John Updike

Eliana Orosco Mrs. King Composition II 8 March 2013 A&P John Updike was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays, poems, and children’s tale. In the early stories such as â€Å"A&P† John Updike uses memories from his childhood and teenage years. For the sort of â€Å"small† scenes and stories for which he quickly became famous for (Updike 233). Updike uses the elements of setting, mood, and characters to illustrate the theme of a rebellious generation in the short fiction story â€Å"A&P†.The setting of the â€Å"A&P† takes place in a small town north of Boston around 1960. Sammy needs a sympathetic listener (or reader), someone who will grasp the meaning he is constructing for himself as he puts his actions into narrative order. Collapsing past and present in rapid yet reflective colloquial speech, Sammy tells how three teenage girls, barefoot, in bathing suits, came into the A & P store to make a purchase. As they move through the aisles , Sammy, from his work station, first ogles them and then idealizes the prettiest and most confident of the three.He names her, to himself, â€Å"Queenie†; and though he jokes with his fellow cashier about the girls' sexiness, he is quietly disgusted by the butcher's frankly lustful gaze as the girls search for what they want to buy. Worse is his manager's puritanical rebuke for their beach attire as Queenie pays Sammy for her purchase. Outraged that his manager, Lengel, has made â€Å"that pretty girl blush† and wanting to demonstrate his refusal of such demeaning authority, Sammy quits his job on the spot.Though the girls leave without recognizing their hero, and though his manager tries to dissuade him from disappointing his parents, Sammy feels â€Å"that once you begin a gesture, it's fatal not to go through with it† (196). He acts decisively, but the girls have disappeared from the parking lot by the time he exits the store. In practical terms, Sammy's act ion has gained him nothing and cost him everything, but his narrative affirms his gesture as a liberating form of dissent, (M.Gilbert Porter discusses Sammy's dissent as Emersonian nonconformity: Porter 1155-58. ) Sammy does not see how he could have done otherwise, though he finds himself at odds with the only society he knows, sure that â€Å"the world will be hard to me, hereafter† (Updike 238). The time of year in the story illustrates the old generation versus a new generation. The narrator states that the way the young ladies were dressed isn’t normally how they dress in the â€Å"A;P† a very respectable supermarket.Sammy notices everyone’s expression towards the girls while they walk the aisles like when he says, â€Å"The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle-the girls were walking against traffic (not that we have one-way signs or anything) were pretty hilarious. You could see them, when Queenie’s white shoulders dawned on them, kind o f jerk, or hop, or hiccup, but their eyes snapped back to their own baskets and on they pushed† (Updike 235).Another way the regular customers were so shocked how Queenie and her friends were dressed they had to take a second glare at them, â€Å"A few house slaves in pin curlers even looked around pushing their carts past to make sure what they had seen was correct. † (Updike 235). The mood of the story is informal/rebellious that it illustrates that the â€Å"A;P† is an uptight supermarket and everything has to be done the right way. Like for example when Sammy rings an item up twice and he gets chewed out by one of the customers, â€Å"I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell.She is one of those cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up† (Updike 234). Mr. Lengel the manager at the â€Å"A;P† was the first to mention to Queenie and her friends that their attire was not acceptable in the supermarket by saying, â€Å"Girls, this isn’t the beach. Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy† (Updike 237). The characters in the short story illustrates the different rebellious moments in the story.Like for example, when Queenie shows the reader she doesn’t care what people think about her or has to say when she enters the supermarket with a two piece bikini, â€Å"Walking to the A;P with your straps down, I suppose it’s the only kind of face you can have. She held her head so high her neck, coming up out of those white shoulders, looked kind of stretched† (Updike 235). When Sammy tells Mr. Lengel, â€Å"You didn’t have to embarrass them† (Updike 238). With Mr. Lengel replying to him, â€Å"It was they who embarrassing us† (238).Then Sammy quits by pulling the bow at the back of the apron and sta rt shrugging it off his shoulders. When Sammy quits his job is also a rebellious moment because he quits to show the girls he stands up for them but when he does there is no one to thank him for his heroic moment. Sammy finally realizes that â€Å"the world will be hard to me, hereafter† (Updike 238) for the decision he had made for sticking up for people he really didn’t know. What I learned while reading the story is that with every decision there is consequences.Speaking up for someone may not always be the wrong or right thing to do. When you want to speak your own mind and defend someone you should be ready for the consequences coming after. Work Cited John Updike â€Å"A;P. † Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mendall. Compact 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013. 234-38. Print. Saldivar, Toni. â€Å"The Art of John Updike's ‘A & P'. † Studies in Short Fiction 34. 2 (1997): 215. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Mar. 2013.

IT Project Management Assessment Essay

1. Summarizes how the project manager or team exhibited exceptional and ethical project management practices. Often, the project manager (PM) is faced with an issue that is not easily resolved by theory or the knowledge acquired from formal training. These types of problems are usually not of a technical nature and more often tend to be ethical or human resource issues (Stare, 2011). The satisfactory answer is often debatable and may suit one set of circumstances and yet not another. It is these difficult issues where the PM must draw from their practical experiences, moral and ethical obligations, and sometimes the rule of law. For example, international projects take the PM out of the comfort zone of the local laws and customs that they are used to working at home. In many host countries, doing business results in uncertainty and inconsistencies from the way business is conducted at home. Sometimes a practice that is permissible in the foreign country is not at home (Stare, 2011). Will making a payment to a foreign government official to obtain permits, licenses or police protection be seen as a bribe or just facilitating and expediting to get things done? That is why it is useful to have a set of guidelines. Companies should have a set of best practices or code of conduct to assist them, however, many do not. Here is a list of questions to use and may be proven useful in deciding a correct approach: Are you following rules that are generally understood and accepted for the task taking place? For example, in poker, bluffing is accepted as part of the game. Are you comfortable publicly discussing and defending your action? Would you be comfortable if your friends were aware of it? Is your family ok with it? Would you want someone to do it to you or to your family? What if everyone acted that way? Would the resulting society be desirable? Are their alternatives that rest on firmer ground? Some countries such as the U.S. have a legal framework, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for conducting business abroad. For instance, it states with respect to bribery that it is a crime for a bribe to be made to a foreign official or political party for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business or for directing business to another person even if this flows through an intermediary or consultant (Quade, Birkenkrahe, & Habermann, 2012). However, not all payments are defined as bribes. Payments for routine government action are allowed under the FCPA including the dispensing of permits, licenses and police protection as noted in the example. Thus, it is important to distinguish between those that are acceptable and unacceptable by noting the various laws of both your own country and those in your host country. As organizations increasingly adopt the practice of project management to achieve their goals, project managers must be adept in the soft skills, political savvy, and conflict management skills that are vital to project success. Project success relies directly on the ability of project managers to communicate, negotiate, and influence within a project environment that inevitably involves politics and conflict (KENNEDY & HUSTON, 2012). It is important for the project manager to approach difficult issues with care and conduct their affairs within the appropriate ethical and legal framework. Some of the PM guiding principles are gained from the company value statements, and codes of conduct. This will provide the project manager, along with his or her experience, the additional resources to resolve tough situations. 2. Discusses the role of the project manager or team, the organizational setting, the recipient’s approach to project integration management, and obstacles that had the potential of adversely impacting the triple constraints. Some of us are familiar with the term, triple constraint, which refers to the three way conflict between scope, time, and cost. The constraint is often represented diagrammatically by a triangle. What the diagram attempts to show is that if something change in any constraint it should impact the other two constraints in some way. For example, if you increase the scope of a project, this will have the effect of increasing the time taken and thus the cost of the project (DiVincenzo, 2006). Also, if you reduce the time taken, but you are not prepared to reduce the scope, then clearly it’s going to cost more to complete the project. Triple constraint is one of the least understood, but most important keys to understand in project management. The discipline of project management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project team and not just the project manager to organize the work to meet the constraints. Another tactic to project management is to consider the three constraints as finance, time and human resources. If you need to finish a job in a shorter time, you can throw more people at the problem, which in turn will raise the cost of the project, unless by doing this task quicker you will reduce costs elsewhere in the project by an equal amount. A project management graphic aid, which is a triangle, can show time, scope, and cost objective as the sides of a triangle, instead of the corners. Project management could used a pair of triangles called triangle outer and triangle inner to represent the concept that the intent of a project is to complete on or before the allowed time, on or under cost, and to meet or exceed the required scope (Anantatmula, 2010). The distance between the inner and outer triangles shows the hedge or possibility for each of the three elements. Bias could be shown by the distance. The example of a project with a strong time bias was the Alaska pipeline which essentially had to be done on time no matter the cost. After years of development, oil flowed out the end of the pipe within four minutes of schedule. The illustration of the time side of triangle inner was effective on the top of the triangle outer line. This was true of the scope objective line also. The cost line of triangle inner, however, was outside since the project ran significantly over budget. This is a good relationship of Performance, Cost, Time, Scope, and shows that a project can pick any three. Projects and initiatives are more likely to meet objectives and achieve success when change management and project management are being both used and integrated (DiVincenzo, 2006). An integrated approach increases the effectiveness of project delivery and increases the chances that sustained change happens. Integration of change management and project management enables the practitioners doing the work to be more aligned, the activities to be more effectively sequenced and the tools being used to be even stronger. Regardless of the specific approach to integrating people, processes, tools and methodologies, integration of change management and project management will provide a more complete approach and solution to creating sustained and meaningful change in the organization. Reference Anantatmula, V. S. (2010). Project Manager Leadership Role in Improving Project Performance. Engineering Management Journal, 22(1), 13-22. DiVincenzo, T. (2006). Project managers stay in charge and out front. Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 50(2), 19-25. KENNEDY, D., & HUSTON, M. (2012). Don’t promote the villains. (cover story). Industrial Engineer: IE, 44(10), 28-32. Quade, S., Birkenkrahe, M., & Habermann, F. (2012). Manage Projects Smarter: Picking Tools for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning, 5(3), 43-47. doi:10.3991/ijac.v5i3.2175 Stare, A. (2011). THE IMPACT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND PROJECT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN SLOVENIAN ENTERPRISES. Management: Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, 16(2), 1-22.

Biography of Sonia Delaunay, Modernist Designer

Biography of Sonia Delaunay, Modernist Designer Sonia Delaunay (born Sophia Stern; November 14, 1885 – December 5, 1979) was one of the pioneers of abstract art at the turn of the century. She is best known for her participation in the art movement of Simultaneity (also known as Orphism), which placed vibrant contrasting colors alongside one another in order to stimulate the feeling of movement in the eye. She was also a highly successful textile and clothing designer, making a living off of the colorful dress and fabric designs she produced in her Paris studio. Early Life Sonia Delaunay was born Sophia Stern in 1885 in Ukraine. (Though she lived there only briefly, Delaunay would cite the brilliant sunsets of Ukraine as the inspiration behind her colorful textiles.) By the age of five she had moved to Saint Petersburg to live with her wealthy uncle. She was eventually adopted by their family and became Sonia Terk. (Delaunay is sometimes referred to as Sonia Delaunay-Terk.) In St. Petersburg, Delaunay lived the life of a cultured aristocrat, learning German, English, and French and traveling often. Delaunay moved to Germany to attend art school, and then eventually went on to Paris, where she enrolled in lAcadà ©mie de la Palette. While in Paris, her gallerist Wilhelm Uhde agreed to marry her as a favor, so that she could avoid moving back to Russia. Though a marriage of convenience, her association with Uhde would prove instrumental. Delaunay exhibited her art for the first time at his gallery and through him met many important figures in the Parisian art scene, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and her future husband, Robert Delaunay. Sonia and Robert married in 1910, after Sonia and Uhde amicably divorced. Fascination with Color In 1911, Sonia and Robert Delaunays son was born. As a baby blanket, Sonia sewed a patchwork quilt of brilliant colors, reminiscent of the bright colors of folkloric Ukrainian textiles. This quilt is an early example of the Delaunays’ commitment to Simultaneity, a way of combining contrasting colors to create a sensation of movement in the eye. Both Sonia and Robert used it in their painting to evoke the fast pace of the new world, and it became instrumental to the appeal of Sonia’s home furnishings and fashions which she would later turn into a commercial business. Twice a week, in Paris, the Delaunays attended the Bal Bullier, a fashionable nightclub and ballroom. Though she would not dance, Sonia was inspired by the movement and action of dancing figures. At the turn of the century, the world was rapidly industrializing, and artists found figurative representation to be insufficient in describing the changes they were observing. For Robert and Sonia Delaunay, saturation of color was the way to depict the electric vibrations of modernity and the best way to describe the subjectivity of the self. Sonia Delauanay, Flamenco Dancer. 1916. Oil on canvas. Private collection. WikiArt / Public Domain Advances in the science of color theory had proved that perception was inconsistent among individual perceivers. The subjectivity of color, as well the realization that vision was a state of perpetual flux, was a reflection of the unstable world of political and social change in which the only thing man could verify was his individual experience. As an expression of her subjective self, as well as due to her fascination with juxtaposing color, Sonia made the first simultaneous dresses, much like the colorful patchwork quilts she made for her son, which she wore to the Bal Bullier. Soon she was making similar items of clothing for her husband and the various poets and artists close to the couple, including a vest for poet Louis Aragon. Spain and Portugal At the outbreak of World War I, Sonia and Robert were vacationing in Spain. They decided not to return to Paris, but instead to exile themselves to the Iberian Peninsula. They successfully settled into expat life, using the isolation to focus on their work. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Sonia lost the income that she had been receiving from her aunt and uncle in St. Petersburg. Left with little means while living in Madrid, Sonia was forced to found a workshop which she named Casa Sonia (and later renamed to Boutique Simultanà ©e upon return to Paris). From Casa Sonia, she produced her increasingly popular textiles, dresses, and home goods. Through her connections with fellow Russian Sergei Diaghilev, she designed eye popping interiors for the Spanish aristocracy. Delaunay became popular at a moment in which fashion was significantly changing for young European women. The First World War demanded that women enter the workforce, and as a result, their attire had to change to accommodate their new tasks. After the war was over, it was difficult to convince these women to return to the more restrictive dress of the 1900s and 1910s. Figures like Delaunay (and, perhaps most famously, her contemporary Coco Chanel) designed for the New Woman, who was more interested in freedom of movement and expression. In this way, Delaunay’s designs, which focused on movement of the eye across their patterned surfaces, also encouraged movement of the body in their loose fits and billowing scarves, proving two-fold that Delaunay was a champion of this radically new and exciting lifestyle. (Not to mention that she was the primary breadwinner for her family, making Sonia an exemplar for New Womanhood.) An example of Delaunays beachwear. Luigi Diaz / Hulton Archives / Getty Images Collaborations Delaunay’s exuberance and interest in multimedia collaboration, as well as her creative and social friendships with artistic Parisian notables, were fruitful grounds for collaborations. In 1913, Delaunay illustrated the poem Prose du transsibà ©rien, written by the couple’s good friend, Surrealist poet Blaise Cendrars. This work, now in the collection of Britain’s Tate Modern, bridges the gap between poetry and the visual arts and uses Delaunay’s understanding of undulating form to illustrate the action of the poem. Her collaborative nature also led her to her design costumes for many stage productions, from Tristan Tzara’s play the Gas Heart to Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Delaunay’s output was defined by the fusion of creativity and production, where no element of her life was relegated to a single category. Her designs adorned the surfaces of her living space, covering the wall and furniture as wallpaper and upholstery. Even the doors in her apartment were decorated with poems scrawled by her many poet friends. An example of Delaunays painted work.   Getty Images Later Life and Legacy Sonia Delaunay’s contribution to French art and design was acknowledged by the French government in 1975 when she was named an officer of the Legion d’Honneur, the highest merit awarded to French civilians. She died in 1979 in Paris, thirty-eight years after her husbands death. Her effusiveness for art and color has had lasting appeal. She continues to be celebrated posthumously in retrospectives and group shows, independently and alongside the work of her husband Robert. Her legacy in the worlds of both art and fashion will not soon be forgotten. Sources Buck, R., ed. (1980). Sonia Delaunay: A Retrospective. Buffalo, NY: Albright-Knox Gallery.Cohen, A. (1975). Sonia Delaunay. New York: Abrams.Damase, J. (1991).Sonia Delaunay: Fashion and Fabrics. New York: Abrams.Morano, E. (1986). Sonia Delaunay: Art into Fashion. New York: George Braziller.

Why did new and more aggressive movements to achieve racial essays

Why did new and more aggressive movements to achieve racial essays As early as 1909, the black community in America started to feel that they deserved racial equality, when they set up the NAACP, with the intention of using the law to obtain more favourable challenges to segregation in the courts. Nevertheless, little had been achieve by the 1940s besides increased membership. The NAACPs demands were quite modest, they wished to outlaw lynching, achieve voter registration and make Roosevelts Fair Employment Practises Committee a permanent institution. Even though the NAACP had Truman on their side, he was met with a great deal of opposition in Congress, leading him to backpedal on the civil rights issue. The NAACP, felt that they should use more calm methods to try and achieve their goals and went to court quite a few times to ensure that what was outlined in the 14th and 15th amendments were carried out. The NAACP made progress in the 1950s in two cases Henderson vs US and McLaurin vs Board of Regents. Even though their actions were morally cor rect, going though Congress to try and achieve desegregation was never going to accomplish much, especially considering that they had a very limited amount of publicity. Even though laws had been implemented lynching still occurred, the black community were still faced with a great deal of hostility and they had not truly achieve much in the terms of desegregation. This spurred on what may now be deemed as civil disobedience, and more aggressive actions to those that had previously been taken. The black community adopted new methods to try and achieve desegregation such as; sit ins (not only in buses which had been done by Rosa Parks in 1955) to publicly protesting in Woolworths in Greensboro, North Carolina. These series of events led to other foundations being formed such as the SCLC and the SNCC. Their ability to achieve a great deal of change was limited, and led to a considerably greater violence in the 1960s. ...

African creation myths Essay Example for Free

African creation myths Essay ? 1. Perhaps the answer that would best suit the question why life is so hard and then you die is how death is portrayed in these stories. There is suffering and hardship in one’s life because of disobedience of the hardships and commands of his gods. Death ultimately becomes the only â€Å"salvation† after so much hardship.   Had the living things and man obeyed the orders of their god, death would not have overcome these lives. In the story of the Plant of Life, the second wife, in her jealousy of not being considered by her husband despite the death of the first wife decided that in order to end her suffering must kill the plant that has taken the time and affection that would have been hers. Hence, ultimately, it is no wonder that in the end, the wife bears the consequent death of all living things. 2.  Ã‚   Basically these African myths hold women in the same way that women are being viewed today. Women are seen as being responsible for the ills that happened to society and life in general.   For example, in the story of the Plant of Life, the second wife was blamed for being the source of death when â€Å"she saw the plant and was jealous and cut it down with a hoe.† (Plant of Life). Such story shows how of little value women are because if the god did not play favourites among his wives, the story would not have ended that way. As a whole, women are viewed as being the cause of tragedies. 3. This myth basically starts out as a story of creation of the world and its five elements.   However, as the story intertwined itself it became a story not of creation but of destruction as each element became defeated by the other until at last Doondari, the god who created these things came down to earth and became the eternal one.   A very good point of interest here is how the story incorporated the attributes of men like sleep, blindness, worry and death and how these attributes became defeated when all of them became proud. It would seem that the writer wanted to emphasize that pride became the reason for the fall of its attributes and in the end, it was the god who has to put everything in its place. 4. One interesting thing about this myth is how Shida Matunda got afraid when the jealous wife killed the plant which what became of his favorite wife when she died. He is a god and yet he had no hold over life when in fact, he created the world and its living things. It would seem that as a god, he too depended on â€Å"higher beings† than himself and that he attributes life on these beings such as the plant which became the plant of life. 5. Between the myth of the Disobedience of Man and the story of creation in Genesis, one common factor emerges as to why one man disobeyed his Creator.   In this African myth, the root of the disobedience is the woman who failed to follow the orders of her god not to till the soil for food while in Genesis, Eve did not take heed in God’s warning not to eat the Forbidden fruit lest they will be punished. Hence, when they disobeyed the order of their gods, they were punished: the first beings in this African myth were sent with Death while Adam and Eve were banished out of the paradise that God created for them. 6. Indeed there is a great similarity between the myth Revolt Against God and the great Flood in Genesis although the manner of wiping out the face of the earth vastly differs with the version in Genesis.   In the myth of the Revolt against God, the gods wiped out the earth through fire whereas in the version of Genesis, the world was wiped out by the Great Flood.   Perhaps the reason why there is a similarity between the two stories is because we all came from the same roots.   Just like in the religions of   Christianity and Islam that traces its roots to Abraham, these stories of cleansing the earth may have also come from one original source and just branched out after generations of passing it. 7.   Ã‚  The gods in these African myths are not at all like gods but rather seemed like counterparts of men.   Although they have created the world, the living things and men, they never ceased to be like human beings who still feel the emotions of human beings or maybe they are simply reflections of the image and likeness of the beings they have created.   However, these African gods tend to be fickle-minded sometimes and would do whatever they feel like doing at the heat of the moment and that analyzing these myths, one can surmise that they are just exercising their power over their creations. African creation myths. (2017, Feb 28).

Social policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Social policy - Essay Example Many books and articles were written based on these crises. The most notified is that of W.Hutton’s â€Å"The State We Are in†. Certain arguments made by Hutton were welcomed by historians and analysts and certain gave way to a number of controversies. The main points which Hutton wants to emphasize are the shor-termism existing in Britain’s economy, The factors leading to that and what could be the solution to eradicate the short-termism. Before going deep into the arguments the existing situation of Britain’s state ant the relationship of the state with the individual and the range of activities of the state should be looked out. During the course of years Britain had been witnessing a series of crises they are o unemployment problem, housing for the slums, fall of export rates in the economic field etc. The 1920’s saw more industries such as motor and electrical industries but then failed to cater to the standards expected in the world market. On the other side the percentage of unemployment was also gradually increasing. The rate of exports has come down by 50%. But by 1980’s with the intrusion of Margret Thatcher the United Kingdom has become the place of leading trade and financial power. The various state enterprises were given the status of nationalized enterprises. But Britain seemed to have had an imbalanced relationship between its state and citizens. The best illustration could be of the worst housing conditions for the poor and the unfulfilled desires of the state to renew their locality and buildup of houses. There was definitely a failure faced by Britain in the housing matters as a result there was only an increase in the slum houses could be seen. Many political writers and reviewers were of the opinion that a strong and active participation of the citizens in the social and the political activities will turn the state a

Sales management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Sales management - Essay Example To make matters worse, various selling jobs in the same organization can involve very different tasks and the tasks may vary between organizations in the same industry (1996). Thus, to give a clear picture of what is expected out of new hires, sales training is important. To explain the personal and professional characteristics necessary for a successful sales career: New hires expect to know the growth path in the organization and also the requirements to progress on the growth path. Sales training involves the training on aspects such as personal characteristics attitude, role perception, skill refinement and professionalism which chart the progress of employees on growth path. To enthuse the new employee to pick-up quickly: A new employee is often uncertain of the environment/culture and working of the organization. Hence, it is important to enthuse the new employee with a training which will clear his doubts about the working and climb the learning curves speedily. To motivate the employees: One of the biggest challenges employers face is keeping staff morale high and enthusiasm up. Sales trainings will not only improve the knowledge base of the employees but add to the feeling that they are valued. This will result in making their sales call more effective, and also increasing their confidence & earning potential (Penistone 2002) . To impart the latest tactics or knowledge on current/ future market practices: The market place keeps evolving and competitors keep coming up with new ideas which should be either countered or emulated in an effort to stay in the race. With the daily routine job, sales people often miss to keep a tab on new and famous in the market. Hence, sales training is important to teach the existing employees the latest tactics in sales. To encourage specialization: Sales trainings, if carefully crafted, encourage sales persons to choose a line of sales