The Lesson Essay Example for Free

The Lesson Essay In â€Å"The Lesson† by Toni Cade Bambara, the author writes about Sylvia’s childhood experience as a student. She is a young-immature, uneducated, and naive kid who doesn’t know much about life, but her teacher tries to help her by giving her a lesson of reality as well to the rest of her students. She describes her teacher as a lady, Miss Moore, with â€Å"nappy hair,† â€Å"proper speech,† and â€Å"no makeup. † Sylvia explains how she feels when she goes to toy store in Fifth Avenue. For example, she says that she feels confused and shamed of being in the store because the writer notates that the store is made for wealthy people. Sylvia’s vocabulary in the literature is very unusual because she expresses her feelings with streets slang. Furthermore, the author explains Sylvia’s economic situation, and Sylvia’s preferences for playing on the streets with her friends instead of going to school. However, by the end of the story, Sylvia learns the meaning of self-motivation. People, things, and attitudes might help to motivate someone to become something in life, but it is up to that someone to become that something. The main character of the story is Sylvia. She is a kid who considers games the only important thing in her life. Paragraph one emphasizes some of the author’s hobbies and ethnicity. She says that she hates the winos because they cluttered up the parks where her friends and she used to play. She argues that her new teacher is black as well (462). â€Å"As well. † she refers of Sylvia as a black kid too. In paragraph three, Sylvia says that she would rather go to the pool or the show where it is cool instead of listen Miss Moore’s arithmetic lesson (463). Another main characteristic of Sylvia is her poor vocabulary. She uses slang and metaphorical language. For example, in paragraph one, she mentions that her cousin â€Å"who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe† (462). She uses â€Å"cause† instead of because, and when she uses the expression â€Å"gradual to breathe†, she is referring to the space of the apartment. In other words, she tries to say that there is enough space to fit all of her family in her apartment without having luxury. Also, she uses expressions like â€Å"let up†, â€Å"gofer†, â€Å"shit outta me†, â€Å"nappy-head bitch†, and others. Another main characteristic of Sylvia is that she doesn’t make use of her values properly. For example, when she steals the $4 that her teacher gave her to pay the taxi, values are missing. Sylvia just wants to buy barbeque instead of paying the taxi. In paragraph forty, Sylvia lies about a boarder taking a shower when in reality sugar was tied up in the shower, and her aunt caught her lying. Sylvia is a young kid who only cares for games, but the teacher will show her the real meaning of life later in the literature. The main conflict of the story is when Miss Moore tries to give lessons of how democracy works to her students, but Sylvia refuses to go along with them and makes it more complicated. There are two types of conflicts in the author’s writing. The first one is the internal conflict, and the second one the external conflict. The internal conflict is within Sylvia’s perspective. For example, when Miss Moore tries to explain to her students what money is, Sylvia takes the question as an insult (463). She thinks that the teacher’s purposes of making the question is to treat her students as uneducated kids, but what the teacher really tries to say is what money really is, why it is so important in people’s life, how people expend it, and why. The external conflict is between the author vs. the real world. In paragraph twenty six, Sylvia expresses that the boat price makes her angry, but she doesn’t know why (464). In paragraph 40, she says that she feels funny and shame when she walks in to the toy store (465). At the beginning of the writing, Sylvia doesn’t want to accept the concept of Miss Moore, â€Å"Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough† (465), but by the end of the story she finally gets the lesson. Sylvia says in the last paragraph that she doesn’t care for the $4 that she stole from her teacher, and she wants to think the day through (466). â€Å"The Lesson† is a literature that shows the main character another face of the world. By Sylvia going to the toy store, she realizes that there are people out there who have better economic status than her. She acknowledges the opportunities that her democratic country can offer her such as equal opportunity to get far in life. The settings of the story are very detailed and help the readers understand better that Sylvia is a poor black kid from the North who doesn’t know better about life. For instances, in paragraph 1 the protagonist, Sylvia, describes the park where she and her friends play hide-and-seek. This setting helps the reader to understand that the protagonist of the story is a young teenager kid who rather goes to the park than summer school. The story also makes it clear that Sylvia and her friends are in summer school somewhere in New York close to alley Pond Park or Central Park. With all of settings details that the author tells in the story, readers can interpret that the story probably took place in the 70s or bel because in paragraph 3, the author emphasizes that the taxi ride cost 0. 85 cents. Furthermore, almost by the end of the story, the author describes that the toy store is located on Fifth Avenue which is an avenue in New York City where the most expensive stores are located. Miss Moore takes the kids to the toy store with the purpose of teaching her students that there are people out there in the world who had worked hard enough to reach the type of life style that they ever wanted. Languages devices throughout the story help the readers understand more about the protagonist background and message of the story. For instance, the expensive sailboat in â€Å"The Lesson† symbolizes frivolous uses of money and teaches Sylvia about the economic difference status that exits in her society. It also shows her that everyone is capable of getting anything in life as long one chooses the right path to success. Another language device found in the story is imagery which is emphasized in paragraph one when Sylvia describes Miss Moore’s feet as â€Å"fish-white and spooky† (462). By Sylvia’s slang and words, the readers conclude that Miss Moore’s feet are very white and Sylvia dislike them. Also the audience realize that the protagonist is an immature kid that doesn’t know better about people. Furthermore, Diction is found almost on each paragraph of the story. For instance, when sugar says, â€Å"Back in the days when everyone was old and stupid or young and foolish and me and Sugar were the only ones just right † (462), it gives the readers an idea of the protagonist’s culture, education, and personality. It seems that Sylvia is a young kid who doesn’t understand the stages of life and the opportunities that she has to become a successful adult until her teacher takes her to the toy story. In conclusion, â€Å"The lesson† seems to be a teaching story to kids who don’t have ambition in their life to explore the word and its opportunities. The author makes it very clear that people are what they want to be and what they work for. For instance, in paragraph forty five Miss Moore emphasizes that â€Å"we are who we are[,] but it don’t necessarily have to be that way† (466).

Nuclear Waste Disposal Essay -- Nuclear Waste Disposal Environmental E

Nuclear Waste Disposal For over the last half century, the production and exploit of nuclear technology has spread into many areas of the current modern society and affects each individual in one way or another. Nuclear technology has become relevant in areas of the advancement of energy production, national defense, and also the medicinal field as well. But, along with the use of nuclear technology comes an added burden: nuclear waste. As defined, â€Å"Nuclear waste is the type of waste that results from the use and production of nuclear materials. As nuclear materials are produced and use up, one by-product of the process is a large amount of dangerous chemical elements.† In short, nuclear wastes are generated from spent nuclear fuel, dismantled weapons, and other products which many include the most dangerous chemical element, plutonium. As nuclear energy is being a more reliable source, we must find a way to properly dispose of it just like any other energy waste. The most important design item that we must consider in storage of nuclear waste lies in the shielding of its radiation. Currently, nuclear waste is stored in specially-designed, water-filled basins or dry casks at commercial power reactor sites or at one away-from-reactor storage facilities in 43 different states.. But as these are only temporary, The Bush Administration and the U.S Department of Energy have proposed a design for a permanent waste disposal which will place steel canisters containing the spent fuel to be stored within other steel canisters and buried horizontally in chambers 300 meters below the earth’s surface. In February of 2002, President Bush chose the site of Yucca Mountain (90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada) as the place to... ...ng methods to solve this problem. Hopefully efforts will be successful and the world will have one less worry in its already huge human waste disposal dilemma. Works Cited 1. Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 49. â€Å"International Nuclear Waste Disposal Concepts.† http://www.uic.com.au/nip49.htm. 2/3/2005 2. â€Å"Nuclear Waste: Storage and Disposal Methods.† http://www.etsu.edu/writing/3120f99/zctb3/nuclear2.htm 3. Natural Resources Defense Council. â€Å"EPA loses Yucca Mountain court case.† http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/articles/br_1688.asp?t=t 4. Environmental Media Services. â€Å"Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage and Transport.† http://www.ems.org/nuclear/yucca_mountain.html 5. Brongers, Michiel P.H. â€Å"Nuclear Waste Storage.† Chem.480, April 6, 2002, www.utm.edu/departments/artsci/chemistry/NUwaste.htm

CAPM’s Contribution to the Stock Market

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is a mathematical, analytical formula to help investors make the wisest decisions on the stock market. Before purchasing a common stock, an investor may use the CAPM (a mathematical formula) to estimate its expected returns. The Model may be used for all kinds of assets. In brief, the CAPM helps to explain â€Å"the relationship between the risk of a particular asset or stock, its market price, and the expected return to the investor (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model or CAPM,† 2007). By using CAPM as a tool to project expected returns from stocks, investors automatically affect the demand and prices of stocks sold on the market. The CAPM starts out with the assumption that there are two kinds of risks that must be assessed before an investment decision is made. Systematic risk includes risks facing the market as a whole and that cannot be dampened through portfolio diversification. Examples of systematic risks include rates of interest and economic slumps (McClure, 2008). While systematic risks must affect all stocks at the same time, unsystematic risks or specific risks are risks that are â€Å"specific to individual stocks and can be diversified away as the investor increases the number of stocks in his or her portfolio (McClure). † Of course, good investors are well-versed in investment theories such as the modern portfolio theory, which clearly states that diversification cannot resolve the issue of systematic risks, although specific risks may be easily handled by diversifying an investment portfolio. CAPM was developed as a way to address the issues raised by the modern portfolio theory. This Model is a tool to measure systematic risks as well (McClure). The Risk Glossary explains the importance of estimating systematic risk before the formula for measuring such risk is described: According to CAPM, the marketplace compensates investors for taking systematic risk but not for taking specific risk. This is because specific risk can be diversified away. When an nvestor holds the market portfolio, each individual asset in that portfolio entails specific risk, but through diversification, the investor's net exposure is just the systematic risk of the market portfolio. Systematic risk can be measured using beta. According to CAPM, the expected return of a stock equals the risk-free rate plus the portfolio's beta multiplied by the expected excess return of the market portfolio. Specifically, let and be random variables for the simple returns of the stock and the market over some specifi ed period. Let be the known risk-free rate, also expressed as a simple return, and let be the stock's beta. Then where E denotes an expectation (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model,† 1996). The formula of CAPM is considered its conclusion (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model†). To put it simply, the formula states that â€Å"excess expected return† of a stock is dependent on the beta of the stock rather than the stock’s volatility (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model†). The same can be stated for an investment portfolio. Another way to explain the formula is that â€Å"the stock's excess expected return over the risk-free rate equals its beta times the market's expected excess return over the risk free rate (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model†). † Or, excess expected return from a stock is dependent on systematic risk rather than the total of risks (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model†). As suggested previously, by knowing the beta and expected returns for a certain stock or asset, investors are able to bid up or down its price. Expected returns are adjusted so long as the formula has not been satisfied. Thus, the Capital Asset Pricing Model ends up predicting the equilibrium price of a stock or asset. One of the assumptions of the model is that all investors agree on the expected return of certain stock or asset as well as the beta. Although this assumption is unrealistic, the CAPM is believed to affect the stock market by urging investors to raise the demand for particular assets or stocks as compared to others, based on the information they obtain through the use of the Model (â€Å"Capital Asset Pricing Model†). Apart from the unrealistic assumption of CAPM mentioned above, there are other problems with the Model that experts have identified by way of research. As an example, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French, upon considering expected returns on the American Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange for a period of 27 years, found that the differences of beta do not consistently describe the performance of stocks (McClure). McClure reports that the study conducted by Fama and French is not the only one that raised doubts about the validity of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. A major problem with the Model is the fact that beta cannot be used as a sure predictor of the reaction of stocks to various changes. All the same, the CAPM continues to be used by countless investors around the globe (McClure). In other words, beta continues to affect investment decisions that run the stock market day after day. References Capital Asset Pricing Model. (1996). Risk Glossary. Retrieved Nov 4, 2008, from http://www.riskglossary.com/link/capital_asset_pricing_model.htm. Capital Asset Pricing Model or CAPM. (2007). Money Zine. Retrieved Nov 4, 2008, from http://www.money-zine.com/Investing/Stocks/Capital-Asset-Pricing-Model-or-CAPM/. McClure, B. (2008). The Capital Asset Pricing Model: An Overview. Investopedia. Retrieved Nov 4, 2008, from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/06/CAPM.asp.

Cutting Down Mother Nature Deforestation - 2387 Words

Cutting Down Mother Nature Deforestation has been an ancient process that has been ongoing since at least since the beginnings of human civilization. It was both a method that focused on survival, but now the act of cutting down a wide area of trees has accelerated to massive proportions for mostly economic profit. Deforestation has already impacted the Earth in such a way that its forests and resources are running out at a massive rate. What had used to be a mere tool for survival has now turned into a wound on nature. In 2010, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) had published a global assessment that explained the global rate of deforestation. According to the FAO (2010), in the last 2 decades over 28 million hectares or†¦show more content†¦How Deforestation Can Affect the Environment Forests are a highly important part of Earth’s ecosystems and its animals, but are also a main source of resources much desired by humans. The need for these products has lead to massive amounts of deforestation and to several changes to the environment. Deforestation would affect the environment in a way that leads to the rising of earth’s climate, and deterioration in soil fertility which are important for the survival of plants and humans alike. Plants will need soil and sufficient climate for growth while humans require them for growing food. Deforestation would bring several devastating effects that would affect both local and global environments. Not only can deforestation remove entire forests, but it can also have devastating effects on the soil making sure that forests and other plants cannot regrow in that area. Once the vegetation and plant life is eradicated from the area, soil erosion and a loss in soil fertility will become an accumulating problem. According to the National Department of Agriculture (1999), Soil erosion is the act of soil, or more specifically the nutritious top-soil that plants depend on so much, being washed away by rain, streams, or any other flowing water source (para. 9). Furthermore, according to the article, Effects of Deforestation, written by The Guardian (1999),