When to Use the Familiar Forms of You in Spanish

Spanish has two sets of pronouns that mean you—the familiar informal you, which is tà º in the singular and vosotros in the plural, and the formal you, which is usted in the singular and ustedes in the plural. They are often a source of confusion for Spanish students. While there are not any rules that are always valid for determining which one to use, the guide below will help steer you in the right direction when you are deciding on which pronoun to go with. Formal vs. Informal First, while there are exceptions, the basic difference between the familiar and the formal pronouns is that the former is typically used for friends and family members, while the formal is for use in other situations. You might think of the distinction as something like the difference, at least in the United States, between addressing someone by a first name or something more formal. The danger of using the familiar form when you should not is that you may come across as insulting or condescending to the person you are speaking to, even if you do not intend to. And if you may come across as distancing if you stick to the formal when the informal would be appropriate. In general, you should use the formal forms of you unless there is a reason to use the familiar form. That way, you are safely coming across as polite rather than risking being rude. Situations to Apply Formal Forms There are two situations where the formal form is almost always used: In most of Latin America, the plural familiar form (vosotros) is nearly extinct for everyday conversation. Parents will address even their children as ustedes, something that sounds overly conservative to most Spaniards.There are a few regions, notably in parts of Colombia, where the informal singular forms also are seldom used. Using the Familiar Form Safely Here is where it is generally safe to use the familiar form: When speaking with family members or good friends.When speaking to children.When talking to your pets.Usually, when someone starts addressing you as tà º. Generally, however, you should not respond in the familiar form if the person who addresses you as tà º is someone in a position of authority over you (such as a police officer).When someone lets you know its OK to address him or her in familiar terms. The verb for to speak to someone in familiar terms is tutear.When meeting peers, if is the custom in the region for your age group and social status. Take your cues from those around you and the person youre speaking with.In most Christian traditions, when praying to God. In some regions, another singular familiar pronoun,  vos,  is used with varying degrees of acceptance. In some areas, it has its own accompanying verb conjugations. Your use of tà º, however, will be understood in those areas. Other Familiar and Formal Forms The same rules that apply to tà º and vosotros that apply to other familiar forms: The singular te and the plural os are used as the familiar objects of verbs. The formal pronouns are more complicated: In standard Spanish, the formal singular forms are lo (masculine) and la (feminine) as direct objects but le as an indirect object. The corresponding plural forms are los (masculine or mixed-gender direct object), las (feminine direct object), and les (indirect object).The singular familiar possessive determiners are tu and tus, depending on whether the accompanying noun is singular or plural. (Note the lack of a written accent.) The plural determiners also vary depending on the number of the noun: vuestro, vuestra, vuestros, vuestras.The familiar long-form possessives are tuyo, tuya, tuyos, and tuyas in the singular. The plural forms are suyo, suya, suyos, and suyas. Familiar Forms in English Although distinctions between the formal and familiar may sound foreign to English speakers, English used to make similar distinctions. In fact, these distinctions can still be found in older literature, such as the writings of Shakespeare. In particular, the informal forms of Early Modern English are thou as a subject, thee as an object, and thy and thine as possessive forms. During that period, you was used as a plural instead of both singular and plural as it is today. Both tà º and thou come from the same Indo-European source, as do corresponding words in some other languages, such as du in German. Key Takeaways Spanish speakers uses formal and informal variations of their words for you and your that depend on the relationship between the speakers.In Spanish, the distinctions are made for both singular and plural forms of you, while in Latin America the distinctions exist only in the singular.Among other uses, the informal forms are used when speaking with family members, close friends, and children.

Lack Of Readiness Among Children For Kindergarten Essay

The projected goal of this proposal is to provide a solution for the lack of readiness among children for Kindergarten. Although there may be a variety of causes for this issue, the focus of this solution is to target the parents. Many parents struggle to find the information or just have a lack of knowledge about how to best prepare their child for school. Research shows that nearly 40% of children walk into kindergarten around one to three years behind. When a child falls behind, this can lead to decreases in performance among numerous subject areas. It’s vital that children are prepared for their first year of school as it can lead to success for the rest of their education. If these parents do not feel ready, many end up holding their child back in what’s known as â€Å"redshirting†. Research has suggested that children who are postponed actually don’t’ tend to perform any better than those who are not held back . Parents need to be knowledgea ble about resources information so that they can not only better prepare their child, but also on time. Although screenings and assessments are conducted in schools, there is still another issues that remains in aiding these parents to get motivated and really delve into doing their part in helping their child become ready. Since each child’s learning experience is unique, their parents are some of the key individuals who truly know what’s best. I intend to increase their awareness as well as provide them with tools to better enableShow MoreRelatedStudent Readiness And Academic Achievement1522 Words   |  7 PagesDegree of School Readiness in Kindergarten Students from Families with a Stay-at-Home-Mom vs. Families with a Working Mom Rebecca L. 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Dragonhaven CHAPTER SEVEN Free Essays

Westcamp was in a bit more of a mess than the permanent camps usually are. And I actually helped with some of the clean- and patch-up. It was weirdly exhilarating. We will write a custom essay sample on Dragonhaven CHAPTER SEVEN or any similar topic only for you Order Now It was because we were out in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t have to watch Lois every minute. And also because I was doing something that both was not about Lois and was about helping somebody else out for a change. Even my time at the Institute, the last couple of years, had been about Lois really – about pretending everything was normal, to try and keep her safe and secret – even if most of the work I did was also useful that had been almost beside the point. Of course like a good parent I quickly learned to shift my worries to the present situation so now that we’d got here and weren’t immediately leaving again I was afraid she’d eat something that would poison her the third or fourth time she went by it because it had got familiar (or that she’d been snatching mouthfuls right along and the third or fourth time the toxic accumulation would finally get her) or get lost because she hadn’t learned where the new edges of her new territory were or blunder into something like a herd of no-nonsense Bighorn that would recognize her as a predator even though she didn’t know it yet herself, and stomp her to death. But she stuck pretty close to me just like she usually did (. . . so I started wondering how long that would last before she got used to the idea that I wasn’t watching her every minute, and how her next developmental stage would be exploring beyond Mom, and then she would blunder into the Bighorn, etc.), and then after a while it wasn’t so exhilarating but we had to do it anyway. Also I couldn’t stop myself jumping every time the two-way yammered at us. A tree had fallen on the roof and poked a window out on its way, in spite of the heavy shutters. Jane climbed up onto the roof to lop branches till we could get the rest of it off without doing any more damage (waste not, want not, I would be cutting it up and stacking it for firewood, but I like chopping wood, so that’s okay . . . just so long as a baby dragon doesn’t get in the way. Worry worry) while Billy looked to see if there was any spare glass in the store (there was) and if it could be made to fit (yes) and if there was a glass cutter and sealer (yes). And made notes to replace what we were using. Fortunately the tree hadn’t taken out the solar panels for the generator – that would have been a disaster. Then all over again for the door frame, where some kind of Arnold-Schwarzenegger-wannabe sapling had managed to crack the door away from the sill. (That was a bit of a mind boggler to me since I believe that the Rangers, you know, rule, and that no mere sapling would dare.) And the hole that sapling had made, with the window, meant that the indoors had been pretty well colonized, which is why the Rangers are so anal retentive about keeping the permanent camps as invader-proof as poss. It’s a lot of remedial work when things go wrong. I did way more than my fair share of the blanket-mending because I was so cheezing good at it from all those months of patching diapers. I did a lot of muttering when I had a needle in my hands. Lois really did pick up that mood – she’d come and mutter too, winding around my legs like a cat except for the fact she wasn’t built for winding, and she was tall enough now that my legs would go bumpbumpbumpbump down her spinal plates which did not help, and the blanket would fall or get pulled off my lap when she’d get tangled up in it, and. . . Billy managed not to laugh at this. Jane didn’t. Manage not to laugh. So anyway both Jane and Billy stayed longer than they’d originally meant to because there was all this work to do. Billy also went out hunting one afternoon. I’d noticed he’d bothered to pack in a rifle, which I was kind of surprised about, since we didn’t have any investigators with us, ha ha ha. Maybe it was just a Ranger thing for longer hikes, although generally speaking a Ranger would rather sit up a tree for a week than kill something that had a perfect right to be there, and to keep themselves fed on long trips they mostly used snares or bows and arrows – no, I’m serious. I keep telling you our Rangers are good. Jane had her bow with her. I suppose I must have noticed when Billy left Jane and me replacing shingles with his rifle cracked over his arm, but I didn’t think about that either. He came back later and told me to come with him. He’d shot a deer and needed someone to carry the other end of the pole; to get it back to camp. Lois came too and was very surprised by the deer. She was used to her food coming to her in small pieces in a bowl of soup, or flicked at her. (I’d managed to teach her â€Å"Yours!† without having to demonstrate grabbing stuff tossed to me in my mouth, but food is a great motivator to learning.) Dragons don’t chew – they have pointy, widely separated teeth, for stabbing, tearing, and holding on – but along with all the other things nobody knows about dragons we didn’t know when Lois’ infant digestive juices might be up to bigger chunks, so she wasn’t getting any yet. (Lois’ teeth were one of her trouble-free zones. They just appeared. She never went through a chewing-everything-she-could-get-her-jaws-around-but-particularly-the-things-you-most-mind-being-transformed-to-gloppy-shreds phase the way puppies do. This was actually sort of off-balancing. It’s one of the ways you know a puppy is growing up. There wer e no familiar markers with Lois, except that she kept getting bigger.) She had a lick at the spilled blood where Billy had gutted it but didn’t seem to think much of it. She was a little subdued on the way back like maybe she was thinking about it. I was a little subdued on the way back because why was Billy already laying in a whole deer? I’d seen the store cupboard, which was still about half stocked with usual stuff, plus everything Billy and Jane had brought, which seemed to me enough even for several Loises, or if one Lois put on a tremendous growth spurt, and it wasn’t like they were going off and leaving me. Oh well. Maybe he just wanted a break from cabin repair. The smoker was already there, but I’m the one who kept the fire going. However smoking is smoking so you might as well do more than less so I told myself the deer was fine. Billy made me practice some of the cutting-up too but you could sure see which he’d done and which I had. You’d think all you’d need is a sharp knife and a steady hand. Wrong. He also tried to make me practice a little with his rifle, but Lois hated the noise so he let it go. He’d taught me to shoot a few years ago and I had been a demon with old beer and soda cans (they recycle just as well with holes in them) pretty much up till Lois arrived, so I still knew the, you know, theory, and my hands still knew the motions, but I was way out of practice and Lois hating it meant I was freezing before I pulled the trigger which ruined my aim and my shoulder. I might not have been able to hit what I was aiming at anyway for thinking about why Billy was suddenly taking it into his head to have me brush up on my gun nonexpertise. But then Billy merely shifted survival-skill gears and got me brushing up on snare-setting instead. (I’m not exactly hopeless with a bow, but . . . close.) But rabbits are smaller. I could’ve coped with the idea of the occasional fresh rabbit. Supposing I could set a snare properly. We’d eaten rabbit and pheasant on the hike in. But it didn’t really matter because I was never going to be here alone, of course. There was always going to be a Ranger with me, and Rangers can set snares in their sleep (I mean snares that catch something). We’d just about got everything fixed up so Jane was finally getting ready to go back. There’d been a lot of radio contact including about stuff Kit could bring when he came to take Billy’s place. After this there was only going to be one Ranger at a time here with me. So Jane left and then Billy waited for Kit, and Kit turned up on schedule with various small crucial bits and pieces – including one to make the radio work better; it had been dropping in and out a lot in a pretty uncomfortable way and everyone on it sounded like they were being strangled while breathing laughing gas. We’d had a lot more problems with the twoways since the techies had monkeyed with the fence, so we all hoped the monkeying was working – there was no real way to know except backwards, by people not breaking in. So Billy left (leaving me the rifle, just by the way, and spare ammo and reload stuff), but Kit finished making everything as everything-proof as you can ever make anything everything-proof out in the middle of a nowhere that didn’t care if you were human, dragon, or squidgy tentacled blob from Alpha Centauri. Which was the good news. Because the bad news was they had an outbreak back at the Institute. Nothing to do with dragons – flu. I’d been worrying about everybody’s stress levels and why nobody had a heart attack or a nervous breakdown yet, right? Well they got summer flu instead. (Maybe it was because they all relaxed as soon as Lois and I were out of bus-tour radius.) First flu epidemic we’d had since I’d been alive, and believe me, tourists on holiday come and sneeze and cough all over you rather than miss their chance by keeping their germs at home. (No, you’re right, I don’t really blame them. I’d come to Smokehill with terminal body-parts-dropping-off-itis if it was my only chance.) By the time Billy got back to the institute there were seven Rangers down and with it being summer which is high season anyway, the extra tourist load (and lingering investigative drones, although there were mostly only a symbolic crab and grumble of these left) meant everyone still standing was going crazy. Kit sort of hung around being twitchy for several days and then he asked me if I thought I could stay at Westcamp alone for a little while. The alternative was going back with him to the Institute. No way. There’s maybe a drawback to suddenly looking like a grown-up, which is what I had started to do the second half of the year I was fifteen. By now – and yeah, no doubt partly as a result of all that good-student crap first so they wouldn’t take me away after Mom died and then later to protect Lois – I could put over maturity-beyond-his-years like you wouldn’t believe. I’d also had my own growth spurt and was six-foot-something and bulky too you try hauling a baby dragon around and see if it doesn’t grow you muscles like a furniture mover. So I knew what I had to do with Kit – I’d also guessed it was coming so I’d been like secretly practicing my role. I just about packed his gear for him and shoved him out. There was no question about risking Lois back at the Institute. That tourist who had bumbled past our cottage had gone missing when we had a full complement of Rangers watching out. So I had to stay, and I had to convince Kit it was okay if he left me. Us. I did. And I’m afraid Billy’s rifle helped – helped convince Kit. (He hadn’t seen me try and shoot it:) But then I had to convince Dad. That really challenged my competent – maturity program, and it was only a beta really. Turned out that he’d just told Kit to bring me (us) back. When he mentioned that – almost in passing – like it was no big deal – then I mainly had to not lose my temper and yell. If I’d yelled Dad would’ve just yelled louder and ordered me back to the Institute, and the main thing about handling Dad is preventing him from giving an order, because then it’s an order and that’s the end of the discussion. The problem was that I was scared. But it wasn’t a scared that anybody else could do anything about. When I was younger sometimes being ordered to do something was secretly kind of okay because then it was Dad’s (or Mom’s) fault, I couldn’t do anything about it. I kept telling myself it would actually be easier if there wasn’t anybody else around; Lois’ and my training-each-other-to-do-things sessions were getting more and more complicated, and if it was just me and Lois I could concentrate more on her, and not worry about explaining anything to anybody who caught us at it, and who knew how far we would get how fast. But, you know, look at what had happened to me the last time I’d been in the park alone, which I know I’ve said before, but are you surprised it kept kind of running through my mind? Okay, maybe it had been a good disaster. But it was still a disaster and it had changed all our lives tremendously in a stretch-till-you-snap way and there was no stretch left for even a little tiny disaster-ette. This flu was pushing it. And I was also not absolutely sure I wanted to find out how far Lois and I could get how fast – or why didn’t I want anyone around to notice? There’s another little tiny factoid about all this. Sure, I’d been Billy’s willing slave since I was two. And I knew a lot more about Life in the Wild than your average seventeen-year-old. But that’s not the same thing as knowing what you’re doing out here. To the extent that you ever know what you’re doing. And then I also had to work way too hard not to wonder what, exactly, Billy had been anticipating when he left me his rifle (even if I couldn’t hit anything with it, except maybe stomping beetles with the stock end. The beetles in the cabin were kind of a plague). But I smiled and did my responsible trick, and Kit was satisfied, and maybe Dad was so impressed that I hadn’t lost my temper that he believed my beta program after all and said okay. Or maybe it was worse back at the Institute than I realized and what Dad really hadn’t ordered me to do was not come back, but stay at Westcamp, and he’d told Kit to bring me to piss me off, so I’d be sure to do the opposite. (Although this is a little devious for Dad.) Martha sounded really worried when I talked to her, and she was obviously trying to figure out a way to tell me something we hadn’t got into our code. There weren’t any cop shows, she said, but there was new thriller that everybody was talking about but she hadn’t seen yet. â€Å"Maybe you should stick to science fiction,† I said. â€Å"Maybe I should,† Martha said. â€Å"The problem with science fiction is . . . that it’s just all made up, you know?† Uh-oh. I knew. â€Å"Anybody else come down with the flu?† â€Å"No, but Mom’s driving one of the buses and I’m cleaning odorata’s cage.† â€Å"Oh, yuck for you. You know about using lemon juice on your hair after?† Martha giggled. It was good to hear her giggling. â€Å"Yes. I have to use so much it’s making me blond.† Which proves Martha has superior hair too. All lemon juice ever did for mine was make it go kind of rusty in streaks, like there’d been a terrible chemical accident on my head. And then we had to stop because the two-way went into one of its snits, which it was still doing, even with the new gizmo. Kit was out of earshot so I didn’t tell him about the radio. It did not bear thinking about if the radio went seriously gazooey, but I was not going back to the Institute, so everything else was just going to have to be whatever it was, grotty radios included. Kit took off the morning after I had that conversation with Martha. I checked in on the two-way as soon as he’d gone. I now had to check in twice a day, Dad said. He would’ve liked to make it three times but I said I was still going to go on with the dragon study even though there was no one to help me, which meant I’d be out a lot of the day. I could hear Dad thinking about ordering me to take the radio with me but fortunately he didn’t. Reporting in even twice a day I was wondering if my crummy sense of time was going to be cover enough if the radio had too many hissy fits and I checked in at the wrong time too often. But I’d worry about that when it started happening . . . and then, before I had to think about staying here alone, where the nearest other human being would soon be a light-year or two away . . . Lois and I went for a walk. Lois was thrilled. Usually we were doing chores in the morning. I know, she thrilled easily, but she totally lo ved the greater freedom of the camp almost as much as she loved fires. She was either on a constant adrenaline high (insert Unknown Dragon Equivalent here) or two-year-old dragonlets are like that. She galloped and rootled and scrabbled and poked . . . and peeped and chortled and gurgled and burbled and purred and hummed and cheeped and chirruped and hooted and . . . her amazing range had only got amazinger as she got older; and her qualifications as a chatterbox had been established long ago. And it was like she was in her element once she had the conversation all to herself and didn’t have to wait for anybody but me. I was also kind of broody so I left her to it. And boy did she go for the opportunity. I couldn’t help thinking about it some more. I’d never heard that dragons talked (all right, â€Å"talked†) to each other. Old Pete had never mentioned it in any of his journals. And if his dragons had been anything like Lois he would have. In fact he’d’ve spent his life wearing earplugs. Also usually one of the limitations on animal â€Å"speech† is that animal vocal cords and larynxes aren’t set up for a lot of variation. Lois had lots of variation. She could do anything but human words. She probably could have done the tentacled blobs from Alpha Centauri, but she was stuck with me. Her humming had like expanded. At first it was just kind of a bumpy mutant purring – what I’ve been calling purring, although if any cat made that noise I’d recommend you call the vet fast – and then after a lot of time practicing with the shower it got pretty, well, hummy. Almost, like I said, like a human might hum. (Emphasis on the almost.) But after she caught on it wasn’t only with the shower any more. And whatever it was, it went more up and more down, jiggedy jaggedy, more like a, well, musical scale than her other noises. I had brought my old player from the Institute when I moved in with Billy and Grace, but I decided pretty much all by myself that arena rock probably wasn’t a good thing for your infant dragon, and besides, I’d been reading up (a little wildly) on parenting and about how Mozart is soothing to fidgety kids, so mostly I played Mozart, and even got to kind of like it myself. (Except the operas.) And I sang to her sometimes the way all of us (even Eric) sang to our zoo orphans; once you’ve been caught saying the standard â€Å"Theeeeeere, isn’t that gooooood?† a few times you have no shame left. Shamelessness is required if you sing like me. But humans are just so voice oriented, you want to say things, and you get bored with â€Å"Theeeeeere isn’t that gooooood?† after a while. Singing is the obvious alternative to moronic monologue. You think you’re being soothing, but does a raccoon or a robin think â€Å"Barbara Allen† or â€Å"The Ash Grove† is soothing? I think we’re soothing ourselves. But there wasn’t any music, soothing or otherwise, at Westcamp so maybe Lois was reinventing it for us. We went for a lot of walks after Kit left. Away from Westcamp I didn’t feel quite so alone. Or rather, it was okay to feel alone away from the camp – away from the human place. And I took my notebook with me, and my marker sticks, and sometimes I brought a few scales back to the camp and labeled them and bagged them up like I was getting ready to take them back to the Institute, like this â€Å"project† was real. The project was one more legitimate reason to keep me outdoors as much as possible – indoors at the camp my voice echoed. Of course the main thing keeping me outdoors as much as possible was Lois – but the dragon-scale-counting project suggested that I was still a part of the Institute. That I still had something like a normal place – and future – at the Institute. My security blanket. I don’t think moms are supposed to need security blankets. Two or three nights after Kit left I dreamed that I was wrapped up in the holey old blankets Snark and I had watched TV on a few centuries ago, leaning up against Lois’ mom’s side in one of those flickery red caves, and my own mom was singing to me. At least it was her voice, although I couldn’t see her. When she sang â€Å"Barbara Allen† you knew what it was. It was a gorgeous summer that year. That helped. I’d brought rain gear of course as well as long underwear and a goosedown vest and wool socks and stuff. Even in August you can get a frost in Smokehill, and Westcamp wasn’t in one of the milder bits of Smokehill either, and the Bonelands started just over the Glittering Hills to the north. (They’re called hills, but they’re mountains really. You’d know this if you tried to climb one.) But I didn’t need any of it. The skies stayed blue and it was hot enough at noon to lie down in a meadow and soak it up and warm enough even early and late that if you kept moving you didn’t get cold. Lois had got a lot fitter since we’d left the Institute (well so had I) so i f I wanted to walk really fast for a while she managed to keep up with me, though she still did it in spurts. She’d walk – she’d finally learned to walk, I think because she discovered that you can be more thorough about prying into stuff at a slower speed – till she got far enough behind to make her (and me) nervous and then buzz past me at her funny gallop and then maybe walk again, although sometimes the enthusiasm level was just so high and the world was just so big and exciting she had to have an extensive hurtle. You know those cartoons where animals run by all four legs going forward at once and then all four legs going backward at once. I know no real animal runs like that but Lois sure looked like she was. I ambled sometimes too so we could walk together. Her walk was me foot at a time, like a normal walk, although looked down at from above . . . you know the way a dog looks surprisingly sinuous, almost snaky – explains why they can curl up in a circle – well, maybe it was just the way the spinal plates waggled along her humpy back that made Lois look like she was coming unhinged. She never offered to chase – or flame at – any of the wildlife we saw, and despite the amount of noise Lois made, both with her mouth and her feet – and I couldn’t walk nearly as quietly as Billy even when I was concentrating, but there was no point trying with Lois around, we saw a lot. They’d stand there and stare at us like they couldn’t believe their eyes. Is that a dragon? Is that a human? Are they together? Some things like raccoons do that anyway – but our four-legged dragon suppers couldn’t seem to decide if they had to bother about us or not, and mostly they didn’t, although I sometimes expected their eyes to pop out from staring. Once we even saw a lynx and lynx are usually really shy. The times the deer or the sheep or whatever would scatter they didn’t seem to be paying attention to us at all. Which was kind of nervous-making in a different way. If those tales about cougar curiosity are true pro bably the local puma was following us around and maybe sometimes the suppers got wind of him. Or her. But we still had to go back to camp eventually. I found out the hard way that I wanted to get back in daylight. I wanted to be indoors with the fire lit and one of the lamps burning before it got dark. There were bears around here – as well as the cougar – but that wasn’t why. Nor was the fear of getting lost. It was that coming back to a silent dark cabin was too creepy. First time we did it, coming back in twilight, even Lois shut up, and that made it worse. You’d think the sky would get bigger in daytime, when you can see more of it. It doesn’t. It gets way bigger at night. And the forest and prairie and desert don’t go on for five million acres after dark, they go on forever. I pretty much turned my dragon-scale-counting project into a real project after all, sweating over my charts and graphs in the evenings, studying and noting down the differences from one scale to another to another (long, short, cleanly shed or ragged, color, tex ture, blah blah), marking where I found them (and the map this made was different from the readings from the other camps) to be doing something. Something that made me pay attention to it, instead of sitting there trying to count up to eternity. And the rifle helped again, about that, about being alone. Just hanging there in its rack, it made me feel a little less helpless. And in spite of the deer all beautifully smoked and wrapped up in the store I did start setting rabbit snares – the pile of deer parts was going down, and that deer had been nearly the first thing Billy had done, and I (almost) always believe what Billy tells me, even when he doesn’t say anything. Also once you get in the habit of counting up to eternity it seems to stretch in a lot of different directions. And after about a week – hey presto – my snares even started catching the occasional rabbit. Weird. Maybe I could learn to hit what I aimed at with the rifle if I had to. (Besides beetles.) Maybe because of Lois, but somehow the noises didn’t bother me so much, even knowing that I was in the middle of five million acres of them. A lot of what I heard I knew from Billy’s teaching me to recognize, say, the crunching noises a pheasant makes when it crashes through the undergrowth (pheasants are amazingly noisy) compared to the noise a deer makes compared to what a cougar makes. (That last is an easy one. A stalking cougar doesn’t make noise. I saw the scat a few times, but I never saw our cougar. I knew there was one. Every neighborhood in Smokehill has a cougar.) That was pretty much my limit though. But most of what I can do by myself is daylight ID. Sometimes I didn’t know what the moving-around noises were at night and then I poked the fire to make it crackle or turned up the two-way, or rattled my graph paper. Or all of the above. I did hear bears occasionally nearby, but I buried our garbage a long way from camp and locked up the meat store every night like it was the crown jewels of the supreme commander of the universe, and they never tried to get in. They just snuffled around for a while and went away. Then there are the vocals. Coyotes and wolves are easy, and it’s actually kind of reassuring to hear them far away. They never got very close. Since I can only tell a Yukon wolf if I’ve heard an ordinary gray wolf recently to compare it to I don’t know which one I was hearing, and if it was Yukon I’m very glad it was far away. The fact that I was never sure the radio was working – or, if it was, that it wouldn’t suddenly stop working – didn’t help me feel comfy and secure and in touch either. Fortunately it mostly was working. I’d only missed one check in by about half an hour while I shook the thing and called it weekly-allowance-eliminating names before it decided I had fulfilled my entertainment function for the day and coughed and hiccupped and kkkkkkahed and glahed into action. There was a lot of squawking that I couldn’t always make out but I kept it on all the time I was indoors after Kit left, partly because I really wanted some remote clue about what was going on, and partly because listening to human voices even if they weren’t talking to me or saying anything I wanted to hear was kind of soothing. This made its sudden dramatic dropouts all the more dramatic – the silence would land on you in a deafening wham. Keeping it on like that wasn’t good for the batteries, but the generator was working and except for recharge (and maybe a little hot water) I wasn’t using it much. (I hadn’t brought my laptop – camp solar generator power is a little spasmodic for laptops – although sometimes, those evenings rattling my well-smudged graph paper, I wished I had.) Even the static when the radio was in a semi-bad mood, or the stand-by when no one was using it, was better than nothing. In the old days, before the poacher proved our fence could be broken through, we’d also believed that no one could hear our two-ways outside the fence. That was maybe still true but it wasn’t just Lois we couldn’t talk about because (in theory anyway) not all of Smokehill knew about her. Nobody trusted any of the damned hanging-on-and-on investigators-make that priers and nosiers – any farther than they could throw a full-grown dragon, and (Martha said) the grown-ups assumed that the Searles had bought some of the investigators anyway – that the bought ones would find reasons to stick around, and have pieces of legal paper that told Dad he had to let them. So everybody was talking in secret code speak, and sometimes it was so frustrating I stopped listening and pretended it was just white noise – that plus what the radio did to human voices sometimes I felt even more isolated when I was talking to someone. When I did talk to anybody myself – at least anybody but Martha – we were pretending that everything was still all business as usual except for the flu. They probably didn’t want to think about me being out here alone with Lois since it was still our best option, so they didn’t, and I didn’t tell them I left the two-way on all the time for the sound (well, sort of) of human voices and looked at Billy’s rifle a lot. I can tell you I was hair-trigger on the â€Å"talk† button though. I didn’t want Lois audibly adding anything to the conversation just in case anybody at the Institute end heard something that didn’t sound like random static. My birthday happened while Lois and I were in our Westcamp exile, and only Martha remembered. No, that’s not an example of poor neglected Jake, all by his feeble self (aside from the dragonlet) and no one cares. It is an example of just how stressed out of their minds they were back at the Institute. Oh, and I didn’t remember it either, till Martha told me happy birthday. I knew it was around there somewhere but I’d stopped trying to keep track of the days, and I wasn’t going to bake myself a cake either. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone for more than a few minutes, because of needing to keep our teeny bandwidth clear for something more important. We had like no width left, I guess, after the practical-sorcery guys had done their worst on the dragon fence some more. One of the things Martha told me was that airplanes didn’t fly over Smokehill any more – whatever the solder-and-sparks (ha ha ha) guys had done made aeronautic radar go berserk, even from thirty thousand feet up. This meant a surprising number of flight paths or what-you-call-’ems had to be changed, which caused some more uproar which was our dragons’ fault again and there was too much stuff that was already our dragons’ fault. Our conversations usually ended with Martha asking me if I’d seen any lightning. â€Å"Nope,† I always said. After the first few times she asked this she added, â€Å"Not even at a distance? There are some big thunderstorms out there especially over the Bonelands, You know, Billy says.† I translated this without difficulty. â€Å"No. Not even a – a shooting star.† Martha said, â€Å"I can’t decide what to hope for, you know? I – you don’t really want lightning close up, of course, but it would be – exciting, to see it, like over the Glittering Hills, wouldn’t it?† Exciting. That’s one word for it. Since I was out here supposedly counting dragons, if Martha just meant had I seen any dragons, she could’ve said that. But I had a dragon with me. If I saw any dragons I’d have to wonder if they’d notice Lois. We didn’t know diddlysquat about inter-dragon communication – what it might do and how far it might stretch – whether baby dragons smell like that so big dragons can find them – or if that unmistakable flying-dragon shape would mean anything to Lois if she saw it. That was the sort of thing that Martha was thinking about. So was I. What I called a meadow, that’s kind of a euphemism. As the scraggy, stony forest of eastern Smokehill starts breaking up into the Boneland desert and the prairies around it there’s some weird in-between stuff. Westcamp was in a weird in-between area. The camp itself was on the edge of some semi-forest, and there was a semi-clearing on two sides of it, partly Ranger – (and lately Jake – ) maintained. Then there was a big pile of stones – say twenty feet high – like a thoughtless giant had left them there for no better reason than he didn’t want to carry them any farther, and some tough little saplings had colonized one side of it where a little soil had somehow accumulated, and were trying to turn it into a hillock. Beyond that there was more mixed-clearing-scrub-and-the-occasional-obstinate-tree. The clearer bits wiggled like some kind of game of follow-the-leader, and there was something nearly like a real clearing not too far from the camp, that Lois and I had found the first week with Billy. It was almost like having our own private playground. There was a series of small heaps of boulders with sand at the bottom as well as the usual local striated stone pocked by scrub underfoot, and several of the standard little eastern-Smokehill rivulets cutting up the stone and going nowhere but making nice noises while they did it, and reminding you what you Were going to be missing if you kept going west. Amazingly though there was also a pretty good meadowy sort of meadow, mostly at the southeastern end but kind of snaking through the stony bits too, and surprisingly large – well, I’m an Eastern-Smokehill boy, it was surprising to me – which meant we saw a lot of sheep and deer there. They’d leave if we got too close, but usually a few of them just kept an eye on us while the rest grazed and did deer and sheep things. After the first week or so we even saw some of this year’s babies, which were old enough to be getting serious about grazing too but still had to have regular outbreaks of rushing around and jumping over things that didn’t exist. I suppose the old ones couldn’t afford to ignore the grazing but they weren’t entirely happy about us. Lois used to watch them watching us, and when she did her cheeps and burbles they sounded more tentative, like she was trying for a definition of what she was looking at. (Is it a bir d? Is it a plane? Would it leap tall buildings at a single bound if there were buildings?) After we’d been at Westcamp a while and fallen into some kind of schedule, going to the meadow and just kind of hanging out there became part of it. And I guess she was getting enough exercise elsewhere because sometimes she’d actually be quiet and still for a while without being asleep. (Although as I’ve said she was neither a quiet nor a still sleeper either.) And she was now watching the grazing critters silently, which in something (or someone) who was never silent and was always in motion (even when asleep), was interesting. I started thinking again about what could happen when sonic thing of her size found out that she had a fire-stomach with fire in ii I doubted a dragon had perfect aim without practice. But Smokehill had no more fires than any other big park, so presumably there was an answer to baby-dragon target practice. Maybe dragon moms had a fire-extinguisher organ, tucked away like under the spleen (if dragons have spleens). . . . Westcamp had a fire extinguisher, of course, but I wasn’t going to lug it around with us. Also you have to be conscious and have your arms working to use it. . .. But once we were alone at Westcamp, Lois really started growing – like if you stared at her long enough you could see the next scale spring into being to cover the stretching-out skin. Six weeks after we left the institute she wouldn’t’ve fit into her baby-dragon backpack any more even with all the straps let out, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift her even if she did. And the deer meat was going down fast, even supplemented by snared rabbits. I’ve already said we were training each other to do tricks. I haven’t told you a lot about this because . . . well, because. I’m not a Good Scientist who knows that animals are animals and humans are humans, and I think the situation on Mars is really funny and anyone that is freaked out by it needs to calm down and get a grip, but there are limits. Particularly when something with a face like a small rockpile and little bulgy, beady eyes is staring at you and going, Weeeeeeeerrrrrrup? And you know she’s not just doing the large scaly version of the parakeet thing. How do you know it? There are little old ladies who swear their parakeets know what they’re saying. I’m not going to say they’re wrong either. But the little old ladies probably aren’t getting any other weird signals at the same time as their parakeet is saying â€Å"Give me a peanut or I’ll peck you to death.† Although this may be because the parakeet i s clearly saying â€Å"peanut† and I needed help understanding Lois’, uh, words. So we were training each other to do tricks. It seemed the obvious way to . . . well, create a language. I don’t want to get into exactly what I mean by a language. About three years before this when I was looking for more creative reasons to get out of doing Latin I read a lot about the history of language and how us humans are hardwired to learn it blah blah blah and also a lot about whether or not animals have it. I had a kind of crisis of faith there about wanting to grow up to be a scientist because while I knew my parents made jokes about Good Scientists and Bad Scientists I thought they were jokes. I couldn’t get my head around these bozos who were so dead set against believing that animals have anything but like an autonomic nervous system to keep their hearts beating and so on and a lot of instincts saying things like â€Å"eat grass† or â€Å"bite that rabbit.† Okay, a boy loves his dog, but I couldn’t see this at all. Of course animals th ink and feel. Any moron who’s ever met a dog or a cat should know that, and how many people have never met a dog or a cat? Even scientists were little kids growing up once even if they haven’t come out of their labs for the last sixty years. Anyway. Getting pissed off had made me think more about how Snark and I talked to each other, and I’m not even going to put quote marks around talked, although I never did construct a good argument against Latin. So maybe I was a little more set up for talking to Lois than some people might have been. So let’s say that when you teach your dog to come and sit and not pee in the house, that’s part of a language. But when you get a dog you have some clue about dogs. About what they’re good at, about how they respond to people. And the stuff you don’t know, or get wrong, you can order a book from the library that will tell you. And if you don’t live some place like Smokehill you can go to a dog-training class. Lois and I only had each other. Sometimes I felt like Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, and I was afraid that Lois was playing Annie. She seemed to like it that I talked to her. Well, that’s not strange, dogs like to be talked to, although they don’t talk back so much usually. So I kept talking, although even my decision that she â€Å"liked† it seemed to me dubious when I was in a gloomy mood. Maybe frolicking around and thwumping her tail and flapping her wing nubs and cheeping was an expression of frustration and despair, not pleasure. I tried to keep all open mind. She couldn’t be too miserable, could she? How could I tell? She was still eating and still growing. And curiosity about her world had to be a good sign, didn’t it? It was also hard to be in a had mood myself, when she was dancing around apparently, by irrelevant human standards, being as happy as a kid on the first day of school vacation (even us homeschooled exiles know about this), which she usually was, so why fight it? Gestures are a huge amount of language. Aren’t they? But most gestures out of context are silly. I had started out trying to â€Å"teach† her to wave – this was back a long time ago at the Institute, after I’d had my uncomfortable little jolt about her trying to say â€Å"Hey, Lois† back at me – but she didn’t get it with me sitting on a chair, I guess, and as soon as I sat on the floor or ground she got too excited, and I sort of lost conviction about the idea anyway because why did I want a dragon that waved? That’s when I hit on teaching her to fetch sticks. Like a dog. And the good reason for that would be that it would help use some of her endless energy. That was the first time I’d tried to train her to do anything, as opposed to just hovering over her in a universally paranoid 100 percent way and worrying about keeping her alive. Except that I taught her by throwing the stick, going after it, and bringing it ba ck to where I’d been when I threw it. I told you she was always more interested in me than she was in anything else, so keeping her attention was easy. This had been a while back, as I say, really when Lois was only just getting big enough to like experiment with, including that she’d be willing to go far enough away from Mom to fetch a stick. So I got a stick, waved it at her a moment so she’d notice it instead of me, said, â€Å"Fetch!† in a firm, no-nonsense manner, and then I threw it. First time I went after it she went after me because that’s what she always did. Second time you could see her thinking about it. Please feel free to insert a verb you like better than â€Å"thinking.† Third time I threw it and yelled â€Å"Fetch!† she came with me when I went after it like she was still thinking about it but hadn’t reached any conclusions. Fourth time I hesitated a little bit at the end so she got there first. She sort of pawed at the stick for a moment and looked at me inquiringly. So far so dog really. The fifth time I went after it a little more slowly yet, just to see what woul d happen and this time she positively shot in front of me (those legs a blur and her panting a little harsh grunting noise with breathless I’m-sure-explanatory peeps in it), and started to pick it up. . .. She tried to pick it up with one of her forelegs. Fourteen-month-old dragons don’t have much grasping strength, and they’re also still effectively four-legged. According to Old Pete they start using their front legs more like arms when their wings get big enough to provide a different balance, before they can fly. In Lois’ case that started happening when she was about three, although that may be early because, of course, she was still trying to be me, in spite of . . . no, I’m getting ahead of myself believe me, it’s getting harder and harder not to . . . she was trying to be me and I’m two-legged and two-handed. And so she tried to pick up a stick with a front claw, and she couldn’t do it. And the joy instantly drained out of her. It was awful. She flopped down on the ground beside the horrible stick and started to cry. No, there weren’t any tears, but I didn’t have any trouble translating what the noise she was making was, any more than you don’t know what a dog’s wails mean when you’ve locked him up and are leaving him behind. And the sound she was making went right through me and aggravated the Headache till I was seeing her through this twinkly red haze and that did not help the situation. I raced up to her, threw myself down beside her – swearing at myself for a fool – and picked the stick up in my mouth. (This was not easy. Human faces are too flat, and your nose gets in the way.) And then began waddling back the way we’d come, on my hands and knees. She stopped crying and followed me. It was a measure of how demoralized she was that she wasn’t instantly thrilled that I was down on her level. But she’d never seen me go any distance on my hands and knees before (ow ow ow ow ow, just by the way: also yuck yuck yuck yuck about the taste of the stick) and she got, I think, so interested, she forgot to be her usual kind of excited. And I swear she suddenly got it about how helpless I was on all fours. It was like this aspect of my strange reluctance to get down on the ground with her finally made sense to her (so far as I know she never understood about my eczema. For which I am very grateful. Awful sort of thing to know, that you burn your mom every time you touch her). I went all the way back on my hands and knees, and very tired and cramped and chafed I was when I got there too. But I wanted to be sure that if she was getting the lesson at all this time she was going to get it RIGHT. Then I threw the stick again. We both started after it. I didn’t hurry and she got there first. She picked it up in her mouth. She carried it back to where I’d thrown it from, and then danced around peeping and burbling (through the stick in her mouth. A sort of urrrrrglrrrrrr noise). â€Å"Hot stuff, Lois,† I said (there was no way I was going to say, â€Å"Good dragon, Lois!† and â€Å"hot stuff† seemed kind of a relevant praise-phrase for a dragon), and gave her a hard rub between the eyes, which she liked. (Rubbing her between the eyes would actually make her sit still for a few minutes, while you did it, which was useful, till your fingers started getting tired, because you had to do it hard.) Okay. This is pretty cool. Training stage accomplished. She was happy, I was happy, it worked, we’re back on track, trauma averted (I hoped). So it’s time for rationalization. Dogs aren’t trying to be you, they automatically do stuff with their mouths because that’s what their instincts tell them to do. (Although I don’t think a dog ever brings a stick back first time. They’ve got it that it’s a game, but they have other ideas about the rules.) So dragons imprint on their moms more individually than puppies do. No big deal. Except that there’s one other thing. She took the last three steps back to me on her hind legs, or she tried to. She fell over between each step, mind you, but she got up again, half-swayed and half squunched on her butt forward, and fell over, three times. I could have got round the picking-it-up-in-her-hand, I think, but this was a, ahem, step too far, ha ha. I don’t know about yours but my okaymaybe-they-sort-of-have-a-kind-of-language-sometimes-but-animals-are-only-animals-really rationalization faculty goes screeeeeeeeek at this point and then breaks down entirely, and like suddenly it’s a whole new world and anything is possible. Maybe it won’t seem like that big a deal to you, because you already know what happened later. But it was a big deal to me. The Headache was so bad at that moment that I’d had to sit down, so Lois pranced over and sat on me, complete with victory stick. The red haze began to clear, but my vision was still kind of distorted, and I had a stronger than usual feeling that if I looked really carefully into the trees I’d see some of those big deep shiny dragon eyes that I saw in my dreams looking back at me. It’s hard to think clearly when your skull is trying to explode, but this is the idea that I suddenly couldn’t get rid of That the reason why I’d got away with this Scam of Scams, this Swindle of Swindles, this Flimflam of Flimflams, this human raising a dragonlet, was because Lois’ mom was hanging around keeping an eye on me. Plus Grace’s cooking of course. But it’s way too late for you to send for the small white van with the smiling men holding out the jacket with the sleeves that tie round the back, so you might as well relax. And Lois did occasionally remind me of Snark. This was one of those times. Possibly because this was a very special stick she was compromising her principles and chewing on it, and drooling lovely gooey wood fragments all over my jeans. Anyway. It wasn’t some kind of geometric progression of insanity after that. I don’t think. It was like only a small gradual worsening in the mental terrain (with about as many switchbacks as hiking across Smokehill). I still missed having someone who spoke good English to talk to about it, but because of stuff like this, I mostly hadn’t told any one else about it. So once we were alone at Westcamp I didn’t feel so much trapped-with-Lois-the-baby dragon-my-unique-and-dangerous responsibility as the people back at the Institute might have thought I did. Although I was and she was. And I did have the two-way on all the time I was indoors. And this was when the Headache changed again. It had sort of given warning on the trip out to Westcamp but had then subsided when we arrived and started dragging the trees off the roof and killing deer and so on. Maybe it had been regrouping. I know you’re bored with me and my Headache. My fairy tale about Lois’ mother keeping an eye on us is creative but unconvincing, right? A headache is a headache. No it isn’t. Lois headaches had always been different, had always had a slight sense of the Alien Spy Thingy in Your Brain. This latest model was definitely several rungs higher on the ladder of weirdness. Usually a headache just sits there and throbs, right? It may get bigger or smaller and it may be in one place rather than another and it may spread, but it doesn’t feel like it’s shouldering aside your gray matter and putting up signposts like for other travelers. (Note: eeeeek.) When I’d had them when she was a baby they’d been . . . smaller, although in a weird way they hurt more, like I wasn’t used to them yet, like my brain muscles weren’t up to it, like a couch potato trying to get into hiking. Except the ones that came with the dreams about her mom. They had always felt like they were going to crack me open somehow, and maybe as if they’d been slowly cracking me open over the last two years, so that other stuff could get in. . .. I did remember faithfully to check in morning and evening with the Institute (and the two-way continued to cooperate, with a few sniggers and the occasional firecracker noise). And I still talked to Martha every chance I got. The second week we were out at Westcamp by ourselves, when Dad told me they were now fifteen down with the flu and had had to take on some temp help as well as a full-time nurse who was staying in my old bedroom at the institute, and in spite of everything I’ve told you about missing everybody and counting to eternity a lot, I found I had to he careful not to sound a little bit happy about the fact that they still couldn’t send anyone out to keep me company (Crazy Nature Boy: film at eleven). Of course I was worried about everybody, and I was also missing the human bond to balance the growing dragon bond, like I was getting too dragony myself (Lois hammering away at me during the day and the dreams hammering away at me at night and the Headache hammering away all the time). But it was also impossible not to be a little bit pleased just to let the dragon bond happen without having to second-guess it or you or us all the time because some other human would be coming back soon. Soon I’d have to figure out what to tell (or show) the people who did know about her, because someone would eventually come back out here and see what we were up to . . . but not yet. People had stopped getting the flu and the first ones who’d had it were getting over it and Dad was beginning to say things like â€Å"We should be able to think about sending someone out there soon† . . . but not yet. It was the end of the fifth week Lois and I were at Westcamp alone that I almost died. How to cite Dragonhaven CHAPTER SEVEN, Essay examples

Arts Methods of Presenting the Art Essay Example For Students

Arts: Methods of Presenting the Art Essay CUBISM stresses abstract form through the use of a cone, cylinder or sphere at the expense of other pictorial elements. The use of geometrical shapes is common in Pablo Pizzazz Paul Cezanne art works. 3. SYMBOLISM the use of a visible sign of an idea to convey to the viewers, readers or audiences the message of his work. 4 FAUVISM the artist use of bright colors which shows pictures of comfort, joy and pleasure, This is the method used by Henry Matisse, Rural Drift and George Renault. 5. DADAISM is a protest movement in the art that is playful and experimental. Dada means a hobby horse. Dadaism is most often nonsensical. Marcel Decamp is the famous painter using this method. 6. FUTURISM ? developed in Italy about the same time as cubism appeared in France. Futurist painters wanted their works to capture the mechanical energy of modern life. 7 _ SURREALISM ? this method mirrors the evils of the present society. Surrealism means super realism, influenced by Freudian psychology Vichy emphasizes the activities of the subconscious state of the mind.

Book review Fate and fortune in rural China

Introduction China is among the world’s nations with rich historical backgrounds that perhaps every historian seeks to understand. Endowed with a strong political history that interrelates perfectly with its cultural, social, and economic developments, China has attracted the world’s attention due to its unique developments in different spheres. Socialists and historians have found it imperative to record the literature of China in several forms of writings including books in a bid to enrich the world with this unique historical matter.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Book review: Fate and fortune in rural China specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The work of James Lee and Cameron Campbell is a good example of a book that examines the social and population history of the conventional rural China with regard to social arrangement and behavior of the Chinese living in Liaoning. With regard to such i ssues concerning social organization, this essay explores the major themes and concepts articulated in the book, Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning, by James Lee and Cameron Campbell. China and the province of Liaoning Liaoning is a small Chinese province that has its history connected to the ancient capital Shenyang, which existed during the Qing regime of 1644-1911 (Lee and Campbell, 1997). Literature describes this region in the form of a conventional Daoyi landscape that greatly contributed to the development of the modern Liaoning province. The village history was initially much of a family history rather than a community development history, with Daoyi termed as (tun) being a military community form that prevailed during the Qing dynasty. Through examining the archives of Liaoning province, Lee and Campbell (1997) perused through a series of long-preserved household data and population registers, which revealed that the Dao yi and surrounding communities in Liaoning were initially 12, 000 people. Although little sources substantiate the population density of the contemporary Liaoning, the initial sources of the imperial period reveal that Shenyang had 500,000 people, Baodao had 10,000, and Daoyi tun had 20,000 and these three regions form the Liaoning province. Major themes and content of the book The book aimed at examining the social arrangement and population behavior of the Daoyi and the surrounding communities that resided in Liaoning back in the Chinese history (Lee and Campbell, 1997). The book contains primary research on the Liaoning province and it investigates four fundamental issues in the social organization and population behavior of the Liaoning communities. The book describes the Daoyi landscape, the history of a flood and the development of a bridge, and the social organization and mobility of communities around the Liaoning province (Lee and Campbell, 1997). The historical legacy docu mented in the book about Daoyi, its neighboring communities and their social arrangement around this province are the only events that occurred between 1774 and 1873 (Lee and Campbell, 1997). It portrays the long history of the Daoyi, surrounding communities and their form of settlement arrangement based on the natural historical events that almost certainly contributed to their present day social mobility and population behavior.Advertising Looking for term paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Lee and Campbell (1997) graphically illustrate how the association between demographic trends and social and natural pressures somehow become integral factors that determine social arrangement of the population as it occurred in the Liaoning province in China. The authors begin by discussing the geographical setting of Shenyang by considering three important physical and infrastructural features that include the riv er (Pu), the road, and the ridge. The river, which constantly experienced periodic floods, is a major feature that possibly explains the social arrangement of the communities in Shenyang. As Lee and Campbell (1997; 1) postulate, â€Å"Past floods have left scattered ponds in and around the village, as well as several hollows filled with mud.† The authors further explain that the flood-prone river caused the formation of deep gullies that are currently thick and occupied by stout vegetation. This aspect explains why the population of Daoyi and the surrounding communities are arranged depending on the area landscape, especially when considered that this river has less agricultural importance to them. The road is another infrastructural feature that Lee and Campbell (1997) consider as important in the social organization and population behavior in the traditional China. The road connecting Shenyang, Jilin, and Mongolia is a common geographical feature that best explains the natu re of social mobility in the rural suburbs of the traditional China (Lee and Campbell, 1997). As the postcolonial road became continuously busier during the modernization period, the village population tended to move away from the busy street, which explains its contemporary residential housing that tends to develop away from the main road (Lee and Campbell, 1997). This aspect separates the local poor villagers from the rich who possessed the brightly decorated restaurants and worked in the beautiful stores and businesses. The ridge is another feature that determined fate and fortune of villagers in the rural China. Perhaps due to persistent floods from river Pu, Lee and Campbell (1997) state that a village had once developed in this ridge, but later relocated. In elaborating the theme of social mobility and social organization, Lee and Campbell (1997) connect the historical flood issues of river Pu with the transferring of the village to its present day region. Believed to have hap pened during the early nineteenth century when prolonged floods were common in many Chinese villages, the events are vividly presented in the local stories (Lee and Campbell, 1997).Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Book review: Fate and fortune in rural China specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More As explained by the local posters, the tortoise that found habitat in the swampy flood-prove zones repeatedly destroyed the bridge structures that forced them to construct a turtle temple (Wangba Miao). Although the present day community portrays a mixture of perceptions on their settlement in Shenyang, Lee and Campbell (1997) believe that the Qing government integrated these communities through the imperial ‘banner’ initiative. Therefore, Lee and Campbell’s story has a complicated and construed realities pertaining to the Shenyang inhabitants, which seem like a jumbled story with convincing evidence. One can barely understand if these communities settled through government’s process or social order. Comparison between the book and course materials Although having a mixed story on the social mobility and social arrangement of populations in the rural China in its colonial perspective, the book carries an important message on the concept of human social order as contemporarily evident. According to Lee and Campbell (1997), humans differ distinctively from their social living, which reveals the postmodern societal arrangement as even demonstrated by the housing disparities. The story earmarks significant attention to gradual societal changes impelled by social pressures, ecological forces, and political circumstances. Lee and Campbell’s book interrelates with important concepts discussed by Chirot (1994), who postulates that social change is a gradual and continuous process that seems to occur in microscopic unnoticed constructive periods. Chirot (1994) rests his jud gment on why, notwithstanding human’s biological and psychological similarities, people tend to differ as years of postmodernism replace traditional histories. Chirot (1994) wonders why despite interbreeding happening so well and even having basic human similarities, there exist huge disparities in social, political, and even economic behaviors. In his understanding of revolutionary biology, Chariot demonstrates that the process of societal change involves a combination of certain efforts and probabilities, where individuals may genetically inherit useful life characteristics that make them succeed. According to Chirot (1994: 9), â€Å"one of the most important technological changes in human societies, which prepared the way for the evolution of modern societies, was a slow shift from gathering, hunting, and fishing towards agricultural revolution.† Certain modern human aspects, including agriculture and construction activities carry significant influence on the social order of individuals.Advertising Looking for term paper on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More More importantly, the issue of agrarian revolution is eminent in the two books where rice growing slowly started shaping the modernity of Shenyang in the case of social mobility as demonstrated by Lee and Campbell. Chariot’s book explains how agricultural revolution, marked by the advent of crop growing, brought enormous social changes through influencing settlements in Mexico and parts of China. From the story articulated by Lee and Campbell (1997), the notion of economic disparity, which happens naturally, as the poor villagers slowly segregate themselves from the wealthy business tycoons who manage to settle along the busy traffic, clearly demonstrates Diamond’s convictions over scientific technology and economic disparity. In his book, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Diamond (1999) seeks to express how the human history developed from the influence of geographical and environmental factors. Just as demonstrated in the story articulated by Lee a nd Campbell (1997) where ecological and geographical issues helped to shape the modern social arrangement of Liaoning province, Diamond has similar convictions. Diamond (1999) disputes the prevailing racially based theories, that claim human history has evolved in social mobility based on racial trend, and instead explains significant issues connecting human social arrangement with environmental and geographical factors. The author provides ultimate examples of the influence of geographical and environmental factors and mentions facts from Eurasian, African, Australian, and some American history that reveal such influences. Diamond (1999) expresses his ultimate perceptions through an elaborate description of how human history unfolded across the different continents, by pointing different ecological and geographical evidences to comprehend his argument. Geographical factors and environmental factors according to Diamond (1999) influenced the historical development of the preemptive domestication and crop farming that subsequently influenced social arrangements in different continents. Diamond (1999) also connects Chinese social mobility with the advent of Chinese food production with the geographical expansion and interaction of local cultures. Additionally, the story of social mobility and social arrangement of the people of Liaoning province demonstrated by Lee and Campbell (1997) is connected with issues discussed by Nolan and Lenski. In their book, Human Societies: An Introduction to Macro-sociology, these socialists seek to explain the major transformations of the swiftly changing times across the globe. Studying humans in the large scale and describing how human historical social arrangements influence social order, the two authors also believe that political, ecological, and geographical pressures influenced human social mobility. Just as portrayed in the story of Lee and Campbell (1997), Nolan and Lenski (2010) use the macro-sociological global approac h that describes how human societies offer a comparatively cross-cultural and historical arrangement to establish facts behind the evolution of human social changes. Through emphasis on the comparison of society’s history and cross-environmental factors, Nolan and Lenski (2010) explain how such natural dynamics contributes to human social changes. They present a clear ecological-evolutionary perception that provides a powerful hypothetical structure for understanding how the arrangement of social order in human societies has occurred. Just as emphasized by Lee and Campbell (1997), Nolan and Lenski (2010) articulate major evidences that demonstrate how social arrangements relate with the environmental and even the technological contexts as eminent in the modern living. In connection to evolutionary aspects, the authors examine how modernity, which is characterized by cyber warfare and changing political ideologies are presenting unique problems to modern societies. Conclusion The contemporary social order with fragmented social arrangements may trace its roots to important traditional social, political, and even ecological pressures that influenced population behaviors. The story of human evolution seems to be considerably long and disparate stories interpreted it differently as documentation of information might have arrived too late in the decades when human historical events had already surpassed developments. However, with the little evidence accumulated by the theorists, even the socialists like Lee and Campbell (1997) can greatly contribute to the understanding of human evolution, social arrangement and social mobility. Lee and Campbell (1997), akin to the rest of the socialists, believe that many of the human social transformations and development possess certain ecological, political, and social factors that influenced populations in their settlement behavior. Retrospective to historical events, the ecological and geographical story of Liaoning e xplicitly demonstrated how the Shenyang, Daoyi, and the surrounding communities followed such events to establish their housing arrangement. References Chirot, Daniel. 1994. How Societies Change. London, UK: Pine Forge Press. Diamond, Jared. 1999. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton Company. Lee, James and Cameron Campbell. 1997. Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning 1774-1873. New York: Cambridge University Press. Nolan, Patrick and Gerhard Lenski. 2010. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macro-sociology. New York: Paradigm Publishers. 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2000 Problem

2000 Problem Fiction, Fantasy, and Fact:'The Mad Scramble for the Elusive Silver Bullet . . . and the Clock Ticks Away.'The year 2000 is practically around the corner, promising a new era of greatness andwonder . . . as long as you don't own a computer or work with one. The year 2000 is bringing aPandora's Box of gifts to the computer world, and the latch is slowly coming undone.The year 2000 bug is not really a 'bug' or 'virus,' but is more a computer industrymistake. Many of the PC's, mainframes, and software out there are not designed orprogrammed to compute a future year ending in double zeros. This is going to be a costly 'fix'for the industry to absorb. In fact, Mike Elgan who is the editor of Windows Magazine, says ' . .. the problem could cost businesses a total of $600 billion to remedy.'IBM Portable Personal Computer :: Retrocomputing o...(p. 1)The fallacy that mainframes were the only machines to be affected was short lived as industryrealized that 60 to 80 million home and small busin ess users doing math or accounting etc. onWindows 3.1 or older software, are just as susceptible to this 'bug.' Can this be repaired intime? For some, it is already too late. A system that is devised to cut an annual federal deficit to0 by the year 2002 is already in 'hot water.' Data will become erroneous as the numbers 'justdon't add up' anymore. Some PC owners can upgrade their computer's BIOS (or completeoperating system) and upgrade the OS (operating system) to Windows 95, this will set them upfor another 99 years. Older software however, may very well have to be replaced or at the veryleast, upgraded.The year 2000 has become a two-fold...

Job Training and Management Development Assignment

Job Training and Management Development - Assignment Example The aforementioned steps are applicable in a healthcare setting to impart new skills needed by nurses and other healthcare professionals (Guo, 2003). For instance, during training, and in the need analysis, management tells nurses about job performance skills needed, develop healthcare objectives and assess prospective training skills. Typical skills imparted to nurses during training include hands-on activities, such as handling patients with various needs. The training exercise at any stage bears the foundation for future career excellence. Ideally, it is a process of skills’ transfer, which requires management to make skills transfer easy (Belaiche, 1999). As a result, trainers in a healthcare setting maximize similarities between work situation and training situation. Contrastingly, as the name goes, management development is an activity that targets managers. Dessler (2008) defines management development as attempts to improve future or current management performance through skills, knowledge or changing management attitude. Management development is a more personalized activity and prepares managers for additional long-term job roles (Guo, 2003).In addition, management development is a process through which manager plan for, and eventually fills senior level openings. This is commonly referred to as succession planning. Management development is implemented using two methods, which include management on-the-job training, and management off-the-job training. Either way, the process’ sole aim is to improve future and current management performance. Correspondingly, management development is of particular importance to the healthcare setting. Senior healthcare professionals are involved in training to improve skills, such as employee management. They are tasked with ensuring job satisfaction and quality nurse performance, which requires patience and strategic approach to achieve.  

Lifting the Veil- Prest V Petrodel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Lifting the Veil- Prest V Petrodel - Essay Example Whenever a company is formed as a separate entity, it acquires the capacity and authority to have its own rights and duties (Gibson, 1988). It can be observed that once the company has been incorporated, it can then be viewed as a separate or independent person with legal rights and liabilities. The popular case of Salomon v Salomon& Co [1897] AC 22 (Hl) illustrates this point. Salomon was the sole owner of the organization and he decides to turn the business venture into a limited company having realised that it had great potential. Salomon got ?10  000 in debentures from the shareholders which were acquired through a bond of the company’s assets. Unfortunately, the deal did not materialise given that the company was later liquidated and the assets were sold and the shareholders were left out. The court upheld that the company was just like Salomon since it was treated just like an individual person. Essentially, it can be seen that the concept of corporate personality is m ainly concerned with maintaining the identity of a company through establishing what is known as corporate veil (Gibson, 1988). However, in certain instances, the court ignores the existence of the legal person in what is termed â€Å"piercing the corporate veil† (Cillers et al, 2004). ... Some people tend to use the aspect of corporate veil to suppress other people since it can also act as a shield to protect their properties. Whenever, a company is viewed as a separate entity, it ceases to belong to an individual but it can stand on its own. However, under certain circumstances, it can be seen that this status can be pierced by the court where necessary. The Supreme Court (12,June 2013) case of Prest (Appellant) v Petrodel Resources Limited & Others (Respondents) [2013] UKSC 34 On appeal from: [2012] EWCA Civ 1395, outlines the proceedings for financial remedies following a divorce between Michael and Yasmin Prest. The appellant argues that she should get remedies from the sale of companies belonging to the Petrodel Group which apparently were wholly owned and controlled by Michael Prest, her husband. The Supreme Court case outline also states that â€Å"Under Section 24(1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (â€Å"the 1973 Act†), the court may order that â€Å"a party to the marriage shall transfer to the other party†¦such property as may be so specified, being property to which the first-mentioned party is entitled, either in possession or reversion.† In the judgement of this case, it was unanimously agreed that appeal by Yasmin Prest was valid given that the seven disputed properties were â€Å"property to which the [husband] is entitled, either in possession or reversion† hence, they belonged to him. In this case, the respondents argued that the properties belonged to the company not the husband. However, in passing judgement, â€Å"the Court confirmed that there is a principle of English law which enables a court in very limited circumstances to pierce the corporate veil† such as the

Melting Pot versus Cultural Mosaic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Melting Pot versus Cultural Mosaic - Essay Example Those who adhere to a melting pot theory tend to be more traditional and/or conservative in nature. They see â€Å"America† as a white, English-speaking country in which minorities need to arrive and assimilate in a few years as possible. The multiculturalists tend to be left-leaning and seek to enable immigrants to maintain their own cultures while attempting to become American.The advantage of the melting pot theory is that it reflects what has largely happened to most immigrant groups in America. Thus the Italians, the Irish, the Eastern Europeans, and the Asians arrived at various times in American history and tended to adapt to the culture quickly. They learned English quickly and took on many of the characteristics of what it meant to â€Å"be American† at the specific time that they arrived. The melting pot is what actually happened. One of the disadvantages of the melting pot theory is that it reflects the situation in the past rather than the present. The same principles do not necessarily apply within the 21st Century that did in the 20th and 19th.   Also, the melting pot may be regarded as obliquely racist, requiring all immigrants to take on the characteristics of the dominant white European society.The advantage of the multicultural theory is that it allows for immigrants to maintain as much of their original identity as possible while becoming American. This enables the group to be stronger. One of the disadvantages of this theory is that there are virtually no examples of it having successfully occurred anywhere in the world in general, or within America in particular. A truly multicultural society would be perhaps hopelessly complicated. Unless the USA become like Switzerland, with many people speaking two or three languages it seems necessary for there to be one common language in order for the country to be successful. For a country to have a national identity its citizens need to be able to talk to one another. If they cannot, or if they maintain too much of a separate identity based upon their origins then the country may eventually split apart. This does not only happen in poor, chaotically run Third World countries: it is also happening in Canada with Quebec wanting to break away and become independent, largely because its people speak French and the rest of Canada speaks English.

Qualities of the Hero: Comparing Gilgamesh and Odysseus

Qualities of the Hero: Comparing Gilgamesh and Odysseus The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey are two very amazing epic poems in which the main characters that are faced with unbelievable challenges. The Epic of Gilgamesh was created in the 20th 10th century BCE. in Mesopotamia and is one of the earliest known literary writings. The Odyssey was later made in 725 BCE. in Greece and was written in Homeric Greek and was sung more than read (Mastin, 2009a). The main characters in both of these epic poems the hero must embark on dangerous quests and adventures to reach their goal. Their adventures and tales tell describe what a true hero is and what characteristics every man should have. In both these epic poems both Gilgamesh and Odysseus are required to deal with dangerous tasks that must be dealt with in order to proceed. In the story with Gilgamesh he must confront and kill Humbaba, a demon-ogre who is a guardian in the sacred Cedar Forest. While Odysseus lands in the land of the Cyclopes and is trapped in a cave and he must come up with a plan to escape with his men. Gilgamesh went to kill the guardian to make a name for himself even when he was begged not to by his friends and even mother. Odysseus on the other hand was trying to save his men from being eating from a giant cyclops, devised a plan to blind the beast and escape with his remaining men. Both men have great strengths and weaknesses such as raw strength and courage while Gilgamesh has his beauty he also is hated by his people since he would sleep with their wives. Odysseus has his cleverness and eloquence that would help him in tricky situations but he was also a good liar which he used in many situa tions. In these epic poems, the main characters had someone with them during their adventures and journeys. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh had Enkidu, a wild-man who was created by the Aruru, the goddess of creation. Enkidu was more of a wild beast than man but Gilgamesh sent a prostitute to spend time with him to turn him into a man and to stop living with the animals. They dont become true friends until they fight one another which helps Gilgamesh change for the better. Enkidu disliked the way Gilgamesh would treat women and after a wedding party when he tried to sleep with the new bride Enkidu would stop him. They would fight but Enkidu would lose the battle and instead of taking his life Gilgamesh would spare it and learn from this experience his faults, through this he would become a better man (Mastin, 2009b). In the Odyssey, Odysseus would have his shipmates as his friends who accompanied him on his journey. These men would go on with Odysseus from adventure to adventure during some there would always be trouble and he would have to save them over and over but they would also die off. They would slowly die off from dangerous adventures or even be turned in to pigs from a witch. Needless to say, by the time Odysseus would finally reach his home he would be the last to survive from all his crew. They also had some difference between both of them especially when it came to their journey. Gilgamesh adventure with the Humbaba was one that could have been avoided and should have. This adventure was solely Gilgamesh decision to go and kill the beast with no other reason but to have his name live on in history. Even his friend Enkidu tries to stop him and change his mind since its no place for mortals. This is done for fame and also to show the people that the gods who forbid it could be defied by a mortal. While Odysseus goes on his adventure by chance when he is trying to get home. Many things even Gods play a role in his adventures who try and stop him on his w ay and forcing him to endure another adventure only trying to survive to see his family again. The Mesopotamians believed in many Gods and was very important to them in their daily life. Even with Gilgamesh he asked guidance and help from the Gods to seek approval for what he wants to do. The Gods would make beast that would be good or evil but would be worshiped by the people. An example of this would be Humbaba the guardian of the cedar forest that Gilgamesh kills in the end which would punish him in the end. With Odysseus in the Greek culture they to believe in many Gods but didnt rely on them as much to interfere. He would be tested and pushed further and further away from his family but he would overcome the obstacles placed in front of him showing his strengths, intelligence and even his weaknesses. This was in most Greek culture which everyman would aspire to do. It never told of him asking for help from the Gods but showed how man would overcome and prevail. Even in today culture and ideals this is seen throughout the world. There are so many people in the world who rely on a higher power to ask for advice and think they are being tested in their own adventures. There are many heroes and role models people have who they look up to and try and want to try and have the same type of traits as they do. Strength and intelligence are not the only thing that makes a good man or women its all the other qualities that will help them overcome adversity and continue on their journey. References Atsma, A. J. (2000-2017). HOMER, ODYSSEY 9. Retrieved from http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey9.html Homer. (1997). The Odyssey (R. Fagles, Trans.). Wilder Publications. Karas, M., Megas, C. (1997-2017). Odysseus. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Heroes/Odysseus/odysseus.html The Epic of Gilgamesh (M. G. Kovacs, Trans.). (1998). Retrieved from http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab3.htm Learning about Ancient Mesopotamian Religion and Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.smspromotions.org/mesopotamian-religion.html Mark, J. J. (2009, September 2). Mesopotamia. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ Mastin, L. (2009a). The Odyssey Homer Ancient Greece Classical Literature. Retrieved from http://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_homer_odyssey.html Mastin, L. (2009b). Epic of Gilgamesh Other Ancient Civilizations Classical Literature. Retrieved from http://www.ancient-literature.com/other_gilgamesh.html Sandars, N. K. (Trans.). (1972). The Epic of Gilgamesh. NY: Penguin Books.

The Spanish Inquistition Essay -- essays research papers fc

Ferdinand and Isabella used the Inquisition to eliminate opposition in Spain. Their thoughts were that by eliminating the Jews, Muslims, and New Christians in Spain they would gain unity, wealth, and power. They wanted to make a Christian and only a Christian Spain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Since Ferdinand and Isabella were married they strived to make Spain a whole. With Ferdinand ruling Aragon and Isabella ruling Castile they united Spain as one. Soon Ferdinand and Isabella had the regions of Granada and Portugal as part of Spain. But Ferdinand and Isabella wanted to increase their authority over their kingdom through religion as well. Ferdinand new that the church controlled large amounts of land and also served significant roles in the political system, he took these very important things into major consideration. Isabella on the other hand, â€Å"†¦had a genuine concern for religious reform and believed in their responsibility for the spiritual life of their subjects and people.†(Ovid 3). Ferdinand and Isabella didn’t think of using the Inquisition to purify Spain until a priest named Tomas de Torquemada brought it to their attention. Torquemada was Isabella’s confessor or spiritual leader. Torquemada convinced Ferdinan d and Isabella that once the Inquisition was in place they could eliminate all non-Catholic believers. He bribed them with the thought that they,â€Å"†¦could use it to solidify the supremacy of Catholicism in Spanish life†¦the inquisition would promise them con...