I am sitting in a still room, borrowing a moment to inhale the serenity that seems to float in the air like a cloud of fog, and listening to the silence. Listening closely, I notice that the silence, an absence of apparent sound, is its own symphony; it is an orchestration that is being kept alive by a carefully beating drum. I concentrate on the drum’s beats, observing that its rhythm is steadily and confidently throbbing. When glancing, I make a discovery and erupt with laughter. At this moment, precisely 1:43 PM, I realize that the incessant pulsation is not the tempo of tranquility, but rather the ticking of my watch. A small, thin, golden band strapped to my wrist, the watch is a living creature; it has a face, hands, a heartbeat. It has its own mechanized mind, a willpower to keep ticking at the same pace despite the circumstances; some of the more durable watches even tick under water. Within each brisk movement of the second-hand, a human has laughed, some have shed tears, one is gripped by death, and yet another is being given the gift of life.
Just like the individuals who comprise the human race, these curious creatures come in all shapes and sizes, each with its own beauty. My watch, an example of those delicate timepieces fastened with a band of gold or silver, resembles a bracelet. Yet, there are watches with thicker straps; some with leather, plastic, and even bands of bulky cloth; watches with bold heavy-set numerals; timepieces with only dots or diamond-shaped accents to represent the twelve hours; as well as the contemporary digital watch. Despite the endless assortment of watches, each serves the very same purpose: creating a framework in which those who ride the roller coaster of modernized life must run th...
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...e not only created a world where our slavery to time is inevitable, but are now pushing the envelope to race against the clock. No longer are we satisfied to wait three days to receive information in the mail; we simply send a fax or an email with the punch of a button or the click of a mouse. In a civilization that craves instant-gratification, whether in terms of financial transactions or communication, speed has become the most valuable commodity. Our newly conceived definitions of the words “fast” and “slow” are resetting the biological clocks of younger generations.
My watch tells me that several hours have passed while I have been explaining every nuance of time, but I have numerous tasks to accomplish before the curtain comes down on February the fifth, two-thousand three. I better attend to these duties before I realize that I have wasted too much time.
In Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Douglass Rushkoff discusses his interpretation of the relationship of society and rapidly evolving technology. He believes that as technology progresses, society becomes increasingly dependent on it and eventually loses touch with the traditional sense of time and reality. Through the book Rushkoff makes several insightful observations about the development of society and how technologies were often the driving force behind these “Present Shocks.”
The Watch and Livvie Solomon's silver watch contained multifaceted significance with regard to his character and its effect on Livvie. It represented prestige and wealth, control and obsession, and a life of dark retreat. For Solomon, the watch represented the prestige and wealth that were rarely attained by colored people. " For he was a colored man that owned his land and had it written down in the courthouse."
The overall objective of this Afro-Latino practicum was to learn and educate other individuals about different Latino and Hispanic countries with respect to their Afro-Latino groups. In doing so I chose to focus my study on the Afro-Latino groups of Colombia and Panama. Gathering my data through numerous network connections with multiple communities and organizations were crucial to outreach my targeted groups. A series of interviews and questionnaires were also conducted to enrich the success of my data.
Here at the end of the millennium, the pace of modern life seems fleeting -- a
Around the world, values are expressed differently. Some people think that life is about the little things that make them happy. Others feel the opposite way and that expenses are the way to live. In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, he develops a character, Madame Loisel, who illustrates her different style of assessments. Madame Loisel, a beautiful woman, lives in a wonderful home with all the necessary supplies needed to live. However, she is very unhappy with her life. She feels she deserves a much more expensive and materialistic life than what she has. After pitying herself for not being the richest of her friends, she goes out and borrows a beautiful necklace from an ally. But as she misplaces the closest thing she has to the life she dreams of and not telling her friend about the mishap, she could have set herself aside from ten years of work. Through many literary devices, de Maupassant sends a message to value less substance articles so life can be spent wisely.
In the western society, our linear time structure has caused us to habitually separate time into intervals that consistently continue. The pressure these milestones place on people is enormous -- we are demanded to live life a certain way as there is always a time limit, even on the length of time we have in this world. Although these constraints tend to create the worry that life may not have meaning and bring with them the mystery of death, one must learn to emotionally separate oneself from this structure. Time as we have defined it is merely a human invention; aging and curiousness about the future are natural human instincts but when a man-made structure begins to cast a shadow of doubt on life’s meaning one must take a step back a realize that there is more to life than the ticking of a clock.
Naomi Klein’s article “After the Spill” in the January 2011 edition of Nation magazine discusses a scientific excursion by boat in the northern section of the Gulf of Mexico. According to David Hollander, the marine geochemist from the University of South Florida, the trip’s purpose was to go “fishing for oil” and, if oil was present, to assess its effect on the water and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico (Klein 12).
define our relationship with ?time? to understand post-contemporary society. He places our culture's infatuation with speed into
Ten years of suffering is the cost of having pleasure for only one night! In “The Necklace,” by Guy de Maupassant presents Mathilde Loisel, an attractive, charming but vacuous and selfish middle class lady transforms to selfness, poor, satisfied and hard-working lady. Even though, Mathidle owns a comfortable home and married to a faithful and kind husband, Monsieur Loisel, who seeks her happiness and satisfaction; she was ungrateful to the things that she had been given, because her greed and desire of wealth had captured her thoughts and blurred the real meaning of happiness in her perspective. Mathidle spends most of her time surfing in her day dreams of being wealthy and suffering from accepting the reality, because her imagination was more than she could not afford. One day Mathidle’s husband brought his wife an invitation for a fancy party, but as a result of their low income, Mathidle’s was ashamed to wear flowers as decoration, so she decided to borrow an expensive looking necklace from a friend of her, Madame Forestier. After attending the fabulous party and spending a memorable great time looking stunningly beautiful, Mathidle discovers that she had lost the expensive necklace that she borrowed, so she decides to buy a similar copy of the necklace to her friend after loaning an enormous amount of money and narrowing the house outcome. The author surprises his readers with a perfectly detailed twist at the end of the story. Losing the necklace was a turning point in Mathidle’s life and the best thing that ever happened to her.
There are 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in each minute. This vital element to life is often looked over and is thought of to just pass as we go along our days. It’s not something that we usually stop for to think about and examine. To humans, time is seen as useless and easily brushed off, but many don’t realize that it is a crucial and necessary concept that affects our everyday life and could easily live without us.
In the short story “The Necklace”, the main character, Loisel, is a woman who dreams of greater things in her life. She is married to a poor clerk who tries his best to make her happy no matter what. In an attempt to try to bring happiness to his wife, he manages to get two invitations to a very classy ball, but even in light of this Loisel is still unhappy. Even when she gets a new dress she is still unhappy. This lasts until her husband suggests she borrows some jewelry from a friend, and upon doing so she is finally happy. Once the ball is over, and they reach home, Loisel has the horrible realization that she has lost the necklace, and after ten years of hard labor and suffering, they pay off debts incurred to get a replacement. The central idea of this story is how something small can have a life changing effect on our and others life’s. This idea is presented through internal and external conflicts, third person omniscient point of view, and the round-dynamic character of Loisel. The third person limited omniscient point-of-view is prevalent throughout this short story in the way that the author lets the reader only see into the main character’s thoughts. Loisel is revealed to the reader as being unhappy with her life and wishing for fancier things. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.” (de Maupassant 887) When her husband tries to fancy things up, “she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls…” (de Maupassant 887) As the story goes on her point of view changes, as she “now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover all of a sudden, with heroism.” (de Maupassant 891) Having the accountability to know that the “dreadful debt must be paid.” (de Maupassant 891 ) This point-of-view is used to help the reader gain more insight to how Loisel’s whole mindset is changed throughout her struggle to pay off their debts. Maupassant only reveals the thoughts and feelings of these this main character leaving all the others as flat characters. Loisel is a round-dynamic character in that Maupassant shows how she thought she was born in the wrong “station”. “She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station.
The discipline of public relations is a modern profession which has been in existence for only close to a century; however, it has already taken an important role in the fields of business, government, entertainment and non-profit organizations including educational institutions and healthcare organizations. Public relations professionals are required to have excellent organizational, interpersonal and communication skills and have the ability to persuade the public. It is imperative for PR professionals to effectively communicate with its public in order to establish and maintain a positive relationship. Furthermore, public relations professionals must have the ability to work under pressure and effectively manage crisis which may have detrimental effect on the company and the public it serves. State purpose of paper and an overview of what will be covered in the introduction
Today we live in a world where everything is practically automatic. We can refer to today’s society as the “technologically civilized” society. There’s been a drastic change from the older days till now. As an example, in the past people had to wash and dry dirty dishes by hand, or write a letter to get in contact with someone. Nowadays, we can push a simple button to start the dishwasher, or give that certain someone a phone call or send an email. Technology can provide the benefit of giving us a simpler, stress-free life or it can become a misfortune we face everyday. Unfortunately, today technology has overcome our lives and we have become too dependent on it.
Today, public relations is a complex profession by thousands of thousands of people all the world to practice. Almost all large and small organizations have their own public relations department or they need to outsource their public relations to a company. Public relations practitioners work for schools and universities, companies, governments, professional and trade associations, hospitals, hotels, non-profit charities, and other else more (Grunig, 2001). Therefore, PR is an important department for organizations.
Public relations is everywhere today. It is a practice that has become an important aspect of any business venture. Whether an organization is not for profit, for profit, or governmental, they still need and desire to communicate their purpose within the community and public relations allows this to happen. There are several publics in which the PR practitioner must correspond with and each requires a different means of communication. Internal publics are inside the organizations such as clerks, managers, and stockholders. "External publics are those not directly connected to the organization: the press, government, educators, customers, suppliers, and the community" (Seitel, 2004). Each public plays a key role in the PR of the organization. The many functions of PR can also be categorized based on what purpose they serve the organization.