The Peach Tree Essay -- Observation Essay, Descriptive Essay

The Peach Tree When I reminisce about my childhood, the fondest memories I have revolve around food. We often went on picnics to the beach. There at the water's edge, my father would struggle to light the charcoal in the wind that kept both the hot dogs and the kids cold. My mothers' anise-sweetened bread was the perfect match for ham every Easter morning, afternoon, and the days that followed. On my birthday we always had gnocchi, fluffy pillows of pasta that melted in our mouths, tossed with an ethereal tomato sauce. In August we had peaches and not just any peaches, peaches from our peach tree. I loved our peach tree. I love the memory of that tree. In retrospect, the peach tree was an integral part of my childhood. I cannot recall when we first got the peach tree. It seems as if it was always there in the backyard. I do know that it was a gift from my aunt and uncle who worked at Del Monte's Agricultural Research Facility. Whether it was a rare or special breed, I wonder. The fruit was so sweet that I can't imagine Del Monte choosing such a fine specimen only to douse it in heavy simple syrup. Whatever its parentage, it was our good fortune to receive such a tree; it produced the sweetest, most succulent peaches I've ever eaten. The peach tree was special to us. It was, in fact, the only tree in our small yard. We grew through the seasons with it. Every February the first bits of pink showed through the tightly closed flower buds. By March, it was covered in pink, like overgrown cotton candy. In April, little flecks of green accented the pink blossoms and slowly pushed out the pink until a fresh, vibrant green blanketed the crown of the tree. During this transition, the lawn became a carpet of pink. Then slowly th... ... the old tree was producing only a few runt-sized fruit. One winter my parents cut down the tree. It left a scar on the lawn and a barren space in the yard. I hadn't thought much about that old tree for some time. It was the peach tree, after all, along with my grandparents' vegetable garden that planted the seed, so to speak, of my passion for the garden. The first fruit trees I planted in my own backyard were peaches. When I told my sisters that I was writing about the peach tree, they both smiled a familiar smile. For a moment, they were transported to another place and time. And I knew that it wasn't simply nostalgia seen through the nearsighted eyes of memory, it was real. In the years that have followed I have never found a peach as large, juicy and luscious as the ones from our tree. It may have been Del Monte's secret special breed, but I think it was more.

Chick Lit Genre Analysis

A protagonist in a chick lit book is typically a self-critical female with unreasonably high expectations. In â€Å"24-Karat Kids†, a novel by Dr. Judy Goldstein and Sebastian Stuart, Shelley is hired as a pediatrician at a ritzy Upper East Side office. She quickly realizes that she doesn’t look like the other women that work, or visit the office everyday. She’s very critical of her own appearance, â€Å"Staring back at me was a plain, tubby young woman with an absurdly garish scarf around her neck† (Goldstein 12). Shelly isn’t built like the other females and wasn’t raised wealthy. She is unreasonable to expect herself to look exactly like the others and fit in instantly. She critiques her body in every mirror she passes and quickly adopts a strict diet: â€Å"I’d been on the only diet that worked for me: starvation† (Goldstein 30). In order to fit her unreasonably high expectation of achieving the â€Å"perfect† body, she goes to extreme lengths. Shelley has been in a serious relationship for over two years with a man named Arthur. He has a secure job, is kind and compassionate and has recently proposed. The two begin apartment hunting and stumble upon a nice unit in Brooklyn. Shelly used to love Brooklyn before she started her new job. When Arthur pressures her to share her opinion on the apartment she wonders, â€Å"Why did my mind keep racing back to the Upper East Side, to Dr. Marge and Amanda Walker and Christina Allen, to a world filled with wealth, excitement and glamour† (Goldstein 53). Her current lifestyle just isn’t good enough for her anymore. She wants the luxury her clients and coworkers experience. Although she has a fiance many dream of having and the chance to move in to a comfortable apartment, she can’t settle for anything less than the best. Chick lit books are typically written in first person to allow the protagonist to analyze and share her opinions on all matters. Shelley and her fiance Arthur go apartment hunting a week after Arthur’s proposal. They have never lived together before and Shelley is hesitant to oblige. Arthur is pressuring her to sign a lease and she thinks, â€Å"In many ways I was just beginning my life and the idea of giving up my independence seemed, I don’t know, rushed. Couldn’t it wait until we were married† (Goldstein 30). Since the book is written in first person, Shelley is able to let the reader in on exactly what is going through her head. She doesn’t really want to move in, but can’t tell Arthur that. If she wasn’t able to share her though process with the reader then people would think Shelley was actually okay with this relationship milestone. Later in the week Shelley meets her new boss. She has an image in her head of what she expects the woman will look like but over analyzes her when they meet for the first time anyways: â€Å"she looked as if she should have been out shopping on Madison Avenue. Somewhere in her fifties, she had frosted blonde hair and expert, subtle makeup, and was wearing high heels and a belted magenta jumpsuit that accentuate her tiny waist. Definitely the most glamorous doctor I had ever seen† (Goldstein 14). Shelley describes what people are wearing in excessive detail all the time. She often make a judgment about their personality based on their outward appearance and always shares these with the reader. Her thorough analysis of the other characters allows readers to gain a better understanding of how everyone in the novel interacts.

Simple Pendulum Lab

The Simple Pendulum Objective and Background Objective: The Objective of this experiment is to examine the simple harmonic motion and to determine the value of the acceleration due to gravity from the analysis of the period of the simple pendulum. [1] Background: There are three equations that will be used to calculate the period of motion of the simple pendulum. They are the slope of the line of the graph of T? against L, and the gravity of the pendulum motion.The period of the motion is the time needed for one complete cycle that a pendulum bob swing from the initial position to the other end, and then back to the initial position. [1] The equation to calculate period is, T = 2? Lg Where, T = Period of the motion, measured in s. L = Length of the pendulum, measured in cm. g = Acceleration due to gravity, measured in m/s2. The slope of the line in the graph of T? against L can be used to determine the gravity of the pendulum motion. It is because, y = mx m = T? L= 4 g = Slope of the line in the graph T? /L. Therefore, to find the gravity of the pendulum motion, we can use the slope of the graph.The slope of the graph is given by the formula, g = 4 m g = Acceleration due to gravity, measured in m/s?. Procedure and Observations Materials: * String * Metre Stick * Stop watch * Stand * Pendulum bob Procedure: 1) Materials listed above were taken for the experiment. 2) The pendulum bob was tied tightly with the string. 3) The string with the pendulum bob was hung on the stand. ) A meter stick was used to measure the distance between the centre of mass of the bob and the top of the string. 5) The distance was recorded in the observation table. 6) The pendulum ball was held at a distance from the centre and it was released. 8) A stop watch was used to time the time needed to complete ten cycles. 9) The time was recorded in the observation table. 10) Steps 4-7 were repeated four more times with different lengths. Observations: L (m)| 10T (s)| 0. 185| 9. 01| 0. 39| 14. 13| 0. 595| 15. 04| 0. 79| 17. 58| 1| 19. 67|Diagram of the Pendulum Figure [ 1 ] Calculations and Results Method 1 – Graph of T2 vs. L Data collected L(m)| T2(s2)| 0. 18| 0. 81| 0. 39| 1. 99| 0. 59| 2. 37| 0. 79| 3. 09| 1| 3. 86| Hand drawn graph ?x ?y Figure [ 2 ] The slope can be determined by m=? x? y. So, by taking a value for x x = 0. 4 cm y must then be y = 1. 4 cm m= 1. 4 cm0. 4 cm m=3. 5 The error would be given by ?mm= ? x1x12+ ? x2x22 ?m= m 0. 051. 42+ 0. 050. 42 ?m= 3. 5 0. 051. 42+ 0. 050. 42 ?m=0. 45 The acceleration due to gravity is given by g=4? 2m g=4? 23. 5 g=4? 23. 5 g=11. m/s2 Calculating the error for g would yield ?gg= ? mm2 ?g= g 0. 453. 52 ?g= 11. 30. 453. 52 ?g= 1. 45 m/s2 g=11. 3 m/s2 Â ± 1. 45 m/s2 Solving for the percentage deviation would give % deviation= Actual value-Expected valueExpected value* 100% Expected value=9. 8 m/s2 % deviation= 11. 3 m/s2-9. 8 m/s29. 8 m/s2*100% % deviation= 11. 3 m/s2-9. 8 m/s29. 8 m/s2*100% % deviation= 15. 3% Me thod 2 – Linear Regression Excel graph Figure [ 3 ]The equation of the line is given by T2 = 3. 53L + 0. 33 Where m=3. 53 The acceleration due to gravity is given by =4? 2m g=4? 23. 53 g=4? 23. 53 g=11. 1 m/s2 Solving for the percentage deviation would give % deviation= Actual value-Expected valueExpected value* 100% Expected value=9. 8 m/s2 % deviation= 11. 1 m/s2-9. 8 m/s29. 8 m/s2*100% % deviation= 11. 1 m/s2-9. 8 m/s29. 8 m/s2*100% % deviation= 13. 2% Conclusion By comparing these two methods of calculating the acceleration due to gravity it is clearly noticeable that there is a difference between the two, when it comes to the accuracy. When calculating g using the hand drawn graph method it yielded =11. m/s2 Â ± 1. 45 m/s2. However, when using the linear regression method on excel, it yielded g=11. 1 m/s2. This is clearly closer to the expected value of 9. 8 m/s2. There are several reasons contributing to the conclusion that linear regression is more accurate, than meas uring calculating the slope off of a hand drawn graph. First of all, computers are much more accurate than humans. There is no denying the fact that humans are not perfect and no hand drawn graph will be as precise as a computer drawn graph.A ruler was being used, which may lead to believe that the line is perfectly straight, whereas it is actually not. This is clearly noticeable when one zooms in on a hand drawn graph. Another problem with the ruler is that no matter how hard one tries to measure the distance between two different points, one will never be able to get the exact distance. Computers however, Excel in this case, draw perfectly straight lines. Also the location of line of best fit line, in the hand drawn part of the experiment, was estimated, which obviously leads to an inaccurate result.Excel however, uses the calculation of linear regression to draw the line of best fit and this is extremely accurate, since the exact slope is being calculated by Excel. It is clear th at the method of linear regression is more accurate by looking at the percentage deviations for each method. The % deviation for the hand drawn graph yielded 15. 3%, whereas the percentage deviation for the linear regression method only was 13. 2% Even though the linear regression method was more accurate than the hand drawn method, there was still a pretty significant difference, between that value, namely g=11. m/s2, and the expected value of 9. 8 m/s2. This is due to a few sources of error when this experiment was conducted. One of the errors that contributed to this difference was that the length of the string was not exactly measured. Thus, the relation between the length and the period was wrong, leading to false results. Another reason that contributed to the inaccuracy was the fact that when the bob was not swinging the way it was supposed to. It was only supposed to have a linear motion, but it had a slight circular motion, which of course lead to a longer period.This again resulted in a wrong relation between the period and the length, leading to a wrong result. There was another major aspect to the experiment that lead to this result. Namely the fact one could not tell where the bob actually started its swinging motion exactly; therefore the exact period could not be measured with the stopwatch. It is evident however, that if these errors could have been avoided, the acceleration due to gravity could have been calculated very accurately using the method of linear regression. References [1] PCS 125 Laboratory Manual, 2008

Reflective Report for a Group Presentation

[pic] Reflective Report Introduction After finishing the presentation and looking back on the effort we've made as a 4-member team, I can clearly see that we had a lot of strengths but also a lot of weaknesses as a team. The result of what we have achieved is that our presentation was one of the best. My experience at the University of Greenwich so far I've been a student in University of Greenwich since October, and I can honestly say that I am more than pleased with the lessons I've attended. The majority of the teachers are highly educated, so that gives us the opportunity to learn more things through the experience they have and as Albert Einstein said †The only source of knowledge is experience†. I think since studying at the University of Greenwich of all my expectations have been met through the material our teachers provide us. Generally, the high standard of all the courses makes me try more and more and gives me motivation, forgetting the difficulties I face. I feel very comfortable being with my other colleagues and since I am a student of the University I became very social and the good knowledge of the English language gives me an advantage that other students don't have. The advantage of working as a group Thinking back on the experience of our group exercise I can hopefully say that I met my expectations fair enough. Unfortunately, we faced a problem with the presentation so we couldn't show some pictures of what we were describing. Working with the other 3 colleagues, taught me cooperation with other people, something that all of us will definitely meet through our ‘’working life’’. It was very beneficial to work as a team because as Ken Blanchard said †None of us is as smart as all of us†. That means that one mind is better than one and the teamwork provides more ideas that an individual person. So, the result of our presentation came from the feedback we received from the other colleagues, who were very satisfied with our work. A problem we had as a team was that it was sometimes difficult to arrange the time we could meet to finish the presentation. That thing was caused by the different schedules everyone had, which is acceptable. Conclusion Ending my reflective report, it is clear that working with other colleagues, makes me improve my working skills as a result of knowing the difficulties I will probably face in a real working environment. It is known that this exercise will also help me during the first year, since i would have more experience than before in other presentations more difficult than this one. References 1) †The only source of knowledge is experience. † Albert Einstein / March 14th 1879 – April 18th 1955 / theoretical physicist 2) †None of us is as smart as all of us. † Ken Blanchard / born May 6th 1939 / American author and management expert

People (HR) Performance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

People (HR) Performance - Essay Example Main Issues Related to HR The era of Frank Wood had been outstanding as all the operations of the business were under control. He made certain developments in his era such as identification of the various niche markets that helped the company to expand its operation in other parts of the UK. However, after his retirement, the company was handed over to his sons named Harry Wood and John Wood. At the initial stage, the company traded successfully under their leadership. However, their intention was just to take the profits out of the business, with little attention towards the infrastructure. It is evident from the case study that the performance of the two brothers had not been up to the mark as they didn’t have much interest towards the business. One of the most important tasks for a business man is to take into account the competition. It was just because of their poor performance that the company faced liquidity crisis. Now after Harry Wood left the business and Carol Clayt on bought 50% interest of the business, the partnership of the two companies seems to have not worked well. Thus, they had to sell off the business to Josiah Saint. Saint made an overall assessment upon the performance of the organisation and found out that the overall performance of the employees in the organisation had been quite poor. It was because of the carelessness of the employees that all the three factories namely the Buckhorn Western, Kilsby and Catesby factory faced the problem of high stock of raw materials and high wastages. The promotion manager’s performance, on the other hand, has not been satisfactory as well. It becomes evident from the case study that the employees of the organisation were not well aware of their roles and responsibilities. The staffs working at Imberholme didn’t take into account the suppliers’ working conditions as long as they got the products they wanted. This makes it evident that the attitude of the staffs at Imberholme did not match with the requirements of the organisation. Moreover, data showed that there was poor credit control. Thus, it can be said that the finance manager could not manage the trade well. The performance of the administrative department has not been up to the mark. It is also evident from the case study that the strict regulations and policies of the organisation had prevented the personnel of the organisation from performing well, which seem to have a negative impact upon the industry. It can be said that Mr. Saint had tried to address the main issues that had a major impact upon the organisation and the factors that were leading to the poor performances of the employees. The people in the organisation were also inefficiently managed. Solutions to the Problems The preservation, attraction and development of the high calibre people in the organisation can be the source of competitive advantage for any business. However, it becomes imperative for the companies to appraise the performance of their employees on a continuous basis because their performance may have positive as well as negative impact upon the growth of the organisation. Performance management is one of the key methods, which if effectively carried out may help the employees to understand that their contribution is being recognised. The performance managem

The Reflective Manager Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Reflective Manager - Personal Statement Example Reflective leadership has not only been found to result in organizational growth and development but also translates into personal growth of managers and subordinates. Reflective leadership and leadership knowledge can, therefore, be effectively applied to improve one’s work performance on leadership (Downey et al., 2009). Although it might take a lot of time, weeks or even months for a reflective manager to enter the minds of his/her employees in motivating them to share his/her vision, practicing one’s reflective skills, reflecting and learning could be helpful in making a manager skilled in inculcating a culture of rapid change in an organization (Downey et al., 2009). A quick succession of rapid culture change, however, occurs only in organizations in which a series of small changes consistent with organizational and business priorities are implemented. There are certain circumstances or times during which it is best to be reflective including after a management tas k while walking around. Importantly, reflecting on a management task, action or decision should be done on the same day the task has been performed (Downey et al., 2009). The reflection may be about the goal that was set out to be achieved and how the same goal was achieved. The plan by which the goals were achieved should also be compared with the theories on reflective leadership and the necessary changes or improvements executed. Although many managers and leaders ignore them, theories are tools of great importance as far as management and leadership are concerned. These theories should be put to practice by setting some time away from the work to think about what has been achieved on the floor, taking into account what went well and wrong. In addition, a manager should take this time to overview own perceptions and reactions and those of other employees. There are certain vital points that a manager or leader should note while walking around the work floor reflecting on his activities of the day. These points include the fact that such reflective walks as important floodgates for all the pent up issues encountered at the floor such as employee complaints and frustrations (Downey et al., 2009).

Entrepreneurs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Entrepreneurs - Essay Example The basic attributes of an entrepreneur comprise risk taking, opportunity seeking, innovation, high degree of motivation, unconventional, positivism, goal-oriented, leadership skills, team management, problem solving skills and most importantly, ability to take initiatives. The innovative nature and ability to take measured risk differentiate entrepreneurs from other business owners (Cuervo, Ribeiro and Roig, 2007). Entrepreneurs are considered extremely important for social and economic development. The main advantages of entrepreneurial development are effective utilisation of resources, employment generation, creation of human and social capital, development of backward and rural areas, minimisation of power and wealth inequality, reduction in regional imbalance and economic growth. Cantillon’s theory suggests that involvement of risk in entrepreneurship helps in maintaining equilibrium in demand and supply in an economy. Entrepreneurial development for societal progress is supported by a number of theories such as, David McClelland’s theory of needs and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Bula, 2012). In addition, Schumpeter and Drucker argued that entrepreneurial innovation is necessary for exploiting unseen opportunities and encouraging changes in the economy (Śledzik, 2013). There are a number of entrepreneurs presently operating in surrounding business environment. Under broad categories, they can be classified as: social entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are by nature innovators, but they are different from business entrepreneurs in terms of purpose. They play distinct role in developing and initiating changes in the society. Social entrepreneur is an individual who recognises problems prevailing in the society and employ principles of entrepreneurship for creating and supporting scope of social ventures. Social entrepreneurs