A Conversation Overheard :: Dialogue Conversation Essays

A Conversation Overheard Laughing and crying. Like salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly, they go together. Yeah, they do. Think about it. People laugh until they cry, some people laugh through their tears. And, after you finish either process, you usually feel better, am I right? Also, both laughing and crying are essential to survival in life. No one can successfully thrive and function without doing either of these things, laughing and crying. All that emotion kept inside, with no means of escape? Imagine a person who doesn't laugh or cry as a bottle of soda. Shake that person/bottle up and down, shake, shake, shake. What'll happen? Pressure will be building up every time the bottle is shaken and the person holds in laughter or tears. Now, let go of this person/bottle, who has not vented these essential emotions. What'll happen now? The soda sprays everywhere, and the person probably goes nutty. Chances are, either way you'd end up ruining the clothes of the person next to you. Get it? I don't know the exact physical ramification of not laughing or crying, but I just bet you it's something like I just described. You wanna make a bet? Let's talk some more about this laughter/crying thing. It's pretty interesting, don't you think? How they're, like, two parts of a whole or two separate entities? Blows my mind. I'm racking my brain (how exactly is that done?) to think of the last time I laughed. I'm not talking like getting the giggles and whatnot. No, no, I'm talking pure, unabashed hilarity. The knee-slapping-stomach-hurting-laugh-till-you-wanna-hurl kind. I've got that short term memory loss thing, so my last personal episode escapes me, but I know there's been dozens of occasions where I've personally gone nutty (even without anyone shaking me). But, I find it hard to imagine that anyone hasn't had these fits. Even the most dry, seemingly humorless people have had episodes in their otherwise mundane existences where they weren't in complete possession of their faculties. Just thinking about it is enough to produce a guffaw or two. Okay, picture someone as obscenely serious as a Buckingham Palace guard going off over a Three Stooges movies. Isn't that a riot? Though, seriously I doubt that his taste would run in the vein of three goofy-looking guys poking each other in they eyes and sayi ng, "Soitinly." If you wanna know the truth, I personally find the Stooges boring with a capital b.

In what ways do poets portray the exprience of war in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and in ‘For the Fallen’ Essay

Laurence Binyon wrote ‘ For the Fallen’ in 1914, at the beginning of the Great War, while Wilfred Owen composed his ‘ Dulce et Decorum Est’ in 1917-18, by the end of the conflict. This difference in time means that there might be inconsistencies in the portrayal of the war, due to the changing perspectives of the fighting, which in turn would provoke irregularities in the purpose, style and nature of the two poems. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, Owen tries to prove us that war has no mighty purpose behind it and that it is just a waste of lives. He describes one soldier dying with verbs such as ‘guttering, choking, drowning’ and gives an account of the blood which came ‘gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’. This strikingly visceral portrayal of loss of life suggests that he sees nothing spiritual or divine in the sacrifices that the soldiers make for their country. He prefers to depict the experience of the war as true and cruel as it is in reality without sparing the reader. In the poem we are informed about two deaths. The first is due to harsh conditions, when some soldiers ‘dropped behind’, while the second is caused by lethal gas that one of the soldier inhales. In both of these cases, the young men’s deaths didn’t contribute in any way to the protection of their country and they weren’t even fighting when they passed away. This suggests that war is just a waste of human life which won’t secure England’s peace. In ‘For the Fallen’, Binyon tells us that the soldiers have ‘fallen in the cause of the free’, thus suggesting that they try to make the world a better place, that they fight for something good. This gives war a mighty purpose and to the deaths meaning. This idea of ‘for the greater good’ is further highlighted in the phrase ‘a glory that shines upon our tears’, which conveys the idea that the sacrifices of the soldiers contribute to the welfare of society and that’s why everybody should be proud of those who are fighting. It is clear that the two poems depict the meaning and purpose of the war very differently. While Owen indicates that war is a meaningless and cruel waste, Binyon tries to cast a better light upon the deaths of the soldiers, giving their sacrifices a higher significance and thus implying that war – with all its faults – is for the greater good. In Owen’s poem the soldiers going to the fight are ‘like old beggars under sacks’, ‘coughing like hags’ ‘blood shot’ and ‘drunk with fatigue’. ‘Many had lost their boots’, implying that they cannot face the harsh conditions of the war and that they are even unable to look after their essential belongings. The description of bootless ‘beggars’ is humiliating, while their tiredness and the hag simile suggests that there are lethargic and hopeless. Their physical appearance isn’t attractive either. All these depict the soldiers as tired, old and humiliated men who are unable to face life and are completely incompetent in war. However, in Binyon’s version the soldiers ‘went with songs to the battle’, suggesting their fearlessness and gaiety. ‘They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow’. This phrase conveys an admiration for the almost divine soldiers who seem to be the incarnation of some hero from a child’s tale – powerful, handsome and determined men who save the world. This image of glorious warriors seems to be taken out of a happy-end story – rather than the realism – to satisfy the audience. Once again the dissimilarity between the two accounts is obvious. Owen sticks to the merciless truth, while Binyon sees something beyond the harsh experience of the war. Actually, he seems to use the brutality of the fighting and the deaths to emphasise the greatness and divinity of the soldiers. In ‘Dulce et decorum Est’ soldiers die either to the harsh conditions of the war, or due to poisonous gas. The soldier who experienced the later, plunges at the nearest men choking and drowning – an image of a helpless, suffering person. Unlike the soldiers in Owen’s poem, in ‘For the Fallen’, the fighters ‘fell with their faces to the foe’, – not to their companions – in the middle of the battle, fearless and brave. The determination which they seem to possess suggests that they believe that their deaths have a higher purpose. This encourages the reader and the mourning families to have faith that their loved ones’ lives weren’t wasted, but contrarily represented a salvage for humanity. It seems that the greatest difference between the two poems lies in the way they portray death and their significance. In ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ the dying soldier’s face is ‘like a devil’s sick of sin’ with ‘writhing eyes’. The phrase implies that the soldiers committed the greatest sins, most probably killing, which this altered the way they viewed life forever. They seem to be ‘sick’ not only of the war, but of the persons in which the war transformed them, into devils. The ‘writhing eyes’ suggests the violent ending that they had, and it possibly implies that they never found peace. The mention of the devil together with this, insinuates that they will never go to heaven, but rather to hell. The phrase ‘incurable sores on innocent tongues’ further emphasises the idea that the experience of the war severely damaged their character in a negative and irredeemable way. ‘Incurable sores’ implies that the greatest wounds were not physical, but psychological, and this might be the reason why they will never find peace, not even the moment they die. In ‘For the Fallen’ death is ‘august and royal’, thus dignified and splendid, something rather positive and good. This is because the sacrificed soldiers’ songs go to up ‘into immortal spheres’, suggesting the place where the dead soldiers found peace. This idea is repeated throughout the whole poem. The phrase ‘they shall not grow old, as we that are left to grow old’ implies that the deceased soldiers are divine, angelic and eternal beings. Due to their valiant death, their gift is that of eternity, as if their vibrant, determined and brave souls were immortalised, and thus they will be forever young, forever in the best of their condition. The deceased soldier’s march in the ‘heavenly plains’ is ‘as the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness’. ‘Heavenly’ and ‘stars’ suggest that the divine fighters will always light upon the mortal humans, guiding and pr otecting them. ‘Time of our darkness’ refers to the war, and how young men, in the hardest periods of their life, left their homes to save their loved ones, as they will always do from heaven. Binyon sees a continuation of life after death, and that’s why the choice of the word ‘fallen’ in the title, because the sacrificed young men never die. Contrarily, they seem to receive a better, divine existence, incomparable to that of their living fellows. This idea might very well surprise Owen, who suggests that the experience of the war turned the innocent soldiers into devils, who will never find peace in heaven, but will burn in hell – thus the violent death of the soldier and the ‘obscene cancer’ which infects him. The differences between the portrayals of the experience of war in the two poems in striking. Binyon’s account is patriotic one, which glorifies the fallen soldiers and gives meaning and divinity to their deaths. However, considering the time when it was written – at the beginning of the Great War – we can get a better understanding of the poet’s reasons for such an idyllic portrayal of the fighting. At the start of it, the government needed to make the idea of warfare an appealing one in order to have young men risking their lives in the battle . Thus the attractive and heroic depiction of the combating soldiers. At the same time, the poem tries to soothe the mourning families, and this explains the almost holly aura that encircles the deaths on the front. However, as time went on, people got tired of the war and the increasing number of deaths. Soldiers returning from the battle spread the world about appalling conditions and cruel, meaningless deaths. O wen, who wrote the poem by the end of the conflict, seems to be well informed about the direct experience of the war and at the same time he is aware of the patriotic and idyllic accounts that existed at the beginning of the fighting. This explains the angry, visceral and meaningless deaths which he depicts in his poem, almost as if he was angry about people lying and making war seem a worthy, purposeful thing. And indeed, his poem ends with a call to other people not to ‘tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some glory, / the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori (It is sweet, and honourable to die for one’s country). Owen wrote as an answer to other poems such as Binyon’s which glorify the experience of war, and this is why he chose the title ‘Dulce et decorum est’, to arise the memory of the patriotic accounts from the beginning of the war, and then throughout his poem to shatter ‘the old Lie’. He personifies this lie with the capital letter, making it seem as a destructive, evil person. This is the reason why Owen sticks to visceral descriptions – he prefers not to spare the reader, because he believes that the Lie is even crueller than th e merciless reality of the war.

Lengthening the School Day

Introduction Let me tell one of my experiences while in school. It was at exactly 3:15p.m when the physics teacher came into class. Normally the class ended at exactly 4:00 p.m.The entire lesson was quite interesting and I knew given a question on the topic I would answer it within seconds. The 4 o’clock bell rang and my mind switched to the soccer game we played the previous day. Despite the red group beating us, I knew our time to revenge had come. The teacher just assumed that he didn’t hear the bell ringing. He continued talking and talking. I realized that no one was paying him attention. Zen was busy   looking at his watch confirming the time, there were some noise in the class, books falling down ,a yawn etc.These were signals to the teacher that learning time was over, we were tired and needed a break. Finally I summoned courage and informed the teacher that time for the lesson was up.After giving me a good lecture on importance of learning, he left. There was a sigh of relief and students rushed out of class some to play soccer, swim and some to hang out. Leaning In Informal Settings Hours spent outside school and classroom setting have large impacts on high performance and social development of the students. Many people have questioned whether time outside class can boost their grades. My answer is –yes it does. Contrary to what many people beliieve, much learning takes place in outside school settings like home and the community. Hours spent outside school give a good chance of reinforcement of what is learnt in the classroom. Time Spent With Parents Parents for instance play a bigger role in student’s achievement. When parents spend time with their children, they supervise their school assignments ensuring that it’s well done. For example, my father used to check all my books after school. This made me pay attention during class time because I knew I had to explain to him why I failed some sums like in arithmetic. They do show the children their love and ensure they eat well balanced food and are generally healthy. By telling them their expectations, they reinforce high performance of the students. They share their own past experiences and provide information on how the students can access resources like libraries. They provide a link with relatives or people who have excelled in studies. All these are done outside classroom and automatically lead to high student performance. This is because the time the students are in school they will have maximum concentration due to their good health. Children learn from museums, libraries and theters.Incorperating community, family partnerships in students learning leads to greater student achievement than adding those extra learning hours in class. Sports Many times parents, guardians and even teachers think that time spent by students in sports hinders high achievement by the students. This is not true.Reseach shows that students participating in sports score higher grades than the non participating ones. Those who are always in class reading books without engaging in sports don’t score highly in tests .While many people argue that participation in sports hinders maximum concentration in studies, this is not true. Balanced participation leads to greater achievements than extending learning time for students. Good Planning Research shows that when teachers are given enough time to teach they produce better results than ‘too much time. In this case, adding an extra 2 hours to learning time is too much time. The teachers are in a position to plan their lessons well and teach effectively than adding them an extra 2 hours. Teachers can use power point handouts and small group tutorials which are more effective than too much classroom learning. Teachers can minimize time spent in school by giving group assignments . This makes students share ideas hence minimize the time used. This is very effective and improves average mean score of the school teachers go straight to the point unlike extra hours which give room for story telling and idle talk. This happens that the teachers can easily miss classes knowing they have extra time to teach. My argument is that teachers can accomplish much within time given than adding more time. Poor Concentration The human mind works well when fresh. Adding extra hours for instruction will mean that students are taught while exhausted. This will mean there is less concentration and retention of what is read. A teacher who teaches when he or she is tired will not deliver the knowledge efficiently. My experience illustrated in the introduction gives a clear picture of this. At the end of last lesson in school the mind deviates to other things like sports. Remember all work without play makes Stacy a dull girl. Extending learning hours will mean there will be dull students in class. Assignments When students are given much time to do assignments, they do a shoddy job. Ninety nine percent will never finish the work when given extra time. This means there is no need of adding the extra 2 hours to the school day as it will automatically lead to poor student’s performances. While in elementary school, Helen’s geography teacher used to give them assignments and add them extra hour to finish. It turned out that the students never used to finish the work despite the extra time given. When the teacher gave the same assignments to other students in another school she was teaching part-time, it was done well though no extra time was added. The assignment in the part –time school was well tackled and handed in on time. Over Depending Of Students on Teachers Adding extra learning hours will mean spoon feeding the students .This can be quite tiring to teachers .In any learning, it is good for teachers to give students room for personal research and study in much more relaxed environment. It is good for teaches to let students discover some things for themselves than spoon feeding which makes students easily forget what they were taught. Spoon feeding is not good for development of future scholars. It is not logical to add an extra 2 two hours to school day for greater student’s achievement. Instead of excelling, it will lead to decline in scores. Conclusion Contrary to what many believe, learning does not just take place in formal setups but also in non formal setting. This includes the family, which plays a bigger role and the community at large. Out of school experiences contribute much to student’s performance. The after school time spent by students with parents puts tremendous reinforcement to their achievement. Adding extra time will lead to poor concentration, poorly done assignments and inefficient teachers. So why want to do something poorly within much time, when you can do it better in little time?

According to case study...calculate data then analysis it about Essay

According to case study...calculate data then analysis it about Foreign exchange market - Essay Example My paper discusses some political risks, the implications, methods of valuation of stock, and risks associated with buying a business. Peterson Valve Company is interested in Milagrol LTDA because he thought of diversifying its operations globally and to gain access to processes that would be costly to develop. Milagrol LTDA needed the capital to support research and development to expand the business and they believed in venturing into a merger to be able to manage the research to expand the business. Milagrol was an already established company and had its share value in the market so Peterson did not have to start from scratch to develop the company. In buying a business an investor has to ensure that they have access to all important information about the company being bought, this way they can assess the potential risks associated with buying it and the real value of the business (Juha, 2008). Accessing all information of the company involves checking all the dimensions of the business such as financial performance, legal and tax compliance, contracts, property and rights and all assets and liabilities within a specified period of time (Miller, 1992). Some of the risks involved include changes in the branding of the company. These information will be crucial in making the buying decision and also help the values in reaching to a final method of stock valuation. The customers of Milagrol LTDA may have problems with a change in the management. Smart accountants can hide items such as debts of the company from the balance sheet and some of the expenses from the income statement hence acquiring a business with accumulated debts. C onsider the possibility of transferring losses from the old company to the newly acquired business, the practice of moving the business assets allows the newly acquired management to differentiate assets that they can develop from long term and short term losses.

Analyzing Market Segment Opportunities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Analyzing Market Segment Opportunities - Essay Example Recreational Tennis Players play tennis for fun with their families and friends, say at clubhouses, at homes, at schools, and other private tennis instillations. Therefore, these players do not have the ability to go for the most professional racquets for playing the game. Most of them merely settle for any racquet that can enable them play and enjoy the game. However, other recreational players are staunch lovers of the game. They do not play tennis professionally because they have other priorities in their lives, e.g. as professionals in other fields such as medicine, business and finance (Lipsey, 2006). Nevertheless, these players put all their efforts during free times to play tennis both professionally, i.e. in small local tennis leagues or with friends, and for fun. Consequently, they are more particular about the racquets they while playing tennis. In this case, they are always willing and able to part with a significant amount of their income to purchase a good tennis racquet . Prince Incorporation can reach out to these recreational players through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media sites are the most common place where these players converge to read news about their favorite tennis players and their performance in various league games. They prefer emulating their ‘tennis idols’ by using similar racquets as those used by professional players (Babin & Zikmund, 2012). (b) Junior players Junior tennis players are those players who are still in colleges and high schools. These youngsters have a passion of playing tennis in future whether professionally or otherwise. They have tennis idols who are professional tennis players whom they look up to as their role models and hope to be like them when they grow up. This is the stage where most youngsters develop their talents in playing tennis. However, the only hindrance for these players in exploiting their passion for tennis is the fact that they cannot afford to purchase the tennis racquets they fancy or wish they could have. This is because most of them cannot accumulate enough savings from their pocket money to purchase these racquets. In addition, their parents or guardians might not be willing to part with significant amount of money to buy them a professional racquet, especially if they are not that talented (Stevens, 2012). As such, professional racquet companies such as Prince Incorporation can reach out to this segment of tennis players either through their parents or through their schools and colleges. They can collaborate with schools as well as other learning institutions to sponsor inter-school tennis competitions, or set up promotions for young tennis lovers within learning institutions. This will enable them reach out to a large number of students, i.e. the junior players, who will get to know of the existing racquets on offer by the company and how much they cost. In fact, they may even get to test some of these racquets during these promotional drives. Apart from schools and learning institutions, these companies can also market their products through established companies where parents and guardians of these children work, or spent their social time. In addition, broadcast media also provides a lucrative platform for these companies to reach out to their clients (Lipsey, 2006). What might Prince do to help it gain distribution and sales in (a) Mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart Mass merchandisers of tennis racquets such as Wal-Mart and Target already have a brand name in which they trade in. This brand name enables these stores to market their pro

A New House Desicion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

A New House Desicion - Essay Example In the case of purchasing a new house, an individual might have to give up the benefit of a vacation trip to Switzerland. When an individual is deciding about purchasing a house, he does not only forgo the benefits of purchasing another good or services, he/she even forgo the cost attached to purchasing a good or service over the cost of good and service he/she has planned to purchase. This is called the cost benefit analysis that an individual has to conduct in order to make a purchase decision. While conducting cost benefit analysis, an individual compares the cost and benefits of purchasing a particular good or service in comparison to the costs and benefits associated with the forgone goods and services (Stretton, 1999, p.206) In the real world individuals are not presented with a situation where they have to choose either one side of the paradigm. For example while purchasing a house, an individual might have an option of purchasing the one located in a low cost area and might h ave another option where the house is located just on the street. Individuals use the concept of marginal changes or in other words alterations that are incremental and meager in nature as stated by the economists. For example: an individual might be under the process of deciding whether to buy a new home or to obtain a home on rent, the decision of whether going for the purchase or rent depends on the marginal costs and benefits that are attached with the decision. Another economic concept that comes into play, while an individual makes the decision of purchasing a new house is the concept of incentives.... People make decision after conducting a cost and benefit analysis for various decisions and they might change their decision over time with changes in the costs and benefits associated with a decision. For example: if an individual obtains an apartment or a home on rent, he might go for purchase of a new home if the cost of renting the house exceeds the benefits of obtaining a house on rental conditions. Due to increase in rents, demand for ownership f houses will elevate, which will increase the demand of new houses and the supply of new houses will increase. Marginal Costs Several marginal costs and benefits are associated with an individual’s decision of purchasing a new home. These costs and benefits need to weigh properly in order to reach a decision that is backed by utmost rationality. The first marginal cost that an individual has to experience is amortization while making the decision to purchase a new home (Arnold, 2010, p.505). If an individual is currently living i n a home that he had obtained on rental basis and in order to purchase a new home requires certain portion of the amount of money the individual is paying as rent for repayments, the different between these amounts is recognized as a marginal cost. This case is mostly experienced by individual as purchase of house is much expensive than obtaining a house on rental basis (Grant, 2000, p.29). Other than the amount of money paid as amortization, individuals even need to take into consideration, the payment of insurance bills that are associated with the purchase of a new home. Another form of marginal cost that an individual might have to pay is the amount of time that an individual spends in traveling from school or work to his or

Carpooling apps marketing plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Carpooling apps marketing plan - Essay Example The target market will be students as this is relevant for this course as these groups seeks to exploit cost minimization approach in their daily expenditure. Segmentation is equally exhibited by this app as various social classes share rides and donates differently with their comparatively average earners (Crawford, et al. 56). The positioning of this marketing plan is strategic and competitive since it works on the basis of cost saving to the commuters and offers a considerable discount on the overall recurrent expenditure on transport among the students. Consider strategic fit with host organization Carpooling apps is likely to gain much market coverage due to its integration of technology in the growing transport sector. With 511 and LYFT as the main products and San Francisco state university as the host organization, it is worth to note that the technological application by the firm is likely to be sustainable with its internal management structure. The external environment which can be attributed to the increasing adoption of technology by the young generation is a recipe to its sustainable operation performance in the market (Crawford, et al. 256).