The imaginative landscape Essay Example for Free

The imaginative landscape Essay It is human nature to long to belong, to fit neatly and comfortably into a familiar niche. It allows for a foundation, on which to build upon. It often nurtures us, but sometimes, as our ever static identities develop, we surpass it. We out grow it. It is when we are sheltered and content, that the prospect of leaving or letting go is most difficult, as we must uproot ourselves. In order to keep our roots, which are so deeply buried in our foundation, we simulate our previous, traditional landscapes, in order to keep them alive. Through language, tradition and others, we can partially re-create traditional landscapes. As immigrants of the same nationally huddle together in a suburb-an island of familiarity in a sea of strangeness- in the hope that it might be something like is was before. Some wish to keep their cultures and traditions sacred and unaltered by treasuringthe recent past, simultaneously blinding themselves from being open to new traditions; as in the case of Old James. This leaves him to feel isolated, having no place to re establish his roots, stifling further growth. Old James is malcontented that Young James, disparate from his family, will not settle his roots in Ettrick Valley; go[ing] on and not remember[ing] a thing of Scotland. Young James, and those who follow him will have not emotional affiliation with Scotland, simply, knowing that it is the place of his ancestors orirgons. Like many others, tradition and culture of those gone before is lost, only to forge new ones, and a new foundation and a different sense of belonging.

What Led To The Introduction Of Itv Media Essay

What Led To The Introduction Of Itv Media Essay British broadcasting has come a long way in the past fifty years, from a monopoly held by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) to the huge diversity of channels we now have, from not only terrestrial television, but also Sky and cable. The genres of the programmes on these channels are now so diverse that there is rarely a point in time when somebody cannot find something on television. From the birth of television in 1936 and up until 1955 the BBC had held the monopoly over broadcasting, at first, only showing 6 hours a day of programmes deemed suitable by traditionalists, like Sir Lord Reith who at the time was the Director-General of the BBC, for the public. It was in 1955 that the first big change in broadcasting came about with the introduction of ITV which broke the monopoly and thus by the same token led to greater competition within the market. In this essay I will discuss what important factors and issues with the BBC led to the introduction of the commercial channel ITV a nd later, Channel 4; and how it caused unlikely alliances, disputes and controversy. At the BBCs creation it was deemed appropriate that it should be a public service broadcaster, while this meant that it would be isolated from commercial pressures it also meant that it would need to have alternative funding; this came in the form of the television license fee which was basically a broadcast receiving tax. As the BBC was funded by the Government via a tax they had to provide an impartial service which had to conform to its Royal Charter of 1927; among other things it said that the BBC had to: Sustain citizenship and civil society, promote education and learning, stimulate creativity and cultural excellence and represent the UK, its nations, regions and communities [3]. After the WWII, the BBCs monopoly began to be questioned, this lead to a growing aversion towards paternalism and a yearning for freedom of choice. Subsequently, after a change in power in late 1951, the Conservative party decided to publish its own ideas for the breaking of the BBC monopoly. They suggested: In the expanding field of television, provision should be made to permit some element of competition when the calls on capital resources at present needed for purposes of greater national importance makes this feasible. In essence this was the first step in the creation of ITV. Unlike the BBC, ITV was to be funded via the sale of slots in its broadcasting timetable for advertisers (another option was to allow sponsorship; however, the regulator thought this was not appropriate). The nature and quality of the advertising was, however, stringently controlled by the regulators and no more than 6 minutes of adverts were to be shown within any given hour. One of the main factors in the introduction of ITV was to increase consumer choice. Up until 1952 there was only one channel to watch and so you had either the option of watching the one programme that was on at the time or not watching television at all. This was at a time that the country was feeling more confident, workers wages were increasing and the first whiff of prosperity was filtering across the country. Individual identity was starting to be questioned, one could argue that this was partly due to the American influence of TV and radio; whether it was the gritty US hero films, the songs of Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash or just the feeling that the US had everything bigger, better, richer and possibly, to use a more modern expression, more trendy. The introduction of ITV not only doubled the number of programmes people could choose from but also led to higher quality programmes being directed. People liked this increased choice and freedom to make their own decisions; as Frede rick Ogilvie, a former Director General of the BBC, stated Freedom is choice And monopoly of broadcasting is inevitably the negation of freedom no matter how efficiently it is run [2] The reason for greater quality of programmes was the increased competition after the creation of ITV. For ITV to receive the maximum amount of revenue from its advertising it needed to have a high proportion of the public watching its channel. While this required a lot of initial investment to create the programmes in the long term it would provide more than enough advertising revenue to cover this cost. This also, although maybe subtly, influenced the BBC. While at first glance it may seem that the BBC and ITV have different revenue streams and are therefore not direct competitors, the BBC had to keep up with the increasing quality of the ITV programmes. This was not because, unlike ITV, they needed to increase revenue but because if they were not seen to have programmes of a similar or greater quality than ITV then soon the general public would start to question the television licence fee which could have led to the end of the BBCs funding and indeed the end of the company itself. Another criticism of the BBC was that they only really catered for the population inside London which was exposed in the report of 1951. This report shocked many people as it was written by MP Sir William Beveridge. People expected him to side with the BBC as he upheld many traditional values, like Lord Reith. He suggested that it should set up national commissions for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland [1]. Beveridge, however, didnt agree with the introduction of commercial television, after seeing how the advertising worked in America he deemed it obtrusive and objectionable à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ironically it was the Beveridge report that spurred the conservative government in 1951 to move forward with plans of commercial television as his report encouraged, the conservative MP Lloyd Selwyn to do a follow up report, in which he agreed with many of Beveridges points, he was for the introduction of commercial television. Selwyn along with many other business men saw the potential investm ents that could be made in commercial television; they believed that many benefits would come from advertising their products as it would reach millions. This self-profit idea didnt go unnoticed and caused some controversy, one even said At what point are the MPs representing their constituencies and web are they speaking as directors?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Initially it was planned that ITV should be made up of three separate franchise regions: London, the Midlands and the North, each of which would be occupied by more than one contractor. This would lead to competition not only between the combined ITV force and the BBC but also between the different contractors. However, there was a failure on the governments behalf, due to not allocating enough frequencies, this was unable to happen. Instead to still keep competition high the ITA decided to split the franchises on a weekday/weekend basis. People were fed up of the American commercial nature of ITV and how all of its shows strived for ratings rather than quality and so there was a committee set up to investigate the state of broadcasting in the 1960s. It was called the Pilkington report and its function was to clean up the vulgarity of ITV. The report praised the BBC and allowed the introduction of a second channel, BBC2. In a way the Pilkington report was like going back in a way in broadcasting history, it took on the paternalistic role, that the public so hated about the BBC. Eventually people accepted ITV and the BBC working together and the competition grew much less fierce. People had decided what shows they did and didnt like and would pick and choose between the two, this was known as the golden age of television which lasted nearly twenty years. Between 1960 and 1962 The Pilkington Committee met to consider the future of broadcasting in Britain. This was at a time of increasing hostility towards the relatively newly formed commercial broadcaster, ITV. At the time the committee published their report it was unsurprising that ITV came under particular criticism. The committee found ITV broadcasted programmes of a trivial nature. This was most probably a not a reference to the actual subjects discussed but to the actual style and presentation of these subjects. This report led to the introduction of a second BBC channel, BBC2, in 1964. In 1980 the Broadcasting Act was passed which commenced the process for the creation of a fourth channel, Channel 4, which began broadcasting on 2nd November 1982. While for some time there had been a belief that a second commercial broadcaster would be launched after ITV, it was expected that this would come sooner than it did. It is most likely that the biggest reason for the delay, for almost three decades, was politics. Summed up it was a clash of beliefs between the expansion of the commercial character of ITV and the public service approach of BBC. I believe one of the main reasons for the introduction was because times were becoming more liberal and there were many creative directors and producers who wanted to make interesting cultural and controversial shows. These people, no matter how good their programmes were, were unable to get them shown on the BBC or ITV either because the content was too risky or it would not have pulled in a big enough audience to satisfy the advertisers. However, the market researchers at the time saw the need for a channel that would represent minorities and address hard hitting topics; it was also believed that these programmes would help discourage racism and discrimination. The other thing that made the government back the introduction of Channel 4 was that all of the programmes were going to be independently made by different production companies all over the country, and that initially the existing commercial companies would fund them. Over time Channel 4 began commissioning the programmes it self. Also the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher was incredibly supportive of the idea of entrepreneurship and so this was another reason Channel 4 was backed. It was however the Labour Government that finally got the channel up and running; they wanted the channel to tackle political issues without feeling the pressure from higher individuals to tone down. In conclusion, the history of terrestrial television was a hard struggle. To reach the level of freedom of content that we see today, whether, it is scenes of a violent or sexual nature in programmes like BBCs The Tudors or channel 4s dispatches series even the Question time with Nick Griffin, all of these broadcasts whether you agree with the content or not, are there for viewing with our own discretion, and a far cry from the paternal monopoly that the BBC held for so many years. Ultimately the reason for the introduction of these channels was to increase consumer choice which as a Democratic country was wanted by the people. It was this demand for consumer choice that brought us to the hundreds of channels that we see today. Out of this spawned the huge competition between channels that will be never-ending, with programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing scheduled at the same time as the X Factor. Referances [1]Kevin Williams Get me a Murder a Day! a history of mass communication in britan, Arnold 1998 chapter 8 [2] Quoted by Crisell An Introductory History of British Broadcasting, p77. [3] a statement from the BBCs public service remit

Experience of Self-monitoring of Blood Glucose in Pregnancy

Experience of Self-monitoring of Blood Glucose in Pregnancy Lived Experience of Self-monitoring of Blood Glucose among Pregnant Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Abstract Key words:Self-monitoring of blood glucose, gestational diabetes mellitus INTRODUCTION Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as impaired glucose tolerance first identified during pregnancy. It is diagnosed using a 75g or 100 g oral glucose tolerance test according to clinical practice guidelines. The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus among pregnant women is increasing worldwide because of unhealthy eating and lack of exercise. Prepregnancy overweight and gestational weight gain are the strongest predictors of GDM (Savona-Venturaet al.,2013). Previous studies showed that 5.0-12.9% of pregnant women have GDM (Cho, 2013). Pregnant women who have gestational diabetes mellitus are more likely to develop adverse pregnancy and child birth outcomes. Common maternalhealth complications are hypertensivedisorder (3.0-50.0%), preterm labour (2.0-14%), spontaneous abortion (3.5-25.3%), polyhydramnios (5.0-28.0%, and postpartum hemorrhage (6.0-10.5%). Neonatal complications include macrosomic infant (12.0-17.0%), congenital malformations (6.5-20.0%), shoulder dystocia (9.5-23.3%), birth injury (4.5-13.3%), respiratory distress syndrome (1.5-21.4%), hypoglycemia (20.0-68.5%), hyperbiliruninemia (5.3-48.3%), and admission in neonatal care unit (15.0-20.6%) (Wang, 2013).These maternal and neonatal sequalae develop due to prolonged hyperglycemia. High levels of blood glucose can damage endothelial cells causing hypertensive disorder and its complications. Infants of pregnant women with GDM are also exposed to high maternal blood glucose levels (Webb, 2013). It is suggested that controlling blood glucose within the recommended range (70-120 mg/dl) will decrease these complications. GDM in pregnant women can be treated by medical nutrition therapy, insulin injection, and self-monitoring of blood glucose (American Diabetes Association, 2013). Testing of capillary blood for glucose levels is recommended as a diabetes self-management strategy.Pregnant women with GDM need to be advised and taught to collect blood sample from their fingertip and use a glucometer to measure blood glucose levels. Little is known about their perception and lived experience of self-monitoring of blood glucose. Understanding their perception and meaning regarding diabetes management will be useful to promote self-care, improve glycaemic control, and decrease maternal and neonatal health complications. METHODS Objectives of the study The objectives of this study were to describe perceptions and meaning of lived experience in self-monitoring of blood glucose and utilization of blood glucose levels for glycaemic control among pregnant women who have gestational diabetes mellitus. Research design This descriptive phenomenological study was designed to gain more understanding about lived experienced of pregnant women with gestational diabetes mellitus in self-monitoring of blood glucose. Specific qualitative research methods used in this study included bracketing the researcher perspectives, analyzing, intuiting, and describing perception and meaning of participants’ lived experience (Creswell, 2013; Touhyet al., 2013). Study setting This study was conducted in the antenatal care units, diabetes clinics, and obstetric wards of two government hospitals in southern Thailand which are the referral centers providing advanced management of pregnancy complicated with GDM. Ethical consideration The research project and data collection procedures were approved by Institutional Review Boards and ethics committees of the Faculty of Nursing and Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, and selected hospitals in southern Thailand. Participants Potential participants were approached and asked for participation by staff nurses. Informed consent was obtained by the researcher teams. Thirty pregnant women diagnosed with GDM during 24-30 week gestation were recruited for the study. Data collection Data were collected using in-depth interviews following semi-structured interview guides. Digital audio recording was used. The participants were asked to be interviewed at the antenatal clinic, diabetes clinic, or obstetric ward. Two interviews were conducted. Each interview took 30-45 minutes. Data were collected until saturation. Interview data were transcribed to prepare for coding and analyzing. Data analysis Qualitative data were analyzed followingColaizzi’s method and included seven steps: 1) Reading and re-reading descriptions, 2) extracting significant statements, 3) formulating the meaning of lived experiences in various contexts, 4) categorizing the meaning into clusters of themes, 5) describing the phenomenon being studied, 6) validating the finding with participants, and 7) incorporating informants’ view in the findings (Creswell, 2013). FINDINGS The mean age of participants was 32.5 (22-39 years). Seventeen women were Buddhists and thirteen women were Muslims. Their educational levels were high school (6/30), vocational level (14/30), and bachelor degree (10/30). Most of them were multiparous (22/30) and were employed (18/30). Eight women had previous GDM and experience of self-monitoring of blood glucose. The findings showed three emerged themes regarding perception and meaning of self-monitoring of blood glucose among pregnant women with GDM: being worried about diabetes, trying to control it, and having patience for their child. Being worried about diabetes comprised two dimensions: wondering about the impact of diabetes on the child, and concern about maternal health. After being informed that they had GDM, having high levels of blood glucose, they first thought abouthow diabetes would affect their pregnancy, particularly the effect on their child. They believed that their infant would be harmed or malformed, or have diabetes. The participants’ perceptions regarding GDM impact on child health were as follows. Another dimension of being afraid of diabetes was concern over maternal health. Pregnant women having GDM were also concerned about complications during pregnancy such as abortion, preterm labour, and having diabetes after childbirth. They shared their understanding as these words. The second theme was â€Å"trying to control it†. They gave two dimensions of trying to control diabetes that included: 1) learning to test blood glucose, and 2) being aware of what to eat. Learning to test blood glucose. After being diagnosed with GDM, diabetes nurse educators advised them about how to collect blood from the finger and use the glucometer to test blood glucose levels. Pregnant women needed to learn these new skills of self-monitoring of blood sugar. They shared their experiences as follows. Being aware of what to eat. Pregnant women with GDM paid more attention to take some healthy foods as recommended by doctors, nurses and dietitians. They learned to choose food type, portion size, and appropriate time to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks between meals. They provided additional data as follows. The third theme was â€Å"having patience for their child†. Pregnant women with GDM expressed the meaning of their experiences of self-monitoring of blood glucose in two dimensions: 1) overcoming food desires, and tolerating the fingerprick pain. The first meaning of having patience for the child was â€Å"overcoming food desires†. The women shared their experience of how they faced controlling their blood glucose. They had a struggle related to hunger due to cutting down on some favorite foods such as sweetened drinks, desserts and fruits. Sometimes they could not tolerate their food desire, they then decided to eat what they wanted. This response supports the idea. The second dimension of having patience for their child was â€Å"tolerating the fingerprick pain†. After being diagnosed with GDM, they were advised to test their blood glucose by pricking the fingertip to collect capillary blood to measure blood glucose levels with a glucometer for 8 to 12 weeks. They experienced mild intensity of pain that they had to cope with in order to achieve good glycaemic control. The women shared their tolerance with fingertip pain as follows. DISCUSSION After being diagnosed with GDM, pregnant Thai women were worried about the impact of diabetes on their child and their own health. They were afraid that their child might have diabetes or other health problems, or even die. A previous study also found that women with GDM experienced fear about the wellbeing of their babies and themselves (Stankiewiczet al., 2014). For maternal health, most of them were worried about becoming diabetic later in life. The research evidence revealed that women who had a history of GDM were at risk to develop prediabetes, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. Among women with GDM, 5-14% were subsequently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus during the postpartum period and 7-29% had impaired glucose tolerance (Bihanet al., 2014). Pregnant women with GDM needed to learn to measure their blood glucose levels by self-monitoring technique. They expressed their experience as â€Å"learning to test blood glucose† because it was a new activity with which they had no skill and were not familiar. After being advised by diabetes nurse educators, they could collect a blood sample from the fingertip and test it with the glucometer. This result was supported the finding that women who have GDM can manage to control their blood glucose after they cope with emotional strain (Huiet al., 2014; Stankiewiczet al., 2014). In addition, the women had learned to control their blood glucose by â€Å"being aware of what to eat†. After receiving knowledge about diabetes medical nutrition therapy from a dietitian and nurse educator, they shared their understanding of prior dietary pattern that needed to be changed, such as reducing the consumption of sweetened drink and desserts, or fruit with high glycemic index. They had learned about the kind of foods for diabetes and portion sizes. They perceived that awareness of dietary behaviors was necessary to control their blood glucose levels. A previous study also reported that pregnant women with GDM changed their health behavior after being informed of their health problems andthe way to improve their health (Bandyopadhyayet al., 2011; Hjelmet al., 2012). Lastly, pregnant women with GDM shared their experiences that they were â€Å"patient for their child†. They had to overcome their food desires and cope with pain from fingertip pricking during blood testing. Normally, they had their favorite foods such as Thai fruits and desserts. After becoming pregnant with GDM, they had to adapt their food habits in order to achieve good glycemic control. Sometimes, they would like to eat something that they wanted but they were concerned about its impact on their child. Eventually, they decided not to eat that food or took only a small amount. However, some women could not resign their food desire and chose to take food to eat it for their satisfaction. After they fulfilled their need, they tried to practise as recommended. This was her voice â€Å"In the afternoon, I felt thirsty. I tried to drink some water but it did not satisfy me. I continued to seek some sweetened drink that I like. I could not stop my desire, then I decided to tak e it. After that my blood sugar was as high as 215 mg/dl. I have learned what food raises my blood sugar. So I tried to face my feeling and overcome it for my child wellbeing and my health too.† Another experience of having patience for the child was â€Å"tolerating fingerprick pain†. Pregnant women with GDM were advised to self-monitor their blood glucose 2 to 3 times a day, before or after meals, for 8 to 12 weeks until they gave birth. They had to cope with mild intensity of pain. They expressed their responses that they could do it in order to prevent health problems of their child and themselves. This supports the finding that perception that GDM affects behaviors related to maternal and child health and influences the adoption of a healthy lifestyle (Poth Carolan, 2013). Limitations of the study Lived experienced of self-monitoring of blood glucose in this study was obtained from the perspectives among pregnant women with gestational diabetes. It might not fit with the meaning and perception of individuals who have experience the management of type 1 or type 2 diabetes over a longer time. Conclusions Pregnant women being diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus had lived experienced characterized by two main themes: being afraid of the effect of high blood glucose on their own healthand the impacts on their child, and trying to control blood sugar by being aware of what to eat, overcoming the food desires, responding to satiety, and tolerating to skin pricking. Understanding of the women’s perception is useful to promote diabetes self-management.

Small Pox :: essays research papers

Smallpox has been one of the most dangerous and deadly curses’ ever placed on humankind. Even illnesses as terrible as the plague, cholera, and yellow fever have not had such a universal effect. Smallpox is a parasitic virus (a virus destructive to the host) called variola. It’s considered to be a â€Å"crowd disease†, spreading only through people and requiring a large densely populated area to survive. If the virus is cut off from new host bodies it dies out. Smallpox is spread by what is called â€Å"droplet infection.† â€Å"Droplets† refers to body fluid that escapes into the open air such as moisture does when you sneeze. The smallpox virus also remains active on a human corpse for up to three weeks and can be passed through the dead host to the living host that way and also through items such as blankets and clothing, which remain infected for up to one year. Patients affected with smallpox will generally begin to show symptoms 9-12 days after exposure. These symptoms begin with depression, fever, rigors, vomiting, headache, and backache. In several cases patients have become disoriented and/or delirious. In other cases a distinct rash will begin to form on face, hands and legs in this phase. All others with begin to notice the rash within a few days. Following the outbreak of the rash on the face, it begins to spread to the chest. Cuts that have formed on face and body begin to turn into blisters and eventually into scabs during the healing process. The virus may attack the eyes, lungs, throat, heart and/or liver and lead to death. The first recorded smallpox outbreak occurred in 1350 BC during the Egyptian-Hittite war. The illness was passed from Egyptian prisoners to the Hittite population affecting both soldiers and civilians. Although it wasn’t until the late 1600’s that people in Europe and Asia accidentally discovered that those infected with smallpox through a scratch on the skin, suffered from a less severe form of the disease than those who contracted it through the respiratory tract. In the early 1700’s doctors began to store samples of smallpox pus and scabs in jars. If an outbreak occurred the doctor would make a small cut in a person’s arm and smeared the pus into the wound. This process of intentionally infecting a person with the smallpox virus in order to make them immune to the disease in the future was called inoculation. Small Pox :: essays research papers Smallpox has been one of the most dangerous and deadly curses’ ever placed on humankind. Even illnesses as terrible as the plague, cholera, and yellow fever have not had such a universal effect. Smallpox is a parasitic virus (a virus destructive to the host) called variola. It’s considered to be a â€Å"crowd disease†, spreading only through people and requiring a large densely populated area to survive. If the virus is cut off from new host bodies it dies out. Smallpox is spread by what is called â€Å"droplet infection.† â€Å"Droplets† refers to body fluid that escapes into the open air such as moisture does when you sneeze. The smallpox virus also remains active on a human corpse for up to three weeks and can be passed through the dead host to the living host that way and also through items such as blankets and clothing, which remain infected for up to one year. Patients affected with smallpox will generally begin to show symptoms 9-12 days after exposure. These symptoms begin with depression, fever, rigors, vomiting, headache, and backache. In several cases patients have become disoriented and/or delirious. In other cases a distinct rash will begin to form on face, hands and legs in this phase. All others with begin to notice the rash within a few days. Following the outbreak of the rash on the face, it begins to spread to the chest. Cuts that have formed on face and body begin to turn into blisters and eventually into scabs during the healing process. The virus may attack the eyes, lungs, throat, heart and/or liver and lead to death. The first recorded smallpox outbreak occurred in 1350 BC during the Egyptian-Hittite war. The illness was passed from Egyptian prisoners to the Hittite population affecting both soldiers and civilians. Although it wasn’t until the late 1600’s that people in Europe and Asia accidentally discovered that those infected with smallpox through a scratch on the skin, suffered from a less severe form of the disease than those who contracted it through the respiratory tract. In the early 1700’s doctors began to store samples of smallpox pus and scabs in jars. If an outbreak occurred the doctor would make a small cut in a person’s arm and smeared the pus into the wound. This process of intentionally infecting a person with the smallpox virus in order to make them immune to the disease in the future was called inoculation.

Awakening Vs. Greenleaf :: essays research papers

A strong critique by existentialist writers of modern society is the way in which humans live unexamined, meaningless lives with no true concept of what it is to be an unique individuals. In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening and in Flannery O’Connor’s short story â€Å"Greenleaf† the characters Edna and Mrs. May, respectively, begin almost as common, stock characters living unfulfilled lives. They eventually converge, however, upon an elevated life and death filled with new meaning through their struggle with their role as individuals surrounded by other important beings.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1948) believed that humankind follows a certain evolution of mind and body. This process involves a beginning (komogenese), a development (biogenese), and then a peak (noogenese) in which humans reach an Omega Point of higher being. Though his ideas were actually applied on a much broader scale of humanity over a large timespan, the theory can be applied to the individual’s process of human development. Single humans begin as common clones of one another. From this commonality many examine their lives and develop the things within them that make them uniquely them. This development of the self only can be ended at death when the individual converges upon an Omega Point in which he has an elevated understanding of and meaning for life. The characters Edna from The Awakening and Mrs. May from †Greenleaf† encounter a similar human development in which an individual is formed with an understanding of life. The means by which they achieve this differ greatly.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As the novel The Awakening opens, the reader sees Edna Pontellier as one who might seem to be a happy married woman living a secure, fulfilled life. It is quickly revealed, though, that she is deeply oppressed by a male dominated society, evident through her marriage to Leonce. Edna lives a controlled life in which there is no outlet for her to develop herself as the individual who she is. Her marriage to Leonce was more an act of rebellion from her parents than an act of love for Leonce. She cares for him and is fond of him, but had no real love for him. Edna’s inability to awaken the person inside her is also shown through her role as a â€Å"mother-woman†. She loves and cares for her children a great deal, but does not fit into the Creole mother-society in which other women baby and over protect their children.

Effects of Technology Essay

The advent and development of computer technology through the past three decades may be the most important and revolutionary technology ever invented in history. It has completely changed the way people do things, from interpersonal communication to professional transactions. Computers have affected the cultures of families, friends, offices, academes and even states and countries. The effect of computer technology can be felt starting with the most basic social institution, the family. The personal computer has become a regular fixture in millions of homes around the world as much as the television or the couch. Some families even own more than one computer units. Of course, the statistics would be lower among less developed countries. Nevertheless, an effect of the prevalence of the personal computer is that it has become more and more affordable. For third world countries, the idea of catching up has also come to mean being competitive when it comes to computer literacy compared to developed countries. Parents use the computer to surf the Net, look for job-related information or anything that interests them like news or hobby sites. The children use the computer as aid in making assignments and research, playing video games or make friends they won’t ever see in person through the chat rooms. Outside the home, the influence of computers is felt much more. Offices cannot survive without computers as they are used for word processing, calculations, presentations, and other tasks. Internet technology, an offshoot of computers, has created a thriving electronic-based commerce which has made millionaires out of people whose capital has been their mere creative minds. Other activities that before were done without computers are now computer aided. Automated banking has made banking and bill payments possible even outside office hours. People can shop online using their credit cards without the hassle of crowds and miles of walking inside malls just to find the perfect shirt or gift. Government agencies keep voluminous records and provide computer-aided services making it possible to make transactions with the public even without the latter’s physical appearance. Like all technologies, the computer has its downsides, too. For instance, it has caused concern regarding the privacy of people as with the interconnectedness of networks in cyberspace it has become easy to look for information about anybody. Another is that computers, being machines, break down. Since people have grown dependent to this machine, a crash or malfunction of computers especially those doing tasks which a lot of people depend on (like ATMs when they go offline or very important data that suddenly become irretrievable with a crash) could result to a lot of frustration and anxiety. Computer technology has also created computer addicts and affected the health and social skills of some people who would rather sit in front of a monitor than interact with humans or play ball outside. Computer technology has become so prevalent and people and nations have become dependent to it so much so that in modern times it has become unimaginable to survive without computers. The future is going to be defined by how fast and how far computer technology is going to take humankind and to be computer-illiterate in this modern world is to be left behind in the past.

Fiction as History Essay

He was known as â€Å"Gabo† to the people living in Colombia and to those who knew him by his reputation. He was not only a short-story writer, a novelist and a screenwriter by profession for he was also a journalist—these were only among the many things which gave him the honor as among the famous writers of Latin America and one of the most significant 20th century authors. At the age of 65, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was given the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982: the product of the combination of an early life largely influenced by his grandfather and a life lived through the ways and means of journalism after quitting law school (Williams, p. 135). Gabo is considered to be a pioneering author in the Latin American â€Å"Boom† during the 1960s, stemming from the fame he achieved through his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude and his indispensable presence and role in Latin American literature (Maurya, p. 54). One Hundred Years of Solitude has been significantly understood by critics and literary scholars as a history of Gabo’s rendition of the circumstances during the strike that happened back in 1928 in Colombia (Posada-Carbo, p. 401). That magnus opus of Gabo is said to scrutinize the Colombian regime’s repressive nature as well as the strike itself which claimed the lives of many workers. Throughout the course of his career, the literary style known as â€Å"magical realism† has been largely attributed to Gabo as he was the one who popularized the literary technique of using magical events and elements so as to give real experiences the fitting explanations (Hinds and Raymond, p. 897). Gabo is also said to have been an influential writer not only for his fellow Latin Americans but also for fresh authors and budding writers from other nations. For Gabo, reality is a very significant theme and ingredient in his writings, especially evident in his works â€Å"In Evil Hour,† â€Å"Big Mama’s Funeral† and â€Å"Nobody Writes to the Colonel† (Aizenberg, p. 1239). These three works of Gabo reflect the kind of Columbian society where he lived inasmuch as they also reflect the reality of life in the nation. The theme of reality is the foundation for the rational structure of the books of Gabo, although European readers may tend to be less aware of the reality that Gabo wants to send across and tend to be more inclined to interpret his works as testimonies to his magical realist craft. The first few years in the career of Gabo Marquez saw a struggling journalist in him. He was literally a travelling journalist simply because he was always on the move, transferring from town to town across Latin America and Europe. At one point, he worked for El Espectador back in 1955 as a correspondent reporting from Rome and Paris. Although the newspaper was shut down by the dictator Rojas Pinilla which took away his position as a journalist, Gabo nevertheless was able to pick up on where he was left and continued his writing career in Mexico City. In the City, he did not only work as a journalist; he also worked as a screen writer and as a publicist before moving back to Barcelona during the 1970s. Although Gabo was a well-travelled writer, it can be said that he never fails to at least think about his hometown and reflect it on what he has written. Evidence to this is his constant use of the town â€Å"Macondo† in his many stories which reminds the readers of the town of Aracataca where Gabo was born and lived his childhood days (Molen, p. 4). This was true right from the time when Gabo began writing to the time when he was able to considerably attain success in the literary limelight. Nonetheless, the time when Gabo began writing was a significant event for the literary scene in Hispanic American societies because the literature in those regions was characterized either by realist-modernist or super-regionalism during the middle part of the twentieth century. Those were the times when Latin American writers were busy either writing as a modernist or as a realist—both having the tendencies to categorize themselves as ‘regional’ writers or writers who either depict or mask reality in their respective places. Maurya Vibha further suggests that there is an apparent â€Å"absent history in the Third World conditions of Latin America† and a â€Å"link between postcolonial fiction and a desire to think historically† in the works of Gabo (p. 54). If Vibha is indeed right, then there is strong reason to believe that what Gabo did in his works is to provide that link and, in the end, to capture the significance of those ‘third world conditions’ into a piece of literature which depicts the stark reality in Latin American societies. Apparently, the works of Gabo, if not the course of his life, present the struggles faced by Latin Americans in their own territory as well as in others. In effect, it can be said that Gabo’s ‘magical realism’ is indeed a combination of the depiction of the social realities that the author saw in his lifetime and of the literary magic that he used in depicting those realities. Although European readers may get the impression that the literature of Gabo is ‘magic’ in itself, it should not be the case that the substance of his works be confined to that magic alone for it transcends the barriers of that magic by portraying reality at its highs and lows. Works Cited Aizenberg, Edna. â€Å"Historical Subversion and Violence of Representation in Garcia Marquez and Ouologuem. † PMLA 107. 5 (1992): 1239. Hinds, Elizabeth Jane, and Raymond Leslie Williams. â€Å"Interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. † PMLA 104. 5 (1989): 897. Maurya, Vibha. â€Å"Gabriel Garcia Marquez. â€Å" Social Scientist 11.1 (1983): 54. Molen, Patricia Hart. â€Å"Potency Vs Incontinence In â€Å"The Autumn of the Patriarch† Of Gabriel Garcia Marquezpotency Vs Incontinence In â€Å"The Autumn of the Patriarch† Of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. † Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 33. 1 (1979): 4. Posada-Carbo, Eduardo. â€Å"Fiction as History: The Bananeras and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. † Journal of Latin American Studies 30. 2 (1998): 401. Williams, Raymond Leslie. â€Å"The Visual Arts, the Poetization of Space and Writing: An Interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. † PMLA 104. 2 (1989): 135.