Aaron’s Last Game :: Personal Narrative Writing

Aaron’s Last Game Play this game like it’s your last. This is a common phrase that athletes hear from their coaches to help inspire them to play hard in a game. In the case of my friend Aaron Halford, a basketball game during his sophomore year of high school was his last. It was a playoff game for the basketball team and there was a great deal of pressure on the players to perform well to move on to the next round. However, this was one game where regardless of the score, our team was going to lose. One of our players dribbled down the court, looked to pass, and took the shot. The ball bounced from rim to rim, back and forth, the crowd waited with anticipation, but no one even registered whether the ball entered the hoop. Aaron laid lifeless on the court. What happened, did I miss something? Was there a foul? No one in the crowd knew what caused Aaron to be lying on the court. A whistle was blown and the coaches ran out onto the court only to find that Aaron wasn’t breathing. Without any hesitation, Aaron’s dad raced down to where his son was laying unresponsively. â€Å"Grab the defibrillator,† yelled out one of the coaches. Another coach immediately began administering mouth to mouth resuscitation on Aaron. The whole gym was completely silent. I sat there in disbelief not knowing what to do. He’s going to be alright, isn’t he? Surely he will. Is there something I should do? I was short of breath and closed my eyes and began to pray, however, my thoughts made no sense. I can remember reciting over and over, â€Å"Please God, don’t let him die. Let him be ok.† Everything happened so quickly. Before I knew it, two minutes had passed and Aaron still wasn’t moving. At this point, the coach performing the CPR pulled out the defibrillator and started shocking Aaron’s chest. Aaron’s body jolted vigorously as his coach stunned him. The only speaking voice in the whole gym was Aaron’s father who was speaking to Aaron saying, â€Å"Come on boy; please wake up. I know you have it in you.† Tears began to swell in my eyes. This can’t be happening. Aaron’s father kneeled down next to his son’s still body and prayed aloud.

Small Gods :: essays research papers fc

â€Å"Small Gods† The World rides through space on the back of a turtle. This is one of the great ancient world myths, found wherever men and turtles were gathered together; the four elephants were an Indo–European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the lumber rooms of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away before the alarms went off. Discworld is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most 'refined' form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original Star Trek episode 'Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot' (Pratchett, Terry. Equal p 216). Terry Pratchett is the author of a popular fantasy series that is set in Discworld, a planet that is as flat as a pancake. It sails on forever, a flat, circular world carried on the backs of four elephants supported on the back of A’tuin, the giant space turtle. The turtle doesn’t stand on anything, so don’t ask. It swims on through the infinite universe (Huckaby n.pag.). In his book Small Gods, Terry Pratchett succeeds in satirizing most of the world’s major religions and a few ancient political policies by expressing his thoughts and feelings through his own brand of humor and witticism. In the Discworld, there are a numerous amount of gods, powerful and weak. Small Gods takes a look into the realm of Ominia, a vast empire devoted to the Greater Glory of their god Om. The Gods of Discworld have a very unique power source. Their power depends upon having believers; a god with no believers fades into a powerless, wandering spirit or dies. The Great God Om has a powerful church, yet has only one real believer, a novice monk named Brutha. Drained of supportive power, he finds himself trapped in the body of an ordinary tortoise. Imagine the discomfiture a god might experience if confronted with some of the beliefs taught in his name -- and some of the "divinely inspired" actions taken by his followers as a result. Om, in his little tortoise shell, also comes to the disconcerting realization that, while his religion is vast and has many zealous worshippers, he has very few actual honest-to-Om believers. One, actually (Knapp n.pag.). Pratchett shows a struggle between a god and his religion, which no has no room for him. He shows a cynical side like most British humorists in that there may be religions existing whose god died out long ago from lack of belief.

Memo Short Report

The recent conflict in FinanceGates Project was definitely harmful to the overall success of the project and the spirit of cooperation InternetGates Company tries to promote among its employees. From my viewpoint as that of a third party, I see the issue as a communication problem created by barriers that often stand between employees from different backgrounds. The solution can action directed at improving communication skills of our employees in various departments. Frank Brown, Marketing Manager for FinanceGates, as it turned out, had long been confident that the course taken by the project is completely wrong and doomed to fail. His impression of the ideas put forward by the Project Manager, Brian Graham, had long been negative, as he believed them to be both ineffective and unrealistic. However, for lack of communication skills expressed in shyness and fear to lose rapport with the boss, Frank was reluctant to share this with him. In this conversation, however, he simply exploded, telling Brian Graham all the negatives he had in mind. I personally witnessed this conversation and can reproduce it fairly precisely as it was etched upon my memory. Frank began by reporting about his findings during the preparation of the marketing plan. As he was sharing his insights, Brian once again expressed his dissatisfaction over delays in Frank’s work. He stated: â€Å"Once again, you are not able to meet the deadline for your marketing plan. I just remind you that our company places special emphasis on meeting deadlines, as I have already told you more than once†. Frank seemed very frustrated by this remark and began to justify himself by saying that facts that would support the current direction of business are very hard to find. In essence, what he has produced so far was a brief study of the market that showed limited opportunities for the kind of product the company expected to sell – and therefore turning it into a plan will be difficult, not impossible. In his speech, Frank complained about the boss â€Å"limiting his initiative† and lacking â€Å"flexibility†. The boss was listening to Frank’s tirade silently, showing signs of anger with his facial expression. However, he did not interrupt Frank who seemed really carried away with his emotions. When Frank seemed done with his speech, Brian said: ‘Okay, I have listened to you, and now you will listen to me. You have to be ready with your plan in three days. If you have nothing to show on Friday at noon, we will have to talk about your prospects in this company. Because one thing I want everybody to follow is take a positive attitude toward work and strive to complete every assignment with maximum quality. You do not seem to have it, but maybe I am wrong.† Both parties in the conversation obviously had their â€Å"skeletons† in the cupboards and reasons why they wanted to conceal part of the information. I know, for example, that Franks is driven by the perceived lack of rewards in this position. He confided in me at one point that in our organization he feels underpaid and misses the trappings of a managerial position, as in the previous job he was head of a marketing department. His past record also involved numerous conflicts with superiors as he sought to defy their authority; this was the way he learned to interact with superiors and it is not easy to abandon. His habits include arguing with the boss, not being cooperative. In turn, Frank expects all superiors to hostile and critical toward him. His barrier to communication can be described as â€Å"stereotyping† that â€Å"causes us to typify a person, a group, an event, or a thing on oversimplified conceptions, beliefs, and opinions† (Erven, n.d., p. 3). Frank stereotypes all superiors as people with enormous amount of power they use to oppress subordinates. His stereotypical, habitual strategy is to offer resistance. Brian’s problem is most probably lack of understanding for human nature. Poor listening skills contribute to communication barriers. In previous conversations, he could have noticed Frank’s unwillingness to support his ideas, but never paid attention. It seems to me frequently that he places too much emphasis on authority and too little on persuasion. In this case, his mistake was forcing an employee to do something in a rude manner, without asking for cooperation and testing willingness to help. To remedy the situation, both Brian and Frank require counselling that will help them change their communicative styles. Instead of showing quick aggression, they should both opt for communication patterns that will provide the room for the other person’s self-esteem instead of being confrontational. Brian, for instance, can change his attitude to subordinates to a more positive one, beginning to see them as people who are inherently good and are trying to accomplish their tasks effectively instead of accusing them of being lazy or inadequate.   For Frank, it can be recommended that he, too, stop seeing the boss as an enemy and rather as one who can provide assistance to him. I also propose that InternetGates organize a training for project managers and, if possible, their teams focusing on communication. The topics could include communication styles, communicative strategies, barriers to effective communication, and how to overcome them. Learning more about differences in cross-cultural communication will also be relevant to our employees since we are an international company. Trainings would provide managers with a background in communication that would help them resolve day-to-day conflicts that arise out of misunderstandings. Sincerely, Peter Black References Erven, B. Overcoming Barriers to Communication. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from http://aede.osu.edu/people/erven.1/HRM/communication.pdf Hampton, J. (2006, May 8). Barriers to Communication. Retrieved August 9, 2006, from http://www.community4me.com/barriers.html

Approaches to Psychology Essay

The psychoanalytic approach was started and developed mainly in Europe between 1900 and 1939 by Sigmund Freud, a Viennese doctor who specialized in neurology. As a doctor, he became interested in the field of hysteria – the manifestation of physical symptoms without physical causes – and became convinced that unconscious mental causes were responsible, and could be responsible for all mental disorders and even our personality. He created the theory of personality, and based his ideas upon intensive case studies of a considerable range of patients, especially his infamous study on â€Å"Little Hans†, a young boy who Freud carried out psychoanalysis upon. Bowlby (1946) applied Freud’s theories when he used psychoanalysis on a large group of children with various ages on a study of habitual delinquency. The central emphasis is on dynamic, biological processes especially those taking place in the unconscious mind, and involves the idea of psychic determinism, i. e. Freudian slips. Freud said that we all have instinctual drives – wishes, desires, needs, or demands, which are hidden and suppressed from the consciousness because society disapproves of their open expression. Freud proposes three main components of the mind; the id, the ego and the superego. The id operates on the pleasure principle and its goal is immediate gratification and reduction of tension caused by irrational impulses. The ego operates on the reality principle, and controls the id in its reaction with the world. The superego operates on the idealisation principle, with norms and values of society being internalised. According to this approach, we all undergo psychosexual stages – oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital – which gradually motivate the individual to focus on the libido, and can be linked with the Oedipus complex. The libido is described as ‘psychic energy’ behind primary drives of hunger, aggression, sex and irrational impulses. Fixation at any of these stages can lead to behaviour in our adulthood reflecting earlier stages of our childhood, which are caused by unresolved conflicts. For example, fixation at the oral stage can cause adult behaviour that is centred on the mouth (eating, smoking, etc. ) The purpose of psychoanalysis was as a therapy to treat mental disorder by means of treating the unconscious mind. The methods that Freud used for investigating the unconsciousness were by means of case studies, and deep analysis and interpretation. Free association involves the uninhibited expression of thought association, no matter how bizarre or embarrassing, from the client to the analyst. Dream analysis involves the analyst attempting to decode the symbols and unravel the hidden meaning (the latent content) of a dream from the dreamer’s report (the manifest content). Freud used his theory to explain a number of topics. He explained that the development of personality came from fixations or defence mechanisms, and that aggression was caused by hydraulic drives and displacement. Abnormality was seen as the consequence of early traumas and repression, which subsequently could impair our moral and gender development, the latter being the result of the Oedipus complex. The psychoanalytic approach has been greatly influential within psychology, in areas such as psychotherapy and developmental theories, and also beyond in art, literature and other sciences, some 100 years since Freud first developed his ideas. His theory has had some experimental support in certain areas, such as repression and fixation. Freud introduced the world to the concept of the unconscious, and regarded his case studies like ‘Little Hans’ and ‘Anna O’ as firm empirical support for his theory. He thought his belief in determinism and detailed collection of data were scientific, yet many psychologists today argue that his theories and ideas are too biological, that is that they rely too much on the influence of basic instincts and physical drives. Most of Freud’s ideas and concepts came from only a handful of results on the study of children. Freud could have allowed his own prejudices to shape his analysis, leading to no objective measures. His close interventions and feedback to the child’s family could have changed the child’s behaviour and that of its family. Psychoanalysis lacks rigorous empirical support, especially regarding normal development, and leads to reductionism, i. e. it reduces human activity to a basic set of structures, which can’t account for behaviour. Freud’s ideas have been accused of being irrefutable, and are therefore theoretically unscientific. Another approach to psychology is the behaviourist approach, which concentrates on the theory of learning and behavioural therapy, and tries to explain behaviour in terms of its relation to environmental events (stimuli), rather than any innate factors. The view that behaviour should be the sole subject matter of psychology was first advanced by the American psychologist John B. Watson in the early 1900s. His position came to be called behaviourism. He believed that psychologists could not afford to â€Å"speculate† upon the unobservable inner workings of the mind, since they are too private to be studied scientifically. For the behaviourist, much of their research focuses on objectively observable behaviour, rather than any internal process. The approach proposes that behaviour is radical, and that it is caused and maintained in this way.

Local Government Strategy Training Materials Essay - 3

Local Government Strategy Training Materials - Essay Example New managers are required to observe and implement these laws strictly. Examples of such business laws are inclusive of Occupational Act and Safety rules, financial laws et cetera. In relation to New Zealand context, there are rules and regulations that govern the operation of various businesses, hotels inclusive as discussed here in: Part 1 of the New Zealand Local Government Act 2002, explicates the preliminary provisions of the act; it indicates the purpose of this act which involves the provision of a local government authority with the capacity to undertake leaderships taking into consideration the needs of the diverse communities in New Zealand. It further states the specific purposes of the local governments (www.legislation.govt.nz n.d). Additionally, the act provides guidelines and powers for the local authorities that will assist them in making decisions regarding the specific activities they undertake as well as the ways in which they will undertake them. Section 3 (c) of the act promotes a dimension of accountability among the local authorities in their efforts to serve the New Zealand Communities. Consequently, section 3 (d), of the New Zealand Local Government act provides a platform for local authorizes to undertake wider roles that are geared towards meeting the current and future needs of the local communities. The major purposes of the local government within the boundaries of New Zealand are stipulated within this act. Sub-part 1, section ten of this act stipulates that the local government has the authority to undertake democratically oriented decision making processes, taking actions that impact on the local communities. Section ten, subpart 2 of the act elaborates on issues ascribed to good infrastructural quality, proper service provision and the appropriate regulatory measures. It stipulates that such facets should be efficient, appropriate as well as effective. The

Homework Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Homework - Case Study Example Apart from the time element, a firm must clearly define the prospects of the Information Security Officer and determine whether a worker is capable of filling the role (Putvinski 1). A firm is only as strong and tough as its weakest link, and when the organization works with third-party contributors their information security collapse can become the organization’s issue. Organizations should ensure that they document which vendors get confidential information, in addition to how this information, is taken care of when in the position of the vendor (Putvinski 1). The lack of authoritarian vendor guidelines could raise the risk of releasing a client’s private information. Documents do not storm out of the organization on their own. Having strict rules regarding who can physically access the offices, as well as how they gain entry, might decrease the possibility that an unauthorized person is present illegally to take information (Putvinski 1). The next step is to make sure that an organization’s documents how physical information is kept and destroyed. The issues discussed in student 1’s paper slightly resemble the findings in my paper. Student one talked about security issues with regards to protecting information systems through incorporating security policies. Such a topic is extremely wide in the IT field, and I feel that the student could have explained further as to the types of policies that could be implemented in order to secure our information systems. The second student’s paper was extremely educative. The student focused on the diverse fields of the security best practices touching over every security part that information systems involve. The paper also mentions some of the issues that I discussed in my paper such as physical security, vendor management and information security officers. Such a paper would be extremely helpful to someone who, in

Short story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Short story - Essay Example Their grief at the loss did not last forever, however. A year later, they were blessed with another daughter, the beautiful Princess Annabelle. Everyone agreed she was the sweetest child they had ever seen. Moreover, as she grew she remained sweet and innocent. Now she was 14 and the loveliest girl in all the land. They also had a son, Prince Benjamin, the Heir Apparent. Ben was a cheeky boy, barely twelve years old. He was tall and well built. As such, he looked older than a child of his age did, but he was playful and impish and always getting himself – and his sister – into trouble. Annabelle, for all her beauty, was naà ¯ve and impressionable and Ben would use that to his advantage. She was constantly getting into trouble because of him. Getting caught in the kitchen with her hand in the cookie jar, being blamed for stopping up all the heralds’ trumpets with feathers, but she didn’t mind. She loved her brother completely and everyone knew his pranks w ere harmless fun. Unfortunately, not everything was harmless and fun in the kingdom. The northern side of the palace faced a humongous, lone mountain. Not so long ago it was merely an inconvenient landform, making passage to the north more difficult than it might have been. But then, rumor has it, an evil witch decided to make the mountain and its many winding caves her home. Travelers began setting out to the lands north of the Kingdom and disappearing. Caravans of tribute began disappearing. The King sent a legion of soldiers to the mountain to oust the Witch, but they were struck down. A few bodies were found, but no one came back alive. This really troubled the king because it was frustrating efforts to ensure that his subjects were safe and had the freedom of movement. At some point, he asked his subordinate to arrange a troupe of the best soldiers who would