Quicksand shows Helga’s as a figure of a Mulatto with a constant confli

Nella Larsen deals with the crisis of racial identity Helga has throughout Quicksand. She comments on the life of a mulatto woman at a strict black southern school who wants to find herself. Larsen deals Helga as the ‘tragic mulatto’ from the beginning of the novel setting clearly the views of black racial characteristics. The tragic mulatto being a stereotypical idea of someone doomed to limbo between being black and white. Helga exhibits, an inability to conform anywhere long enough to discover whether she is black or white. The main issue of the novel is society’s guidelines viewing things as black or white with no healthy medium. Helga’s sexuality comes into this as she is unable commit to relations feeling things are missing from her life. The struggle that is primarily at conflict is that of Helga’s relationship with James and Naxos. This makes her frustrated in that she is restricted from herself and has to battle with both James’ ideal s of her and her own. Larsen uses Axel Olsen as a figure that represents the white ideals that are present in Helga’s battle. He characterises how her ‘white’ desires and personality should be. Part of the conflict of self is that of Helga’s relationship with Dr Anderson he is seemingly part of the battle of her black self. It is his opinions of her that keep her from truly doing what she wants, it is frustration that keeps Helga. Another very important aspect of this book in screening the repression of Helga’s repressed sensuality is her eventual marriage of the Reverent. The final aspect is her dress and the way that she behaves, it is initially suppressed and comes slowly to be unleashed by her. These factors are all valid in showing the conflict of race in causing the repression and exhib... ...g with the spiritual feeling of being black. This fact that she cannot find an equilibrium is due to those around her such as James, Dr Anderson, Anne, Axel Olsen and the Reverend. They all are on the black or white scale and she just fits in between. The book never concludes her struggle, so there is still the question of whether she will ever find her identity. The school of Naxos creates brainwashed ideas, even though it is clear she never agreed with them she still cannot escape the beliefs that they held. Therefore she is stuck in a kind of limbo. Dr Anderson is the only man she truly can relate but it is this want for more that stops her happiness with him. Happiness is the biggest issue for Helga and whilst she cannot find a helpful balance in closing she has the most important job of all bringing up children, she is the influential role in their lives.

Physics of the Ear Essay -- Term Papers Research

Physics of the Ear The ear is an extraordinary human organ that many people take for granted until it doesn’t function. It is the only device that allows the human to hear sounds in their environment. The ear is made up of many parts that distinguish various sounds through different means. The ear anatomy and physiology along with how sound waves are transmitted into meaningful sounds will help one understand how hearing loss occurs. The ear is made up of three areas: the outer, middle, and inner ear. The outer ear is very important for collecting sound waves. It is made up of the pinna and the ear canal. The pinna, the actual physical outward appearance of the ear, receives sound waves and begins to funnel them into the ear canal. The ear canal is also known as the auditory meatus which is basically a convoluted tube. The next part of the ear, the tympanic membrane, is the beginning of the middle ear. The ear drum is crucial in the ability to hear. The tympanic membrane leads to a chain of small bones known as the malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and the stapes (stirrup). The stapes is ended with the footplate, a bone that looks like a stirrup. This area is known as the middle ear or the tympanic cavity. Located at the bottom of this area is the Eustachian tube which leads down to the throat. Its main purpose is to maintain the equalization of pressure between the tympanic cavity and the atmosphere as the air in the cavity is absorbed by the cells of its surface. The next area is the inner ear. This area contains many important structures to the hearing process. It begins with the oval window which is struck by the footplate of the Stapes. The cochlea is the area where most sound is transmitted from waves into impulses. W... ... environment. In order to do that we must know the anatomy of our ear and how it functions. An important function is how the sound wave is transmitted into meaningful information through means of frequency, amplitude, and location. By understanding how the ear functions people are able to understand and prevent hearing loss. WORKS CITED David, Edward E. Jr., John K. Pierce, and William A. Van Bergeijk. Waves, and the Ear. NY: Anchor Books. 1960. p- 34-50 Kirkpatrick, Larry D. and Gerald F. Wheeler. Physics: A World View, 4th ed. Orlando, FL. Harcourt College Publishers: 2001. p- 365-71 Littler, T.S. The Physics of the Ear, v3. NY: Macmillan Company. 1965. P- 1-9 Pickles, James O. An Intro to the Physiology of Hearing. NY: Academic Press. 1982. p- 264- 79 Sataloff, Joseph. Hearing Loss. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. 1980 P- 67; 75; 175-77;

Project Management – the Importance of the Planning Process

An individual assignment under the topic: „Project Management – the Importance of the Planning Processâ€Å" Teacher: Maria do Sacramento Basilio Student: 2012 Beja Content Content2 Introduction4 Project Management5 The Life Cycles of Projects7 PLANNING PROCESS8 Project Plan Elements11 Project Control13 Project Termination14 Conclusion16 Literature17 Introduction Each organization‘s activity in its own way contributes to organization‘s goals. It is not always easy to assess the impact of the work or the decision to achieve these objectives in the context of a complex organization of activities.Common to assume that what unites all the organizations processes to the general population and focus their efforts on a defined term direction, is a strategy. Project work is one of the extraordinary management forms. Each project is progressing to a certain stage, which is called the project life cycle. Despite the widely different names can be said that all projects are characterized by four main phases: initiation, planning, realization, finishing. An object of the Project: the planning process. The aim: to analize the essential part of Project life cycle – planning process.My essay will consists of two parts. In the first part I am going to introduce the Project Management and Project Life Cycle, in the second part of the project I will analyse the planning process and will make a conclussion about it‘s importance. Project Management In order to understand project management, one must begin with definition of a project. A project can be considered to be any series of activities and tasks that: * Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications * Have defined start and end dates * Have funding limits Consume resources (money, people, equipment) Project management, on the other hand, involves project planning ant project monitoring and includes such items as: Project planning: * Definition of work requiremen ts * Definition of quantity and quality work * Definition of resources needed Project monitoring: * Tracking progress * Comparing actual outcome to predicted outcome * Analyzing impact * Making adjustments Successful project management can then be defined as having achieved the project objectives: * Within time * Within cost * At the desired performance/technology level While utilizing the assigned resources effectively and efficiently * Accepted by the customer The potential benefits from project management are: * Identification of functional responsibilities to ensure that all activities are accounted for, regardless of personal turnover * Minimizing the need for continuous reporting * Identification of time limits for scheduling * Identification of methodology for trade-off analysis * Measurement of accomplishment against plans * Early identification of problems so that corrective action may follow * Improved estimating capability for future planning Knowing when objectives canno t be met or will be exceeded Unfortunately, the benefits cannot be achieved without overcoming obstacles such as: * Project complexity * Customer’s special requirements * Organizational restructuring * Project risks * Changes in technology * Forward planning and picking Project management can mean different things to different people. Quite often, misunderstand the concept because they have ongoing projects within their company and feel that they are using project management to control these activities.In such a case, the following might be considered an appropriate definition: Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck. Although this might be the way that some companies are running their projects, this is not project management. Project management is designed to make better use of existing resources by getting work to flow horizontally as well as verticall y within the company.This approach does not really destroy the vertical, bureaucratic flow of work but simply requires that line organizations talk to another horizontally so work will be accomplished more smoothly throughout the organization. The vertical flow of work is still the responsibility of the line managers. The horizontal flow of work is the responsibility of the project managers, and their primary effort is to communicate and coordinate activities horizontally between the line organizations.The following would be an overview definition of project management: Project management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of company resources for a relatively short-term objective that has been established to complete specific goals and objectives. Furthermore, project management utilizes the systems approach to management by having functional personnel (the vertical hierarchy) assigned to a specific project (the horizontal hierarchy). The above definition requi res further comment. Classical management is usually considered to have five functions or principles: * Planning Organizing * Staffing * Controlling * Directing In the above definition, the staffing function has been omitted. This was intentional because the project manager does not staff the project. Staffing is line responsibility. The project manager has the rigt to request specific resources, but the final decision of what resources will be committed rests with the line managers. Talking about the meaning by a â€Å"relatively† short-term project, not all industries have the same definition for a short-term project.In engineering, the project might be for six months or two years; in construction, three to five years; in nuclear components, ten years; and in insurance, two weeks. Long-term projects, which consume resources full-time, are usually set up as a separate division (if large enough) or simply as a line organization. The Life Cycles of Projects All organisms have a life cycle. They born, grow, wane, and die. This is true for all living things, for stars and planets, for the products we buy and sell, for our organizations, and for our projects as well.A project’s life cycle measures projects completion as a function of either time (schedule) or resources (budget). This is life cycle must be understood because the PM’s managerial focus subtly shifts at different stages of the cycle. During the early stages, the PM must make sure that the project plan really reflects the wishes of the client as well as the abilities of the project team and is designed to be consistent with the goals and objectives of the parent firm. As the project goes into the implementation stage of its life cycle, the PM’s attention turns to the job of keeping the project on budget nd schedule – or, when chance interferes with progress, to negotiating the appropriate trade-offs to correct or minimize the damage. At the end of the project, the PM turns into a â€Å"fuss-budget† to assure that the specifications of the project are truly met, handling all the details of closing out the books on the project, making sure there are no loose ends, and that every â€Å"i† is dotted and â€Å"t† crossed. Many projects are like building a house. A house-building project starts slowly with a lot of discussion and planning. Then construction begins and progress rapid.When the house is built, but not finished inside, progress appears to slow down and it seemingly takes forever to paint everything, to finish all the trim, and to assemble and install the built-in appliances. Progress is slow-fast-slow, as shown in figure: It used to be thought that S-shaped curve of figure represented the life cycle for all projects. While this is true of many projects, there are important exceptions. This is about the project that approaches completion by a very different route that the tradidtional S-curve, as shown in this figure:T o make a conclusion of the topic about product life cycle, there are two different paths (life cycles) along which projects progress from start to completion. One is S-shaped and the other is J-shaped. It is an important distinction because identifying the different life cycles helps the PM to focus attention on appropriate matters to ensure successful project completion. PLANNING PROCESS The most important responsibilities of a project manager are planning, integrating and executing plans. Almost all projects, because of their relatively short duration and often prioritized control of resources, require formal, detailed planning.The integration of a planning activities is necessary because each functional unit may develop its own planning documentation with little regard for other functional units. Planning, in general, can be best described as the function of selecting the enterprise objectives and establishing the policies, procedures, and programs necessary for achieving them. P lanning in a project environment may be described as establishing a predetermined course of action within forecasted environment. The project’s requirements set the major milestones, and the line managers hope that they can meet them.If the line manager connot commint because the milestones are perceived as unrealistic, the project manager may have to develop alternatives, one of which may be to move the milestones. Upper-level management must become involved in the selection of alternatives during the planning stage. Planning is, of course, decision making, since it involves choosing among alternatives. Planning is a required management function to facilitate the comprehension of complex problems involving interacting factors. The project manager is the key to successful project planning.It is desirable that the project manager be involved from project conception through execution. Project planning must be systematic, flexible enough to handle unique activities, disciplined through reviews and controls, and capable of accepting multifunctional inputs. Successful project managers realize that project planning is an iterative process and must be performed throughout the life of the project. One of the objectives of project planning is to completely define all work required (possibly through the development of a documented project plan) so that will be readily identifiable to each project participant.This is necessity in a project environment because: * If the task is well understood prior to being performed, much of the work can be preplanned. * If the tas is not understood, the during the actual task execution more knowledge is gained that, in turn, leads to changes in resource allocations, schedules, and priorities. * The more uncertain the task, the greater the amount of information that must be processed in order to ensure effective performance. Without proper planning, programs and projects can start off â€Å"behind the eight ball† because o f poorly defined requirements during the initial planning phase.Below is a list of the typical consequences of poor planning: * Project initiation * Wild enthusiasm * Disillusionment * Chaos * Search for the guilty * Punishment of the innocent * Promotion of the nonparticipants * Definition of the requirements Obviously, the definition of the requirements should have been the first step. There are four basic reasons for project planning: * To eliminate or reduce uncertainty * To improve efficiency of the operation * To obtain a better understanding of the objectives * To provide a basis for monitoring and controlling work Planning is decision making based upon futurity.It is a continuous process of making entrepreneurial decisions with an eye to the future, and methodically organizing the effort needed to carry out these decisions. Furthermore, systematic planning allows an organization of set goals. The alternative to systematic planning is decision making based on history. This ge nerally results in reactive management leading to crisis management, conflics management, and fire fighting. Effective total program planning cannot be accomplished unless all of the necessary information becomes available ant project initation. These information requirements are: * The statement of work (SOW) The project specifications * The milestone schedule * The work breakdown structure (WBS) The statement of work (SOW) is a narrative description of the work to be accomplished. It includes the objectives of the project, a brief description of the work, the funding constraint if one exists, and the specifications and schedule. The schedule is a â€Å"gross† schedule and includes such things as the: * Start date * End date * Major milestones * Written reports The last major item is the work breakdown structure. The WBS is the breaking down of the statement of work into smaller elements so that better isibility and control will be obtained. Project Plan Elements The project master plan should contain nine elements: a project overview, a statement of objectives, a description of the technical and managerial approaches to the work, all contractual agreements, schedules of activities, a list of resource requirements or a project budget, personnel requirements, project evaluation methods, and preparations to meet potential problems. These are the elements that constitute the project plan and the basis for a more detailed planning of the budgets, schedules, work plan and general management of the project.Once this basic plan is fully developed and approved, it is disseminated to all interested parties. I would like to describe each element. * Overview. This is a short summary of the objectives and scope of the project. It is directed to top management and contains a statement of the goals of the project, a brief explanation of their relationship to the firm’s objectives, a description of the managerial structure that will be used for the project, an d a list of the major milestones in the project schedule. * Objectives. This contains a more detailed statement of the general goals noted in the overview section.The statement should include profit and competitive aims as well as technical goals. * General approach. This section describes both the managerial and the technical approaches to the work. The technical discussion describes the relationship of the project to available technologies. For example, it might note that this project is an extension of work done by the company for an earlier project. The subsection on the managerial approach takes note of any deviation from routine procedure – for instance, the use of subcontractors for some parts of the work. * Contractual aspects.This critical section of the plan includes a complete list and description of all reporting requirements, customer-supplied resources, liaison arrangements, advisory committees, project review and cancellation procedures, proprierty requirements , any specific management agreements, as well as the technical deliverables and their specifications, delivery schedules, and a specific procedure for changing any of the above. Completeness is a necessity in this section. If in doubt about whether an item should be included or not, the wise planner will include it. * Schedules.This section outlines the various schedules and lists all milestone events. The estimated time for each task should be obtained from those who will do the work. The project master schedule is constructed from these inputs. The responsible person or department head should sign off on the final, agreed-on schedule. * Resources. There are two primary aspects to this section. The first is the budget. Both capital and expense requirements are detailed by task, which makes that a project budget. One-time costs are separated from recurring project costs. Second, cost monitoring and control procedures should be described.In addition to the usual routine elements, the monitoring and control procedures must be designed to cover special resource requirements for the project, such as special machines, test equipment, laboratory usage or construction, logistics, field facilities, and special materials. * Personnel. This section list the expected personnel requirements of the project. Special skills, types of training needed, possible recruiting problems, legal or policy restrictions on work force composition, and any other special requirements, such as security clearances, should be noted here.It is helpful to time-phase personnel needs to the project schedule. This makes clear when the various types of contributors are needed and in what numbers. These projections are an important element of the budget, so the personnel, schedule, and resources sections can be cross-checked with one another to ensure consistency. * Evaluation Methods. Every project should be evaluated against standards and by methods established at the project’s inception. T his section contains a brief description of the procedure to be followed in monitoring, collecting, storing, and evaluating the history of the project. Potential Problems. Sometimes it is difficult to convince planners to make a serious attempt to anticipate potential difficulties. One or more such possible disasters such as subcontractor default, technical failure, strikes, bad weather, sudden required breakthroughs, critical sequences of tasks, tight deadlines, resource limitations, complex coordination requirements, insufficient authority in some areas, and new, complex, or unfamiliar tasks are certain to occur. The only uncertainties are which ones will occur and when.In fact, the timing of these disasters is not random. There are times, conditions, and events in the life of every project when progress depeneds on subcontractors, or the weather, or coordination, or resource availability, and plans to deal with unfavorable contingencies should be developed early in the projectâ⠂¬â„¢s life cycle. Some PMs disdain this section of the plan on the grounds that crises cannot be predicted. Further, they claim to be very effective firefighters. It is quite possible that when one finds such a PM, one has discovered an arsonist.No amount of current planning can solve the current crisis, but preplanning may avert some. Project Control The two fundamental objectives of control are: 1. The regulation of results through the alteration of activities. 2. The stewardship of organizational assets. Most discussions of the control function are focused on regulation. Physical Asset Control Physical asset control requires control of the use of physical assets. It is concerned with assets maintenance, whether preventive or corrective.At issue also is the timing of maintenance or replacement as well as the quality of maintenance. Physical inventory, whether equipment or material, must also be controlled. It must be received, inspected, and possibly stored prior to use. Records of all incoming shipments must be carefully validated so that payment to suppliers must also be applied to suppliers from inside the organization. Even such details as the project library, project coffee maker, project room furniture, and all the other minor bits and pieces must be counted, maintained, and conserved.Human Resource Control Stewardship of human resources requires controlling and maintaining the growth and development of people. Projects provide particulary fertile ground for cultivating people. Because projects are unique, differing one from another in many ways, it is possible for people working on projects to gain a wide range of experience in a reasonably short time. Measurement of physical resource conservation is accomplished through the familiar audit procedures. The measurement of human resource conservation is familiar audit procedures.The measurement of human resource conservation is far more difficult. Such devices as employee appraisals, personnel performan ce indices, and screening methods for appointment, promotion, and retention are not particularly satisfactory devices for ensuring that the conservation function is being properly handled. The accounting profession has worked for some years on the development of human resource accounting, and while the effort has produces some interesting ideas, human resource accounting is not well accepted by the accounting profession.Financial Resource Control Though accountants have not succeeded in developing acceptable methods for human resource accounting, their work on techniques for the conservation of financial resources has most certainly resulted in excellent tools for financial control. This is the best developed for the basic areas needing control. It is difficult to separate the control mechanisms aimed at conservation of financial resources from those resources from those focused on regulating resource use. Most financial controls do both.Capital investment controls work to conserve the organization’s assets by insisting that certain conditions be met before capital can be expended, and those same conditions usually regulate the use of capital to achieve the organization goal of a high return on investments. The techniques of financial control, both conservation and regulation, are well known. They include current assets controls, and project budgets as well as capital investment controls. These controls are exercised through a series of analyses and audits conducted by the accounting function for the most part.Project Termination As it must to all things, project termination comes to every project. At times, project death is quick and clean, but more often it is a long process. The process of termination is never easy, always complicated, and, as much as we might wish to avoid it, almost always inevitable. The problem is how to accomplish one of the several levels of what is meant by project termination with a minimum of trouble and administrative dislo cation. A project can be terminated in one of four ways: * by extinction * addition * integration * starvation y Extinction: * The project has successfully completed scope and the client has accepted it. * It has been superseded by the external developments like technological advancement, market crisis etc * It has failed to achieve it’s goal. * It has no longer support from the Senior Management. It is also sometimes referred to as â€Å"termination by murderâ€Å". The important point to notice is that all project activity ceases in this kind of termination. by Addition: * The project is a major success. It becomes the formal part of the parent organization. The transition or   transfer of the resources such as the project personnel, materials and equipment to the newly created unit within the parent   organization. by Integration: * The project is successfully completed. The   project product is integrated to the operations of the client. This is the most common mo de and most complex operation. The resources are   released   and   disturbuted in the parent organization. by Starvation: * The project is terminated by budget decrement. * It is also known as   withdrawal of â€Å"life support†. The reason of this termination is generally to shadow the failure of non-accomplishment of the goals.This can save face of the senior management and avoid embarrassment. The Project Final Report incorporates the process knowledge gained from the Project. In addition to preservation of Project records, the Final Report embodies the experience from which we learn. It should include: Project performance comments, administrative performance comments, organizational structure comments, personnel suggestions, possibly a confidential section. Conclusion Project planning is probably the most time-consuming project management activity.Project planning continues from the initial idea through to the system delivery. Plans must be regulary updated using the new available information. There are many techniques for developing a project plan. They are fundamentally similar. All of them use a systematic analysis to identify and list the things that must be undertaken in order to achieve the project‘s abjectives, to test and validate the plan and to deliver it to user. Planning is an essential function in the success of any project. Planning does not refer simply to pulling out a calendar and recording things to do on random dates.Planning is all about actively plotting a course to meeting goals. Goals are really the start of any discussion about planning in a successful project. Literature 1. Harold Kerzner „Project Management. A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controllingâ€Å" sixth edition 2. Samuel J. Mantel Jr. Jack R. Meredith, Scott M. Shafer, Margaret M. Sutton „Project Management in Practiseâ€Å" second edition 3. Jack R. Meredith, Samuel J. Mantel „Project Management. A Managerial app roachâ€Å" third edition 4. V. Buda, A. Chmieliauskas „Projektu valdymasâ€Å" 2006

Dominican vs Haiti

Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic Comparing Two Sister Countries They say the grass is always greener on the other side, for Haiti this saying seems to be true. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola, but are completely different in many ways. Haiti is the poorest countries in the western hemisphere and almost all of its people live in poverty, while the Dominican Republic is one of the wealthier countries.In 1960, both countries had the same per capita real GDP but in the last 50 years, the Dominican Republic has more than tripled its growth compared to Haiti. While these two countries are similar in geography and historical institutions, the growth between the two is drastically different. Throughout this paper, I will compare both countries economic growth and why two countries with the same geographic area are so different. Up until the 1960’s, the Dominican Republic and Haiti had very similar economic stance and were relatively growing at the same pace.But suddenly, over the next decade, the Dominican Republic rapidly increased, while Haiti barely grew at all. One reason, according to Jared Diamond’s book â€Å"Collapse†, is that because Haiti resides on the western side of the island and has a lower rainfall percentage resulting in deforestation and loss of soil fertility, which effects the agricultural industry and hinders their growth. Another factor is that Haiti has less than half the space that the Dominican Republic does, but in the 1960’s Haiti had a larger population.Throughout the 1960’s, it seemed as Haiti was beating the Dominican Republic in population, but if you look at graph 1, you can see that as soon as the 1970’s came about Haiti’s population growth slow down compared to the Dominican Republic. Because Haiti occupies a smaller portion of the island compared to the Dominican Republic, it has a higher population density in a smaller area, which also contributes to the poor soil fertility and deforestation, effecting Haiti’s agricultural industry.While Haiti’s agricultural industry was decreasing, the manufacturing industry increased because Haiti provided low-cost labor. This was a huge role in Haiti’s economy during the 1970’s, as well as other services such as tourism. But tourism soon decreased due to political turmoil during the 1980’s, and the media had identified Haiti has the place where the immune deficiency disease, commonly known as AIDS, had originated from. This caused Haiti to experience a rapid decrease in its economy, as you can see in the per capita real GDP in graph 2.You can identify the growth through the 1970’s, and then during the 1980’s you notice that it starts to decrease. This was just the beginning of Haiti’s downfall. On the other side of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic was growing at a much faster pace. The Dominican Republic has the largest economy in the Car ibbean and second largest of population and land mass. It has a very stable manufacturing and construction industry. They also have mining, which exports many major minerals, like gold and silver.Tourism has also increased over the years, which has been the leading factory in the country’s service industry. The Dominican Republic’s government fully supported the growth of the tourism industry, but when the country’s water supply became poor and there was a shortage of many supplies and materials they needed, the tourism industry decreased. While researching these two countries policies and economy standings, I came across information about both countries relationships to the United States.The United States and Dominican Republic have a very good relationship, and the US has strong interests in the Dominican Republics’ strong economy and stable democratic development. The two countries have a strong export and trading relationship, and work together on man y foreign affairs, such as trafficking illegal substances and immigration policies. This strong political and economical relationship, I believe, has greatly helped the rapid growth that the Dominican Republic has experience over the last half century.

Multicultural counselling values Essay

The main purpose of writing this essay is to analyze and highlight some personal values of a counselor that can affect the quality of maintaining effective therapeutic relationship with the client. The writer agrees to the statement â€Å"it is impossible for a counsellor to maintain a position of neutrality.† The views and critical approaches of the writer are expressed in the following essay. Introduction Everyone has his/ her personal values, beliefs, biasness and preferences. Personal values have great influence in relation to human decision-making. Each individual has a different set of personal values because everyone has a different set of life experience, environment and family background. Values are essential to our life as it acts as a form of catalyst to guide our life, shape our behavior and reflect our personal moral standards. For example, an individual who uphold the values of trust, sincerity and honesty, he/she will want people to have faith in them. In addition, this group of individuals would yearn others to be sincere in terms of friendship and things they do. It could also be in a form of ability to perform certain task with full of sincerity without hoping for any credits. (All of us preserve values which produce high standards, portraying good image to our loved ones, self and ultimately, bringing good things towards the society. Personal Values & Its Origins The writer has personal values that include being filial, devoted, responsible, and establishing good relationship with his loved ones. In certain circumstances, these personal values of the writer may differ from the client’s values, resulting in conflict and resistance. (It creates relationship difficulties with the clients.) This may prevent the writer from forming a therapeutic relationship with the clients. One example would be the writer, who is a religious person, dealing with clients who have a character totally opposite of him. Since he is religious, the writer is cautious with his act and reframe from situations leading to sins. For instance, if the writer were to counsel clients facing issues such as abortion, gambling, divorce and intentional single parenting, it may lead to conflicts due to differing personal values. The writer heavily criticizes these acts because the client is irresponsible, inhumane, and he considers such acts as uncivilized. Regardless of the client’s ethnicity / religion, conflicts may bring up feelings of anger, uneasiness and negativity towards the client. The author’s emotions will be affected due to the writer being intolerant of such acts. It is due to the writer’s strong religious values that cause his emotions and cognitive ability to be disoriented. As he is not in the right state of mind to think effectively, the writer’s focus is affected. The level of empathy and being congruent become affected because the counselor’s value does not align well with his client’s values. As a result, the writer has the urge to judge the clients and become biased. Such emotions can be overwhelming, leading to the writer’s unconscious skewed judgment and possible ill feelings formed of these clients. Dealing with countertransference In addition, it is equally of utmost importance to recognize our own unresolved personal issues that feeds into problematic behaviors with clients .Take the following as an example, a client who wants to change into a filial person after committing various sinful acts. The client wants to repent. Relating back to the writer’s past experiences, he too was once a rebellious person. His parents condemned his acts that brought shame to the family name. It was tough and difficult for his parents to accept him back. That was one incident his parents nearly disowned him after what he had done. He had been heavily insulted and judged. The writer knew it was not his fault because his motive was to only get the attention from his parents. His parents have been biased and treated him unfairly compared to his other two siblings. With the writer’s past experience, the writer has developed similar chemistry with his/her clients. The writer becomes emotionally detached with his/her client due to the situation similarity that the client had experienced. Instead of analyzing and finding out more about the client’s main issues, the writer became engrossed with the similar event portion. He may place his focus on the filial issue. If the writer is unable to deal with his unresolved conflicts from the past or other relationships, it can affect the therapeutic outcome. It may slow down the process of gathering information that is important for the client’s needs. The writer’s focus may wander and disorientate, that can impair the quality of the session. By having the impression of showing good and positive impression to the clients, the counter transference affects the therapy session when the counselor is readily accepting the client’s opinions. The writer’s blind spots may hinder his ability to deal with various similar behaviors shown by the clients, or the writer’s old wounds that surfaced as he works to process the client’s pain. Each client needs to be met where they are and worked with on their individual â€Å"stuff†, without interference from either the counselors’ prior experiences with clients or their personal values. On the other hand, counselors need to know what their personal thresholds are. For example, if the writer feels that he cannot work with a child abuser or a murderer without allowing his personal values affect his work with the client, he needs to take the precautionary measures to excuse himself from such clients and refer them to another counselor. Alternatively, he can seek supervision from someone who is experienced for advice. Benefits and Limitations of Personal Values There are some benefits that personal values can bring upon in counseling. Values by the counselor can be used as a form of communication. Based on an article entitled â€Å"Values in Counseling and Psychotherapy†, written by Patterson, he mentioned that the therapist’s values are not communicated directly to the client . The writer as a person would relate to the client as a person. In other words, the writer feels he is in a position whereby he set the appropriate tone and example to the client. When the counselor begins to demonstrate empathy, sincerity, authenticity, respect and establishing good rapport, the client would most likely mirror these values. Since the client develops more positive attitudes and the willingness to change, it establishes better communication with the writer. The writer is able to show congruence as well as unconditional positive regard towards the client. The writer also feels that benefits would arise from working with specific groups of people based on shared values. For example, a preacher or imam who is counseling will likely do so in a way that incorporates their religious beliefs. The client would specifically go to that person for religious-based counseling. However, if the client is struggling with those beliefs, their struggles may not be heard Managing Personal Values Every obstacle can be overcome and dealt with. In the counseling context, values are manageable which can be key to maintaining effective therapeutic alliance. One of the key factors is to establish â€Å"multicultural awareness†. Multicultural awareness increases a person’s intentional and purposive decision-making ability by accounting for the many ways that culture influences different perceptions of the same solution. This illustrates how multicultural awareness is able to influence the counselor decision-making. Different people have different cultures. Therefore, to avoid any form of culture shock, it is therefore vital for the counselor to develop his/her level of multi-cultural awareness. The counselor has two choices: to ignore the influence of culture, or to attend to it. Both cases, cultures will still continue to influence a client’s and a counselor’s behavior with or without the counselor’s intentional awareness.Counselors are encouraged to attend multicultural knowledge training. Some of the knowledge approaches that are commonly used are through publications, audio and visual media, and reading materials. Let’s ask ourselves this question â€Å"Why do we, as counselors, have to be multicultural competent?† One reason is to avoid any form of personal biases, stereotyping or misjudging the clients. By increasing the counselor’s knowledge about other cultures, the writer believes it would provide him with correct and sufficient information about one’s own as well as target cultures. The writer’s high level of competencies and awareness increases his self-confidence and self-realization to face the problem effectively and diligently. It puts the writer in a position whereby he feels much comfortable to listen and understand emphatically to the client. If the writer were to deal with clients who come from different backgrounds and cultures, the writer should have the ability to handle his personal values properly in order not to offend his clients. The writer may experience some form of culture shock if he is incompetent with his awareness. The awareness competencies are essential as it enables to control the writer’s interpretation of his own knowledge and utilizing the right skills. By controlling the writer’s interpretation, he can avoid making any form of assumption and jump to conclusion. The multicultural skilled counselor does not take awareness for granted. Conclusion Is it possible to maintain a position of neutrality? The answer is no. With all these values that are lingering in the counselor’s thought process, the counselor may have difficulties. The counselor has to be natural. Hiding behind a professional faà §ade may leads to upsetting the counseling relationship and jeopardizing the therapeutic factors in the process. Counselors who have different set of personal values can affect the therapeutic relationship outcome. A counselor who is unable to manage his/her personal values can affect the quality of relationships between people. The most common misconception among clients is that counselors tend to tell individuals what to do or choices he/she should have made. Instead, role of the counselor is to guide the client to make use of the resources they have and help them to define their goals. Nonetheless, the counselor’s personal values can be used as a tool in creating some form of connection with the client. (We, as counselors will do our best to find the right approach for each client.) A counselor shall never make any form of assumptions. Whatever values the counselor believes in, they should never judge or be bias towards the client. In reality, differences in personal values may stand as an obstacle in establishing therapeutic relationships with clients. The fundamental of personal values in counseling is to alleviate the personal distress. An effective counselor has to be authentic, genuine, have an appreciation for cultural influences, and retain effective interpersonal effective communication skills .

My First Morning At School

It was the 17th March 1997. My first day of school. I dragged myself out of bed at 7:30 am. I went to the toilet to wash my face, where I saw a big red spot on my forehead: that was the first sign of bad luck. I heard my mum coming out of her room:, â€Å"Are you ready for your big day?† â€Å"No†, I moaned anxiously, pretending to be sick. â€Å"You are going to school today, so don't even try it!†. My mum could see right through me, and knew I wasn't sick. I was really scared as I stepped through the front gates of what was about to be my new school, counting every step I took. My mum led me to the general office; we were 20 minutes late. I was really scared. I started to shake. My heart started beating twice as fast. I knew all of the children were already inside the classroom. They were going to watch every move I made. We were kept inside the office for about half an hour. Shortly after came a frightening old women with grey hair, who looked remarkably like Cinderella's step mother. She came in and said to my mother, â€Å"Are you Miss Omar?† â€Å"Yes†, my mum said, sounding like a robot boring and repetitive, a blank expression on her face. â€Å"Come follow me. Right this way,† the women said, very happily. My mum and I followed her as she led us to my new classroom. She opened the door really slowly, causing the old and rotten door to make a terrifying noise. This attracted all the students' attention. I was really embarrassed as I stood outside of the classroom. She went in and called the leading classroom teacher outside for a moment, to have a word with my mum. I was told to introduce my mother and myself, and teacher introduced herself; her name was Ms.Willis. I went inside the classroom with my teacher. Even though I was taller than most of them I felt as though I was surrounded by giants. Ms. Willis told everyone to sit on a nasty dirty carpet that had chewing gum all over it, which was at the back of the classroom, and told me to introduce myself to introduce myself to everyone. We were told to sit in alphabetical order: I was told to sit next to three girls. I was really nervous because they kept on looking at my forehead. I got really angry, and said, â€Å"Stop it!† in a really deep and angry voice. They were shocked and had puzzled expressions. My teacher came to me with a blank exercise book and a reading book, â€Å"Can you read?† I nodded my head knowing little of what she meant. â€Å"Read this book for me†, Ms. Willis said. I read the book with an awkward accent. She gave me the exercise book and told me to write my name, maths and 5W, because that was my class's name. It was 12:00 pm. My teacher shouted out, â€Å"Stop what you are doing and line up outside†. I followed everyone as they stopped and lined up outside, and stood at the back of the line. My teacher came out locked the door and led us to this big shiny stairwell. It was so clean and shiny you could see your reflection on the floor. I stepped inside the stairwell: it was reeking of expired food. Every step I took, the smell was getting worse and worse. We finally got inside the dinner hall. It was big: there were 14 long tables inside it. You would have to be quiet to get your lunch but my table was noisy so we didn't get to go first. We eventually got there I felt humiliated by the food the school was offering. It looked like food that was cooked yesterday. That was the final humiliation of the day.

Malware review

While technology in computing continues to rise, computer hackers and crackers are also evolving. Cracking even started at the early age of computer technology. It started from simple codes exploiting bugs in Operating Systems. And now, it becomes a hobby of some. Stealing passwords and exploiting computers are common way of cracking. Some people termed it as hacking. Everyday, anti-virus companies are also upgrading their systems since viruses and other harmful softwares are upgrading. Piracy is another story. It is an act of duplicating someone’s work and sells it. Before, it is not common and hardly be seen. But as devices and softwares are upgrading, duplications can be made in a split of seconds. For some consumers, it is good but for the industry, it is a disadvantage. Piracy is one of the major problems that media industry is facing. But, technology cannot be fathom; it is continuously evolving in exponential manner. Music publishers (the entertainment industry is the ones affected) released their cure or prevention for such exploitation. The program is called â€Å"rootkit†. Basically, its task is to hide copy protection on computers.   With its ability, people can no longer copy music. In this way, piracy can be prevented. But, Sony admitted that someday somehow people will try to crack its code and continue on pirating. But for sure, media industry’s cyber security personnel well not let crackers succeed. On the other hand, due its capability to control computers, rootkit was distinguished by most anti-virus software as a malware. On an article on Technology Review published by MIT and written by Wade Roush, Technology Review interviewed Bruce Scheiener a computer security guru. There, Scheiener discussed about the tool and its capabilities. In â€Å"When Copy Protection Becomes Malware†, the computer security guru specifically identified the work of the rootkit and why it is called a malware. Basically, malware is a form of software that can control the system. Some malwares are harmful. But in the case of Sony, it has no other functions except to hide copy protections on users’ computer. The reason why it is distinguished as malware is because of its capability to manipulate the system wherein the user’s freedom of the product is given limitations. Added by Scheiener, computer users or consumers often times do not know what they are buying. Advertisements are so broad that buyers only see the outside appearance of the capability of the product. Consumers do not know what else their product can do. With this weakness, rootkit see an opportunity. It can’t be distinguished by consumers as harmful except when their anti-virus reacts on it (after distinguishing it as a malware). But these days, rootkit is accepted by anti-virus companies as useful software and now freely preventing music from being copied. In my opinion, it is illegal and unethical to copy a product. The ethical nature of copy protection and its implementation on the other hand is discussed in relation to a new set of copyright laws called The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This act protects the media industry. It punishes those people involved in illegal duplication of digital products. In some point, consumers do not freely get what they needed for a product. Consumers buy digital products to satisfy their needs. But with this technology, some consumer’s rights are somewhat by passed. If we try to look at some point, there is a contradiction. Consumers wanted to buy a product that will make their lives easy. But this objective is not met since producers have the capability to control the product they want to sell. But, we can also say that it is a part of technology advancement. It is like before. There are no copying devices before so digital products are secured. It only came when the technology advances and devices able to duplicate are manufactured. Digital products vendors are only upgrading their system. They only restore what was lost. With the rootkit, digital products today have similar limitations before, except that it’s more advance and more easy to use. There’s another important thing the article discussed. The rootkit was not detected by anti-virus softwares before. There are people who know that Sony rootkit is freely exploring their computers. One of the reasons for this is that, Sony’s technology or program is more powerful than the anti-virus available that time. There were customers who noticed it. Some make noise that their anti-virus software did not detect the rootkit. It’s really shame on the part of anti-virus provider. Their software should be able to protect the computer from harmful viruses yet rootkit passed the test. We can picture out that programmers are getting their codes better in order to cross the gate which are set by protection softwares. However that did not last a long time. Anti-virus software providers developed further their products and able to detect the rootkit. Scheiener was asked if Sony will not make another program similar to rootkit. The guru said boldly that Sony will again do it when the controversy is over. Well, we cannot blame the company for it. They are only protecting their products from pirates. If more piracy will happen the digital industry will not also last for long. There will be no marketer on the said or similar products. It is also their way of saving their jobs and professions. Malware is really a big issue. Rootkit is not free from that controversy. The process will just create a cycle. There are people who will continue to find ways how to pirate a digital product. Crackers will continue to write codes in order to exploit bugs of every technology. While that is happening, cyber security personnel will find ways to prevent their products from being stolen. This is indeed an indication that we passed the days of low-technology and now experiencing a high-end digital technology. Nonetheless, copy protection will still be recognized as malware unless anti-virus provider withdraws its security on the program. Reference: Roush, W. (2006). When Copy Protection Becomes Malware. Technology Review. Retrieved