Othello’s Shakespeare Literature Essay

Stereotype in layman’s term is often defined as predictable characters and situations or something that is not authentic, or something that is already experienced. In Shakespeare literature, stereotyping is sometimes inevitable. Some of his works, its themes and characters embody the social predicaments and situations during the time he created the masterpiece. In Othello’s case, the issue of race and religion and the revelation of the dark side of human nature is revealed and discussed through the characters. Themes and conflicts like jealousy, race, power, religious tensions, obsession and marriage illustrated in Othello are still important and experienced today. The characters in love, the characters in extreme emotions like obsession and jealousy and the characters who lose and win portray same emotions in reality and some other literature. The common human experience experienced by the characters of Othello, Desdemona and Iago makes this literature stereotype. However what makes stereotyping in Shakespeare’s literature unique and sophisticated is the creative structure of his stories and plays. The play reflects that race and culture divides the world and the people which, in effect, influence human responses to love and emotions. Othello, who is the main character in the story, is a black man who fell in love with a white woman, Desdemona. When Iago gave false accusations against Desdemona, Othello responded with rage, revealing his awareness that his newfound love with Desdemona was all but an illusion. Othello is obviously insecure about his identity as a black man which motivated his hatred and eventually his actions. Othello’s general conclusion that a white woman and a black man are unfit to become lovers motivated his demonic tendencies. This reflects that the controversial issues about racism manipulate our perspective towards love and relationship, which is often destructive. Like any other human beings when faced with inequality, Othello approached his emotions unwisely. Othello’s reaction to his feelings contaminated his sense of morality and spirituality just like how other people is being contaminated by their extreme emotions. Jealousy and envy motivate evilness and passion that in the long run will create human suffering and tragedy. People often hear that human beings are naturally selfish. In love, this selfishness is often revealed. However, those people who are victims of jealousy, especially the ones who are loved, will always experience passive suffering. Love affects in this case, the way a lover responds to love will greatly affect the beloved. Love is a shared communion. The lover’s choices will affect the beloved’s fate. Othello’s choices resulted to Desdemona’s death. Here Shakespeare demonstrates the defensive nature and stereotypical image of black people If Othello denied inferiority and race, Iago gave importance to power and race and status. This selfish need and motivation of Iago resulted to jealousy and which eventually led to destruction. Just like any other negative emotions, Shakespeare gave a predictable outcome: selfishness and jealousy leads to destruction. Stereotyping in character is probably used by Shakespeare to demonstrate the realities of human life and the realities of human nature. However the sophistication and language of his literature revealed his Shakespeare’s innate talent, artistry and creativity.

European History 1914-to present Essay

The period that immediately followed the First World War was marked by the autocratic regimes in Austria, Germany and Russia being replaced by republics as they were overthrown. There seemed to be a promise of an era of democracy as the seven states that had all been newly created adopted the republican form of government giving the impression that democracy had finally been found after the First World War. However, this did not last as after only two decades, a form of dictatorship took over most of the democratic European countries. While some countries became communists, others took to fascism which resulted to totalitarian form of government (Gardner, Kleiner & Mamiya, 2005). In totalitarianism individuals had absolutely no freedom in their life as all political, intellectual, social, cultural, economic and even religious and spiritual activities were subordinated to the authority of the rulers and the government. This form of rule was characterized by the rulers of the government as a central power controlling all the aspects of the citizens’ lives through force and repression such that those who held views that were different from the ideologies of the rulers and had different practices in the mentioned aspects of their lives were considered to be against the state hence enemies. Totalitarianism was manifested through mass-media that was state controlled, one party state in which the party controlled everything that went on in the state, mass surveillance accompanied with state terrorism and restricted free discussion or criticism especially of the governmental ideologies. In European countries such as such as Russia under Stalin and Germany under Hitler, totalitarianism and the practices of the government received overwhelming support from the citizens (Gardner, Kleiner & Mamiya, 2005). The support was however not spontaneous, it required the rulers to be charismatic so that he would be able to draw support. The rapid development in infrastructure especially communication and transportation played a great role in the rise and spread of the totalitarianism and growth of its popularity amongst the citizens in the countries in which it was practised. This paper seeks to discuss totalitarianism and the reasons for its rise in Europe in the early 20th century. Totalitarianism is characterized by the state pursuing some goal that is special such as conquest of a certain region, exclusion of all others who hold different ideologies from those ones of the state or industrialization. All resources of the state usually are directed and focussed on achievement of these goals regardless of their cost. Anything that furthers the attainment of the goal is fully supported while the things that threaten to foil this achievement are rejected. It is a form of obsession that triggers an ideology that explains and describes things in terms of the intended goal, justifying all obstacles that could arise and all the forces that may struggle against the state in achieving the desired goal (Gardner, Kleiner & Mamiya, 2005). This results to the state getting popular support from the citizens which gives it the power to practice any form of governmental actions. Anyone opposing the goals or ideologies of the state is considered evil and political differences within the state not allowed. Achievement of the goal is never acknowledged even in the event the state actually gets to achieve it. This is because totalitarianism is entirely founded on the ideology of achieving the goal such that in the event the goal is achieved then it should cease to exist. The pursuit of specific goals by different leaders for the states they ruled is considered to be the main reason for the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. As mentioned earlier, fascism was one of the main reasons for totalitarianism. This ideology was common in Germany and Italy. It originated with Mussolini Benito in his rule over the country. This ideology in which the proponents advocated for the creation of a single party state was a reaction against equality, liberty and fraternity that were being proposed by democratic nations such as France and Britain after they won the war. Fascists argued that nations and races usually are in a conflict in which only the strongest and the healthiest survive. Apart from being healthy the strongest also survive by asserting themselves against the weak through repression and in combat (Griffiths 2005). These governments prohibited and suppressed opposition and any form of criticism to the government. In Germany, races that were not German such as the Jews, Slavs and individuals who were either sick or disabled were targeted for execution as Hitler’s government sought to have a nation of pure healthy Germans. Fascism claimed that a nation was the race and hence sought to execute everyone who was not of the race of the rulers (Griffiths 2005). Fascism is also characterized by respect and love for collective organization in which individuals work together to achieve a certain goals and ideology. This formed totalitarianism in Italy and Germany. In which the citizens were organized against other individuals of other races that were considered a threat to achieving a nation that was formed of one superior race. Nazism was movement mostly in Germany which was is also referred to as National Socialism. This movement sought to spread the ideologies of Adolf Hitler’s government in Germany and the world as a whole. Nazism is argued to be a form of fascism as its characteristics are the same as those ones of fascism as it featured racism, expansion and obedience/loyalty to one leader. Hitler expected everyone to be loyal to him and executed anyone who defiled his orders. Nazism also had theories about other races which portrayed them as inferior to German Aryans and a threat to its existence hence the necessity to get rid of them. This led to the massive execution of the Jews and the disabled Germans as they were considered unfit for survival according to fascism. This ideology is therefore one of the reasons for the rise of totalitarianism in Germany and most of its neighbouring nations (Klaus Vondung 2005). Bolshevism-Stalinism was the reason for the rise of totalitarianism in Russia. Bolshevism was a movement formed by professionals who believed in military control over the country and democratic centralism such the party (Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) took form of internal hierarchy in which individuals from other groups were not allowed to lead the party. Only these members made decisions and any party that was formed to challenge Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party it was purged (Worley, Morgan & Laporte 2002). This movement greatly supported single party state and is believed to have caused the rise of Stalinism. Stalinism refers to the form of government used by Joseph Stalin and those who were allied to his ideologies (Worley, Morgan & Laporte 2002). This ideology is sometimes referred to as red fascism as it is a form of fascism. Stalinism refers to a form of governance that is characterized by oppression of the citizens and extensive spying by the government so that individuals can not criticize or form movements to overthrow it. This system was also characterized by purging in which those who were opposed to the government ideologies were sent to prison camps or sometimes killed. The state used propaganda and established some form of cult around a leader who was a dictator so that he would have absolute control over the communist party and maintain control over all the citizens of Russia. Apart from the mentioned countries, Austria also participated in the rise of totalitarianism by supporting Nazism and Fascism. Its Prime Minister Kurt Waldheim is said to have assisted Germany in transporting Jews to dearth camps. Several other Eastern and Central European countries also got obsessed with the fascist movement (Klaus Vondung 2005). This included Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Slovakia, Lithuania and Croatia. The fascist movements in these countries were all characterized racism specifically against the Jews whom they associated with communism which they greatly despised. Spain is the only country which though fascist never got obsessed with race and believing in the ant-Jewish conspiracies that characteristic of German’s Nazism. The rise of totalitarianism in Europe during the early 20th century was mainly due to fascism. Both Nazism and Bolshevism-Stalinism which were the main movements in Europe at this time and are all forms of fascism which emphasizes on the power of the state over the citizens. A significant characteristic of these movements is racism in which each state believed in being occupied by only those who were of its race hence eliminating those who belonged to different races or had different practices than were contrary to the ideologies of the ruling government. The most affected race in Europe was the Jewish. The rise of totalitarianism in Europe can therefore be solely attributed to fascism. References Gardner, H. , Kleiner, S. & Mamiya, C. , (2005). Gardner’s Art Through The Ages: The Western Perspective. Sidney: Cengage Learning. Griffiths, R. (2005). Fascism second ed. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group. Klaus Vondung, K. (2005). The Apocalypse in Germany, Columbia and London: Univ. of Missouri Press. Redles, D. (2005). Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation. New York, NY: New York Univ. Press. Worley, M. , Morgan, K. & Laporte, N. , (2002). Bolshevism, Stalinism And The Comintern: Perspectives On Stalinization. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

A Dirty Job Chapter 10

– Dag Hammarskjà ¶ld 10 DEATH TAKES A WALK Mornings, Charlie walked. At six, after an early breakfast, he would turn the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoever’s turn it was) for the workday and walk – stroll really, pacing out the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his daily regalia, wearing soft, black-leather walking shoes and an expensive, secondhand suit that had been retailored at his cleaner’s in Chinatown. Although he pretended to have a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of being Death, and to look at all the people out and about in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation for his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up while he watched her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy like that could actually function without a soul, or was his soul collecting dust in Charlie’s back ro om? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of thinking to be done. Being out among the people of the city, when they were just starting to move, greeting the day, making ready, he started to feel not just the responsibility of his new role, but the power, and finally, the specialness. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might have lost the love of his life for it to happen; he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down California Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where he’d always felt inferior and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or London or New York and never making eye contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the street, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming along the street beside him, pas sing under his armpit just inches away. He got off at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street Journal from a machine, then walked to the nearest storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his hands and knees and screamed into the drain grate, â€Å"I have been chosen, so don’t fuck with me!† When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing there, waiting for the light to change. Looking at him. â€Å"Had to be done,† Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining. The bankers and the brokers, the executive assistants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all understood being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed. Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. Other times people would bump into him, and not even lift his wallet or say â€Å"excuse me,† which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that needed to be retrieved. He found one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the curb with the trash on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a young woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didn’t see anyone there, Charlie slipped past her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding like a war drum, adrenaline sizzling through his veins like a hormonal ti lt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular morning, he realized, with no little sense of irony, that until he became Death, he’d never felt so alive. Every morning, Charlie tried to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made – crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their fresh catches – usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to inscrutable Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. All sorts of live and recently live fish were moved across the sidewalk: snapper and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a sin gle spine that jutted from their head, bracing a luminous lure they used to draw in prey, so deep in the ocean that the sun never shone. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses – creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he fell into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the appearance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet. To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playing dance partner to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squeezing and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion forecast that one foggy morning someone’s granny was going to get knocked out of her moo shoes. One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head – just a jog, barely perceptible really – it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. And Charlie let go. And she grinned, just a little. Three teeth. And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if he’d even be able to lift it. And he grinned back. And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. â€Å"She seemed nice,† Charlie told him. â€Å"Mature.† Sometimes Charlie’s walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible Shoe Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was still coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair! He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didn’t mean a thing. He just wasn’t ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of Pleasant Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophie’s fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl floating more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after fl ushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to dislodge Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that next time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was planning to meet her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding. â€Å"Hey, Lily, how are you doing?† Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last few months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box full of rodents. â€Å"Nice gerbils,† Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirl’s plaid skirt over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough that’s been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didn’t see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie. â€Å"They’re not gerbils, they’re hamsters,† Charlie said. â€Å"Asher, do you have something you’ve been keeping from me?† She tilted her head a little, but didn’t look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku. â€Å"Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!† Charlie said. â€Å"Her fish died, so I’m bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth – â€Å" â€Å"I meant that you’re Death,† Lily said. Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. â€Å"Huh?† â€Å"It’s so wrong – † Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. â€Å"Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of life’s many disappointments, I’d have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.† â€Å"You’re sixteen,† Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this. â€Å"Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. I’m only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.† â€Å"Your birthday is in two months? Well, we’ll have to get you a nice cake,† Charlie said. â€Å"Don’t change the subject, Asher. I know all about you, and your Death persona.† Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. â€Å"Lily, I know I’ve been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and I’m sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but it’s just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has – â€Å" â€Å"I have The Great Big Book of Death,† Lily said. She steadied Charlie’s hamsters when he lost his grip. â€Å"I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff – all of it. I’ve known longer than you have, I think.† Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time – panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book! â€Å"Lily, do you still have the book?† â€Å"It’s in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.† â€Å"No one ever looks in that cabinet.† â€Å"No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, I’d say it had always been there.† â€Å"I have to go.† He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned around again. â€Å"Where are you going?† â€Å"To get some coffee.† â€Å"I’ll walk with you.† â€Å"You will not.† Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them. â€Å"But, Lily, I’m Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.† â€Å"Yeah, you’d think, but it turns out that you have managed to suck the cool out of being Death.† â€Å"Wow, that’s harsh.† â€Å"Welcome to my world, Asher.† â€Å"You can’t tell anyone about this, you know that?† â€Å"Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.† â€Å"Hamsters! That’s not – â€Å" â€Å"Chill, Asher.† Lily giggled. â€Å"I know what you mean. I’m not going to tell anyone – except Abby knows – but she doesn’t care. She says she’s met some guy who’s her dark lord. She’s in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.† Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. â€Å"Girls go through a stage like that?† Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable. Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. â€Å"I’m not having this conversation with you.† Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. â€Å"Lily, wait!† he called. â€Å"I’m calling a cab, I’ll give you a ride.† She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since he’d heard them, and he thought maybe they’d gone. â€Å"We’ll have her, too, Meat. She’s ours now.† He felt the fear rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. â€Å"Lily, wait! Wait!† She spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, â€Å"One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.† â€Å"We’ll put that on the cake,† Charlie said. A Dirty Job Chapter 10 – Dag Hammarskjà ¶ld 10 DEATH TAKES A WALK Mornings, Charlie walked. At six, after an early breakfast, he would turn the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoever’s turn it was) for the workday and walk – stroll really, pacing out the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his daily regalia, wearing soft, black-leather walking shoes and an expensive, secondhand suit that had been retailored at his cleaner’s in Chinatown. Although he pretended to have a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of being Death, and to look at all the people out and about in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation for his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up while he watched her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy like that could actually function without a soul, or was his soul collecting dust in Charlie’s back ro om? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of thinking to be done. Being out among the people of the city, when they were just starting to move, greeting the day, making ready, he started to feel not just the responsibility of his new role, but the power, and finally, the specialness. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might have lost the love of his life for it to happen; he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down California Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where he’d always felt inferior and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or London or New York and never making eye contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the street, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming along the street beside him, pas sing under his armpit just inches away. He got off at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street Journal from a machine, then walked to the nearest storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his hands and knees and screamed into the drain grate, â€Å"I have been chosen, so don’t fuck with me!† When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing there, waiting for the light to change. Looking at him. â€Å"Had to be done,† Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining. The bankers and the brokers, the executive assistants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all understood being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed. Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. Other times people would bump into him, and not even lift his wallet or say â€Å"excuse me,† which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that needed to be retrieved. He found one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the curb with the trash on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a young woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didn’t see anyone there, Charlie slipped past her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding like a war drum, adrenaline sizzling through his veins like a hormonal ti lt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular morning, he realized, with no little sense of irony, that until he became Death, he’d never felt so alive. Every morning, Charlie tried to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made – crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their fresh catches – usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to inscrutable Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. All sorts of live and recently live fish were moved across the sidewalk: snapper and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a sin gle spine that jutted from their head, bracing a luminous lure they used to draw in prey, so deep in the ocean that the sun never shone. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses – creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he fell into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the appearance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet. To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playing dance partner to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squeezing and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion forecast that one foggy morning someone’s granny was going to get knocked out of her moo shoes. One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head – just a jog, barely perceptible really – it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. And Charlie let go. And she grinned, just a little. Three teeth. And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if he’d even be able to lift it. And he grinned back. And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. â€Å"She seemed nice,† Charlie told him. â€Å"Mature.† Sometimes Charlie’s walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible Shoe Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was still coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair! He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didn’t mean a thing. He just wasn’t ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of Pleasant Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophie’s fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl floating more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after fl ushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to dislodge Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that next time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was planning to meet her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding. â€Å"Hey, Lily, how are you doing?† Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last few months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box full of rodents. â€Å"Nice gerbils,† Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirl’s plaid skirt over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough that’s been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didn’t see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie. â€Å"They’re not gerbils, they’re hamsters,† Charlie said. â€Å"Asher, do you have something you’ve been keeping from me?† She tilted her head a little, but didn’t look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku. â€Å"Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!† Charlie said. â€Å"Her fish died, so I’m bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth – â€Å" â€Å"I meant that you’re Death,† Lily said. Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. â€Å"Huh?† â€Å"It’s so wrong – † Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. â€Å"Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of life’s many disappointments, I’d have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.† â€Å"You’re sixteen,† Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this. â€Å"Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. I’m only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.† â€Å"Your birthday is in two months? Well, we’ll have to get you a nice cake,† Charlie said. â€Å"Don’t change the subject, Asher. I know all about you, and your Death persona.† Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. â€Å"Lily, I know I’ve been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and I’m sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but it’s just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has – â€Å" â€Å"I have The Great Big Book of Death,† Lily said. She steadied Charlie’s hamsters when he lost his grip. â€Å"I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff – all of it. I’ve known longer than you have, I think.† Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time – panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book! â€Å"Lily, do you still have the book?† â€Å"It’s in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.† â€Å"No one ever looks in that cabinet.† â€Å"No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, I’d say it had always been there.† â€Å"I have to go.† He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned around again. â€Å"Where are you going?† â€Å"To get some coffee.† â€Å"I’ll walk with you.† â€Å"You will not.† Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them. â€Å"But, Lily, I’m Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.† â€Å"Yeah, you’d think, but it turns out that you have managed to suck the cool out of being Death.† â€Å"Wow, that’s harsh.† â€Å"Welcome to my world, Asher.† â€Å"You can’t tell anyone about this, you know that?† â€Å"Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.† â€Å"Hamsters! That’s not – â€Å" â€Å"Chill, Asher.† Lily giggled. â€Å"I know what you mean. I’m not going to tell anyone – except Abby knows – but she doesn’t care. She says she’s met some guy who’s her dark lord. She’s in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.† Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. â€Å"Girls go through a stage like that?† Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable. Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. â€Å"I’m not having this conversation with you.† Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. â€Å"Lily, wait!† he called. â€Å"I’m calling a cab, I’ll give you a ride.† She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since he’d heard them, and he thought maybe they’d gone. â€Å"We’ll have her, too, Meat. She’s ours now.† He felt the fear rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. â€Å"Lily, wait! Wait!† She spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, â€Å"One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.† â€Å"We’ll put that on the cake,† Charlie said.

Music therapy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Music therapy - Essay Example Musical therapy is a health profession. It is an interpersonal process where the therapist, who is trained personnel, develops a relationship with his clients using music and all of its facets i.e. physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and aesthetic aspects, enabling them to improve their health. They use musical experiences such as singing, songwriting, and listening, free improvisation, discussing to music and even moving to music to improve the healing process. The health issues in subject consist of cognitive functioning, emotional and affective development, behavioral and social skills, motor skills and, the quality of life. Music therapists can work in general hospitals, psychiatric facilities, schools, prisons, community centers, universities, and training institutes. Music therapist is in the hospital setup; work hand in hand with the physicians, psychologists, physical therapists and the occupational therapists. Individuals of all ages and those with specific requirements such as the stroke, sensory impairments, communication disorders, cancer, psychiatric disorders, those in palliative care and those in rehabilitation centers (recovering from substance abuse) benefit a lot form music. Apart from the entertainment they get from the music, they also get relaxed, improve their learning, build their self-esteem, reduce stress, support physical exercise and get composed which improves the healing process. Music therapy has its history back in the biblical times when David played the harp to get rid of an evil spirit, which was in King Saul. In 400, B.C, the Greek father of medicine played music to his mental patients. Music therapy began after World War I and II, where musicians would travel to hospitals to play music to soldiers who suffered from war-related trauma. Aristotle himself described music as an energy that purifies the emotions. While music is an art with a strong connection with mathematics, music therapy is an art and a science. Introductio n Music therapy has a strong relationship with play, creativity, use of the whole personality and individual discovery of one self. In fact, Winnicott (2005, p.120) claims that It is in playing and only in playing, which the individual adult or child develops the ability to be creative and utilize the whole personality, and the individual discovers the self only in being creative. Â  This is all that makes music therapy different from other professions. The item one creates should have some value accompanied with it. There exist a relation between personal intelligence and creativity, and every session involves the client in some kind of music experience. The various sessions include improvising, re-creating, composing, and listening to music. In improvising, the client comes up with his/her own music and starts singing whatever arises now.

Trusts and Equity Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Trusts and Equity - Coursework Example Trustees of Trust have many responsibilities in the exercising of their duties as a trustee. The areas that often posses most difficulties for trustees and is most often misinterpreted, in this area of investment. The Trustee Act 1956 followed an approach of a permitted legal list can be amended from time to time by the new categories if investment. However even though there are no restrictions on the type of investment the trustees can make. There is a general requirement that a trustee exercising any power of investment shall exercise the care, diligence and skill that a prudent person of business the affair of authors. Adam and Beth should consider to take the investment idea that investment advisor have proposed to them. They can invest in stock exchange in order to reduce the risk for losing a lot of money in their investment. The act allows the trustees to invest in any asset as if they were absolutely entitled. The power to invest can be overridden or amended by any investment powers in the trust deed. Typically, these allow trustees to invest in a wide range of investment such as life assurance products, deposits and shares. When selecting investment like investing in shares, the trustees are required to regard the standard vestment criteria that the investment should be suitable and diversified. In order to meet the requirement of the Trustee amendment Act, it is strongly recommended that trustee should work with qualified financial planner who has experience in trustee investment. It should be noted that the investment strategy applied to the trust assets like those shares that Adam and Beth have in that private company can be significantly different than that for an individual. This is because a trust can have different classes of beneficiaries such as income beneficiaries and capital beneficiaries. Modern trusts tend to be fully discretionary trust which will require the trustees to carefully balance all the interest of their beneficiaries.

Midterm exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Midterm exam - Essay Example a) Joseph Johnston argues that the failures in corporate governance and top level scandals indicates that the fiduciary principle does not really help to ensure that managers seek the best interest of their stakeholders (25). Johnston argues on the basis of the conflict of interest that is so rife in organizations. This is because most managers and directors seek to meet their profit motives and since they are often assessed on the basis of their ability to attain profitability, most directors are prone to find ways and means of cutting corners and cheating some stakeholders. A stakeholder is a person who affects and/or affected by an organizations activities (Freeman 29). This include a wide variety of people including employees, consumers, suppliers, financial institutions, government agencies amongst others. These people have various demands and expectations from the organization and its directors. And due to the reality that directors are expected in practice, to generate profits, directors are wont to do illegal things that will lead to higher profitability. They are also likely to ignore other peoples claims and legitimate needs in order to attain high profitability. From another angle, managers and directors want to remain in the good books of shareholders and guarantee shareholders expectations of higher dividends. They are therefore likely to present misleading reports that will allow them to remain in office as directors. Thus, the fiduciary duty of operating in good faith is often missed and directors use ways and means to attain results. b) To a large extent, I agree with this assertion. This is because in reality, a director works under so many constraints. And if that is the case, a director will be forced to do things that might not be in the best interest of everyone. From another perspective, it is practically impossible for a manager or director to meet all the expectations and demands of stakeholders. So a director will have to

Nutrition(Diet plans) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nutrition(Diet plans) - Essay Example In the mouth, food is chewed and the process is called mastication or chewing process. Mastication is the foremost stage of digestion, and it upsurges the surface area of foodstuffs to allow the more efficient breakdown of enzymes. Inside the oral cavity there are numerous accessory glands that help in the digestion of food, they are - the teeth, tongue, and salivary glands. The teeth are small and hard organs that are located along the anterior and lateral edges of the oral cavity and are 32 in number. They help in cutting and grinding the food into smaller pieces. The tongue is situated medial to the teeth and on the inferior portion of the oral cavity. It assists to push the food to the posterior part of the oral cavity for swallowing. Finally, the salivary glands are vital organs that produce saliva that is a watery secretion. There are three sets of salivary glands surrounding the oral cavity and the watery secretion they produce assists to moisturise the food and starts the digestion of carbohydrates (Gray 2004). Chewing is an important step in the process of digestion and this process might be impaired if one does not chew properly or eats too quickly. Chewing or Mastication breaks up food into pieces that are more manageable and upsurges the surface area and also mixes with saliva. The saliva breaks down the carbohydrates present in the meal and the fats are broken down by lingual lipase. Therefore, if one consumes food hastily then he or she will have indigestion. In addition, apart from the enzymes present in the saliva, there are antibacterial agents like peroxidase, lysozyme, lactoferrin, immunoglobulin A, and a substance known as epidermal growth factor (EGF), which might assist to heal the inflamed intestinal tissues. And if someone had been swallowing without chewing and eating hastily then there is a reasonable chance of some inflammation to occur someplace in the gastrointestinal tract. The oesophagus

Criminal Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal Law - Essay Example The entire family had retired to sleep and the defendant and his step-father had stayed up together enjoying their drinks. The defendant told his intentions to leave the army to his step-father. The step-father did not take delight in the news and challenged the son with a berating statement. He told his step-son that he could draw, load and shoot a gun faster than the defendant could and asked him to fetch the guns for the challenge to begin. The father challenge to the son was however returned by a shot toward him which the drunk defendant may not have been aware of. The trial convicted the defendant with oblique intent and he appealed to the House of Lords after he was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. It was held that the judge should not have used an expansion explanation for the intent of the defendant and the murder conviction substituted for manslaughter. The argument of intent went further to illustrate, if indeed the death or harm inflicted on the victim was the natural con sequence of the defendants act then the jury could hold it against the defendant that he had the intent to kill his step-father(Lord Bridge). Murder is therefore a crime driven by intent and the intent ought to be specific so that oblique intent is not a direct motive or ground for death. Direct intent implies that death was the desired outcome by the defendant, while oblique intent covers circumstances where the defendant was virtually certain of death but which was not desired for his sake to benefit him. The mens rea that is required to assess a prosecuted person before they are convicted is defined and specified in each case. Mens rea refers to the intent of the mind that makes the defendant guilty of a crime. Murder is therefore an act that is moved to an action of malice aforethought. Malice aforethought is an artistic definition of the term. It is defined in the English Law as a well purposed intention to kill. It is further described as an act whose consequence is in express ion with such threats to life as actual speech, against another, if the defendant produces a lethal weapon that was used on a victim, by certain grievous act the accused intended to cause grievous bodily harm. Death of a victim in the situations as these are attributed to malice aforethought. (Lord Goddard CJ). Killing itself does not add up to murder. For the murder to be concluded, the killing has to involve express malice aforethought or be implied by the law. In a doctrine of constructive malice, it was implied the course of another act considered felonious that involved violence and posed as harmful and threatening to life. It was also implied where the person killed was undertaking a process of the laws such as arresting or imprisoning the accused person or in any other process of the law that is legal. This doctrine was recommended for abolishment by the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment Para 121 of the published Report 1953 (cmd 8932). The section goes further to create the necessary provisions for murder to hold. The section did not affect malice that is implied apart from the doctrine of constructive malice. The case of R v Vickers (1957) 2QB, 664 1957 2 All ER 1957 741. The case was heard and approved by the House of Lords in R v Cunningham 1981 2 All ER 863, 3WLR 263. The accused had been brought in with charges of murder and convicted under section (5) (1)a of the Homicide Act 1957 (repealed). The Criminal Court of Appeal held the Act did not abolish the doctrine of implied malice and therefore conviction

Information Systems Project ,, application design Research Proposal

Information Systems Project ,, application design - Research Proposal Example Following these needs, it is paramount that businesses and non-business establishments to develop technical solutions aimed at meeting customer needs at all times. Hence, this is a research proposal which seeks to authenticate the validity of developing web-based mobile application whose purpose is to ensure customers are able to follow up events that matter to them such as the schedule of favorite movie at the cinema, where to buy tickets for major sporting events, and finding business establishments such as supermarkets, medical facilities, and grocery stores through the use of an integrated map and navigation tools. The need for faster service delivery is a universal business consideration that take into account the need for better time management. Based on this need, a proposal for the development of a website that intends to serve specific customer requirements such as navigating through busy streets to access services such as therapists, dentists, restaurants, and restaurant menus developed to facilitate better time management and self-efficiency for customers from all around the City of Riyadh. The functionality of the website, which will have the potential of being ported into a mobile application will take into consideration the aspect of navigation through real-time city maps showing categories of establishments meeting a customer’s needs. The project’s aim will be to integrate the concept of shared local experience targeting Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, customers such that business establishments and the customers are connected through a virtual network facilitating better time management, flawless navigation through busy city streets, accounting for clicks per page for businesses that will integrate their services and product offers to the proposed website and subsequent mobile application. The mobile application development will take into consideration the most popular mobile operating systems

Guest Cycle Paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Guest Cycle - Research Paper Example This approach is to assist the hotel manage their revenues and booking strategies. This approach can be facilitated by the reservation department having to automatically generate letters of confirmation, produce requests for guest deposits and handle pre-registration activities for all types of guests and generate daily expected arrival lists, occupancy and revenue forecast lists. Upon the acceptance of a reservation request by the reservation agents, the agents creates a reservation o the hotel management software. The record will initiate the process of the guest cycle. The reservation contains the details of the guest and their specific requests which are meant to provide the guest with personalized services upon their arrival at the hotel. The details are further used in the completion of the pre-registration activities which include room assignment based on the demands of the guests, the room rates to be applied to the guests, and the nature of room preparation for the guests (Enz, 2010). The stage is made up of registration and room assignment processes. After the guests have arrived, they establish a business relationship with the hotel management through the front office. The front office staff are charged with the responsibility of clarifying any queries from the guests especially those on the room rates and other packages. The front office staff should be able to determine the reservation status of the guests before the beginning of the check-in process. The front office should take into consideration all the guests who did earlier reservation or those without reservation who are commonly known as walk-ins. The front office print registration cards and are completed at the check-in stage as such will help them to collect essential information from the guest. The cards contain details such as billing instructions, passport details, reservation details, personal data and credit card details (Andrews, 2013). At this stage, the

Discuss in Scholarly Detail the Benefits and Risks Associated with Strategic Management Essay Example for Free

Discuss in Scholarly Detail the Benefits and Risks Associated with Strategic Management Essay Strategic management allows organizations to be more proactive than reactive and to initiate and influence internal and external activities to gain control over its own destiny. It allows executives at all levels to participate in analyzing a firms current practices in order to formulate and implement shorter and longer term strategies for growth and development. Historically, this participative approach has produced better results. Another benefit of strategic management has been to formulate better strategies through the use of the more systematic and proven methodologies. Organizations of all sizes have recognized and realized the benefits of strategic management. While financial benefits include increased sales, profitability and productivity, non-Financial benefits include, better understanding of competitor’s strategies and reduced resistance to change across the organization. Strategic planning with risk awareness has always been difficult. According to Rick Funston Bob Ruprecht (http://bpmmag.net), Success demands excellent risk management as a core competency. Risk intelligence enables an organization to respond to rapidly changing circumstances with greater agility and resilience. Risk handled well becomes a source of competitive advantage; handled poorly it can severely hamper a companys prospects. The greater the risk, the less complacent organization can afford to be. More often executives who are responsible for strategic planning lack an integrated view of risk due to the unavailability of business intelligence when needed. Many organizations fail to consider a range of time horizons when incorporating risk considerations into the planning process resulting in uncertainty down the chain-of-command with each expanding time horizon. Unavailability of an integrated decision-support framework that links key performance metrics with business and risk intelligence multiplies the risks exponentially.

Teaching grammar in context Essay Example for Free

Teaching grammar in context Essay According to Constance Weaver’s book entitled Teaching Grammar in Context, this particular aspect of education helps the students used their language in a correct manner of putting phrases and thoughts together to create a single message that sends a rightful idea to the readers or the listeners of the message. This I the primary reason why teaching grammar is encourages to be within the context of teaching speech and writing practices to the students. This is to primarily allow the students to use in actual practice what they are learning regarding grammar through writing and speaking as well. Knowing the basic ideas regarding the facts about what process writing and teaching grammar in context means, elaborating the ideas that pertain to this particular discussion indeed helps in enriching the discussion presented herein. Through the utilization of the ideas of other writers in this particular matter, proving the fact that teaching grammar in context within the curriculum of teaching the processes of writing is a more effective approach in t4eaching language to students of all ages. Presentation of sources As mentioned earlier, the book entitled â€Å"Teaching grammar in context† as authored by Constance Weaver discusses the most basic ideas that pertain to the fact that the effects of teaching grammar and process writing in an integrated manner gives better results among students, especially in the manner that they try to apply their learned strategies of writing in an effective manner that they are able to send the ample and actual message that they want to sent to their readers. In this particular reading material, Weaver points out several important points of consideration that would indeed help in the process of integrating grammar lessons within the procedures of teaching writing skills to students. The said points are as follows: teaching concepts of subject, verb, clause, sentence, and related editing concepts When teaching the basic skills that are needed to be considered in writing, the lessons on verbs as well as subjects and other parts of speech would indeed help in the procedures of helping the student understand the importance of using the right words and right phrases to be able to send the actual message needed to be conveyed to the readers. teaching style through sentence combining and generating When editing processes are discussed, the sentence structure discussion could also be generated to help the students identify what particular parts of the written work needs to be revised so as to be able to send the correct ideas to the reading audience. teaching sentence sense and style through manipulation of syntactic elements Syntactic elements and being able to understand the importance of this particular aspect of grammar in creating sensible sentences helps the writers create a better piece of work with a much clarified message and a much more furnished work. teaching the power of dialects and dialects of power The correct usage of language helps in creating a more clarified message within the context of any written work. Being able to learn this particular power of language shall encourage students, or writers at that in careful choosing the words that they use in their writing as well as furnishing the grammar that they utilize in their writing procedures. Teaching punctuation and mechanics for convention, clarity, and style- the impact of learning how to clarify the messages through the effective use of punctuations and clarifying styles of writing shall indeed help writers in being able to understand the importance of sending clarified ideas through the enhancement of the usage of correct punctuations within sentences to denote impact and feelings of the writers towards the topic.

Analysis of Unified Modelling Language

Analysis of Unified Modelling Language Chapter 1: Introduction Context of the Problem The Unified Modeling Language is a graphical modeling language used for the visualization, specification, construction, and documentation of object-oriented software systems. It has been adopted by the Object Management Group (OMG) and is widely accepted as a standard in industry and research. The UML provides thirteen types of diagrams for different purpose. This thesis focuses on sequence and class diagram known as structure diagram and behavior diagram. Sequence forms concentrate on the presentation of dynamic aspects of a software system, and class forms the structural view of software system. Sequence diagrams stress time ordering while Class focus on static. In Model-driven Architecture (MDA), class diagram is the source for code generation in object-oriented development (Pender, 2003), so how to map what we find in the interaction diagram back to class diagram become an important subject if we want to develop system from behavior aspect initially. There are some existing relatively modest tool supports exploiting the logical dependencies of UML diagrams. Some systems maintain method lists across class diagrams and sequence diagrams and the transformation between sequence diagrams and collaboration diagrams. However, nowadays, the two diagrams that sequence and Class are draw divided and can not be transformed between each other. And there is no comprehensive framework that would support such mechanisms throughout these two diagram types in a systematic way (Selonen et al., 2003). That waste much time to maintain system and often make the system development documents should rewrite again and again. To solve these problems, a transformation theorem which proposed by Selonen et al. (2003) is cited in this paper. Selonen et al. (2003) propose a framework and categorize meaningful transformation operations between different diagram types in UML. These operations can be used, for example, for model checking, merging, slicing and synthesis (Selonen et al., 2003). The transformation operation can be used as a basis of tool support in UML-based modeling tools. With these operations, we can get the benefits as follows: Class Diagram becomes easier and faster to create because they can be achieved as results of automated operations. Class Diagram becomes more consistent and correct because they are either produced or updated automatically, or checked against each other exploiting the transformation operations. Improve the software development process. The process of agile modeling become from use case to sequence diagram and then translated to class diagram. It will be more simply and efficiency. Research Question and sub-questions How does the transformation between sequence and Class diagrams make systems easier to develop and maintain and avoid system development documents to be rewritten all the time? What are meta-modeling, Meta Object Facility and Object Constraint language? How to operate the transformation? How does the transformation work in the real world (Examples)? Significance of the Study Sequence diagrams provide a natural and easy medium for designing the examples of typical dynamic interactions of objects, often as refined representations of use cases. After modeling examples of interactions, the designer should add the information implied by the sequence diagrams to the static view (class diagrams), or check that the static view conforms to the sequence diagrams (Selonen et al., 2000). The sequence diagram and class diagram derived from the same use case and can not be transformed between each other. This paper discusses a particular UML transformation operation mentioned in (Selonen et al., 2003), which transforms from a sequence diagram into a class diagram. The transformation operation is based on the UML 2.0 Specification (OMG, 2003), which defines the syntax and semantics of UML. The thesis defines the rules on the phases of this transformation operation and gives a transformation example to show the result of transformation. This paper will concentrate on the conceptual research of UML semantics, and do not concentrate on any development tool. However, OCL will be used to describe the transformation rules and hoped can be used in UML-based modeling tools development. I hope that the steps of modeling will improve; Support for synthesizing a new class diagram from an existing sequence diagram can provide significant help for the designer. Such synthesis operation helps the designer keep the two diagrams consistent because the synthesized class diagram can be compared with existing class diagram. The transformation operation also speeds up the design process, and to decrease the risk of human errors. In UML CASE tool vendors can implement this transformation operation in their tools to get the benefits described above. Research Design and Methodology The protocol for this research project is mostly using qualitative by design. A Case study will be used as the most important a strategy of research methodology in the study. The research process consists of six steps. It collects and analysis the documents and papers which are corresponding to the UML transformation thesis, OCL and MDA transformation theory. Then proposing a transformation framework for transformation from sequence diagram to class diagram and concluding transformation mapping rules. This paper will testify and revise the transformation mapping rules via implement a real case of agile modeling development process. And finally proposing the research result, and discuss the conclusion and future work. Organization of the Study Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter one introduces the research. This chapter will present the context of the problem, the problem statement, the main research question, the significance of the study, and the research methodology used to address the main research question. Chapter 2: Review of the Literature Chapter two gives an overview of the background literature for the thesis. Chapter 3: Meta-modeling, Meta Object Facility and Object Constraint language Chapter three will give the brief introduction of UML, MDA, meta-model, transformation and OCL are described at first, followed are the separate meta-models of sequence and class diagram. Chapter 4: Operation of the Transformation Chapter four will propose a framework of transformation from Sequence diagram to Class diagram. Also, a rule will be defined on every phase of transformation, using OCL to describe transformation rules. Chapter 5: Example of the Translations Chapter five will be working on a Case Study, and demonstrating the transformation for a true case in the real world. Chapter 6: Conclusion Chapter six will present the summery and conclusion. Chapter 2: Review of Literature 2.1 UML The complexity in software development process of getting from a set of requirements to a proper abstraction of the solution leads people to develop models. A model is a simplification of something so we can view, manipulate, and reason about it, and so help us understand the complexity inherent in the subject under study (Mellor et al., 2004). The UML is a family of graphical notations, backed by single meta-model, that help in describing and designing software systems, particularly software systems built using the object-oriented (OO) style (Fowler, 2003). The Unified Modeling Language (UML), since adopted as a standard (UML 1.1) by OMG in 1997, has become a widely accepted as standard for modeling a software system. The latest UML version 2.0 has been formally adopted in June 2003, and it will be applied throughout this thesis. UML 2 describes 13 official diagram types which fall in two categories depending on whether they describe structural or behavioral aspects of a software system. The UML can capture an array of processes and structures which related to business and software. UML has such power that a modeler can use it for the general architecture of any construction that has both a static structure and dynamic behavior. A project can rely on UML as the standard language to express requirements, system design, deployment instructions, and code structure (Eriksson et al., 2004). 2.2 Agile Modeling Test case modeling and an evolutionary approach are two major and strongly related techniques to model transformation (Rumpe, 2004). UML nowadays has become popular modeling language for software intensive systems used. Models can be used for a variety of purposes. One advantage of using models for test case description is the application specific parts which are modeled with UML-diagrams, such as connection to frameworks, error handling, persistence, or communication are handled by the parameterized code generator (Rumpe, 2004). This allows us to develop models which can be independent of any technology or platform, such as PIM. When the technology changes, we only need to update the generator, and the application defining models can directly be reused. This concept also directly supports the above mentioned MDA-Approach (OMG, 2005) of the OMG. Another important merit is that both of the production code and automatically executable tests are modeled by the same UML diagrams. Therefore developers could use a single homogeneous language to describe implementation and tests. This will enhance the availability of tests at the beginning of the coding activities. Analogously to the â€Å"test first approach† (Beck, 2001), sequence diagrams are used for test cases and can be taken from the previously modeled requirements. When we start software modeling by drawing classes in a class diagram does not mean we are developing a class model. Instead, we are developing a software model by defining static aspects through a static view. If we start our development by drawing a dynamic diagram, like the state or sequence diagram, we are developing a software model by defining dynamic aspects through a dynamic view. The class and sequence diagrams could better be called structural and dynamic views. They are all written in the same language: UML (Kleppe et al, 2003). In Agile modeling (Ambler, 2002), we develop an Information system in following steps by using UML. System Use Case Models UI Prototypes UML Class Diagrams UML Sequence Diagrams UML Activity Diagrams Use case diagram shows a number of external actors and their connection to the use cases that the system provides. A use case is a description of a functionality (a specific usage of the system) that the system provides. The description of the actual use case is normally done in plain text or as a document linked to the use case. The functionality and flow can also be described using an activity diagram. The use case description only views the system behavior as the user perceives it and does not describe how the functionality is provided inside the system. Use cases define the functional requirements of the system. Sequence diagrams address an interaction and may be used to model flows within use cases (Booch et al., 1999). They show how the objects interact to execute operations, emphasis on the time ordering of the messages. Class diagrams shows a collection of declarative (static) model elements, such as classes, types, and their contents and relationships. Once we have the use cases, the next step is to create the class diagram. This is the heart of the object-oriented model. This paper concentrates on the steps of modeling from Use Case Models to Class Diagrams and sequence Diagrams. 2.3 MDA The MDA is a new software engineering approach developed and published by the Object Management Group (OMG). One fundamental observation in the evolution of living software systems over the years is that their basic design models are mostly unchanged. Most changes to evolving software systems take place only at engineering level, forced by the introduction of new technologies and platforms (BAohme et al., 2005). MDA promotes simply the usage of models for the whole software system development. To capture the problem of technology evolution MDA defines two categories of models. The first one is for abstract modeling of the software systems at the design level. This model class is called Platform Independent Model (PIM). The second category is related to specific platforms and technologies. It contains mainly engineering aspects of the software system and is called Platform Specific Model (PSM). Between these two classes of models, MDA defines a relation in the form of several transformations, which ensure the structural equivalence of PIM and PSM. Another key issue of MDA is a technology framework for different kinds of model handling (storage, exchange, mapping of models, etc.). The Meta Object Facility (MOF) (OMG, 2000) is convenient for this purpose. Historically modeling languages were defined by abstract grammars. MOF instead defines modeling languages on the base of so-called Meta-Models. Meta-Models are models (instances) of built-in MOF concepts. Using this framework the developer can focus more on the definition of mappings between models rather than having to struggle with ordinary model handling. This is due to the fact that MOF comes with a method for the definition of model classes (Meta-Models) and for the exchange of models using the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). In addition, MOF provides mappings of Meta-Models to repository interfaces as well. Such a repository holds all necessary information about model instances. The above argument is correct for most of todays component technology. To show the real application we have to choose concrete Meta-Models for PIM and PSM. This also leads to the selection of appropriate Meta-Models and notations for PIM and PSM. One requirement for both is the support of the component concept as a first class concept. Moreover, the Meta-Model for the PSM should be part of a well-defined and established component technology. Because the spread industrial usage is a process consuming several years, the suitable technologies have traditional syntax based languages for component definition. MDA exploits the emergence of a class of tools, which support model translation and allow meta-model manipulation. Meta-models are models of the formalism used to build models. They define the various kinds of contained model elements and the way they are arranged, related and constrained. The process of developing a model results in the creation of instances of the model elements defined in the meta-model – the meta-model is â€Å"populated† with instance data. Model transformation is the process of converting a model expressed in one formalism to another model of the same system expressed using a different formalism. This can be achieved by building a meta-model of each of the source and target model representations and then defining a mapping between them. The meta-model of the source model is populated with instance data of the specific source model to be transformed. The mapping rules are applied as a set of operations invoked on the source meta-model, which results in a meta-model of the target model populated with instance data. This populated target meta-model is then used to generate the target model (or possibly the target text in the case of code generation. (Bloomfield, 2005) 2.4 Models, modeling, and MDA Models and model-driven software development are at the heart of the MDA approach. So it is appropriate to start by looking at what is being practiced when enterprise application developers take advantage of modeling. In the software engineering world, modeling has a rich tradition from the earliest days of programming. The most recent innovations have focused on notations and tools that allow users to express system perspectives of value to software architects and developers in ways that are readily mapped into the programming language code that can be compiled for a particular operating system platform. The current state of this practice employs the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as the primary modeling notation (Rumbaugh et al.,1999). The UML allows development teams to capture a variety of important characteristics of a system in corresponding models. Transformations among these models are primarily manual, with tool support for managing traceability and dependency relationships among modeling elements, supported by best practice guidance on how to maintain synchronized models as part of a large-scale development effort. One useful way to characterize current practice is to look at the different ways in which the models are synchronized with the source code. Each category identifies a particular use of models in assisting software practitioners to create running applications (code) for a specific runtime platform, and the relationship between the models and the code. Today, most of software developers still take a code-only approach, and do not use separately defined models at all. They rely almost entirely on the code they write, and they express their model of the system they are building directly in a 3rd generation programming language such as Java, C++, or C# within an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as IBM WebSphere Studio, Eclipse, and Microsoft VisualStudio. Any â€Å"modeling† they do is in the form of programming abstractions embedded in the code (e.g., packages, modules, interfaces, etc.), which are managed through mechanisms such as program libraries and object hierarchies. Any separate modeling of architectural designs is informal and intuitive, and lives on whiteboards, in PowerPoint sides, or in the developers’ heads. While this may be adequate for individuals and very small teams, this approach makes it difficult to understand key characteristics of the system among the details of the implementation of the business logic. Furthermore, it becomes much more difficult to manage the evolution of these solutions as their scale and complexity increases, as the system evolves over time, or when the original members of the design team are not directly accessible to the team maintaining the system. An addition is to provide code visualizations in some appropriate modeling notation. As developers create or analyze an application, they often want to visualize the code through some graphical notation that aids their understanding of the code’s structure or behavior. It may also be possible to manipulate the graphical notation as an alternative to editing the text based code, so that the visual rendering becomes a direct representation of the code. Such rendering is sometimes called a code model, or an implementation model, although many feel it more appropriate to call these artifacts â€Å"diagrams† and reserve the use of â€Å"model† for higher levels of abstraction. Some tools that allow such diagrams (e.g., IBM Web Sphere Studio and Borland Together/J), the code view and the model view can be displayed simultaneously; as the developer manipulates either view the other is immediately synchronized with it. In this approach, the diagrams are tightly coupled representations of the code and provide an alternative way to view and possibly edit at the code level. Further advantage of the models can be taken through roundtrip engineering (RTE) between an abstract model of the system describing the system architecture or design, and the code. The developer typically elaborates the system design to some level of detail, then creating a first-pass implementation from the code generated by applying model-to-code transformations, usually manually. For instance, one team working on the high level design provides design models to the team working on the implementation (perhaps simply by printing out model diagrams, or providing the implementation team some files containing the models). The implementation team converts this abstract, high-level design into a detailed set of design models and the programming language implementation. Iterations of these representations will occur as errors and their corrections are made in either the design or the code. Consequently, without considerable discipline, the abstract models and the implementation models usually and quickly – end up out of step. Tools can automate the initial transformation, and can help to keep the design and implementation models in step as they evolve. Typically the tools generate code stubs from the design models that the user has to further refine. As changes are made to the code they must at some point be reconciled with the original model. To achieve this some approach to recognize generated versus user defined code is used such as placing markers in the code. Tools adopting this approach, such as IBM Rational Rose, can offer multiple transformation services supporting RTE between models and different implementation languages. In a model-centric approach, models of the system are established in sufficient detail that the full implementation of the system can be generated from the models themselves. To achieve this, the models may include, for example, representations of the persistent and non persistent data, business logic, and presentation elements. Any integration to legacy data and services may require that the interfaces to those elements are also modeled. In some cases much more than code stubs can be generated depending on the fidelity of the models of patterns to transform the models to code, frequently allowing the developer some choice in the patterns that are applied (e.g., among various deployment topologies). To further assist in the code generation, this approach frequently makes use of standard or proprietary application frameworks and runtime services that ease the code generation task by constraining the styles of applications that can be generated. Hence, tools using this approach typically specialize in the generation of particular styles of applications (e.g., IBM Rational Rose Technical Developer for real-time embedded systems). However, in all cases the models are the primary artifact created and manipulated by developers. A model-only approach is at the far-right end of the modeling spectrum. In this approach developers use models purely as thought aids in understanding the business or solution domain, or for analyzing the architecture of a proposed solution. Models are frequently used as the basis for discussion, communication, and analysis among teams within a single organization, or across multi-organizational projects. These models frequently appear in proposals for new work, or adorn the walls of offices and cubes in software labs everywhere as a way of understanding some complex domain of interest, and establishing a shared vocabulary and set of concepts among disparate teams. In practice the implementation of a system, whether from scratch or updating an existing solution, may be practically disconnected from the models. An interesting example of this approach can be seen in the growing number of organizations who outsource implementation and maintenance of their systems while maintaining contr ol of the overall enterprise architecture. 2.5 Transformations between UML diagrams UML provides different diagram types supporting the development process from requirements specification to implementation (Selonen et al., 2001). The models presented by different diagrams view a system from different perspectives or from different abstraction levels. Therefore, the various UML models of the same system are not independent specifications but strongly overlapping: they depend on each other in many ways. For Instance, changes in one model may imply changes in another, and a large portion of one model may be synthesized on the basis of another model. So far there exists relatively modest tool support exploiting the logical dependencies of UML models. Some systems (e.g. Rational Rose) maintain, for instance, method lists across class diagrams and sequence diagrams: adding a call of a new method in a sequence diagram automatically causes the corresponding updating of the class symbol in a class diagram. Another example is the transformation between sequence diagrams and collaboration diagrams, also supported by Rational Rose. However, there is no comprehensive framework that would support such mechanisms throughout Class diagram and Sequence diagram in a systematic way. This paper studies the relationships of Class diagram and Sequence diagram in UML, and transformation operations that are based on those relationships. A transformation operation takes a UML diagram as its operand (the source diagram), and produces another diagram of another type as its result (the target diagram). It considers such transformation operations as an essential part of a UML- based software design environment. The transformation operations can be used for example in the following ways: Model checking:Are two diagrams consistent with each other? It is much easier to find inconsistencies between two diagrams of the same type than between two diagrams of different types. If the diagrams are of different types, transformation operations can be first applied to obtain two diagrams of the same type, which are then compared for consistency. Model merging:Add the information contained in one diagram to another diagram. Merging the modeling information of two diagrams is much easier when the diagrams are of the same type (Alanen and Porres, 2003). If the diagrams are of different types, transformation operations can be first applied to obtain two diagrams of the same type, which are then merged. Model slicing:Create a partial view of a diagram showing only a particular aspect. Often the aspect can be presented in the form of another diagram (of some other type). For example, one may want to see a dynamic slice of a static diagram. The diagram representing the slicing criterion (for example, a dynamic diagram) can be first transformed into the type of the target diagram (for example, a static diagram). An intersection of the two diagrams of the same type then shows the desired slice. Model synthesis:Produce a diagram on the basis of an existing diagram of another type. This is the most straightforward usage of transformation operations. Such synthesis can be useful for two purposes: to obtain automatically an initial form of a diagram needed in a subsequent phase of the software development process, or to obtain a different view of the information contained by a diagram. The latter may be used just as a transient view on a model, rather than as a persistent design artifact. 2.6 Phase of Transformation Operation Selonen et al. (2003) use the UML meta-model to define the transformation between UML diagrams. Since diagram types are only very loosely defined (the same notation may represent different meaning on different diagrams), we need to establish a precise mapping from a graphical view representing a diagram type to a model; i.e. we must define a model that corresponds to a given diagram. This model contains exactly the logical information exposed by the diagram, needed by the transformation operations. We will call this model the minimal model of the diagram. As we do this for all diagram types, we are able to define transformations between diagram types as functions from the meta-model of a diagram type to the meta-model of another diagram type. Such a function takes the minimal model of the source diagram as its argument, and produces the minimal model of the target diagram. They call the transformation rules the interpretation of the transformation. Assuming that the mappings from the source diagram into its minimal model, from this minimal model into the minimal model of the target diagram, and finally into the target diagram, are all defined uniquely, the transformation between two diagram types becomes fully defined (Selonen et al.,2003). First, take a given sequence diagram and map the sequence diagram to its minimal model. Then transform this minimal model to a minimal model of a class diagram. Finally, this minimal model is mapping to a class diagram in model level. This thesis will base on this process to introduce a definite transformation operation. Reference Tom Pender. (2003). UML Bible (1st edition). Wiley, ISBN: 0764526049 Martin Fowler. (2004). UML Distilled (3rd edition), Wesley, ISBN: 0321193687 Hans-Erik Eriksson, Magnus Penker, Brain Lyons, and David Fado. (2004). UML 2 Toolkit, Wiley, ISBN: 0471463612 Ambler. (2002). Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process, Wiley, ISBN: 0471202827 Jos Warmer, Anneke Kleppe.(2003). The Object Constraint Language: Getting Your Models Ready for MDA (2nd Edition), Wesley, ISBN: 0321179366 Grzegorz Rozenberg.(1997). Handbook on Graph Grammars and Computing by Graph Transformation: Foundations (1st edition), World Scientific Publishing Company, ISBN: 9810228848 James Rumbaugh, Grady Booch, and Ivar Jacobson. (1999). The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual, Wesley, ISBN: 020130998X Jams R Rumbaugh, Michael R. Blaha, William Lorensen, Frederick Eddy. (1991). Object-Oriented Modeling and Design, Prentice Hall; United States Ed edition, ISBN: 0136298419 Rumpe, B.(2004). Agile Modeling with the UML, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Petri Selonen, Kai Koskimies and Markku Sakkinen. (2001). How to Make Apples from Oranges in UML. Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from: http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2001/0981/03/09813054.pdf Petri Selonen, Kai Koskimies and Markku Sakkinen. (2003). Transformations between UML diagrams. Journal of Database Management. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23439697_ITM Petri Selonen (2000). Scenario-based Synthesis of Annotated Class Diagrams in UML. Tampere University of Technology, Retrieved February 21, 2008, from: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/462963.html Mellor, S. J., Scott, K., Uhl, A., and Weise,D., MD. (2004). a Distilled: Principles of Model-Driven. Wesley, Retrieved February 22, 2008, From: http://www.metamodel.com/,2005 OMG. (2003). UML 2.0 OCL Specification, Retrieved February 22, 2008, from: http://www.omg.org/docs/ptc/03-10-14.pdf,2003 Tony Bloomfield. (2005). MDA,Meta-Modelling,and Model Transformation: introduction New Technology into the Defence Industry, Retrieved February 22, 2008, from: http://www.enabler.com/en/skills/ecmda/PAPER_Bloomfield.pdf

Memory and Time Essay -- Informative, Episodic Memory

Critically assess the theory that our memory for the past is a crucial element in imagining the future. Human beings do not have the ability to travel in time; therefore the only way to detach themselves from the present is through their mental world, where they can access past recollections as well as prospective expectations. The only memory system allowing individuals to mentally time travel is episodic memory. Bartlett (1932) proposed the idea that memory is not an actual reproduction of the past, but a constructive process in which distinct pieces of information from various sources are drawn together. Therefore episodic memory does not just hold and retrieve exact replicas of past experiences but rather holds detailed distinctive informations which allow individuals to recollect past events. Schacter and Addis (2007) argued that details from the past episodes are also crucial for fabricating or imagining future scenes and occurring. This ability is referred to as prospection or episodic future thinking. Re-experiencing of past events and the capacity of the pre-experience episodes in the future are enabled by the same episodic memory system. However as the future is not an exact duplication of the past, they argue that simulating of the future happenings is enabled by a constructive, rather than reproductive system, able to extract and recombine elements from the past experiences in order to imagine the future. If this claim is correct there should be a considerable overlap in psychological as well as in neural processes involved in remembering the past and imagining the future. Shao, Yao, Ceci and Wang (2010) reject Schacter and Addis’ idea, claiming that future scenarios are not merely a reflection of the past but ... ...nd into the future operates on the same cognitive capacities. The argument was supported with presenting brief descriptions of behavioural studies and neuroimaging experiments, presenting evidence for the claims that recollecting the past and envisioning the future involve a shared brain network and that imagining future scenarios requires collecting and amending details from the past. Contradictory to this view, the essay presented Shao, Yao, Ceci and Wang’s theory of the importance of individual concept of self on envisioning future events, showing differences in peoples past and future self concepts. Furthermore, the essay was summed up with the idea that both views should meet on a common ground, as mental time travel into the past and the future is enabled by a shared brain network, however it is also influenced by acquired non personal knowledge of the world.