Of Mice and Men Prologue

The sun set through the window of the bar. A girl with bouncing brown ringlets and yellow feathers in her hair and deep blood red lips was set on a bar stool talking to the bar tender, â€Å"I tell ya what Tony, one day I'ma be somethin', you just watch. I ain't selliin you no baloney. I'ma go into town, get outta this hell hole and make something of myself. I wasn't born to be a nobody singin' in a bar every night that's for sure, I'ma make it big Tony. I'ma be in the pictures one day.† â€Å"You need to stop dreamin kid. It ain't gonna get you nowhere just broken hearted. We all have our hopes an' dreams, but nothin' ever happens. You best go get ready now, you're on in five.† The girl was barely 16 in her bright blue eyes, but was looking more than 25 in her low cut sparkling sun yellow dress. She shuffled off her bar stool to the stage where she stood in front of her microphone facing the audience of big burly men shouting at each other, playing card games, and drinking ale. The man on the piano started playing and the room went silent, all except one voice and a piano. The sweetest sound anyone in that room had ever heard. The girl sensed all the men's eyes falling on her and she cherished the attention. She started to shake her hips and glide around the stage, lapping up the wolf whistles from all the men. Two men entered the bar, both the same height; One was an elderly men, with white hair and a beard, the other just slightly older than her. They stood out amongst all the other men in the room that were dressed in denim. They were seated at the table right in front of the stage. The girl couldn't take her eyes off the younger man. Something about the mystery of him was giving her stomach butterflies. She finished her show to a big applause and shouts from all the men apart from the two at the front who just applauded quietly. She took her place back at the bar, â€Å"say, Tony, what are them two doing here?† She pointed carefully at the men near the stage, â€Å"They certainly ain't from this town, for sure.† Tony looked over and sighed, â€Å"Don't know who they think they are, flashin' their stuff like they somethin' special, folk like them got no business in places like this†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Tony quickly stopped talking as he saw the youngest of the men walking over. â€Å"Hey, my name is Rico Millegrew, I work for a talent agency. Me and my old man heard you were good and came to check it out, we'd like you to join our agency, try you out for acting, get you in the pictures, we seen what you can do with your singing and you're quite a looker, we think you could really go far.† The young girl looked astonished, â€Å"What you tryna say?† Her face gleamed and the excitement grew inside her when she thought of all the nice clothes and money she'd have. â€Å"Just give me your address and I'll send a letter out to you first thing†. Tony who had been listening very carefully to the conversation slipped her a piece of paper and a pen, â€Å"Lola, think what ya doing kid, it could be a scam, you hear about this kinda stuff all of the time, guys pretendin' to be somethin' they ain't to take advantage of young girl like you.† Lola stared at him, â€Å"Shut up Tony! What do you know? Just ‘cuz you're goin' nowhere with your life don't mean you can try to ruin mine. I know you want me to stay here in this hell hole wit you ‘cuz you got no chances but I ain't, you hear me? This is my chane, I'ma make it big Tony and then we'll see who was right!† The anger flared in the girl's eyes as she listened to the cruel words of her friend trying to ruin her dream. In anger and excitement she scribbled down her address and name and gave the paper to the man, â€Å"promise ya'll write, you better make sure you write to me now!† The man looked at the stressed girl and muttered before leaving the bar with the other man. The girl grabbed her coat and ran underneath the moonlight, all the way to her house. She flung open the door, â€Å"Ma'!† she cried towards the middle aged morose looking woman sat next to the fire rocking a cradle. The woman stared at her like she was mad as she told her the story of the men at the bar and how she was going to make something of herself. â€Å"You're crazy!† she shouted at the young girl, â€Å"You ain't going nowhere, you're too young, you don't think we all have dreams? Well I had a dream once, look where I ended up! A single mother with six kids, and you screaming nonsense at me! Some life this is ain't it!† The woman panted to catch her breath, â€Å"Stop bein' so ridiculous, life ain't a dream, life ain't easy, you ain't takin' any easy route missy, you just gonna end up like me and all the other women in this god forsaken town, a worthless nobody, only good for poppin' out babies an' your husband runnin' off with some cheap lousy tart† The young girl was reduced to tears, she ran upstairs where she refused to come ou t of for days. Lola spent three, slow months waiting for the letter. She'd been panicking that it wasn't coming, worrying she had given the wrong information, blaming Tony for making her blow her top in front of them. After another three months, June was approaching. Eventually, 6 months of waiting and blaming everyone for it not coming had made Lola realise there would never be a letter. The hot sun gleamed through the bar window. Tony stood in his usual spot behind the bar cleaning glasses, he noticed the tired dead eyes and flat dirty brown hair of the girl that had just walked in wearing a dirt stained sun dress. After 6 months, Tony hardly recognised the girl that was staring at him and he immediately knew what had happened, she never got the letter. He didn't say anything, just got her a drink. â€Å"On the house.† He said to Lola. She was bewildered at his generosity after how she had treated him, â€Å"thank you,† she said solemnly and gave him a weak smile. She took her drink and set at the bar till the sun set, drinking till she was half-dead. â€Å"You've had enough Lola,† Tony said looking at the limp body sprawled across the bar, â€Å"you need to be getting off home.† He looked around the room for help and saw a small man with coarse wire hair standing near the bar, â€Å"you couldn't give me a hand now could you?† He asked the stranger. The stranger looked at the girl and said â€Å"Sure. My name's Curley by the way. This girl looks dead!† He put his arm around the girl and Tony did the same, â€Å"NO!† she shouted, â€Å"No, I'm not going back there! Not a chance in hell am I goin' to go back!† The men looked at each other dumb strucken, â€Å"Say, my old man owns a ranch not too far away, why don't she come stay up there for a few nights until she gets herself sorted?† Tony didn't know what to say, â€Å"I suppose she'd be alright, I've heard good things about the boss up at the ranch in Soledad.† The girl muttered a drunken plea, â€Å"Anythin' but that place †, she said. The men took the girl outside and placed her on a strong horse. Curley then climbed up and set behind her. â€Å"Make sure she's alrigh'!† said Tony to Curley. Curley looked at Tony and smiled, â€Å"Oh don't you worry, she'll be fine, I can sure pack a punch to anyone that tries to hurt her† he grinned. Tony was reassured and waved him off.

The Internet – Pros and Cons

In the age of the technological development nobody who moves with the times can imagine existing without the Internet. However, its popularity makes us bear in mind all its side effects. Many argue that the Internet is a treasury of information while the others find it as a source of misleading information and danger. So, is the Internet a force for good or a force for evil? Firstly, the Internet is an invaluable tool which helps students learn. Without any effort we can gain an access to the study aids.Furthermore, we can save time avoiding queues thanks to a large selection of online stores, which is particularly important for the disabled. Moreover, the Internet gives an opportunity to get in touch with new people from all over the world and keep in touch with the loved ones. However the Internet cannot be always shown in favourable light. First and foremost, the Internet is incredibly addictive – surfers are often not able to bear without checking their mail hundreds of ti mes per day.Moreover, unlimited possibilities of communication with surfers cause losing an active social life in the real world. Lastly, inappropriate information as even pornography await under-age users at every turn. To sum up, there are many advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. Some people say the Internet has ruined our lives but in my opinion it transformed the world for the better. Although the Internet may be dangerous, it is a great invention and a window to the world.

Leadership and nursing care management Assignment

Leadership and nursing care management - Assignment Example Scheduling and staffing in nursing care management is an aspect of management that poses a lot of challenges to managers. Formulating strategies to achieve the goal of bringing new nurses to the nursing profession and scheduling already recruited nurses is quite important to the profession. Employing forceful and well-researched scheduling tactics will tap the skills and competencies of qualified workers to the profession and on the right jobs (Seifert, 2000). After employing a new workforce, efforts must be taken to properly schedule the current nurses on the basis of their wealth of knowledge and expertise which are vital for assisting and developing trainee nurses into experts and sustaining qualified service delivery. The reason this topic is chosen is the negative physical and mental health consequences of poor scheduling on overworked health care employees. In addition, poor scheduling results in domestic problems as employees have little or no time for families and friends. Fi nally, low morale in employees due to overwork and lack of understanding and consideration from managers and administrators results in reduced productivity (Chin, 2008). This essay discusses the modern trends in staff and scheduling strategies as well as the challenges that these process pose to the management. Finally, it provides research based recommendations on how to solve problems of staff and scheduling in nursing care management. Implications of Staff Shortage on Scheduling Staffing plays a rather critical role in the operation budget of health care facilities. In fact, for many health care facilities, it has been established that up to between 50% and 70% of operation budget goes to staffing issues. It is thus a counterproductive trend or practice to ignore or underestimate the necessity of effective and efficient staff management strategies and nurse scheduling processes (Buchanan, 2002). In general, staffing and scheduling strategies and practices should not result in unc alled for overtime, lopsided caseloads and even staff suffering exhaustion. As is generally understood, unhappy or discontented staff implies unproductive and unprofitable business (Buchanan, 2002). For optimal staff scheduling practices that would yield happy and contended nurses, it is of the essence that a balance is struck between resident perceptions and the skill levels of the nurses in question (Buchanan, 2002). Importantly, health care managers should ensure that staff schedules are tightly connected to the needs and populations of the clients to be attended. Managers should be consistent in their scheduling, considering that no single nurse would want to work on holidays and every other weekend. Thus, there should not be any indications of favoritism in staff scheduling. This fairness would ensure no employee grumbles given that employees are the greatest asset that a health care facility may have. In addition, it pays for health care managers who ensure their nurses and ot her staffs are happy as this happiness would translate to better care and improved client outcomes (Buchanan, 2002). Numerous challenges are often encountered in staff scheduling, staff shortage being a key challenge. There is a wide spread shortage of registered nurses (RNs) in many countries including The United States of

The Cold War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

The Cold War - Essay Example The thrust of his call for unity was the English speaking world and the Commonwealth. The US being the biggest power in the world, and English speaking, was a natural ally that he wanted to woo. He indirectly told his American audience that support for communism in many countries was a direct threat to US itself whose influence over the â€Å"free† world would diminish as a result. Churchill expressed his fear that the emerging polarization between communist and democratic blocs of the world may result in war. He asserted that the Russians, even if they didn’t like war themselves, desired â€Å"indefinite expansion of their power and ideals† and enjoyed â€Å"fruits of war† (Churchill). Indirectly mentioning sea, land and air capabilities of the military, he advised that it was through military strength that a sense of security would prevail. This strength could also provide the negotiation leverage to find a mutually agreeable formula with Russians under the umbrella of United Nations Organizations. Joseph Stalin, in an interview to Pravda some time later, responded to Churchill. At the outset, he termed the idea of a brewing war ludicrous and a product of the mind of someone â€Å"who lost one’s reason† (Stalin). Picking up cleverly on Churchill’s call for the English speaking world to unite, Stalin termed it as an attempt to create a racial divide, linguistic superiority and a holier-than-thou approach to achieve his goals of fomenting an imaginary war. He compared Churchill’s speech with Hitler’s policies who believed in the superiority of those who spoke the German language. Stalin recalled in detail the sacrifices Soviet Union had made during the world war and termed them higher than any other country involved in the war. In doing so, he tried to bring home the point that Russia was committed to peace in the world

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Establishing a Utility Corner - Essay Example Vision statement of course depicts the sincerity with which we intend to take our customers because investment in smiles gets satisfaction in return. Our vision statement is "We care for your comfort and value your time". Youth: This segment is the most vibrant market of all for couple of reasons. One, the youth of the day has become very demanding. Second, the youth is very much quality conscious. Third and most important, the growing trend of handing over the reins of business to young workers is giving rise to increasing number of young managers and CEOs. Family: With increasing trend towards nuclear family, quality time with family has become a rare commodity. Kids are taken care of by crches with both parents working. Therefore weekends are particularly very important for such family outings and our store has to try its level best to invite such families. Business Community: Business community requires an ambience where it can invite potential clients/ customers and seal a deal over lunch. Therefore, such sessions (generally long sitting sessions) are very helpful for a successful utility store. This community at times requires a small meeting cum demo room and some office support, which has to be taken care of by our business establishment. It is worthwhile here to mention that while we are starting off with a new business, there must be couple of others in the market having similar business and attracting similar customers. Established businesses have some loyal customers as well. We need to attract such customers with lucrative offers. For example; Youth can be attracted with discount schemes, combo offers (like buy one get one free etc.), loyalty bonuses, special attraction for the students of colleges/ schools. Such promotional schemes help attract the customers. It becomes the duty of the management to put in full use the concepts of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Families can be attracted with better bargains for kids, innovative marketing schemes (like special packages for grand parents, weekend programmes/ competitions/ contests for kids etc. The business community is the most difficult one to invite with such bargains. This 'formal class' requires one-to-one meeting with officials and offering them better bargains and scores of incentives to switch loyalties. Comparison charts and statements are a perquisite for such missions with business leaders. Each business group requires a different set of persuasion technique. Competition is in fact a very important part of a market driven economy. This encourages the business commun

Intro to MacroEcon - College level - 8 questions total - some Essay

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THE MULTI-FACETED ROLE OF THE TEACHER - Essay Example All countries are on the same boat in terms of increasing the quality of education in their respective countries. In this regard, the countries have set aside programs that augment the current educational background or expertise of the teachers. Specifically, the findings of both the McNair Report of 1944 and the James Committee of Enquiry in 1971 have focused on the improvement of the U.K. educational institutions. The two research findings indicate that the government’s priority is the recruitment of new teachers and the retention of currently hired teachers. Likewise, both reports show that the governments’ thrust is on the educational training of current as well as prospective teachers. However, the training of currently teachers has been placed on the backseat of car known as education. \ Further, the article clearly shows that the government and the educational organizations must focus on improvement of the teaching quality because the students are the hope of the nation. The same article clearly shows that the government should join in the plan to give the current and prospective teacher the best quality education training. The training will ensure that the child will grow up to be astute and law –abiding contributors to the education (Machin 2005). The article clearly shows the reality that the teacher should be trained make a difference in the growing child’s enthusiastic mind to learn the day’s lessons on how to survive the complex world outside the four walls of the classroom. The article also shows that the U.K. government’s role in the education process is to encourage the system where the teachers have a successful interaction with the students. In this regard, the government continues to help in the building and upgrading of school buildings and premises. Likewise, the government’s focus is to be

[Japan nuclear and chernobyl syndrome] Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

[Japan nuclear and chernobyl syndrome] - Essay Example The nuclear disaster at Fukushima once again revived the memories of the debilitating things that happened at Chernobyl just a few years ago. A large section of media and scientific community went ahead to compare the possible radiation impact of Fukushima disaster with that of Chernobyl. The print and digital media was replete with the reports placing Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear reactor side by side, portending the two disasters to be very similar and akin in their fallout and intensity. It was only a very few critical minds and concerns who took the time to point out the differences between the two seemingly similar situations. At large, the world seemed to have been taken over by the ghost of Chernobyl, without waiting to critically analyze the facts. Fukushima-the Facts On 11 March 2011, Japan was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 9.0, accompanied by a devastating tsunami. One of the major fallouts of this calamity was the tragic accidents that took place at the Fukushima nuc lear plant. ... When the earthquake occurred, the functional reactors number 1, 2 and 3 automatically came to a halt (Jones: Online). Also, the emergency generators efficiently started to run the water pumps and the emergency control electronics put in place to tackle such exigencies (Jones: Online). The bad thing was that though the Fukushima nuclear plant was well protected by a sea wall, it failed to withstand the massive 14 m tsunami that flooded the reactor in a matter of minutes (Jones: Online). This flooding of the reactor simply jeopardized the low lying water pumps and electronic cooling equipment and spoiled the electrical grid (Jones: Online). With the shutting down of the cooling mechanisms and a zero possibility of extending assistance and support from outside, the reactors 1, 2 and 3 suffered a core meltdown (Jones: Online). The resultant hydrogen explosions blasted the lids capping the buildings in which reactors 1, 3 and 4 were placed (Jones: Online). This was soon followed by rampan t fires caused by the overheating of the reactors (Jones: Online). It is a fact that many of the workers employed at Fukushima nuclear plant suffered radiation exposure and were evacuated. Also, owing to the fears of radiation leakage, people residing in a 20 km radius around the plant were also evacuated (Jones: Online). On 17 March 2011, one of the generators deployed in the reactor number 6 was restarted, thus allowing for the cooling of partially damaged reactor number 5 and 6 (The Straits Times: Online). The restoration of Grid power on 20 March 2011 did not achieve the desired results, because of the largely damaged machinery and infrastructure. Besides, any attempts to repair the reactors were also hampered owing to the

Rene Ryman Essay Example for Free

Rene Ryman Essay Week 1 Case Study Professor Rene Ryman Case Problems – Chapter 1 – Question 1, parts a through d 1. A. How did Pine Valley Furniture go about developing its information systems? Why do you think the company chose this option? What other options were available? Pine Valley started small with the owner Alex Schuster just taking orders from customers for his custom furniture. Eventually each department had its own system, but they were still separate databases. The system has evolved into an automated system supported by in-house information system staff. I feel the company chose this option because they wanted to have their own in-house IS staff to maintain their own system. They could have outsourced the creation and support of their current system but they see the value in being self sufficient. B. One option available to Pine Valley Furniture was an enterprise-wide system. What features does an enterprise-wide system, such as SAP, provide? What is the primary advantage of an enterprise-wide system? An enterprise-wide system provides a single database as a repository for companies to centralize the management and availability of company data. The primary advantage of the enterprise-wide system is that it can be maintained at one location and supported from that location. The data is consistent and it costs less to support. C. Pine Valley Furniture will be hiring two systems analysts next month. Your task is to develop a job advertisement for these positions. Locate several Web sites and/or newspapers that have job advertisements for systems analysts. What skills are required? Required skills for Systems Analysts: Must be able to make program modifications Must be able to consolidate multiple databases into one Must be able to train support staff on new system Stay abreast of compliance rules and regulations D. What types of information systems are currently utilized at Pine Valley Furniture? Provide an example of each. Two primary information systems used at Pine Valley Furniture are for accounting and financial. As an example of each there would be a system for paying suppliers and contractors to run the furniture business. For all bills paid out of the general operating account a system needs to be in place to keep track of invoices, purchase orders and printing checks. Likewise a system is used to maintain payroll data. To pay the employees a system is needed to maintain hourly data and salary data. Along with whatever benefits are offered to employees. This system would keep all of the records, process the payroll and print payroll checks.

Individual Assignment Business Organizations Essay Example for Free

Individual Assignment Business Organizations Essay Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. It is linked with the concept of learning from experience, in that you think about what you did and what happened, and decide what you would do differently next time. Reflective practice will make you improve the quality of service you deliver. It will ensure that the service providers are always getting the best possible service that they require because by using reflective practice you are always looking for things to improve on and see if you could do anything differently the next time round. Standards such as essential standards tell us how we should be working. We can use them to think about the way in which we work and measure ourselves against them. As everyone has different values and beliefs, it is important that we treat everyone the same no matter what their beliefs are. We should provide the same support for everybody, If we do not work this way then we will fail to perform the standards of the codes of practice set out by the regulating bodies. Outcome 2 2.1Everybody reacts differently to feedback whether it be positive or negative. I value any kind of feedback given to me, positive or negative because it is a good way of trying to better yourself. Some people may take negative feedback personally and think that they are being criticised. 2.2 It is important to seek feedback from people as you will know if you are working in the correct way. If you get negative feedback you will then know what you need to improve on for the better and positive feedback you know you can carry on the good work that you are doing. 2.3 It is important to listen to the feedback you get and use it whether it is positive or negative so that you can improve the way that you work and your quality of work.