Racial differences (introduction) Personal Statement

Racial differences (introduction) - Personal Statement Example I am a firm believer of the theory that allows for people to remain glued to their own racial and ethnic backgrounds and I am all for their resolute beliefs in them no matter how difficult the circumstances are. This indeed is what I am proud of and it makes me strong and committed day after day. The aspect of my identity that is in line with my work regimes and my academic qualifications are something that I hold on to very firmly. I let the same remain communicated to all and sundry so that my personality develops due to such strong points being on my side. I would rather want people to focus more on my personality traits than choosing to discuss my racial and ethnic priorities because I believe these are insignificant and trivial matters, not providing benefit to anyone at all. Thus I choose not to share such matters with anyone as it creates a sense of animosity between people belonging to different races and ethnicities. The cultural events and occasions have strengthened my perspective upon life and my childhood is full of festivities, cultural exchange, weddings, death anniversaries and so on. I believe all of these points form up as strong basis for my association with my self-identity and this is one characteristic within my personality that I am in love with. My feelings for these occasions and incidents are tied with emotion and a sense of belonging all the same while I have tried my best to remain attached to my roots in the wake of both happiness and grief - a very quintessential feature of my values and the overall upbringing. 4. What or who was influential in shaping your present attitudes towards your own background and toward people from different background' My grandfather was the person who provided meaning to my life. It would not be wrong to suggest that he was and still is my source of motivation that comes from within. He developed in me a sense of finding out the world around me on my own and journeying through the thick and thin of things with a sense of challenge for my own self. He made me a strong person - up for attempting anything in life and this indeed me a tough woman. I cannot think of anything else apart from my rich background and this provides me a cushion to fall back upon in the event I run into problems and distress. I know there are my roots upon which I can place my trust. 5. If your feelings regarding your perceived identity have changed since childhood, who or what has contributed to this change' The only change that I believe has contributed in a small quantity has been in the wake of relationships which in the world of present times have started to diminish unfortunately. Children are getting away from their parents and grandparents and for a woman like me who has been brought up with the patronage of my grandfather; this comes out as a complete surprise for me, living in the time and age of today. However since my personality is molded in a strong way courtesy my family, I know that whatever that is

Bereavement care Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Bereavement care - Assignment Example In the wake of the same, different cultures carry out different ritual acts in alleviating the effects of a loss and creation of resilience. Rituals play a great deal of functions in the life of a person subjected to the given tragedy. Medically, the rituals act as therapeutic step. There are several rituals depending on the society that is concerned with the issue. One of them is the funeral of a deceased person. Funeral as a ritual is carried out differently in the different societies. For instance, in the western world, there is usually a high sense of cultural differences and these would to a large extend be dictated by the specific culture. Funeral home visits with a casket among the western nations; a catholic wake as well as a Shiva among the Jews is some of the rituals. What function do these serve? There are rituals that are also part of other rituals. A funeral service is a greater ritual that is carried by most groups in the world. One of the roles of a funeral and its sub -rituals is that it creates admissibility and appreciation in the hands of the bereaved. Many people according to Bonnano have had to appreciate the fact that so many mourners can turn up to witness the burial of someone in the society. Finality of the death is therefore appreciated and realized at that instance. Burial or cremation is also a ritual that must be carried out to a dead person. Burials witness a lot of activities. These activities just like the whole funeral process are supposed to create an acceptable situation of the reality of the matter (Cecilia & Thomson, 2005). In the western societies for instance, most of the actions are leveled towards creation of acceptance in the victims who suffer from denials instead of carrying out unwarranted practices. Therefore, all the rituals and behaviors are supposed to create a transition and actually the witness of a behavior is usually an indication that the transition is being successfully implemented. Different societies defin e the expected behavior in a funeral differently. The basis of the behavior is based on the traditional and historical facts that have been followed over the generations (Bonanno, 2009). A great deal of knowledge about emotions is a strong issue when it comes to dealing with resilience at any stage. Much of the western world would therefore have a very personalized approach to issues of resilience than the other parts of the world. Therefore, there is no conditioned definition of the expected behavior in a society but it is based on the type of culture that has been cultivated over the generations. Bonanno’s View of Resiliency and Grief Grieving as a way related to resilience is a process in the recovery process. Grieving is suffering due to any reason that would take resilience to recover back to normalcy. Grief is an emotion that is strong and overwhelming mostly caused by an unfortunate happening. During grieving, there is a high sense of symptomatic experiences that go wi th the situation and is highly dependent on the strength of the loss incurred. The victims experience a lot of numbness and there’s a total removal from the daily life. This daily life includes social life and therefore, there is support that is required to make sure that the victim recovers completely. The response of the experts to the situation of grieving

Participation Discussion Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Participation Discussion Questions - Essay Example Sometimes planners think about that marketing fated planning efforts right from the start by in advance promising features, techniques, and budget. They think that the planning step was quick, poorly budgeted, and with irritation managed by management. Planners think that the development group did not completely made use of their planning documentation and that management permitted them to deviate too far from the planned project development (Kerzner, 2006). In this discussion Amon has presented the overall Project Technical Planning in a better way and I am agreed with his views. In this discussion Sandya has presented the project planning in view of resource handling and main agent. She has also discussed about the risk management as a sub-activity in the project planning. Without proper planning a project can not achieve success. There is a successful planning at the back of every successful project. The key to a winning project is in the planning. Forming a project plan is the first thing managers should do when taking responsibility of any kind of project. Often project planning is disregarded in for saving time. However, many people fail to recognize the significance of a project plan in saving time, money and many problems (Pinkerton, 2003). I will add to the view of Sandya. As she considers the project planning as the management of resources but project planning is indispensable. Not only it is a roadmap to how the work will be carried out, but it is also a tool for decision making. The plan suggests alternative approaches, schedules, and resource req uirements from which the project manager can choose the most excellent substitute. A complete plan undoubtedly states the tasks that need to be done, why they are compulsory, who will do what, when it will be completed, what resources will be needed, and what criteria must be met in order for

CRITICAL ANALYSIS on THE SHAWL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

CRITICAL ANALYSIS on THE SHAWL - Essay Example As the story develops, the reader is compelled to ask several questions. How does Rosa tolerate the sight of her daughter in pain? Why did Rosa think that her daughter would die very soon? What is the significance of â€Å"the shawl† in the eyes of the narrator? While attempting to answer these questions, one will learn that Rosa is obsessed with her past. The description of her situation at the start of the story explains why her daughter, Magda, is suffering and why Rosa cannot be of any help to her own child. They are all captives of the concentration camp, cold, exhausted and starved. They live in â€Å"a place without pity† where even struggling to acquire the basic necessities can cause them death penalty. Being only fifteen months old, her daughter was not getting the nourishment she needed from her mother. She struggles to suck milk from her mother’s breast but gets nothing in return except the feel of the dry and cracked surface. She eventually takes ple asure in suckling on her mother’s shawl which tastes like cinnamon and almond. ... In the story, the reader finds several instances where the narrator vividly conveys the unspeakable atrocities that occurred in the concentration camp. The sights and the smells of terror are muddled up together in â€Å"the coldness of hell†: Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell. How they walked on the roads together, Rosa with Magda curled up between sore breasts, Magda wound up the shawl. Sometimes Stella carried Magda. But she was jealous of Magda. A thin girl of fourteen, too small, with thin breasts of her own, Stella wanted to be wrapped in a shawl, hidden away, asleep, rocked by the march, a baby, a round infant in arms. Stella’s desire for the baby’s shawl leads to Magda’s death. Ozick’s abundant use of symbolism allows the reader to envision the setting. She refers to the baby as angel throughout the novel; "smooth feathers of hair nearly as yellow as the Star sewn into Rosa's coat" and as "someone who is already a floating angel". Whe n her shawl is taken away from her by Stella, Magda suddenly begins to cry and wobbles out into the yard where she is picked up by a guard and thrown on the electrified fence to meet her death. The story reaches its climax through the flat character, Stella, who remains cold and cruel till the end because, being a child herself, she does not recognize the sentiments of the others, except satisfying her own need. Cynthia Ozick uses figurative language masterfully in her work The Shawl. She believes that such language is critical for literature understanding. The story is noteworthy because of its meticulous control over the view point. It requires great attention, as the details appear to be filtered through the

Challenges and issues regarding the effectiveness of the two way Essay

Challenges and issues regarding the effectiveness of the two way immersion program - Essay Example The two way immersion teachers integrate the majority and minority languages at the same school and deliver the content by equally using two different languages. The main goal of dual language education is to improve students’ bilingual skills, academic learning, and tendency to learn different cultural aspects from each other (Lindholm-Leary, 2012). In my research, I will discuss the challenges and issues that may negatively impact the outcomes of language learning in two way immersion and bilingual programs. These challenges may need to be considered in order to encourage parents to enroll their children in such programs. The first challenge is the perception that increased exposure to English develops higher level of proficiency in the children (Genesee and Lindholm-Leary, 2008). The study demonstrated that there is no correlation between the amount of time spent by English language learners in English language instructions, and higher level of proficiency. One study drew comparison between English language learners getting little English instructions in schools and students enrolled in a dual language program that learn the contents by equally using English language and their native language. The study showed that students who received little English have similar or more advanced proficiency compared to the proficiency of st udents that studied in dual language program (Lindholm-Leary, 2012). However, I think many other components such as untrained teachers and poor curriculum may influence the effectiveness of dual language programs. In my own experience of acquiring English language, I have observed that the Saudi schools do not mandate the teachers to use English language to teach English subjects, even though English subjects need to be taught in English. However, as a former Saudi student willing to learn English language, I tried to create my own English language environment; my TV

Prioritizing the IT Project Portfolio Essay Example for Free

Prioritizing the IT Project Portfolio Essay Project portfolio management is the management process tailored to aid the organization gain and review important information concerning all its projects, which are then sorted and prioritized according to some criteria like strategic value, cost, effects on resources and others (Greer, 2009). IT project portfolio management has certain objectives that must prompt its undertaking. However, the evaluation must start with the IT strategy first and not the goals and objectives of the business or organization. The IT strategy should be the linking chain in the business strategy that governs the service or product strategy, which in turn should be able to drive the IT strategy. The following are examples of the strategies of a CRM company. In determining the IT project to undertake, the business strategy must first be analyzed and understood. For example, an organization’s business strategy may be to see a customer base increased by a certain percentage within a specific period. In the business strategy, all the necessary requirements for accomplishment of the strategy must be put in place. An IT organization may provide increase functionality through business analytics as well as executive dashboards. What follows should be the product strategy. An IT firm may want to work with business intelligence software organization to improve analytical capacity of the CRM software. The identification and undertaking of such strategies should be within a time frame. In this linkage chain, the product strategy should be governed and driven by the organization’s business strategies (Greer, 2009). However, the product strategy should be the driving force behind the IT strategy which should come third in this link chain of strategies. An organization’s IT strategy could be to develop a new software platform which would enable easy integration between the organization’s software and the business intelligence software company as well as with other companies. The IT strategy should then be the driver of our IT project prioritization (Machevarapu, 2006). As an IT project a company may undertake to create a Web service-based platform which provides a universal data transmission and exchange between the business intelligence software and the CRM software. This chain should be able to inform us whether the IT projects are in line with our IT strategy and by extension our business strategy. However it would be difficult to verify the specific values our IT projects have on our business. In order to determine particular values of IT projects to the organization in a hierarchical analysis of the strategies, one needs to specifically look at the four drivers that motivate our strategic analysis. The first and the most important of these drivers is the potential reduction in expenses. One of the motivating factors should be the reduction of cost in our business operation. In this case our CRM integration should be able to offer a new platform that would helps us reduce the cost of creating links to other software sellers or vendors. This is because our CRM is formulated on a Web services standard (Entrekin, 2006). Our second and essential motivation should then be the potential revenue increase our project would bring to the business. As a business outfit, our concern should be how to minimize cost and improve our capital base and therefore every project undertaken should be aligned to our business strategy of seeing an increase in revenue. According to Entrekin (2006) in our IT project prioritizing, an increase should be expected in our overall revenue because we would expect a larger client base that would consider our CRM software. The third driver should be the impact of our IT project on our product as well as on our competitors. The project should not only improve our products but should put us above our competitors. This should be our strategic undertaking so that our software platform project directly impacts our CRM product and hence improve the organization’s competitive position. The final and most important driver of our IT project should be the legality of our undertaking. We have to be aware of the various laws and regulatory measures required of IT projects (Greer, 2009). If the laws are in favor of our project, then we have to move swiftly to accomplish our project that would enhance our business strategies. Security of data is an important component of the new CRM software platform and because such data as social security numbers are sensitive, the federal laws for example, permit their storage within the CRM system. Strict compliance with the IT laws would enable us undertake projects that are tenable and are in line with our IT strategy and by extension our business goals and objectives (Entrekin, 2006). Every IT project must be evaluated against the four discussed drivers in order to determine their value as well as priority to the organization. Again, it is important to note that the drivers are not and should be analyzed in isolation from each other. But they should be intertwined in a meaningful and repeatable process in the prioritization process. Analysis of any IT project must therefore be considered under each and every one of these drivers in order to come up with a comprehensive and exclusive value-base project (Entrekin, 2006). Prioritization management is a process and creating a prioritization model would have to take up-bottom approach which then breaks down every driver into different parameters. This process requires a concerted effort of all business leaders from all departments in order to get the insights of the business focus as well as performance measurements. From the example above, the CRM company leaders undertook to break down into four parameters the â€Å"expense reduction† driver. These were customer service expenses, back office efficiency gains, customer acquisition and retention and others (Machevarapu, 2006). This step is followed by scoring every project across all the parameters, in a down-up approach in order to find out the overall score of our project. This process requires a presentation of statements to the business leaders and gauging their degree of agreement with particular criteria assigned to the scoring range in a scale of 1-10. For instance, in the CRM company project, the leaders were asked whether they considered the project to be profitable or not in terms of savings. A score of 1 meant no saving while that of 10 meant a saving in the tune of millions. The bottom-up rating in this case will give us the final scores which will definitely prioritize the project or not. The third step in the prioritization process would be to adjust the 2 prioritization levers through assigning of weights to every driver as well as their particular parameters in accordance with the current priorities in business. Our weights would then be adjusted correspondingly as the priorities change, so that our scores for every IT project remain in line with our business strategies. Such levers must be set in relation to business priorities through out the project portfolio and never changed among projects (Machevarapu, 2006). After the projects have been scored, sorting to determine those that are feasible may be undertaken. The cutoff points in this case may be related to the total number of such projects a business can absorb, the available funds for investments or any other constraints the organization may be facing. The most important thing to every manager is that all prioritization models look well on paper. However, there are no perfect ones and getting accurate results may be the greatest challenge. One cause of this is that most people would try to manipulate the outcomes. It is therefore important that every manager learns some basic steps towards understanding prioritization. For example, one needs to learn about what constitutes a project, which projects are to be subjected to strategic analysis, and which ones are not and finally learning to limit the number of projects undertaken by a particular department.

Two Gentlemen of Verona Essay Example for Free

Two Gentlemen of Verona Essay William Shakespeare is an interesting character that just happened to be one of the best play writes of not only his time, but even today. He was born in the year 1564 and died in 1616. Though there are not many records of his personal life, from what there is, he lived a sort of scandalize life. Moving to London and leaving his wife, Anne Hathaway, behind to write plays, act, and, it is said, have affairs with men and women. He is often called Englands national poet and the Bard of Avon. Some people say that his earlier works were not so well written as his later plays, but he wrote about 38 plays in total and is said to have changed not only theater by his influences in other authors, but the English language as well. Though he wrote many good plays, one of his earlier plays, â€Å"Two Gentlemen of Verona† will be discussed in greater detail in this essay. Shakespeare, did many things for the first time in theater and his plays that no other other had done before him. One of his most obvious achievements include language. It is said that he had created about over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and making up words that are completely original. Language is a big part of theater. In many plays, as well as life, people play with worlds and sentence structures to portray many different types of emotions. In Two Gentlemen of Verona, many scenes were funnier because of the wordplay they used. For example, in Act III scene i. Speed, the servant of the main character Valentine, had asked Launce, the servant of Proteus, â€Å"How now Signior Launce, what news with your mastership? † Launce replied with, â€Å"With my mastership? Why, it is at sea. † Like many other parts in the book, this dialogue shows Shakespeare creativeness and wordplay. When Valentine asks about the â€Å"mastership† what he really is talking about is Proteus because he is Launces â€Å"master†. Proteus is â€Å"set out to see† because he left Verona, but it is also referring to the â€Å"ship† that Speed was joking about. Many other examples of this are in all of William Shakespeares plays; because it is in old English, it can sometimes be seen when acted easier than just read. In addition, all plays must have a character that has inner conflicts; Shakespeare figured out how to make soliloquies explore a characters inner motivations and conflict. Up until Shakespeare, soliloquies were often used by playwrights to introduce (characters), convey information, provide an exposition or reveal plans. This can probably be more more apparent in plays such as Hamlet, hi the big, and famous â€Å"To be, or not to be† soliloquy. Though, in Act I scene ii Julia, Proteus first love, has a soliloquy where shes does just that. It occurs right after she receives a love letter from her servant that Proteus had sent with his servant, Speed. Right before her soliloquy she had tared up the letter into pieces and kicked her servant out of the room. The first line in her soliloquy, â€Å"Oh hateful hands, to tear such loving words! † demonstrates how Shakespeares characters can show their inner motivations within their soliloquies. Though she had destroyed the letter, and acted as though she was annoyed by it and by her servant, her true motives, and inner feelings are revealed. Another influence William Shakespeare had in the culture of theater is the way that Shakespeare mixed tragedy and comedy together to create a new romantic tragedy genre. Before Shakespeare, romance had not been considered a worthy topic for tragedy. While this can be more easily seen in a play like Romeo and Juliet. Two Gentlemen of Verona is also a comedy that involves some romanticism and tragic events. For example, Proteus, character almost like Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, is young and falls in love too easily. Like Romeo, Proteus falls in and out of love by the beauty of a woman versus her intellect, or thoughts. Though it is a comedy, some traumatic events occur towards the end cause by love and the betrayal. Proteus falls out of love with Julia, and in love with Sylvia. The flip to this story is that Sylvia was supposed to get married to Valentine, which is Proteus best friend. Proteus betrays Valentine and gets him kicked out of the city. He then attempts to rape Sylvia because she refused to give in to someone that will betray their own best friend by in such a way. The play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, has a shocking ending that seems like it could have many different meanings. The scene begins with Valentine sitting alone in a bush where he hears that Proteus, Sylvia, and Julia (disguised as Sebastian) enter the forest scene. Proteus tells Sylvia that she should be thankful that he had saved her from the â€Å"outlaws†, but Sylvias love for Valentine and hatred for Proteus to betray his friend is too strong. When Proteus is about to rape Julia, Valentine jumps out and stops him. In the end, Julia reveals who she is and the Thurio, the man who was supposed to marry Sylvia from the beginning, enters the scene saying that he will not marry Sylvia because he never really loved her. When Proteus decides he does loves Julia after all, the Duke, Sylvias father, says both men will get married on the same day to both women. This scene proves Federico Garcia Lorcas view that â€Å"the theater is a school of pain and laughter, a free tribunal where we can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living examples the eternal norms of the human heart. The whole play involves pain and laughter, in this comedy, we as the audience laugh at Proteus thinking that he loves any girl that is beautiful. Though we laugh at it, there are other mixtures of pain and laughter. It is comical that Valentine, such a noble man, is hiding in the bushes waiting for his best friend to do something bad to his girlfriend; Julia is dressed as a man and no one can see it, but at the same time she is in pain because the love of her life is about to rape someone else; and there is more pain and laughter irony in this one scene. It is definitely a â€Å"tribunal where we can question norms that are outmoded† because the Duke comes into the scene unexpectedly and lets the two men get married without asking the women. This is an outmoded norm that men are superior to women, and men do not need to ask the women permission or what they would like. What if Julia no longer wanted to marry Proteus after all she saw? What if Sylvia did not want to get married on the same day of the man who tried to rape her. The norms can also be â€Å"mistaken† because there is a line where Valentine forgives Proteus for almost raping his lover and he concludes by saying, â€Å"All that was mine in Sylvia I give thee† (Act V, Scene iiii). This line, among many others, is up to interpretation. The line could mean that Valentine decided to give away Sylvia to Valentine in the end, or it could mean something completely different and the audience could be â€Å"mistaking† Shakespeares meaning of what is said. The finale, everyone getting married, shows â€Å"the eternal norms of the human heart†, even in Shakespeare’s time a happy ending is seems more complete. The audience in that time, and today would rather hear that everything resolved in the end for these characters. Although some people may argue that Shakespeares plays were not so well writen in the beginning of his career, there can be much said about his earlier plays like The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It is also clear that Shakespeare has changed and influenced theater greatly. He had changed various things like the English language, characters development within soliloquies, and even created new genres. There can be so much to be said about all his novels, in one scene, like the one above there can be much to debate, laugh, and feel pain about. In this on scene proved Federico Garcia Lorcas quote about theater to be true. If analyzing another scene, the same could be said.