Belize Logistics Essay -- Belize

The history of Belize dates back thousands of years. The official name of the territory was changed from British Honduras to Belize in June 1973. â€Å"The current government of Belize took form when they declared their independence in 1981. This government is headed by the Queen of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II, who is acting head of state. The Queen is represented by a Governor General due to her having to reside in Great Britain. The Governor General is the true authority in power; however, he does not officially run the government that is led by the Prime Minister and his cabinet. Currently in the Senate there are 12 members, plus the President of the Senate. The Governor General appoints 6 senators on advice of the Prime Minister, 3 on advice of the leader of the opposition, one member on the advice of the Belize Council of Churches and Evangelical Association of Churches and two other members from two separate organizations.† (http://www.islandflave.com/caribbean-politics/615-belize-politics) â€Å"Belize has a public-private economy with tourism as the number one foreign exchange earner followed by exports of marine products, citrus, sugar, bananas, and garments. Agriculture currently provides some 71% of the country's total foreign exchange earnings, and employs approximately 29% of the total labour force. Belize has a viable fishing industry. Belize's fisheries are exploited for commercial, as well as for subsistence purposes, and are one of the most heavily exploited natural resources. In an effort to maximize the benefits obtained from the fishing industry, while ensuring its long-term viability, fisheries managers are promoting an expansion in production through diversification of this resource base. Belize's fishin... ...m/Does-Donts.htm http://articles.cnn.com/2006-11-30/travel/if.you.go_1_belizean-belikin-beer-dos?_s=PM:TRAVEL http://www.customs.gov.bz/traveller.html http://belize-guide.info/travel.basics/customs/ http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/report_rapport-eng.asp?id=29000 http://www.belizefirst.com/MoneyandBankinginBelize.htm http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/belizeguide/p/BelizeSafety.htm http://www.paradisepath.com/belize_safety.htm http://www.belizedistrict.com/tips.html#safety http://belize.com/medical-care-in-belize.html http://www.guidetobelize.info/en/yellow-pages/belize-health-care-medical-current-guide.shtml http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/north-central-america/belize http://www.islandflave.com/caribbean-politics/615-belize-politics http://www.islandflave.com/caribbean-politics/615-belize-politics

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee :: To Kill a Mockingbird Essays

To Kill a Movking Bird Tolerance Comes into Play Tolerance is a good virtue to own, without it there is no way to succeed. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great novel written by Harper Lee. In this book, a great deal of tolerance is shown by Atticus. His tolerance is shown especially in the town, when dealing with his kids and when talking to Aunt Alexandra. The theme of tolerance is shown by Atticus when he is in the town. Many of the town's people give Atticus a hard time because he is defending a black in court and he is white. There is a white person against the black yet Atticus is defending the black person, and that is what makes some people give him a hard time. In a quote from the book: "Your father's no better than the Niger's and trash he works for," said Mrs. Dubose to Scout. People just like Mrs. Dubose talk behind Atticus and also say mean or hateful things about him because he is defending a black. Although they say all this stuff he has enough tolerance and does not fight back nor say mean and/or hateful things towards them. He uses his self-control (tolerance) and lets them talk. He expresses in the book that, people can talk and say but you do not have to do anything about it. Atticus just lets it pass by him. This is one way he shows tolerance in the book. The theme of tolerance is shown by Atticus, when he is dealing with his kids. His two kids, Scout (girl) and Jem (boy), do get into mischief. And when they do he deals with it calmly and rationally. A quote dealing with this particular incident were he is talking to Scout is: "Let's get this clear: you do as Calpurnia tells you, you do as I tell you, and as long as your aunt's in the house you do as she tells you. Understand?" Atticus says this to Scout after she mouthed off at Aunt Alexandra. He calmly and rationally dealt with the situation then moved on. He didn't yell, hit, or argue, just simply stated the obvious. He shows a lot of tolerance when dealing with Scout and her stubborn ways. He does the same with Jem (Jeremy) as well. He treats his kids with respect as if they were adults. He does hot argue he says what he wants and if there is a conflict he walks away from it.

Change Management in Organizations dependency on Leadership Essay

This paper seeks to establish how change can be effectively introduced to the challenging global business environment of today. However, to establish this, one has to first understand what a change management strategy is and to critically analyze the key composition of an ideal change management strategy and figure out how they relate to the question at hand. Conspicuously, change management strategy is a systematic approach to making adjustments to the application of a set of tools, processes or skills during a project or initiative. Through the application of its controlled processes and a wide variety of set tools that are utilized for purposes of leading organizations into achieving their forecasted and desired outcomes. From the aforementioned definition, we are able to decipher that: the change management process is an integral aspect of performance of organizations that is vital in ensuring its success and on the offset; it describes the driving force towards adoption and the usage of new strategies so that results of a business can be realized CITATION Hor08 l 1033 (Hornstein, 2008 ). The change management strategy process consists of mainly 3 processes that are instrumental in realizing desired business results. The change strategy process has three components outlined as: preparing for change where, one is required to prepare for the change that is about to occur. It entails defining the correct management strategy that is best suited to achieving the desired results of the organization. One has to prepare his/her change management team that will be influential in achieving the desired results of the change management strategy CITATION Sur04 l 1033 (Surendra & Wulonng, 2004). The last thing is to develop a sponsorship model for the strategy. Secondly, there is change management; once the change management strategy has been invented, then the change management plans must be developed so as to realize the desired results in the change management strategy. This entails taking action and implementing plans that are in the change management strategy and instilling them with a great amount of discipline CITATION Aqu14 l 1033 (Aquila, 2014). Thirdly, reinforcing change where one has to collect and analyze the feedback from those that the change has affected. Diagnosing of gaps and managing of resistance is also of importance in reinforcing change. One should then implement corrective actions and celebrate successes that the change management strategy has brought about. A great deal of organizations embark on initiatives to ensure the success of their change management strategy with an inference to their commonly associated benefits that are outlined as cost reductions and timely product or service delivery, however, majority of these organizations come to acknowledge that a having a factual CMS in place does not in any way resolve their organizational operational issues CITATION Cap14 l 1033 (Capelli, 2014). In many circumstances, corporations are engaged in the hiring of only a select few project managers and in return expect that this bunch of professionals will magically transform their idea and deliver the beneficial aspects of contingent Project Methodology CITATION Dew12 l 1033 (Dewhurst, Harris, & Heywood, 2012 ). In actuality, a great deal of this organizations only get to learn that through inadequate planning their set projects do get delivered though they involve incoherent processes, are guided by ineffective methodology structures, not delivered in good timelines or their financial estimations are over budget and to top it all off, varied aspect of an implementation process are guided by poor management strategies and their performance reporting data is not recorded CITATION Kat14 l 1033 (Katz, 2014). Once the conceptualizing idea in a project is not clearly set out, several projects being guided a particular department will ideally exhibit the aforementioned aspects of poor change management process; the problems exhibited can only be remedied through exquisite leadership within organizations. In circumstances where a particular change management strategy is not being conceptualized, four basic issues are usually evident CITATION Agu14 l 1033 (Aguire & Alpern, 2014). Firstly, the organi zation lacks overall accountability envisions with regards lack proper recording of what exactly when into accounting and time delivery aspects of a project. The management departments of organizations that exhibit poor accountability in most cases are engaged in laying the blame of failure on someone else within the organization CITATION Kat08 l 1033 (Katzenbach, Rutrger, & Thomas, 2008). Secondly, there is the aspect of work effort of individuals undertaking a particular project is significantly overlapped thus pushing these people into a continuous rework process until desired results are attained. In this case, what usually leads to the development of this pattern is the fact that the knowledge base of an organization is not fully analyzed before the delegation of works according to the specific qualifications of an individual. It thus sets off a wheel of events which means that the organization will have to start again thus wasting labor and man hours CITATION Ken09 l 1033 (Kenflent, 2009). Inconsistent metrics and reporting comes third in this list where poor decision-making is highly probable thus making a benchmarking process in the implementation of a project virtually impossible. It is gambling with the investment of a company where one who is totally unfamiliar with the other players on a poker deck but still goes ahead to make play with the expectation of g obbling up the spoils. Therefore, this means that being a new player in a very different field will make it very hard for one to fit completely as many challenges will be posed. Lastly, this organizations exhibit all aspects if poor coordination of projects that involves cooperation between departments within an organization there envisioning equally poor organizational support CITATION Llo12 l 1033 (Llopis, 2012). The lack of teamwork and proper communication structures within an organization is a pivotal step that determines the failure or success of a project. Therefore, in order to establish how change can be effectively introduced to the challenging global business environment of today, one has to overcome the challenges that have been posed by implementing the key elements of a CMS. These elements are outlined as: the Need for Urgency-an organizational burning platform exists when maintaining the status quo becomes prohibitively expensive. Major change is always costly, but when the present course of action is even more expensive, a burning platform situation erupts CITATION Cus14 l 1033 (Cusumano, 2014). Create a sense of urgency based on the company’s financial performance, competitive edginess and proper market positioning and finally staying abreast with developments in technological trends. Second is proper leader identification. Organizations should be keen on sourcing the ideal change leader with their desired set of skills so that the initiative of change can be conceptualized in a professional manner where timelines of d elivery are given close analysis. However, success of projects is not only conceptualized through organizations having godly-leaders at the helm but with a combination of competent support professionals who will be instrumental in steering the organization to its desired achievements CITATION Kap13 l 1033 (Kaplan, 2013). Secondly, workforce motivation is something that organizations need to channel their concentration on so as to conceptualize change story that will impact on employees positively, for before you get buy-in process, people need to feel the problem that is at hand. People are not going to consider anything until they are convinced that there is a problem that truly needs to be addressed CITATION Din06 l 1033 (Dinsmore & Cooke-Davies, 2006). Establishing a motivational point is critical in establishing a correlation point for the implementation process that will involve people who are knowledgeable about the organization’s need for change. Once this has been established the company already established a buy-in and understanding for its employee thus they get acclimatized with the roles they play in the organization. Third, clearly setting out visions and values is influential in creating a picture of desired set goals for the future success of the organization. Corporations shoul d therefore go out of their way to give its employees as sense of corporate belonging thus establishing an enduring purpose for not only themselves but also the organization at large. The lack of a clearly defined vision could lead to misinterpretation of change efforts in an organization thus steering projects in the opposite direction. Communication is another aspect propelling requisite change management strategies within organizations in the current business industry. Throughout the implementation process of an idea within an organization, people within an organization need to be informed constantly so as to create an environment of inclusiveness thus steer them with the momentum for progress and success of their work CITATION Har12 l 1033 (Harrington, 2012). Communicate this information broadly and dramatically, especially with respect to crises, potential crises etc. To successfully implement change initiatives, leaders of organizations need to play the role of communicating to employees effectively about every development progress of a project. Next is line is the need for leaders to have an eye for inconsistency lookout where the change leader needs to be on the consistent lookout for any inconsistencies that may arise due to the results from the change. Whenever any inconsistencies arise, they should be proa ctively dealt with without any delay CITATION Sir05 l 1033 (Sirkin, Keenan, & Jackson, 2005). Lastly, the general aspect of implementation and reinforcement of ideas is what actually determines what succeeds and what fails. In most cases, moving away from the traditional ways and culture of undertaking business is a problem that comes up every now and then when a change management strategy is being conceptualized. It is therefore the duty of leaders to ensure that the operations of employees are monitored throughout the implementation process and guide them in the right direction in situations where they veer off the correct course. References Aguire, D., & Alpern, M. (2014). 10 Principals of Leading Change Management . Strategy + Business , 75-82. Aquila, K. (2014, January 9). Quotas for female board members look like a toad too far. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from The Financial Times : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e06ac8bc-784a-11e3-831c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2rEx8m1lp. Capelli, P. (2014, February 5). Work Classifiaction In the Work Environment . Retrieved January 10, 2015, from The Economist : http://www.economist.com/node/341352 Cusumano, T. (2014). Change Strategies of 10 Corporate Firms of UK . London : Puferntred Publications . Dewhurst, M., Harris, J., & Heywood, S. (2012 ). The Global Company’s Challenge . McKinsey Quaterly , 7-10. Dinsmore, P. C., & Cooke-Davies, T. (2006). The Right Projects, Done Right . San Francisco : Jossey Bass. Harrington, J. (2012). The Face for Organizational Change . Welton Planning Monthly , 12-17. Hornstein, H. (2008 ). Using a Change Management Approach to Implement Programs . Ivey Business Journal , 14-21. Kaplan, R. (2013). Leadership Skills for Change . Business Weekly , 23-42. Katz, R. (2014, August 19). The global talent index report: The outlook to 2015. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from Heidrick & Struggles: (http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/downloads/GTI%20FINAL%20REPORT%205.4.11.pdf Katzenbach, J. R., Rutrger, P. V., & Thomas, J. (2008). The Critical Few: Components of a Truly Effective Culture. New York: Barnes & Noble. Kenflent, W. (2009). Culture Blame within Organizations . London : Routledge . Llopis, G. (2012, April 11). 5 Most Effective Ways to Sell Change . Retrieved January 10, 2015, from Forbes : http:www.foprbes.com/5+mot+effectyive+ways/23eds54 Sirkin, H., Keenan, P., & Jackson, A. (2005). The Hard Side of Change Management . Harvard Business Review , 163. Surendra, G., & Wulonng, G. (2004). The Effect of Organizational Innovation and Information Technology on Firm Performance. Quebec : Welton Sox . Source document

Stephen King, Christine – Text Analysis

Stephen King is perhaps the most widely known American writer of his generation, yet his distinctions include publishing as two authors at once: Beginning in 1966, he wrote novels that were published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. When twelve, he began submitting stories for sale. At first ignored and then scorned by mainstream critics, by the late 1980’s his novels were reviewed regularly in The New York Times Book Review, with increasing favor. Beginning in 1987, most of his novels were main selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, which in 1989 created the Stephen King Library, committed to keeping King’s novels â€Å"in print in hardcover. † King published more than one hundred short stories (including the collections Night Shift, 1978, Skeleton Crew, 1985, and Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 1993) and the eight novellas contained in Different Seasons (1982) and Four Past Midnight (1990). King has published numerous articles and a critical book, Danse Macabre (1981). King’s detractors attribute his success to the sensational appeal of his genre, whose main purpose, as King readily confesses, is to scare people. Like Edgar Allan Poe, King turned a degenerated genre — a matter of comic-book monsters and drive-in films—into a medium embodying the primary anxieties of his age. He is graphic, sentimental, and predictable. His humor is usually crude and campy. His dark fantasies, like all good popular fiction, allow readers to express within conventional frames of reference feelings and concepts they might not otherwise consider. is vision articulates universal fears and desires in terms peculiar to contemporary culture. King is â€Å"Master of Postliterate Prose,† as Paul Gray stated in 1982—writing that takes readers mentally to the films rather than making them imagine or think. On the other hand, King’s work provides the most genuine example of the storyteller’s art since Charles Dickens. He has retu rned to the novel some of the popular appeal it had in the nineteenth century and turned out a generation of readers who vastly prefer some books to their film adaptations. He encountered two lasting influences, the naturalist writers and contemporary American mythology. Stephen King may be known as a horror writer, but he calls himself a â€Å"brand name,† describing his style as â€Å"the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonald’s. † His fast-food version of the â€Å"plain style† may smell of commercialism, but that may make him the contemporary American storyteller without peer. From the beginning, his dark parables spoke to the anxieties of the late twentieth century. King’s fictions begin with premises accepted by middle Americans of the television generation, opening in suburban or small-town America—Derry, Maine, or Libertyville, Pennsylvania—and have the familiarity of the house next door and the 7-Eleven store. The characters have the trusted two-dimensional reality of kitsch: they originate in cliches such as the high school â€Å"nerd† or the wise child. From such premises, they move cinematically through an atmosphere resonant with a popular mythology. King applies naturalistic methods to an environment created by popular culture. This reality, already mediated, is translated easily into preternatural terms, taking on a nightmarish quality. King’s imagination is above all archetypal: His â€Å"pop† familiarity and his campy humor draw on the collective unconscious. As with his fiction, his sources are the classic horror films of the 1930’s, inherited by the 1950’s pulp and film industries. He hints at their derivations from the gothic novel, classical myth, Brothers Grimm folktales, and the oral tradition in general. In an anxious era both skeptical of and hungry for myth, horror is fundamentally reassuring and cathartic; the tale-teller combines roles of physician and priest into the witch doctor as â€Å"sin eater,† who assumes the guilt and fear of his culture. Christine †¢ In Christine, the setting is Libertyville, Pennsylvania, during the late 1970’s. The monster is the American Dream as embodied in the automobile. King gives Christine all the attributes of a fairy tale for â€Å"postliterate† adolescents. Christine is another fractured â€Å"Cinderella† story, Carrie for boys. Arnie Cunningham, a nearsighted, acne-scarred loser, falls â€Å"in love with† a car, a passionate (red and white) Plymouth Fury, â€Å"one of the long ones with the big fins,† that he names Christine. An automotive godmother, she brings Arnie, in fairy-tale succession, freedom, success, power, and love: a home away from overprotective parents, a cure for acne, hit-andrun revenge on bullies, and a beautiful girl, Leigh Cabot. Soon, however, the familiar triangle emerges, of boy, girl, and car, and Christine is revealed as a femme fatale—driven by the spirit of her former owner, a malcontent named Roland LeBay. Christine is the medium for his death wish on the world, for his all-devouring, â€Å"everlasting Fury. † LeBay’s aggression possesses Arnie, who reverts into an older, tougher self, then into the â€Å"mythic teenaged hood† that King has called the prototype of 1950’s werewolf films, and finally into â€Å"some ancient carrion eater,† or primal self. As automotive monster, Christine comes from a variety of sources, including the folk tradition of the â€Å"death car† and a venerable techno-horror premise, as seen in King’s â€Å"Trucks† and Maximum Overdrive. King’s main focus, however, is the mobile youth culture that has come down from the 1950’s by way of advertising, popular songs, film, and national pastimes. Christine is the car as a projection of the cultural self, Anima for the modern American Adam. To Arnie’s late 1970’s-style imagination, the Plymouth Fury, in 1958 a mid-priced family car, is an American Dream. Her sweeping, befinned chassis and engine re-create a fantasy of the golden age of the automobile: the horizonless future imagined as an expanding network of superhighways and unlimited fuel. Christine recovers for Arnie a prelapsarian vitality and manifest destiny. Christine’s odometer runs backward and she regenerates parts. The immortality she offers, however—and by implication, the American Dream—is really arrested development in the form of a Happy Days rerun and by way of her radio, which sticks on the golden oldies station. Indeed, Christine is a recapitulatory rock musical framed fatalistically in sections titled â€Å"Teenage Car-Songs,† â€Å"Teenage Love-Songs,†and â€Å"Teenage Death-Songs. † Fragments of rock-and-roll songs introduce each chapter. Christine’s burden, an undead 1950’s youth culture, means that most of Arnie’s travels are in and out of time, a deadly nostalgia trip. As Douglas Winter explains, Christine reenacts â€Å"the death,† during the 1970’s, â€Å"of the American romance with the automobile. † The epilogue from four years later presents the fairy-tale consolation in a burnedout monotone. Arnie and his parents are buried, Christine is scrap metal, and the true Americans, Leigh and Dennis, are survivors, but Dennis, the â€Å"knight of Darnell’s Garage,† does not woo â€Å"the lady fair†; he is a limping, lackluster junior high teacher, and they have drifted apart, grown old in their prime. Dennis narrates the story in order to file it away, all the while perceiving himself and his peers in terms of icons from the late 1950’s. In his nightmares, Christine appears wearing a black vanity plate inscribed with a skull and the words, â€Å"ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE. From Dennis’s haunted perspective, Christine simultaneously examines and is a symptom of a cultural phenomenon: a new American gothic species of anachronism or deja vu, which continued after Christine’s publication in films such as Back to the Future (1985), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), and Blue Velvet (1986). The 1980’s and the 1950’s blur into a seam less illusion, the nightmare side of which is the prospect of living an infinite replay. The subtext of King’s adolescent fairy tale is another coming of age, from the opposite end and the broader perspective of American culture. Written by a fortyish King in the final years of the twentieth century, Christine diagnoses a cultural midlife crisis and marks a turning point in King’s career, a critical examination of mass culture. The dual time frame reflects his awareness of a dual audience, of writing for adolescents who look back to a mythical 1950’s and also for his own generation as it relives its undead youth culture in its children. The baby boomers, King explains, â€Å"were obsessive† about childhood. â€Å"We went on playing for a long time, almost feverishly. I write for that buried child in us, but I’m writing for the grown-up too. I want grownups to look at the child long enough to be able to give him up. The child should be buried. † â€Å"sometimes ownership can become possession† The story is set in a middle-class suburb of Pittsburg, in 1978. Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham vie for the attentions of the new girl in town, Leigh Cabot. But when Christine, a 1958 Plymouth Fury, enters the picture, the course of action changes drastically. As Leigh neatly observes, â€Å"cars are girls†. Arnie’s love affair with Christine turns from a love song to a death song. As soon as he sees her he wants her. Her name is Christine, she is 1958 Plymouth Fury, and Arnold Cunningham has fallen head over heels in love with her. Arnold's best friend Dennis Guilder is not quite so impressed by the rusting rolling iron with the custom paint job. Dennis looks at the cracked windscreen and the damaged bodywork, the flat tyre and torn upholstery, and his heart sinks even before he notices the pool of oil underneath the car. Arnie might as well be looking at a different car though. He sees something else. Maybe a little of what the car once was, and perhaps a little of what it could be if the work was put in. He is a man in love and first loves can often become all consuming things. There is nothing that Dennis can do to stop Arnie from buying Christine and in the end he goes along with his life-long friend. He lends him some money towards a deposit on the car and even takes him to pick the car up, the next day, after work. Sometimes the company a person keeps can have an effect on them and almost from that very first meeting between Arnie and Christine Dennis can see changes in his best friend. Some of them good, like the fact that his acne seems to be miraculously clearing up. The other changes though, are not so positive in nature. Arnie's whole attitude takes a turn for the worse and he develops an uncharacteristic mean streak. All of his life Arnie has been the guy who was targeted by the bullies of this world, but when Buddy Repperton takes a jack handle to one of Christine's lights the worm not only turns, but turns on Repperton leaving him with a bloody nose and a score to settle. As I clocked up the chapters in Christine I watched Arnie's relationship with his parents and with his friend Dennis start to fall apart; and his relationship with the beautiful Leigh Cabot form and then fail. It was all because of the car and from the very first chapter, as a reader, I was aware that there was something not quite right about that Plymouth Fury. Christine is just a little under 600 pages long. It is written in memoir form and is split into the three parts. Part one, Dennis Teenage Car Songs, is written in the first person and from Dennis' point of View. In part two, Arnie Teenage Love songs, Dennis is still telling the story, but it is now written in the third person because all of the events in that part of the book occurred while Dennis was lying in a hospital bed and does not concern things that he experienced first-hand. For part three, of the book, Christine Teenage Death Songs, the story returns to the first person perspective because Dennis is on his crutches and out and about, all be it at a bit of a hobble. A nice touch to Christine is that every chapter opens up with a few lines from a different song that involves cars, which is probably why the three parts of the book are named the way that they are. I enjoyed Christine. King brings all of the characters to life for his readers and it was easy for me to look at Arnie's mother, for instance, through both Arnie and Dennis' eyes and think: what a bitch! But it was just as easy for me to look through the mother's eyes and feel the pain and fear as she watched her family being torn apart. The characters seem real and the unreal situations feel real.

Marriage and Divorce in Colonial Korea Essay

The article â€Å"Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls† from The New York Times relays to readers the significant and profound changes in Korean society in relation to preference of female children over their male counterparts in Korean families.   In Korea, preference for boys is a centuries old custom and was rooted in part in an agrarian society that relied on sons to do the difficult work on family farms.   Men were also accorded special status because they were considered the carriers of the family’s all-important bloodline.   As Yang mentioned in Korea times, many people (mostly men) still think that â€Å"men are sky and women are land†. Under a highly conservative Confucianism based society, these changes in preference of baby girls especially highlights a shift in women’s status in Korea. The New York Times provides an example of Ms. Park’s situation.   Ms. Park is a 61-year-old newspaper executive who has three sons.   Only several decades ago, women who could reproduce many boys were considered the ideal wife.   However, Ms. Park now says that â€Å"within a generation, I have turned from the luckiest woman possible to a pitiful mother†.   As seen in Ms. Park’s interview in South Korea, once one of Asia’s most rigidly patriarchal societies, a centuries-old preference for baby boys is fast receding. This kind of significant change started from 1987 when â€Å"the government banned doctors from revealing the sex of a fetus before birth†.   Since then, women’s status improved each year.   As compared to fewer than one out of ten women entering college in 1981, six out of ten did so in 2006.   Also in â€Å"the National Assembly, once one of the nation’s most male-dominated institution, women now hold about 13 percent of the seats, about double the percentage they held just four years ago†. As we examined in Yoo’s article â€Å"The ‘New Woman’ and the Politics of Love, Marriage and Divorce in Colonial Korea†, there was a time when education, political involvement, and sense of freedoms were limited for women in Korea.   For being one of the group of young educated Korean women, I am very proud. For the older generation of women, who have tried to find their true rights as a â€Å"modern girl†, I owe their struggles to my success.

Getting a Pre-Nuptial Agreement

Marriage is one of every one’s dreams, at least majority do. It is the union of two lives and two souls. Sometimes it is by choice, and sometimes it is a choice others make for you. Regardless of the nature of the union, whether it was desired for or not, a marriage is deemed forever unless legal matters step in and declare itself above all else.It is unfortunate that there are marriages that end badly. Some get pay in money or with their lives. Others get hurt emotionally or physically. No matter how dreamy a person could get with the idea of marriage and a married life, it is still important to get a Prenuptial Agreement before anything else is settled and deemed final. Every couple must have a Prenuptial Agreement.Getting a prenuptial agreement does not mean that an end to the relationship is anticipated. Instead, the mindset is to get some ground rules. It is not being too cautious.It is an assurance that human dignity can never be taken no matter what happens. With this i n mind, four articles were used to explore the very idea. One of them suggested that there will always be expectations, some cannot be met.The second is that money will always be talked about regardless of being forced to remain below a certain line. The third there will be sacrifices, not all should have been made. Lastly, it is to keep a certain degree of freedom despite these sacrifices.According to Polly Sherman’s article entitled â€Å"Great Expectations†, the initial definition of marriage was for the sake of the kids and appearances. The society can destroy a person’s reputation without having all the facts.But with only these for their reasons to maintain a married life, there came more divorces than people would have found comfort in. There were more unhappy unions as well. But the article also shared that people today define marriage as the ideal union.It will be through finding the appropriate partner, who will understand everything about you and acce pt all strengths and flaws. It will be about love. It would encompass a match made through the soul.However, regardless of the definition, expectations are still made. The package is simply bigger today. Sadly, not all expectation can be met. No matter how strong the will of a person might be, there will always be times when that cannot be met.As the old clichà © goes, you cannot have everything. People might expect, but sometimes it is better to expect nothing at all. A prenuptial agreement would help set those expectations in the event that something wrong comes along the way.The second article is by Deborah Siegel. Her article â€Å"The New Trophy Wife† suggested that despite putting money an issue on the side, it gets to be the center of attention in the end. In her article, she used actual couples to illustrate her point.It was written couples who earned almost the same amount had less problems in comparison to the couple where one earned more. This is highlighted furth er when the woman earns more.This scenario pointed that regardless of how ideal the relationship is, there will always be problems. It is not saying that it is inevitable to have problems where money is concerned. However, when one of a pair is gaining more, insecurities are pinched at.This will instigate all other emotions, including jealousy and even hate. The love they built might be overpowered by these negative emotions. More importantly, when it comes to money, personal assets might be misplaced or even taken away. A prenuptial agreement will secure that and a better future if the relationship becomes less sustainable.In contrast to the other articles, Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert shared in â€Å"The Science of a Good Marriage† that the ideal image of a union, with that of a soul mate, is a mere myth. Effort should be exerted. Sacrifices will have to be made.They made a study, through the nature of what he and his current wife do for a living, to determine these d ifferent realities. By having these different natures, they will be able to define and set criteria of what a good marriage should be like. They called it a science because they used a well thought research method to retrieve these information.The article focused on getting the picture that seems to be left unsaid before a marriage is affirmed by a ceremony. As illustrated in the article, marriage is not merely the simply combination of the yin and yang. That might be a beautiful dream but realities are more important.A prenuptial agreement may assist in minimizing the dilemma with regards to how much sacrifices are made. Sacrifices are a part of life. One will have to sacrifice to achieve something even greater. But in certain marriages, there are sacrifices that are uncalled for. Those are situations where none is achieved, much less returned.  Lastly, the story by William Faulkner â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a about a woman who stood from everyone else in the community. T he members of society suspected so much of her. They judged and scrutinized her very existence, even until that last day of her life.But despite what other people thought of her, she acted the way she would have thought appropriate. It might not be with the approval of everyone else, but she does not need the approval of others to make what she does worth doing and her life worth living.In line with this, no matter what happens, a life partner should let their other half be themselves without judgmental eyes. This might be a more romantic aspect of a getting a prenuptial agreement, but this does not even have to be the legal kind.It should be a silent agreement between the lovers that they should let each other be as themselves. Otherwise, if they try to change the other too much, he or she would not be the same person they love and chose to begin with. It would be just their ideals and not who those people really are.In conclusion, a prenuptial agreement is very important. It will set expectations for either party. It will stand in opposition to financial issues if it gets in the way of the progress in their relationship. It will establish how much either constituent should sacrifice to make the relationship work through the years. Finally, the agreement is to allow those involved to be themselves without any form of restraint or coercions.These points cover the basic reasons as to why it is important to attain a prenuptial agreement before there will be any signing of documents or walking down aisle. Having one at hand does not mean that the couple anticipates what is going to happen to their marriage.No one can actually tell the future unless they are the ones to make for themselves. Other people cannot tell them the flow they will have to follow unless for their own beliefs and choices.Marriage is the ideal union of lives and souls. But it is not the perfect relationship one can live by. Problems will always rise from different causes. Allowing the relatio nship to fail and break will be by the hands of the couple themselves. It will depend not only on their feelings but also on their principles.If what they want is clear to them, and a happy married life is what they are after, a prenuptial agreement will assist them in achieving that goal. It is not a means to an end. Instead, it is a guide to make things better regardless of what happens through it.

Consumer behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Consumer behaviour - Essay Example Moreover, these traits mostly represent the processes used when consumers are considering physical products for purchase. Most tourists make travel decisions based on the influence of their friends or family members, or due to the emotional appeal of tourist destinations. It is important to understand that tourists usually undertake varied decision making processes when they choose to go on holiday. A good example of this is the scenario where people who were not meaning to go on a visit any where suddenly make a last minute decision to accompany friends or family members to exotic lands. According to (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegarrd, and Hogg 2009) in modern times, there are tourist behaviours such ‘‘last-minute’’ decisions to travel show that traditional decision-making methods are becoming irrelevant. There are even more factors that travellers decide to use in determining the choices of tourist destinations that they decide on. For instance, it would appear that for some travellers, the choice of where or when to travel is an ongoing process which may be changed even after a decision has been made on the preferred destination. In addition, more and more travellers are allowing their decisions to be influenced by nostalgia, travel party, and date. Travellers today are also more ready to expose themselves to surprises as they feel that this is the only way in which they will authentically be able to experience any destination. According to Alain Decrop, there are travelers who choose travel destinations even without conducting any research on the culture of the places they are going to visit in order to experience the chosen destinations in a more unbiased manner (Decrop 2005). In such cases, what is unexpected adds to the excitement of the first time experiences of the tourists. Planning for a holiday will remove the excitement of first landing in a foreign land and thus destroy the whole purpose of travelling in the first place. 2. Com pare the information search process, as it is described in the case, with the search process that consumers might follow for one other product category (e.g. a household appliance or a perfume). When making purchase decisions, consumers may take into consideration a lot of information; particularly when deciding on a product brand such as a car or a sofa set. This differs from the decision making processes used by tourists when picking vacation destinations. Many consumers do not pick household appliances on a whim; or decide to order for these products from a store while leaving the decision on colour or texture to the seller so as to experience the element of surprise. For the most part, household goods and other such products are chosen after consumers embark on sequential decision processes in which various options are considered in a systematic method until the customer arrives at his or her last remaining choice. Following this evaluation process, the customers will choose the product they wish to purchase. Moreover, there are other ways in which purchasing decisions made during the procurement of products are somewhat similar to those used when travellers are picking on vacation spots. This is because a consumer can change his or her mind and pick on a competitor’s merchandise instead; or cancel the acquisition altogether. This could be spurred by impolite staff in the place of transaction, a long queue, or even a complicated