Sunshine Chapter 17 Free Essays

I nodded. â€Å"I know they’re the good guys and everything, but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I know. Once I found out they were watching me I changed the way I do some stuff. We will write a custom essay sample on Sunshine Chapter 17 or any similar topic only for you Order Now They are good guys and I do work for them and I don’t mind – much. But it’s all a little nomad for me. And I still have this silly idea that my life belongs to me.† There were good reasons Aimil and I were friends. I went home that night and stood on the balcony again and said to the darkness, â€Å"Con, Constantine, are you all right? If you need me, call me to you.† For a moment I felt†¦something. Like a twitch against your line when you’re half asleep or thinking about something else. It may be a fish and it may be the current†¦but it may be a fish. (I’d learned to fish because Mel taught me, not because I longed to impale small invertebrates on barbed hooks and rip hell out of piscine oral cavities and smother fellow oxygen breathers in an alien medium.) The flicker itself made me think I was half asleep or thinking about something else, because I was straining after any sign whatsoever. And it was gone again at once. Thursday afternoon wasn’t flash ideal but I managed. Paulie was a little too not-sorry to change his single weekly four-thirty-in-the-morning shift for another afternoon that Thursday, and he hadn’t made up the one he’d missed our last thirteen-day week yet either. I’d worry about just how not-sorry he was later. Meanwhile I got up at three a.m. to do a little extra baking like I had a point to make. As I drank the necessary pint-mug of blacker-than-the-pit-of-doom tea to get me going I stood on the balcony again, testing for quivers in the current. All I got was a stronger sense that there was something wrong; but I was good at feeling there was something wrong even when there wasn’t – something I’d inherited from my mother – and there was nothing in this case but my own glangy unease to look at. There are advantages to driving an old wreck instead of a modern car; wrecks bounce around and jerk at your hands on the wheel and help keep you awake. The charms in the glove compartment were more restless than usual too: I think they were objecting to the driving. By the time I got off work at noon I felt it had been several years since I’d had any sleep, and I had a nap instead of lunch. I brought sandwiches in a bag, and Aimil had a pot of tea waiting for me. It was another gray day, but Aimil had pulled the combox table around so that the chair backed up against the window, which she had opened. What daylight there was fell on me as I sat there, and there was a little wind that stroked my hair. â€Å"Where do you want to start?† said Aimil. â€Å"With the bingo! one from the other day, or do you want to start fresh?† I hadn’t thought about it. Good beginning. It was so hard to screw myself to do anything, the details got a bit lost†¦ Who – or what – was I looking for? Con? Or Bo? Since I was doing it alone with Aimil I wasn’t trying to make Pat and Jesse happy. So what was going to make me happy? Define happy. But if I found something on the other side of the real globe that Pat and Jesse would get all tangled up in negotiations with their local SOF equivalents over, it might get them out of my hair. Finding Bo wasn’t going to make me happy, but I didn’t want to look for Con with anyone else around, even Aimil. Which left Bo or the Unknown. The Unknown, at the moment, was unknown. Bo, on the other hand, was after me. Bo, then. â€Å"Let’s start with bingo.† Aimil brought up the file, highlighted the cosmail I wanted, and stepped back. I squinted at the screen. I could see the winking bar of highlighting, and the button was under my finger. I pressed. It was like hands around my throat, a crushing, splintering weight on my breast; there was also a horrible, horrible pressure against my eyes, my poor dark-dazzled eyes†¦I was lost in the dark, I no longer knew which way was up and which down, I was vertiginous, I was going to be sick†¦ No. I steadied myself. I found an†¦alignment. Somewhere. Somewhere, reaching in the dark†¦I was†¦no, I wasn’t standing. There didn’t seem to be anything to stand on, and I wasn’t sure there was any of me to stand with. If my feet had disappeared, then perhaps it wasn’t surprising that my eyes – no, my sight – had disappeared too. This wasn’t just darkness: this was what came after. This was the beyond-dark. And I could only see in the dark. My eyes were still there – or perhaps they were now my non-eyes – I couldn’t see with them and blinking no longer seemed relevant, but the pressure was there. And why was it so difficult to breathe? Especially since at the same time breathing seemed as irrelevant as blinking. Why did I want to breathe? Where was I? I was – stretched – along some intangible line; a compass needle. Compass needles don’t mind the dark. Although I doubted I was pointing toward anything like a north that I’d recognize back in the real world. Maybe I’d found where Aimil’s cosmail had come from. But where was here? And was there some clue I could take back with me to the world I knew? If I could get back there. I experimented with moving. Moving didn’t seem to be an option. I was too much like nothing, here, in this nonplace, in the beyond-dark. Right, okay, next time I come I’ll organize my question better going in†¦ Next time, presupposing I get out of this time alive. I was grateful for the pressure against my eyes, the difficulty breathing; it made me feel I still existed†¦somehow. Somewhere. I was a magic handler, a stuff changer, a Blaise by blood, and lately, by practice. Not much practice but growing all the time. I remembered another sense of alignment, when I had changed my little knife to a key. I reached for that sense. No, I reached for my knife. It shouldn’t have been there, and I had no fingers to feel for it, but I was suddenly aware of it. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that it was a light even in this darkness. And by its invisible light I could†¦see. See. Feel. Hear. Smell. Live†¦ I heard a rustle, like leaves in a breeze. And for a moment I stood on four slender furred legs and I could feel and hear and smell as no human could. And then I was back again, sitting in Aimil’s living room, and her hand was reaching through my powerless fingers and pressing the button. The screen went dark. â€Å"That was not good,† she said. â€Å"What – happened?† I was amazed at the sense of my body sitting in the chair, of gravity, of sight (light; twinkly shadows), of fingers on a keyboard, feet against a floor. Vampire senses are different from human in a number of ways. Had I – ? What had I – ? The leaves laid sun-dapples on my brown back as I stood at the edge of the woods with the golden field before me. I raised my black nose to the wind, cupped my big ears forward and back to listen. Yeek. My human fingers closed on my knife. I was still in Aimil’s living room. â€Å"You were gone,† said Aimil. â€Å"Not long – ten seconds or so – just long enough for me to take two steps and reach for the button. But your body didn’t have you in it.† She sat down, suddenly, on the floor. â€Å"Do you know where you went?† She bowed her head between her knees, and then tipped her face back and looked up at me. â€Å"Do you know?† I shook my head. Experimenting with motion. I remembered the void, the alignment, the other senses – my little knife. My tree. My†¦doe. I wondered, when she had accepted the death she knew she could not escape, if she knew what her death was for, if that could have made any difference, if that was why she†¦I touched the knife-bulge in my pocket. It felt no different than it ever had. We sat in daylight; if I took it out it would look like any other pocketknife. The second blade, which I rarely used, would be covered with pocket lint; the first blade, which I used all the time, would need sharpening. Folded up it was about the length of my middle finger, and a little wider and deeper; it was scraped and gouged by years in a series of pockets, sharing cramped quarters with things like loose change and car keys. And it glowed in the dark, even in the beyond-dark of the void. Glowed like a beacon that said, â€Å"Hold on. I’ve got you. Here.† I felt – carefully – after my experience of nowhere, of beyond-dark. Had I brought anything back after all, anything I could use? Yes. But I didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t anything so straightforward as a direction. â€Å"Not caffeine after that,† said Aimil, still on the floor. â€Å"Scotch.† She got up on all fours and reached to the little cabinet next to her sofa. â€Å"And don’t even ask me if you want to try again, because the answer is no.† I looked at her when she gave me a small heavy glass with a finger’s width of dark amber liquid in it, about the color of the thin wooden plates set into the sides of my little knife. â€Å"We won’t try it again today,† I said. â€Å"But we have to try again.† â€Å"No, we don’t,† she said. â€Å"Let SOF figure it out. It’s what they’re for.† â€Å"If they could figure it out they wouldn’t be asking us.† â€Å"The Wars are over,† she said. â€Å"Not exactly,† I said, after a pause. â€Å"Didn’t Pat tell you – â€Å" â€Å"Yes, he told me we’ll all be under the dark in a hundred years!† she said angrily. â€Å"I know!† I slid down to join her on the floor. I felt like a collection of old creaking hinges. I leaned over and put an arm around her. â€Å"I don’t want to know either.† After a moment she said, â€Å"There have been two more dry guys in Old Town this last week. Have you heard about them?† â€Å"Yes.† It had been on the news a few days ago – great stuff to hear when you’re driving alone in the dark – and Charlie and Liz had been talking about it when I brought the first tray of cinnamon rolls out front. They had fallen silent. I pretended I hadn’t heard anything and toppled the first burning-hot roll onto a plate for Mrs. Bialosky. She patted my hand and said, â€Å"Don’t you worry, sweetie, it’s not your fault.† Because she was Mrs. Bialosky I almost believed her, but I made the mistake of looking up, into her face, when I smiled at her, and saw the expression in her eyes. Oh. I almost patted her hand back and told her it wasn’t her fault either, but it wouldn’t have done any good. I guess I wasn’t surprised to find out that Mrs. Bialosky wasn’t only about litter and rats and flower beds. â€Å"I wouldn’t have joined SOF just because Pat can turn blue † Aimil said. â€Å"Working in a proofglassed room gives me asthma. Even part-time. Or maybe it’s just all the guys in khaki.† I went back to Charlie’s for the dinner shift, but Charlie took one look at me and said, â€Å"I’ll find someone to cover for you. Go home.† â€Å"I’ll go when you find someone,† I said, and lasted two hours, by which time poor Paulie had agreed to give up the rest of his night off after being there all afternoon. Teach him to be glad to escape the four-thirty-in-the-morning shift. I was home by eight-thirty; it was just full dark. Charlie had sent me home with a bottle of champagne that had a glass and a half left in it: perfect. I stood on my balcony and drank it and looked into the darkness. The darkness danced. I had had an idea. I didn’t like it much, but I had to try it. I went back indoors and unplugged my combox. It’s never quite dark under the sky, and I didn’t have curtains for the balcony windows. I tucked the box under my arm, ducked into my closet, and closed the door. This was real darkness. There wasn’t a lot of room in there, but I swept a few shoes aside and sat down. Turned the box on, listened to the resentful hum of the battery; it was an old box, and preferred to run off a wire. The screen came up and asked me if I wanted to enter the globenet. I sat there, staring at the glowing lettering. In the darkness, it didn’t flicker at all, it didn’t run away into millions of tiny skittish dwindling dimensions, like looking into a mirror with another one over your shoulder. I read it easily. I liked it even less that my idea had worked. At least I didn’t have to use a combox at Charlie’s. It would have been difficult to explain why I needed a closet. I brought the box back out of the closet and plugged it in on my desk. Not that I invited people home very often but I was touchy about looking normal even to myself now that I was behaving more like Onyx Blaise’s daughter. Your combox on a desk is much more normal than your combox in a closet. Could my dad see in the dark? Could any of my dad’s family? I couldn’t remember any of them except my gran: the rest were tall blurry shapes from my earliest childhood. Aimil was right: the Blaises had disappeared during the Wars. But I hadn’t noticed. I had been busy being my mother’s daughter. Even if I wanted to contact them I had no idea how. I could ask Pat or Jesse. Right after I told them I had a brand-new hotline to Vampire World the new horror theme park. It would blow the Ghoul Attack simulation at the Other Museum clean out of the water. It would make the Dragon Roller Coaster Ride at Monsterworld look like a merry-go-round. Just as soon as we get a few little details worked out, like how you get there. And how you get away again. Meanwhile I still hadn’t told them that I could see in the dark. Would I have told them a few days ago, if Aimil hadn’t been there? It was what I’d gone in to tell them. I went back to the balcony. I felt for an alignment. I stood at the edge of the void, but I stood in my world, on my ordinary feet, looking at ordinary darkness with my†¦not quite ordinary eyes. Constantine. Con, are you there? This time I was sure I felt that tug on the line streaming in the dark ether – a coherent pinprick of something in the incoherent nothing. But I lost it again. I was so tired I was having to prop myself against the railing to stay standing up. So I went indoors and went to bed. Meanwhile on other fronts I was adapting. I usually hit it right the first time when I reached for the spoon or the flour sack or the oven control. I hadn’t walked into a door in several days. After the vision had risen like a tide and floated me off my grounding in Oldroy Park, after I’d seen what I’d seen in Maud’s face – whether it was there or not, since I could hardly ask her – when the vision subsided and left me standing on solid earth again, some of the dizziness had subsided too. It was as if the dark was a kind of road map I’d been folding up wrong, and this time I’d got it right, and it would lie flat at last. Although road maps didn’t generally keep unfolding themselves and flapping at you saying Here! Here! Pay attention, you blanker! I thought: it is a road map of sorts. But it was about a country I didn’t know, labeled in a language I didn’t understand. And it didn’t unfold so much as erupt. I didn’t know if I’d seen what I’d seen in Mrs. Bialosky’s face either, the morning she’d told me not to worry. So, which did I like better: that my affinity was growing stronger, that it could pull me out of the human world into some dark alien space, or that I was merely going mad and/or had an inoperable brain tumor after all? Did I have a third choice? I worked pretty well straight through that day and got home in time to have a cup of tea in the garden. Yolande’s niece and her daughters had left after a two-week visit and it was none of my business but I was secretly delighted to have our garden to ourselves again. Yolande came out and joined me. I watched a few late roses do a kind of waltz with their shadows as a mild evening breeze played with them. Then I watched Yolande. I’d always liked watching her: I wished she could bottle that self-possession so I could have some. It was a little like Mel’s, I thought, only without the tattoos. I was feeling tired and mellow and was enjoying this so much it took me a while to realize something strange. The shadows lay quietly across Yolande’s face. I snapped out of being mellow and stared at her. She saw me looking and smiled. I jerked my eyes away hastily. What? How? Why? What could I ask her? Nothing. I looked at her again. The shadows on her face were quiet, but they went†¦down a long way. Like looking into the sky. What did I know about her? She had inherited this house from some distant relative who had also been childless and felt the spinsters of the world needed to stick together. She’d moved here from Cold Harbor when she retired. I didn’t recall she’d ever told me what she retired from. She had that calm strong centeredness I thought of as ex-teacher, ex-clergy, ex-healersister or midwife; I couldn’t imagine her as someone in a power suit navigating a desk with a combox screen the size of a tennis court and a swarm of hot young assistants in an outer office whose haircuts were specially designed to look chic wearing globenet headsets ten hours a day. I couldn’t ask. If she’d wanted to tell me it would have come up long ago. It probably had nothing to do with what she’d done for a living anyway. It was probably like having freckles or curly hair or transmuting ability: you’re born with it. But things like transmuting ability tend to lead to other choices†¦Ã¢â‚¬ I don’t think you’ve ever told me what you retired from,† I blurted out. â€Å"I was a wardskeeper,† she said easily, as if she was commenting on the pleasantness of the evening, as if my question wasn’t entirely rude. Wardskeeper. I wanted to laugh. No wonder her house wards were so good. You didn’t earn that title easily. There were hundreds of licensed wardcrafters, first, second, and third class, for every wardskeeper. The rank of wardskeeper granted an unrestricted authority to design and create any protection against any Others that any client wished to hire you for. Even wardskeepers had specialties: large business, small business, home, personal bodyguard, and the whole murky business of watchering, which ranged from honest protective surveillance to downright spying. But you didn’t get your wardskeeper insignia unless you could make a more than competent stab at all of it. Wardskeeper. She must then†¦her own house†¦but Con†¦I realized I’d said the first word aloud – I hoped only the first word – because she was answering me. â€Å"No, I’m not your idea of a wardskeeper, am I?† she said. â€Å"I was never anyone’s idea. But once I was established, new business came to me by word of mouth, and my prior clients usually had the good sense to warn future clients that they were going to meet a drab little old lady – I have been old and drab since my teens, by the way – who gave the impression of being hardly able to cross the road by herself.† She looked at me, smiling. â€Å"I admit that crossing the road alone has never been one of my greater gifts. Cars move much too quickly to suit me, and frequently from unexpected directions. I was always a much better maker of wards.† I couldn’t think how to ask my next question. I couldn’t even summon up the spare attention to hoot at the idea of Yolande being drab. â€Å"But then,† she went on, almost as if she was reading my mind, â€Å"people often are not what one might expect them to be. I would not expect a young, likable, sensible – and sun-worshipping – human woman who works in her family’s restaurant to have a friend who is a vampire.† Then I could say nothing at all. â€Å"My dear,† Yolande said, â€Å"I have now told you almost as much as I know about your private affairs. Yes, there are more wards about this house and garden than you are aware of, and the fact that you haven’t been aware of them is perhaps an indication to me that I have not yet lost my skill. I knew, of course, that a vampire had been visiting, but I also knew that you had not merely invited him in, but that you were under no coercion to do so. A good ward, my dear, will also prevent a forced invitation from achieving its object. And my wards are good ones. â€Å"It took no great effort of intellect to puzzle out some of what happened to you during the two days you were missing last spring, especially not with the reek of vampire on you. Sherlock Holmes – do young people still read him, I wonder? – made the famous statement that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. This is a very useful precept for a maker of wards, and I am not, perhaps, wholly retired. Vampires, as vampires will, caused you harm; but in this case, very unusually, not terminal harm. This one particular vampire therefore can be assumed to have done you some service, and that service created some kind of bond between you. This wild theory, suggestive of someone farther into her dotage than she wishes to believe, has been lately fortified when he returned, not once, but twice. â€Å"I know that your unlikely friend is a vampire, a male vampire, and that there is only the one of him whom you invite across your threshold. This I have found very reassuring, by the way. Had there been more than one, I think my determination to assume the best rather than the worst might have failed. Although I admit I have doubled the wards around my own part of the house†¦I have nothing to indicate that he is my friend too, you understand, and the human revulsion toward vampires generally is well justified.† Yolande leaned forward to look into my face. â€Å"In the roundabout way of an old lady who perhaps spends too much of her time alone, I am offering you my support, in this impossibly difficult task you have taken on. The natural antipathy between vampires and humans means, I feel, that it is some task; I doubt either you or your friend is enjoying the situation. I don’t suppose your new SOF colleagues know about either the task or the friend, do they?† I managed to shake my head. â€Å"I am not surprised. I doubt SOF is very†¦adaptable. Lack of adaptability is the root cause of much trouble in large organizations.† I thought of Pat turning blue and smiled a little. But only a little. She was right about their attitude toward vampires. She was right about the universal human attitude toward vampires. â€Å"I had not planned to say anything to you. I had at first assumed that whatever happened four months ago was over. But the vampire taint on you remained: that wound in your breast was some vampire’s handiwork, wasn’t it?† So much for the camouflage provided by high-necked shirts. I nodded. â€Å"And then your friend came, and now there is no wound. The two events are related, are they not?† I nodded again. â€Å"That is as good a definition of friendship as I need. But†¦I will no longer call it a taint†¦the fleck, the fingerprint of the vampire is still upon you. I am afraid the metaphor that occurs to me is of the eater of arsenic. If you eat a very, very little of it, over time you can develop a limited immunity to it. I do not know why you should choose to†¦immunize yourself like this. Or why he should†¦My dear, forgive me if I have been a hopeless busybody. But your inevitable and wholly justified dismay, confusion, and preoccupation of four months ago has changed, certainly, but it has not decreased. It has increased – alarmingly so.† She paused, as if she hoped for an answer, but I could say nothing. â€Å"My dear, there is something else my wards have told me: that your nickname is more than an affectionate joke. I can believe no evil of someone who draws her strength from the light of day. If I can help you, I will.† The sense of a burden unexpectedly lifted was so profound it made me dizzy, not least that by its lifting I realized how heavy it was. I had assumed – I had known – that there was no one I would be able to tell about my unlikely friend – there was certainly no one I would have risked telling. And now Yolande had told me. There were two of us who knew. Maybe that meant the task was not impossible after all. Whatever the task was. Well, wiping Bo out would be a service to all humankind, certainly, whether Con and I survived or not. But offhand I couldn’t see how even having a wardskeeper on our side was going to be useful. Besides, I had a selfish desire to stay alive myself. Bag the future of humanity. And Con was failing to show up to help me make plans. He was the one who had told me that time was short. The new dry guys in Old Town bore something of the same message. But there was now another human who knew about Con and me – and hadn’t freaked out. I felt better even if I shouldn’t’ve. â€Å"Thank you,† I said. â€Å"Don’t thank me yet,† said Yolande. â€Å"I haven’t done anything yet, except pry into your private affairs. I would not have done so if I had felt I could risk not enquiring into them.† Well, thank the gods and the angels for nosy landladies. This nosy landlady. â€Å"Is there such a thing as a – an – antiward? Something that attracts?† I said. Yolande raised her eyebrows. 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Spin Drift Essay Research Paper SpindriftA Critical free essay sample

Spin Drift Essay, Research Paper Spindrift A Critical Review I visited the Currier Gallery of Art and I genuinely enjoyed myself. I had neer been to an Art Gallery and merely had the feeling that I had received through the films. It was as I pictured it to be, and I would travel their or another gallery once more. The Currier Gallery had some outstanding pieces of art, they had everything thing from elephantine wall pictures to little wall pictures and elephantine sculptures to little sculptures. They even had a room dedicated to engineering ; they had the old theoretical accounts of vacuities, a boat motor, chairs, a nickelodeon, and much more. But out of all the large images, the bright colourss, the large sculptures, and the large name creative persons such as Picasso and Monet, the one piece by Andrew Wyeth caught my oculus. It was a smaller piece with small colour that held so much significance. We will write a custom essay sample on Spin Drift Essay Research Paper SpindriftA Critical or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Andrew Wyeth is an American, who was born in 1917. This piece is Tempera on Masonite. This piece was painted in 1950 and was named Spindrift. Spindrift had an old wooden dinghy that had been used and worn-in posing on the beach with the moving ridges fluxing to about mid boat. The ocean was a grey colour fluxing onto the dark sand. There was a pail of silverfish sitting in the floor of the boat below the place with a hole in it. An over used ore lye in the boat, while a little black colored bird flew merely above the land past the boat. In the side of the boat you could see the contemplation of the moving ridges. Even the frame had an old sense like the image ; it looked like it was made from driftwood or perchance old wood from a boat. When looking at the image I had my ideas about what did it intend and stand for. It reminded me of when I was younger and would travel to the beach and Mr. Stuvo La, an older adult male, would come place from angling. But alternatively of silverfish they would be flounder and everything had more colour. I think that the old boat being on the dark sandy shore and the grey H2O hitting the boat symbolizes Andrew Wyeth? s life. He feels old ; his life has small exhilaration in it with no colour. I think that the pail of silverfish represents the wealth that Wyeth has. The old worn-in ore prevarication in the boat represents how he feels to an of import individual in his life. He is an ore that gets used to paddle person through life, I believe person he loves but does non love back. The hole in the place is his bosom ; it has a hole in it. I believe that the boat has cipher in it because that? s how Wyeth feels about his life. He feels empty indoors and realizes that he is by looking at his life. The black bird winging by represents other love possibilities that pass his boat but they ever continue to wing right pass. I think that they continue to wing by he is boat because he tells him self that the adult females he loves will love him back, so in bend he turns down other possibilities . The contemplation of the moving ridges on the boat I feel shows that Wyeth is seeking to populate his life in his yesteryear, possible through something he accomplished when he was younger. And the deficiency of bright colourss in the picture shows deficiency of exhilaration in his life. His life has turned into a everyday and he hates that. I loved traveling to the art gallery and sitting at that place looking at the images and inquiring about what the creative person was believing when they painted their images. I think it was both worth the money and the clip. I would make it once more, and I recommend it to everyone. I rate the Currier Gallery of Art as great, but I have no footing for comparing to other galleries. But it was good deserving it.

When Life is Unfair Essay Example For Students

When Life is Unfair Essay Since I told them, everybody has been treating me differently. Since I told them, my friends and family has been blocking me out, pretending not to know me. Since I told them, my life has been turned upside down, and there is nothing I can do to turn it over again. Sometimes I wonder that if I had just kept it all to myself, it would be okay. Sometimes I wonder if I was wrong. Maybe it was a big mistake. Every morning I have these thoughts, but at the end of the day, I know that it’s all true. My whole life, Ive been playing soccer, at least since I learned how to walk. We will write a custom essay on When Life is Unfair specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now When I started playing for real, I was the best one on the team. I scored almost every goal, and I’ve had since. At an age of sixteen, I am still the best player, but after I told them, the bench has been my place. If I even get to play, it will be at the side, where I have no chance of scoring. The coach told me it was to help the other players grow, and that we sometimes needed some changes, but I know why I dont get to play. I know why every time I score a goal, the audience just sits there, silent. Everybody used to cheer and scream for me, not anymore. The first person I relived my secret to was my mom. It was a Sunday night. The sun was about to disappear behind the trees and the tall buildings. It was dark, and the only thing lighting my room up, was the small lamp over my bed, and the tiny computer I got from my grandparents last year. The screen was all blurry when I logged into my Facebook page. It cleared up when two tears streamed down my face, and left a little wet spot on my sheets. After a while, I could feel the cold and wet fabric to my skin. I looked down and saw a big stain of water and mascara blended together. Then I heard footsteps. Up the stairs, and further down the hall, until the door slowly opened and a woman entered the room. â€Å"Honey† was the word my mother said when she noticed that I was crying. I looked up and told her everything, I told her without knowing that she would never call me honey ever again. I was the first one to come out of the closet. I know that one out of twenty people is gay, and it’s at least four hundred students at our school. That makes around twenty more students just like me. Most of them don’t even know it yet. Maybe they have a little clue, but don’t have the courage to face the fact. Personally, I have never had any interest in boys. In fifth grade I had a boyfriend called Tyler, but you know what it was like in middle school. The whole town must have heard it by now. People go away when they see me coming, and I can clearly see that they are talking behind my back. What am I, a murder? My parents have been talking about maybe moving me to another school, but what difference would that make? It’s the same type of people everywhere. Therefore, I’m glad high school soon will be over. In college I can start fresh; make new friends that don’t care about what other people think. I can finally be free, play as much soccer as I want and fall in love with whoever I want. I hope that the students are more grown up. I know I will be. I already am. It’s been hard so far, but I’ve learned how to handle it. Whenever people call me things I dont like, it’s their problem. Whenever people look at me as I am nothing worth, it’s their problem. They are the bullies, and I am the good one. It’s okay, because as you know, the good ones always win. The whole time, Ive been ignoring them. .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .postImageUrl , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:hover , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:visited , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:active { border:0!important; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:active , .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2 .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uc99a4195b75443dde625138f9b15e7e2:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Macbeth 2 Persuasive EssayOn my way home from school, or on my way home from soccer practice, I’ve walked with my head down. I never speak up, I’m not that brave. Maybe I should. How can it get any worse that this? A little voice inside my head always stops me from doing it. There is nobody on my side, and I’m pretty sure they will just laugh at me. When did it get so wrong to say what you mean and stand against the majority? Take Malala for example. She is a teenager on my age, and has done so much already. She said her opinion, why cant I? There must be a reason for us to live, right? Were like left-handed people. We are different from others, but we are still so much alike. I wonder how a detail so small, can change the way we live, just because others dont feel comfortable with it. There are created scissors and other equipment for left-handed people. They are accepted, why arent we? Ive never been in love, either in a boy or a girl. As far as I know, you would be really stupid if you talk to me, since I am considered a freak. Even my friends dont talk to me anymore. I only have Stella, who sometimes talks to me on the phone, but never in public. You may think it would be easy to stand against the others. You may think that if it was you, it would be no way you let me be alone in the breaks. I guess you never know before you stand there, with no clue what your decision will be. Because I bet that there is at least one person at your school that feels alone sometimes. Would you make conversations with him or her, become their friend? I don’t think so. That’s why I’m not mad at anyone, that’s why I take it so easily. Sometimes I just wish it was easier, I wish it wasnt so unfair.

In Frank McCourt essays

In Frank McCourt essays In Frank McCourts Angelas Ashes the reasons for which Angela and her future husband left Ireland for New York were simple. Angela was sent to New York by her mother because she said Angela was worthless and there was plenty of room in America for useless people. As for Malachy, Angelas future husband, he escaped to New York from Ireland because he had a price put on his head from fighting with the Old IRA. He became a fugitive and his only way out was to escape to America. Later after the McCourts were married and had children, they eventually had to leave New York. They had to leave because New York was going through a depression along with the rest of America and there was not much work. The McCourts could not afford to stay in New York. Angela and Malachy also suffered the loss of there little girl, Margaret. After the loss of their daughter the McCourts could not bare to stay in New York anymore. The McCourts made a terrible mistake by leaving New York. They made a terrible mista ke because shortly after they left, America was coming out of the depression and there were more jobs. The McCourts left the hardships in New York to the even worse conditions of a poorer Ireland. In America people were free and could have more better job opportunities. By choosing to leave New York the McCourts gave up any opportunity they had to having a better life for themselves. The McCourts appeared to have gained nothing by moving back to Ireland. There were hardly any jobs and the ones that were available did not 3 pay that much. The McCourts also did not get any help from the government nor barely any help from their family that lived there. The McCourts left New York and only made their situation worse for themselves. They should have just stayed in New York so that their children could of had at least some chance of a decent life. In Frank McCourts Angelas Ashes the reasons for which Angela and her future husband lef...

Describe and analyse in detail the dramatic importance and visual Essay - 1

Describe and analyse in detail the dramatic importance and visual impact of the Mediterranean setting in Et Dieu cra la femme (Roger Vadim, 1956) - Essay Example To fully comprehend the effect of the different elements on the movie, the impact of the points has to be analyzed in its total form. The formation of the script is important and the Mediterranean settings play an instrumental role in the setting. The classical conceptualization of the plot is one of the strong points. The impact of the Mediterranean setting on the movie can be comprehended form the overall complicity of the movie with the settings. The film has all the element of the modern day cinema and even pushed the boundaries in terms of the classical representation. This ensured the fundamental nature of the movie. The central characters of the film are justified by the Mediterranean settings in the movie. The central plot of the movie is based on this situation of the movie. The Mediterranean settings added a certain degree of charm to the surroundings. This is seen in the heightened sense of sensuality of the movie. The overall development of the movie was seen to be a result on that stress on sensuality. The elements of drama have been seen in the movie and this has endeared the movie to the watchers. The movies were made in the golden age of French drama. It was seen to have all the elements of the genre in place. The progression of the story is significant in terms of the elements involved in the characterization of the movie. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and starred Brigitte Bardot in it. It is the film that is widely credited to have led to the rise of stardom of Bardot. The conceptualization and the development of the story have a touch of sensuality to it. The story has all th e elements that glamorize the settings. If the plot is very keenly observed, it can be seen that the story has concordance with the Mediterranean settings. The sensuousness of the story has been helped by the concept that the story has shown. This is one of the primal parts of the story that is of significance. The film has a

IBM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

IBM - Essay Example IBM is an American Computer manufacturing company which was founded in 17 February, 1874 by Thomas Watson. It is also known as the ‘big blue’ due to the color of its logo. The company started as a producer of punch cards tabulating machines. It built a 600s calculator in 1930s which was based on the punch card processing machine. The first computer (Mark 1) to perform long calculations automatically was co-funded by the organization in 1944 together with Harvard University. Watson Junior developed the 701 EDPM in 1953 which was meant to help in the policing of Korea by the United Nations but was not compatible with the punch card processing machine. The machine had processing units which were about 10 times faster than the core memory. The organization built more computers of IBM types like the IBM 704 of 1956, IBM 7090 of 1960, the 650 EDPM which was compatible with the earlier calculator 600s and it was the first massively produced computer. In 1981 the organization bu ilt a home-use computer called IBM PC. The company currently produces software products and computers. IBM research has helped the company in development of new technology and their application and helped the company to make innovations in the industry. These include; the innovation of copper chip technology that are capable of holding very large capacity of information. These were scheduled to be produced in 1998; Introduction of the Giant Magneto-resistive Head (GMR) which allowed introduction of products with higher areal densities e.g. disk drives; Speech recognition technology that would revolutionalise data input and usage of computers in business. There is research to expand and enhance voice recognition software which is already available in 8 words; Scalable parallel systems that allows joining of computer processors together while breaking down complexity and data-intensive jobs to speed their completion; Token-ring networking that allowed more efficient and reliable control of LAN (Local Area Network) traffic-a token-ring controls an individual computer to accessing of the network for example used in factories, cyber cafes, and university campuses; discovery of High-temperature superconductivity in ceramics which was done in 1986 by two scientists from the organization and they were offered the Nobel Peace Prize; discovery in Fractals allows mathematical description of natural irregularities via fractal geometry. A paper which contained the view that, irregular shapes in the nature, like tree branching of objects or phenomena had similar form when given a close up view or far away. The paper was published by Mandelbrot Benoit a scientist at IBM, in 1967; introduction of Formula Translation System (FORTRAN) in 1957; Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), whose memory concept of storing one bit of information in a memory cell consisting of only one transistor and a capacitor, was first described by a researcher in organization in a patent issue of 1968.

Social Psychology - Delinquency Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Social Psychology - Delinquency - Essay Example The decision to shoplift is driven from within by the thought processes of the individual, placing it squarely in the realm of psychology as part of the social exchange theory (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein, 2005). Along a similar line it is possible that the individual engaged in shoplifting in order to gain items that would create the perception of financial success so prized in our society. The pressure to act came from outside the individual and is an example of the structural-functional theory of sociology (Zappen, 1998). What if an equal emphasis comes from outside the individual Perhaps the shoplifter has many friends, peers, and role models that shoplift. The saying birds of a feather would point to the sad fact that the individual would eventually be labeled as a shoplifter by association. So if people expect the individual to shoplift he will be more likely to do so. Or so the labeling theory would have us believe (Sociological theory, 2008). It could also be argued that shoplifters learn the behavior from their peers as explained by the social learning theory of psychology. When an individual repeatedly sees a behavior being done it becomes the norm for him and engaging in it is not seen by the individual as deviant, delinquent or criminal. A similar method can be used to dis