplomacy With Iran. Political Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell) 128.1 (2013): 175-176. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.

Does Phyllis Wheatley use religious references to warn her readers abou

Does Phyllis Wheatley use religious references to warn her readers about slavery and sin and its repercussions?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the poem, â€Å"To the University of Cambridge, in New England†, Phyllis Wheatley suggest that she accepted the colonial idea of slavery, by first describing her captivity, even though this poem has a subversive double meaning that has sent an anti-slavery message. Wheatley’s choice of words indicates that her directed audience was educated at a sophisticated level because of the language chosen. Her audience was assumingly also familiar with the bible because of the religious references used. The bible was used as a reference because of its accessibility. Wheatley uses religious references to subversively warn her readers about slavery and its repercussions and to challenge her reader’s morals.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As the poem starts out, Wheatley describes being taken from her â€Å"native shore† to â€Å"the land of errors.† Her native shore was the western coast of Africa, and she was taken to the â€Å"land of errors† which represents America. America is seen in her eyes as the land of errors because of slavery. Wheatley is acknowledging right off the bat that slavery is wrong. Wheatley then goes on and references the â€Å"Egyptian gloom† which is italicized. The italicization forces the readers to focus and reflect on â€Å"Egyptian† and it’s possible Smith-Joseph 2 meaning. The â€Å"Egyptian gloom† symbolizes Egypt and one of the most famou...

George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984 :: Free Essays on 1984

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four 1984   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Totalitarianism is a word that has many definitions that are true to their own time and their own society. One of the most common definitions used world wide is very complex, but very understandable when you are done reading the book 1984 by George Orwell. Totalitarianism is a system of government and ideology in which all social, political, economic, intellectual, cultural and spiritual activities are subordinated to the purpose of the rules of the rulers of a state. Several important features distinguish totalitarianism, a form of autocracy peculiar to the 20th century, from suck order forms as despotism, absolutism, and tyranny. In the older forms of totalitarianism, people could work and live on their own as long as they didn’t try to enter the political state of the society in any way. In the newer forms of totalitarianism, the people of the society are dependent on other people that are higher then them in every thing they do in everyday life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Oceania, the world or society in the book 1984, the life of the state was very different from everything that we are used to in everyday life in this time. In Oceania the state life was all by a man that they called â€Å"Big Brother† that everyone worked for, lived for, and did all of their everyday things just to make him happy. The sate would say just what and when they could do. In the form of the society, the people really didn’t get to live in any true type of society. They weren’t a loud to talk to others about what was   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Knight 2 really on their minds, they couldn’t thing about the past or what is really the history, and they couldn’t have any kind of love life or sexual activity with anyone. In the form of daily life, the people had to go to work and do whatever the â€Å"Big Brother† said they had to do. In many instances they had to go around and change the newspapers so that the true history of the world wouldn’t be revealed to anyone but the top people of the society. No personal life was a loud to take place. The thought police had to know and did know everything that the people did or even thought of doing.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Oceania compares to the totalitarian state of the 20th century very well.

A New Approach to Stadium Experience: the Dynamics of the Sensoryscape, Social Interaction, and Sense of Home Essay

Abtract The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable, valid instrument of the sensory experiences of sport attendees. It identified 22-items to represent five dimensions of the sensoryscape; they are sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. The authors used CFA ( confirmatory factor analysis) and SEM ( Structural Equation Model ) to confirm the reliable of Sensoryscape. The sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home each had a positive, direct impact on fans’ satisfaction for both major (N = 259) and minor {N= 218) league venues; and they also had correlation among each other. Satisfaction with the stadium experience had a positive and direct impact on intention to revisit. Implications for sport marketing practice and future research are discussed. 1.0 Introduction The importance of the experience economy has been widely recognized in consumer research. According to Holbrook & Hirschman (1982), experiences have always been at the heart of the entertainment business including in sporting events. When fans have good experiences in the facility, there is greater inducement to their repeat attendance Many studies have begun to pay close attention to consumers’ experiences via their five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste (Gobà ©, 2001, et al). A higher quality or more powerful sensory experience has been shown to influence the extent of the purchase and, when positive, result in a higher level of customer loyalty. Anderson and Sullivan (1993), consumer satisfaction is one of the most important predictors of consumer retention. Traditionally, product or service quality is one of the most powerful determinants of customer satisfaction and behavioral, however, more recent work has focused on sustaining the brand and customer experien ce. On the other hand, sport marketing researchers have primarily focused on two types of antecedents that lead to customer satisfaction and behavioral intention: * Core product * Customer service According to Westerbeek and Shilbury (1999), in the professional sports industry, a stadium is an important venue in which sport consumers directly consume and experience sports, and social interaction is a key element that affects spectators’ stadium experience. Sigmon et al, 2002, researched that fans also report experiencing a feeling of home in their home stadium, to some fans, a professional team’s stadium is not just a facility; it is their psychology home. The purpose of this study is to provide a more complete understanding of the sensual, social, and psychological aspects of the sport consumption experience within the stadium. Specifically, the purpose of this research is to develop a reliable, valid scale of the sensoryscape. 2.0 Theoretical Background and Hypotheses 2.1 Sensory Experience Consumers’ sensory experiences play an important role in their perceptions of the value companies provide; however, the sensory experience alone may not guarantee that consumers remember the experience A stadium can be considered a â€Å"sensoryscapeâ€Å" which provides a memorable experience by appealing to all five senses. Gaffney and Bale (2004) suggested five sensual factors that affect stadium experiences: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. Gaffney and Bale (2004) suggested five sensual factors that affect stadium experiences. It is likely that more positive experiences of the sensoryscape lead to higher levels of satisfaction with the stadium experience. Based on the literature we suggest the following hypothesis: H1: More positive experiences of the sensoryscape will lead to higher levels of satisfaction with the stadium experience. 2.2 Social Interaction The effect of social interaction on stadium satisfaction may be more direct and salient. Further, there is some evidence that social interaction can stimulate communisis, but this effect has been shown only in the case of mega-events. It is not clear whether social interaction can and does evince the same experience at smaller, more regularly occurring events. Recognizing the lack of knowledge regarding the effect of social interaction, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2: Social interaction will have a positive and direct impact on stadium experience satisfaction. 2.3 Sense of Home According to Crawford (2004), professional sport teams have a significant link to the specific place where they are located. Further, at the societal level, the sport venue becomes an â€Å"emblem of locality† that represents a town and its residents Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that when fan’s experience their team’s stadium as home, their overall stadium satisfaction with the venue will increase. H3: A sense of home will have a positive and direct impact on stadium experience satisfaction. 2.4 Relationship Among Sensoryscape, Social Interaction, and Sense of Home Research clearly suggests that the sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home should each affect fan’s satisfaction with the stadium; however, There are grounds for expecting the three factors to be related with one another. It is reasonable to expect that the sensory scape may contribute to spectators’ experience of the stadium as home. On the other hand, those who seek to feel a sense of home are more likely to be receptive to the sensory scape. H4: Sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home will be correlated with one another. 2.5 Stadium Satisfaction and Repeat Attendance. Anderson & Sullivan (1993) and Oliver (1980), consumer satisfaction bas been the subject of much attention in the context of spectator sports, because of its influence on consumers’ behavioral intentions and customer retention. Satisfied consumers tend to report stronger repurchase intentions, and are more likely to recommend the products or services purchased to others This study focuses on consumers’ stadium experience satisfaction rather than their game satisfaction. Stadium satisfaction will be defined as a sport consumer’s overall evaluation and associated emotions based on all experiences within the stadium. H5: Stadium experience satisfaction will have a positive and direct impact on future intention to revisit. 3.0 Methodology Minor context: Data were collected in person for the minor league context, the sampling for the Round Rock Express. A total of 218 completed. Males were 59%, age from 11 to 85 years (M = 40.7). Most respondents were White (71%) followed by Hispanic (16%). Major context: Data for the Houston Astros were collected via an online survey.A total of 259 completed responses were obtained for the study. Males were 64%, and age ranged from 15 to 77 years (M= 34.6). most respondents were White (67%) followed by Hispanic (21%). 3.1 Measurement Spectators rated each item on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The questionnaire for the scale validation study included five measures: the sensoryscape, social interaction, sense of home, consumer satisfaction at the stadium, and repeat attendance. Total items are 33. 3.2 Data Analysis Structural equation models (SEM) using AMOS were conducted separately for each context (i.e., major league and minor league) to test the hypothesized relationships among the sensoryscape, social interaction, sense of home, stadium experience satisfaction, and intention to revisit in both major and minor league settings. 4.0 Result 4.1 Major League Context The structural model indicated that the sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home explained 71.1% of the variance in satisfaction with the Houston Astros’ stadium, and that these four factors predicted 45.1% of the variance in spectators’ intention to retum to the stadium. Correlations among the sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home were significant: 0.35 < r < 0.49, p < . H4 was supported. The four paths were all significant: 0.22 < g < 0.68,, P < 0.01. Therefore, H1, H2, H3, and H5 in the major league setting were supported, 4.2 Minor League Context The structural model indicated that the sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home explained 70.5% of the variance in satisfaction with the Round Rock Express stadium experience; these four factors predicted 55% of the variance in spectators‘ intention to retum to the Round Rock Express’ stadium. The correlations among the sensoryscape, social interaction, and sense of home were significant: 0.19 < r < 0.44, p < 0.01 H4 was supported. All the four paths between latent variables were significant: 0.17 < g < 0.15, p < 0.01. H1, H2, H3, and were supported. 5.0 Discussion The Sensoryscape scale , including 22-item, five-dimension scale is a reliable and valid instrument to measure fans’ stadium experience. The most significant factor affecting spectators‘ overall stadium satisfaction was the sensoryscape for both major and minor league contexts. Although the magnitude of the effect was much higher in the minor league context than in the major league context, social interaction had a positive impact on stadium satisfaction Spectators’ satisfaction is positively and meaningfully impacted by sense of home with the stadium experience in both major and minor-league context. This also offers suggestions for enhancing fans’ sense of the stadium as home: * First, marketers should find more ways for spectators to come into contact with the stadium and images of the stadium. * Further, sport teams can host more fantasy camps where fantasy camp participants can play with or have lessons from the team’s players. It found that the correlation between the sensoryscape and social interaction in both contexts was similar in its magnitude, the correlation between social interaction and sense of home was much higher in the minor league context than in major league context, and the correlation between sensoryscape and sense of home was much higher in major league context than in major league context. 6.0 Limitations Future research should explore other ways in which fans use their five senses to experience the stadium, to continue to improve the Sensoryscape scale and seek to confirm the proposed model with data collected from major league sites, or to compare fans’ responses to the same facility via on-line and on-site methods. To this end, other contexts could be explored (e.g., college sport, individual sport settings such as golf and tennis, road races) 7.0 Conclusion The overall sensoryscape construct explained the most variance in spectators’ satisfaction with the stadium experience. This research suggests a new direction for experience marketing in sport that leverages each of the five senses. By cultivating the sensoryscape, facilitating social interaction, and providing a sense of home, sport consumers can have a more enjoyable and memorable game experience, regardless of the game outcome.

Introduction to Sociology Essay

In this paper it will evaluate the impact of sociological behind what we call family and social change that has evolved during the ages. There are three factors that must be reviewed Functionalism, Conflict, and Interactionism. 1. Functionalism * Functionalism would claim that each member of the family is interdependent and contributes to the functioning of the family. * Family members play their role and have great attitudes there is balance, peace and unity in the family. * The rebel against his or her role then the role as a family as a whole suffers imbalance, stress, disunity and dysfunctional tendencies. * Each member has some power to agree to disagree what is decided. * By having input into decisions each member feels validated and the family can grow based on the idea of consensus rather than authoritarianism. 2. The functionalist theory is a sociological philosophy that attempts to explain social institutions as collective means to fill individual biological needs. 3. The Conflict Theory is a theory that states that society or an organization functions so that each individual participant and its group struggle to maximize their benefits which inevitably contributes to social change such as political views and revolutions. * The theory of conflict within families starts with the premises that family members undergo conflicts and disharmony. * The study includes family dynamics and the roles played by various family members. * The source of the power and the causes of the conflict must be identified. * When the family is dissected and the sources of conflict and power identified the family can better and more effective ways to communicate. * The study of dynamics can help members become more empathetic and understanding of the underlying causes of their conflict. 4. The interactism theory has become one of the dominant sociological perspectives in the world today. The theory studies individuals and how they interact in society. * Symbolic interaction theory describes the family as a unit of interacting personalities. * This theory focuses attention to the way people interact through words, gestures rules and roles. * It is based on how humans develop a complex set of symbols to give meaning to the world. * Understanding these symbols is important in understanding human behavior. * Symbolic interactionism unique contributions to family are families are social groups and that individuals develop both a concept of self and their identities through social interactions. * Symbolic interactism is the way we learn and give meaning to the world through our interactions with others. 5. All three theories, interactism, conflict, and functionalism have to do with social and mental states of the family being determined by a specific role or condition. 6. Functionalist is a macro level analysis. It focuses on how people come together to create society. * It also focuses on whether the actions are good for the equilibrium of society and these are called dysfunctions. * Conflict theory do not see society as whole coming together well for one purpose. It focuses on class conflict. * The main difference between the three is that functionalism and conflict are macro level. Symbolic interactism is micro-level. The beginning of life is the institution most responsible for the achievement of adult satisfaction and social integration. The beginning of human life begins with the family institution; depending on the upbringing of the person will likely determine the social future for society. * Functionalists view the family from the standpoint of universal functions the family provides to society. * Symbolic interactions views family as to what they can bring into society from study how they interact with each other. * Conflict theory focuses on class conflict or the conflict with the family as a group. Conclusion: Each theory will affect social change within the selected institution and depending on how each person uses this information will depend on how society views them as a whole. References: WWW. How does interactionism theory apply to family.edu Social Interactism theory by Lee Flamed.edu Conflict theory- New World Encyclopedia. Functilism theory- New World Encyclopedia Vising, Y (2011). Introduction to Sociology. San Diego, CA: Bridge point Education,Inc. *

Nature and Man

Charles Baudelaire is a controversial French poet during the 1840’s. Choosing not to take up law, he was sent him to a trip to India during which he discovered his passion for poetry. Later on he was part of the 1900’s movement, the Symbolist, whose goal was to show the world different perspectives or the â€Å"hidden meanings† of objects. Scandalizing the masses his book The Flowers of Evil, which contained Correspondences, was condemned by the public. In Correspondence, Charles Baudelaire uses metaphors to connect the nature and the senses of a person. This is evident through out the poem.Temples according to Merriam-Webster is a building for religious practice. Therefore temples are sacred and in the very first line of the poem, â€Å"Nature is a temple in which living pillars†, Baudelaire uses metaphor to connect sacredness and nature. Naturally, nature has trees and temples have pillars, which hold the structure. Again, he uses metaphor to make nature ’s trees the living pillars of the temple in this instance are nature. In the next line, one will see how a sacred place like this can be a safe haven to its people. Whenever a person of a certain religion is at lost, he seeks refuge in his respective religion.Now, nature as a temple can be a place where it can â€Å"give voice to confused words†. The third line is connected to the first one. Baudelaire uses the verbs â€Å"is† in the first line and â€Å"passes† in the third line. So while nature is a temple, man passes through it. It gives the impression that while man is changing, nature is constant. Also, all things sacred are kept secured thus the poet’s use of the term â€Å"forests of symbols†. He shows the need of nature to be kept sealed, as it is sacred. And though the man passing through is confused, the sacredness in which he is engulfed in â€Å"look at him with understanding eyes†.In the next stanza, Baudelaire uses the technique alliteration. Though it is not evident in the translation made by William Aggeler, it can be heard in the video of the original French version of the poem being read by Gilles-Claude Theriault. At the first line he talks about prolonged echoes and in the next 2 lines the words Baudelaire used words, which sort of sounded alike. It was like he was using the words to represent the prolonged echoes he was talking about. Then the last line of this stanza talks about how â€Å"perfumes, sounds and colors correspond†.Baudelaire will further discuss the similarities of these 3 in the next stanza. In the third stanza, synesthetic metaphors were used heavily. The sense of touch of the flesh of children, taste of oboes and sight of a color of meadows were all used as comparative devices for perfume, which is normally, uses the sense of smell for its description. The 5 senses are a major part of the poem and it’s most obvious in this stanza. Even the poem ends with the word senses. The third line of the third stanza he now uses contradicting moralities to attribute to the other kinds of perfume he didn’t describe in the previous lines.In the last stanza, Baudelaire talks about the power of perfume to spread. Looking at this in the perspective of nature, it can be said that perfume represents everything around us. As perfume is a liquid that requires the sense of smell, it is potent enough to be able to disperse in the air of nature. Also, since perfume is dispersed in the air, it is in a way inescapable because the scent will follow you. If another scent comes along, it will either mix, or over power the other one. He says it is â€Å"like amber and incense. Musk, benzoin† all of which are ingredients used in the process of making perfume.And while a perfume has the â€Å"power to expand into infinity†, it â€Å"sings the ecstasy of soul and senses†. The personification in the last line of perfume is used because he rei terates the point he made in the stanza before this, how perfume does not only touch the sense of smell, but all the senses. Baudelaire uses metaphors to connect nature and the 5 senses to wonderfully weave a tapestry depicting the relationship society of man and the aspects of this society. He shows the beautiful interconnection of man and nature despite the traces of imperfections surrounding it.

Critical Discourse Analysis, Organizational Discourse, and Organizational Change Essay

Discourses is an element of all concrete social events (actions, processes) as well as of more durable social practices, though neither are simply discourse: they are articulations of discourse with non-discoursal elements. ‘Discourse’ subsumes language as well as other forms of semiosis such as visual images and ‘body language’, and the discoursal element of a social event often combines different semiotic forms (eg a television programme). But the use of the ‘term ‘discourse’ rather than ‘language’ is not purely or even primarily motivated by the diversity of forms of semiosis, it is primarily registers a relational way of seeing semiosis[i], as one element of social events and practices dialectically interconnected with other elements. The overriding objective of discourse analysis, on this view, is not simply analysis of discourse per se, but analysis of the dialectical relations between discourse and non-discoursal elements of the social, in order to reach a better understanding of these complex relations (including how changes in discourse can cause changes in other elements). But if we are to analyse relations between discourse and non-discoursal elements, we must obviously see them as ontologically (and not just epistemologically, analytically) different elements of the social. They are different, but they are not discrete – that is, they are dialectically related, in the sense that elements ‘internalize’ other elements, without being reducible to them (Harvey 1996, Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2003, Fairclough, Jessop & Sayer 2004). A realist view of social life sees it as including social structures as well as social events – in critical realist terms, the ‘real’ (which defines and delimits what is possible) as well as the ‘actual’ (what actually happens). There is a general recognition that the relationship between structures and events must be a mediated relation, and I follow for instance Bhaskar (1986) and Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992) in regarding social practices as the mediating entities – more or less durable and stable articulations of diverse social elements including discourse which constitute social selections and orderings of the allowances of social structures as actualisable allowances in particular areas of social life in a certain time and place. Social fields, institutions and organizations can be regarded as networks of social practices. Networks of social practices include specifically discoursal selections and orderings (from languages and other semiotic systems, which are counted amongst social structures) which I call ‘orders of discourse’, appropriating but redefining Foucault’s term (Foucault 1984, Fairclough 1992). Orders of discourse are social structurings of linguistic/semiotic variation or difference. Realist discourse analysis on this view is based in a dialectical-relational social ontology which gives ontological priority to processes and relations over objects, entities, persons, organizations etc, yet sees the latter as socially produced ‘permanences’ (Harvey 1996) which constitute a pre-structured reality with which we are confronted, and sets of affordances and limitations on processes. Epistemological priority is given to neither pre-constructed social structures, practices, institutions, identities or organizations, nor to processes, actions, and events: the concern is with the relationship and tension between them. People with their capacities for agency are seen as socially produced, contingent and subject to change, yet real, and possessing real causal powers which, in their tension with the causal powers of social structures, are a focus for analysis. Social research proceeds through abstraction from the concrete events of social life aimed at understanding the pre-structured nature of social life, and returns to analysis of concrete events, actions and processes in the light of this abstract knowledge. Discourse and non-discoursal elements of social events and social practices are related in many ways. I distinguish three main ways: representing, acting (and interacting), and being. At the level of social practices, orders of discourse can be seen as articulations of specific ways of representing, acting, and being – ie specific discourses, genres and styles. A discourse is a particular way of representing certain parts or aspects of the (physical, social, psychological) world; a genre is a particular way of (inter)acting (which comprises the discoursal element of a way of inter)acting which will also necessarily comprise non-discoursal elements); a style is a way of being (the discoursal element of a way of being, an ‘identity’, which will also include non-discoursal elements). I shall use the term ‘text’[ii], in a generalized sense (not just written text but also spoken interaction, multi-semiotic televisual text etc) for the discoursal element of social events. Texts are doubly contextualized, first in their relation to other elements of social events, second in their relation to social practices, which is ‘internal’ to texts in the sense that they necessarily draw upon orders of discourse, ie social practices in their discoursal aspect, and the discourses, genres and styles associated with them. However, events (and therefore texts) are points of articulation and tension between two causal forces: social practices and, through their mediation, social structures; and the agency of the social actors who speak, write, compose, read, listen to, interpret them. The social ‘resource’ of discourses, genres and styles is subject to the transformative potential of social agency, so that texts do not simply instantiate discourses, genres and styles, they actively rework them, articulate them together in distinctive and potentially novel ways, hybridize them, transform them. My focus in this paper is on organizational change, and this version of CDA has indeed been developed in association with research on discourse in social change. Social change comprises change in social structures, social practices, the networking of social practices, and (the character of) social events; and change in languages and other semiotic systems, in orders of discourse and relations between orders of discourse, and in texts. With respect to orders of discourse, social change includes change in the social structuring of linguistic/semiotic variation, therefore change in discourses, genres and styles, and change in their articulation in orders of discourse, and change in relations between orders of discourse (eg political and media orders of discourse). With respect to texts, social change includes tendential change in how discourses, genres and styles are drawn upon and articulated/hybridized together in various types of text. The process of social change raises questions about causal relations between different elements. Causal relations are not simple or one-way. For instance, it would seem to make more sense to see new communication technologies (ICTs) as causing the emergence of new genres than vice-versa – changes in discourse caused by changes in non-discoursal elements. In other cases, change appears to be discourse-led. A pervasive contemporary process (for instance in processes of ‘transition’ in central and eastern Europe) is change initiated through the recontextualization[iii] in an organization, a social field, or a country of ‘external’ discourses, which may then be enacted in new ways of (inter)acting including new genres, inculcated as new ways of being including styles, and materialized in for example new ways of organizing space. These enactments, inculcations and materializations are dialectical processes. There is an important proviso however: these processes are contingent, they depend upon certain conditions of possibility. For instance, when a discourse is recontextualized, it enters a new field of social relations, and its trajectory within those social relations is decisive in determining whether or not it has (re)constructive effects on the organization, social field etc overall. In contexts of social change, different groups of social actors may develop different and conflicting strategies for change, which have a partially discursive character (narratives of the past, representations of the present, imaginaries for the future), and inclusion within a successful strategy is a condition for a discourse being dialectically enacted, inculcated and materialized in other social elements (Jessop 2002, Fairclough, Jessop & Sayer 2004). Discourses construe aspects of the world in inherently selective and reductive ways, ‘translating’ and ‘condensing’ complex realities (Harvey 1996), and one always needs to ask, why this particular selection and reduction, why here, why now? (For a discussion of ‘globalisation’ discourse in these terms, see Fairclough & Thomas forthcoming. Locating discourses in relation to strategies in contexts of social change enables us to connect particular representations of the world with particular interests and relations of power, as well assess their ideological import. Discourses do not emerge or become recontextualized in particular organizations or fields at random, and they do not stand in an arbitrary relation to social structures and practices, forms of institutionalization and organization. If we can construct explanations of change in non-discoursal elements of social reality which attribute causal effects to discourses, we can also construct explanations of change in discourses which attribute causal effects to (non-discoursal elements of) structures and practices, as well as social and strategic relations. The social construction of the social world may sometimes be a matter of changes in non-discoursal elements caused by discourses (through the concrete forms of texts), but discourses (and texts) are also causal effects, the dialectics of social change is not a one-way street. We can distinguish four elements, or moments, in the social trajectories of discourses: their emergence and constitution (through a re-articulation of existing elements); their entry into hegemonic struggles from which they may emerge as hegemonic discourses; their dissemination and recontextualization across structural and scalar boundaries (ie between one field or institution or organization and others, and between one scale (‘global’, macro-regional (eg the EU), national, local) and others; and their operationalization (enactment, inculcation, materialization). These are distinct moments with respect to the causal effects of discourses on non-discoursal (as well as discoursal, ie generic and stylistic) elements of social life, and they are all subject to non-discoursal as well as discoursal conditions. CDA claims that social research can be enriched by extending analysis of social processes and social change into detailed analysis of texts. More detailed (including linguistic) analysis of texts is connected to broader social analysis by way of (a) analysing texts as part of analysing social events, (b) interdiscursive analysis of shifting articulations of genres, discourses, styles in texts (Fairclough 2003). The latter locates the text as an element of a concrete event in its relationship to orders of discourse as the discoursal aspect of networks of social practices, and so allows the analyst to (a) assess the relationship and tension between the causal effects of agencies in the concrete event and the causal effects of (networks of) social practices, and through them of social structures (b) detect shifts in the relationship between orders of discourse and networks f social practices as these are registered in the interdiscursivity (mixing of genres, discourses, styles) of texts. Text can be seen as product and as process. Texts as products can be stored, retrieved, bought and sold, cited and summarized and so forth. Texts as processes can be grasped through seeing ‘texturing’, making texts, as a specific modality of social action, of social production or ‘making’ (of meanings, understandings, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, social relations, social a nd personal identities, institutions, organizations). The focus is on ‘logogenesis’ (Iedema 2003:115-17), including the texturing of entities (objects, persons, spaces, organizations) which can, given certain preconditions, be dialectically internalized (enacted, inculcated and materialized) in non-discoursal elements of social life. See for instance the discussion of the significance of nominalization as a logogenetic process in texts in processes of organizing, producing organization objects, in Iedema (2003). Organizational Discourse  I shall construct my very selective comments on organizational discourse analysis around the following four themes: organization and organizing; variation, selection and retention; understandings of ‘discourse’; and intertextuality. Organization and organizing Mumby & Stohl (1991) argue that researchers in organizational communication most centrally differ from those in other areas of organization studies in that the former problematize ‘organization’ whereas the latter do not. ‘For us, organization – or organizing, to use Weick’s (1979) term – is a precarious, ambiguous, uncertain process that is continually being made and remade. In Weick’s sense, organizations are only seen as stable, rational structures when viewed retrospectively. Communication, then, is the substance of organizing in the sense that through discursive practices organization members engage in the construction of a complex and diverse system of meanings’. Another formulation of this shift in emphasis from organizations as structures to ‘organizing’ (or ‘organizational becoming’, Tsoukas & Chia 2002) as a process is that of Mumby & Clair (1997: 181): ‘we suggest that organizations exist only in so far as their members create them through discourse. This is not to claim that organizations are â€Å"nothing but† discourse, but rather that discourse is the principal means by which organization members create a coherent social reality that frames their sense of who they are’. Despite the disclaimer at the beginning of the second sentence, this formulation can as argued by Reed (forthcoming) be seen as collapsing ontology into epistemology, and undermining the ontological reality of organizational structures as constraints on organizational action and communication. From the perspective of the realist view of discourse I have outlined, it makes little sense to see organizing and organization, or more generally agency and structure, as alternatives one has to choose between. With respect to organizational change, both organizational structures and the agency of members of organizations in organizational action and communication have causal effects on how organizations change. Organizational communication does indeed organize, produce organizational effects and transform organizations, but organizing is subject to conditions of possibility which include organizational structures. The paper by Iedema, Degeling, Braithwaite and White (2004) in the special issue of Organizational Studies is an analysis of how a ‘doctor-manager’ in a teaching hospital in Australia manages ‘the incommensurable dimensions’ of his ‘boundary position between profession and organization’ by positioning himself across different discourses, sometimes in a single utterance. The authors identify a heteroglossia ‘that is too context-regarding to be reducible to personal idiosyncracy, and too complex and dynamic to be the calculated outcome of conscious manipulation’. They see the doctor-manager’s talk as a ‘feat’ of ‘bricolage’, not as a display of ‘behaviours that are pre-programmed’. Nor is it an instantiation of a ‘strategy’, for ‘strategies are they assume ‘conscious’. Although the authors recognize that organizations can ‘set limits’ on what workers can say and do, impose ‘closure’, they see the doctor-manager as successfully ‘deferring closure on his own identity and on the discourses that realize it’. One can take this as an interesting and nuanced study of organization as the ‘organizing’ that is achieved in interaction (nuanced in the sense that it does not exclude organizational structures, though it does suggest that they are more ‘fluid’ and less ‘categorical’ than they have been taken to be, and it does recognize their capacity to impose ‘closure’). I would like to make a number of connected observations on this paper. First, one might see the doctor-manager’s ‘feat’ in this case as a particular form of a more general organizational process, the management of contradictions. Second, discourse figures differently in different types of organization (Borzeix 2003, referring to Girin 2001). The type of organization in this case seems to be in Girin’s terms a ‘cognitive’ (or ‘learning’, or ‘intelligent’) organization, in which the normative force of (written) texts (rules, procedures) is limited, and there is an emphasis on learning in spoken interaction. There seems to be, in other terms, a relatively ‘network’ type of structure rather than a simple hierarchy, where management involves a strong element participatory and consultative interaction with stakeholders. Third, connecting the first two points, spoken interaction in this type of organization accomplishes an ongoing management of contradictions which contrasts with the management of contradictions through suppressing them by imposing rules and procedures. Fourth, the doctor-manager’s ‘feat’ can be seen as a performance of a strategy as long as we abandon the (somewhat implausible) claim that all aspects and levels of strategic action are conscious – the doctor-manager would one imagines be conscious of the need to sustain a balancing act between professional and managerial perspectives and priorities, and of certain specific means to do so, but that does not entail him being conscious of all the complex interactive means he uses to do it. Fifth, while particular performances of this strategy (or, indeed, any strategy) are not ‘pre-programmed’, the strategy is institutionalized, disseminated, learnt, and constitutes a facet of the type of organization as a network of social practices, ie a facet of organizational structure. Sixth, it strikes me that bringing off a sense of creative bricolage is perhaps itself a part of the managerial style of this type of organization, ie part of the strategy, the network of social practices, the order of discourse. My conclusion is that even in a case of this sort, rather more emphasis is needed on the relationship between organizing and organization, performance and practice, ‘feat’ and strategy[iv]. Organizational discourse studies have been associated with postmodernist positions (Chia 1995, Grant, Harvey, Oswick & Putnam forthcoming, Grant, Keenoy, Oswick 2001), though the field as a whole is too diverse to be seen as simply postmodernist. Chia identifies a postmodern ‘style of thinking’ in organizational studies which ‘accentuates the significance, ontological priority and analysis of the micro-logics of social organizing practices over and above their stabilized ‘effects’ such as ‘individuals’. As this indicates, the focus on organizing rather than organisation is strongly associated with this ‘style of thinking’. Like the dialectical-relational ontology I advocated earlier, this ‘style of thinking’ sees objects and entities as produced within ontologically prior processes. The key difference is that this ‘style of thinking’ tends towards a one-sided emphasis on process, whereas the realist view of discourse analysis I have been advocating centres upon the tension between (discoursal) process and pre-structured (discoursal and linguistic, as well as non-discoursal) objects. This form of realism is not subject to the tendency within modernist social research which is criticized by Woolgar (1988) to take the objects it arrives at through abstraction (which would include in the case of CDA orders of discourse, as well as language and other semiotic systems) to be exhaustive of the social reality it researches. The key difference in this case is whereas this form of modernist research moves from the concrete to the abstract and then ‘forgets’ the concrete, the dialectic-relational form of realism I have advocated crucially makes the move back to analysis of the concrete. CDA is not merely concerned with languages and orders of discourse, it is equally concerned with text and texturing, and with the relations of tension between the two.