Falling Victim to the Past essays

Falling Victim to the Past essays In the novel, Wild Geese, by Martha Ostenso, the members of the Gare household struggle immensely under the oppressiveness of Caleb Gare, the father and Amelia Gare, the mother. The children of the Gare family face many obstacles, such as lack of voice, lack of control, and limited possibilities. Although Ostensos Wild Geese is an award winning piece of literature, much of the novels significance and power has been lost over time. The control Caleb and Amelia have over their children is vividly realistic but is portrayed in completely different ways; Caleb through his greed and need for control and Amelias desire to conceal her past. During the 1920s, the time which the novel was written, children had very few rights. A child was seen as property of the family. Children were to be seen but not heard and were to always be obedient. This is definitely the case in the Gare household. This lack of childrens rights is further compounded by the isolation of the Gares farming community in rural Manitoba. Policing would not have been prevalent in the immediate area, especially when it came to household affairs. Although this sort of treatment still exists in some homes, in general, our sense of what a familys responsibility is to a child and what the childs responsibility is to the family has evolved over time. Wild Geese is viewed as both scandalous and revolutionary. Written during a time when childrens rights were not yet defined, the novel challenges these views. Ostenso brilliantly portrays this evolution of the times with the character Lind Archer and her relationships with the Gares and Mark Jordan. Lind is a school teacher sent to teach in rural Manitoba. The Gare family, with whom Lind boards, is ruled and manipulated by the cruel Caleb and Amelia Gare. Caleb Gare delights in crushing the spirits of his four children and tormenting his wife. And then, stra...

What Is a GPA Scale The 4.0 Scale

What Is a GPA Scale The 4.0 Scale SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips GPA is a measurement of your academic success in high school that colleges will consider very strongly in the admissions process. But what is a GPA scale? Different high schools may use different GPA scales, and it’s important to know how these scales work so that you get a better idea of where you stand. In this article, I’ll tell you what a GPA scale is and the types of scales you might see used at your high school. // What’s a High School GPA Scale? GPA (Grade Point Average) is a way of measuring academic achievement in high school. It’s a numeric value that correlates with a student’s grades. Each letter grade that a student earns is worth a certain number of grade points depending on how high it is and, in some cases, the level of the class where it was earned. // The average of the grade points from all of a student’s converted letter grades in high school makes up his or her final GPA. Typically, one of two GPA scales will be used to measure the grades of students throughout their time in high school. The unweighted GPA scale goes up to a 4.0 and doesn’t take class difficulty into account.A weighted GPA scale typically goes up to a 5.0 and does consider the difficulty of a student’s classes.I’ll go over the basics of these two scales in the next couple of sections to give you a sense of how they work. // Unweighted 4.0 GPA Scale The unweighted GPA scale is the most commonly used GPA scale. It’s found in high schools and colleges alike and is very straightforward. // Essentially, the highest GPA you can earn is a 4.0, which indicates an A average in all of your classes. A 3.0 would indicate a B average, a 2.0 a C average, a 1.0 a D, and a 0.0 an F.This scale does not take the levels of your courses into account. For example, if you’re in all honors classes and earn a B average, you’ll have the same GPA as someone in all low-level classes who has earned a B average. // Here’s a table that shows how this scale corresponds to each letter grade: Letter Grade GPA A+ 4.0 A 4.0 A- 3.7 B+ 3.3 B 3.0 B- 2.7 C+ 2.3 C 2.0 C- 1.7 D+ 1.3 D 1.0 F 0.0 // Some high schools make more specific distinctions in GPA based on class averages out of 100 (i.e. a 90 average would mean a lower GPA than a 92 average even though they’re both technically A-s).Look at this GPA scale for more specific numbers. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in. // Weighted 5.0 GPA Scale Instead of using the basic unweighted scale, many high schools will use a weighted GPA scale. On a weighted scale, which typically goes up to a 5.0 instead of the standard 4.0, a student who earns an A in a high level class will have a higher GPA than a student who earns an A in a low-level class. While this scale is used frequently in high schools, you’re unlikely to encounter it in college since it takes course difficulty into account. // For the highest-level classes like honors and AP, students get an extra 1.0 added to the unweighted GPA value of their grades due to the difficulty of the class. A B in an honors class would be equivalent to a 4.0 on a weighted GPA scale, and an A would be equivalent to a 5.0. Some schools also offer mid-level classes between honors and low-level. For these courses, 0.5 points are usually added to the unweighted GPA, meaning an A would be equivalent to a 4.5. Grades in low-level classes are measured using the unweighted scale, so an A in those classes would be equivalent to a 4.0. Weighted GPA scales give colleges a better initial sense of the academic potential of students based on the rigor of their coursework. They also lead to greater accuracy in class rankings. Students who take lower level classes won’t surpass high-level students in the rankings as frequently because GPAs are adjusted for class difficulty. This can help incentivize students to take more difficult classes and challenge themselves since it won’t harm their GPAs unless they end up earning signficantly poorer grades. Figure skaters are judged partially on the difficulty of their routines, so a skater who executes an easy routine flawlessly won't prevail over another skater who executes a difficult routine with a couple of mistakes. It's the same with weighted GPA. How far away are you from a 4.0? Use our easy GPA tool to pinpoint how well you have to do in future classes to get your GPA up to that magical number. Why Do GPA Scales Matter to You? It’s important to be aware of the GPA scale used by your high school so that you can make responsible choices in the college application process. If you’re aiming for selective colleges, you need to understand that your chances might be different depending on whether your GPA is weighted or unweighted. A student with a 3.8 unweighted GPA who is in all Honors classes will have better chances of admission at a selective college than a student with a 4.0 weighted GPA who is in all low-level classes. Much of the advice you’ll see about GPA is based on an unweighted scale because the unweighted scale is a more universally understood metric. This means that if your school uses weighted GPAs you’ll have to make judgments about how you might compare to other applicants based on your coursework and not just the numbers. For example, if the average unweighted GPA for admitted students at a college is a 3.5, you can’t always assume that you’ll get in easily with a 4.0 weighted GPA. The two numbers are on completely different scales. You’ll have to take stock of the overall rigor of your coursework and selectivity of the school to see whether you compare favorably to other applicants. It’s smart to be aware of the different GPA scales so that you have a better understanding of how much you might need to raise your GPA in order to get into a school that you really like. // Conclusion High school GPAs are measured on one of two scales: weighted or unweighted. The unweighted scale is most common, and the highest possible GPA on this scale is a 4.0. The unweighted scale doesn’t take the difficulty of your classes into account. Weighted scales are also used at many high schools. Typically, they go up to a 5.0. A weighted scale will factor in the difficulty of your classes, so an A in an honors class translates to a full grade point higher than an A in a low-level class. It’s valuable to have some knowledge of how GPA is measured by your school so that you end up with a more informed perspective going into the college application process. Your GPA will play a significant role in college admissions decisions, so keep working hard to maintain and improve it! What's Next? If you're curious about your GPA, read our article that gives you step by step instructions on how to calculate it based on your grades so far in high school. Is your GPA above average? Below average? Find out more about average high school GPAs here. If you have a low GPA, you might be worried about applying to college. Learn more about how to navigate the college application process with a low GPA. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Introduction to Financial Markets - Forecasting interest rates Essay

Introduction to Financial Markets - Forecasting interest rates - Essay Example Interest rates, according to the Financial Times , have fallen back to the historic lows, permitting companies, individuals, and some countries to borrow loans at a price lower than before. Contrary to this, households and the extensive economy still fight back in the wake of credit stagnation. The relationship between these two forces, that is the stimulating impact on economic operations of low borrowing prices and the damping impact of a liability squeeze has adverse repercussions for investors globally, from those individuals who save on their own to the world’s largest insurance companies (Aline, Mackenzie, & Milne, 2010). For the past couple of years, following the 2008 collapse in equity markets as well as in a hysterical serach for â€Å"secure† investments, more cash has been poured into bonds as compared to earlier times. Bonds from the U.S Treasury debt to upcoming market corporate bonds have been performing amazingly well, being ranked among the possessions around the world that have generated the largest returns in 2009 and 2010. On the other hand, if the descending trend in rates were to come to an end, then there may be an abrupt halt to the rally in bonds. In the same way that falling interest rates raise the bond prices paying flat rates of interest, increasing rates eat into their value and push costs lower. It is noted that when the interest rates rises, bond holders and bonds funds are likely to undergo losses. In fact, in the near future, it is expected that borrowing rates may fall even lower. At the time when the article was written, the Federal Reserve was planning to buy government bonds with the only aim of pushing interest rates lesser (Aline, Mackenzie, & Milne, 2010). The issue to focus on in this section is that, even after extra two years of close to zero official rates and large quantities of stimulus spending, big economies like the United States have not grown as strongly as they expected. This is the reason why t he Fed is planning to start its â€Å"quantitative easing† despite the fact that there are many investors and economists who doubt that it will have a powerful impact on economic growth. The Fed is making interest rates low, which means inflation and decreased bond yield, seeming like a bubble. The factors likely to have an impact on future interest rate movements An interest rate can be defined as the quantity of money received in connection to a loan, generally stated as a ratio of dollars obtained for each hundred dollars lent. From the credit markets review in the section above, there are factors that may affect future interest rate movements.   First, the U.S economy is an important player in this section. When it grows, consumers get employment and thus get some investments to lend through banks, though they must also borrow to purchase big items like cars or homes, or to fund other properties by using credit cards. For instance, Lieb, in the article claims that he ha s never experienced such inexpensive borrowing rates on housing loans. This means that when the funds’ demands drop, interest falls. In contrast, when funds’ demand increases, there is a rise in interest rates, acting as a

Account for the changing attitude of Federral Government to the issue Essay

Account for the changing attitude of Federral Government to the issue of African-American Civil Rights in the period 1863-1965 - Essay Example Likewise, 1965 holds value because it is the year after the Civil Rights act was passed and the year the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Voters Rights Act are separated by virtually 100 years, during which time the Civil Rights Movement and the United States Federal government shared a very tumultuous relationship.In the 1850's and 60's Sojourner Truth played a pivotal part in bringing together diverging groups within the Civil Rights movement, but it would be her historical sit down with President Abraham Lincoln that would signify the start of a collaborative relationship between the movement and the United States Federal government.At a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio after women had chanted in opposition of Truth speaking, despite their disapproval she stood up and said, "I could work as much and eat as much as a man ... and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman I have borne thirteen children, and seen 'em most all sold of f to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman (Joseph, 1990)" Here Truth's words came to define the role of the black woman in the feminist movement and exemplify the extreme direction of the cause. She identified the place of the woman in American society as equal to a man's. Later on in an Equal Rights Convention in New York, she would go on to say, "There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again (Lewis, 1999)." This attitude she had was a response to the political climate surrounding the Civil Rights activism during her era. It was divided between two groups , black men and white women, leaving no space for the plight of the black woman to protest for her rights. She was essentially a radical feminist because she was a key activist in both the Feminist and the Abolitionist movements, but she denounced the need for male contribution in the drive towards equal rights with statements like, "Where did your Christ come from From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him (Lewis, 1999)" "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them (Lewis, 1999)." Likewise, her book The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, published in 1850 chronicled her life and became used as a powerful doctrine to persuade readers to support abolishing slavery for both male and female blacks, making a prominent figure in both movements. The money she received from the book also provided Truth with the money needed to buy a house in Florence Massachusetts, which was unheard of for a former sla ve. The success of the novel also established her as a respected public speaker known for her insight and wit. This insight she became known for also led her to be the first activist to connect the rights of slaves and blacks with the woman's movement. This was a connection that was met with much resistance by traditional moderate Feminists. Politics It was the Inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln on March 4th, 1961 that would mark the beginning of the United States Federal government's involvement with the Civil Rights

Essays Essay Example for Free

Essays Essay In 1514, Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) successfully expanded the Empires southern and eastern borders by defeating Shah Ismail I of the Safavid dynasty in the Battle of Chaldiran. In 1517, Selim I expanded Ottoman rule into Algeria and Egypt, and created a naval presence in the Red Sea. Subsequently, a competition started between the Ottoman and Portuguese empires to become the dominant sea power in the Indian Ocean, with numerous naval battles in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean was perceived as a threat for the Ottoman monopoly over the ancient trading routes between East Asia and Western Europe (later collectively named the Silk Road, a term coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877. [20][21]) This important monopoly was increasingly compromised following the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, which had a considerable impact on the Ottoman economy. Turkey 7 The Ottoman Empires power and prestige peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The empire was often at odds with the Holy Roman Empire in its steady advance towards Central Europe through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian [] Commonwealth. Wikipedia:Citing sources At sea, the Ottoman Navy contended with several Holy Leagues (composed primarily of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, the Knights of St. John, the Papal States, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Savoy) for control of the Mediterranean Sea. In the east, the Ottomans were occasionally at war with Safavid Persia over conflicts stemming from erritorial disputes or religious differences between the 16th and 18th centuries. [22] The Selimiye Mosque in Edirne is one of the most famous architectural legacies of the Ottoman Empire. From the beginning of the 19th century onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. As it gradually shrank in size, military power and wealth, many Balkan Muslims migrated to the Empires heartland in Anatolia,[23]Wikipe dia:Verifiability[24] along with the Circassians fleeing the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. The decline of the Ottoman Empire led to a rise in nationalist sentiment among the various subject peoples, leading to increased ethnic tensions which occasionally burst into violence, such as the Hamidian Massacres. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, an estimated 1. 5 million Armenians were deported and exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. [25][26] The Turkish government denies that there was an Armenian Genocide and claims that Armenians were only relocated from the eastern war zone. ] Large scale massacres were also committed against the empires other minority groups such as the Greeks and Assyrians. [][][27] Following the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought to partition the Ottoman state through the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. [] Republic of Turkey The occupation of Constantinople and Smyrna by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishmen t of the Turkish national movement. ] Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sevres. [] By 18 September 1922, the occupying armies were expelled, and the Ankara-based Turkish regime, which declared itself the legitimate government of the country in April 1920, started to formalise the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. On 1 November, the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 ears of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923 led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed Republic of Turkey as the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder and first continuing state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially President of the Republic of Turkey. proclaimed on 29 October 1923 in Ankara, the countrys new capital. [] The Lausanne treaty stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, whereby 1. 1 million Greeks left Turkey for Greece in exchange for 380,000 Muslims transferred from Greece to Turkey. ] Turkey Mustafa Kemal became the republics first President and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of transforming old Ottoman-Turkish state into a new secular republic. [] With the Surname Law of 1934, the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Mustafa Kemal the honorific surname Ataturk (Father of the Turks. )[] Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945, as a ceremonial gesture. On 26 June 1945, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations. ] Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine i n 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large-scale U. S. military and economic support. [] Both countries were included in the Marshall Plan and OEEC for rebuilding European economies in 1948, and subsequently became founding members of the OECD in 1961. 8 Roosevelt, Inonu and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference which was held between 4–6 December 1943. After participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Following a decade of Cypriot intercommunal violence and the coup in Cyprus on 15 July 1974 staged by the EOKA B paramilitary organization, which overthrew President Makarios and installed the pro-Enosis (union with Greece) Nikos Sampson as dictator, Turkey invaded Cyprus on 20 July 1974. ] Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey, was established. [28] The single-party period ended in 1945. It was followed by a tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy over the next few decades, which was interrupted by military coups detat in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. []Wikipedia:Citing sources In 1984, the PKK began an insurgency against the Turkish government, which ha s claimed over 40,000 lives;[29] a peace process is currently ongoing. 30][31] Since the liberalisation of the Turkish economy during the 1980s, the country has enjoyed stronger economic growth and greater political stability. [] Politics Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. [] Turkeys constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state. The President of the Republic is the head of state and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. Abdullah Gul was elected as president on 28 August 2007, by a popular parliament round of votes, succeeding Ahmet Necdet Sezer. [32] Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and decrees with the constitution. The Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals for all others. [] Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been elected three times as Prime Minister: In 2002 (with 34% of the popular vote), in 2007 (with 47%) and in 2011 (with 49%). Turkey The prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of onfidence in the government and is most often the head of the party having the most seats in parliament. The current prime minister is the former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose conservative Justice and Development Party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage. [33] In the 2007 general elections, the AKP received 46. 6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament. 34] Although the ministers do not have to be members of the parliament, ministers with parliament membership are common in Turkish politics. In 2007, a series of events regarding state secularism and the role of the judiciary in the legislature occurred. These included the controversial presidential election of Abdullah Gul, who in the past had been involved with Islamist parties;[35] and the governments proposal to lift the headscarf ban in universities, which was annulled by the Constitutional Court, leading to a fine and a near ban of the ruling party. 36] 9 The Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara during a speech of U. S. President Barack Obama on 6 April 2009. Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933, and every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. As of 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in the country. [] The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether. 37][38] There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a four-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts which represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (Istanbul is divided into three electoral districts, whereas Ankara and Izmir are divided into two each because of their large populations). To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties winning at least 10% of the votes cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. ] Because of this threshold, in the 2007 elections only three parties formally entered the parliament (compared to two in 2002). [39][40] Human rights in Turkey have been the subject of much controversy and international condemnation. Between 1998 and 2008 the European Court of Human Rights made more than 1,600 judgements against Turkey for human rights violations, particularly the right to life and freedom from torture. Other issues such as Kurdish rights, womens rights and press freedom have also attracted controversy. Turkeys human rights record continues to be a significant obstacle to future membership of the EU. 41] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Turkish government has waged one of the worlds biggest crackdowns on press freedoms. A large number of journalists have been arrested using charges of terrorism and anti-state activities such as the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, while thousands have been investigated on charges such as denigrating Turkishness in an effort to sow self-censorship. As of 2012, CPJ identified 76 journalists in jail, including 61 directly held for their published work, more than Iran, Eritrea and China. [42] A former U. S. State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said that the United States had broad concerns about trends involving intimidation of journalists in Turkey. [43] Turkey 10 Foreign relations Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992), the D-8 (1997) and the G-20 major economies (1999). On 17 October 2008, Turkey was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. [] Turkeys membership of the council effectively began on 1 January 2009. [] Turkey had previously been a member of the U. N. Security Council in 1951–1952, 1954–1955 and 1961. ] In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the European Union) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political nego tiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and has been in formal accession negotiations with the EU since 2005. ] Since 1974, Turkey has not recognized the Republic of Cyprus, but instead supports the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was established in 1983 and is recognized only by Turkey. [] The Cyprus dispute complicates Turkeys relations with both NATO and the EU, and remains a major stumbling block to Turkeys EU accession bid. [] Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies. Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the EEC since 1963, and having joined the EU Customs Union in 1995. The other defining aspect of Turkeys foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Based on the common threat posed by the Soviet Union, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington throughout the Cold War. In the post–Cold War environment, Turkeys geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans. In return, Turkey has benefited from the United States political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the countrys bid to join the European Union. The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia,[44] thus enabling the completion of a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline forms part of Turkeys foreign policy strategy to become an energy conduit to the West. However, Turkeys border with Armenia, a state in the Caucasus, remains closed following Armenias occupation of Azerbaijani territory during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. [45] Under the AK Party government, Turkeys influence has grown in the Middle East based on the strategic depth doctrine, also called Neo-Ottomanism. [46][47] Turkey 11 Military Troops of the Turkish Army; Type 209 submarines of the Turkish Navy; and F-16s of the Turkish Air Force. The Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions. [] The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the President and is responsible to the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to the Parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the Parliament. [] The actual Commander of the Armed Forces is the Chief of the General Staff General Necdet Ozel since August 4, 2011. [48] Every fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a period ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, dependent on education and job location. [49] Turkey does not recognise conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service. 50] The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the U. S. Armed Forces, with a combined strength of just over a million uniformed personnel serving in its five branches. [51] Since 2003, Turkey contributes military personnel to Eurocorps and takes part in the EU Battlegroups. [] Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. [52] A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, ut their use requires the approval of NATO. [53] In 1998, Turkey announced a modernisation program worth US$160 billion over a twenty-year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles. [54] Turkey is a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. [55] Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in Northern Cyprus; their presence is supported and approved by the de facto local government, but the Republic of Cyprus and the international community regard it as an illegal occupation force, and Turkey its presence has also been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions. [] Turkey has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United States stabilisation force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001. 51][56] In 2006, the Turkish parliament deployed a peacekeeping force of Navy patrol vessels and around 700 ground troops as part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the wake of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. [57] 12 Administrative divisions The capital city of Turkey is Ankara. The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. The provinces are organized into 7 regions for census purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts. Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this custom are the provinces of Hatay (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli (capital: Izmit) and Sakarya (capital: Adapazar? ). Provinces with the largest populations are Istanbul (13 million), Ankara (5 million), Izmir (4 million), Bursa (3 million) and Adana (2 million). The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital Istanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. [] An estimated 75. 5% of Turkeys population live in urban centers. 58] In all, 19 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 20 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000. Turkey 13 Geography Turkey is a transcontinental[] Eurasian country. Asian Turkey (made up largely of Anatolia), which includes 97% of the country, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, an d the Dardanelles (which together form a water link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). European Turkey (eastern Thrace or Rumelia in the Balkan peninsula) comprises 3% of the country. 59] Topographic map of Turkey The territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000  mi) long and 800  km (500  mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. [] It lies between latitudes 35 ° and 43 ° N, and longitudes 25 ° and 45 ° E. Turkeys area, including lakes, occupies 783,562[60] square kilometres (300,948 sq mi), of which 755,688 square kilometres (291,773 sq mi) are in Southwest Asia and 23,764 square Panoramic view of the Fairy Chimneys in Cappadocia kilometres (9,174 sq mi) in Europe. [] Turkey is the worlds 37th-largest country in terms of area. The country is encircled by seas on three sides: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest. [] Mount Ararat (Agr? Dag? ) is the highest peak in Turkey with 5,137 m (16,854 ft) The European section of Turkey, East Thrace, forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country, Anatolia, consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, between the Koroglu and Pontic mountain ranges to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey has a more mountainous landscape and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras, and contains Mount Ararat, Turkeys highest point at 5,137 metres (16,854  ft),[][61] and Lake Van, the largest lake in the country. Turkey is divided into seven census regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and the Mediterranean. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately one-sixth of Turkeys total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward. [] Turkeys varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the fault lines running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. There is an earthquake fault line across the north of the country from west to east, which caused a major earthquake in 1999. 62] Turkey 14 Climate The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters. The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Black Sea have a temperate Oceanic climate with warm, wet summers and cool to cold, wet winters. The Turkish Black Sea coast receives the greatest amount of precipitation an d is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year. The eastern part of that coast averages 2,500 millimetres annually which is the highest precipitation in the country. Oludeniz on the Turquoise Coast, which is famous for its Blue Cruise voyages. The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Sea of Marmara (including Istanbul), which connects the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea, have a transitional climate between a temperate Mediterranean climate and a temperate Oceanic climate with warm to hot, moderately dry summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Snow does occur on the coastal areas of the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea almost every winter, but it usually lies no more than a few days. Snow on the other hand is rare in the coastal areas of the Aegean Sea and very rare in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the central Anatolian plateau of the interior of Turkey a continental climate with sharply contrasting seasons. Winters on the eastern part of the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of ? 30  °C to ? 40  °C (? 22  Ã‚ °F to ? 40  °F) can occur in eastern Anatolia, and snow may lie on the ground at least 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1  °C (34  °F). Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures generally above 30  °C (86  °F) in the day. Annual precipitation averages about 400 millimetres (15  in), with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall frequently is less than 300 millimetres (12  in). May is generally the wettest month, whereas July and August are the driest. [63] Winter in Lake Uzungol Economy Turkey has the worlds 16th largest GDP-PPP and 17th largest nominal GDP. [] The country is among the founding members of the OECD and the G-20 major economies. During the first six decades of the republic, between 1923 and 1983, Turkey has mostly adhered to a quasi-statist approach with strict government planning of the budget and government-imposed limitations over private sector participation, Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, constituting the countrys economic heart. The towers of Sisli are on the left, while those of Levent business district are on the right. Turkey foreign trade, flow of foreign currency, and foreign direct investment. However, in 1983 Prime Minister Turgut Ozal initiated a series of reforms designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market-based model. ] The reforms, combined with unprecedented amounts of foreign loans, spurred rapid economic growth; but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year),[64] and 2001;[65] resulting in an average of 4% GDP growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. [66] Lack of additional fiscal reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak banking sector and increased macroeconomic volatility. 67] Since the economic crisi s of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Dervis, inflation has fallen to single-digit numbers, investor confidence and foreign investment have soared, and unemployment has fallen. Turkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatisation of publicly owned industries, and the liberalisation of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate. ] The public debt to GDP ratio, while well below its levels during the recession of 2001, reached 46% in 2010 Q3. The real GDP growth rate from 2002 to 2007 averaged 6. 8% annually,[69] which made Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world during that period. However, growth slowed to 1% in 2008, and in 2009 the Turkish economy was affected by the global financial crisis, with a recession of 5%. The economy was estimated to have returned to 8% growth in 2010. [] 1 5 Turkish Airlines is the flag carrier airline of Turkey since 1933. It was selected by Skytrax as [68] Europes best airline in 2012. In the early years of this century the chronically high inflation was brought under control and this led to the launch of a new currency, the Turkish new lira, on 1 January 2005, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. [70] On 1 January 2009, the new Turkish lira was renamed once again as the Turkish lira, with the introduction of new banknotes and coins. As a result of continuing economic reforms, inflation dropped to 8% in 2005, and the unemployment rate to 10%. ] Tourism in Turkey has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2011, 33. 3 million foreign visitors arrived in Turkey, making the country worlds sixth most-popular tourism destination; they contributed $23 billion to Turkeys revenues. [71] Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are banking, construction, home appliances, electronics, text iles, oil refining, petrochemical products, food, mining, iron and steel, machine industry and automotive.

The Wessex Tales Essay -- miscellaneous

The Wessex Tales Explore Hardy’s portrayal of women in three of the stories studied. The Wessex tales was set in the nineteenth century; Thomas Hardy decided to write his stories and novels in the past, during the nineteenth century before he was born. Hardy got some of his ideas from his grand parents; he used to spend long evening next to the fire listening to his grand parents telling stories form the past. Thomas Hardy invented his own places He is highlighting the point that women around that time do not have a say in any thing. The expectations of women were that they had a lower profile At this time people lived in small communities so every one knew each other, so gossip got around the community. If any one did any thing wrong then they became a victim of there own community, and would become isolated. Thomas Hardy portrays Rhoda s being a social victim for having a child out of wedlock, although she is isolated it is ironic that Farmer Lodge is not, but he is still accepted as part of the community. This shows women are lower than men women are inferior to men. Farmer lodge does not acknowledge the fact that he has a son ‘Just the same as usual’ ‘ Took no notice of you’ ‘None’ Rhoda son is use to his dad ignoring him. All that Farmer Lodge has given Rhoda is a job, Rhoda works away from the rest of the workers because she has been discarded. Hardy describes Rhoda as ‘Fading women of thirty’She looks older than she actually is; it also...

Learning a Second Language

Learning a second language after using your native language all your life can truly frustrating and overwhelming at first. But as one begins to chip away at the language and begin to some understand words, these form a foundation or scaffold upon which you can understand more words, primarily in context. More words, more context and this then creates cycle that helps towards achieving fluency in the target or second language. Mei-Yu (1998) once said that in the acquisition of oral language, â€Å"young children are active agents†, constantly process the language inputs that they are constantly exposed to and define and refine them ways that makes sense to them on a personal level. Children create hypotheses or theories about language rules, constantly filtering these theories through active engagement or connections with the more competent language users in their immediate environment. Unconsciously, they learn to recognize contexts and begin acquiring fine discrimination in their use of a language. This means that for a second language learner, the best way to learn is through immersion in the language. Total immersion creates a â€Å"sink or swim† instinct within the individual. The need to communicate and express one’s self will supersede all barriers to learning, and the individual will learn the language because of the instinctive need to survive. Children are especially natural linguists, able to effortlessly discern language rules and allow then to learn as many languages as they are exposed to. (Alyousef, 2005) However, the older we get, these natural language processes are replaced by conscious awareness of rules, which hinders the learning of a new language. For adults, the process of learning through immersion may take longer than for adults, but the process of second language acquisition remains essentially the same, especially if there is total immersion in the target language. For individuals moving to a new land permanently, total immersion will not be a problem. The â€Å"sink or swim† concept is so very true in the learning of a second language, the language must be learned in order to survive in society, then it most certainly be learned, it will only be a matter of time. Indeed learning a new language is all about exposure, but in most cases, such is not possible. For most of us, we learn a second language through formal and conscious lessons in second language classes. For people who are learning a new language, the best way to do so is through a strategy. For adult learners, it is important to follow some guidelines in order to facilitate language learning. The first step would be is to make an honest assessment of your competencies in the target language; do you have some basic knowledge or none at all? The second step is to analyze the language being taught and recognize similarities between the two. Teachers should be the one to initiate this. Language teachers should recognize individual skills and competencies which can be used to scaffold the new concepts being learned.   Building upon prior knowledge or what one already knows or is already skilled at is the best way to learn something new. In terms of language learning, the important thing is to reinforce the prior knowledge and connect it with the target skill, regardless of the languages involved. Starting with what you know is the best way to attack second language learning. When an individual approaches a lesson armed with knowledge and skills they already have, they have more confidence in exploring the new language. It is also encouraging because it gives you a sense of success and accomplishment early on in the lesson, something which is very important to maintain student motivation. Following similarities and prior knowledge, then learning can shift to the differences in the two languages involved to allow them to distinguish one from the other. Using prior knowledge once again, the learners should be allowed to recognize these differences themselves.   (Alyousef, 2005, p.7) Prior knowledge is a learning strategy that second language learners must use so that they will not feel so powerless while learning a new language. For those learning a second language, it is also important for the individual to realize why they need to learn the target language. Motivation is a crucial element of learning; if the target language must be learned to make an individual functional in society, then this need will facilitate the learning. (Crystal, 1987) Once the similarities have been established and the differences distinguished between the two alphabets, then the next is to focus on reinforcing the target language’s alphabet system and how their sounds are produced, making occasional references to the alphabet of the native language. These references will reinforce the connections between the two languages and help the student in the learning process. This strategy is meant to make the third-grade students be comfortable with the target alphabet by relating them to their native alphabet. Eventually, such references to the native alphabet will be gradually eliminated. This way the students can be fluent in the second alphabet independent of the mother tongue. (Mora, 2002) Of course for people who have achieved a certain level of fluency in the target language, the next step is to improve pronunciation. Knowing how to speak in a second language will not be of much value if you cannot be understood because of how you say it. Pronunciation can be a barrier in communication, so being able to say words correctly is crucial. The good thing is that accent is very easy to neutralize. Speech production is universal and the mechanism is the same for all of us. As such, we can learn to produce old sounds in new ways, such as when we attempt to pronounce a word differently. (Mora, 2002) But it must also be said that training the tongue to say words in new ways takes discipline. It can also be frustrating at first, and success can only be achieved with constant practice and conscious effort. This conscious production is necessary so that we can train the articulators to change its speech production habits. After knowing how the target sound is produced, the key is to constantly apply it until the body remembers it on its own without any conscious control on our part. Initially feedback is necessary; we need to listen to how we make the sounds so that we can make the mechanical adaptations necessary to achieve the change. To address this, we can record ourselves and monitor our progress as we continue to practice. Hearing how we improve over time is inspiring and encouraging. After all is said and done, there is great satisfaction in not just being fluent in a second language, but also being able to say it properly and clearly. Indeed, when it comes to learning a new language, the best way to do so is through patience and constant practice. If total immersion in the language is not possible, the best way is to form a strategy when approaching a language learning task. Whenever possible, the target language must be used so that the mind gets used to the language and begins to form a schema about it. References Alyousef, H. (2005). Teaching Reading Comprehension to ESL/EFL teachers. The Reading Matrix. Vol. 5, No. 2. Crystal, D. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.   Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Lu, Mei-Yu. (1998). Language Learning in Social and Cultural Contexts. ERIC Digest.   

Interpreter of Maladies

Failure of Marriage Communication is one of the most important things to us keep connected to other people. If we fail to communicate with others, we will fail in many ways such as failure in romance. In the book Interpreter of Maladies with the tittle â€Å"Interpreter of Maladies† by Jhumpa Lahiri, the difficulty of communication becomes one of the problems. Mr. Kapasi feels lonely in his life and in his marriage because he lost his ability to communicate with his wife. However, Mrs. Das is a selfish woman that always hides behind her sunglasses most of the time. She doesn’t care about her family, her husband and her children. These two characters are drawn together because they both have troubled marriages. But if they still have the common sense to think about their own responsibility to their family, they shouldn’t get closer and become interested each other. Mr. Kapasi believes that his life is a failure. He can’t have a successful marriage in his life because his marriage is arranged by his parents. His wife can’t forgive him because of the loss of their young son and also because Mr. Kapasi work for the doctor who failed to save their son’s life. His career is far away from what he dreamed might be happen. Because in his past, he got scholarship and diplomatic greatness so he hoped that he would be success in his career. But now, he only be a tour guide and an interpreter for a doctor. As a tour guide, he speaks in English to the Europeans and Americans about the sights of India. And as an interpreter, he helps people from another country to communicate with the doctor. The job was a sign of his failings. In his youth he’d been a devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter of diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he aline could understand both sides. He was a self-educated man. In a series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his marriage, he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he was confident that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian, not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, and Gujarati. Now only a handful of European phrases remained in his memory, scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only non-Indian language he spoke fluently anymore. Mr. Kapasi knew it was not a remarkable talent. Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television† (52). In his loveless life, he meet Mrs. Das that he thinks also has trouble in marriage. And he got interested with her, imagine what will he do if he live with her, an American woman. But at the end, he feels so disgust with Mrs Das because she cheated with her husband’s friend and had a child from it. Mrs. Das is a very selfish and self-absorbed woman. She doesn’t see anyone else as they are but rather as a means to fulfill her own wishes. Her selfishness can be seen when she doesn’t share her food with her children and her husband, reluctantly takes her daughter to the bathroom, and refuses to paint her daughter’s fingernails. She feels misery in her life because of her cheated with her husband’s friend. She never talk to anyone else about it. Rather than to face her misery, she chooses to hide behind her sunglasses and stays away from her family. Like it is mention on the book â€Å"Mine too. Mommy, do mine too,†said the little girl. Leave me alone,† Mrs. Das said, blowing on her nail and turning her body slightly. â€Å"You’re making me mess up. † (48) and also â€Å"Mrs. Das continued to polish her nails. She had still not removed her sunglasses† (49). The only one person that she talks about her misery is Mr. Kapas i. She hopes that Mr. Kapasi as an interpreter can help her to give some advices. But in fact, Mr. Kapasi can’t help her because it’s not part of his job. Mrs. Das gets angry and leaves the car after she knows that it’s useless to confide about her misery with Mr. Kapasi. The communication doesn’t run smoothly in this story. There are many times communication fail to happen. Mr. Kapasi can’t communicate well with his wife because he has lost his ability for it. Mr. Kapasi also afraid to talk with his children because he fears that his English is not as good as his children. Mr. Das and Mrs. Das do not communicate, not because of the language trouble but because Mrs. Das is so selfish and Mr. Das always gets himself in the guidebook, like said in the book â€Å"He glanced up from the paperback tour book, which said â€Å"INDIA† in yellow letters and looked as if it had been published abroad† (44). The children do not listen to their parents, Mr. Das and Mrs. Das, nor to Mr. Kapasi. This can be proved with the monkey incident when Bobby is trapped with the monkeys. The children have lost the parents figure because the bad behavior of Mr. Das and Mrs. Das. All of these failing communication lead to hurt feeling each person. The Kapasis have a failing marriage. The Dases are hostile to each other. â€Å"They were all like siblings, Mr. Kapasi thought as they passed a row of date trees. Mr. And Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents. It seeemed that they were in charge of the children only for the day; it was hard to believe they were regularly responsible for anything other than themselves† (49). Another problem beside the failing communication in this story is the forbidden romance between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das. They both have the same loneliness in their marriage. Mr. Kapasi thinks that Mrs. Das could be a perfect companion to him in his loneliness. He puts an effort to attract Mrs. Das; he ignores many differences between him and Mrs. Das. He sees many details of Mrs. Das such as her legs. He ignores the other which is the bad behavior of Mrs. Das like dismisses her children’s desire and her selfishness with the snack. He observed her. She wore a red-and-white checkered skin that stopped above her knees, slip-on shoes with a square wooden heel, and a close-fitting blouse styled like a man’s undershirt. The blouse was decorated at chest-level with a woman, with small hands like paws, her frosty pink fingernails painted to match her lips, and was slightly plump in her figure. Her hair, shorn only a little longer than her husband’s, was parted far to one side. She was wearing large dark brown sunglasses with a pinkish tint to them, and carried a big straw bag, almost as big as her torso, shaped like a bowl, with a water bottle poking out of it. She walked slowly, carrying some puffed rice tossed with peanuts and chili peppers in a large packet made from newspapers (46). Mrs. Das wants to be a woman that can be a place to tell of Mr. Kapasi. She also wants Mr. Kapasi to help her solve her misery. Mrs. Das sees him as a good father and helper and ignores the signs that indicates he may not like to do that. For example, Mrs. Das doesn’t notice that Mr. Kapasi uncomfortable with her confession and push him to help her solve it that he can’t give it to her. Responsibility and love are the keys of successful marriage. Because when people have decided to get married means that they already promise to live with their couple and take care the family forever. When the couple already have it in their own heart and mind, infidelity will never happen. Mrs. Das should realize that she has a husband and three children that need to take care of. She has responsibility as a mother to serve her husband and gives advice to the children. If Mrs. Das could do all of it, she will definitely have a successful marriage. Works Cited Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. New York : Houghton Mifflin Company. 1999. Print. Interpreter of maladies From the very beginning of the story the narrator depicts a very burdensome life. After leaving his homeland of India, he describes the first place he lived In London as: â€Å"a house occupied entirely of penniless Bengali Bachelors Like [himself], at least a dozen and sometimes more and all struggling to educate and establish ourselves abroad†(Lair 173). This is the perfect example of the narrator's determination to be successful in life and also the major hardships he will have to endure.This also portrays how the narrator accepts and is aware of his inevitable transformation through education and hardships. He knows that his struggles will eventually lead to the ultimate achievement of revealing over three continents. After surviving on the bare minimum in London for about flee years the narrator is offered a fulfillment job in America at the prestigious MIT, which will be his third continental move. Before he sets off abroad he must go back to Calcutta to fulfill an India n tradition of an arranged marriage.The narrator sees his marriage as Just another mundane chore and focuses instead on adjusting to his new life as an Indian immigrant In America. While he waits for his new wife's green card he looks for a cheap room to rent, which Is where he meets the first American he truly admires. Mrs.. Croft is first portrayed as an insignificant ranting old crippled woman that lives alone and rents out rooms, but when her age is revealed, the narrators whole perspective changes; after all he had assumed that she was only in her eighties.She then becomes a special and memorable person to him because he is absolutely astonished and Impressed that a one-hundred and three year old woman could still more or less be Independent or even coherent for that matter. This Is due to the fact that he mentions his own mother completely falling apart after his father passed away. He goes so far as to say: â€Å"What pained me the most was to see her so unguarded, to hear h er burp after meals or expel gas in front of company without the slightest embarrassment† (Lair 1 87 ).Seeing a widow like Mrs.. Croft so bold and quick-witted, yet so fragile, was refreshing and positively inspiring to him. The way he acknowledges her life, â€Å"As vigorous as her voice was, and imperious as she seemed, I knew that even a scratch or a cough could kill a person that old, each day she lived, I knew, was something of a miracle† (Lair 188). The significance of this quote shows that Mrs.. Croft was a big contribution to the narrators realization of an ever changing world where adaptation is the key to survival.As the the narrator waits the six weeks for his wife to arrive he is more than happy to make It a routine to simply sit down next to Mrs.. Croft each night and give her a little of his company. He feels compelled to do more but being of no relation he Crofts and find an apartment suitable for two people. It is peculiar that he not exactly anxious for his wife to Join him in America. He refers to her arrival as â€Å"the arrival of a coming month, or season – something inevitable, but meaningless at the same mime† (Lair 189). These are his feelings in the beginning when he only knew his wife for a mere five days.Once she is there she makes an effort as a dutiful wife by sprucing up the In conclusion the narrator encounters an internal conflict, he slowly becomes an Americanizes Indian with attempts to maintain his original Indian culture. His conflict comes to a head when speaking of his son because it is clear that he is afraid that his son will abandon their Indian traditions. A prime example is the following quote: â€Å"So we drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring him home for a keen, so that he can eat rice with us with his hands, and speak in Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die†(Lair 197).His attempt at being the modern American occurs when he tells his wife that she does not have to wear her sari all the time, â€Å"There is no need to cover your head, â€Å"l said. † I don't mind. It doesn't matter here† (Lair 192). Another example is when the narrator tries to retain his original traditions by eating egg curry and walking barefoot throughout his house. Egg curry seems to be the one thing the narrator holds onto which is obvious because he cooks egg curry in all three continents. Interpreter of maladies From the very beginning of the story the narrator depicts a very burdensome life. After leaving his homeland of India, he describes the first place he lived In London as: â€Å"a house occupied entirely of penniless Bengali Bachelors Like [himself], at least a dozen and sometimes more and all struggling to educate and establish ourselves abroad†(Lair 173). This is the perfect example of the narrator's determination to be successful in life and also the major hardships he will have to endure.This also portrays how the narrator accepts and is aware of his inevitable transformation through education and hardships. He knows that his struggles will eventually lead to the ultimate achievement of revealing over three continents. After surviving on the bare minimum in London for about flee years the narrator is offered a fulfillment job in America at the prestigious MIT, which will be his third continental move. Before he sets off abroad he must go back to Calcutta to fulfill an India n tradition of an arranged marriage.The narrator sees his marriage as Just another mundane chore and focuses instead on adjusting to his new life as an Indian immigrant In America. While he waits for his new wife's green card he looks for a cheap room to rent, which Is where he meets the first American he truly admires. Mrs.. Croft is first portrayed as an insignificant ranting old crippled woman that lives alone and rents out rooms, but when her age is revealed, the narrators whole perspective changes; after all he had assumed that she was only in her eighties.She then becomes a special and memorable person to him because he is absolutely astonished and Impressed that a one-hundred and three year old woman could still more or less be Independent or even coherent for that matter. This Is due to the fact that he mentions his own mother completely falling apart after his father passed away. He goes so far as to say: â€Å"What pained me the most was to see her so unguarded, to hear h er burp after meals or expel gas in front of company without the slightest embarrassment† (Lair 1 87 ).Seeing a widow like Mrs.. Croft so bold and quick-witted, yet so fragile, was refreshing and positively inspiring to him. The way he acknowledges her life, â€Å"As vigorous as her voice was, and imperious as she seemed, I knew that even a scratch or a cough could kill a person that old, each day she lived, I knew, was something of a miracle† (Lair 188). The significance of this quote shows that Mrs.. Croft was a big contribution to the narrators realization of an ever changing world where adaptation is the key to survival.As the the narrator waits the six weeks for his wife to arrive he is more than happy to make It a routine to simply sit down next to Mrs.. Croft each night and give her a little of his company. He feels compelled to do more but being of no relation he Crofts and find an apartment suitable for two people. It is peculiar that he not exactly anxious for his wife to Join him in America. He refers to her arrival as â€Å"the arrival of a coming month, or season – something inevitable, but meaningless at the same mime† (Lair 189). These are his feelings in the beginning when he only knew his wife for a mere five days.Once she is there she makes an effort as a dutiful wife by sprucing up the In conclusion the narrator encounters an internal conflict, he slowly becomes an Americanizes Indian with attempts to maintain his original Indian culture. His conflict comes to a head when speaking of his son because it is clear that he is afraid that his son will abandon their Indian traditions. A prime example is the following quote: â€Å"So we drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring him home for a keen, so that he can eat rice with us with his hands, and speak in Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die†(Lair 197).His attempt at being the modern American occurs when he tells his wife that she does not have to wear her sari all the time, â€Å"There is no need to cover your head, â€Å"l said. † I don't mind. It doesn't matter here† (Lair 192). Another example is when the narrator tries to retain his original traditions by eating egg curry and walking barefoot throughout his house. Egg curry seems to be the one thing the narrator holds onto which is obvious because he cooks egg curry in all three continents.

Spelling trouble - Emphasis

Spelling trouble Spelling trouble The results are in for Britains top ten most frequently misspelt words. And the winners are: 1 Definitely (Definately) 2 Sacrilegious (Sacreligious) 3 Indict (Indite) 4 Manoeuvre (Maneouvre) 5 Bureaucracy (Beaurocracy) 6 Broccoli (Brocolli) 7 Phlegm (Phleghm) 8 Prejudice (Predjudice) 9 Consensus (Conscensus) 10 Unnecessary (Unecessary)* (Please note: the incorrect spellings are the bracketed words.) Although a few of these may cause the odd sharp intake of breath from spelling champions everywhere, the mistakes are by and large fairly logical. The problem, of course, is that spelling in the English language is often anything but. George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that the word fish could just as easily in English spelling terms be written ghoti. And why? Consider these pronunciations: the gh in cough the o in women the ti in potion. In the face of this kind of logic, it might seem we are all doomed. We can offer a small amount of help with the number one culprit: just think of the finite amount of patience you need to have to spell definite. If you have any ideas for mnemonics for the rest of the list, or youve got a white whale of a word you can never quite spell correctly, do let us know. And perhaps try eating more ghoti its meant to be brain food. * Results from www.OnePoll.com

ACT On My Own

Should I Hire A Tutor Or Study For The SAT/ACT On My Own SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Your number two pencils are sharpened; you have functioning erasers at the ready and tissues for when you can’t stop the tears. That’s right. You’re gearing up to study for the SAT/ACT. Except†¦how do you actually go about studying for the SAT/ACT? Do you need a tutor, or can you just do it on your own? We cover this topic pretty thoroughly in our free booklets on comparing methods of test prep for the SAT and ACT, so this article will just give you a brief rundown of when it’s worth it to hire a tutor. feature image credit: Lady Mary Fairfax with her Tutor, 1647 by Lisby, used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped from original. In general, if you want to succeed on the SAT or ACT, you must have all of the following five components. 1. Motivation and Accountability Finding the motivation to study for the SAT/ACT can be...problematic. I mean, your score doesn’t directly impact your high school education (unless your school uses it for something), and test prep isn’t as interesting as Youtube. If you aren’t motivated, you won’t make progress in your test prep. A vague reason that you just give lip service to, like â€Å"I know I probably need to study so I can get a good enough score get into the school I want,† won’t do you any good. You need reasons to study that will actually motivate you. Because it’s the strength of the motivation that matters, not the loftiness of the reason, â€Å"I want to beat my older sibling’s score on the SAT† is just as valid a motivator for test prep as â€Å"I want to do well on the SAT so I’m guaranteed a scholarship to a state school.† Accountability may play a role in your motivation, if you find that you are most motivated to succeed if you have people counting on you who you don’t want to disappoint. Maybe you’ll care if a friend or a sibling shames you for not doing work like you said you would (not that I speak from experience), or if your parents are disappointed in you for failing to improve your test scores (as long as this is also something YOU care about). Bottom line: you need to find a source (or multiple sources) of motivation that work(s) for YOU. IF you have problems finding the motivation to study on your own, without anyone holding you accountable for studying, THEN a tutor may be helpful for you. 2. Strong Study Plan Students who succeed on the SAT/ACT go into prep with a structured study plan. When you’re just studying on your own, it can be hard to stay organized in your studying. The first step to forming a high-level study plan is to know where you currently stand and where you want to be on test day. Take a timed practice test under realistic conditions to get a sense of how you are scoring now. Next, what is your target score? We have two articles about this, one for the SAT and one for the ACT, but to summarize: List the schools you want to apply to Search online to find their average SAT/ACT scores Take the average of all the averages to get your target test score. Once you know your current score and your target test score, you will have a better idea of what it's going to take to get there. A structured study plan will be able to answer all of the following questions. When am I taking the SAT/ACT? How long do I have to prepare before test day? How many hours will I study each week? What material do I need to cover? What resources will I use? Should I use books or a complete prep program? When do I take practice tests? How will I know how to adjust my plan according to my progress? I'm going to use a fictional student named Aaron to answer these questions. Aaron recently took a practice SAT and scored a 1000 and has six months to reach his target score of 1250. He and his tutor have assessed his weak areas and discovered that Aaron has serious content weaknesses across all of SAT Math and some smaller issues with the Critical Reading and Writing sections. Aaron's study plan looks something like this: Months 1-3: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 3 hours a week otherwise focusing on weaknesses in SAT Math. Practice tests every three weeks. Months 4-5: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 6-7 hours a week outside of tutoring sessions drilling weaknesses in Math, Critical Reading, and Writing and reviewing missed questions, using books and materials hand-selected by the tutor; practice tests every other week. Month 6: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 9-10 hours a week outside of tutoring sessions working on remaining weaknesses that the tutor has identified by drilling with actual practice questions, practicing reading comprehension by finding interesting articles in the New York Times and analyzing them; practice tests every week, increasing in frequency as the test draws nigh. Because Aaron sticks to his study plan, he bumps his Math score from 400 to 630 and his overall SAT score from 1000 to 1260, meeting his target goal. If he had not had this study plan, even if he had gotten focused help on the Math section a month before the test, it's unlikely that he would have been able to improve as much as he did, both in Math and across the board. So IF you have problems structuring your study time, THEN a tutor may be helpful for you. 3. Excellent StudyResources Being motivated with a plan won’t do you any good if you don’t have good resources for your test prep. It is extremely important to use actual SAT/ACT practice tests when you study, not other test prep company’s materials, since only the questions that will test you in the same way the real test does are...questions from an official test. Luckily, there are a bunch of free practice tests available online for the SAT and the ACT. What if there’s a topic you just don’t understand? Let’s make up an example and say I never really understood probability in class, but somehow managed to fake my way through it. Suddenly, I’m faced with the SAT or ACT, which questions you on probability in really weird ways. To address this, I could try going through back through notes or borrowing old textbooks, prep material from other people. But what if I don’t have any good notes or materials to begin with? Not only this, textbooks and class notes aren't the best way to prep for the tests since they're so different. What if I’m not good at teaching material to myself? My best bet would be to find a tutor who has a good reputation for teaching SAT Math, and get focused instruction on improving my knowledge of probability. IFyou don't know what the best resources available to target your weaknesses are, THEN you would definitely benefit from time with the right tutor. 4. Effective Way To Learn From Your Mistakes One of the mistakes many people have when they study for the SAT/ACT is failing to thoroughly review the questions they miss. A thorough review involves more than a halfhearted â€Å"Oh, I see. I got this wrong because I was careless.† In order for going over your errors to actually help you, you need to dig deep into why exactly you missed the question. Where were you careless? Did you make the mistake because you were rushing? If so, why were you low on time? What are concrete ways you can avoid making this mistake in the future? If you’re thinking that you’d love to read an entire article about the best way to review your mistakes, then you are in luck. IF you have trouble going over your mistakes and figuring out what in particular you did wrong (and concrete ways to avoid it in the future), THEN hiring a high quality tutor will be helpful. Bourgai Sadia by sebastien Delcoigne, used under CC BY-SA 2.0/Cropped from original. Don’t speed past your mistakes. 5. Ability To Measure Progress In order to successfully prepare for the SAT/ACT, you need a way to measure your progress as you study, and be able to adapt your study plan accordingly. This is the area I have the most trouble in – it’s tempting to keep doing the same things over and over, but after a certain point those things may no longer be helping you boost your score. So how do you measure progress? When beginning your test prep, you should take a timed, full-length practice test and score it; alternatively, if you've already taken the test once recently, you can use that as your starting point. As you proceed through your test prep, continue to take timed practice tests at regular intervals, spaced according to how much time you have to study. For instance, if you're preparing for the SAT over the course of two months, start out by taking a practice test at the end of each week of prep for the first month. Why is taking timed practice tests so important to your test prep? It's the only way, short of taking the actual SAT or ACT, to see how you're doing under realistic conditions. If you don’t know if you’re doing better than before on the test, it's impossible to know if your studying is effective...or if you're just wasting your time. By periodically checking your score on practice tests, you'll be able to see if you are improving, and if you need to be improving more quickly to meet your goals (or if you're doing just fine). Let's extend the example of a student who takes four practice tests in the first month of her studying. He started out with an ACT composite score of 24, and his goal is to improve to a 30; however, after a month of studying a couple of hours a week, his practice test composite is holding steady at 26. If this student wants to meet his goal, he's going to need to adapt his studying method. In this case, a tutor would be helpful because she would be able to identify the ways in which the student should adapt his studying method to reach his target score, whether this is by increasing the amount of time he studies or changing the specifics of how he reviews questions he's messed up on. IF you’re not really sure how to measure your progress, or how you can adapt your test prep as you improve, THEN you might find a tutor helpful. No Sweat, I’ve Got This Without A Tutor If you are confident that you take care of the following on your own: Motivation and Accountability: You have a reason or multiple reasons to study that are actually important to you. Strong Study Plan: You know your target score and the amount of time you have to study and are able to use that to plan out your test prep in a schedule that you can stick to. Good Resources: You have the right material to study, or you have the ability to aquire it. Effective Ways to Learn From Your Mistakes: You are expert at picking apart your mistakes, seeing exactly where you went wrong, and finding solutions to avoid these mistakes in the future. Ability to Measure Progress: You know what your starting point is and that you need to take timed practice tests along the way as yardsticks against which to asses your progress. ...then absolutely go for it - you don't need a tutor to do well, or even get a perfect score, on the SAT or ACT. As I can personally attest, working smart and working hard will get you most places when it comes to test prep. Storytime: When I was a senior in college, I was under the impression that I might want to go to grad school for psychology, and so I knew I had to take the GRE Psychology Subject Test. I didn't have the funds or time for a tutor, and there wasn't really a test prep course out there that I knew of. Instead, I studied with a friend for about an hour a day, every day, for the six weeks leading up to the test. We both scored exceptionally well, and my friend is in the process of earning her doctorate in psychology. So I don't want to suggest that you MUST have a tutor to do well on the SAT/ACT. But if you feel like you need help on one of the above key components, you should consider it. Uh Oh†¦I’m Not So Sure I Can Do This On My Own If you’re worried about even one of those 5 areas, however, you might want to consider getting yourself some assistance to maximize your score. The more areas you struggle with, the more a high quality tutor will help. On the other hand, if you’re not entirely sure that you want to go with a tutor, a test prep program, like PrepScholar’s automated drilling platform, is a good compromise. You get motivation, a pesonalized study plan that focuses on your weaknesses, materials, and a way to measure progress, but pay less and miss out on the one-on-one attention. What’s Next? Wait, what is it that tutors actually do during SAT/ACT tutoring, anyway? I’ve got the answer for you! Sounds good so far, but should I be doing online tutoring? Find out here. How do you find the right tutor for you? Reading this article is a good start (although since I wrote it, I might be a little bit biased). Want to get serious about improving your SAT/ACT score? Our tutoring service is designed to be the most effective in the nation. We hire the best tutors from across the country. This is then paired with our exclusiveonline drillingprogramthat gives your tutor complete insight into your progress to design the most effective sessions. Think about what improving 160 points on your SAT, or 4 points on your ACT, can do for you. Learn more about tutoring now:

Business interculture communicating Research Paper

Business interculture communicating - Research Paper Example Business intercultural communication is an effective tool for the organizations in order to achieve their objectives along with attaining various accomplishments with regard to performing the international business operations. The effective use of communication within the organization and identification of various cultural norms of the country of operation are the basic elements for the organizations in terms of trading on a global basis (US Department of State, â€Å"Intercultural Business Communication Tips†). The verbal and non-verbal communications are the important aspects of conveying information. The communication style incorporated in the business activities in the UK can be considered as an explicit form of conveying information through utilizing both the verbal as well as non-verbal communication. The communication style employed in the UK has been observed as to be simple and uncomplicated while conveying any information to others. The sense of humor of the British people is also a major element in terms of making justification about any proposal or in terms of decision making process. From the perspective of non-verbal communication, the British people are especially undemonstrative with regard to keeping their emotions concealed from other people by not making anyone uncomfortable for their own problem (s). The reserve nature among the people within the British culture highlights their respect to the person to whom they are communicating with (Kowol & Szumiel, â€Å"United Kin gdom: communication, negotiations and cultural background†). With this concern of communication style that are followed by the British people are the major concerns for the IBM US employees. Therefore, it is important for the employees of IBM to make use of straightforward communication style along with using a minimum number of physical gestures. The undemonstrative nature of hiding the personal feelings is also an

CONTRACT COST CONSIDERATIONS Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CONTRACT COST CONSIDERATIONS - Research Paper Example The three are firm-fixed price, cost-plus-fixed fee and cost-plus-incentive fee. Therefore, this paper will look at the advantages and disadvantages of these three contract pricing systems before outlining and discussing them in a specific NAICS case-study. Firms seeking contracts in different spheres of operations as classified by NAICS adopt different contracting or pricing schemes that are in line with their needs and capabilities and also by putting into considerations the needs of clients. In this way, it can be deduced that numerous factors, either in single or in multiple, influence the selection of the appropriate and most efficient pricing mechanisms in contract projects. However, in adopting an appropriate contract mechanism to employ, firms are always advised to take into account the responsibility of certain and specific risks that the projects might have. Three major contract pricing systems are used by contracting firms. The three include fixed price system, cost-plus-fixed-fee, and cost-plus-incentive fee. Therefore, discussion in this research paper will involve looking at the three contract pricing systems in terms of advantages and disadvantages and how they apply to a specific NAICS firm. The first contract pricing mechanism is the firm-fixed-price contract. This type of contract provides a price that in most cases is not subject to any change or adjustment (Stewart, Wyskida and Johannes, 1995). Favor for this type of contract has usually been based on the contractor’s experience in performing the contract. This type of contract provides maximum incentive for the contractor to have control over the costs and also be able to perform effectively. In such arrangement, there is always minimization of administrative burden on both the contracting parties. It has been found firm-fixed-price (FFP) contract is most favored by contractors keen on