Eulogy for my Loving Mother :: essays research papers

Good afternoon, let me just start by saying that the kindness, support, friendship, and love extended to me and my family during this difficult time has really touched my heart- we are sincerely appreciative! During the last moments of my mother’s life she was surrounded by loved ones, as she slowly slipped away into the morning with grace and peace. I can’t begin to express how hard it is for me to stand here before you and give my last respects to my loving mother - name here. From the biography that was handed out you can recall that during the her early years in the united states she studied and worked in New York where she met and married my dad, the love of her life. They spent the rest of their days loyal and in love with one another. Unfortunately, one day my father passed away with cancer at a young age. My dad was the one who suffered the most, but my mom suffered right along with him. She felt powerless, and for my mom- powerlessness turned in to guilt and grief, a painful distress she lived with on a daily basis for the next six years. When he died part of her died! Life for her was never the same again. I was not able to completely understand her loss- until now†¦ Throughout my life my mom has always been selfless and generous- especially when it came to her children and grandchildren†¦ ever putting her self last! SHE WAS MY EVERYTHING†¦ Unlike my sister, I was the one that gave my parents their grey hair†¦ It took me longer than most to mature, and the truth is- that’s putting it mildly. Yet through all the ups and downs, and all the times I would end up disappointing her expectations of me, one thing NEVER changed and that was her belief in me†¦ because of her unconditional love I am the person that I am today†¦ her reassurance and patience made all the difference. Because of her active involvement in my life and Eileen’s she became known to our friends as â€Å"Mama†. Where ever we would go- she would go with us, that’s just the way it was†¦ she got so close to our friends that they formed their own friendship with her.

Sparate Peace

In the novel Separate Peace, John Knowles uses both positive and negative scenes throughout the novel. John Knowles does this to show how the setting can affect the characters and the events that are being taken throughout the novel. Knowles introduces right away that there are two big scenes, the summer session and the winter session, both playing big roles in the story’s plot and theme.The summer session would represent peace and the winter session would represent the distress brought on by World War II, the shift between them clearly confirms that Knowles intended to show how completely and abruptly the war overtook the peace at the summer session. Knowles uses the summer session setting to symbolize peace.Knowles uses the positive setting described in this quote to reveal the importance of the setting: â€Å"They (elms) too seemed permanent and never changing, an untouched, unreachable world high in space, like the ornamental towers and spires of a great church, too high to be enjoyed, too high for anything, great and remote and never useful†. Knowles describes the setting like this to create a peaceful image representing the summer session as a time of peace.This also brings a vividly peaceful image to mind further connecting the concepts of summer and peace together which is later conquered by the war elements of winter. Knowles uses the winter session setting to symbolize the distress of the war. Knowles uses this as the negative setting in the novel. In this quote, he describes the importance of the setting: â€Å"Not long afterward, early even for New Hampshire, snow came†¦They gathered there, thicker by the minute, like noiseless invaders conquering because they took possession so gently.I watched them whirl by my window-don’t take this seriously, the playful way they fell seemed to imply, this little show, this harmless trick†. Knowles uses words such as invaders and conquering to connect this image to the war zone. T his shows Knowles’ elements of the war and how it overtook the peace present and the Devon School. Knowles also writes that these elements of winter conquered the life of nature which had previously been a symbol of summer.This strengthens his intent of highlighting how the war element of winter took over the peace of summer. The change between the previous positive setting of summer and the negative setting of winter represents the effect the war had on the peace at the Devon School. The time that Finny and Gene spend at the beach represents the peak of the summer. However, overnight it is followed by this description of the ocean: â€Å"The Ocean looked dead too, dead waves hissing mordantly along the beach, which was gray and dead looking itself†.Here Knowles uses words such as â€Å"dead†, â€Å"hissing†, and â€Å"grey†, which have a negative meaning, to create a powerful negative setting scene in the novel. This causes an unexpected contrast between negative and positive settings. This piercing contrast between the beach and a â€Å"dead† ocean, which meets the beach at the shore with the hissing of dead waves, foreshadows the sharp contrast between the peace of summer and the distress of winter that meets the summer of Finny’s fall.This event is the symbolic fall of peace to the distress of war. Knowles cements this fact with stating the setting of the situation just before his fall, claiming that â€Å"From behind us the last long rays of light played across the campus, accenting every slight undulation of the land, emphasizing the separateness of each bush†. The last long rays of light show the end of summer because the end of the long days marks the beginning of autumn season due to daylight savings time.Since the summer session represents peace and the winter session represents distress, this shows that Finny’s fall from the tree marks the fall of peace to distress. John Knowles use of s etting scenes strengthens his idea in the novel of the peace at Devon school being overtaken by the elements of World War II. This is done by the addition of positive settings of summer which represent the peace at the school; and winter, which represents the invasion of the war and the piercing contrast between these two types of settings at certain scenes throughout the novel.

The Boiling Frog Theory on Population - 6400 Words

The Boiling Frog Theory on Population Systems thinkers have given us a useful metaphor for a certain kind of human behavior in the phenomenon of the boiled frog. The phenomenon is this. If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death. We all know stories of frogs being tossed into boiling water - for example, a young couple being plunged into catastrophic debt by an†¦show more content†¦Ethnologists, students of animal behavior, and a few philosophers who have considered the matter know that there is a form of ethics practiced in the community of life on this planet - apart from us, that is. This is a very practical (you might say Darwinian) sort of ethics, since it serves to safeguard and promote biological diversity within the community. According to this ethics, followed by every sort of creature within the community of life, sharks as well as sheep, killer bees as well as butterflies, you may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war. This ethics is violated at every point by practitioners of totalitarian agriculture. We hunt down our competitors , we destroy their food, and we deny them access to food. That indeed is the whole purpose and point of totalitarian agriculture. Totalitarian agriculture is based on the premise that all the food in the world belongs to us, and there is no limit whatever to what we may take for ourselves and deny to all others. Totalitarian agriculture was not adopted in our culture out of sheer meanness. It was adopted because, by its very nature, its more productive than any other style (and there are many other styles). Totalitarian agriculture represents productivity to the max, as Americans like to say. It representsShow MoreRelatedOrganizational Learning Disabilities2420 Words   |  10 PagesLearning Disabilities Senge identifies seven learning disabilities that affect organizational success. They are 1) I am my position, 2) The enemy is out there, 3) The illusion of taking charge, 4) The fixation of events, 5) The parable of the boiling frog, 6) The delusion of learning from experience, and 7) The myth of the management team. 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