Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Article Assignment - 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Article Assignment - 5 - Essay Example The fundamental contrast between the two assistance types is that while one taps the profound and strict sensibilities of a youngster or youth different attempts to stir or breed social and good duties. The religious administrations are arranged out with a specific point of view and that is to enable the young people to recover their confidence and simultaneously being allowed to rehearse the confidence he needs to (Evaluation Review, p 125). The fundamental expectation of accentuating on religious program is to develop in the delinquents otherworldliness and furthermore to create in them a positive and raised perspective. It would make them self-made as well as make them sincerely develop. To this end young people are to be furnished with coaches who might give them the necessary direction, support and in particular consolation. In any case, while broadening religious administrations there must not be any sort of weight or control to change over the member into some other confidence (Evaluation Review, p 125). One must appreciate total opportunity in picking one’s confidence. The primary reason for existing isn't restricted to lecturing pedantic stuff however to create inter nal still, small voice and mindfulness or acknowledgment among the adolescents so they can have a decent existence inside society. The people group based administrations are common in nature and spotlights on zones like reinforcing family holding and rehearsing mainstream practices like intuition for a change and character training (Evaluation Review, p 122). The people group based administrations are for those adolescent members who have decided to be put under a mainstream guide. The accentuation of the network based assistance educational program appears to be more to be on creating better sensibilities to acknowledge and esteem connections and family. Such a help likewise encourages the social aptitudes like flexibility, acknowledgment and the capacity to connect. As per the applied arranging significant exercises to be performed by the

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Barry Sanders :: Sports Athletes Essays

Barry Sanders Barry Sanders apparently the best back ever to play the sport of football. Barry isn't one of those players who is simply out there to bring in cash, he cherishes the game and is continually trying his hardest when he is out there. Barry Sanders was brought into the world July sixteenth, 1968 in Wichita, Kansas. He experienced childhood in a family being one of eleven other kids. When Barry was a child he was viewed as too short to even think about playing football well at the school level. Indeed, his 1,417 yards hurrying in his senior year of secondary school wasn't sufficient to dazzle school scouts. One enrollment specialist disclosed to Barry's mentor, We needn't bother with another diminutive person. Only two universities offered Barry a football grant. Barry acknowledged a grant from Oklahoma State University and the rest is currently history. Here are some of Barrys profession accomplishments that he has done in the brief timeframe he has played the game. Which has made him such the over achiever that he is. 1988, won the Heisman Trophy Award for best player in the country. 1989, lead the NFC in hurrying and was Rookie of the Year. 1992, turned into the Lions' All-Time driving rusher. 1994, scrambled for the fourth best NFL season record of 1,883 yards and remembered a 237 yards for week 11 versus Tampa Bay. In 1996, turned into the main player in NFL history to scramble for more than 1,000 yards in his initial eight seasons, won the NFL surging title, chose to the Pro Bowl for the eighth time and turned into the primary player to scramble for more than 1,500 yards in three continuous seasons. Sanders keeps including to his remarkable numbers the field. He has run for 1,300 yards and now stands seventh among the NFL’s unsurpassed rushers with 11,472, having outperformed Ottis Anderson, O.J. Simpson and John Riggins. He’s 128 yards behind Kansas City’s Marcus Allen, Sanders’ boyhoodhero when he was experiencing childhood in Wichita, Kan., and Allen was a Los Angeles Raider. One year from now, giving he keeps up this pattern of 1,000-yard seasons, Sanders will pass Franco Harris (12,120), Jim Brown (12,312) and Tony Dorsett(12,739) and slide into third spot behind Eric Dickerson (13,259) and Walter Payton (16,726). Sanders is the main player allied history to scramble for at any rate 1,000 yards in eight straight seasons, and Thursday he was named to his eighth consecutive Pro Bowl. â€Å"Anytime he contacts the ball, it’s a feature reel,† says Allen, presently in his fifteenth NFL season.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

What I Did in High School

What I Did in High School My high school was this tiny sort of dinky-looking building on the campus of a community college, forty-five minutes from my house. It was a public science and engineering magnet high school that runs an annual admission exam and accepts the top scoring kid(s) from each town in our suburban New Jersey county. I applied mostly because a friend was applying, but I got in, and he didn’t. When MIT hopefuls ask what an MIT student did in high school, they tend to mean “what went on their application.” There is obviously a lot of your high school self that is conveyed when you apply to college, but that filtered projection of an imperfect person isn’t nearly representative of “what you did in high school,” so it’s not what I wanted to write about. Instead, here’s a genuine account of one way to be a living human person in high school and end up at MIT. Maybe I’ll write about my application some other day so we can like compare the two for fun. But anyway! During high school, I: Didn’t always consider that college was a thing. I remember sometime during freshman year a classmate was whining about his grades. He mentioned something about colleges, which confused me, because I was under the impression that your college application was literally entirely based on your junior year. On another freshmany occasion, a classmate was whining about having to do community service, which confused me because our school didn’t have any such requirement. When I asked why he was doing it, he said it was to get service hours to qualify for National Honor Society come our junior year. I think I teasingly called him a nerd, because I still didn’t understand. It took a bit of time for me to start working as hard as I did in the end. I was never a bad student, but initially more the type to go hard learning things I wanted to and leave Algebra II studying for the lunch period before the test. I sometimes got Bs, and I sometimes got Cs, and it wasn’t the end of the world. Learned that college Was in Fact a Thing I think it’s somewhat silly to contend that there are teenagers who innately want to learn about everything they study in high school kids who simultaneously care about titrations and ancient civilizations and every important historical figure and his cousin. I mean, maybe they’re out there, but I won’t pretend to be one of them, and I doubt most MIT hopefuls are either. I started getting serious about studying these things when I learned you need good grades for college. My GPA jumped from a lowish A to a solid A to an even more solid A from my freshman to junior year. It felt good to me to get good grades because good grades are pretty important. But please don’t believe for a second that they’re the most important thing. Made “”“art””” What I did spend a lot of time doing that first year of high school (and all of the other years too) was messing around with my totally legal copy of Adobe Creative Suite to make ridiculous creations for fun. Here is the first GIF I ever made, feat. Robby circa early 2011. wow. Amazing (at that point I hadn’t yet figured out how to infinitely loop GIFs, so to preserve the historical integrity of the piece, you’ll have to reload the page if you want to watch it over and over again.) Made art Eventually I got somewhat better at the design software I was using and procrastinated on my schoolwork by making these single-afternoon art projects. Most of them are sitting away on my old computer, but I started uploading a few on YouTube in junior year for the world to see. random stuff like this: and this and this. Spent an ungodly amount of time on Tumblr In hindsight, I am positive that signing up for a Tumblr account was actually a terrible idea. I don’t know if I can think of any other activity that’s so consistently effective for distraction. On the flip side, I now have an Internet archive of rambly thoughts and writings (and teenage angst) from my high school days, which I think is maybe worth something. Worked at a daycare my sophomore summer My mom told me she heard about a daycare in the town next to ours that had job openings for teenagers. I super love little kids and I thought that sounded like fun, plus a good opportunity to practice my Spanish, since that’s what most of the staff and kids spoke. I don’t think I’ve ever been closer to physically melting into a puddle than when I made a two-year-old stop crying by sitting her on my lap and reading to her. Or more intimidated by another human being than by the belligerent five-year-old Carla… like, I was just trying to be nice and help the kids with their game when she told me I was too old to play with them. :( Joined the school play Basically I’m horrible at any skill potentially related to being in a play (speaking loudly, memorizing lines, not being terrified of the audience, acting) which totally didn’t stop me from being in a play in sophomore year. I think I was pretty awful, but I got to play the granddaughter of this girl I thought was really cute and our characters hugged at the end. Also a girl who I think realized I was feeling nervous told me afterwards that her mom commented that my character was very believable, which made me feel a bit less unconfident. After the last show, the upperclassmen who gave funny superlatives to the participants sarcastically named me “loudest.” Was involved in research One thing that was great about my high school was that we had to take classes about how to do research and then each do a project ourselves. My project was about the effect of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) on the drought stress of Solanum Lycopersicum (tomato) plants, which I grew from seeds then deprived of water then chopped up at the stems like the sadistic maniac I am. Heh heh. Anyway, it was a pretty basic high school thing without any fancy equipment, but I landed first place in my category at the tristate level science fair. “Great project,” said the judges on the scoring sheet, “but work on your presentation skills.” (I was also super nervous to present.) I definitely enjoyed doing research that year, though I was never invested in it enough to go to ISEF or anything. The following summer I arranged a research internship at Rutgers University, for which I pretty much functioned as a data analysis slave. I was okay with grunt work, though, since I could listen to music and hang out with the cool big college kids at lunchtime and my professor was really cute and old. “Creatively interpreted” school projects Another thing I did for fun in high school was filming dumb movies and then putting bad special effects on them. I would also usually try to find ways to make school assignments more interesting by incorporating the things I enjoyed. As a result, my teachers were often confused. A lovely gem I put together for an English project. If you want just a few seconds to summarize it, I suggest 1:33 or 0:40 when I wave to a ten-year-old kid in the park laughing at us from afar. For Digital Electronics literally I just had to submit a raw video of the thing working, but I noticed that the unedited videos didn’t have a satisfactory amount of flying CGI skeletons in them, which resulted in masterpieces like this. Hung out with Robby and his family You might be asking “who exactly is this Robby fellow?” which might then prompt descriptions of a boisterous, fluffy-haired boy who talks about neuroscience and has a good/crazy/confusing sense of humor, depending on who you’re asking. Robby and I have been dating for four years now and we’re both rising sophomores at MIT and I think we’re maybe cute. We used to walk to the Dunkin Donuts after school to hang out before going home. Gradually that turned into us usually both going to his home, where we watched like every episode of The Office and I got to know his family. Robby’s dad went to MIT, and he talks about it sometimes. They still have the McCormick Hall sign that he stole as an undergrad as a decoration in their house. Hung out with Bill Robby and I and a couple of other friends got to know our janitor after school, who was cool and funny and occasionally gave wise life advice. Robby would do a screechy voice and yell “BILL!” and Bill would yell “wahhhsahhhhp” and I would laugh at them for their antics. One day after school he said he needed a haircut, so Robby helped shave his head. Made bad puns Somehow my friends and I got it in our heads that terrible puns should be made as often as possible (of course not to imply that I have at all stopped believing this). We used to amuse/enrage each other by thinking of some garbage wordplay for every situation. Occasionally we would utilize these “skills” in our classes. In perhaps my proudest moment, I presented a project in chemistry class about the family of elements we were assigned carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, lead. Gertrude Germanium was the mother in the family who loved instrumental music. There was this compelling back story I wrote about her: she was a stay-at-home mom who was finally following her passion by taking music classes at our local community college, and training to lead an orchestra one day. But as she wasn’t yet a full conductor, she was only a semi-conductor. (ba dum tish. sorry.) Played a lot of League and Minecraft On League of Legends, my favorite role was top lane and my favorite champion was a mad chemist who poisoned enemies and wore bandages for pants. On Minecraft I would stay up till 5 a.m. on school nights building tunnels and a sponge-dungeon and an Omar Hotel on my friend Omar’s server Omarville. My mom is really sweet and would come into my room like “here, I poured you a cup of coffee, you’ve been in your room so long… you must have a lot of work today.” ._. Not exactly. Took AP tests without taking the classes AP self-study was a surprisingly big thing at my school, where we had the option to sign up to take any AP test we wanted. Robby and I saw it as a way to motivate ourselves to learn material for interesting classes (economics, psychology, comparative government..) that weren’t offered in our limited curriculum. I self-studied ten of them in total, and got mostly 5s and some 4s. Robby is I guess more hardcore than I am and self-studied 16 (?) and got 5s on all but two… that nerd. Entered like, a ton of random contests competitions Here’s a friendly step-by-step guide to being Junior Year Michelle, i.e. a high school kid with some interests that were not even vaguely touched upon by anything in her high school’s class offerings, but who wanted some formal way to practice them. Sooo step one, you go on to Google dot com and type in “animation for high schoolers.” When nothing relevant comes up, you get sort of discouraged, but you keep going “animation contests for high schoolers,” “video contests December 2012,” etc, etc. Eventually, you’ll find something along the lines of “NASA Aura Communications Contest” or “High School Video Contest Explain any neuroscience concept in a viewer-friendly format.” It’s due in two weeks, and you know some people who like biology, so you team up with them and decide to give it a go. You do the animating, your friend does the script-writing and audio, and two weeks later you’ve got a super adorable new animation in which smiling neuroglia tell you what they do for the brain. D’Awww. Another science visualization contest, starring… stars. Baby ones: (If you want to make me happy you can watch this video and exaggeratedly comment about how much you liked it because I honestly spent like 10 hours getting the stupid gas cloud to spin properly and we only got 2nd place and I need validation from the Internet for my efforts.) Uhh. But yeah! I entered 15 or 20 of these over the span of a year and won at least some award or mention (or $$$$) in I think 11 of them. I had a lot of fun making cool videos and pursuing a passion and crushing the brittle skulls of the competition between my hands. (????) Also there was one video contest held by the United States Treasury and the grand prize was getting to meet Treasurer Rosa Rios, whose signature you’ll find on any recent US paper money and who seems to be up to some interesting stuff now re: women on currency. We had this 40 minute conversation in which she told me about her job and life. She also told me that her family calls money with her signature on it “Rosie bucks.” Connected Four One day I was sitting in class when my friend sitting next to me drew a little rectangle on a piece of graph paper and made an “o” in a cell at the bottom. She asked if I knew how to play Connect Four, to which I responded with a countermove, which ended with the graph paper being covered in rectangle game boards after we’d played like 10 times that period. Soon I started playing the game with whomever was sitting next to me and they started playing the game with whomever was sitting next to them and before long it infected a reasonably sized group of students, which culminated in a Connect Four club meeting after school with every member as the co-president. We wrote up an elaborate set of by-laws and devised a ranking system and I made an advertisement (see below) for new members that we mass-mailed out to the school. Quit the National Honor Society I joined NHS because someone told me colleges liked that kind of thing, and I quit for a similar reason. If you come from a high school where a lot of students are interested in going to top colleges, you’ll know what I mean when I say that often high school involvement in service activities can be bull..uh…stuff. Not all of it, of course. But maybe you know at least one or two people who are half-heartedly volunteering so they can write their college essay about the glimpse in the poor child’s eyes that changed their entire perspective on life, and how they’re a really, really good person, like seriously. How could MIT reject someone who definitely totally cares about poor people? Does MIT hate poor people?… should we anonymously troll the blogs with this accusation? I think yes. And okay, you might point out that even apathetic volunteering can have positive effects on communities, which is true, but beside the point. I got volunteer hours for NHS through school club participation and counting my Rutgers internship (I didn’t get paid so.. sort of counts?) and by volunteering at this community-funded thrift shop where I cleaned and organized clothing. I even sometimes exaggerated the number of hours I spent cleaning so I could uphold my membership in an organization for students who were honest, morally upright, examples for their peers… which I thought would help me get into MIT. eugh. I never wanted to be that person, and cleaning never felt so dirty. But then… cawwwlege. But dreams. But ends, not means. It doesn’t seem like an easy dilemma when you’re standing right in the midst of the mania, where so many of my peers in NHS were standing alongside me. There’s this crazy culture of 8% acceptance rates and SAT prep and CollegeConfidential that compels high-achieving kids to feel like this superficial stuff is necessary, and so I don’t think it’s their fault for having this misconception. But let me repeat that it is a misconception. I had a friend whom I told I was going to quit NHS. He’s this friendly absent-minded genius type who does physics and is MIT ’17. He was never eligible to join NHS in the first place because I think he had the record for the most lates and/or detentions (from accidentally breaking silly rules) out of anyone in our high school. The first time I saw him he was actually sitting diagonal from me in detention and working on some math thing. I don’t remember exactly what he said when I told him I was quitting NHS, but it was something like “Congratulations, man.” He was so against the institution of kids feigning interest in community service (and recognized that it wasn’t actually necessary for college) that he was at one point trying to talk to as many underclassmen as possible about it to start a mini-revolution in the way people think about admissions. Do something if it’s meaningful to you, essentially, and don’t do it if it’s not. Here, I dug this up for you guys. Helped classmates with homework I have always been somewhat uneasy with individualist attitudes. For me it’s utilitarian: if someone is struggling with something you can do, you help them out, save them some struggle, and feel happier yourself knowing that. I often tried to find little ways to steer classmates in the right directions. In junior year a close friend was dealing with hard things that made it more difficult for them to work than for me, so I would say like “I’ll do half of this English homework for you if you do the other half.” I think maybe a lot of people would view that as a bad thing, but I personally didn’t agree. Hung out with Madame Robby loved his French class. In addition to purely enjoying the class, he thought the French teacher (called Madame) was a cool and wonderful person. I never personally took French, but I ended up getting to know her because Robby would always bring me along when he went to her room during lunch and after school to hang out and talk about random stuff. Had mixed relationships with my teachers I think I overall had positive relationships with my teachers. I mean, I was a good student in most classes, didn’t talk too much, and often had fun with their projects. I definitely wasn’t like a “favorite student,” but I was rarely troublemaking either. Rarely, as in, not never. There were a few teachers who I wasn’t on great terms with. The one that comes to mind is this teacher who I guess I found to be arrogant, and would express old-fashioned opinions that really upset me on principle. I didn’t like him, and I didn’t care whether he liked me either. I once was sitting in the first row of his class drawing a cute picture of my friend Joanna (MIT ’18, actually) when he started talking about how if you start a company, you have to make sure that all your employees are working and there aren’t any lazy “bad apples” drawing pictures all the time. Tee hee. I would sometimes write dumb stuff on my homework assignments and he would write “not funny.” I was, on one occasion, defiant. People have different opinions about how important respect for authority is; most people believe it’s a good idea to respect the authority of your teachers, even if you don’t much respect the teacher themself. But I don’t know. I’m presenting without comment the fact that I occasionally didn’t. On the other hand, I had notably positive relationships with some of the teachers that I liked. For example, I remember in sophomore year there were two physics teachers who I thought were the coolest ever. One of them would write and sing silly physics songs in class which made me sooooo happy, so my friend Matt had her record one of them for me over an instrumental track as a gift for my birthday. The song was called “Delta P” to the tune of “Let it be.” ~When I find myself in a collision, Isaac Newton comes to me…. speaking words of wisdom, Delta P, Delta P. ~ :’) The next year, as per a friend’s (probably joking) suggestion, I asked this same teacher if she thought it would be a good idea if I threw a surprise 70th birthday party for the other physics teacher, whom I had the previous year for my engineering class. She said (enthusiastically) yes, so I invited the whole school and organized food and decorations and everyone yelled “surprise” then sang a cute birthday song written by my Biology teacher for the event.     *obligatory party horn noise* Was clearly the best dressed at my senior prom One thing that I tried to never do in high school was to take anything too seriously, and to follow the wisdom of (my crush) Aubrey Plaza to “Make all your decisions based on how hilarious it would be if you did it.” Here are some cute pictures of Robby and me at prom.     Co-wrote a graduation speech ..about how important it is to collaborate with peers, to mutually believe in outlandish goals, to do instead of think about doing. To be a bit crazy, and a little bit silly; to always go out of your way. A lot has changed in my life since then, and I think that I’ve learned a lot too. But I hope I never learn to do things that I dont find meaningful or enjoyable. I think that’s the bottom line.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

My Fellow Christians Of Berea - 1712 Words

My fellow Christians of Berea, I am here to put your fears at rest about what the Thessalonian Jews have been telling you: for they do not know what they speak of. Jesus is the only son of our Lord; He is the promised Messiah whom God has sent down to save us. Jesus Christ is the truth and the light, we are the descendants and I have the knowledge and truth of the way to the Lord. We can all be disciples of Jesus, living through His teachings and following His way. The Thessalonian Jews know not what they do; yet they are eager to dispute my way of addressing Jesus’ teachings. In order to inherit God’s heavenly promises we must first lead a life that God would be happy about. Serving others in a positive way in order to create peace†¦show more content†¦For forty days Jesus walked this Earth after being crucified and buried, locked in a tomb with an enormous boulder. I have been tied to Jesus being the promised Messiah through my label as an apostle. Ther e is a large amount of evidence that proves Jesus is the Messiah and Lord of the universe. The evidence is shown through the following facts: It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! Does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? (Probatio, 3:1 – 4:31). Jesus has said that he will grant relief if you are a believer in Him. Those who do not obey or believe will suffer punishment for eternity and will be sent away from his glorious throne. Those who believe in the testament will have eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven. Second, Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again on the third day and appeared to Peter and then to the other twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most are still alive today, though others have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). As previously stated, Jesus is the Messiah, so my fellow Berea Christians, Jews and Galatians, do not be afraid of the Thessalonians. Those who unsettle you

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Project Management Is The Essential Part Of An Organization

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Project Management is the essential part of an organization to take necessary efforts to create a product or a result. As the organization grows large the complexity and the risk factors goes high. Each project has a project manager. Managers have to monitor and coordinate different projects at the same time and it is an art or skill to getting things done by others. Every project has its life cycle that means a start and end point. Some may be successful and some may not. There are some critical factors which restrict from success and eventually lead to project failure. Apart from the critical factors, all organisations should have clear understanding of why particular project is important. Is this project is prioritized? .WHAT to achieve, WHEN and HOW to complete the project (Sara, Amaya ,Angel,Pedro,2013). Primary analysis of these questions are necessary for the success.For a project â€Å"requirement and specification† plays a vital role. Design, planning, use of resource s and cost estimation of a project are done based on the requirement and specification. A project with well defined objectives with efficient definitions shows the way to success.Functions of Project Management includes activities such as planning, cost control, quality control, risk management and safety management in order to achieve project goals (Sara, Amaya ,Angel,Pedro,2013) . 1.0 INTRODUCTION Successful project always have an effective assessment andShow MoreRelatedProject Management Is The Essential Part Of An Organization2759 Words   |  12 PagesExecutive Summary Project Management is the essential part of an organization to take necessary efforts to create a product or a result. As the organization grows large the complexity and the risk factors goes high. Each project has a project manager. Managers have to monitor and coordinate different projects at the same time and it is an art or skill to getting things done by others. Every project has its life cycle that means a start and end point. Some may be successful and some may not. ThereRead MoreA Project Manager For A Company That Utilizes Informal Project Management Techniques948 Words   |  4 Pages1. You are a project manager for a company that utilizes informal project management techniques. Thirty days into the project you realize that the team is not communicating effectively and dates are starting to slip. What two actions might you take to correct this situation? Communication is one of the four columns of informal project management. If communication channels are not been used, or if information is not flowing effectively and efficiently, then the whole methodology is compromised,Read MoreAbstract. Project Management Is An Essential Tool Which1713 Words   |  7 PagesAbstract Project management is an essential tool which benefits businesses. There are numerous positions relating to it, but is it enough to categorize it as a profession? 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Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Answering The Call Inspiration For Teachers Free Essays

Where does the inspiration to teach well come from? How and why do we teachers keep going at a time in Ontario when we are so often depicted as public enemy number one? What is the motivation when funding for kids is considered such low priority, and testing them such a high one? The answer is quite simple. We know we make a difference. We know we are called to make a difference. We will write a custom essay sample on Answering The Call: Inspiration For Teachers or any similar topic only for you Order Now Sure, the academics are important, but in the years after the children leave our classrooms, they won t remember the Cs or the Bs. What they’ll remember is whether they felt loved in our classroom, whether they felt safe, and whether they felt God. Teacher Cadet Essay iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" src="https://phdessay.com/teacher-cadet-essay/embed/#?secret=2hUKhMfQAO" data-secret="2hUKhMfQAO" width="500" height="282" title="#8220;Teacher Cadet Essay#8221; #8212; Free Essays - PhDessay.com" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"/iframe And that can make all the difference in the world. In 1986, I was 22 years old, immortal, and out to discover the world. I had just completed the first year of a two-year volunteer contract to teach mathematics in Africa. I was posted to an impoverished boarding school in Malawi, a sliver of a country in central Africa, with another Canadian teacher for a roommate. Unlike my roommate Janet, I was a novice teacher, still feeling my way through lessons, spending long hot nights planning and grading, while I listened to distant drums and nearby crickets. My job was fulfilling despite the overcrowded classrooms and 1920s British textbooks and by the end of the first year I was beginning to realize that job satisfaction was dependant on a lot more than my student s academic successes. Besides the new experiences in my community, the opportunities to travel were fantastic. It was near the end of one particular trip that I learned how important one teacher s influence can be. On this occasion Janet and I had been visiting the fabled Victoria Falls that Livingstone had so loved. We had been lucky enough to hook up at the end of our trip with some young American missionaries who were driving their new pick-up truck back from South Africa to their Malawian mission. They were in a hurry to get back as one of their number had just come down with malaria, and they were eager to have as big a company as possible. I was worried about accepting a lift in a vehicle with South African license plates. This was, after all, still the apartheid years, and Zambia had been bombed by the South African air force less than six months before our trip. I was afraid that the soldiers that manned the many roadblocks on our route might not. give us the chance to explain that none of us were actually from South Africa before they reacted. But there were going to be risks whether we accepted the lift or rode along the twisting pot-holed road in one the Zambian buses whose undercarriage was held together by chicken wire. Janet and I had already decided that avoiding adventure was neither possible nor always desirable. Nevertheless I tensed every time we came to one of the many military roadblocks that lined our route. At first all went well at the various stops. In the heat of an African afternoon, the soldiers were happy to do no more than a quick check of our apers and vehicle before retiring to the shade. We were actually beginning to enjoy the breathtaking views of the distant mountains, and close to the road, the sight of brilliant scarlet-leaved trees announcing a rainy season soon to come. Janet and I sat in the back of the pick-up for the entire journey and the breeze kept us cool as we covered our heads in the local cloth, or chitenge to prevent sunstroke. It wasn†t until we approached the last roadblock that the aggression I feared began to seem a reality. Right away we could tell things would be different. Even before we had completely stopped at the gate, a row of soldiers had risen and were facing us, rifles very much in evidence. As soon as we had braked completely, an officer walked angrily to the driver s side and ordered the three Americans out. Other soldiers gathered around, rifles in hand. Janet and I were frozen in the back unsure of what we should do. The Americans tried to explain that one of their company was too sick to stand, but the soldiers had no time for what they took to be excuses. The missionaries were pulled stumbling from the cab. Sitting in the back I could feel the adrenaline rushing as I recalled every orror story I had heard about travelers in Africa. The seven Germans who had disappeared on the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road. The Canadian mother who had been strip-searched along with her two daughters by Zambian soldiers. I did not of course at this time remember that the anger Africans feel against foreigners is justified by decades of aggression and rule by outsiders. All I felt was panic as the yelling went on at the front, as one of the missionaries began to cry, as the soldiers voices became angrier, and as we waited, and waited, interminably in the back of that truck. One of the soldiers finally came around to Janet and me. We had taken out our passports and were nervously waiting. He demanded that we hand them over, then, as his gaze fell on their deep blue covers, his whole face changed. Canada? You re from Canada? he asked excitedly. We hardly knew what to answer. Do you know Father Leclerc? he went on. He taught me French in high school. He was such a good teacher. Is he a White Father? I asked tentatively, trying to control the shaking in my voice. Yes he is! answered our guard, delighted. Do you speak French? I told him I did, and, in what I was beginning to feel was some kind of wilight zone we exchanged a few words in French.. 3 Suddenly our attention was called back to the front of the truck. The sick missionary had begun to collapse and one of his friends put out a hand to steady him. We heard the slap of rifles going up and the yells of fear even before we turned and saw the panicked faces of the Americans. For a moment the tableau of m issionaries and soldiers stood frozen in the shimmering heat. I felt the ball of a scream stuck in my throat, but before I lost the struggle to control it, our new friend called out sharply to the other soldiers. I couldn t understand much of what he said but two words stood out again and again. Canada. And punzitzi, the word for teacher. After a moment the rifles slowly went down, and one of the soldiers gestured to the Americans to get back in the truck. They climbed slowly back into the cab as Janet and I held our breath. It didn t seem possible that we would get away so easily. But we did. When moments later we were headed on our way, and we had all finished a long shaky prayer of gratitude I remember wondering, as I still do today, if I could ever have the same effect on my students as that unknown teaching Father obviously had on his. That s what teaching is all about. Hoping that somewhere, somehow the children you have taught will grow up to make moral decisions in situations and places you can t even envision. We were lucky that that priest was Canadian like us. But even more, we were blessed that he was good at his vocation. Wherever he is, I thank him not just for that one brief moment in Zambia, but for the inspiration he has given me ever since. How to cite Answering The Call: Inspiration For Teachers, Papers

Monday, May 4, 2020

Big Five Personality Inventory free essay sample

In contemporary psychology, the Big Five Personality Inventory of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality. The Big five factors are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The Big Five structure was derived from statistical analyses of which traits tend to co-occur in peoples descriptions of themselves or other people. The underlying correlations are probabilistic, and exceptions are possible. For example, talkativeness and assertiveness are both traits ssociated with Extraversion, but they do not go together by logical necessity: you could imagine somebody that is assertive but not talkative. However, many studies indicate that people who are talkative are usually also assertive, which is why they go together under the broader Extraversion factor. Conscientiousness is a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement. The trait shows a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior. It influences the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our impulses. Conscientiousness includes the factor known as Need for Achievement. Other than that, common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal- directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details. In my Personality Test, Conscientiousness is the lowest rate compares to other personality. This is maybe causes by my laziness attitude and dont like well-planned. I like to be an easy person, dont like to get screw up with those rules and regulations. This probably leads the conscientiousness to get the lowest rate. Extraversion is characterized by positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to eek out stimulation and the company of others. The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extraverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious. They take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations, and business or political groups. Politics, teaching, sales, managing, brokering, and acting are fields that favor extraversion. An extraverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves. In my Personality Test, IVe found that I got the moderate rate for my extraversion personality means Im not really an extraversion type of person. Somehow Ill be quiet to strangers, less talkative and if I feel I dont want to talk and Ill Just sit at a corner and do my own thing. Its depending on the situation that I face. Openness to Experience is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. The trait distinguishes imaginative people from down-to-earth, conventional people. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. They tend to be, compared to closed people, more creative and This personality got the 2nd ranking in my Personality Test. I like to learn something new, hope can get more knowledge and open my mind to try something that I have never tried before. I think this is the reason I get the higher score in this personality trait. Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than uspicious and antagonistic towards others. Its also tends to be pleasure and accommodating in social situation. This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behavior. According to the contemporary personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the five major dimensions of personality structure, reflecting individual differences in concern for cooperation and social harmony. People who score high on this dimension are empathetic, considerate, friendly, generous, helpful and more sensitive to the needs and perspectives of others. They also have an optimistic view of human nature. They tend to believe that most people are honest, decent, and trustworthy. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. They believe people are basically honest, decent, and trustworthy. I got the highest score in this personality because of my empathiness and Im a friendly person. I like to hang out with my friends and willing to do everything as long as I capable to doing so and I can felt the feeling of my friend or people around me. Emotional stability also calls as neuroticism. Neuroticism is a fundamental personality trait in the study f psychology. Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness. People who are get high score at neuroticism part they will more respond to environmental stress because they easily will fall at depressed mood. It also a risk factor for mental disorder such as phobia, panic disorder and other disorder. If relative to people who get low score at neuroticism part, they are more emotionally stable and less reactive to stress. I got the highest score in this personality same as agreeableness. But in my opinion, I ont perceive myself as an emotionally unstable person. I can well manage the stress and cope it easily. I dont get anger easily and I always calm down when I was almost lost my temper. So I dont think myself as a emotionally unstable person. Summarize all the result I get in this Personality Test, IVe found that Im more to agreeableness personality. Im an easy person, I can make the people that mixed with me feels calm and comfortable. I dont like to show my temper in front of my friends because itll be irritating and spoil the ease situation. Besides that, even though Im ore to emotional unstability, but Im a forgiving person and I dont like to remember what are the bad things that happened on me in the past. Ill always find a suitable way to reduce my stress and manage it well. More than that, I like to open myself to experiences. This personality let me gain more knowledge because I open my mind and accept new things, and not as a conventional type of person dont like to experiences new things. According to my result, Im Just a normal extraversion person. I like to talk but seldom to strangers, I felt a little bit weird to talk toa tranger not like a real extraversion person, they can talk to anyone of any topic. At the last, the lowest score of my personality trait is conscientiousness. Among the Big and training performance. Not surprisingly, entrepreneurs score high on conscientiousness. But this does not means that I cannot be an entrepreneur. As long as I work harder and get more training, maybe I can also become an entrepreneur. I have a friend which is a bookworm and seldom mixed around with others. According to his result in the Big Five Personality Test, IVe found that there are some similarities and differences between two of us. The similar personalities are conscientiousness and emotional stability. Both of us share the same personalities because we not a well planned person, we dont organized and we like to follow our flow rather than a schedule. We tend to share the same emotional stability personality because we both get the highest score in the Personality Test. The differences of our personality are dominant, which are openness to experience, extraversion and agreeableness. My friend doesnt like to experience new things because hes a conventional person. He do not seeks new experience and have a arrow range of interest. Other than that, he is easily to express irritation with others. He lost temper easily and dont care others feeling at all. He likes to be a loner and do his own thing without other disturbance. Hes quite an introversion person. He seldom to makes friend and more concerned with the inner world of the mind. He enjoys thinking, exploring his thoughts and feelings. He often avoids social situations because being around people drains his energy. In conclusion, each of us is unique. Even though we have the same personality traits stated above, but it oesnt means that we are exactly the same as the results. Although this is not so accurate to measures the exact personality, it also can give us a guideline to let us know what are the personality traits that might have in ourselves. QUESTION 2: This Fostering Leadership is about identifying the problems that leaders facing and the solutions for that particular problems. Business landscape wont stay still and is changing from time to time because of the economy, environmental degradation, social concerns, and ever-evolving technologies. So it is important for leaders to nderstand the changes and solve the problems otherwise they will falter or fail. The 1st issue stated in the article is Work/Family issue and leadership, and how diversity in the workforce and work/family issue impact the workplace. Recent study found that allowed woman to stay on partner track or maintain full partner status during maternity leave was much more successful in retaining its talented women than its competitors. Apart from that, the flexibility of working time helped that firm in its retention. This is because the employee feels the Job satisfaction and loyal to the ompany, which contribute to retention. The 2nd issue is Enterprise-Level Thinking. Leaders need to think ever more broadly about what their leadership challenge is. As a leader, need to keep looking at whats driving change and what is ongoing. The 3rd issue is Sustainability. If a leader posses self-awareness and adaptability and merge them successfully, then will likely be a good leader. More than that, If he/she can juggle the triple bottom line which is economy, environment and social impact, then he/she will have a broad set of competencies that will make he/she more competitive n the market. The 4th issue is Authenticity. Leader should treats everyone like family this end up failing the company and eventually themselves. Without authenticity, its all for show and no longer relationship. After reading this article, I found that the leadership in chapter 16 of the text book, Organizational Behavior is related to the article above. Its all concern about leadership development, what should a leader acts, and what are the criteria that a leader need. For example: leader should be more enterprise-level thinking who recognize cultural differences, and who can adapt o local market/ political/ banking/ distribution conditions. Leadership not Just enhances a companys leadership capabilities to deal with the current recession, it also positions organizations for success once the economy turns around. This can be adapted from the following sentences: increased commitment to create and deliver real value to customers, employees, and shareholders and recognizing that sustainability is a core element of that value proposition. Apart from that, IVe found that the work/family issue is related to the chapter 6, Work versus Family Life Conflict. Work-family conflict can take two distinct forms: work interference with family and family interference with work. From the article, if a leader can balancing the time between workplace and family, it seems can help the company in its retention and maybe will lead to more stable homes as well. In my opinion, leadership is important to all organizations. An organization cannot survive without a leader. This is because leadership involves mentoring, coaching, inspiring, motivating, build teams, generate cohesion, resolve conflicts at the group level and finally build culture and generate change at the organization level. So its important to foster leadership within an organization to manage and lead the whole organization. This article is very useful to all of us so that we know how to overcome the conflicts in leadership. On the other hand, this article didnt state clearly the personality that a leader should have in an organization. A group of people tend to have common personality traits so as a group of leaders. They might have common personality traits but it does not state in this article. Overall, this article is a good article and we can adapt it into fostering a leadership in an organization.

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Money Mechanics in Banks System

The major business that is done by banks is the buying and selling of cash. This is how they make profits hence they are always willing to buy and sell cash to the customers.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Money Mechanics in Banks System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Banks ensure that they transact well so that they can realize profits in the business transactions that they make. Banks always strive to ensure that cash deposits in a day’s transactions exceed withdrawal. Total deposits, which are made by customers in a business day, rarely exceed the total withdrawals by more than one percent. They are often retained at less than one percent. Banks maintain low cash reserves as most of the money is put to active business. Banks sell the money they get from customers to the Federal Reserve. This helps banks to increase their primary reserves (Ashby, pp. 55 -78). To ensure that banks do not misuse the mon ey that is deposited by customers, a banking legislation has been formulated in the US. This legislation demands the banks to have required reserves in order to avoid utilizing the money belonging to their customers in business. The required minimum amount of money in the primary reserve of banks does not include the deposit balances of customers. Reserve requirements are set at a certain percentage. Banks are thus expected to deduct this set percentage of the money deposited and add it to primary reserve. However, a bank may choose to hold an amount of money exceeding the minimum required in the primary reserve. The bank can raise its primary reserves by including both the required reserves and the additional amount referred to as the working reserve (Ashby, pp. 55 -78).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Banks gain substantially from the net deposits whiles they lose from net withdrawals. Net withdrawals have negative impacts on the reserves. Preventing net withdrawal is hard thus banks use the working reserve to offset the gap created by net withdrawal. Working reserves help to cushion banks from the insufficient reserve position which results from continued net withdrawals (Ashby, pp. 55 -78). Banks in the US raise their revenues in two major ways. They raise revenue through levying service charges on the accounts of their customers. Banks also raise revenues from excessive reserves. This is the major source of revenues for banks. The excessive reserves are invested in buying Treasury securities that are deemed to be safe and yield interest revenues. Treasury bonds are also referred to as secondary reserves. Secondary reserves support the primary reserves in yielding revenues for banks (Ashby, pp. 55 -78). Banks also generate revenues from lending money to its customers. Banks only lend money from their excessive reserves. The supply of money in the b ank is enhanced by lending activities. Banks are comfortable to lend money when they have excess reserves. Banks are extremely cautious when lending to customers. They usually limit their lending to an amount which does not exceed the excessive reserve. The lending activities in banks take place in cycles.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Money Mechanics in Banks System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Interest rates that are charged on the loans borrowed by customers affect the loan expansion process. The level of interest rates by banks impacts on the availability of the excess bank reserves and the willing borrowers (Ashby, pp. 55 -78). Banks avail loans when they have excessive reserves. Federal reserves are acquired from four major sources. These are: the purchasing of outstanding Treasury securities or bonds, reduction of the reserve requirements by banks, the net deposits of paper currency and coins by cus tomers and the choice of banks of operating with secondary reserves. Banks can choose to work with insignificant working reserves. This means that firms accept the risk of net withdrawals. In such cases, banks can transfer money into their working reserves. The regulatory legislation also allows banks to sell the Treasury bonds to raise excessive reserves (Ashby, pp. 55 -78). The loss of excessive reserves limits the lending exercise by banks. Banks loose excessive reserves through selling its treasury bonds, rise in reserve requirements by banks, net cash withdrawals and decisions to work with secondary or large working reserves. In general, the cash deposits made by customers allow banks to increase their lending. However, net withdrawals reduce the rates of lending by banks (Ashby, pp. 55 -78).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Works Cited Ashby, David B. Money Mechanics. 2009. Web. This essay on Money Mechanics in Banks System was written and submitted by user Stella Horne to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Mansfield, TX School Desegregation Incident essays

Mansfield, TX School Desegregation Incident essays During the fifteen to twenty years after World War II, America was experiencing numerous changes, not only politically but socially also. After World War II most Americans felt a sense of pride, due to the victory over the Japanese and Nazi powers. Although most people felt this pride, some people in the African American community did not experience this joy because of the racial tension that existed in the South. Racial segregation was at one of its worst points in history. Separate but equal, was the law of the land, but clearly the equal part was left out of the equation. Everything was split up into two categories, whites and coloreds, everything from bathrooms to restaurants. People grew up with no idea how a person of another race survived or even conducted themselves on a daily basis. Because of this isolation, black children grew up with social issues that affect some still today. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began to challenge segregation in graduate and secondary schools in the mid-1930s. Early successes in the Supreme Court barred law schools from denying applicants on the basis of race alone. Application of these cases to public schools finally happened in Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954. In Brown I, after two rounds of oral arguments, the Supreme Court held that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. A third round of arguments were held in 1955, concerning remedies, and in Brown II, the Court ordered that desegregation should occur with all deliberate speed. Unfortunately, the vagueness of this phrase, combined with the unwillingness of many states to desegregate, meant that many states were able to postpone any desegregation. Anger over these delays and a growing frustration over the continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans helped launch th e Civil Rights Movement. Shortly following the Brown...

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Interview conduction and job description Research Paper

Interview conduction and job description - Research Paper Example Potential candidate must be matched against the requirements of the job. This step leads to the third step which is recording and summarizing the information of each candidate. Once the information for each candidate has been recorded, appointments of date and time for interview should be scheduled. After these steps are done, relevant potential candidates are notified about the interview time, date and place. Questions which are to be asked should be as short as possible. The questions should be framed in such a manner that they have a good mix up of both close-ended as well as open-ended questions. The questions should be specific, free from bias and ambiguity. It is necessary to draw a line between those questions which should be asked and those which should be discussed about. While conducting interviews, it is advisable for interviewer to give time to the respondent to answer the questions and be a good listener. Interviewees are also supposed to be calm and confident during interview. It is not at all necessary to panic or getting worried. (Cuomo, n.d.) Most of the interviewers waste a lot of time in filing out the applications or resumes. In some cases, it takes thirty to sixty minutes to do so. Therefore, it is necessary to shorten the applications. In order to cope up with this issue, interviewers need to allow technology for speeding up the process. Applicants can be asked to fill out their information on company’s site. (BridgeWater State University, n.d.) At the beginning of the interview, both interviewee and interviewer should have little conversation so as to relax the environment from any stress and nervousness. It is necessary to ease up the atmosphere so that there is no reluctance and hesitation between the two parties. Some casual conversation is essential to relax both, the interviewer and the interviewee. Applicants should be asked only relevant questions and unnecessary conversation must be

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Research methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 5

Research methods - Essay Example It establishes the role played by advertising in influencing mobile phone preferences by customers. Results showed that gender and age groups were influenced at an equal scale by advertising and distribution of their mobile phone brands. 58% of respondents preferred I-phone brand. Many respondents preferred the functionality and performance aspects when choosing the brand. Information of mobile phones is obtained from the internet but bought from brand stores. Surprisingly many customers do not pay attention to advertising. There is need to place high preference on performance, operation and functionality when selecting mobile phone companies. This is also a clarion call for mobile phone companies to retain their market share by taking positive steps in increasing market share. The relevance of presence and continuity in business by any outfit is to generate sales and profits. Remaining in business is pegged on the ability to produce sufficient sales of products that cover operational costs and post rational profits. To many companies, sales estimate becomes the beginning of profit planning and budgeting (Cannon, 1999). Costs must be determined prior to running production and influencing material purchases. On the customers’ perspective, the optimal choice covers purchasing a product with average costs but maximizes on functionality, operational level and reliability. The regeneration of assorted mobile phone brands in the information and communication industry has created a cut-throat competition among key players, keen on increasing their market share (Dunn, & Barban 1987). With increasing competition, consumers face though choices in identifying their best brand. It becomes necessary that mobile phone manufacturers comprehend the principal issues that can lure the prospective buyers to their brand. By doing so, they can conduct marketing action and planning (Etzel, Walker & Stanton 1997). Nevertheless, in making decisions on

Monday, January 27, 2020

Early life environment and a childs temperament

Early life environment and a childs temperament The question of how dependent a childs temperament is on their environment, biology and other individual differences has been the subject of much debate in the world of psychology. To critically discuss to what extent such factors have on temperament, we should consider what this term means- individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation (Rothbart, 1998, p.105-76). This definition considers the childs emotional responses; physical ability; how passionate or responsive the child is and how regulated their sleeping and eating habits are, for example. Possible influences on temperament are nature, including innate characteristics, and nurture, the childs early life environment and socialisation. A childs early life environment itself is affected by a number of factors, such as social-economic status; parenting; culture; school entry age and extracurricular activities to name a few. For the purpose of this essay, the focus will be on social-economic status and parenting. Firstly, individual differences were noted for dimensions such as distractibility and intensity of reaction in children in Chess Thomas (1987, as cited in Roberta, 2009) development of the 9 NYLS (New York Longitudinal Study) dimensions on child temperament. Some newborns were found to cry a lot louder than others if hungry, which showed more apparent intensity in the childs temperament. This indicates that temperament is a result of innate characteristics as at such a young age, little environmental influence is likely to have taken place. Behavioural profiles were also produced using the dimensions and 3 types of temperament were developed from this: Easy, Difficult and Slow to warm up, which were apparently identifiable in children as young as 2-3 years old. There is evidence that caregivers awareness of such individual differences is highly important as this can affect the childs socialisation process developing in early life. For example, those with a Difficult temperament might have more intense reactions and harsher parenting techniques used as a result may not always be helpful. Therefore, though aspects of a childs temperament can be seen as innate, environmental factors and social influences also hold a degree of influence. Parenting practices should be adapted to a Difficult child in order for the parent to optimise their ability to nurture their childs temperament. The NYLS dimensions are still in use today and the construct of child difficultness has been further developed and used in many other measures. However, this could cause issues when considering such research as results will depend on which measure and definition of difficultness is being referred to. Secondly, Kagans (1994) work (as cited in Chess Alexander, 1996) studied temperament by also using a biological approach. 43 children had their heart rates recorded and were observed and rated during 2 simple laboratory tasks. Statistical analysis was used to assess the difference between behavioural inhibitions of the children. Inhibition serves certain social functions such as preventing impulse acts, for example, losing your temper and hitting someone. This relates to impulsivity as an aspect of ones temperament. It was found that inhibited children had a higher and more stable heart rate than uninhibited children. At approximately 5.5 years old, there were a number of significant correlations between heart rate and physiological factors such as pupil dilation during cognitive stress and adrenaline levels. This suggests that individual physiological differences are indicative of varying temperaments in children, in line with other biological studies (Fox Calkins, 1993 as cited i n Rubin et al., 1993). Nevertheless, Kagan commented that environmental factors should be investigated too in order to gain a full picture. The effects of social-economic status can be seen in Dearing et al.s (2001) work investigating associations between children aged 1-36 months and effects of changes in family income by 36 months. Results showed a significant effect of income on children from poor families but no significant effects of income on non-poor families. For families in poverty, childrens school readiness; expressive language and positive social behaviours were negatively affected and behavioural problems more prominent and vice versa. Such research gives support for environment affecting a childs temperament, even at the early age of 36 months. Also, a higher risk for negative outcomes at 36 months was found for those that had spent longer in poverty. Even so, associations cannot be directly translated as causal relationships. It is difficult to be certain that extraneous variables, such as parenting; genetic ability and school standards did not affect the results recorded. Differences could have been due t o variables other than family income but the effect of the duration spent in poverty discourages this assumption. Parenting practices and child temperament were investigated using the questionnaire method. Parent perceptions of toddlers social wariness and shyness at 2 years old predicted their preferences for socialisation strategies at 4 years old (Rubin, Nelson Hastings Asendorpf, 1993). Observations of child-parent interactions were also recorded. It seemed that those parents perceiving their children to be shy, somewhat limited their childs opportunities for independence. This was more evident in those parents that were more anxious. Such parenting styles could make it more difficult for self-regulation to develop and for potential interactions with other children to take place. Those children less capable of self-regulation at an early age may develop independent feeding skills later than others for example, which would probably negatively affect temperament with more irritability occurring during meal times. So not only are parenting styles an influence on temperament, parents perception s of their childs abilities and temperament (inclusive of the factors defined by Rothbart, 1998) and how this affects their child-rearing is also extremely relevant. As parent perceptions were being studied, the questionnaire method used is quite fitting. Despite this, we should take into account social desirability bias and demand characteristics potentially affecting validity. For example, parents may be unwilling to convey their children as shy due to partaking in psychological research. Studies on twins have been carried out in attempt to determine whether biological or environmental factors attribute to a childs temperament. Spinath Angleitner (1998) collected separate mother and father ratings on 354 monozygotic and dizygotic twins ranging from ages 2-14. The twins Emotionality, Activity, Sociability and Shyness were also assessed using the EAS Temperament Survey (Buss Plomin, 1984, as cited in Spinath Angleitner, 1998). On all EAS dimensions, except Emotionality, dizygotic twins showed negative or near-zero correlations and the similarities between monozygotic twins were more than half those held by dizygotic twins. As dizygotic twins are expected to experience similar environmental stimulation, it seems that the much stronger correlations between monozygotic twins similarities would arguably be explained by their genetic similarity. Related findings seem to be obtained in further behavioural genetics research (Kimberly Saudino, 2005) which supports the impor tance of innate characteristics in temperament. Nevertheless, we cannot be sure whether parents ratings were affected by demand characteristics and therefore, the validity of the similarity ratings made between the twin pairs. It could even be argued that similarities were rated on perceived zygosity that is to say, perhaps parents and rating family members perceived more similarities between monozygotic twins because of their physical similarities. Experimental methods would conceivably be more useful for identifying the genetic factors contributory to temperament, but familial observations over time may well be more valid, naturalistic observations of child temperament and similarities. Although such research may suggest that the greater monozygotic correlations support the importance of biology in child temperament, results do not explain how relevant it is and certainly does not definitively give evidence for the nature or nurture debate. For more clarity, it seems that a combi nation of methods should be used to explore the dimensions of temperament. Perhaps teacher ratings could have been used in addition to parent and family member ratings alone. Exploring more within-family differences (Kimberly Saudino, 2005) to account for differential treatment of children within the same family, for example, offers more insight to why different family members temperament can vary across a whole range of behaviour. A greater understanding of the influences on child temperament has major practical implications. For example, certain teaching techniques may help Difficult children focus more in school and increase their productivity as a result. Biological influences are arguably less important, as it would imply that temperament is less changeable than a lot of research seems to suggest. For example, a child of slow to warm up temperament, whilst explicable by nature, could benefit greatly from practice of specifically identified socialisation skills. In addition, labelling children with certain temperaments could prove detrimental to their developing temperament during early years and being aware of this is exceptionally important. To conclude, there is evidence to advocate both nature and nurture contributions to child temperament. Although there is significant evidence for biologys role in temperament, there seems to be a general consensus that environmental factors are ultimately of higher importance, as human experiences and surroundings are so varied from person to person. To better understand child temperament, we should look at the interaction of such biological and environmental factors more closely rather than isolating them. A good example is portrayed by Chess Alexander (1987, as cited in Roberta, 2009), where individual differences from birth are apparent, but, what marks a difference is how those innate characteristics are dealt with by parents, and the effect this will have on other social interactions and thus, how child temperament is developed early on in life.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Causes and Effects Essay the Effects of Noise Pollution

Generally, Sound is very much important to our daily live, but noise is not. Noise is used as an annoying sound. Most of us every time hear the sounds in everyday life, likewise the traffic, the television, , Loud music, people talking on their phone and even pets are also shouting in the middle of the night.The whole things of these have come to a part of the culture and hardly annoy us. Moreover, noise is made by big trucks, household gadgets, vehicles, motorbikes on the road, loud speakers and jet planes and helicopters’ flying over cites, etc.Health effects of noise contain stress and reaction also in dangerous cases fright. The physiological appearances are headaches, feeling of fatigue, nervousness and irritability, and losses work effectiveness. Noise raises the risks of occurrence of sicknesses such as heart failure, blood pressure, headache, etc.For instance, the siren of police, fire fighters or ambulance in your urban all night daily leave people (specially old peop le) anxiety and stresses in the morning. Stress, Blood pressure levels, and cardio-vascular disease connected heart problems are on the rise.Studies propose that high strength noise causes high blood pressure and increases heart beat rate as it disturbs the standard blood flow. Carrying them to a controllable level rest on our thoughtful noise pollution and how we challenge it. These in opportunity can cause further simple and continuing health issues later in life.Any annoying sound that our ears have not been assembled to filter can affect problems within the body. Our ears can take in a definite variety of sounds without accomplishment injured. Man made noises such as horns, jackhammers, airplanes, machinery, and even automobiles can be moreover loud for our hearing variety.Continuous experiences to loud levels of noise can simply consequence in the injury of our ear drums and loss of hearing. Noise also decreases our understanding to sounds that our ears pick up automatically to regulate our body’s beat.As you know that there do not occur several solutions to decrease sound pollution. On an individual level, everyone can help decreasing the noise in their homes by pull down the volume of the music system, radio and the television. Some people listen to music lacking headphones is similarly a good step forward. Exclusion of public loudspeakers is additional way in which the pollution can be disputed.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 13

13.Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal, Who, Befouled by the Wicked Taint of Rat Suck, Must Find Her Own Murderer How could I have known that my own tragic failure karma would reach out its slimy tentacles and engeeken my heroic Foo beyond the limits of our white-hot romance? ‘Kayso, I was major freaked about the cops almost getting the Countess and I needed to unburden on Foo, which I didn't have a chance, 'cause, as soon as I returned to the love lair, I ran into the comfort of Foo's arms, and rode him gently to the floor where I French-kissed him until he kinda gagged in ecstasy. Then he just threw me off him, like I was a gob of Bubblicious with all the licious chewed out of it. So he's like, â€Å"Not now, Abby. We have a crisis.† â€Å"You 'bout to have a crisis, nerdslice†-I go in my most authentic hip-hop ‘hood-ho accent-â€Å"crisis of my boot heel in your man marbles.† And he totally ignores my hurt feelings and is like, â€Å"Jared, get the door! She left the door open!† So Jared goes all stumbling across the loft to the door, and I'm all, â€Å"You're stretching out my boots.† And Jared is all, â€Å"Rat fog! Rat fog! Rat fog!† And I'm all, â€Å"Don't call me rat fog, bitch. Who held your hair when you drank that whole bottle of crme de menthe and hurled green for an hour?† And Foo's like, â€Å"Abby, look.† All pointing to the little plastic cages on the coffee table, which are kind of empty, then at this steam that's running around the outside of the room and blowing out from under the fridge in the kitchen and whatnot. And I'm, â€Å"‘Splain, s'il vous pla;t.† And Foo's all, â€Å"The rats came awake as vampyres at dusk. And Jared and I were feeding them with the blood that Jody left, by filling their little water bottles. But then when we turned around, the ones we were about to feed were out of their cages. And then we saw some of the cages were still streaming fog out, and the fog was going for the blood bags.† â€Å"And they bite,† goes Jared. â€Å"Yeah, they bite,† goes Foo. And he pulls up his pant leg and shows me where he's been bitten like a dozen times. And I'm like, â€Å"You can't go vamp without me.† And he's all, â€Å"No, I'd have to have some of their blood in me, and I was careful not to even get any on me.† Then all of a sudden there's a stream of mist coming up my boot (I was wearing my red Docs) and a little head starts to appear out of it. Then Foo snags a tennis racket from, like, out of nowhere and smacks the rat head, which goes flying across the room and hits the wall, trailing like a comet tail of mist. I know! A tennis racket. WTF? So I'm all, â€Å"Where did you get a tennis racket? Is that a secret thing with you?† â€Å"Missing the point,† sings Jared, like I'm totally missing the point. â€Å"Hello? We need to be freaked out that they're going to eat us, Nurse Oblivious.† And right then the mist starts taking form again and coming at me, and Foo bats another half-mist rat across the room. So I'm all, â€Å"Okay, good point. What are we going to do?† And I, like, gesture at the button on my sun jacket, because Foo has replaced the battery, which is out of a laptop, and I'm ready to toast some rodents. And Foo's all, â€Å"No, not yet. We have to figure out a way to study them. I need to turn them back to rats. And I have to figure out how this mist is manifesting. I mean, technically, it's not possible.† And I'm like, â€Å"You mean it's magic?† â€Å"I mean I've never even heard of anything like it in nature.† â€Å"Like magic.† He's like, â€Å"There's no such thing as magic.† I'm like, â€Å"The Countess said it was magic.† He's like, â€Å"My grandmother thinks the microwave is magic.† So I'm all, â€Å"It's not?† And Foo's all, â€Å"Magic is just science we don't understand yet.† So I'm all, â€Å"Told you.† And he like sighs all heavy and does his exasperated science face at me, and he's like, â€Å"We have to get them back in their cages. They can't feed when they are in mist form, so we just need to get them feeding and then we can catch them and put them in the cages.† And I'm like, â€Å"Can you believe that Tommy couldn't learn to turn to mist in five weeks and your rats did it, like, overnight? He must be a total tard.† â€Å"Or we have genius rats,† goes Jared, just as Foo is tennis racketing another rat head off his leg. So I'm all, â€Å"Nope, I don't think that's it. Why don't you just put out a little dish of blood and when they turn solid to drink it you can just tennis racket them into a box?† â€Å"We tried that. They figured it out,† goes Foo. And Jared's all, â€Å"See. Genius rats.† Then, to Foo, I'm all, â€Å"He has a thing for rats.† Foo's like, â€Å"Yeah. I got that. They turn back to solid when exposed to UV light, too, but then they start burning.† Then Jared's like, â€Å"Once, when Lucifer 2 got stuck in a drain pipe in our garage, we sucked him out with my dad's Shop Vac.† And Foo's like, â€Å"That's it. We can suck them up with a Shop Vac.† So I'm like, â€Å"That will just blow the mist out the other side?† â€Å"I can put a really weak UV LED in the barrel of the Shop Vac. Maybe that will be enough to turn them solid without burning them. I'll experiment a little while you're gone.† And I'm all, â€Å"Foo, you know it makes me hot when you talk all nerdy, but what do you mean, while I'm gone?† And he's all, â€Å"To get the Shop Vac. We don't have a Shop Vac.† So I look at Jared, all wobbly-assed on my Skankenstein ® boots, so he's useless, and I'm like, â€Å"Well, I'm not dragging a Shop Vac back on the bus or the F car. Give me your car keys.† And Foo's, like, big â€Å"OH NOEZ† mouth and anime eyes, like, â€Å"Whaaaaa?† And I'm like, â€Å"Unless you really do love your car more than me.† And he's like, â€Å"‘Kay.† And hands them over. Which, as it turns out, was really poor judgment on his part. More L8z. Gotta jet. The tow truck is here. ‘Kayso, it turns out that driving an actual car is way harder than it is in Grand Theft Auto: Zombie Hooker Smackdown. Even though there was only, like, minor damage, it could have been totally avoided if you didn't have to shift so much. Everything was good going to get the Shop Vac, because I only used first and second gear. It was coming home, when I started feeling confident and decided to see if there was a third gear, that it went kind of wrong. Still, all the screaming and crying on Foo's part was kind of over-emo, considering that after the tow truck lowered the Honda, you couldn't even see any damage if you didn't crawl under and look at where the fire hydrant had sort of rearranged a couple of wiry-looking things. And Hondas are totally waterproof for the most part, so no biggie, right? So, it was like this- I drive totally ninja all the way to the Ace Hardware in the Castro, but I didn't park because it involves backing up, which is not in my skill set. So I'm, like, double-parked, and I run in and this crusty guy behind the counter is all, â€Å"You can't park there.† And I'm like, â€Å"Fuck off, butt-munch, I have a guy.† ‘Kayso, I find my gay Builder Bob guy, and he's all, â€Å"Darling, how are you? Fab boots!† And I'm like, â€Å"Thanks, I like your apron. I need a Shop Vac.† And he's all, â€Å"What size?† And I'm like, â€Å"It needs to hold about a hundred rats.† And he's all, â€Å"Girlfriend, we need to party or go shopping and dish.† And I'm, like, totally flattered, because shopping is a sacred thing to gay guys, but I stay on mission, and I'm all, â€Å"In red, if you have it.† Because red is the new black and because it will match my Docs. And so we're going to the Shop Vac section, Bob is like, â€Å"So, how's the dark lord?† And I'm all, â€Å"Oh, he's gone. He tried to tear out my jugular vein, so the Countess threw him out the window and it hurt his feelings.† So Bob pats my shoulder and goes, â€Å"Men. What are you gonna do? He'll be back. The drill worked okay, though?† And I'm like, â€Å"Oh yeah. We got him out, but he broke both his legs because he was kind of eager.† Then Bob gets all protective Daddy-voice on me and is like, â€Å"Safety word, sweetheart. Everyone needs a safety word.† So I'm all, â€Å"‘Kay.† Then Builder Bob helps me get my Shop Vac into the car, because it turns out that it takes a vacuum big enough to sleep inside to suck up a hundred rats. ‘Kayso, then I drove and that thing happened with the car and the cops came and they were all, â€Å"You don't have a license and you're not allowed to drive on the sidewalk, blah, blah, oh my God my insipid cop life is so boring I should just eat my gun, bluster, blah, blah.† And I'm all, â€Å"Chill, cops. Call my cop minions Rivera and Cavuto, s'il vous plaà ®t. They will confirm that I am on a secret cop mission and should not be fucked with by pathetic day dwellers like yourselves.† Then I presented them with Rivera's card, which I whipped out of my messenger bag like it was my badge of badassness. So cop one, who is in charge because he has the car keys, is all, â€Å"I'll check this out, wait here while I go make radio noises in the car like a humongous loser while my wife is home boning some huge stud-muffin.† I'm paraphrasing. And in like two minutes, up pulls Rivera and Cavuto, and they have a dog now. His name is Marvin, and he's trs cute. He's all red, and like a Doberman or something badass, but he totally likes me and his little stubby tail was wagging and I let him drink some of the hydrant water out of my hand, and he did, even though there was plenty of water everywhere, but I guess it tasted like street and whatnot. So I'm like, â€Å"Hey, Rivera, tell these douche waffles that you and the ass bear are my bitches.† And Rivera is all concerned quiet cop voice, â€Å"She has mental problems.† â€Å"Head injury caused Tourette's syndrome,† goes Cavuto. â€Å"We'll handle this from here,† goes Rivera. So I got to ride in the back of the cop car with Marvin and the Shop Vac. It was really crowded and Marvin was all doggie licky love face, so my makeup was trs fucked up by the time we got to the loft. So I'm all, â€Å"Marvin loves me good long time, cops.† And Cavuto's all, â€Å"Figures, he's a cadaver dog.† And I'm all, â€Å"Sure, just make up things to make yourself sound cooler.† And Rivera's like, â€Å"Out. Tell your boyfriend we need our jackets ASAP. And after you deliver the message, go home. You're supposed to be at your mother's house.† ‘Kayso, they abandoned me on the sidewalk with my Shop Vac and drove off. I could see little tears of doggie despair in Marvin's eyes. So I text Foo that I need help getting the Shop Vac up the stairs and he comes down just as the tow truck pulls up, so all the crying and the screaming happens, and Foo is totally inconsolable, even when I offered him a hand job, which is really the best I could do on the sidewalk with people going by and whatnot, but I was rejected, proving, I think, that he really does love his car more than me. So it's like, Oh noez! And an inky-colored despair of rejection enveloped me like the black tortilla of depression around a pain burrito. I needed to mope and grieve for my lost innocence, but no. We had to fix the vacuum so it would suck vampy rat fog and turn it into vampy rat chunks. So while Foo wired science stuff into the Shop Vac, I had to get Jared down off the kitchen counter, where he had decided to stand and chuck a major spaz because he hit his rat fog tolerance level. And Jared's all, â€Å"Get them off me! Get them off me!† And he's swinging the tennis racket around like a friggin' windmill, when the rat fog isn't anywhere near him, but running around the edges of the room like a steamy baseboard. And I'm all, â€Å"You must chill, Spunk Monkey, my boots are scratching the counters.† Which Jared takes as his cue to start screaming like a little girl. (When Lily and I were going through our Gothic Lolita fashion phase, which we both abandoned later, me because I'd just gotten my lip ring and I kept dribbling lattes on my lacy parts, and Lily because ruffles made her ass look huge, we used to go to Washington Square Park and practice our horrified little-girl screams, but even without practice, Jared was way better than either of us ever was. I think maybe it's his asthma. Me and Lily could pown him at creepy staring, though.) Anyway, I was just glad that Jody took his dagger away from him, because someone could have lost an eye if he was still holding on to it when I swept his feet out from under him with the same stainless-steel torchiere lamp that the Countess had used on Tommy. (Although it was kind of bent now.) And he's all, â€Å"Ow, ow, ow.† And I'm all, â€Å"Your cross-dressing sissy-man kung-fu is no match for my superior household lighting kung-fu.† And he whines like, â€Å"I'm going home. You hurt me. You suck. This sucks. I have to go have family dinner-with my family-and I'm going to school tomorrow so you can just fuck off and die, Abby Normal.† And I'm like, â€Å"Fine, give me my boots.† And he's like, â€Å"Fine.† And I'm like, â€Å"Fine.† And it would have been way better if he could have just stormed out right then, but it took us about a half hour to get my boots off of him, with me sitting in the sink and him on the counter, guarding me with the tennis racket, because it turned out that I have a pretty low tolerance for rat fog trying to bite me, too. ‘Kayso, we got my boots off of Jared and he decided to stay and help because it turns out that even a stream of biting rat fog is more fun than family dinner. So Foo had the Shop Vac all scienced up with sunlight LEDs and whatnot and he turns it on and starts sucking in the mist with most awesome suckage. (Gay Builder Bob rocks hardware!) And it's so cool, because we can see the fog go in-then we can hear the thump as the sun LED turns the rats to solid again and they hit the inside of the plastic drum. And Foo is all yelling over the motor, â€Å"We may have to unload and put them in their boxes before we get too many. We don't want to open this and try to deal with a hundred rats.† And I'm all, â€Å"Why don't we just leave them in there until sunup and then they'll all be asleep?† And Foo looks at me, all surprised, and I'm like, â€Å"Shut up. I can be smart and hawt.† And he's all, â€Å"‘Kay,† which I don't know whether he meant sarcastically, or that I couldn't be smart, or that I wasn't hawt. But I never found out, because right then the Shop Vac starts making this, foof-thoop splat noise, and Jared lets loose with his little-girl scream. And it turns out that the exhaust of the Shop Vac is blowing vampy rats out the back side, which is the foof-thoop noise, and splattering them against the wall, which is the splat. And with every one, Jared is eeking. So it's like, Foof-thoopsplat-eek! Foof-thoop-splat-eek! Foof-thoop-splat-eek! I know! It would make a totally cool industrial beat for a dance groove. But I didn't sample it because there was stuff happening. And Foo is all, â€Å"Pick them up and put them in their boxes. Seal them with duct tape.† ‘Cause it turns out that vampy rats are pretty durable, and after they splat and slide down the wall, they are starting to pull themselves together again and sort of limp away, but slow enough to catch. But they're still all squishy and whatnot. So Jared and I just turn to Foo and give him our best, â€Å"Bitch, please,† look. So Foo's all, â€Å"Okay, then, you work the hose.† And I'm all, â€Å"Sure, now you want me to work your hose-â€Å" And he's all, â€Å"Abby, please!† Up until then I thought Foo was the most chill love ninja in the Bay Area, but it turns out that if his science gets a little sideways he goes to pieces. So I take the hose and start doing the rat suck, while Foo finds some rubber gloves and a spatula to scrape up the splatter pets. Then Jared gets the idea of shooting the rats right into their little plastic cages, which, as it turns out, kind of works after we blast a couple of them through the plastic and he starts holding the boxes against a pillow he tapes on the wall. And Foo starts duct taping on the lids before the vamp rats can pull themselves together. Then I'm all, â€Å"You know, if we could use this to shoot tiny dogs at the vamp kitties, we'd be finished with this nonsense in a day or two.† And Foo and Jared both roll their eyes at me like I'm high or something, when they are the ones sealing in mashed rats for freshness. ‘Kayso, by, like, midnight, we have all the rats boxed again, and most of them are kind of fixed, but some of them are still pretty fucked up from the flight, and Jared is all, â€Å"I'm going home. I have issues.† Which I know probably means that he is going to go home and break the news to Lucifer 2 that they are no longer BFFs because Jared has lost his rodent wood forever due to our night of rat carnage, which is a good thing, I guess. Then Foo is like, â€Å"I have to go, too. I have to meet with my academic advisor in the morning, and I have to prepare, then I have work in the afternoon.† And I'm all, â€Å"You can prepare here.† And Foo's like, â€Å"I don't think I can.† And he looks away. I was going to tell him that I had decided to become a creature of the night, but they were bailing on me, so I was all, â€Å"Fine. You two run along. I'll stay here.† And Foo was like, â€Å"Wait until dawn, then give each of them a water bottle of blood. They'll heal. But make sure you tape their cages back up so they can't escape. Blah, blah, biology, science, behavior, science word, science word, blah, blah.† So I kissed him like it was the last time, and went into the bedroom to lie down and wait until dawn, but there was like this huge maze made out of wood on our bed, so I went back out into the living room and chilled with the rats on the futon until dawn. I couldn't sleep anyway, because I was thinking of all the people I was totally going to get revenge on when I was nosferatu, after I found Jody and Tommy and rescued them, of course. ‘Kayso, like the Terminator (the liquid one, not the one that was governor), I will rise from the wreckage of my own metallic spooge to conquer all who oppose me. I know what I have to do. When Foo is at work, and Jared is at school, I shall use the blood that is blessed with the dark gift and become nosferatu. So suck it, bitches! ‘Kayso, at dawn, when all the rats stopped scrambling around in their little cages, I found one of the syringes that Tommy had gotten from the needle exchange program when he was pretending to be a junky, and I drew blood from the most healthy vamp rat we had. Then I had to decide to drink it or inject it, and after a while, I decided to inject it, which it turns out works just like in the movies and hurts way less than getting your eyebrow pierced. So then I lay down and waited for the vamping to come on. I thought about Foo, riding the BART all the way back to his parents' house in the Sunset instead of staying with me, and how that was kind of an assbag move on his part. And I thought of our time together, over six weeks, and how it would be hard on him when I was a superior creature of unspeakable evil and supernatural beauty. And I thought that maybe the Countess and Flood and I might have to live together in a mnage trois, and Foo and Jared might have to be our bug-eating minions, like Renfield in Dracula, except Foo would still have his fly manga hair and I would do him occasionally out of pity. And I cried a little, over the loss of my humanity and whatnot, because I realized that as soon as I was done saving Tommy and Jody, and enslaving Foo and Jared, I was going to sneak into Mr. Snavely's living room one night-come in as mist under the door-then form into my most awesome alabaster naked badassness and freak him completely the fuck out for failing me in Biology, and that it would be kind of an inhuman thing to do. And as I grieved, I fell into the deep sleep of the undead. I know. Trs awesome. But no! Now I'm awake, and it's still light out, and the vamp rats are still out and I don't have super powers and my evil is still totally speakable. Fucksocks! I forgot, I have to die before I change. I looked all over for that potassium chloride stuff that Foo said they killed the rats with, but all I found was the hammer, and I was all, â€Å"I don't think so.† So I went up to Market Street and thought I'd throw myself in front of a bus, but then, what if they left my body out in the sun and I burned up? So that was out. So then I was like, â€Å"Oh, duh, cut your wrists?† But it hurt like holy fuck, so I only kind of cut one wrist a little bit, and I bled for like a half hour and I wasn't even light-headed, so I was all, â€Å"Fuck this fun-free circus, I need an accomplice.† So I called the suicide hotline. And I'm all, â€Å"I need help.† And the guy is all, â€Å"What's your name?† And I'm all, â€Å"You don't have caller ID? What kind of lame hotline is this?† And he's all, â€Å"It says here that your name is Allison. Are you okay, Allison?† And I'm all, â€Å"No, I'm not okay. I'm calling the suicide hotline.† And he's all, â€Å"You don't want to commit suicide, Allison.† And I'm all, â€Å"Exactly, doofasaurus, I need someone to take me out. I need it to be quick, private, painless, and it shouldn't fuck up my hair too much.† And he's like, â€Å"But there's so much to live for.† So I'm like, â€Å"You're burning my minutes, fuckstick. I need a number for a hit man or one of those Kevorkian doctors.† And he's all, â€Å"I can't help you with that.† So I'm all, â€Å"Loser!† And I offed my phone. I can't believe it, but it turns out that the Motherbot was right. Sometimes, the only people you can trust are family. (â€Å"‘Scuse me, I barely suppressed a rainbow yawn when I typed that.) So here I am, waiting for my little sister, Ronnie, to get home from school so she can murder me, then hide my body under the bed until I return as the true Mistress of the Greater Bay Area Dark. This will be my last entry as a mortal. I have to go pick out an ensem for my death. I wonder how she'll do it? It better be painless or the first thing on my undead to-do list will be to open a bottle of Whoop-Ass P.M. on little sister.