Critical Lens Paper Essay

Joanna Kathleen Rowling once said, â€Å"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.† Rowling’s words suggest it is our decisions that show who we really are more than our capabilities. It’s not about what we can do or how fast we can get it done, but it’s ultimately about the decisions we make to do something or not. Rowling’s words are in fact valid. The choices you make in a difficult situation can fundamentally show the people around you what you’re made of and what you’re about. Evidence of Rowling’s words exist in Ashley Antoinette’s novel Moth to a Flame through the use of characterization and Sidi’s novel Fatou: An African Girl In Harlem also through the use of characterization. Both Antoinette and Sidi’s work show that the decisions we make ultimately show who we truly are. Sidi uses the characterization of the Fatou in his novel Fatou: An African Girl In Harlem to sh ow that the choices we make basically show who we really are. Fatou is the protagonist in the novel. She was brought from African to America at twelve years old to marry a forty year old man named Lama. Fatou was sold to this man so her family could live wealthy in Africa. She always thought America was the land of greatness and freedom until she got there. Her forty year old husband did nothing but abuse her. Fatou wanted nothing more than to get away from Lama and make a better living for herself. She decided to go to school and get her get her diploma. Moreover, she decided to no longer be someone else’s property. The characterization of Fatou in the novel clearly shows that your decisions show who we truly are. Instead of being someone’s slave, Fatou chose to run away and make a better life for herself. Furthermore, she showed everyone around her that she’s not property and she’s no longer going to be oppressed by her forty year old husband. All things considered, by using Fatou Sidi shows or choices are what sho w what we truly are, not our capabilities. Ashley Antoinette uses the characterization of Raven in her novel Moth to a Flame to show the decisions we make fundamentally show who we are as a person. Raven is the protagonist in the novel. She is the daughter of Benny Atkins. At seventeen, Raven began dating a known stick-up kid named Mizan. Unknown to her, Mizan had different intentions. He wanted to take Raven’s father off his throne. Raven’s Father, Benny Atkins, was the king of the whole drug scene in Flint, MI and Mizan envied him. Her Father sensed there wasn’t something right about Mizan and forbid Raven to see him again. Unfortunately, this only pushed Raven closer to Mizan. From then on, Raven’s life began to spiral downward. Her father died, her mother was sent to jail, and she was left to take care of her six year old sister. Raven and her little sister moved in with Mizan. Shortly after, Mizan started abusing Raven. After losing her child because of the constant beating, Raven finally foun d the courage to leave Mizan. She reached out to Ethic, a man that worked with her father, and he helped her and her little sister get on their feet. Raven and Ethic ended up falling in love and starting their own family. Raven also applied for college classes and eventually got her degree. Antoinette’s portrayal of Raven shows that your choices are what make you who you are. Raven chose to leave Mizan and make a better life for her little sister, instead of being someone’s punching bag. Furthermore, Raven chose her life. She showed many individuals around her that she can stand on her own two feet and even with her struggles, she was going to make it. Thus, by using Raven Antoinette showed that your capabilities are nothing compared to the decisions you make. Joanna Kathleen Rowling’s quote, â€Å" It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities† , illustrates that our abilities are nothing compared to the decisions we make, our decisions are what show those around us who we ultimately are. Rowling’s words were validated by Ashley Antoinette in her novel Moth to a Flame using the characterization of Raven. She showed her readers that abilities mean nothing because the protagonist wasn’t capable of overcoming her boyfriend. Instead, the protagonist chose to leave him and she saved her life doing so. The lens is also proven true by Sidi in his novel Fatou: An African Girl in Harlem in which he uses the characterization of the protagonist Fatou to show that some things you’re not capable of controlling but you can make a choice to remove yourself from the situation. Writers like Antoinette and Sidi show readers that our choices are what show the individuals around us what we’re made of not our capabilities.

Kate Winslet Essay

These past few years of highschool have had its ups and downs, but overall it’s been amazing. I’d like to thank my friends and family for always believing in me. Congratulations to the grads of 2013, see you all in 10 years! A discriminating reader may take pleasure in reading â€Å"The Destructors†, over an immature reader. A discriminating reader is a reader that takes deep pleasure in fiction that deals with life significantly, expects characters, plot and themes that are complex or realistic and that may challenge his or her beliefs and view of reality. This means that a discriminative reader would enjoy reading interpretive literature, like â€Å"The Destructors†. â€Å"The Destructors† will appeal to a discriminating reader because it deals with life problems and events that have happened, a deeper meaning and the theme and the story challenges beliefs and views of reality. â€Å"The Destructors† demonstrates life problems and events that have happened in history, this intrigues a discriminative reader into wanting to read the book or story. The story shows life problems, where there are gangs that are wanting to make trouble and let loose; just have freedoms and not let others or themselves have special treatment. An examples of this is when Old Misery offers then gang three packages of smarties and the it’s stood there â€Å"puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. ‘Bet someone dropped them and he picked ’em up,’. † They tried to think of all different reasons why Mr. Thomas would do this and they figured it was a bribe. This would make a discriminative reader keep reading, as the story is also set time is during the London blitz were bombs destroyed hundreds of house and places. Not only does a discriminative reader become interested by life problems and historical events, but also by the theme and deeper meaning. A discriminative reader, unlike an immature reader, can figure out the deeper meaning or theme of a story easily and doing this keeps them interested. The these is not usually easily present in a story that a discriminative reader would read because they would want to stay interested and try to figure it out as they read it by themselves. The theme of â€Å"The Destructors† is not innocence because the war has taken that away from them and replaced it with something the reader can make up and believe. The reader, being discriminative, expects the theme to be complex and realistic, and as the story continues the boys, Blackie and T. , have a conversation about the one thing T. wants to destroy. † ‘We’ll burn them [the notes/money], one by one’ and taking it in turns they held a note upwards and lit the top corner, so that the flame burnt slowly towards their fingers. The grey ask floated above them and fell on their heads like age. † This makes the readers think the they’re not to be innocence anymore by selfishness and rebelliousness, also the war has â€Å"aged† them by not giving them a childhood. From what has been said, a discriminating reader is able to figure out a deeper meaning by analyzing and expecting or guessing what the theme and meaning of the story is to be. Through doing so, they may challenge their beliefs and view of reality. As a discriminative reader reads a story, along the way they challenge their own beliefs as well as the authors belief. Whole doing this, they could perceive reality differently or challenge how or why reality was done this way. In particular, the discriminative reader may read,† ‘Of course I don’t hate him [Old Misery]’, I said. ‘There’d be no fun if I hated him. ‘ The last burning note illuminate his brooding face. ‘All this hate and love,’ he said, ‘it’s soft, it’s hooey. There’s only things, Blackie,’ he looked round the room crowded with unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, [and] former things. † A reader may see this and think do I really need this or that and challenge what they believe in and if something is right or wrong, better or worse. Overall, the discriminative reader loos at a story and challenges why they believe or don’t believe this and how come reality is this way. Discriminating readers can use many ways to look at a story and analyze it; they may take pleasure in to why the story deals with life problems and events in history, also the theme and or deeper meaning, as well as challenging beliefs and reality. â€Å"The Destructors† demonstrates all of these and that is why this story could be appealing to a discriminative reader.

Home remedy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Home remedy - Essay Example In this essay some ingredients commonly available will be described with reference to their medicinal value. Honey is a natural sweet material that is produced by honey bees from the secretions of various parts of living plants. It is defined as "the nectar and saccharine exudation of plants, gathered, modified and stored as honey in the honeycomb by honeybees, Apis melifera" (Olaitan, Adeleke, Oha, 2007). Many published studies have proved that honey application to wounds clears the infection of the wounds rapidly without any prolongation in wound healing. Infact, there are some reports that honey promotes active wound healing. Research in the antimicrobial action of honey has shown that the substance has many antimicrobial properties against various bacteria like pseudomonas aeruginosa which is resistant to antibiotics (Olaitan et al, 2007). Researchers are often perplexed by the beneficial effects of honey because it is the medium for many organisms like bacteria and yeast. The material is made up of mainly water and sugar. Other than these compounds, honey also has minerals, enzymes wh ich have their origin from the saliva of the bees, and multivitamins. Honey has a characteristic taste and composition. It is highly viscous, acidic, hygroscopic and hyperosmolar (Olaitan et al, 2007). Thus the microorganisms which are present in honey are those which survive the physical and chemical properties of honey. They are mainly bacteria like Bacillus and Micrococcus and yeast like saccharomyces which come from bees, nectar and comb material (Olaitan et al, 2007). Research has shown that most of these microorganisms are in the dormant stage in the material and cannot grow or reproduce in that medium (Olaitan et al, 2007). Majority of these bacteria lose viability within 1-4 weeks (Olaitan et al, 2007). Those who continue to survive are spore forming organisms like clostridium species and bacillus cereus which can

Case Study Changing Nestle Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Changing Nestle - Case Study Example Efficient CEOs like Helmut Maucher and Brabeck-Letmathe initiated radical changes in the organization. Large-scale and transformational changes are necessary for maintaining organizational survival. Clardy says about the organization change as, â€Å"the field organization change was long equated with organization development (OD), whose proponents were up-front with the bona fides of their approach: full disclosure, informed consent, inclusive participation, and so on.†(Rothwell, Stavros, Sullivan & Sullivan, R. A, 2009, p. 12). The OD includes the dispositions to improve their organizations by applying knowledge from the behavioral sciences—psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and other related disciplines. Analyzing the changes taken place in the Nestle shows that the firm had undergone both the first order change and second order change. In a first order change, the firm makes only some changes in terms of transactional and organizational climate. On the ot her hand, Nestle had undergone a second order change in terms of transformational changes. Some of the important organizational changes were as follows. First order changes 1. Nestle started to transfer executives Switzerland to United States. 2. Nestle concentrated on the strengthening and centralization of its IT departments. 3. Started to purchase local subsidiaries in local markets and began to expand globally. Second order changes 1. Nestle completely refurbished the executive board with ten executives replaced (Palmer et al, 2005) 2. Nestle started to diversify its markets through their introduction into cosmetic and pharmaceutical markets. 3. Nestle introduced the acquisition and merger of several companies. The second order change is more evident in the organization. Transformational change had taken place as the organization switched from entrepreneurial to a wider and more professional management. An important transformational change that had taken place in the organizatio n was involvement in other fields of business through product diversification. In the same way, the acquisitions and mergers provided them accelerated growth, and increased popularity and reputation. However, throughout the course of change, the company took extra care in sustaining employees’ loyalty, impression, motivation, self belongingness, and positive behavior, even though the management had applied some ‘mid-management change theory’. As Palmer et al (2005) state, the change occurred in Nestle, emphasized by Peter Brabeck-Lemathe as incremental change. It is based on his leadership mindset, which focuses on substance over style, with strong dedication, and long term approach to growing business. In contradiction to Peter’s concept of incremental change on Nestle’s overall business, the incremental change was not incremental at all. Its market had expanded due to the aggressive acquisition of a number of food industries and due to the automat ion and integration of all its worldwide operation to facilitate better coordination in an aggressive strategic move; and the move had ended in closing 38 factories and cutting $1.6 billion in cost while improving the company’s ability to obtain volume discount, which Peter meant was incremental (‘Peter Brabeck-Letmathe-1944’). The three important lessons coming from the frontline are downsizing through retrenchment and down scoping,

A Reflective Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

A Reflective Paper - Essay Example This calls for the strategic intervention of the human resource manager or the HR. the HR has many duties which include recruitment of the workforce, human resource development, benefits and compensation, safety and health and enhancing better employee and labor relations. These factors are instrumental to the success of the organization and the approach that is taken by the HR to achieve this largely defines the success of the organization in achieving its objectives. To achieve these HR functions and responsibility and ensuring a culture of performance in the organization, the HR has to adopt an operation excellence approach that ensures making of benchmarks in the global market today. Schuler & Jackson (2007) define operation excellence as a set of strategic results that an organization aims to achieve over specific time, as demonstrated by factors such as strategic improvement in all the areas of concern, sustained improvement in all departments of an organization and laying down strategies to achieve high benchmark results. These are the essential driving forces behind a globalised approach in HR functions. Human resource recruitment, planning and selection One of the most important functions of the HR is to recruit, and critically plan on human resource that would be entrusted with the task of ensuring the success of meeting objectives in the organization. Largely, the recruited employees and staff have a large impact towards the performance of the organization in meeting its objectives. According to Brumfitt et al (2001), the complexity and extensive recruitment criteria that is involved in workforce recruitment has led many companies to hire consultancy firms in recruiting its workforce. In the current highly competitive market, this approach by the HR might not offer a competitive workforce, and it is the role of the HR to ensure that employees are recruited as per extensive criteria that rhymes with the philosophy of the organization. Johnston and Joh nston a leader in pharmaceuticals has such criteria that portray leadership in employee recruitment. The criteria involve more than 60 guidelines that guide the recruitment process and is highly integrated and linked with the philosophy of the company (Beiske, 2003). Such recruitment criteria would ensure that the process has a good fit and is well integrated to the values of the individual and the culture of the organization. The resulting workforce would lead to a culture of performance excellence. The use of assessment centers where prospective employees are critically evaluated over a short time has also proven to be instrumental in the recruitment process. Human resources development Human resources development ensures that employees are occasionally trained to meet the expected performance of a globalised market as well as improving their performance skills. It is the role of HR to plan, manage and implement occasional training of the workforce to ensure sustainable and consis tent performance of the workforce. According to Saiyadin (2009) GlaxoSmithKline a giant pharmaceutical has some of the best global human resource development strategies. The company uses assessment centers where each employee has to undergo assessment after a certain time to compare their skills with the required skills to perform the expected duties. The center reveals areas of weaknesses and

Brown v. board of education Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Brown v. board of education - Research Paper Example The law does also not recognize the lack of equality in segregating the two races and actually turns a blind eye to the fact that one race is being treated superior while the other remains inferior in their segregated premises. The fact that they had equal facilities does not mean that the facilities were of the same quality only quantity. Having equal number of teachers for example but who are not very much qualified (as they are also of similar race and hence not very much educated) does not shout the name equality at all. The same applies to the state of the other facilities such as the transportation and the building compared with what the whites were receiving. If the same quality of facilities cannot be accorded to the different races and the same treatment being offered to the white cascaded down to the blacks, then there can never be any form of equality even though the law rules that there is according to the fourteenth amendment as equality cannot exist just in one form or term and the rest of the issues ignored or

Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry Thesis

Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry - Thesis Example However, leisure time is usually limited and thus valuable in our modern society and hence consumer expectation of the product or experience purchased in this time has subsequently risen vastly. Quality is of the essence, gone are the days of 'Fawlty Towers.' People expect and demand so much more from their hospitality experience. Ideas, tastes and trends of hospitality are expanding, one example being the recent growth of boutique type hotels such as the Malmaison chain located in up market urban areas, modern contemporary urban chic culture were the emphasis is on luxury (Aggett; 2007). Such an experience and its quality is thus very much dependant on the service provided by front line employees. Only those enterprises which can satisfy the customer will survive, achieve longevity and be successful in the ever growing intensely competitive hospitality market. Hospitality is characterised by the 'intangibles' which can even be of increased value in comparison to the tangible physical products such as food and drink. Therefore, within the hospitality industry it is undoubtedly the performance of the front line service staff that will either enhance or diminish a customers experience and thus determine whether a hospitality venture sinks or swims. In order for staff to perform to such high standards and produce such quality they need to be committed to their organisation, to be empowered, to be given the appropriate skills, training, support, motivation and reward for their work and effort. A company that invests heavily in its human resources, selecting the appropriate people, providing opportunity and encouragement will achieve a loyal, motivated and proud workforce. It will provide the organisational culture necessary for long term success. This is very important for the hospitality industry to acknowledge, especially as typically the industry is characterised by a high labour turnover, casual, part time and migrant employees, and, certain labour shortages; "Finding chefs and waiting staff is one of the biggest problems facing employers, affecting all sectors of the hospitality industry." (Hospitality Training Foundation; 2002, 9) Rowley and Purcell (2001) acknowledge a range of skill shortages and relate it to; "Poor management practices and weak HR policies." (Rowley and Purcell; 2001) Investment in HRM and adoption of HRM practices, particularly soft HRM (Lucas; 1995) would only be advantageous to the hospitality industry. 2 Aim of Research The aim of this paper is to establish if the UK hospitality has adopted the concept of HRM. The meaning of HRM will be based upon the pioneering work of British hospitality academic David Guest (1987, 1997, 1999) who devised a matrix to represent the scale of hard and soft HRM in operation. Guest's writings epitomise soft HRM. Guest also provides a theory and model of HRM, of which the intention was: "To develop a set of testable propositions and finally to arrive at a set of prescriptive policies" (Guest, 1987, 503). The central hypothesis of Guests' theory is: " if an integrated set of HRM practices is applied with a view to achieving the normative goals of high commitment to the organisation plus high quality and flexibility, then higher worker performance will result" (Guest, 1997, 265). To judge the extent of HRM application, focus will be on the