Mini was a little girl, who was unusually fond of conversations Essay Example for Free

Mini was a little girl, who was unusually fond of conversations Essay Mini was a little girl, who was unusually fond of conversations. She had a makeshift mind that moved between various topics within her scope. Although she was young, she could start a conversation with people double or even triple her age. Eventually she became friends with Rahamat, an Afghani money lender, whom she fondly called Kabuliwala. It was a delight to watch the two banter. Rahamat, was a tall, bearded man, who carried a sack on his shoulders while Mini was a tiny little girl who would chatter all the way. Initially Mini, was afraid of interacting with him, because she believed that Rahamat abducted little children in his sack. But Rahamat, because of his obvious fondness for the little girl, broke the ice, by presenting some raisins and apricots from his bag. Mini came from an aristocratic Bengali family and Rahamat was just an ordinary fruit peddler from Kabul yet it seemed like they were close chums. The two friends had a few stock phrases and jokes which were repeated in their conversations. For example, the moment she saw Rahamat, she would ask with a hearty laugh, ‘Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala, what is in your sack?’ Adding an unnecessary nasal tone to the word, Rahamat would roar, ‘Hanti.’ The essence of the joke was that the man had an elephant in his sack. Not that the joke was very witty, but it caused the two friends to double up in laughter, and the sight of that innocent joy between a little girl and a grown man on autumn mornings used to move Mini’s father deeply. However Mini’s mother wasn’t too pleased with the growing friendship between Rahamat and her daughter and often nagged Mini’s father to keep an eye on him. One fine day, her worries came true; when Rahamat was arrested on charges of stabbing a man because the man had denied the debt he owed Rahamat, in the heat of the argument. Rahamat was in the midst of hurling abuse in an obscene language at the dishonest man when Mini came running out of the house, shouting, ‘Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala.’ In a flash, Rahamat’s face was filled with expressions of happiness. Innocently Mini asked him, ‘Will you be going to your in-laws’ house?’ ‘That’s exactly where I am going,’ Rahamat replied with a laugh. When he noticed that Mini did not find the answer quite amusing, he pointed to his hands and added in his heavily accented, broken Bengali, ‘I would have beaten up the in-law. But what can I do, my hands are tied up.’ Charged with grievous injury, Rahamat was sent to jail for several years. That was the last time that Mini saw him and quite child-likely forgot all about him as she grew up. Several years passed. Mini’s wedding match had been fixed. On the day of the wedding, her father was busy looking at the wedding accounts when a man appeared before him, he had no bag, nor the long hair, nor the same vigour that he used to have. But he smiled, and Mini’s father knew it was Rahamat. Mini’s father knew what he had come for. But he refused to allow him to meet Mini as he thought that it would be bad omen. Disappointed he put his hand inside his big loose robe, and brought out a small and dirty piece of paper. With great care he unfolded this, and smoothed it out with both hands on my table. It bore the impression of a little band. Not a photograph. Not a drawing. The impression of an ink-smeared hand laid flat on the paper. This touch of his own little daughter had been always on his heart, as he had come year after year to Calcutta, to sell his wares in the streets. Tears came to Minis fathers eyes. He forgot that he was a poor Kabuli fruit-seller, while he was nothing more than he. He also was a father. That impression of the hand of his little daughter in her distant mountain home reminded him of his own little Mini. When Rahamat saw Mini after all these years, he staggered. He could not revive their old friendship. At last he smiled and said: Little one, are you going to your father-in-laws house? But Mini now understood the meaning of the word father-in-law, and she could not reply to him as of old. She flushed up at the question, and stood before him with her bride-like face turned down. Mini’s father deeply touched by what had just happened gave Rahamat, enough money to go back and see his own daughter in Afghanistan. Having done this, he had to cut down on some of the marriage festivity costs, but to him the wedding feast was all the brighter for the thought that in a distant land a long-lost father met again with his only child.

Balancing Inequality Essay -- Education

The California public school system is failing in educating children state-wide. One of the most difficult problems is budget, which affects tremendously children in poor areas. Children from these areas should have equal access to resources, programs and opportunities as those from more propitious communities. In order to close the gap of inequality, we all need to change the way California school system’s funding is allocated and put into use. First, we must increase the income tax of the richest people or the top two tax brackets and divide that extra tax money we collected to public schools in poor areas. This idea was mentioned in a research by professor Picus from University of California Rossier School of Education. Although the idea does not sound very fair to the richest people, it is what needs to be done for California school system to improve statewide. The gap of expenditure per student in higher and low-income districts is too great. According to Just Schools California, districts like Palo Alto spend more than $10,000 per pupil, while largely low-income communities like Lynwood spend around $6000 per pupil. There are rich people who donate a large amount of money to schools every year because they have a lot of extra money and they like to do their part for the society. In fact, the wealthiest Californians have a lot of extra cash even after they bought their Lamborghinis and holiday mansions. Increase the inc ome tax of these people by as little as 1% or 2% will not affect them much, but will benefit a lot to all Californian students, especially those in the poor areas. The reason this extra money will be given to only schools in low-income areas is because the current taxes on wealthier areas is high enough to gi... ..., we could provide every child in California with a better education and equality. Works Cited Picus, Lawrence O. Funding California's Schools: Past, Present and Future? Rep. 2006. Print. "$1B in Teacher Compensation under Attack | California Watch." California Watch | Bold New Journalism. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. . "Prop 13 Facts | Close the Loophole." Close the Loophole | Close the Prop. 13 Loophole. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. . Moore, Michael. Idiot Nation. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 128-46. Print. Conditions, Opportunities and Outcomes in California Public Schools. UCLA IDEA & UC/ACCORD, Jan. 2010. PDF.

All that Jazz workshop Diary Essay

Introduction On the 3rd of November 2009, we were treated to a professional performance of Faustus. Faustus follows the life of Lucifer, who gives away his soul to the devil for 24 years where he is given omniscience and omnipotence. He is given a servant called Mephistopheles, who listens to all his wishes and grants these wishes. However some of his most wanted thoughts were not fulfilled by Mephistopheles as they were against the devils thoughts, and then we find out that he is also the devils servant. The piece was segmented up into 4 parts, and these were changed when the devil changed the number on Lucifer’s shirt to replicate the passing of 6 years. We see Lucifer flit away his life as he makes silly choices as to what to do with his omniscience and omnipotence, and we see the regrets he has in the latter stages of the production. Via the help of angels he then tries to get rid of the contract and buy back his soul, but unfortunately that proves to be a fruitless attempt and he eventually has his soul taken away by the devil. The performance of this piece was not only interesting and engaging to watch, but also allowed to pick up some tips for our own acting and learnt a little bit more about the Brechtian way to act. The Skills Used In the Performance As previously highlighted, the performance was of a Brechtian style. The Brecht approach was to make the audience feel like they were actually in the theatre, and therefore making sure that they used unbelievable characters and would even come out of character to make sure that the audience were part of the performance. The audience could gage what was happening because of the use of placards, and these helped to tell the audience what was going to happen in the scene so they did not have to work this out and followed the story more easily. The three things that I will focus on will commence with gesture. In Brechtian this is named â€Å"gestus†, which means an exaggerated gesture. In this particular helped to enhance the characters and show which characters were played as the actors were all involved in multi-rolling. Another element I would like to make comment on is the communication to the audience. The communication was strong between the audience and the actors and even got the audience involved with some bits of the performance. This helped to believe that the performance was in the theatre and did not look into the story any more as their thoughts were fully on the performer and what he was doing. Finally there use of special awareness was good because they all used a template constantly, for example, the person speaking would be in the centre and forward, an entering person would go through the curtain, and the less dominant character would be stood or making an action on the back right of the stage. I feel these skills have given us a good idea of what we need to do in future to enhance our own dramatic levels. Why did the performers use the elements you specified in the previous point? The performers will have used several devices to make the performance what it was. The reason why the performers used gesture was because it helped to enhance the characters even more as I previously stated, an example would be when the character came out of the curtain and made his body into a L shape whilst maintaining full contact with the audience visually. This created a focal point for the viewers and made them concentrate on the character rather than the storyline itself. They used several bits of gesture in their performance to illustrate what they were doing such as moving their hands vertically up and down to enhance the verisimilitude of the performance. The second thing I focussed on is the communication to the audience. This is important because the audience determine how successful the performance is, and by keeping in constant contact they maintained that relationship, a good example of this was when they got someone out of the audience to play one of the characters. This was particularly effective as it made sure the audience felt like they were in the room and not the story. The final thing I focussed on is special awareness, and they used special awareness in that way to signify the new character had been brought into the piece and this helped the audience understand this and ensured there was no confusion regarding characters. The particular use of the Brechtian technique was really good as it encapsulated all the basics and used them very well; the gestus and the coming out of character were particularly effective because it kept the audience viewpoint clear and direct at the stage and not the storyline. How effective did you feel that these skills/techniques were in communicating ideas to the audience? I believe that the communication between the performers and the audience was the key to success for Faustus. They used a varied style of performing rather than being totally bog standard to make sure that the play stood out and was memorable to the audience. I feel the strongest component of the performance were the strong gestures, as these are key in both the play but also the whole Brechtian technique. Because the gestures were so strange and imaginative, the audience needed to see these because it highlighted the character. A failure to see this gesture may have meant that they miss which character is being performed, and therefore they lose the plot and just become uninterested. Again with the mixture of oddness and the 3 second holding of this pose meant that the audience were focused on this action and kept hold of the plot throughout. I also feel that looking at the play helped me to gain more experience of the Brechtian elements that made the play so successful, and in future I will hope to add these in to certain performances (where applicable) to enhance my performance.

5 Sources to Get the Latest Essay Topics for Your College Papers in Different Fields

Arguably, one of the most difficult aspects of writing a college paper isn’t the writing of the paper itself, but figuring out what you are going to write about. It’s tough enough to conduct the actual research and writing as well as to come up with an original, groundbreaking topic, too. Luckily, there is a myriad of resources you can reach out to when formulating the best topic for your next college paper. 1. News The news is a great place to come up with good college paper topics. They typically have the best ideas for the latest essay topics, giving you a solid base of information upon which to formulate a research question. News articles or broadcasts typically cover only the most recent events, so you know your topic will be relevant and on-point. Consider reading online or print news articles, watching televised news, or even listening to radio broadcasts from a variety of news outlets. 2. Friends Bounce your ideas off your friends, or just sit and listen to them. Your friends will be a great source of information for a young audience. Ask them what issues worry them most, and how those issues can be addressed. They may come up with brand new ideas that have never before crossed your mind. 3. Family Members Like friends, your family members could provide some great ideas for your next college paper. Unlike your friends, your family members will likely represent a wide variety of age ranges, and as a result, may have differing viewpoints or life experiences that could be useful for a college paper. Interview older family members about historical events, or younger family members about generational differences. You won’t regret the small amount of extra work that will go into creating one of these dynamic college paper topics. 4. Personal Experiences This tip is one with multiple opportunities for exploration. When asked to write a paper based on your own experiences, you might have a hard time recollecting your most influential experiences. However, take some time to sit down and brainstorm. If you like to doodle, sketch out your ideas and see where the images take you. Perhaps you like to be outdoors. Go for an outdoor run, and let the fresh air make some ideas loose. If that doesn’t work, make do with what you have. Look through old pictures, letters, or books, or listen to favorite songs. Sure enough, some memories of personal experiencesand excellent essay topics to go along with those experienceswill soon come to your mind. 5. Web Databases If all else fails, turn to the trusty old Internet. There are countless websites available that can help you come up with relevant, catchy college paper topics. Check out PRoCon.org for polarizing paper topics in a variety of spheres. Still stuck? Consider taking a break from your paper. Work on something else for a while, or go for a walk. Chances are, once you quit perseverating over your research topic, a fabulous idea will just miraculously come to you. Try sitting down and writing whatever comes to your mindjust let the ideas flow! Sure enough, through a combination of these tips and through harnessing the power of your own creative juices, you’ll create a college paper topic that will leave your professors swooning.