Visiting Hour by Norman MacCaig Essay Example for Free

Visiting Hour by Norman MacCaig Essay I have chosen to write about the poem Visiting Hour by Norman MacCaig. The poem is about a hospital visit to someone close to his heart. The poet believes that the person, who incidentally is his wife, is going to die. From the poem I can sense that Norman MacCaig is speaking through his emotions and by writing the poem he is aiming to release some of his emotional pain. The poem had a profound impact on me. I felt very empathetic towards him because I also feel that when someone close to me is about to die. When both my Gran and Grandpa have been severely ill in hospital, I have feared the worst and saw myself being strong whilst in the company of others, but naturally breaking down into a sob of tears when alone. When reading the poem I could clearly visualise going to visit someone in hospital and I started to cry as I read the poem more. I feel that being strong for someone is very important in this poem and he shows this throughout. The poem was written is six paragraphs of which only two were long. The first four paragraphs are about MacCaig building up to the visit t his wife and what he is thinking. In paragraph three he says, I will not feel, by this he means he doesnt want to show his emotions in front of his wife. I think that the poem was divided into two halves, the shorter first four paragraphs being one half and they longer two paragraphs being the second half. In the second half, MacCaig writes about the visit itself. I think he does this to get an equal balance of importance, too gradually lead us up to his heartache. MacCaig uses a lot of unusual ideas in his poem. When he is describing walking into the hospital he writes this, The hospital smell combs my nostrils, by this he is telling us that the hospital smells so clean, that his nostrils would feel out of place if they hadnt been combed. It seems as if his mind is set on death as he sees someone on a hospital trolley being trundled into a lift and going up words, he writes, What seems a corpse is trundled into am lift and vanishes heavenward, to me this signifies that he is seeing a negative in everything. I was confused by the way he described a nurses movement at first as he says, Nurses walk lightly, swiftly, here and up and down and there, and by this he means that a nurse sets to go somewhere and can end up somewhere completely different because of demanding patients or unexpected urgencies. I admire the poets style of writing because it is very moving. By this I mean I can feel empathy towards him throughout the poem.

Multiple Sclerosis Essay -- Health Medical Medicine Essays

Multiple Sclerosis The primary objective of this paper is to raise fundamental questions in regards to multiple sclerosis, and to explore possibilities that attempt to answer these inquiries. Second, the prospective outcome is to provide a solid knowledge base for which my peers may begin to understand the relationship between multiple sclerosis and neurobiology and behavior. The first question to address in the general schema of this essay is: What is Multiple Sclerosis? Multiple Sclerosis also commonly referred to as MS is considered an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). The key to understanding MS is to recognize its relationship to the human immune system. The immune system is an intricate network of specialized cells and organs that defends the body against attacks by foreign agents also known as antigens such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. To the contrary, in the case of multiple sclerosis, the connection between the immune system and the body is interrupted when the immune system identifies itself, particularly the white matter of the central nervous system as a foreign body, and consequently destroys the myelin. The myelin is a fatty tissue composed of rich protein and lipids that protect and insulate the nerve fibers, which serve to carry out electrical impulses. The central nervous system is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves; thusly MS affects several areas of the human anatomy. Multiple Sclerosis could be described as the loss of myelin in multiple locations throughout the body, which then exposes the nerve fibers and leaves scaring called sclerosis. The next question that should be addressed is: What are the principal functions of myelin? In... ...of living with this disease, instead of at its mercy. First, one needs to acknowledge the existence of the disease. Second, an individual should allow time to process the idea of living with the disease. Third, one should become an active agent in fighting the disease by becoming informed. Fourth, a person should be willing to make adjustments, which may alter one's lifestyle. In conclusion an individual should not be afraid of multiple sclerosis, but dare to live a fulfilling life. Bibliography 1)http://www.nationalmssociety.org 2)http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/pubs/multiple_sclerosis.htm 3)http://www.undestandingms.com/ms/articles/cognitive.asp For further information check out 4)http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_ 5)http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nfs/NewsPrint/ 6)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?

Vigilance and E-Governance

VIGILANCE AND E-GOVERNANCE Vigilance means watchfullness or to bring awareness. Vigilance came into existence mainly for the purpose of fighting corruption. Corruption involves misuse of power , money ,government property etc. Though corruption can't be brought down to zero level, we can try to bring it as low as possible. This can be ensured by watchfulness, caution and vigilance. Or in other words it can be achieved by E-Governance. E-Governance is the use of various modern information and communication technologies such as internet, local area networks, mobile phones,etc. by the government to promote democracy and minimize the corruption level. Simply e-governance is electronic management and electronic controllership. Therefore vigilance and e-governance are required for ensuring corruptionless functioning of any private, public or government organisation. In order to achieve this purpose, govenment has implemented various online services under national e-governance plan like pro perty registration, railway reservation, pensions, passport, visa , company affairs, land records, e-courts, etc.Here we will discuss some of the examples and we will see how they are proven to be effective, not only for fighting against corruption but also for improving the efficiency, effectiveness and comfortness of public. ONLINE DELIVERY OF LAND TITLES IN KARNATAKA, INDIA Before the computerisation of The Department of Revenue in Karnataka, farmers had to seek the Village Accountant to get a copy of the Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops(RTC), a document needed for many purposes such as obtaining bank loans. But there were unnecessary delays and harassments. Many were forced to pay bribes.Land owners found it difficult to access the village accountant, as his duties entail traveling. The time taken by the village accountant to provide RTC ranged from 3 to 30 days depending upon the size off the bribe. A tyypical bribe for a certificate could range from Rs. 100 to Rs. 2000. If some details were to be written in an ambiguous fashion, out of selfish motives, the bribe could go upto rs. 10,000. Land records in the custody of village accountant were not open for public scrutiny. But after the computerisation of The Department of Revenue in Karnataka, for a fee of Rs. 5 , a printed copy of the RTC can be obtained online at computerised land record kiosks in 140 Taluk offices without any delay or bribe. The software incorporates the bio-logon metrics system, which authenticates the users with their fingerprint. A log is maintained of all transaction in a session. This makes an officer accountable for his decisions and actions. The government has also got plans to web-enable the database to make it available for the farmers to receive a copy of the land records locally through an internet kiosk. Although without a signature such a copy will only have an informative value.This scheme is also useful for preventing lands-scam as all the data related to the land is in a common server. COMPUTERISED INTERSTATE CHECK POSTS IN GUJARAT Gujarat has an extensive road network, which carries a large volume of commercial traffic. Major highway systems link Delhi to Mumbai and provide the pricipal link to the Kandla sea port on Gujarat's west coast. Gujarat's 10 check posts are positioned at the border with three neighbouring Indian states. Nearly 25,000 transport vehicles enter daily through these check posts. most of the trucking companies aim to increase their earnings from each vehicle.Often this has promoted transporters to load their trucks beyond permissible axle load, creating a serious safeety hazard. Without the computerisation, a suspect vehicle is flagged to stop , and then weighed on a weigh bridge located away from traffic. The legal penalty for overload is Rs. 2000 per ton. However most of such fines are illegaly negotiated. The problem of corruption was particulaly difficult to attack as the corrupt were backed by politicians. In the abse nce of any systematic inspection of vehicles, the transport companies also adopted various illegal practices.Duplicate copies of a single registration book from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) have been used for many different vehicles, using fake license plates. With the computerisation, all check posts are monitored at a central location using video cameras installed at every check post cabin. The video cameras captures the registration number of all trucks approaching the check post. Image processing software converts the video image of the registration number to a digital form and the details of the truck are acessed from a central database.An electronic weigh bridge measures the weight feeds it to the computer, which automatically issues a demand note for the fine. The use of computers and other electronic devices at the 10 remote interstate border check posts in gujarat, has reduced the corruption and significantly increased the state's tax revenue. ONLINE INDIAN RAILWAY T RAIN STATUS AND RESERVATION SYSTEM: Before the computerisation system it was very difficult to know the availability of train seat and reserving without paying money. Even sometimes passengers had to pay additional money inside the train.But after computerisation, the availability of seats can be accessed by anyone through internet. Passengers can even book tickets online. It drastically reduced corruption. Also autoupgradation of passenger tickets increased the revenue to Indian railways and decreased the additional income(bribe) to TTE. WORK PROGRESS MONITORING SYSTEM: This software is intensively used in all type of industry to monitor its work progress. This is not directly related with money corruption but it deals with monitoring corruption which includes delaying of projects which indirectly leads to increase the hidden cost of the company.CONCLUSION: Thus by deploying both vigilance and e-governance, the level of corruption has been reduced substantially. But the biggest cha llenge in deploying e-governance is not technology but the change in management. Sudden Management change not only affects the culture but also affects the workflow and the workers. E-governance doesn't mean proliferation of computer and other e-accessories, but is basically a political decision which calls for discipline and attitudinal change in officers and employees.

Sample of Persuasive Essay

Sample of Persuasive Essay Problem of Elementary Schools When we talk about elementary school education we imagine that a child should know everything about something and something about everything. The system tries to incorporate every single bit of knowledgein the high schoo l program including history course for math classes and art education for technical schools. Every child is, however, an individual and he or she should be given more choice to decide in which direction to evolve. Therefore, I believe that elementary school education is extremely overloaded with different conceptual subjects and children will never use them in their lives. Let us look, for example, at the mandatory elementary school subjects such as history, mathematics, art and even science. These classes make a strong emphasis on reasoning and conceptual understanding of the course, while practical application is very often unclear for the majority of students. This can be seen from the research prepared by the Massachusetts Educational Board when seventy five out of hundred students that took part in the research could not apply the knowledge they got from the most recent science classes to real life situation. Low performance of elementary school students in science classes makes it clear that schools lack practical educational that would boost their interests in the course. It is scientifically proved that children under 10 years old tend to learn using visual memory and, therefore, practical learning and case study method is preferable for the elementary school program. These arguments prove that it is important for the US elementary school educational programs to incorporate more practical classes in their curriculum. At least 50% of learning process time should be dedicated to case study method of tutoring. This will interest children in education process and increase overall performance.