Carol Ann Duffy uses the theme of growing up in her poem Essay

Carol Ann Duffy uses the theme of growing up in her poem ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’. She starts off by setting the first stanza in a class in a primary school. She uses ‘you could travel up the Blue Nile with your finger, tracing the route while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery. Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan’. This quite obviously tells us that she teaching the young, ambitious class with a globe, again referring back to the classroom scenery as most primary school classrooms have globes. Then she says ‘That for an hour, then a skittle of milk and the chalky pyramids rubbed into dust’. Here, Carol Ann Duffy is showing that when the geography lesson has finished and the children have had a break they simply forget about what they’ve been taught. She also refers back to the geography with chalky pyramids. This stanza basically emphasising the happiness of the children at that age. ‘This was better than home. Enthralling books. The classroom glowed like a sweetshop’. This is the opening two lines of the second stanza again showing the happiness and excitement of the children. ‘Better than home’ home is great so school must be even greater. ‘The classroom glowed like a sweetshop’ a child’s favourite place is a sweetshop so Carol Ann Duffy here is using a simile showing that the atmosphere in her classroom is electrified by excited children as if they’re in their favourite sweet shop. ‘Brady and Hindley’ these were two child murderers that the children wouldn’t know about. Carol Ann Duffy, I think, has added these to humiliate them and to show the reader that the children are safe and in a totally different world to the murderers. ‘Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found she’d left a gold star by your name’ the poet here is showing the reader the relationship between Mrs Tilscher and her children, again referring back to this really happy atmosphere and how Mrs Tilscher puts herself out to keep these children eager to learn, maybe, the next country or continent on the globe or looking at Vincent Van Gogh’s famous paintings. Moving on to the next stanza, Carol Ann Duffy has started with ‘Over the Easter term, the inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks’. This is definitely a signal from the poet that the children are growing up. The poet here has put the poem into reality going back to when the reader was at this stage, everyone had the tadpoles experience before Easter then come back and they’d all turned into frogs but here the poet is putting the children in conjunction with the tadpoles signifying that they are growing up as well. As you can see Carol Ann Duffy, the poet, adds something in this stanza that almost everybody has the experience of as a youngster, ‘A rough boy told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home’. It was that day never to be forgotten, the day you found out that you don’t just pop out your mums belly button but everybody, eventually, takes in the truth and carries on with their lives. The next stanza begins. By now the children aren’t really, in fact, children anymore. They’ve finally reached the final curtain before senior school. They were in their last term of primary school and what fools they were to believe that this was a relief. ‘That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity. A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, fractious under the heavy, sexy sky’. Here, the poet is just emphasising the summer season and hot weather and I think with the use of the word electricity she means how immensely excited they were about leaving. ‘You asked her how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away’. Again referring back to the, once disgusting but now quite interesting, subject of sex, here showing that their minds still don’t really want to believe it but aren’t perfectly sure what’s true and what isn’t. ‘Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away’. Here again emphasising that sex isn’t to be found out about at this age and certainly isn’t a subject of conversation for the classroom. ‘Reports were handed out. You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, as the sky splits into a thunderstorm. It must be the last day; the children are extremely excited about leaving. First of all, at the end of the day, you get your report and without even saying your last goodbyes you’ve ran through the gates, but these may not be the gates of your school but the gates to a bumpy ride to hell! ‘Impatient to be grown’ after all the children or should I say young adults have hit the puberty barrier and now want to be just like their mother and father, no longer embarrassed about sex but wanting to be involved with it. ‘As the sky split open into a thunderstorm’ this is a very powerful use of language, it almost hits the reader. But Carol Ann Duffy is basically showing the reader that they don’t know what they’re in for and could turn out to be horrendous. The use of the word thunderstorm maybe referring back to the weather because usually after really hot days after days you get a thunderstorm and also could be referring back to the unsafe world looking back at Child murderers Brady and Hindley.

Social Influences on Childhood Obesity

Overweight and obese children are a major problem in the United States and the rates are unfortunately rising, especially in children. Obesity is the leading cause for health problems such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, gallstones, depression, anxiety, poor academic performance, and many other long-term health problems especially if obesity occurs early in life. I believe this is a social issue because the major causes of obesity are diet and lifestyle. In America, the diet consists of fried and greasy foods such as fast foods, the lifestyle lacks enough physical activities that are necessary to increase the metabolism and prevent weight gain that leads to obesity. The children of the United States spend much more time watching TV or playing video games than doing activities that include physical exercise, such as sports, running, hiking, biking, or even just walking. Obesity in children in America is a problem. The sociological factors that cause obesity in children include sociocultural evolution and built environments, especially the advancement of technology, and social control which includes media, advertisements, and peer-pressure. More than one in five children between the ages of 6 and 17 are now considered overweight. The issue of obesity is related to the obvious factor of over eating and also the lack of physical activity. American families over feed their children without realizing it because they want to make sure their children are not hungry or starving. Our bodies adjust their need and requirement of food based on the amount we regularly eat, therefore over feeding children in their early years increases their need for food throughout their lifetime. Food and over eating can become an addiction, which leads to obesity and many health problems. â€Å"If the definition of addiction is the habitual use or uncontrollable craving for something, then we (Americans) are addicted to food. Food is the drug of preference in this country. † (Freeman-Fobbs 2003: 95). Other factors also contribute to childhood obesity. Family demographics, parenting beliefs and practices, child television watching and physical activity have all evidenced associations with behaviors that can lead to early obesity. † (Gable and Lutz, 2000: 49). Sociocultural evolution is a factor that contributes to childhood obesity because of the drastic increase in technology or material resources that are replaced with physical activity. Another sociological conce pt is social control; parents conform or go along with the social norms which could be certain behaviors or beliefs that contribute to lifestyles leading to obesity in children. The built environment in today’s American society, children have an abundant amount variety of video games and television shows to choose from for their entertainment. The built environment can both facilitate and hinder physical activity and healthful eating. Sociocultural evolution refers to the changes that human society undergoes over time by developing new means that are used to fulfill necessities and wishes. All the material resources that are available cause the children to stay indoors most of the time and therefore limit physical activities, such as sports or other outdoors activities. Research shows that spending one hour per day in front of the television or playing video games may double the child’s risk for obesity. Screen time is widely blamed for the tripling of obesity rates in children since the 1980s. According to the Surgeon General, in 1999 13% of children aged 6 to 11 years and 14% of adolescents aged 12 to 19 years in the United States were overweight; this prevalence has nearly tripled for adolescents in the past 2 decades, the same time period in which technology has greatly advanced. Technology gives rise to a sedentary lifestyle not only indoor but even in outdoor activities. Children today seem less likely to walk to school and to be traveling more in cars than they were during the early 1970s, perhaps because of changes in the built environment; children also spend more time viewing television and using computers. † (Anderson and Butcher, 2006: 16) Parents drive children to school instead of letting them walk; kids ride motorized car s and scooters rather than pedal bikes; teens manipulate a joystick instead of a baseball bat. One may argue that technology provides value, convenience and entertainment, but it should be utilized in moderation and definitely not take the place of movement and active play. Another sociological factor that contributes to childhood obesity is social control. Social control is the society’s attempt to regulate people’s thoughts and behaviors. Parents are usually guilty of giving in or conforming to certain behaviors that put their children at risk for obesity. For example, a parent might be aware of the fact that video games create an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle. If the child insists that he or she needs those games because all their friends have them as well; the parent is very likely to give in to this peer pressure and buy the video games. These parents don’t want to be different from other parents, or they don’t want to be thought of as ‘bad parents’ because they don’t buy their kids these ‘cool games’ that all the other kids have. Eating unhealthy foods such as fast-foods and a lot of sugars is another factor that leads to childhood obesity. This is also an issue of social control, since the foods that people see as easily available in this country such as fast-food and pre-prepared foods are highly promoted socially via the media. School lunch programs also fail to provide healthy and nutritious foods for children, and many children prefer to buy lunch at school rather than have lunch packed at home, because they might be seen as different if they don’t eat the same thing that all the other kids are eating. Changes in the family, particularly an increase in dual-career or single-parent working families have also increased the demand for food away from home or pre-prepared foods, which can lead to obesity in children. Advertisements for these foods air often during television shows which children watch often, making the children crave and request that their parents get them these foods. Social control regarding the foods that our children eat is therefore manifested in many different ways, with media and peer-pressure being the biggest factors. Childhood obesity is greatly influenced by sociological factors and it must be prevented to avoid illnesses that can become critical in childhood and have damaging effects the rest of one’s life. The sociological factors that cause obesity in children include sociocultural evolution and built environments. These are all very complex sociocultural issues that can sometimes be hard to identify by people who are caught up in everyday life routines. Therefore, there is no simple solution to preventing and ending childhood obesity; it takes a lot of effort and major lifestyle changes for the entire family; for example, cooking more meals at home, using organic foods which can be more expensive sometimes, limiting sweets especially for children, limiting screen time, and increasing outdoor physical activities. Making these changes usually takes a lot of hard work and persistence. Kids may refuse to eat healthier foods and be more active, especially if they are in their middle or late childhood years. Writing this paper has made me even more aware of how the society plays such a big role in the issue of obesity in children. Before writing this paper I would have said that the number one factor leading to obesity in children is bad parenting, but after analyzing all the sociocultural issues I can say that our society and lifestyle are the number one factor. Parents do play a major role by the way they raise their children. The statistics are very sad in terms of how rapidly this issue is increasing in this country.

My Favorite Movie The Million Pound Note Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

My Favorite The Million Pound Note - Movie Review Example After some time, he comes across Oliver and Roderick wealthy British brothers. The two brothers take advantage of Adams situation and try to experiment out their theories on Adam. The brothers take advantage of their status to acquire a note printed one million pounds from the bank. The first brother Oliver purports that the idea of owning a note of such a value is a key to the owner receiving whatever he requires, however, the second brother Roderick, expresses that the owner of the million pound note is bound to spend the money in order to attain whatever he needs. Adams gets the note, but under one condition from the brothers, he must keep it for a period of one month without using it till the brothers’ return. Everything changes from that point on, people coming in contact with Adam; treat him with a lot of respect since he is now a millionaire. Whenever he needs a good or a service it is efficient for him since he only needs to show out the million pound note. This trend goes on and in the process his popularity grows all over Britain to the extent of being invited to socialize with the nobility. In particular, he meets up with the English nobility and the American Ambassador. The intriguing life of Henry Adams is disrupted one time when he is unable to produce his note at a critical moment when it is needed at the stock market (Molyneaux 125). One of the main reasons I like this movie is its classical nature, all the characteristics and issues, which are expected to be in a classical film are embedded in this one. Gregory Peck is one of my best classical actors. Since I am a fan of classical music, the movie is more appealing with the use of classical music as the soundtrack. I also like the idea of old eliminated denominations used in the movie, the comparison of the value of money at that time and today is funny and absurd. The movie’s running time of one hour thirty minutes is convenient for me; the time is enough for me to watch without getting bored or restless. This movie inspires me when I think of the downfalls and unfortunate situations, which Adam had gone through before he met up with the eccentric brothers and his life changed for the better (Molyneaux 122). I am a lover of comedy movies such as The Million Pound Note, and the central actor who gives me laughter in the whole movie is Henry Adams. An interesting part in that movie is the scene in which Adam takes a meal in a restaurant after which he is asked to pay for it. An irony that brings out laughter is when Adam has to pay some small amount for the food he has eaten, but he only has the million pound note. He apologizes to the waiter that he does not have any small denomination to pay for the bill. It is a fun moment in that the person saying that he only has a million pound note, some days back could not claim anything as his own. Another interesting episode in this movie is the scene in which Adam is not recognized or welcomed when he enters a suit store. The situation changes when he shows out his million pound note. I like the fact that Adams is later treated like a king in the suit store when the attendants notice his million pound note, they bring out the best suits in the store to Adam. The climax of fun moments in the movie, which I like is when Adam is at the stock mark

To develop business continuity and disaster recovery plan for mid Thesis - 1

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Elements of a total rewards communication program Assignment

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