Sociology - Family Relationships - Marriage Essay

Human science - Family Relationships - Marriage - Essay Example It is both a physical and a psychological need of each individual. Individuals need to get hitched so as to build up a solid society where kids know who their folks are and the guardians are at risk to satisfy their children’s individual, social and efficient needs. This is key to the improvement of a dynamic and humanistic culture. Marriage press is conceivably an awkwardness between the quantity of ladies and grooms in a specific network. For instance, the African America men will in general wed white American women leaving practically 43% African American ladies between the ages of 30 to 34 years unmarried. (Newsweek refered to in Darleene, 2007). Nonetheless, the ladies of the network will in general limit themselves to African American men as a result of a few reasons. In this way, there are a greater number of grooms in the African American people group than ladies. Wedding down is a term used to allude to the situations when a person from a specific social and monetary class will in general wed another from a lower class. Most African American ladies will in general wed down as they ordinarily locate no decision however to wed lower class men of their race. A portion of the key factors that assume a definitive job in the continuation of marriage are joblessness, absence of trust, absence of affection and earnestness, misuse (either verbal or physical or both), barrenness, ridiculously exclusive requirements and money related trouble. These are the variables that entice the individual accomplices of the couple to separate the marriage when all is said in done. Notwithstanding, the most crucial variables that choose whether or not a couple will remain wedded are the capacity of both of the two accomplices to bargain, the level of significance they give to their relationship and the time they consider the issues to get settled. In the event that a couple is resolved to remain wedded, nothing can crush it. At some point or another, everything gets settled down and the two begin to discover solace and harmony in their

Landing at Inchon Free Essays

Arriving at Inchon: Foolish Risk or Calculated Gamble? Battle Analysis: Operation CHROMITE The Ultimate Challenge for the Commander is choosing where and when to submit powers to best use accessible battle power against the rival. General Douglas MacArthur has been scrutinized for his choice, despite the fact that it succeeded, to make the intrusion of Korea at the harbor of Inchon. This paper investigates the authenticity of that choice dependent on the standards of military force. We will compose a custom paper test on Arriving at Inchon or on the other hand any comparable theme just for you Request Now A well known military apothegm is that triumph has a thousand dads, while rout is a vagrant. The American attack of Inchon during the Korean War should unquestionably be the special case to this. General Douglas MacArthur, cherished by a few, loathed by others, legitimately merits the entirety of the credit for such a strong and daring choice. Everything considered, his choice merits maybe more vigilance. On the off chance that Inchon had fizzled, regardless of whether strategically or deliberately, not exclusively could the war’s result have been unique, yet definitely MacArthur would have been attacked time permitting, just as our own by rocker scholars and commanders. Was his choice sufficiently situated in military standards, adjusted by finishes to implies? Or then again was it a gambler’s last hurl of the shakers? America’s war focuses on the beginning of the Korean War were basic: Drive the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) out of South Korea, back over the 38 th equal and restore tranquility on American footing. These were the express points. The key needs will sound strikingly comfortable to those acquainted with key discussion in this time of Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti and Operation Desert Storm: End the war as fast as could be expected under the circumstances and keep U. S. setbacks to a base. Indeed, even during the 1950s, there was a political drive to keep wars short and bloodless; to accomplish national closures without exhausting assets. Maybe the national propensity to plan to accomplish something in vain is an essential attribute of America. For the North Koreans, the inverse was valid. Kim Il Sung’s point was to reunify the two Koreas. Since he was unable to achieve this strategically, he turned to military intends to increase a political end. He had submitted North Korea’s constrained assets and labor absolutely and totally to the reunification of the Korean promontory. Kim Il Sung might not have acknowledged it, yet he had two potential parts of vital needs. The first was to drive the Americans out of the Pusan Perimeter and back to Japan, accordingly permitting him an opportunity to combine his hold strategically, socially and militarily on Korea. The subsequent branch, unquestionably increasingly unobtrusive, would have been to keep the Americans restrained at Pusan and keep on attrit American lives, while combining his hold and fortifying his long strategic tail. By slaughtering Americans, North Korea could cause triumph to show up amazingly expensive to the American government and maybe wear out the political will to battle. The political will to battle would be sponsored up by how the American military would really direct the battle. American tenet has generally been surrounded by the thought of getting ready to battle the following war as the last one was battled. While this sort of doctrinal intuition caused issues down the road for the U. S. in Vietnam; for some odd reason, it was the right methodology for Korea. The American military had obviously, just barely completed the process of battling World War Two five years preceding North Korea’s intrusion of South Korea. While the U. S. orce structure had been drastically drawn down and was ill-equipped to battle the following war, its doctrinal way to deal with taking up arms had not changed. American tenet during the past war was obnoxiously situated, depending essentially on the infantry to hold key territory once the adversary had been pushed off. The wearing down of foe powers was auxiliary to seizing and guarding ground. Hostile activity wa s utilized to encompass a foe’s flank, without falling back on frontal attacks. Armor’s job was to pick up the activity either with an envelopment or an entrance at a powerless point in the enemy’s front. Tanks were viewed as the best weapon to murder another tank. The doctrinal utilization of ordnance and close air bolster made incredible steps during World War Two. Before the finish of that war, the U. S. Armed force was truly adept at leading hostile war, to a great extent since they didn't need to protect their own country as the German Army had been compelled to do. Be that as it may, American protective regulation was more fragile. Dependence on strengthened strongpoints made infiltration of American lines simple, as the 1 st Armored Division found to its lament during the initial period of the Kasserine Pass fights. A strongpoint resistance with versatile defensively covered counterattack powers may neutralize an assaulting tank division, yet it was sick outfitted to manage a penetrating infantry power which assaulted around evening time, bypassing the strongpoint and attacked calculated bases. In general, the experience of the past World Wars had formed the American commanders’ techniques for pursuing battle. General Douglas MacArthur had been a regimental authority during World War One and an Army leader during World War Two. During both of his past encounters, he had depended on intensity, boldness and the hostile to pick up and keep up the activity over his rivals. MacArthur’s splendid utilization of land and/or water capable tasks in the Pacific against the Japanese had just furnished him with the experience important to settle on a land and/or water capable arriving at Inchon, a long ways behind adversary lines, to remove the North Korean strategic lines of correspondence and rapidly recover the capital of South Korea, Seoul. As the American doctrinal way to deal with the activity was equivalent to in the past clash, so basically were the powers at MacArthur’s removal The U. S. Armed force power structure was fixated on the pre-greatness of the infantry divisions, with coordinated reinforcement support. An infantry division had three regiments, with three legions each, and four infantry organizations for every force. The division likewise had one tank contingent, allocating organization of M-24s (outgunned in contrast with the Russian made T-34 which the North Koreans used) to each regiment. During the drawdown which followed World War Two, the quantity of infantry brigades per regiment was decreased by one. The infantrymen’s armory to a great extent comprised of little arms, mortars and overwhelming automatic weapons. In any case, the infantry had no really viable enemy of tank weapon. The standard issue 2. 36 inch rocket was no counterpart for the thick shield of the T-34. The three division cannons legions (one for every infantry regiment) had likewise endured reductions, dropping from three batteries each to two. With this structure, the X Corps, told by Major General Almond, was built up to lead the land and/or water capable ambush at Inchon. X Corps comprised of the first Marine Division, in addition to one regiment pulled back from the Pusan Perimeter so as to carry that Division to a full wartime quality of three regiments, and the seventh Infantry Division. While X Corps was the attack power, in general order and joint help was under the umbrella control of Joint Task Force (JTF) 7, with seven subordinate teams. JTF-7 was a genuine joint operational order, consolidating Navy, Army and Marine units so as to help the attack power. JTF-7 would strike the North Koreans at a frail, ill-equipped point, affecting amazement and mass before the North Koreans could respond. North Korean military precept firmly took after the Chinese model. Mao Tse Tung’s approach was to maintain a strategic distance from solid focuses and penetrate an enemy’s lines to hit the pitifully safeguarded back zones, so as to demolish imperative calculated zones. The North Koreans were not as street bound as the American armed force might have been, which gave them more adaptability than the Americans. North Korean hardware was to a great extent Russian and Chinese made, including the marvelous Russian T-34. The North Korean power structure firmly looked like the Chinese and Soviet triangular arrangement. On the offense, the two up and one back technique was utilized. On the protection, this arrangement was turned around. The infantry division’s principle body was generally gone before by four tank forces, whose goal was to punch through a rivals primary guards and proceed into the back regions, leaving the infantry to clean up. While woefully ailing in air support with just nineteen obsolete Soviet airplane and basically no naval force to talk about, the North Koreans possessed the T-34 tank and towed mounted guns. In the Inchon/Seoul region, the 3 d, 10 th and 13 th Divisions were on the back of the Seoul-Taejon-Taegu thruway, inside simple striking scope of the arrival zones. About 400 officers of the 3 d Bn, 226 th Independent Marine Regiment and components of the 918 th Artillery Regiment guarded Wolmi-do Island, the invasion’s introductory target. North Korean shore mounted guns comprised of 75mm firearms inside solid revetments. Activity CHROMITE prevailing for a few reasons. In the first place, the U. S. (with British help) had the option to build up and keep up air matchless quality; strike airplane had the option to hit North Korean units during sunlight hours and attrit units in the Seoul-Inchon region. Control of the skies allowed the segregation of the attack territory and forestalled fortifying units from arriving at the intrusion region. Control of the ocean allowed the strategic help of the attack power unafraid of interference by adversary surface or submarine powers. The nearness of a safe calculated base on Japan guaranteed a smooth progression of provisions, both to units at Inchon just as Pusan. With maritime gunfire support, the Americans likewise beat protective situations on Wolmi-do Island with high explosives and napalm, viably killing the North Koreans. Making sure about the island was completely basic to progress

What We Did In High School

What We Did In High School One month ago, we helped out Lauren Avalos (an MIT Admissions Counselor), at our high schools annual college forum, where a bunch of counselors from top tier schools gave a panel discussion about the college admissions process, sandwiched between two 20 minute QA sessions. The audience was mostly high school juniors and sophomores but there were also some very ambitious middle schoolers that came up to us. Three years ago, we went to this panel and met Lauren there, and asked her a question too. If memory serves, it was whether we could include collaborative projects in the Maker Portfolio (we think she said yes, as long as you specify what you contributed to). We’ve chatted a couple times with Lauren on campus, and towards the end of this past semester, she invited us to come to this forum where we met. We thought it would be fun, so we went, and helped Lauren with the 2 QA sessions. us (Danny sitting, Allan  standing) at the college forum, wearing our high school shirts and MIT caps for maximum school rep; 6/2/18 @ 9ish am By FAR, the question that people asked us the most, after finding out that we are current MIT students, was some variation of “What did you do in high school to get into MIT?” There were so many people that we couldnt dedicate nearly enough time to any one of them that asked this to answer as sufficiently as we wouldve liked to, so that’s what we are writing this blog to do! We remember really liking Michelle’s post, answering this question, when we read it as rising seniors in high school, so we will use it’s format as inspiration. She describes the gap between what you write on your application and what you actually do in high school, and we agree that this distinction is important to make. So, just like Michelle, we will write about what we did in high school. Everything we wrote on our applications came from the sea of words below, but neither of our applications included this entirely; instead they were small, carefully crafted tide pools. Said simpler, our applications were subsets of all the stuffs below. Anyways and without further ado, during high school, we: Found out that “college was a thing” We found out that “college was a thing” (as Michelle put it) in 9th grade. But specifically, that MIT was a thing, because of our relationship with blogger alum Anastassia B. ‘16  (who weve mentioned in a couple blogs already). Describing this relationship is on our to-blog list, because it is truly special. But for the purposes of this blog we will say that we met Anastassia when she was 14 and we were 10, because we lived in the same building and she was our babysitter lol. Eventually she became a mentor to us, and now were just really good friends! She entered her freshman year of MIT the same year we entered our freshman year of high school. MIT became our dream in 9th grade because of the way Anastassia described it. And MIT persisted as our dream throughout high school because of the way the blogs painted it. While we never did anything for it to look good on an application (and tried instead to best follow this advice), we definitely were aware of miniscule acceptance rates. This awareness drove us to work realllyyy hard throughout high school, which was good, but it also drove us to hyper levels of stress sometimes, which was not so good. Learned to talk to people and to smile There is a lot of context we could give, but to spare this post from being unbearably long, we will summarize. We lived in Brooklyn, NY until 4th grade and moved to Miami, FL to start 5th grade. Soon after moving, we entered a phase of anti-socialness. We were afraid to show our personalities and we both developed this bad habit of suppressing our smiles and laughter whenever we did feel a smile or laugh coming, we would cover our mouths instinctually with our hands. This phase lasted until the beginning of 9th grade. Without going into too much detail as to why (we could (maybe should?) write a blog about it), it was a combination of us getting bullied, and our own exaggerated perception that our classmates were scrutinizing our every move (it wasnt all exaggerated though middle school’s tough). So, we were afraid of drawing too much attention by changing the image we already had as the “shy quiet kids.” In the summer between 8th and 9th grade, we told ourselves and each other that we would deliberately stop this pattern of behavior and thinking, because we wanted to have friends! Sometime at the beginning of 9th grade, we made our first friend in Florida over a conversation about a broken plastic fork. And from then on, we just continued talking to more people and expressing ourselves! With each friendship it became easier and more natural. Now, we like to think we do it effortlessly (or as effortless as it can be for two socially awkward extraterrestrials). Liked playing piano, but not being in a music department We went to an art school for 9th and 10th grade for piano. But honestly, we were not the greatest at many aspects of it. We did end up playing some technically challenging songs by senior year of high school, but we have never been incredibly musically inclined. Playing piano was always just a hobby that we loved. So, we mostly relied on finger memory, and never learned to sight read or play by ear well enough, which were the skills that we needed most to thrive in the highly competitive music department. Shortly after coming to this art school, the music instructors saw our lack of these skills, and placed us in the percussion class. Ultimately, we did learn quite a bit of percussion and had fun in the process. But in general our experience in the department wasn’t great. There was always a lot of competition amongst the students to get the best and hardest parts and a lot of unnecessary pressure from the instructors to play everything perfectly, especially before the concert date. We already had our eyes on our second high school for a while, but this definitely motivated us to switch schools even more. We still played piano for our last two years of high school, because we really enjoyed it, and even more so, once we weren’t in a high pressure music program anymore. Didn’t let our academic situations limit us and took challenging classes Freshman Year: Our first high school didnt have many resources, because it was newly established at the time, and focused the resources it did have into the arts programs as opposed to on the academics. Plus, the principal seemed to have a hobby of firing teachers. This became clear to us in 9th grade when we had three math teachers, two english teachers, and two history teachers. This resulted in not the best educational experience, to say the least. To avoid getting behind, specifically in math, we basically taught ourselves Algebra 2 by reading ahead in the textbook and watching Khan Academy videos (aaaaa who knew we’d end up living in his room : 0 ). And because by the end of ninth grade we didnt trust our school to teach us anymore, we decided to take pre-calculus over the summer as a dual enrollment course in Miami Dade College (a local community college). Sophomore Year: Despite our lost trust in our school by the end of freshman year, this year was actually pretty redeeming. Our school began to offer more AP classes and we jumped on the opportunity to take the ones that intrested us (we took 3 that year). And although there were still some teachers getting fired, we personally had the same teachers throughout the whole year (which was a great change after the previous year). Plus they were all incredible, especially our calculus teacher! Junior Year: Our second high school was much more established, so it had really amazing resources (i.e. it was located on Miami Dade College’s campus, and half of our required curriculum was to take college classes). However, this school was purely academic, and we felt limited by the lack of arts it offered. We asked our guidance counselor if we could complete AP Art by ourselves and submit the portfolio at the end of the year. She said yes, and we self-completed AP Studio Art: Drawing that year (and Design the next year). Senior Year: Our high school recommended us to take mostly required core classes from MDC during junior year, so that in senior year, we could choose to take classes that interested us. And we did just that. Back in those days, we found chemistry and math really fun, so we took a lot of those classes (Chemistry 1 and 2 plus labs, Differential Equations, Multivariable Calculus, and Linear Algebra) Ooof, were they hard, but we really did enjoy them! Took a ton of public transportation Our first high school was a 40 minute 1 hour bus ride away from our home, and our second high school was a 1 1.5 hour bus ride away from our home. Mornings were not that bad because the Miami bus system was pretty reliable at 6:23 am. But in the afternoon, it was a total gamble. We spent so many hours waiting at bus stops and riding them, and tried to make that time productive by either catching up on lost sleep or doing homework. We also made some friends, even from other high schools, on those bus rides! Stressed about the SAT, and consequently regained our love for reading When we were little, we adored reading. But around the time that we moved to Florida, for some reason, we began really hating it! Then, around the beginning of 9th grade, we got our results from the PSAT and realized that our writing and reading scores were subpar (back in the ancient times of 5 years ago when these were separate sections). This really stressed us out, so we read through many SAT prep books, and all of the books said that the key to the SAT reading section is to read quickly, and that the only way to read quickly is to read A LOT. So, that’s what we did! We forced ourselves to read a lot. Throughout high school, we were constantly cycling through books. We tried picking ones that interested us like fantasy, sci-fi, and dystopian novels, and also some that weren’t up our alley. We also formed an informal book club at our local library (it was literally just us and a really sweet librarian) to motivate us and to get recommendations. Not only did this actually help us improve on the reading and writing sections, but we also eventually regained our love for reading books again! Huh, the SAT is good for something after all! Just as a side note, both of our scores still ended up being in MIT’s SAT Reading 25th percentile. Had we not put in all this extra effort though, our scores would have been far lower than they were. Even though we heard things like “it’s not all about scores,” we still retook the SAT sooo many times, and then even decided to try the ACT. We do not regret the extra effort we put in to bringing our scores up (since it actually worked and also had such a positive side effect of making us love reading again), but we do regret the stress we felt about scores resulting in the extra and unnecessary retakes. In retrospect, we wish we would have really, truly internalized “it’s not all about scores,” because it  really, truly isn’t. Had a tumblr with like 9 followers We really liked making things when we were little with our mom. We learned a lot of skills from her and gained a lot of our passions from her namely, knitting, crafting, and baking. So following this advice again, we spent a whole lot of time knitting, crafting, and baking. We had a tumblr that we posted all of our makings on, and it had like 9 followers lol… we were just posting our projects to keep documentation of them, and really didnt do it for the social media aspect. But looking back at it, it is kind of amusing, because we wrote our posts as if there was a large audience of dedicated followers reading them. We definitely were not secretly fantasizing about getting into MIT in order to become bloggers and we were not keeping this blog so that we could put it on our future blogger application … we’re still shocked things worked out so well. knitted owl and polar bear figurines   halloween muffins paper mached holiday totoro  matryoshka  dolls; were almost certain this picture is blurry because we made this craft project in the era before we had a camera or iphones, and had to angle our desktop down on the floor and use photobooth to take all our pictures Obsessed over these very blogs Ever since the beginning of high school, part of our daily routine was going to mitadmissions.org to read every new post! We don’t know what else to say here; we just loved these blogs! Watched Food Network and YouTube and Cartoons and Anime and Shows and Movies (also rewatched things a lot) When we were little, we wasted away houuurrrrs every day watching television. In middle school, it decreased a little, but not by much. Upon finding out that college was a thing, we made more or less a pact to ourselves that we had to decrease our television consumption, because we knew we needed to dedicate a LOT of time to school and studying now (like the extra SAT studying, and the extra effort to make sure we got good grades, ect.) During breaks and any weekends we could afford it, wed revert back to our childhood TV watching habits. Every school day though, we did allow ourselves to unwind and watch something, while we ate lunch or dinner, but only for around 30-60 minutes. For us, that time we spent relaxing was not just fun, but highly necessary for us to continue studying or doing homework after a mentally exhausting day at school (both from the classes and from the social interaction). Whether that was food network (our favorites were Pioneer Woman, Barefoot Contessa, and Giada at Home) or youtube videos or anime or movies, we always made time to consume some media! Did mostly badly at math competitions We were co-presidents of math club for 9th, 10th, and 12th grade. Part of the club was a tutoring service where we and a bunch of members from the club would stay after school with our math teacher to help other students. Another part of the club was the competitions. We organized for all the members to participate in a bunch of math competition, both local Florida ones and big national ones (like the AMC). We would have many meeting where we would study with our members for the competitions we’d be participating in that year. In 9th and 10th grade, we never won any official awards, but could see how we did relative to our classmates. 11th grade is when things started to look up. After not winning anything for most of 11th grade, at the end of the year we went to a local south Florida competition called Meeting of the MathMinds. Although, our team didnt place in the top 3 (which were the only spots that were officially recognized), we knew that we only got 1 or 2 less questions correct than the 3rd place team. So, we ended up asking the scorers, and our team was actually in 6th place (technically we were the 5th highest scoring team, but there were two teams that got the 4th highest score). Then in senior year, we got 2nd place in the team competition! And this next thing is what we were most proud of because it validated all the hours we spent knitting random things for fun: we got 1st place in the math poster portion of the Meeting of the MathMinds Competition in senior year, for presenting our math knitting project about hexaflexagons! the video above shows our very first and very  sloppy  knitted hexaflexagon, so here is a more polished second iteration we stayed up till 5am the morning of the competition to get this done post  competition  shock; this was literally the first and only time weve ever won first place at something :); also, tbt to prehistoric snapchat   Were rejected from most things we applied to We tried applying to mannnyyy internships and scholarships and summer programs during our time in high school. We did not get 90% of them. Of the probably 20 we applied to, we only ended up getting two scholarships towards the end of our senior year, and we never got any internships or summer programs we applied for. We remember being disheartened about this pattern of rejection a lot, thinking we were totally unqualified, and would never get accepted to anything ever, let alone any college. A message to all our fellow paranoid people: Past rejections do not predict or have any bearing on future decisions. Breathe. Please, breathe, because we did not, and wish we did. Volunteered and interned at our favorite science museum We really loved this one science museum when we first moved to Florida. It just always felt really magical! So, when the time came to get community service hours for our high school graduation requirement, we decided to do it at this museum! We did most of our volunteering there during the summer, but also some time during the school year on weekends. We ended up exceeding the minimum hours by more than double because we really enjoyed volunteering there! We eventually became animal handlers for two of the three levels, and were even able to train new volunteers. In our junior year, we saw flyers in the museum for this internship program where you get to make your own exhibit. That sounded really fun to us, and you did not have to apply, just sign up, so we did! We spent the year designing and making our own exhibit, which was a series of games to help explain the phenomenon of synesthesia. We chose this topic because around that time we had watched a couple documentaries about it, and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Gave “research” and research a try For a while in high school we thought we wanted to pursue biology or some sort of life science. This was because we highly looked up to and admired Anastassia B. ‘16, and wanted to be just like her (honestly, we still do). She majored in biology and did really cool biology research, so we wanted to do that to, or so we thought. Our first “research” project was very informal, hence the quotation marks. Essentially, we got it by talking to classmates we knew who were also interested in biology. We then all tried scouting around the community college by our high school for professors who might be interested in teaching us things. We found a really charismatic and willing professor. We spent a lot of after school hours in junior year for a couple months learning all about bacteriophages and the basics of bioinformatics, and helping out with random tasks for the professor’s research project. After giving it an honest shot, we didnt really enjoy it, and as soon as a close in the project seemed evident, we stopped doing it. We really wanted to do a research summer program in our junior year summer, because we wanted to give research another chance, specifically to see if we would like it more if we would have more involvement in the project. We applied to a couple STEM summer programs in Florida, but got rejected from all of them. So instead, we participated in our backup, which was a summer program run through the local community college where we were taking dual enrollment courses. They grouped us up into research teams in universities around the area. We were in different teams, but both of us were in the university 10 minutes from our home, which was a nice change from our usual long commutes. Both our projects were chemistry research projects, and we did enjoy them more than the our first “research experience. Overbooked ourselves Throughout high school we constantly felt an overwhelming sense of Not Doing Enough. We felt that no matter how much we did, we should be doing more, so we don’t regret it later on. There are two specific instances we want to talk about, both involving choosing which classes to take. The first happened in the beginning of junior year. One classmate, who we worked on the “research” project described above with, told us he was signing up to take AP Biology online (through Florida Virtual School) to learn more for our project. Despite feeling that signing up for this extra class would be too much for us (because we already were set on doing AP Studio Art by ourselves and were taking AP Calculus BC online), we wanted to take it because we thought we were Not Doing Enough. We brought this up to our guidance counselor, and, rightfully so, she was against the idea, aware of our already present extra coursework. We were very persistent, and eventually convinced her to let us take it. Within two weeks of the class, we felt extremely stressed and got behind in multiple classes, and were left with no choice but to drop this class. We felt very bad about not following our guidance counselor’s initial warning and the extra work she did to sign us up for the class, just for us to just drop it later. We expressed this to her and she forgave us, as long as we followed her advice in the future. In senior year, however, we made the same mistake again. In our high school, unlike the process to sign up for online classes (where it relied on approval from our guidance counselor), the process to sign up for dual enrollment classes gave us a lot of freedom and trust. Because we thought we were Not Doing Enough, we took advantage of this freedom to sign up for WAY too many dual enrollment classes in our senior fall semester. Within the first week, we felt we would not be able to handle the course work and had to drop one of the classes (postponing it for the next semester). Dropping this class didn’t give our guidance counselor any more work, but it did give our registrar more work. She, just like our guidance counselor in junior year, was kind enough to bear with us and forgive us. Made many presents   our junior year guidance counselors goodbye present; random thank you muffins; senior year present to our high school teachers: personalized mason jar pencil holders A big reason we made things in high school was to make them for others. We always loved gift giving because it was how we showed our affection and appreciation for others. We did this a LOT in high school, because there were SO many people who helped us along the way! From Anastassia, who guided us immensely, to all our AP teachers in 10th grade, who started our journey of rigorous academics, to all our high school teachers in our second high school (especially our english teacher), who taught us what it means to really work hard, to our guidance counselors and registrar, who helped us with our turbulent decision making and were kind to forgive us for making mistakes, and to our amazing friends, for just being our friends. We failed a LOT in high school, and despite (maybe because of) stress, we persisted trying. We were guided by what we liked doing, but tried new things too and quit or changed anything that didn’t fit. And most rewardingly, we learned to connect with our peers and make friends. There are an infinite amount of ways to do high school and no “right” way to do it to get into MIT; we hope that reading what we did was in anyway helpful! And lastly, we said it a couple times already, but don’t be like us. Step back sometimes and breathe. Post Tagged #High School

The North American Free Trade Agreement - 894 Words

The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 8th, 1993, went into effect on January 1st, 1994. By December of 1994, Mexico underwent a deep economic crisis, which saw the devaluation of the Mexican peso, a deterioration of wages, rampant unemployment, as well as extensive personal and corporate bankruptcies that led to the poverty and malnutrition of many of its citizens. As we explore the economic effects that NAFTA has had on Mexico, we must consider what economic disparity has meant for the citizens of Mexico, and how it has impacted migration patterns from Mexico to the United States. Under NAFTA, Mexico s per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has grown twenty-two percent, from $10,238 in 1980 to $14,400 in 2010, an increase which is less than the growth rate average for all other Latin American countries, which has hovered at thirty-three percent during that thirty-year period. In that same period, the United States has seen a GDP growth well above that of Mexico, at sixty-six percent. Furthermore, enacting NAFTA has provided Mexico the slowest rate of economic growth out of all previous economic strategies since the 1930 s; under NAFTA, Mexico s GDP grew at a meager .89 percent per year. Still, some economists consider NAFTA a success, due to the GDP growth in the United States and Canada. What these economists fail to consider is the fact that the jobs created in Mexico are not luxurious, orShow MoreRelatedNorth American Free Trade Agreement Essay1398 Words   |  6 Pages North American Free Trade Agreement During the most recent race for the White House we heard very little of substance from both parties, but one thing both parties seem to agree on is that free trade has been bad for the U.S. worker. One candidate proclaimed that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of jobs and another distanced herself from free trade agreements all together. It has been over twenty years since the implementation ofRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement1711 Words   |  7 PagesThis paper will discuss four components of the North American Free Trade Agreement: Background, events, pros and cons. Upon the research, you will discover four online articles to provide more detail and examples. This research will indicate how it was developed and the reasoning on why it would benefit the nation. Also, it will provide events that occur after the agreement was signed by congress and the recession the countries experience during the e arly 2000s. There will be a chart locatedRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement Essay1420 Words   |  6 Pagessubstance from both parties, but one thing both parties seem to agree on is that free trade has been bad for the U.S. worker. One candidate proclaimed that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of jobs and another distanced herself from free trade agreements all together. It has been over twenty years since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and many have criticized it as a bad deal for the U.S. It can be shown thatRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement1036 Words   |  5 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement also referred to as NAFTA produced results on January 1, 1994. A trade agreement was made between each of the three of nations of North America. The United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, the Mexican Presiden t, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and previous U.S. President George H. Shrub initiated the agreement. Connections between the nations were at that point on great terms, particularly between The United States and CanadaRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement Essay1863 Words   |  8 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, is an accordance between the United States, Mexico, and Canada that was put into effect in January 1994. This agreement was unprecedented because it integrated three countries that were at extremely different levels of economic development. It changed the economic relationship between North American countries and encouraged trade and investment among the three countries to grow considerably. The purpose of the creation of the North American FreeRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement Essay1356 Words   |  6 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement negotiated by three countries; Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The main purpose of NAFTA is essentially to reduce trade barriers in order to promote international commerce, and open up different industries to trade, in particular textiles, agriculture, and automobile sectors. The introduction of NAFTA completely transformed North American economic relations and led to unparalleled cooperation between the U.S. Canada and MexicoRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement1486 Words   |  6 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an agreement signed by three countries in creating rules in trade in North America. NAFTA, when being presented, was described as genuine for helping Mexico and Canada. But was NAFTA really helpings those counties or really just helping N orth America? Initially North America was being genuine about NAFTA when talking to Mexico and Canada but in reality the NAFTA caused some uneven development as the years went by. I have two stories thatRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement1804 Words   |  8 Pagesunderstanding the elements of trade blocs that enable open markets between member nations while also decreasing the cost of conducting business within a country is essential in making strategic logistical decisions. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has provided one such trade bloc that encompasses the countries of the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Since the inception of NAFTA in 1994, significant financial results have been achieved regarding increases in trade revenue and increases inRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement1018 Words   |  5 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, is a trilateral trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Signed January 1, 1994, NAFTA’s main purpose was to reduce trading costs, increase business investments, and help the United States be more competitive in the g lobal marketplace. The agreement would eliminate all tariffs on half of all U.S. goods shipping to Mexico and introduce new regulations to encourage cross-border investments. According to President Bush, tradeRead MoreThe North American Free Trade Agreement920 Words   |  4 PagesThe North American Free Trade Agreement (NATFA) shoved the American worker down a flight of stairs in the name of Globalization NAFTA or a bill similar had been floating around Washington since 1979 a year before Reagan took office. NAFTA truly went no where for over a decade. The â€Å"North American Accord† was first proposed by the Reagan and the GOP were always in favor of passage but, it was the Progressive wing, along with many other pro-union members in the Democratic party who held NAFTA at

The Exposition That Tells The Story Of Antigone s Father

The movie starts out with a back story otherwise known as the exposition that tells the story of Antigone’s father. Her dads name was Oedipus and he was the king of Thebes. When he was younger his mother sent him to an oracle that told him his future. The oracle told him that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Therefore, his mother shipped him off to the mountains in the middle of nowhere. While alone and abandoned he was found and raised by a women and a man. When he found out his destiny he left to find his real parents in Thebes. When he got their he got into an argument with a â€Å"stranger,† and killed him. He then got to the kingdom and fought a sphinx to win the right to rule Thebes and the hand in marriage of the widowed queen. Little did he know the widowed queen he married was his mother. Then he spent years trying to figure out who killed the king only to find that he killed the king. Then his mother/wife realized she married her son and hung her self. As a result, he took two needles and stabbed his eyes. Oedipus and his mother had four children together; Eteocles, Ismene, Antigone, and Polyneices. After the king Oedipus dies Eteocles seized the thrown. Polyneices started a war against Eteocles and they both died in battle. Now the new king of Thebes was Creon and Antigone was to marry his son Haemon. Antigone wanted to bury her brother Polyneices but the new king Creon forbid anyone from burying the body. The story then starts and begins to explain theShow MoreRelatedThe First Six Lessons And William Shakespeare s As You Like It Essay1351 Words   |  6 Pagesmust detail the conventions associated with the production. One must ask themselves if the play a presentational or representational piece? In this paper, I will be comparing staging conventions through Antigone, Acting: The First Six Lessons and William Shakespeare s As You Like It. Antigone is a battle between opposition, while As You Like It is a tongue and cheek melodrama. Acting: The First six Lessons stands out for its depiction of parental nurturing and teaching. It is a play devoted toRead Moretheme of alienation n no where man by kamala markandeya23279 Words   |  94 Pagesï » ¿ANTIGONE KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS SETTING This tragedy is set against the background of the Oedipus legend. It illustrates how the curse on the House of Labdacus (who is the grandson of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and the father of Laius, whose son is Oedipus) brought about the deaths of Oedipus and his wife-mother, Jocasta, as well as the double fratricide of Eteocles and Polynices. Furthermore, Antigone dies after defying King Creon. The play is set in Thebes, a powerful city-state north of Read MoreA Doll House by Henrik Ibsen7379 Words   |  30 PagesMa. Jennifer S. Yap Dr. Sherwin Perlas World Literature January 14, 2012 A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen Translated by Rolf Fjelde I. Introduction During the late nineteenth century, women were enslaved in their gender roles and certain restrictions were enforced on them by a male dominant culture. Every woman was raised believing that they had neither self-control nor self-government but that they must yield to the control of a stronger gender. John Stuart Mill wrote in his essay, â€Å"The Subjection

Night World Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3 Free Essays

string(35) " by grandeur while eating Cheetos\." She’s not looking so good,† Kestrel said, peering over Rowan’s shoulder. Rowan said, â€Å"Oh,dear,† and sat down Great-aunt Opal was a mummy. Her skin was like leather: yellow-brown, hard, and smooth. We will write a custom essay sample on Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3 or any similar topic only for you Order Now Almost shiny. And the skin was all there was to her, just a leathery frame stretched over bones. She didn’t have any hair. Her eye sockets were dark holes with dry tissue inside. Her nose was collapsed. â€Å"Poor auntie,† Rowan said. Her own brown eyes were wet. â€Å"We’re going to look like that when we die,† Kestrel said musingly. Jade stamped her foot. â€Å"No, look,you guys! You’re both missing it completely. Look atthat!† She swung a wild toe at the mummy’s midsection. There, protruding from the blue-flowered housedress and the leathery skin, was a gigantic splinter of wood. It was almost as long as an arrow, thick at the base and tapered where it disappeared into Aunt Opal’s chest. Flakes of white paint still clung to one side. Several other pickets were lying on the cellar floor. â€Å"Poor old thing,† Rowan said. â€Å"She must havebeen carrying them when she fell.† Jade looked at Kestrel. Kestrel looked back withexasperated golden eyes. There were few things they agreed on, but Rowan was one of them. â€Å"Rowan,† Kestrel said distinctly, â€Å"she wasstaked. â€Å" â€Å"Oh, no.† â€Å"Oh, yes,† Jade said. â€Å"Somebody killed her. And somebody who knew she was a vampire.† Rowan was shaking her head. â€Å"But who would know that?† â€Å"Well †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jade thought. â€Å"Another vampire.† â€Å"Or a vampirehunter,†Kestrel said. Rowan looked up, shocked. â€Å"Those aren’t real.They’re just stories to frighten kids-aren’t they?† Kestrel shrugged, but her golden eyes were dark. Jade shifted uneasily. The freedom she’d felt on the road, the peace in the living room-and now this. Suddenly she felt empty and isolated. Rowan sat down on the stairs, looking too tired and preoccupied to push back the lock of hair plastered to her forehead. â€Å"Maybe I shouldn’t havebrought you here,† she said softly. â€Å"Maybe it’s worsehere.† She didn’t say it, but Jade could sense her next thought. Maybe we should go back â€Å"Nothingcould be worse,† Jade said fiercely. â€Å"And I’d die before I’d go back.† She meant it. Back to waiting on every man in sight? Back to arranged marriages and endless restrictions? Back to all those disapproving faces, so quick to condemn anything different, anything that wasn’t done the way it had been done four hundred years ago? â€Å"Wecan’t go back,† she said. â€Å"No, we can’t,† Kestrel said dryly. â€Å"Literally. Unless we want to end up like Great-aunt Opal. Or†she paused significantly-â€Å"like Great-uncle Hodge.† Rowan looked up. â€Å"Don’t even say that!† Jade’s stomach felt like a clenched fist. â€Å"They wouldn’t, she said, shoving back at the memory that was trying to emerge. â€Å"Not to their own grandkids. Not to us.† â€Å"The point,† Kestrel said, â€Å"is that we can’t go back,so we have to go forward. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do here without Aunt Opal tohelp us–especially if there’s a vampire hunter around. But first, what are we going to do withthat?† She nodded toward the body. Rowan just shook her head helplessly. She lookedaround the cellar as if she might find an answer in a comer. Her gaze fell on Jade. It stopped there, and Jade could see the sisterly radar system turn on. â€Å"Jade. What’s that in your jacket?† Jade was too wrung-out to lie. She opened thejacket and showed Rowan the kittens. â€Å"I didn’t know my suitcase would kill them.† Rowan looked too wrung-out to be angry. She glanced heavenward, sighing. Then, looking back atJade sharply: â€Å"But why were you bringing them downhere?† â€Å"I wasn’t. I was just looking for a shovel. I was going to bury them in the backyard.† There was a pause. Jade looked at her sisters and they looked at each other. Then all three of them looked at the kittens. Then they looked at Great-aunt Opal. Mary-Lynnette was crying. It was a beautiful night, a perfect night. An inversion layer was keeping the air overhead still and warm, and the seeing was excellent. There was very little light pollution and no direct light. The Victorian farmhouse just below Mary-Lynnette’s hill wasmostly dark. Mrs. Burdock was always very consider ate about that. Above, the Milky Way cut diagonally across the sky like a river. To the south, where Mary-Lynnette had just directed her telescope, was the constellation Sagittarius, which always looked. more like a teapot than like an archer to her. And just above the spout of the teapot was a faintly pink patch of what looked like steam. It wasn’t steam. It was clouds of stars. A star factory called the Lagoon Nebula. The dust and gas of dead stars was being recycled into hot young stars, just being born. It was four thousand and five hundred light-years away. And she was looking at it, right this minute. A seventeen-year-old kid with a second-hand Newtonian reflector telescope was watching the light of stars being born. Sometimes she was filled with so much awe andand-and-and longing-that she thought she might break to pieces. Since there was nobody else around, she could let the tears roll down her cheeks without pretending it was an allergy. After a while she had to sit back and wipe her nose and eyes on the shoulder of her T-shirt. Oh, come on, give it a rest now, she told herself.You’re crazy, you know. She wished she hadn’t thought of Jeremy earlier. Because now, for some reason, she kept picturinghim the way he’d looked that night when he came to watch the eclipse with her. His level brown eyes had held a spark of excitement, as if he really cared about what he was seeing. As if, for that moment, anyway, he understood. I have been one acquainted with the night, amaudlin little voice inside her chanted romantically, trying to get her to cry again. Yeah, right, Mary-Lynnette told the voice cynically. She reached for the bag of Cheetos she kept under her lawn chair. It was impossible to feel romantic and overwhelmed by grandeur while eating Cheetos. You read "Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3" in category "Essay examples" Saturn next, she thought, and wiped sticky orangecrumbs off her fingers. It was a good night for Saturn because its rings were just passing through theiredgewise position. She had to hurry because the moon was rising at 11:16. But before she turned her telescope toward Saturn, she took one last look at the Lagoon. Actuallyjust to the east of the Lagoon, trying to make out the open cluster of fainter stars she knew was there. She couldn’t see it. Her eyes just weren’t good enough. If she had a bigger telescope-if she lived inChile where the air was dry-if she could get above the earth’s atmosphere . . . then she might have a chance. But for now . . . she was limited by the human eye. Human pupils just didn’t open farther than 9 millimeters. Nothing to be done about that. She was just centering Saturn in the field of viewwhen a light went on behind the farmhouse below. Not a little porch light. A barnyard vapor lamp. Itilluminated the back property of the house like a searchlight. Mary-Lynnette sat back, annoyed. It didn’t reallymatter-she could see Saturn anyway, see the rings that tonight were just a delicate silver line cutting across the center of the planet. But it was strange.Mrs. Burdock never turned the back light on at night. The girls, Mary-Lynnette thought. The nieces. Theymust have gotten there and she must be giving them a tour. Absently she reached for her binoculars. Shewas curious. They were good binoculars, Celestron Ultimas,sleek and lightweight. She used them for looking at everything from deep sky objects to the craters on the moon. Right now, they magnified the back of Mrs. Burdock’s house ten times. She didn’t see Mrs. Burdock, though. She could seethe garden. She could see the shed and the fenced-in area where Mrs. Burdock kept her goats. And shecould see three girls, all well illuminated by the vapor lamp. One had brown hair, one had golden hair, and one had hair the color of Jupiter’s rings. That silvery.Like starlight. They were carrying something wrapped in plastic between them. Black plastic. Hefty garbage bags, if Mary-Lynnette wasn’t mistaken. Now, what on earth were they doing with that? Burying it. The short one with the silvery hair had a shovel. She was a good little digger, too. In a few minutesshe had rooted up most of Mrs. Burdock’s irises. Then the medium-sized one with the golden hairtook a turn, and last of all the tall one with the brown hair. Then they picked up the garbage-bagged objecteven though it was probably over five feet long, it seemed very light-and put it in the hole they’d just made. They began to shovel dirt back into the hole. No, Mary-Lynnette told herself. No, don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be insane. There’s some mundane, per fectly commonplace explanation for this. The problem was, she couldn’t think of any. No, no, no. This is notRear Window,we are not in the Twilight Zone. They’re just burying-something. Some sort of †¦ ordinary †¦ What else besides a dead body was five-feet-andsome-odd-inches long, rigid, and needed to be wrapped in garbage bags before burial? And, Mary-Lynnette thought, feeling a rush ofadrenaline that made her heart beat hard. And. And†¦ Where was Mrs. Burdock? The adrenaline was tingling painfully in herpalms and feet. It made her feel out of control, which she hated. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to lower the binoculars. Mrs. B.’s okay. She’s all right. Things like thisdon’thappenin real life. What would Nancy Drew do? Suddenly, in the middle of her panic, MaryLynnette felt a tiny giggle try to escape like a burp. Nancy Drew, of course, would hike right down there and investigate. She’d eavesdrop on the girls from behind a bush and then dig up the garden once they went back inside the house. But things like that didn’t happen. Mary-Lynnette couldn’t even imagine trying to dig up a neighbor’s garden in the dead of night. She would get caught and it would be a humiliating farce. Mrs. Burdock would walk out of the house alive and alarmed, and Mary-Lynnette would dieof embarrassment trying to explain. In a book that might be amusing. In real life-she didn’t even want to think about it. One good thing, it made her realize how absurd her paranoia was. Deep down, she obviously knew Mrs. B. was just fine. Otherwise, she wouldn’t besitting here; she’d be calling the police, like any sensi ble person. Somehow, though, she suddenly felt tired. Not up to more starwatching. She checked her watch by the ruby glow of a red-filtered flashlight. Almost eleven-well, it was all over in sixteen minutes anyway. When the moon rose it would bleach out the sky. But before she broke down her telescope for the trip back, she picked up the binoculars again. Just one last look. The garden was empty. A rectangle of fresh darksoil showed where it had been violated. Even as Mary-Lynnette watched, the vapor lamp went out. It wouldn’t do any harm to go over there tomorrow, Mary-Lynnette thought. Actually, I was goingto, anyway. I should welcome those girls to the neighborhood. I should return those pruning shears Dad borrowed and the knife Mrs. B. gave me to get my gas cap off. And of course I’ll see Mrs. B. there, and then I’ll know everything’s okay. Ash reached the top of the winding road andstopped to admire the blazing point of light in the south. You really could see more from these isolated country towns. From here Jupiter, the king of the planets, looked like a UFO. â€Å"Where have you been?† a voice nearby said. â€Å"I’vebeen waiting for you for hours.† Ash answered without turning around. â€Å"Wherehave I been? Where have you been? We were supposed to meet onthat hill, Quinn.† Hands in his pockets, he pointed with an elbow. â€Å"Wrong. It was this hill and I’ve been sitting righthere waiting for you the entire time. But forget it. Are they here or aren’t they?† Ash turned and walked unhurriedly to the open convertible that was parked just beside the road, itslights off. He leaned one elbow on the door, looking down. â€Å"They’re here. I told you they would be. It was the only place for them to go.† â€Å"All three of them?† â€Å"Of course, all three of them. My sisters always stick together.† Quinn’s lip curled. â€Å"Lamia are so wonderfully family oriented.† â€Å"And made vampires are so wonderfully . . . short,† Ash said serenely, looking at the sky again. Quinn gave him a look like black ice. His e-mail, compact body was utterly still inside the car. â€Å"Well, now, I never got to finish growing, did I?† he saidvery softly. â€Å"One of your ancestors took care of that.† Ash boosted himself to sit on the hood of the car,long legs dangling. â€Å"I think I may stop aging this year myself,† he said blandly, still looking down the slope. â€Å"Eighteen’s not such a bad age.† â€Å"Maybe not if you have a choice,† Quinn said, his voice still as soft as dead leaves falling. â€Å"Try beingeighteen for four centuries-with no end in sight.† Ash turned to smile at him again. â€Å"Sorry. On my family’s behalf.† â€Å"And I’m sorry for your family. The Redferns have been having a little trouble lately, haven’t they? Let’s see if I’ve got it right. First your uncle Hodge breaks Night World law and is appropriately punished-â€Å" â€Å"My great-uncle by marriage,† Ash interrupted in polite tones, holding one finger up. â€Å"He was a Burdock, not a Redfern. And that was over ten years ago.† â€Å"And then your aunt Opal-â€Å" â€Å"Mygreat-auntOpal-â€Å" â€Å"Disappears completely. Breaks off all contact withthe Night World. Apparently because she prefers living in the middle of nowhere with humans.† Ash shrugged, eyes fixed on the southern horizon. â€Å"It must be good hunting in the middle of nowhere with humans. No competition. And no Night Worldenforcement-no Elders putting a limit on how many you can bag.† â€Å"And no supervision,† Quinn said sourly. â€Å"Itdoesn’t matter so much thatshe’s been living here, but she’s obviously been encouraging your sisters to join her. You should have informed on them whenyou found out they were writing to each other secretly.† Ash shrugged, uncomfortable. â€Å"It wasn’t againstthe law. I didn’t know what they had in mind.† â€Å"It’s not just them,† Quinn said in his disturbingly soft voice. â€Å"You know there are rumors about that cousin of yours-James Rasmussen. People are saying that he fell in love with a human girl. That she was dying and he decided to change her withoutpermission. . . .† Ash slid off the hood and straightened. â€Å"I never listen to rumors,† he said, briskly and untruthfully. â€Å"Besides, that’s not the problem right now, is it?† â€Å"No. The problem is your sisters and the mess they’re in. And whether you can really do what’s necessary to dean it up.† â€Å"Don’t worry, Quinn. I can handle it.† â€Å"ButI doworry, Ash. I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.† â€Å"You didn’t. You lost that game of poker.† â€Å"And you cheated.† Quinn was looking off into a middle distance, his dark eyes narrowed, his moutha straight line. â€Å"I still think we should tell the Elders ,† he said abruptly. â€Å"It’s the only way to guarantee a really thorough investigation.† â€Å"I don’t see why it needs to be so thorough.They’ve only been here a few hours.† â€Å"Your sisters have only been here a few hours.Your aunt has been here-how long? Ten years?† â€Å"What have you got against my aunt, Quinn?† â€Å"Her husband was a traitor. She’s a traitor now for encouraging those girls to run away. And who knowswhat she’s been doing here in the last ten years? Who knows how many humans she’s told about the Night World?† Ash shrugged, examining his nails. â€Å"Maybe she hasn’t told any.† â€Å"And maybe she’s told the whole town.† â€Å"Quinn,† Ash said patiently, speaking as if to avery young child, â€Å"if my aunt has broken the laws of the Night World, she has to die. For the family honor. Any blotch on that reflects onme.† â€Å"That’s one thing I can count on,† Quinn said halfunder his breath. ‘,’Your self-interest. You always look after Number One, don’t you?† â€Å"Doesn’t everybody?† â€Å"Not everybody is quite so blatant about it.† There was a pause, then Quinn said, â€Å"And what about your sisters?† â€Å"What about them?† â€Å"Can you kill them if it’s necessary?† Ash didn’t blink. â€Å"Of course. If it’s necessary. For the family honor.† â€Å"If they’ve let something slip about the NightWorld-â€Å" â€Å"They’re not stupid.† â€Å"They’re innocent. They might get tricked. That’swhat happens when you live on an island completely isolated from normal humans. You never learn how cunning vermin can be.† â€Å"Well, we know how cunning they can be,† Ash said, smiling. â€Å"And what to do about them.† For the first time Quinn himself smiled, a charming, almost dreamy smile. â€Å"Yes, I know your views on that. All right. I’ll leave you here to take care of it. I don’t need to tell you to check out every human those girls have had contact with. Do a good job and maybe you can save your familyhonor.† â€Å"Not to mention the embarrassment of a public trial.† â€Å"I’ll come back in a week. And if you haven’t got things under control, I go to the Elders. I don’t mean your Redfern family Elders, either. I’m taking it all the way up to the joint Council.† â€Å"Oh, fine,† Ash said. â€Å"You know, you really ought to get a hobby, Quinn. Go hunting yourself. You’re too repressed.† -252Quinn ignored that and said shortly, â€Å"Do you know where to start?† â€Å"Sure. The girls are right †¦ down †¦ there.† Ashturned east. With one eye shut, he zeroed in with his finger on a patch of light in the valley below. â€Å"At Burdock Farm. I’ll check things out in town, then I’ll go look up the nearest vermin.† How to cite Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3, Essay examples

Night World Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3 Free Essays

string(35) " by grandeur while eating Cheetos\." She’s not looking so good,† Kestrel said, peering over Rowan’s shoulder. Rowan said, â€Å"Oh,dear,† and sat down Great-aunt Opal was a mummy. Her skin was like leather: yellow-brown, hard, and smooth. We will write a custom essay sample on Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3 or any similar topic only for you Order Now Almost shiny. And the skin was all there was to her, just a leathery frame stretched over bones. She didn’t have any hair. Her eye sockets were dark holes with dry tissue inside. Her nose was collapsed. â€Å"Poor auntie,† Rowan said. Her own brown eyes were wet. â€Å"We’re going to look like that when we die,† Kestrel said musingly. Jade stamped her foot. â€Å"No, look,you guys! You’re both missing it completely. Look atthat!† She swung a wild toe at the mummy’s midsection. There, protruding from the blue-flowered housedress and the leathery skin, was a gigantic splinter of wood. It was almost as long as an arrow, thick at the base and tapered where it disappeared into Aunt Opal’s chest. Flakes of white paint still clung to one side. Several other pickets were lying on the cellar floor. â€Å"Poor old thing,† Rowan said. â€Å"She must havebeen carrying them when she fell.† Jade looked at Kestrel. Kestrel looked back withexasperated golden eyes. There were few things they agreed on, but Rowan was one of them. â€Å"Rowan,† Kestrel said distinctly, â€Å"she wasstaked. â€Å" â€Å"Oh, no.† â€Å"Oh, yes,† Jade said. â€Å"Somebody killed her. And somebody who knew she was a vampire.† Rowan was shaking her head. â€Å"But who would know that?† â€Å"Well †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jade thought. â€Å"Another vampire.† â€Å"Or a vampirehunter,†Kestrel said. Rowan looked up, shocked. â€Å"Those aren’t real.They’re just stories to frighten kids-aren’t they?† Kestrel shrugged, but her golden eyes were dark. Jade shifted uneasily. The freedom she’d felt on the road, the peace in the living room-and now this. Suddenly she felt empty and isolated. Rowan sat down on the stairs, looking too tired and preoccupied to push back the lock of hair plastered to her forehead. â€Å"Maybe I shouldn’t havebrought you here,† she said softly. â€Å"Maybe it’s worsehere.† She didn’t say it, but Jade could sense her next thought. Maybe we should go back â€Å"Nothingcould be worse,† Jade said fiercely. â€Å"And I’d die before I’d go back.† She meant it. Back to waiting on every man in sight? Back to arranged marriages and endless restrictions? Back to all those disapproving faces, so quick to condemn anything different, anything that wasn’t done the way it had been done four hundred years ago? â€Å"Wecan’t go back,† she said. â€Å"No, we can’t,† Kestrel said dryly. â€Å"Literally. Unless we want to end up like Great-aunt Opal. Or†she paused significantly-â€Å"like Great-uncle Hodge.† Rowan looked up. â€Å"Don’t even say that!† Jade’s stomach felt like a clenched fist. â€Å"They wouldn’t, she said, shoving back at the memory that was trying to emerge. â€Å"Not to their own grandkids. Not to us.† â€Å"The point,† Kestrel said, â€Å"is that we can’t go back,so we have to go forward. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do here without Aunt Opal tohelp us–especially if there’s a vampire hunter around. But first, what are we going to do withthat?† She nodded toward the body. Rowan just shook her head helplessly. She lookedaround the cellar as if she might find an answer in a comer. Her gaze fell on Jade. It stopped there, and Jade could see the sisterly radar system turn on. â€Å"Jade. What’s that in your jacket?† Jade was too wrung-out to lie. She opened thejacket and showed Rowan the kittens. â€Å"I didn’t know my suitcase would kill them.† Rowan looked too wrung-out to be angry. She glanced heavenward, sighing. Then, looking back atJade sharply: â€Å"But why were you bringing them downhere?† â€Å"I wasn’t. I was just looking for a shovel. I was going to bury them in the backyard.† There was a pause. Jade looked at her sisters and they looked at each other. Then all three of them looked at the kittens. Then they looked at Great-aunt Opal. Mary-Lynnette was crying. It was a beautiful night, a perfect night. An inversion layer was keeping the air overhead still and warm, and the seeing was excellent. There was very little light pollution and no direct light. The Victorian farmhouse just below Mary-Lynnette’s hill wasmostly dark. Mrs. Burdock was always very consider ate about that. Above, the Milky Way cut diagonally across the sky like a river. To the south, where Mary-Lynnette had just directed her telescope, was the constellation Sagittarius, which always looked. more like a teapot than like an archer to her. And just above the spout of the teapot was a faintly pink patch of what looked like steam. It wasn’t steam. It was clouds of stars. A star factory called the Lagoon Nebula. The dust and gas of dead stars was being recycled into hot young stars, just being born. It was four thousand and five hundred light-years away. And she was looking at it, right this minute. A seventeen-year-old kid with a second-hand Newtonian reflector telescope was watching the light of stars being born. Sometimes she was filled with so much awe andand-and-and longing-that she thought she might break to pieces. Since there was nobody else around, she could let the tears roll down her cheeks without pretending it was an allergy. After a while she had to sit back and wipe her nose and eyes on the shoulder of her T-shirt. Oh, come on, give it a rest now, she told herself.You’re crazy, you know. She wished she hadn’t thought of Jeremy earlier. Because now, for some reason, she kept picturinghim the way he’d looked that night when he came to watch the eclipse with her. His level brown eyes had held a spark of excitement, as if he really cared about what he was seeing. As if, for that moment, anyway, he understood. I have been one acquainted with the night, amaudlin little voice inside her chanted romantically, trying to get her to cry again. Yeah, right, Mary-Lynnette told the voice cynically. She reached for the bag of Cheetos she kept under her lawn chair. It was impossible to feel romantic and overwhelmed by grandeur while eating Cheetos. You read "Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3" in category "Essay examples" Saturn next, she thought, and wiped sticky orangecrumbs off her fingers. It was a good night for Saturn because its rings were just passing through theiredgewise position. She had to hurry because the moon was rising at 11:16. But before she turned her telescope toward Saturn, she took one last look at the Lagoon. Actuallyjust to the east of the Lagoon, trying to make out the open cluster of fainter stars she knew was there. She couldn’t see it. Her eyes just weren’t good enough. If she had a bigger telescope-if she lived inChile where the air was dry-if she could get above the earth’s atmosphere . . . then she might have a chance. But for now . . . she was limited by the human eye. Human pupils just didn’t open farther than 9 millimeters. Nothing to be done about that. She was just centering Saturn in the field of viewwhen a light went on behind the farmhouse below. Not a little porch light. A barnyard vapor lamp. Itilluminated the back property of the house like a searchlight. Mary-Lynnette sat back, annoyed. It didn’t reallymatter-she could see Saturn anyway, see the rings that tonight were just a delicate silver line cutting across the center of the planet. But it was strange.Mrs. Burdock never turned the back light on at night. The girls, Mary-Lynnette thought. The nieces. Theymust have gotten there and she must be giving them a tour. Absently she reached for her binoculars. Shewas curious. They were good binoculars, Celestron Ultimas,sleek and lightweight. She used them for looking at everything from deep sky objects to the craters on the moon. Right now, they magnified the back of Mrs. Burdock’s house ten times. She didn’t see Mrs. Burdock, though. She could seethe garden. She could see the shed and the fenced-in area where Mrs. Burdock kept her goats. And shecould see three girls, all well illuminated by the vapor lamp. One had brown hair, one had golden hair, and one had hair the color of Jupiter’s rings. That silvery.Like starlight. They were carrying something wrapped in plastic between them. Black plastic. Hefty garbage bags, if Mary-Lynnette wasn’t mistaken. Now, what on earth were they doing with that? Burying it. The short one with the silvery hair had a shovel. She was a good little digger, too. In a few minutesshe had rooted up most of Mrs. Burdock’s irises. Then the medium-sized one with the golden hairtook a turn, and last of all the tall one with the brown hair. Then they picked up the garbage-bagged objecteven though it was probably over five feet long, it seemed very light-and put it in the hole they’d just made. They began to shovel dirt back into the hole. No, Mary-Lynnette told herself. No, don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be insane. There’s some mundane, per fectly commonplace explanation for this. The problem was, she couldn’t think of any. No, no, no. This is notRear Window,we are not in the Twilight Zone. They’re just burying-something. Some sort of †¦ ordinary †¦ What else besides a dead body was five-feet-andsome-odd-inches long, rigid, and needed to be wrapped in garbage bags before burial? And, Mary-Lynnette thought, feeling a rush ofadrenaline that made her heart beat hard. And. And†¦ Where was Mrs. Burdock? The adrenaline was tingling painfully in herpalms and feet. It made her feel out of control, which she hated. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to lower the binoculars. Mrs. B.’s okay. She’s all right. Things like thisdon’thappenin real life. What would Nancy Drew do? Suddenly, in the middle of her panic, MaryLynnette felt a tiny giggle try to escape like a burp. Nancy Drew, of course, would hike right down there and investigate. She’d eavesdrop on the girls from behind a bush and then dig up the garden once they went back inside the house. But things like that didn’t happen. Mary-Lynnette couldn’t even imagine trying to dig up a neighbor’s garden in the dead of night. She would get caught and it would be a humiliating farce. Mrs. Burdock would walk out of the house alive and alarmed, and Mary-Lynnette would dieof embarrassment trying to explain. In a book that might be amusing. In real life-she didn’t even want to think about it. One good thing, it made her realize how absurd her paranoia was. Deep down, she obviously knew Mrs. B. was just fine. Otherwise, she wouldn’t besitting here; she’d be calling the police, like any sensi ble person. Somehow, though, she suddenly felt tired. Not up to more starwatching. She checked her watch by the ruby glow of a red-filtered flashlight. Almost eleven-well, it was all over in sixteen minutes anyway. When the moon rose it would bleach out the sky. But before she broke down her telescope for the trip back, she picked up the binoculars again. Just one last look. The garden was empty. A rectangle of fresh darksoil showed where it had been violated. Even as Mary-Lynnette watched, the vapor lamp went out. It wouldn’t do any harm to go over there tomorrow, Mary-Lynnette thought. Actually, I was goingto, anyway. I should welcome those girls to the neighborhood. I should return those pruning shears Dad borrowed and the knife Mrs. B. gave me to get my gas cap off. And of course I’ll see Mrs. B. there, and then I’ll know everything’s okay. Ash reached the top of the winding road andstopped to admire the blazing point of light in the south. You really could see more from these isolated country towns. From here Jupiter, the king of the planets, looked like a UFO. â€Å"Where have you been?† a voice nearby said. â€Å"I’vebeen waiting for you for hours.† Ash answered without turning around. â€Å"Wherehave I been? Where have you been? We were supposed to meet onthat hill, Quinn.† Hands in his pockets, he pointed with an elbow. â€Å"Wrong. It was this hill and I’ve been sitting righthere waiting for you the entire time. But forget it. Are they here or aren’t they?† Ash turned and walked unhurriedly to the open convertible that was parked just beside the road, itslights off. He leaned one elbow on the door, looking down. â€Å"They’re here. I told you they would be. It was the only place for them to go.† â€Å"All three of them?† â€Å"Of course, all three of them. My sisters always stick together.† Quinn’s lip curled. â€Å"Lamia are so wonderfully family oriented.† â€Å"And made vampires are so wonderfully . . . short,† Ash said serenely, looking at the sky again. Quinn gave him a look like black ice. His e-mail, compact body was utterly still inside the car. â€Å"Well, now, I never got to finish growing, did I?† he saidvery softly. â€Å"One of your ancestors took care of that.† Ash boosted himself to sit on the hood of the car,long legs dangling. â€Å"I think I may stop aging this year myself,† he said blandly, still looking down the slope. â€Å"Eighteen’s not such a bad age.† â€Å"Maybe not if you have a choice,† Quinn said, his voice still as soft as dead leaves falling. â€Å"Try beingeighteen for four centuries-with no end in sight.† Ash turned to smile at him again. â€Å"Sorry. On my family’s behalf.† â€Å"And I’m sorry for your family. The Redferns have been having a little trouble lately, haven’t they? Let’s see if I’ve got it right. First your uncle Hodge breaks Night World law and is appropriately punished-â€Å" â€Å"My great-uncle by marriage,† Ash interrupted in polite tones, holding one finger up. â€Å"He was a Burdock, not a Redfern. And that was over ten years ago.† â€Å"And then your aunt Opal-â€Å" â€Å"Mygreat-auntOpal-â€Å" â€Å"Disappears completely. Breaks off all contact withthe Night World. Apparently because she prefers living in the middle of nowhere with humans.† Ash shrugged, eyes fixed on the southern horizon. â€Å"It must be good hunting in the middle of nowhere with humans. No competition. And no Night Worldenforcement-no Elders putting a limit on how many you can bag.† â€Å"And no supervision,† Quinn said sourly. â€Å"Itdoesn’t matter so much thatshe’s been living here, but she’s obviously been encouraging your sisters to join her. You should have informed on them whenyou found out they were writing to each other secretly.† Ash shrugged, uncomfortable. â€Å"It wasn’t againstthe law. I didn’t know what they had in mind.† â€Å"It’s not just them,† Quinn said in his disturbingly soft voice. â€Å"You know there are rumors about that cousin of yours-James Rasmussen. People are saying that he fell in love with a human girl. That she was dying and he decided to change her withoutpermission. . . .† Ash slid off the hood and straightened. â€Å"I never listen to rumors,† he said, briskly and untruthfully. â€Å"Besides, that’s not the problem right now, is it?† â€Å"No. The problem is your sisters and the mess they’re in. And whether you can really do what’s necessary to dean it up.† â€Å"Don’t worry, Quinn. I can handle it.† â€Å"ButI doworry, Ash. I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.† â€Å"You didn’t. You lost that game of poker.† â€Å"And you cheated.† Quinn was looking off into a middle distance, his dark eyes narrowed, his moutha straight line. â€Å"I still think we should tell the Elders ,† he said abruptly. â€Å"It’s the only way to guarantee a really thorough investigation.† â€Å"I don’t see why it needs to be so thorough.They’ve only been here a few hours.† â€Å"Your sisters have only been here a few hours.Your aunt has been here-how long? Ten years?† â€Å"What have you got against my aunt, Quinn?† â€Å"Her husband was a traitor. She’s a traitor now for encouraging those girls to run away. And who knowswhat she’s been doing here in the last ten years? Who knows how many humans she’s told about the Night World?† Ash shrugged, examining his nails. â€Å"Maybe she hasn’t told any.† â€Å"And maybe she’s told the whole town.† â€Å"Quinn,† Ash said patiently, speaking as if to avery young child, â€Å"if my aunt has broken the laws of the Night World, she has to die. For the family honor. Any blotch on that reflects onme.† â€Å"That’s one thing I can count on,† Quinn said halfunder his breath. ‘,’Your self-interest. You always look after Number One, don’t you?† â€Å"Doesn’t everybody?† â€Å"Not everybody is quite so blatant about it.† There was a pause, then Quinn said, â€Å"And what about your sisters?† â€Å"What about them?† â€Å"Can you kill them if it’s necessary?† Ash didn’t blink. â€Å"Of course. If it’s necessary. For the family honor.† â€Å"If they’ve let something slip about the NightWorld-â€Å" â€Å"They’re not stupid.† â€Å"They’re innocent. They might get tricked. That’swhat happens when you live on an island completely isolated from normal humans. You never learn how cunning vermin can be.† â€Å"Well, we know how cunning they can be,† Ash said, smiling. â€Å"And what to do about them.† For the first time Quinn himself smiled, a charming, almost dreamy smile. â€Å"Yes, I know your views on that. All right. I’ll leave you here to take care of it. I don’t need to tell you to check out every human those girls have had contact with. Do a good job and maybe you can save your familyhonor.† â€Å"Not to mention the embarrassment of a public trial.† â€Å"I’ll come back in a week. And if you haven’t got things under control, I go to the Elders. I don’t mean your Redfern family Elders, either. I’m taking it all the way up to the joint Council.† â€Å"Oh, fine,† Ash said. â€Å"You know, you really ought to get a hobby, Quinn. Go hunting yourself. You’re too repressed.† -252Quinn ignored that and said shortly, â€Å"Do you know where to start?† â€Å"Sure. The girls are right †¦ down †¦ there.† Ashturned east. With one eye shut, he zeroed in with his finger on a patch of light in the valley below. â€Å"At Burdock Farm. I’ll check things out in town, then I’ll go look up the nearest vermin.† How to cite Night World : Daughters of Darkness Chapter 3, Essay examples