Case Study analysis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Analysis - Case Study Example It is an evident fact that communication is very important in a relationship. In such situations, in most cases, it has been observed that men communicate to achieve problem solution. This is similar in the case of western women but again the percentage is relatively low. Women are more likely to avoid the problem solving function of the communication between both the partners. In the chosen case of the marital couple, it becomes easy to understand that female partner is trying to discuss the issue with aggression (Broughton, 2008). The case also notes that both the partners are trying to set scores with each other which indicates the condition of conflict. It should be noted that if conflict resolution is not undertaken then it can lead up to complicated crisis between the couple. This is the situation where the Sum Zero concept is introduced which means that one of both the parties have to lose it to find out a resolution. This gives a lead to other situation where one party can ex pect a balance of score in any forthcoming conflict (Pappalardo, 1995). It should also be noted that the case under review is a conversation between a marriage couples who has egalitarian manner of relationship in which both the partners are empowered but the economic responsibilities of man makes him dominant in the relationship. The female oriented families (matriarchal couple) are those where a woman’s right must be completely considered as supreme. But in the case, it is to be noted that the male’s job is much important than the woman because of his limited scope of job (Hitch & Youatt, 2001). The conversation between the couple has been noted to be of less abusive language. There is no indication of abusive words used at regular interval showing that the couple is not from a very low socio-economic status. But it would be better to mention that the female partner needs to calm her tone so that the discussion between the couple can be taken easily so that they can find out the solution (Broughton, 2008). Recommendations: It is being suggested that women playing an emotional part in a relationship needs to evaluate communication function. At times, it is better to listen to the other partner when you do not seem to find out the relationship. In the evaluated case, it can be observed that male partner suggested her to have a new workplace to work because teaching is a very diverse field of interest. This notes that at least the male partner suggested a solution to the problem rather than just beating about the bush. Another situation analysis clause would be to let the other partner win. This does not make one lose it forever. A marital relationship is for life where one win can transform into another loss. This loss is not about property or possession but rather an argument or conflict. This practice is suggested to be solved through zero sum strategy. The use of power needs to be exercised when the family type is completely understood. Consid ering the fact that the couple is an egalitarian marriage bonded, it is suggested to the male partner to exercise his power for the need of elaborating decision making process to the female partner. And also, the woman partner needs to understand the imperativeness of the job of the man because he is the sole and base responsible end of the relationship in terms of

Child Beauty Pageants Essay Example for Free

Child Beauty Pageants Essay Sparkling tiaras, beautiful gowns, glamorous hair and make-up; One would believe that this would be every little girl’s dream. Unfortunately this dream often turns into a horrible nightmare. The popularity of child beauty pageants seems to be rising every year causing more and more controversy. There are many different views and concerns that people seem to have on these types of pageants. Many of them do not agree with children being forced to fulfill their parents dream by taking place in a beauty pageant. The history of beauty pageants became part of the American society around the 1920’s. They originated as a marketing tool in 1921 by an Atlantic City hotel owner who was trying to attract tourist. Since then, pageants have become a major event in the lives of Americans. The online article written by Kareen Nussbaum exclaims that it wasn’t until the 1960’s when child beauty pageants really began. Back then, child pageants consist of modeling sportswear, evening attire, dance, and talent. The judging was based on the individual’s looks, talent, poise, perfection, and level of confidence. Pageants were conducted at political, educational, and entertainment venues. Many were scholarships were being offered through pageants, and beneficial programs were being facilitated. The pageantry world helped introduced a face to the faceless troubles of racism, handicaps, and illnesses. Since that time, a lot in the pageant industry has changed. Nowadays, they are anything buy conservative. Beauty pageants, like the ones on the show Toddlers and Tiaras, are not about natural looks but are based on such superficial things such as who has the most make up and best tan. Parents have a major role in most child beauty pageants. There are very few children who participate in pageantry without their parents. They are the ones who provide the money and connection into the pageant world. Several families who start their child in beauty pageants have generations of competitors that include grandmas, mothers, kids, and grandkids. Many believe that the mothers of children that are involved in beauty pageants live vicariously through their children. Too often, pageant moms have only one thing on their mind and that is for their child to win! Having their own mother/parent as their role model, the child will most likely have that same kind of attitude causing many problems throughout their life. There are many other reasons why child beauty pageants are unnecessary in today’s society. As children, they are most likely forced into the beauty pageants. Being too young to say no, the parents take control. Beauty pageants also sexualize young girls too early. They are exposed and become familiar with â€Å"womanly† items such as padded bras, high heels, and make-up. Instead of acting like their own age, the little girls believe to think they are older than they really are. High heels aren’t made for small feet. They needlessly push the child’s weight forward causing lower back pain and hindering proper development of their feet. Sometimes younger girls are forced to wear heels outside of pageants, because their feet have grown in a way that makes wearing other shoes uncomfortable. Hairspray is the most common widely used product in child pageants. Unfortunately, too much hairspray can actually stunt growth. The Psychology Corner claims that it contains certain chemicals that act as hormone disruptors that could be harmful to the body, and is linked to stunted growth and even lung cancer! If child beauty pageants weren’t allowed, these kinds of troubles wouldn’t be so prevalent. Cognitive and emotional problems are probably the most dangerous problems that beauty pageants can cause. They are capable to leading to many different kinds of disorders that could ruin a child’s life. A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found that the hypersexualization of young girls is strongly associated with eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. Psychologists and psychiatrists largely agree that pageants reinforce negative female body image issues that result in eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Beauty competitions emphasize the barbie doll image of what a beauty queen should look like. The problem with having that image is that there is no way for a person to be able to look like that. Even 25 years ago, top models and beauty queens weighed only 8% less than the average woman, now they weigh 23% less according to the Oprah Winfrey Network. Although Zinzi Williams states that many of the beauty pageants take part in community service, delivering a social message and help in bringing up funds for charity, numerous of them are exaggerated and mess with a young child’s mind. For about fifty years, beauty pageants have been teaching children to behave as young adults rather than acting their own age. Rather than focusing primarily on the idea of competition, pageants for younger children should be created to concentrate on the child’s talent, intelligence, poise, and confidence. While there can be some positive aspects of children beauty pageants, the physical and mental health of the participants will only continue to exacerbate. Works Cited 5 Facts about Beauty Pageants. Oprah Winfrey Network. Harpo Productions, 2012. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. Nussbaum, Kareen. Children and Beauty Pagaents. Beauty Pagaents. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. Toddlers and children beauty pageants – Risk factors for severe psychological turmoils. Psychology Corner. Psychology Corner, n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. Williams, Zinzi. Beauty Pageants and its Effects on Children. Purduecal. N.p., 6 Dec. 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2012.

Vocal Sounds That Mean the Same in Every Language

Vocal Sounds That Mean the Same in Every Language Are there vocal sounds that mean the same whatever your language? Discuss, with examples. The presence of vocal sounds, sounds which are produced via the human vocal tract, which convey the same meaning whatever your language will as a result be sounds that are universally recognised, both in terms of the sound being identified and with regard to the message the sound carries. Considering the lack of cultural exposure between certain language groups (Saul, 2014), vocal sounds with cross-linguistic meanings point towards evolutionary adaptations which by their very nature are inherently universal. The following essay shall show that there are vocal sounds that mean the same whatever your language, it shall do this both by discussing studies that provide evidence for vocal sounds with cross-linguistic meaning, as well as explaining these vocal sounds in an evolutionary context; thereby affirming them as sounds which carry universal meanings no matter what the recipients native language is. Evidence of laughter in our evolutionary relatives such as chimps, (Falk, 2004) and even more distant mammalian relatives such as dogs and rats (Panksepp, 2007) clearly points towards its status as an evolutionary adaption; one which would be universal and therefore be considered a vocal sound which means the same whatever ones language. Further studies indicate that laughter in both humans and non-human primates involve similar neural structures, such as parts of the limbic system (Meyer, Baumann, Wildgruber, Alter, 2007; Scott, Lavan, Chen, Mcgettigan, 2014) and mechanisms involved in endorphin activation linked to positive affective states (Scott et al., 2014). Its status as a universal evolutionary inherited trait is further confirmed by its presence in congenitally blind and deaf infants (Meyer, 2007) who are quite clearly born without the ability to hear or otherwise perceive laughter and therefore who have not learnt to laugh via socialisation. Clearly laughters presence in non-human primates involving similar cortical structures and neural mechanisms, in addition to it being observed in the congenitally blind and deaf, pointing towards its presence as a biological evolutionary adaption; one which would quite clearly be universal and therefore is an example of a vocal sound which conveys meaning whatever ones language is. The context laughter takes place in further points to it being an evolutionary adaption; laughter is in itself innately social, we are around 30 times more likely to laugh in a social situation than when alone (Scott et al., 2014), this is mirrored in non-human primates where it frequently takes place in social situations appearing to facilitate bonding and social cohesion (Ross, Owren, Zimmermann, 2009). Whilst non-human primate laughter typically occurs during physical contact (Provine, 1996), it is contextually comparable with human laughter due to this occurrence in social situations. It is this comparison both in terms of context and the underlying neural mechanisms which point towards a universal evolutionary adaption, one that continues to facilitate social bonding. Therefore similarities between human and non-human primate laughter point towards a level of biological inheritance, one which considered in an evolutionary context must be shared by all despite differences in ter ms of language use, meaning that laughter can clearly be seen as a vocal sound which means the same whatever ones language. However, laughter is not the only affective stimuli shown to carry meaning cross-linguistically. It is widely established that cross-cultural recognition of emotions exists (Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, Scott, 2010), although this point is firmly embedded in the literature (Ekman, 1992) it fails to provide evidence for vocalisations that carry cross-linguistic meaning considering the environmental and visual contexts in which they are typically conveyed (Elfenbein Ambady, 2002). Elfenbein and Ambady (2002) performed a meta-analysis on the universality of emotional recognition on 97 studies on 42 different regions, finding that whilst there was an in-group advantage for members of the same nation, region and/or language, emotions were universally recognized at above chance levels. Although their meta-analysis looked at studies using a range of channels to convey emotions, this above chance level remained when considering studies that focussed on vocal stimuli alone (Elfenbein Ambady, 200 2). Elfenbein and Ambadys meta-analysis (2002) provides evidence that there are vocalisations that mean the same whatever your language, by statistically analysing a variety of studies and showing patterns of correlation between them the argument carries greater weight than considering one or two studies in isolation. Furthermore, it suggests that certain emotions are universally recognised and most likely that this is due to biological mechanisms (when one considers the lack of cultural exposure some groups have had with one another). Of course the presence of universal cognitive mechanisms which decode aspects of emotional vocalisations also mean that there are vocal sounds which mean the same whatever your language, as the emotions have been recognised from purely vocal stimuli and the meta-analysis supports the notion that this recognition is universal and therefore not dependent upon specific languages. However removing multiple channels of communication such as facial expression and body language isnt sufficient when one considers the linguistic context in which emotional vocalisations are usually realised (Pell et al., 2009); even to non-speakers a foreign language may convey linguistic features that somehow alter the meaning of vocal cues. In order to circumvented these potentially confounding effects speakers must express emotions through pseudo-utterances which mimic the morphosyntactic and phonotactic properties of the language presented (Scherer, Banse, Wallbott, 2001). It therefore seems sensible to suggest that the recognition of emotions cross-culturally through the presentation of pseudo-utterances, presented independently from other potential cues (such as facial expression and body language) will provide substantial evidence for there being vocal sounds that mean the same whatever your language; after-all all other confounding factors will have been removed other than the vocal sound itself. A number of studies using pseudo-utterances presented with purely vocal stimuli suggest that emotions can be recognised across languages by non-native speakers (Pell Skorup, 2008; Pell et al,. 2009a; Pell, Paulmann, Dara, Alasseri, Kotz, 2009b; Sauter et al., 2010). Although studies report a small in-group advantage when participants listen to pseudo-utterances based upon their native language (Pell et al., 2009b), similar results between non-native listeners suggests the presence of cross-linguistic vocal sounds with identical meanings, (Pell Skorup, 2008; Sauter et al., 2010). This argument is further strengthened when considering studies involving participants from groups with little to no cultural exposure to each other, such as Sauters (2010) study with the Himba people of northern Namibia. Here the correct identification of emotions from purely vocal pseudo-utterances lends weight to the argument of cognitive mechanisms derived from universal evolutionary adaptations, capabl e of decoding meaning from vocal utterances. Clearly with no cultural exposure (which may have enabled the learning of emotional expression in another culture) and with the correct identification away from other potential cues (such as a linguistic framework and body-language), it seems highly probable that the identification of emotions cross-culturally is in part due to universal evolutionary adaptations, which in turn enable the existence of vocal sounds that mean the same whatever your language. Cross-cultural data clearly provides evidence for vocal emotional expressions which exhibit core acoustic perceptual features that promote accurate recognition across languages (Pell Skorup, 2008). The use of pseudo-utterances removes linguistic structure and language itself as confounding variables, meaning that emotions successfully conveyed and recognised must be done so through associated changes in prosody, such as changes in timing, pitch, volume and the rate of speech (Frick, 1985; Scherer, 1986). Furthermore, it appears that the expression of these discrete emotions corresponds with distinct modulation patterns (Pell, 2001), for example vocal expressions of sadness tend to be conveyed with a lower pitch and at a slower speaking rate in comparison to other emotional vocalisations (Pell et al., 2009b). It should also be noted that as well as being the most distinct from other emotional vocalisations (in terms of its prosodic elements), sadness is also frequently cited as being one of the most accurately identified from vocal stimuli (Pell et al., 2009a, 2009b). This increase in recognition along with its high distinctiveness in terms of modulation patterns provides further evidence for accurate recognition as being due to prosodic elements, clearly the correlation lends support to the aforementioned theory that emotional vocalisations are recognised due to the recognition of distinct prosodic patterns. This line of thought is further supported when one considers that emotions with less distinct prosodic patterns have been associated with lower rates of recognition; for example surprise and joy have been shown to possess similar prosodic elements (Pell et al., 2009b) and in turn have been reported at low accuracy rates, with surprise frequently being incorrectly categorised as joy (Pell et al., 2009a, 2009b). The presence of distinct prosodic elements in the vocalisation of emotions further explains our premise that there are distinct vocal sounds which m ean the same whatever your language; this point is further supported by the correlation between the distinctiveness of a vocal expressions prosodic elements and higher levels of accurate recognition. Prosody has also been studied outside of emotional vocalisation, pointing to further universal cross-linguistic meanings such as dominance and submission, confidence and the signalling of a statement or question to the listener. Ohala (1984, 1996) claims that we associate fundamental frequency (f0) with sexual dimorphism, size and as a result dominance; with males lower and larger larynxs leading to a lower f0 and more confident vocalisations (Hurford, 2014, p.77-80). Similarities can be drawn from avian and other mammalian vocalisations with regards to f0, with low f0 vocalisations frequently made by individuals with greater dominance (Morton, 1977). In turn Ohalas (1984, 1996) claim is supported by a variety of evidence which shows low f0 voices to be interpreted as more masculine (Culver, as cited in Gussenhoven 2002; Junger et al., 2013) as well as being associated with dominant attributes such as confidence and leadership (Klofstad, Anderson, Peters, 2012). Whilst these studies predominantly focus on vocalisations from a Western language base (such as English and Dutch), the comparison across species as well as the universal presence of larger, lower based larynxs in human males (Hurford, 2014, p.77-80) suggests a universal evolutionary adaption, in which differences in the larynxs size and location have evolved due to the selective advantage they provide as a result of the meanings low f0 vocalisations confer with regards to dominance, size and aggression. Studies comparing these affective interpretations across a broader range of languages would add further to Ohalas conclusion (1984, 1996); however, it seems improbable that other language bases would offer different interpretations when considering the effect of low f0 vocalisations in our evolutionary ancestors, in addition to explanations concerning universal sexual differences of larynx size and location. The affective interpretations of f0 have been taken further from signals of dominance to signalling the distinctions between questions and statements (Ohala, 1984; Gussenhoven 2002). This seems a logical step when considering the nature of questions being relatively uncertain in meaning, whilst it seems probable that statements will need to confer more certainty in order to convey a more authoritative status. This is confirmed by cross-linguistic studies showing that higher f0 towards the end of vocalisations are frequently perceived as questions (Hadding-Koch Studdert-Kennedy, 1964; Gussenhoven Chen, 2000). Ohala (1994) claims that this pattern is too wide spread to be explained by a common linguistic source, suggesting its existence due to universal evolutionary adaptations. Gussenhoven and Chens (2000) study should be highlighted for its use of three languages (Hungarian, Dutch and Chinese) quite distinct from each other both in terms of structure and due to their status as belo nging to distinct separate language families; the fact that this interpretation of f0 is present in these three languages which have evolved separately removes the suggestion that its presence is tied to linguistic structure rather than universal evolutionary instilled cognitive mechanisms. Therefore cross-linguistic evidence suggests that a rise in f0 towards the end of a vocalisation signals a question whatever ones language, again providing evidence for cross-linguistic meaning in vocal sounds. To conclude, cross-linguistic studies support the claim that there are vocal sounds which mean the same whatever your language. Studies using pseudo-utterances remove the possibility of confounding variables such as linguistic structure or visual stimuli, showing that vocal sounds can carry information on affective states understood by the recipient whether or not they share a common language. Further cross-linguistic studies highlight the effect of prosody on meaning both in the deliverance of emotional vocal sounds as well as in a broader context; sounds which yet again have been shown to carry meaning across languages. Comparative research provides additional evidence for vocal sounds that carry meaning across languages, such as laughter in addition to displays of confidence and dominance. However, it remains important to consider these vocal sounds in an evolutionary context; vocal sounds with universal meanings must be understood as being due to biologically inherited adaptation s when one considers the lack of exposure many language groups have had with one another. References Ekman,P. (1992). Are there basic emotions? Psychological Review, 99(3), 550-553. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.99.3.550 Elfenbein,H.A., Ambady,N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128(2), 203-235. doi:10.1037//0033-2909.128.2.203 Falk,D. (2004). Prelinguistic evolution in early hominins: Whence motherese? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 491–541. doi:10.1017/S0140525X04000111 Frick,R.W. (1985). Communicating emotion: The role of prosodic features. Psychological Bulletin, 97(3), 412-429. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.97.3.412 Gussenhoven,C., Chen,A. (2000). Universal and language-specific effects in the perception of question intonation. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, 91-94. Gussenhoven, C. (2002). Intonation and interpretation: phonetics and phonology. In Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2002, , Aix-en-Provence, France (pp. 47-57 Hadding-Koch,K., Studdert-Kennedy,M. (1964). An experimental study of some intonation contours. Phonetica, 11, 175-185. doi:10.1159/000258338 Hurford,J.R. (2014). The origins of language: A slim guide. UK: OUP Oxford. Junger,J., Pauly,K., Brà ¶hr,S., Birkholz,P., Neuschaefer-Rube,C., Kohler,C., . . . Ute,H. (2013). Sex matters: Neural correlates of voice gender perception. NeuroImage, 79, .275-287. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.04.105 Klofstad,C., Anderson,R., Peters,S. (2012). Sounds like a winner: voice pitch influences perception of leadership capacity in both men and women. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279(1738), 2698-704. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0311 Meyer,M., Baumann,S., Wildgruber,D., Alter,K. (2007). How the brain laughs. Behavioural Brain Research, 182(2), 245–260. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2007.04.023 Morton,E.S. (1977). On the Occurrence and Significance of Motivation-Structural Rules in Some Bird and Mammal Sounds. American Naturalist, 01/1977(111), 855-869. doi:10.1086/283219 Panksepp,J. (2007). Neuroevolutionary sources of laughter and social joy: Modeling primal human laughter in laboratory rats. Behavioural Brain Research, 182, 231–244. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2007.02.015 Ohala,J.J. (1984). An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica, 41, 1 16. doi:10.1159/000261706 Ohala,J.J. (1996). Ethological theory and the expression of emotion in the voice. Wilmington: University of Delaware, 3, 1812-1815. doi:10.1109/ICSLP.1996.607982 Pell,M.D. (2001). Influence of emotion and focus location on prosody in matched statements and questions. Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, 109(4), 1668–1680. doi:10.1121/1.1352088 Pell,M.D., Monetta,L., Paulmann,S., Kotz,S.A. (2009). Recognizing emotions in a foreign language. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 33(2), 107-120. doi:10.1007/s10919-008-0065-7 Pell,M.D., Paulmann,S., Dara,C., Alasseri,A., Kotz,S.A. (2009). Factors in the recognition of vocally expressed emotions: A comparison of four languages. Journal of Phonetics, 37(4), 417-435. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2009.07.005 Pell,M.D., Skorup,V. (2008). Implicit processing of emotional prosody in a foreign versus native language. Speech Communication, 50(6), 519-530. doi:10.1016/j.specom.2008.03.006 Provine,R.R. (1996). Laughter. Laughter. American Scientist, 84, 38-47. Retrieved from http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Provine_96.html Provine,R.R., Fischer,K.R. (1989). Laughing, Smiling, and Talking: Relation to Sleeping and Social Context in Humans. Ethology, 83(4), 295–305. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1989.tb00536.x Ross,M.D., Owren,M.J., Zimmermann,E. (2009). Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans. Current Biology, 3(2), 191–194. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.028 Saul,H. (2014, July 31). Amazonian Indian tribe filmed making contact with Brazil village in rare video footage Americas World The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/video-shows-amazonian-indian-tribe-making-contact-with-brazil-village-9640077.html Sauter,D.A., Eisner,F., Ekman,P., Scott,S.K. (2010). Cross-cultural recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocalizations. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 107, 2408-2412. doi:10.1073/pnas.0908239106 Scherer,K.R. (1986). Vocal affect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99(2), 143-165. doi:10.1037//0033-2909.99.2.143 Scherer,K.R., Banse,R., Wallbott,H.G. (2001). Emotion inferences from vocal expression correlate across languages and cultures. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 32(1), 76-92. doi:10.1177/0022022101032001009 Scott,S.K., Lavan,N., Chen,S., Mcgettigan,C. (2014). The social life of laughter. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(12), 618-620. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.002

Essay --

The Canada-China relationship has been through many fluctuations since China’s establishment in 1949. The Canadian Cabinet decided to give its recognition in the same year as China’s establishment on 16 November. However, the diplomatic relations with China was not formed until 1970, two decades from Canada’s primary consideration. Though there were many factors influencing the Sino-Canadian relations since 1949, due to the limitation in length, this essay will focus on three main reasons, how the political consideration, the attention on human rights problems and Canada’s economic interests influenced its relations with China from 1949 to the 1990s. From 1949 to the 1960s, the relationship between China and Canada was strongly influenced by Canada’s political consideration. With Canada’s gradually pursuing of independent foreign policy together with the change in international climate eventually left the room for Canada’s recogniti on to China. Since then, the Canadian economic interest started to dominate any other factors in this bilateral relationship, even if Canada paid attention to China’s human rights problem. Thus, the Sino-Canadian relationship after the 1970s is a balance between Canada’s economic interests and human rights issues in China. This essay will examine the three factors thematically, and in each factor, it will follow a chronology order. In the first part of the essay, it will discuss Canada’s political consideration in recognition China when taking the U.S. influence and the change of international atmosphere into account. Canada’s willingness in achieving an independent foreign policy led to its formal relations establishment with China in the early 1970s. Then it will discuss how the Chinese human rig... ... China dominated the human rights problems, and enabled Canada-China to be an economic partnership of each other. From 1949 to the early 1960s, the American pressure that Canada received was the fundamental reason for the delay of recognition China. As Canada’s desire of pursuing an independent foreign policy grew stronger, the impact of the U.S. government on the normalizing relationship between Canada and China was less and less. After the establishment of relations in 1970, the bilateral relationship remained steady besides the human rights issue in China. When China dominated on the economic terms in the world, Canada preferred to cooperate with China. The economic trade between China and Canada brought positive influence to both economies, and the Sino-Canadian relationship should maintain at a peaceful and beneficial level if both states worked together.

Department of Marketing Studies &International Marketing Essay

Here is my report on â€Å"Foreign Exchange policy of EXIM BANK Limited : A Critical Evaluation † submitted to your honor. A methodological research was conducted to prepare the report for fulfillment of the requirement of Internship Program, an integral part to the academic curriculum for MBA. This report has been prepared on the basis of the findings out of the research work with practical knowledge, which includes collection of primary and secondary data, discussion with the executives and study on relevant books and publications. I have studied on relevant issues and tried to highlight the pros and cons of it accordingly in this regard. I have also tried to reflect all the findings of my study in this report to the point to make it a rich one. I would like to express my gratitude for your kind guidance in completion of the report assigned for me. I sincerely hope that this report will meet your expectation and will serve its purposes. Thanking you. Sincerely yours (Trishita Chowdhoury) Class Roll no.: 15036 Exam. Roll no.: 2000/88 Registration no.: 2445 MBA, Department of Marketing Studies &International Marketing University of Chittagong. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT All the praise and admiration for almighty God the most gracious, most merciful that has enabled me for successful completion and submission of this dissertation timely. I would like to express profound gratitude and indebtedness to my honorable teacher and Internship supervisor â€Å"Mr. Bazlur Rahman† Associate Professor Department of marketing, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh, for his direct concern, professional guidance, encouragement during my research work and for his critical suggestions and corrections of the manuscript in the preparation of this Internship up to this. I accord a deep sense of appreciation to the professor â€Å"Salamatullah Bhunia† Chairman of Marketing Department, University of Chittagong, for providing necessary facilities during my research time. I express my profound gratitude to all other respected and honorable teachers of our department for their mental boosting up and give their valuable advice during my research work. I shall be improper, if I don’t thank Mr. Md. Abdul Hasham, honorable Assistant Vice President & Manager of EXIM Bank (CDA Avenue Branch) who gave the opportunity to work in his well-reputed organization as internee. I offer my sincere thanks to all the officials of the EXIM Bank, CDA Avenue Branch, Chittagong, who cordially arrange and support me all time. I also grateful to the other officers and staffs of our Department of Marketing university of Chittagong for their continuous help during the research program. I am really thankful to all my all classmates of Department of Marketing who are always a source of inspiration for me in accomplishing this work. Finally, I would like to say thanks to all these people and looking forward for their continued support and cooperation in future. EXECUTIVE SUMMERY Today Banking Sector is much more integrated into both individual and also business organization. Banking sector has expanded today’s business world. A financial institution that is licensed to deal with money and its substitution by accepting time and demand deposit making, loans and investing in security is called Bank.   It can be expanded through Private and public own based. But in Bangladesh banking has extremely expanded in the current few years. In Bangladesh there are too many banking institution. They all are trying to keep their customer in a level through providing better service. All of are practice their activities through General banking like deposit collection, saving money, handling transfer transaction Loan and Advance like term loan, cash credit, industry loan, Foreign Exchange like letter of guarantee, import and export, remittance etc. Service from banking is seemed to vary from service provider organization to another service provider organization. This sensitive part gets more sensitivity when individual as well as country’s potentiality like â€Å"Foreign exchange policy â€Å" of a bank involves in there. And, it becomes more complex if that bank owned by a private sector and its also Shariah based banking  institution. This is why, I feel myself fortunate enough to win a chance for undergoing an internship program EXIM Bank limited special reference with CDA avenue branch. Foreign Exchange policy of our country approved by Bangladesh Bank. This specific policy must be follow by the all other bank. We know Export and import is the most important issue for every country. Every country’s national bank determined its policy, which are highly related to the country’s welfare. In our country our national bank Bangladesh Bank determined this policy. This profile reflects the unique position of the† Foreign Exchange Policy of EXIM Bank Bangladesh limited† is enjoying. So, i think a deep-rooted study may explore the mystery of its success side by side indicating the reason behind failure one to another service provider organizations. This study will comprise the exploratory findings of EXIM Bank Bangladesh limited its General Banking, Loan investment, Specially Foreign exchange policy, recommendations in the light of predetermined objectives, and methodology subject to acknowledgement of the affect caused by unavoidable limitation. In recent survey an important things comes out that is investor from other countries have getting interest to invest there. Investment from the other country highly related to the Foreign Exchange policy that include export and import business of a country. In here there is a problem that most of the policy has been taken from the highly qualified people but they take policy never talk with ultimate investor who are working in the rural level. EXIM Bank Bangladesh limited follows all of the policy strictly. But some times it also face problem for that policy. Working in the practical field researcher find that in some cases merchandiser want high priced L/C value if the bank is capable but it cannot do that for the policy limitations. So in that time they have to follow the other initiative, which create problem. Here the researcher make this report by the following way. Chapter -1 shows the introductory analysis. Chapter –2 shows theoretical analysis for the study. Chapter –3 shows overview of the EXIM Bank.Chapter-4 Analysis &Evaluation of FEP of EXIM Bank.Chapter-5 shows Major findings And  finally Chapter-5 shows recommendation and conclusion Here the most noticeable thing is that EXIM Bank Bangladesh limited creates about 23% growth about its foreign exchange policy. It enjoy all the facilities that it can.

China as a Superpower of the World Essay Example

China as a Superpower of the World Essay Example China as a Superpower of the World Essay China as a Superpower of the World Essay China had no effect on the world until one or two decades ago. In time, China has improved itself in many areas which are the economy, trade, introducing and popularizing their culture. Power depends on not only these things but also standpoint of people. Therefore, it is important to influence people. Thus, when we look at the world, Chinese have the impact on other people in these days. In other words; today, China gained a reputation as a rising nation in many areas. Thanks to this reputation, China is known all over the world. Therefore, China has significant power. First of all, although China is managed by the Republic, there are still seen the effects of communism, and it has some benefits in two areas. Firstly, the economy has been improved due to the communism because China started the mass production a decade ago. In this way, it is widespread known for the Chinese. However, China has a problem about that because communism does not allow people to have private goods. However, at the ends of the 1990s, China accepted a law which was about permitting Chinese to have private goods, and factories began to make industrial production. (Holmes, 2009) Hence, China has started to import and export goods. Thus, China’s economy has started to develop because Chinese have decreased the number of imported goods, and also they have increased the domestic production. That is why; they broke the import-export balance positively in recent years. Also, they got better their economy. Secondly, politics has been affected by the regime. Therefore, Chin a’s politics was affected from the communism, so there are still seen effects of communism especially in domestic policy. Regime alteration did not affect China’s domestic policy so much because the nature of politics comes from the history and its usual pattern. Hence, today China’s domestic policy is mostly same as at communism time, but this did not mean that Chinese live in the undevelop

Why Gun Control is Wrong essays

Why Gun Control is Wrong essays Once upon a time Americans had what they believed to be a solution to crime it was called gun control. Gun control was a relatively simple concept; if you reduce the amount of guns out on the streets then you reduce the amount of gun related crime. After a few months, however, something astonishing happened people started losing their minds crime actually increased once gun control took effect. The golden goose solution for diminishing crime was backfiring. How could this happen? An even more pressing question to consider is how such unconstitutional legislation could even be passed? Perhaps the most pressing issue today is gun control which is wrong because it impedes on an American's second amendment right and increases crime. First off, this great nation of ours had the courtesy to bless us with certain unalienable rights one of them being my best friend the second amendment. For those of you not familiar with the second amendment it reads A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Our founding fathers felt such conviction in the fact that their citizens should be allowed to protect themselves that they had it precede the vital rights of speech, religion, press, and assembly. In the book The Omnivores Dilemma author Pollan states Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling. It embarrasses me to write that, but it is true, (p.336) which simply illustrates the majesty of hunting and marksmanship. Clearly guns have considerable importance not only as a representation of protection but as sport. Pollan later goes on to speak of how if people went out of their way to hunt and gather food that it would free consumers of the burdens involved in finding food clear of steroids, pesticides, or other substances because they would know its purity(Po...

dogs essays

dogs essays A breed descended from the great Molloser that accompanied Hannibal across the Alps when he invaded Rome. Swissys were used by Swiss farmers to haul carts to market and as drivers to drive their cattle. Many Swissys still retain these working abilities today. The breed was used as late as World War II as pack dogs by the Swiss Army The breed was almost extinct around the turn of the century and numbers have been slowly increasing. Swissys are in great demand as pets because of their stable temperaments. Is a natural breed of wild origin. The over all impression is that of an extremely agile and graceful animal with a fox- like appearance. A tonal love is a unique characteristic of the breed. New Guinea Singing Dogs are highly active, lively, and alert. They are constantly exploring everything in their environment, using all five senses including taste. Although usually gentle and affectionate with people, they can be aggressive toward other dogs, especially of the same gender. Known in its homeland as Mah Thai Lang Aan, originates from eastern Thailand ( formerly Sion). This medium sized dog was originally used for hunting and as well as a guard dog at homes, and on the road as it escorted the carts. This is a well muscle dog that is closer to rectangular on body proportions than square. This dog is strong and has the ability to jump as well as being able to run at great speed. It is estimated that there are at least 500,000 dogs that are kept as pets or being used in their traditional jobs as watchdogs and traveling companion and with over 50,000 registered with the Dog Association of Thailand, throughout Thailand., I would cross all three of the previous dogs. From the Swissys I would take their calmness and hauling ability. From the N ...

Applying Standardized terminologies Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Applying Standardized terminologies - Coursework Example This essay describes a scenario of bedside patient care of a man with malaria to help evaluate the essentials of standardized terminologies and the related NANDA, NIC and NOC (Nolan 2004). Johnson, Maas & Moorhead (2000) outlines that; Nanda classifies Malaria as an infectious disease with intermittent fever, instigated by the parasite Plasmodium and spread by mosquito kind Anopheles in many subtropical and tropical regions. Because of its common nature, there are a plethora of records, data and information about its diagnosis and care. Subsequently, American Nurses Association (2006a) argues that there are certain terminologies standardized to malaria, according to the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) that nurses must master. In addition, there are also Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) records and in Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) with certain standardized language (Cavendish 2001) for malaria. According to Johnson et al. (2000), NANDA identifies malaria as infectious with symptoms of high fever, chills, muscle aches, tiredness and headaches. According to NANDA, malaria infections are common in tropical and sub-tropical areas and severe with children and pregnant women but also very severe with all other individual children and adults alike (Nolan 2004). NANDA outlines that the diagnosis for malaria includes nausea due to imbalance in food intake, risk for infection due to weak immune system for attacked patients and hyperthermia related to increased dehydration and metabolism. Related Factors include threat of death; threat to self-concept; threat to or alteration in health status, environment, contact patterns; interpersonal transmission of contagion and unmet needs The suggested NOC outcome-labels to these malarial situations include anxiety, stress, nausea, impulse control and aggression control. Client outcome according to NOC includes identifies and verbalizes symptoms of distress, Identifies, communicates in verbal

Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 25

Art - Essay Example The latter is evident in the Dago sculpture showing a seated couple in a way to depict unity and posture the fabric of African family structure. In addition, African art brings out the essence of its people’s consciousness of spiritual powers and their essence in the central life of its people. One of the works relaying this aspect encompasses minkisi (for ritualistic purpose), which emanates from Central Africa. Minkisi are mainly ritualistic containers used then to invoke spiritual mediation known to influence human existence. Another ritualistic art is the nowo though its representation is more of an invisible agent in the society thus emphasizing the African notion of believe in spirits. This is similar to Nigerian ijele Mask commonly used in funerals whereby its core role encompassed invoking the deceased person’s spirit such that his or her state easily can transition to that of the neither world nature. This is spiritual agency, which constitutes the African art though expressed or depicted in varied forms like sculpture, consumes, masks, music or through

Video games Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Video games - Essay Example Infamous events have created widespread debates regarding the negative consequences of video game violence. For example, a national discussion began regarding what connection video games may have had to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Though many motivations were likely involved, it is not reasonable to identify precisely what motivated these teenagers to shoot their schoolmates and teachers but violent video games were mentioned as a contributing reason. With enhanced realism and the increasing tendency towards greater amounts of graphic aggression in games, people who play violent video games should be educated to the possible consequences. When video games first appeared around 35 years ago, they were simple and seemingly harmless. Atari introduced Pong during the 1970’s, a video game version of table tennis. Arcade games such as Pac-Man and Asteroids were popular in the 1980’s. The seemingly harmless nature of video games noticeably evolved to cartoon-like ghost chomping to blatant violence in the 1990’s. Mortal Kombat, the most popular game of 1993, featured accurate portrayals of human-like characters fighting bloody battles. The purpose of the player in the game, as the name suggests, was to kill the enemy. Violent games even more brutal than Mortal Kombat dominate the video game market today. Near the end of that 1980’s, a study tested 33 of Sega and Nintendo’s most popular video games determined nearly 80 percent were violent. (Dietz, 1998). The study also revealed that a troubling one-fifth of the games portrayed violence towards women. It has also been demonstrated that playing violent video games encourages the tendency of experiencing hostile thought patterns by means of the ‘semantic priming process.’ Current studies reveal that hostile behaviors occur during controlled studies using independent scientific methods and in daily life circumstances as well. The playing of violent video games un questionably was associated with an increase of violent behavior. Other studies were conducted which considered the video game patterns of university students throughout their four year career which demonstrated that when in a normal, dorm-room surroundings, playing violent video games over a four year period was the initiating factor in incidences of aggressive behavior. This increase happened, not just when playing of the game but during other aspects of their lives too. Both studies revealed that violent video games negatively affected a person’s current emotional condition and increases feelings of hostility. The similar findings of these studies give added credibility to the contention that exposure to violent video games promotes aggressive behavior. Though the inclination for increased violent behaviors cannot be scientifically proven on the basis of two studies, this evidence corroborates the results of similar research. (Calvert & Tan, 1994). When playing a video gam e that uses ‘first person’ interaction, the player typically chooses a character whose personality the player identifies with. By manipulating the action of their character a player usually tries to visualize the game from their character’s perspective. The player ‘becomes’ that character, which enhances the players enjoyment of the game. Anyone who has seen two teen boys, or their fathers, playing video games has witnessed them envisioning they are the character that they are controlling. The second rationale entails the

Article review one Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Review one - Article Example In teaching business ethics, it is not necessary that the virtues are built from scratch but already developing students can be helped into becoming ethical business people. The article is informative in personal development and showcases the tactics used by business schools into grooming young people in developing the skills to excel in the corporate world. The article discussed the Aristotelian point of view of personal development and how the upbringing in a particular environment is responsible for the building of character and virtues. The type of upbringing and the scenarios that are faced by an individual during early life make a larger impact and direct the behavior of individuals accordingly. For example, if successful people are asked to change something about their life they tend to say that, they would rather spend more time with their families than on their business. The article further depicts how human behavior constantly keeps on changing with time and age. Perspective widens and a more open approach towards issues leads to better decision making or alteration. The incorporation of business example with everyday scenario makes the article gripping and coherent in conveying the view of point that how personal development can happen on any scale. This can apply to business as well where business students are given case stu dies that help them broaden their perspective and achieve goals. The article discusses character building and reshaping of virtues in business schools. The main point is how from an Aristotelian point of view, people develop their morals and virtues. Business ethics are far more different with respect to the fact that every client is different and needs to be dealt with in a different manner. There is a question of personal goals and then the ways through which it can be achieved. The

Automatic transmition vs manual transmition Essay

Automatic transmition vs manual transmition - Essay Example There are two main types of transmission systems in use today: manual transmission systems and automatic transmission systems. This paper shall analyse them using a literature review with the objective of establishing their operation, as well as the merits and demerits of each system. The first vehicular transmission system is the manual transmission system. One major characteristic of this transmission system is the driver’s ability to change the gear ratio using a gear lever as deemed necessary due to engine load changes or terrain differences (Denton, 2012). The driver achieves this degree of control over the power output fed to the vehicle’s wheels through a clutch system that disengages the engine from the drive shaft leading to the wheels. Manuals transmission systems mainly fall into two distinct groups: trans-axle transmission systems and in-line transmissions systems (Heisler, 2002). The former finds application in front-wheel vehicles such as normal family sedans, while the later is applied in four-wheel and rear-wheel drive vehicles. Automatic transmission systems distinguish themselves from manual transmission systems by virtue of the driver’s limitation in changing the vehicle’s gear ratios as this happens in an automated manner. These vehicles achieve this level of transmission automation through a torque converter powered by hydraulic fluid driven by the engine itself (Duan, 2014). Therefore, using a system of planetary gears and clutch packs, the engine’s own load and speed engages the required gear ratio using a set of blades in the converter system called the impeller and turbine (Erjavec, 2010). It is important to note that the workings of an automatic transmission unit are far more complicated that this report’s simplified outline, due to the existence of other complex components such as governors and modulators as well as numerous

Working capital management - a business organizations success Essay

Working capital management - a business organizations success - Essay Example Working capital management is essential for a business organization's success and even mere survival. By focusing in this aspect, companies are able to ensure sufficient cash flow in order to settle maturing short term obligations and finance expected operational expenses (McClure 2008). Without efficient techniques in managing working capital, a company can show profitability but might be illiquid to settle its current liabilities thereby jeopardizing its relationship with creditors. Working capital management also covers the efficient collection of accounts receivable and sale of inventory in order to generate cash. The better the company manages working capital, the less money it needs to borrow. Holding excessive cash is also seen as inefficient because it can be used for investment which maximizes shareholder wealth. One of the best examples of companies which benefits from focusing on working capital management is computer giant Dell, Inc. The company's success can be directly attributed to its efficient inventory management system which eliminates excessive production. In contrast with typical manufacturers, Dell's production is tied up with customer demand enabling it to get rid of inventory holding cost.

Article review one Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Review one - Article Example In teaching business ethics, it is not necessary that the virtues are built from scratch but already developing students can be helped into becoming ethical business people. The article is informative in personal development and showcases the tactics used by business schools into grooming young people in developing the skills to excel in the corporate world. The article discussed the Aristotelian point of view of personal development and how the upbringing in a particular environment is responsible for the building of character and virtues. The type of upbringing and the scenarios that are faced by an individual during early life make a larger impact and direct the behavior of individuals accordingly. For example, if successful people are asked to change something about their life they tend to say that, they would rather spend more time with their families than on their business. The article further depicts how human behavior constantly keeps on changing with time and age. Perspective widens and a more open approach towards issues leads to better decision making or alteration. The incorporation of business example with everyday scenario makes the article gripping and coherent in conveying the view of point that how personal development can happen on any scale. This can apply to business as well where business students are given case stu dies that help them broaden their perspective and achieve goals. The article discusses character building and reshaping of virtues in business schools. The main point is how from an Aristotelian point of view, people develop their morals and virtues. Business ethics are far more different with respect to the fact that every client is different and needs to be dealt with in a different manner. There is a question of personal goals and then the ways through which it can be achieved. The

Working capital management - a business organizations success Essay

Working capital management - a business organizations success - Essay Example Working capital management is essential for a business organization's success and even mere survival. By focusing in this aspect, companies are able to ensure sufficient cash flow in order to settle maturing short term obligations and finance expected operational expenses (McClure 2008). Without efficient techniques in managing working capital, a company can show profitability but might be illiquid to settle its current liabilities thereby jeopardizing its relationship with creditors. Working capital management also covers the efficient collection of accounts receivable and sale of inventory in order to generate cash. The better the company manages working capital, the less money it needs to borrow. Holding excessive cash is also seen as inefficient because it can be used for investment which maximizes shareholder wealth. One of the best examples of companies which benefits from focusing on working capital management is computer giant Dell, Inc. The company's success can be directly attributed to its efficient inventory management system which eliminates excessive production. In contrast with typical manufacturers, Dell's production is tied up with customer demand enabling it to get rid of inventory holding cost.

Son Of The Revolution Essay Example for Free

Son Of The Revolution Essay STRUGGLE AGAINST ONESELF; CRITICIZE REVISIONISM (p. 144) was a slogan often used during the Great Cultural Revolution. In reality, the Cultural Revolution was not great at all. It was an unwarranted attack on personal freedoms of Chinas people. The Chinese fought themselves, they even acknowledged it as a struggle. They looked upon this struggle as part of the great Cultural Revolution. At age 3, a boy should not be held accountable for his parents political status. Yet, Liang Heng was. One mistake on his mothers, Yan Zhi-de, behalf changed his life forever. Yan Zhi-de uttered the words that the leaders of the Party would not listen to the masses opinions when it came time to give raises. This led the Party to label her a rightist. What began as the Hundred Flowers Movement quickly changed to the Anti-Rightist Movement, leading many to the path of poor political performance. In turn, disgracing her family members, she was sent to become a peasant. For the rest of her life, Yan Zhi-de remained a peasant. After this incident, Liang Heng, Liang Wei-Ping, and Liang Fang had been labeled Rightists children. Though each of the children attempted to fit in, the other students picked fights with Liang Heng and the children never had the opportunity to join the Red Guards. Not until Liang Heng tricked his way into being admitted into the group. Liang Heng saw many different aspects of the Cultural Revolution. He became a student, a peasant, a basket ball player, factory worker, and finally an intellectual (writer.) Liang Heng had been falsely accused of many crimes throughout his life, and he held his ground firmly. Fate had another choice for Liang Fang. Though she would try desperately to join the Communist Youth League, she was never able to. However, she did join the Red Guards and later became a Rebel. Ultimately, she ended up as a peasant until her mid-twenties. Liang Wei-Ping joined the Educated Youth which was the determining factor that led her to become a peasant. Liang Shan had one of the most miserable situations out of the entire family. Once his wife had been declared a rightist, he immediately attempted to  break off all relations with her. This was unsuccessful. Everything in his life went downhill from there. He was publicly humiliated and suffered mental torture due to the fact that he had to criticize himself. Liang Shan was sent to a re-education center for a number of years, then spending the rest of his days in the countryside. He eventually had a stroke and lost the abilities of his left side. The Cultural Revolution was a serious mistake. A mistake that took many happy homes and destroyed them. Neglecting to seriously care about the people of his country, Chairman Mao started a disaster. Thankfully, this disaster ended with his death. That allowed people to live somewhat normal lives, compared to the horrible lives the lower class was forced to live during the Cultural Revolution.

Detailed Analysis Of Silent Hill Two Media Essay

Detailed Analysis Of Silent Hill Two Media Essay Silent Hill 2 is a 2001 survival horror/puzzle game released for the playstation 2 by Konami. It is the sequel to the first Silent Hill game released in 1999 for the original playstation. Silent Hill 2 is seen by many as landmark game, which capitalised on elements of game design previously ignored or seen as of secondary importance. It is difficult to categorise the appeal of Silent Hill 2, as at first glance its gameplay could appear primitive or certainly repetitive, while its subject matter and storyline are nothing new to the horror genre. To put it in more prosaic terms Silent Hill 2 is very much more than the sum of its parts, and this makes it a particularly interesting candidate for in depth analysis. For the greatest part of this essay I will refer to the game via the shorthand reference: SH2. Gameplay in SH2 revolves around a mixture of puzzle solving and simple combat. As the main protagonist progresses through the town of Silent Hill, he must fight various monsters using a variety of weapons. These range from a simple plank to a hunting rifle. In keeping with the survival horror nature of the game, ammunition is quite scarce as are the supplies necessary for healing, and individual enemies can take significant time and effort to kill. The player will find him/herself conserving ammunition for the stronger enemies and bosses, and thus any encounter with a monster brings with it a sense of trepidation and anxiety. Even the least powerful of the monsters becomes formidable if the players health and ammo is low, and he/she is forced to use the wooden plank. This is compounded by the fact that the enemies in SH2 are extremely resistant to damage and take a considerable time to kill outright (though they may be knocked to the ground for a temporary immobilisation). All of the se elements combine to nurture a sense of extreme reluctance to progress through the towns environs, and help create a fear of the unknown path ahead. Unfortunately the game fails to find the right balance between challenge and enjoyability with its combat. Defeating the monsters in Silent Hill is far more tedious than it is gripping. There is far too little variety in the methods of attack and too much time is required to kill each one that soon combat becomes a slow and repetitive affair of repeatedly swinging the iron bar at low powered enemies in order to conserve ammo. Furthermore once an enemy locks into combat with the player, it no longer becomes necessary to reposition the main character, resulting in gameplay requiring no more input than holding down the attack button. There is no heads up display in SH2, and the player must access the start menu to see how much ammo or health remains. When the player has taken excessive damage the playstation controller will subtly vibrate alerting him/her to the condition they are in. This merely adds to the frustrating nature of the combat in SH2, as no clear indication of how much damage can be taken against an enemy is ever given. This results in the player frequently dying while fighting the numerous minor enemies, even with plenty of health packs in reserve. Attacks given and received in combat are accompanied by a vibration of the controller which masks the warning vibrations when close to death and further jeopardises health management. This is a grave shortcoming which detracts from the rather well designed puzzle element of SH2. Puzzles range from fairly untaxing instances of collecting and combining items to extremely cryptic riddles requiring a good deal of thought to solve. The riddles show imagination in their intricacy and leave the player with a sense of achievement for having solved them. Unfortunately instances of these riddles are far less frequent than the occurrence of monsters in silent hill. SH2 is the story of James Sunderland, a man looking for his deceased wife after receiving a letter from her which says that she is waiting for him in the town of Silent Hill, a place where they used to holiday when she was alive. James wife was named Mary, and he begins the game with a photograph of her along with the letter signed by her in his inventory. The game begins with James having driven to Silent Hill only to find the entrance road blocked. He stops at a highway toilet , examines his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, reads the letter from his wife again and decides to enter the town on foot. James commences walking through the woods. The games atmosphere is established early on by thick fog and strange disconcerting noises as he makes his way. James eventually comes upon a graveyard and we are introduced to the games first non-playable character: Angela. As James finds her she is sitting among the tombstones. The conversation between the two seems disjointed. This sets the tone for the dialogue in the game. Much of what Angela says makes little sense, James asks her questions but she seems incapable of giving him a straight answer, as though her thoughts are not fully in the present. We gather enough from what she says to learn that she is looking for her mama in Silent Hill. At a later point in the game we learn that Angela had an abusive childhood and that this has left her with a desire to end her own life. Her father was killed (it seems likely by Angela), and the family home burned down. James proceeds to enter the town proper. Everything is covered in a thick fog. The town looks for the most part normal except that it is utterly deserted and the cars, signage, and architecture have an outdated feel. We soon meet our first enemy- a non descript grotesque humanoid shape which James dispatches with the aid of a wooden plank. Soon James finds himself in an apartment building. The building is in an appalling state of repair, displaying many signs of decay with walls stained horribly with rust, mildew and blood. Here we meet our second character, Eddie. The room we find Eddie in does not display such advanced decay. Eddie is in the process of vomiting into the toilet when we meet him, and the body of a human can be seen in the kitchen unit. This is not overly remarkable in light of the monsters roaming the apartment, but Eddie is instantly defensive in his conversation with James, and his frequent uncalled for denials that he murdered the man in the kitchen lead us to suspect that he in fact did. It is noteworthy that Eddie never mentions the monsters, which would conveniently explain the body. Eddie appears to be a man of limited intelligence- coarse, with a cruel side to his nature. When James finds his way out of the apartment he discovers a little girl named Laura wandering the streets by herself. Laura tells James that she shared a ward with Mary in the hospital during Marys illness. This strikes James as highly suspect, Mary was supposed to have died three years ago, when Laura would have been very young indeed. He tries to question Laura on the matter but just like the previous conversations with Angela and Eddie, it bears little fruit. James continues on towards Rosewater Park, one of the places which would fit Marys description of a special place from her letter. Instead of Mary James meets a woman who calls herself Maria. James is astounded at Marias appearance, as she looks almost identical to his dead wife Mary. Their personalities are less similar however; Mary is extraverted and bawdy whereas Mary was reserved and ladylike. Maria is dressed in a suggestively low cut outfit with a mini skirt and an incident later on in Heavens Night strip club infers that she works as a stripper. Maria says she doesnt know Mary and takes James confusing of the two women badly. It is significant that James should meet Maria in the place he expected Mary, not to mention the similarities in appearance. Maria resolves to join James in his search for Mary. After an episode in the hospital Maria is violently killed on front of James by a sinister pyramid headed monster which is seemingly impervious to attack. Later on he finds her i nexplicably alive and well before she is again killed on front of him. This pattern repeats itself three times in the game, as James is forced to witness his dead wifes doppelganger murdered in front of him. James receives no explanation for this, or the manner in which Maria seems to share memories of Mary with James; and though she becomes angry when James confuses the two women, it seems that even she confuses herself with Mary. James surmises that Marys special place must be the hotel by the lake and makes his way there. He encounters Laura and Eddie at various times but their conversations reveal little apart from the extent of their mutual confusion. In a prison on the way to the Hotel James meets Eddie in a room full of recently murdered human corpses. This is strange as Silent Hill appears to have been deserted for some time. Eddie has lost his mind, and starts talking about having to kill people for making fun of him. Eddie becomes convinced James is just like all the rest and tries to kill James but fails, losing his own life in the process. James finally reaches the Hotel. A look in the games inventory screen reveals that Marys note has gone blank. This raises the question of whether or not it ever existed. James reaches the room where he and Mary stayed. The room is in perfect condition and is empty apart from a vcr and a television. James inserts a video he found elsewhere in the Hotel and watches in horror at footage of himself putting a pillow over Marys face in her hospital bed. It finally becomes clear- James killed Mary. He sits with his head bowed for some time until Laura enters. We wonder how she made it into the hotel past all of the monsters and traps. James tells Laura he killed Mary. At this point the player realises the origin of James confusion. Mary was dying and James killed her and subsequently blocked out the memory. Now the chronology of the game makes more sense; Mary didnt die but merely got sick three years ago and James killed her much more recently. This explains how Laura had met her not long ago. It transpires that Marys illness badly affected her appearance and demeanour, causing her to lash out at James. This goes some way to explaining why James did what he did. Just before the final boss James again meets Angela. She is consumed by despair and James can do nothing to dissuade her from suicide. James is forced to witness the death of Maria at the hands of pyramid head one last time before proceeding to the roof of the Hotel where an evil incarnation of either Mary or Maria (depending on the players actions during the game) awaits. There are four endings to SH2: 1: In the Leave ending, the woman on the roof is Maria yet again, disguised as Mary in an attempt to trick James. James refuses her and Maria transforms into a monster. After James defeats this Boss Maria, he finds himself by Marys bedside once again. He explains to Mary that he killed her to end her suffering but also selfishly to end his own difficulty in having to care for her. He reads Marys letter in full and then leaves the town with Laura. 2: The in water ending is the same as above except instead of leaving with Laura we hear the sounds of James car driving into a lake. We surmise that he could not live without Mary and chose to drown himself. Marys letter scrolls across a screen with a watery background. 3: In the Maria ending James is reunited with Maria after the fight and the pair leave town together. As he helps her into his car she begins coughing. It seems likely that Maria will fall ill just like Mary did. It could be construed as a punishment for James, or perhaps even a chance of salvation if he sees Marias illness to the end, the way he never did for Mary. 4: The rebirth ending, which can only be unlocked during a replay sees James killing boss Maria, and then taking Marys body out to an island in Toluca Lake via boat. It appears as though he intends to resurrect Mary using various talismans he found in game at the church on the island. SH2, with its multiple endings and abundant ambiguity has no single reading or interpretation. Just as James discovers his own true past after watching the video the player must assemble his/her own definitive narrative based on the events they have witnessed. Many of the events negate each other, or have causes and consequences which are mutually exclusive. These include Marys note which disappears partway through the game, or Marias frequent resurrections. It becomes apparent after some reflection that if SH2 provides an account of these inconsistencies it is not made explicit and its left up to the player to make sense of events. The one theme each one of the endings have in common is that someone along the line in the story, be it Maria or Mary, turns out to be a figment of James imagination. Given that each ending allows for this possibility it seems likely that much of what James has experienced in Silent Hill was a product of his own mind. This reasoning is the only way to bui ld a logical picture of the events of SH2. The best way to examine this theory is to look closer at James encounters with the other characters in the game. The characters in SH2 converse with each other in a disjointed way, as though each inhabits a separate reality which only they have access to. It appears as though the town presents a subjective reality to each person who visits it. It also makes sense to think that each characters reality can only be observed when they meet face to face. The evidence for this is quite strong when one examines how the characters interact. Eddie never once mentions the monsters that threaten James, for him Silent Hill is a place full of people who make fun of him. James never sees any of these people except lying dead in and around Eddie. The town is less dilapidated when we meet Eddie, such as in the apartment room, where sports posters adorn the wall. It is uncertain why Silent Hill drew Eddie to it but his experience there is a failure, he loses his mind and commences slaughtering everyone. His experience of Silent Hill ends when he meets a real person- James, who kills him. Angela provides an even more dramatic example. When James rescues her she is being threatened by a monster that she refers to as daddy. This scene provides a good insight into how the town manifests itself to different people. The room is full of the decor of a domestic living room, even though it occurs in an underground labyrinth. Angela apparently sees Silent Hill through the eyes of her childhood. She saw her father while all James saw was a monster. The last time James meets Angela it is in the burning hallway. This seems to be a representation of how her childhood home burned down. James remarks that its hot as hell in here, while Angela replies You see it too? For me its always like this. The fire only exists when Angela is near; when James leaves the room, the Hotel is back to its damp rotting self. The town seems perfectly normal in the presence of Laura, and this explains how an eight year old girl could run from place to place without being harassed by monsters. In the bowling alley we find Laura and Eddie together eating a pizza. This too is revealing. The silent Hill James experiences is far too old and unsanitary a place to find food in, whereas for Laura and Eddie it appears just ordinary enough to find a pizza. Now we have some idea of how the town works for different people we can make more sense of James experiences. Firstly the chances of Maria being a real person seam dubious. Unlike the other characters in the game Maria is the only one who shares James experiences and can witness the things he can. This is evidence against her existence outside of James imagination, as none of the other characters seem to have any idea what James means when he talks of monsters. Furthermore none of the other characters ever see Maria, and when she and James arrive at the bowling alley she stays outside, away from Laura and Eddie so as not to reveal her illusory nature by appearing on front of people who cannot see her. There is also the more obvious discrepancy of her many deaths and resurrections; the other characters seem much more conventional in this regard. Finally there are the comparisons between Maria and Mary. She has the same body, and appears in the same spot James expects to see Mary- all suggestive of an imaginary Maria hypotheses; a construct of James mind composed of elements of his dead wife. Pyramid head, like all the monsters in SH2, is a further construct of James imagination. He plays a role in that he forces James to face his own guilt by killing the image of his wife before his eyes again and again. James admits this to himself before the final fight with the twin pyramid heads: thats why I needed you, needed someone to punish me for my sins. Interestingly James never actually harms pyramid head during combat. All the encounters with him are survived by endurance rather than by beating him. In the end it is pyramid head that kills himself. So the definitive narrative of SH2 is thus: James, forced to care for what was left of his sick wife, decided to kill her rather than have either of them suffer any longer. Once he had killed her however, he was filled with feelings of guilt and began living in denial, telling himself and others that she had died three years ago. In fact however; he hated himself, and needed to face the truth of what he had done, and so he was drawn to the town of Silent Hill where the forces of the town led him on a journey to face himself. Aesthetically SH2 has a very unified and clear vision of itself. As an audio visual experience the different elements tie together very well and form quite a cohesive feeling game of seamless stylistic integrity. Particular attention was given to the design of the monsters which reflect the nature of James inner turmoil. Apart from pyramid head every monster in SH2 is feminine in nature. Even the indistinguishable humanoid shapes that spit acid have high pitched female voices and long legs. Some of the monster designs have sexual overtones such as the mannequins or the nurses. It seems plausible to read this as a manifestation of James relationship towards womankind since he murdered his wife. It could even be said that the form of the monsters are derived from the nature of Marys disfiguring illness. The sense of atmosphere in SH2 is superbly well crafted. To this end the designers have employed prolific use of heavy fog and darkness to create a fear of progressing forward into the unknown. This is coupled with the use of a noise grain filter that lends an organic feel to the textures and ties in with the static motif reflected in the radio. The noise filter plays tricks on the eye, making walls appear to crawl and adding to the sense of chaos and unease. Every area exhibits a very high level of detail, with various bits of rubbish, graffiti, and detritus creating a thoroughly believable, lived in, (though abandoned) town. The minimal soundtrack is no less appropriate, with Akira Yamaoka opting more for industrial or ambient soundscapes than a conventional soundtrack (although a conventional song was also composed for the game). The imagination displayed in the composition of the soundtrack is impressive. Yamaoka employed very few conventional instruments, instead creating deeply unsettling otherworldly cacophonies of banging iron, bee-hives, saws, miscellaneous improvised percussion, sirens, wild animals, and heavy machinery. It is unfortunate therefore considering the quality of SH2 as an aesthetic experience, to find it marred by the camera. SH2 uses a third person viewpoint at all times with only a miniscule degree of control afforded to the player. The game has a very cinematic attitude to camera placement and as a result the camera is tyrannical in its inflexibility. Examination of the detail in the graphics is forbidden at all times by the camera, which will change position at the drop of a hat to the other side of a room. Though the camera positions are clearly deliberately chosen to lend the game an avant-garde and cinematic veneer they succeed only in hampering movement, increasing combat difficulty and generally detracting from SH2s enjoyment on every level. In conclusion the strength of Silent Hill 2 lies in its ability to tell a compelling and intriguing story while successfully evoking a palpably uneasy atmosphere. SH2 represents an advance in the video game as form, as it redefines the areas in which a game succeeds at entertaining. By all traditional standards the gameplay is uninspired, even tedious at times, yet SH2 remains a deeply affecting and compelling experience. The attention to detail in the feel of the game, along with the subtle, mature, and ambiguous storyline create a game of tremendous artistic unity, which represents a true formal leap in video games. .

An Analysis Of Nature In The W Essay -- essays research papers

An Analysis of Nature in the works of Robert Frost When reading poetry by Robert Frost the theme of nature is strongly present and persistent. Robert Frost uses the world around him to create a mystic feeling to his writings, almost giving the reader a sense of nostalgia. The influence of nature in Frost’s works creates a palette to paint a picture filled with symbolism for the reader to interpret. The nature in the poems makes the poem an intimate piece in which most readers can identify with or imagine in some way because of the intense imagery used. In the analysis of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, Nothing Gold Can Stay, and Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening we can pick out specific examples to illustrate Frost’s overall use of nature. In the first stanza of Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening we find the speaker reflecting on the beauty of a wooded area with snow falling. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. (p.923) You can feel the speakers awe and reflective peace when looking into the woods that night. He doesn’t know the owner of the land but is still drawn to the beauty of the scene. Frost gives a scene that is taken into the reader and digested for a time in the speaker’s mind. It shows us that it is all right to take a minute out of a hurried hour and reflect upon what is around you, whether it is a snowy wood or a quite ... An Analysis Of Nature In The W Essay -- essays research papers An Analysis of Nature in the works of Robert Frost When reading poetry by Robert Frost the theme of nature is strongly present and persistent. Robert Frost uses the world around him to create a mystic feeling to his writings, almost giving the reader a sense of nostalgia. The influence of nature in Frost’s works creates a palette to paint a picture filled with symbolism for the reader to interpret. The nature in the poems makes the poem an intimate piece in which most readers can identify with or imagine in some way because of the intense imagery used. In the analysis of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, Nothing Gold Can Stay, and Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening we can pick out specific examples to illustrate Frost’s overall use of nature. In the first stanza of Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on A Snowy Evening we find the speaker reflecting on the beauty of a wooded area with snow falling. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. (p.923) You can feel the speakers awe and reflective peace when looking into the woods that night. He doesn’t know the owner of the land but is still drawn to the beauty of the scene. Frost gives a scene that is taken into the reader and digested for a time in the speaker’s mind. It shows us that it is all right to take a minute out of a hurried hour and reflect upon what is around you, whether it is a snowy wood or a quite ...

Biography of Charles Cromwell :: English Civil War Generals Military Essays

Biography of Charles Cromwell As a general on the parliamentary side of the English Civil War vs. Charles I, Cromwell helped bring about the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy, and he raised his country's status to that of a leading European power since the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Being a man with strong character made him one of the most remarkable rulers in modern European history. Although he was a convinced Calvinist he believed deeply in the value of religious toleration. Cromwell's victories at home and abroad helped to vitalize a Puritan attitude of mind, in Great Britain and in North America, which has continued to influence political and social life until recent times. (Gaunt, 1996) Cromwell, the only son of Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward was born in Huntingdon, England in 1599. His father, who was active in local affairs, had been a member of one of Queen Elizabeth's parliaments. Robert Cromwell died when his son was 18, but his widow lived to the age of 89. Oliver went to the local grammar school and then for a year attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. After his father died he left Cambridge to go care for his mother and sisters but it is believed that he studies at Lincoln's Inn in London, where gentlemen could acquire a smattering of law. In 1620 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier, a merchant in London. They had five sons and four daughters. (Kathe, 1984) Both his father and mother were Protestants who had profited from the destruction of the monasteries during the reign of King Henry VIII, and they probably influenced their son in his religious upbringing. Both his schoolmaster in Huntingdon and the Master of Sidney Sussex College were enthusiastic Calvinists and strongly anti-Catholic. In his youth Cromwell was not very studious, since he enjoyed outdoor sports, such as hunting; but he was an avid reader of the Bible, and he admired Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World. Cromwell learned that the sins of man could be punished on earth but that God, through His Holy Spirit, could guide the elect into the paths of righteousness. (Kathe, 1984) In the early parts of his married life Cromwell, like his father, was quite conscious of his responsibilities to his fellow men and concerned himself with affairs in his native fenlands, but at the same time he had a spiritual and psychological struggle which confused him and damaged his health.

Birth Control for Teenagers

The term birth control is generally defined as the â€Å"deliberate prevention of pregnancy using any of several methods† (â€Å"Birth Control†). It is sometimes referred to as contraception (â€Å"Birth Control†). A deeper view of the term would reveal that it ranges from the most popular, which is the pills, up to the traditional, which is the method of abstinence (Avert. org). Its definition alone does not prescribe anything about the age group as to whom this should be administered. Recent studies would place better light on the administration of birth control for teenagers as early as their age and the benefits would bounce back on to them.Likewise, the purpose of birth control is not the prevention of pregnancy alone but also includes health safety reasons and for medical purposes. It serves as a means of preventing the spread of HIV diseases among teenagers who are especially at risk for unprotected sexual intercourse. Moreover, pills, as one of the method s for birth control, are sometimes prescribed by doctors for â€Å"medical reasons, such as excessively heavy periods, severe menstrual cramps, or acne† (Greenfield).These purposes stated above places birth control means with a lot of uses and does not solely mean the prevention of pregnancy, as it is commonly referred to. The benefits of providing birth control for teenagers exceed the moral speculations attached to it. The speculations and allegations of the harm that birth control would bring would certainly place the teenagers at a very disadvantaged position. A primary benefit of birth control being given to teenagers is that it would increase their awareness at a very early age.Awareness of the birth control methods through proper education is not a means of preparing them to have sex. Rather, it is a means of preparing them to live healthy and responsible teenage lives. This would enable them to instill a sense of heightened awareness before they decide to engage in se x. The act of engaging into sexual intercourse by teenagers could not be avoided because of the stage of puberty they are going through. This is especially true with teenagers with teenagers with weak social support groups.Likewise, the awareness they receive at an early age would become a tool they could use to decide whether they would want to engage in sexual intercourse or not. With the use of the information they are properly provided, they would have the chance to enhance their decision-making skills and would give the chance to make informed decisions. In addition to an informed judgment, birth control would prevent unwanted pregnancies and would reduce the number of teenage parents. This would provide a great benefit for the USA in relation to the latest statistics on teenage pregnancies.According to the report, â€Å"The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $9 b illion annually† (Teenpregnancy. org). With the alarming rate of teenage pregnancies today, it is best to mitigate the impact of such and help these teenagers as early as possible. It should be taken into account that the introduction of birth control to teenagers should be accompanied by several other factors for it to be considered as a successful one.First, it should have with it the proper information as stated earlier. Factors that should be considered when making the awareness campaign would have to be that it contains the proper use of such, its importance especially to the teenage group, the purpose behind it, and the persons or organizations to whom teenagers could talk to about this. It should be clearly shown that the purpose for giving them birth control is not to persuade them into having teenage sex. Rather, it is to prepare them and inform them about the risks and importance of planning for their future.Second, the important social support groups should constant ly give teenagers with advice with regard to sensitive issues related to birth control. They would serve as the ones who would reinforce the values laid down by proper information dissemination. Third, trust should be given by parents to their children when it comes to birth control. Along with trust should be the constant reminder of the things they need to do. More often than not, barriers to communication between the parents and the teenagers result to disagreements between the two and would even bring them dissatisfaction and rebellion.There is nothing wrong with teenagers receiving birth control especially so that abstinence is a form that is advocated by both religious and civic groups and is included in the list of birth control methods. This brings further light to the fact that birth control does not enhance the sexual activity of teenagers. Being the most vulnerable of them all, the opportunity to be protected, educated, and provided with birth control methods should never be taken away from them. It is a right which should be given to all women and men alike and to all age groups. Works Cited Avert. org.Birth Control and Contraception for Teenagers. 26 June 2007. Avert. 22 August 2008 [http://www. avert. org/cpills. htm]. â€Å"Birth Control. † In Microsoft ® Student 2007 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Greenfield, Marjorie. Myths and Realities about Giving the Pill to Preteens, Teens. 2 August 2008. The Dr. Spock Company. 22 August 2008 [http://www. drspock. com/article/0,1510,6127,00. html]. Teenpregnancy. org. General Facts and Stats. November 2006. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. 22 August 2008 [http://www. teenpregnancy. org/resources/data/genlfact. asp].

The Blue Sword CHAPTER SIX

She remembered little more of that day. She settled herself on a heap of cushions a little way from the long table while the king and his men talked; and if they spoke at all of her, she did not know it, but she did notice that none but Corlath ever allowed his eyes to rest on her. The feeling she had had earlier, before she had tasted the Water of Seeing, that the closeness among the king and his men in some way supported her, was gone; she felt lost and miserably alone, and she decided that when there were eighteen people pretending you didn't exist in a small enclosed area, it was worse than two people pretending you didn't exist outside under the sky. The shadows nickered strangely through the tent, and the voices seemed muffled. There was a ringing in her ears – a ringing not like the usual fear-feeling of one's blood hammering through one's body, but a real ringing like that of distant bells. She could almost discern the notes. Or were they human, the shifting tones of s omeone speaking, far away? The taste still on her tongue seemed to muffle her brain. And she was tired, so tired †¦ When his Riders left, Corlath stood looking down at his captured prize. She had fallen asleep, and no wonder; she was smiling a little in her sleep, but it was a sad smile, and it made him unhappy. However much formal honor he showed her, seating her at his left hand, setting his household to serve her as they served him – he grimaced – he knew only too well that by stealing her from her people he had done a thing to be ashamed of, even if he had had no alternative – even if she and the kelar she bore were to do his beloved country some good he could not otherwise perform. Perhaps she could learn to see something of what made the Hills and their people so dear to him as a man, not as a king – ? Perhaps her Gift would bind her to them. Perhaps she would hate them for her lost land and family. He sighed. Forloy's young wife had not wished to hate the Hills, but that had not helped her. Harry woke in the dark. She did not know where she was; the shapes beneath her were not of pillow and mattress, and the odor of the air had nothing in common with Residency air, or Homeland air. For a moment hysteria bubbled up and she was conscious only of quelling it; she could not think, not even to decide why she wished to bottle up the panic – her pride automatically smothered her fear as best it could. Afterward she lay exhausted, and the knowledge of where she was reformed itself, and the smell was of the exotic woods of the carven boxes in the Hill-king's tent. But as she lay on her back and stared into the blackness, the tears began to leak out of her eyes and roll down her cheeks and wet her hair, and she was too tired to resist them. They came ever faster, till she turned over and buried her face in the scratchy cushions to hide the sobs she could not stop. Corlath was a light sleeper. On the other side of the tent he opened his eyes and rolled up on one elbow and looked blindly toward the dark corner where his Outlander lay. Long after Harry had cried herself to sleep again, the Hill-king lay awake, facing the grief he had caused and could not comfort. When Harry woke again, the golden tent flap had been lifted, and sunlight flashed across the thick heavy rugs to spill across her eyes and waken her. She sat up. She was still curled on and around a number of fat cushions; the back of the hand her cheek had lain against was printed with the embroidered pattern of the pillow beneath it. She yawned and stretched, gingerly pulling the knots of midnight fears out of her muscles. One of the men with a mark on his forehead approached her, knelt, and set a small table with pitcher and basin and towels and brushes before her. She saw nothing of Corlath. The tent looked as it had when she had first entered it the day before; the low tables had been removed, and the peak lamp raised again. When she had washed, she was brought a bowl of an unfamiliar cereal, hot and steaming like Homelander porridge, but of no grain she recognized. It was good, and she surprised herself by eating it all with good appetite. She laid down her spoon, and one of the men of the household approached again, bowed, and indicated that she should go out. She felt crumpled, in the same garments she had slept in; but she shook them out as best she could, observed that they didn't seem to wrinkle horribly as Homelander clothing would have done, raised her chin, and marched out – to be met by another man with a pair of boots for her, and a folding stool to sit on while she fumbled with the lacing. She felt a fool, let loose, however involuntarily, in a highly organized community which now wished to organize her too: like the grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a b it of ocean floor? Did she want to go back? What did she have to go back to? But what was Dickie thinking of her absence? She had no more tears at present, but her eyelids were as stiff as shutters, and her throat hurt. People were moving hastily across the open space before the king's tent; and as she watched, the outlying tents began to come down. They seemed to float down of their own accord; all was graceful and quiet. If anyone was doing any protracted cursing over the recalcitrance of inanimate objects, it was only under his breath. Her brother should see this. She smiled painfully. She blinked, her eyes adjusting slowly to the bright sunlight. The sky overhead was a cloudless hard blue, a pale metallic blue. It was morning again; she'd slept almost a full day. To the left rose a little series of dunes, so gradually that she only recognized their height by the fact that her horizon, from where she stood, was the tops of them. Somewhere in that direction lay the General Mundy, the Residency, her brother – and farther, much farther, in that same direction, over desert and mountain, plain and sea, lay her Homeland. She felt the sand underfoot, nothing like the springy firm earth of Home, no more than the queer soft boots she wore were like her Homeland boots; and the strange loose weight of her robes pulled on her shoulders. The king's tent was being dismantled in its turn. First the sides were rolled up and secured, and she saw with surprise that the rugs and lamps, chests and cushions, were already gone from inside; all that remained was the sand, curiously smoothed and hollowed from what it had borne. She wondered if they might have rolled her up like an extra bolster if she had not awakened; or if they would have packed up all around her, leaving her on a little island of cushions in a sea of empty sand. The corner posts and the tall central ones folded up on themselves somehow, and the roof sank to the ground with the same stateliness she had admired in the smaller tents. She counted ten of the household men rolling and folding and tying. They stooped as they worked, and the great tent in only minutes was ten neat white-and-black bundles, each a mere armful for one of the men. They walked to a line of horses who stood patiently as their high-framed saddles were piled with boxes and bundles such as t hose the king's tent made. She noticed how carefully each load was arranged, each separate piece secured and tested for balance before the next was settled. At the end all was checked for comfort, and the horse left with a pat on the nose or neck. Horses were the commonest animals in the camp; there were many more horses than people. Even the pack horses were tall and elegant, but she could pick out the riding-horses, for they were the finest and proudest, and their coats shone like gems. There were also dogs: tall long-legged dogs with long narrow beautiful skulls and round dark eyes, and long silky fur to protect them from the sun. Some were haltered in pairs, and all were members of three or four separate groups. Sight-hounds, Harry thought. The groups roamed as freely as the untethered horses, yet showed no more inclination than they to wander from the camp. She noticed with interest that a few of the pack horses were tied in pairs, like the dogs, and reflected that perhaps it was a training method, a younger beast harnessed to an older, which could teach it manners. There were cats too. But these were not the small domestic lap-sized variety; these were as lean and long-legged as the dogs. Their eyes were green or gold or silver, and their coats were mottled brown and amber and black. One animal looked almost spotted, black on brown, while the next looked almost striped, fawn-pale on black. Some wore collars, leather with silver or copper fittings, but no leashes, and each went its solitary way, ignoring any other cats, dogs, or horses that might cross its path. One came over to Harry where she stood; she held her breath and thought of tigers and leopards. It viewed her nonchalantly, then thrust its head under her hand. It was a moment before Harry recovered herself enough to realize that her hand was trembling because the cat was vibrating as it purred. She stroked it gingerly and the purr grew louder. The fur was short and fine and very thick; when she tried, delicately, to part it, she could not see the skin. The cat had very long blond eyela shes and it looked up at her through them, green eyes half closed. She wondered how all the animals got on together: were there ever any fights? And did the big cats ever steal one of the green-and-blue parrots that rode on a few of the Hillfolk's shoulders? The tents were all down, and she was amazed at the numbers of beasts and people that were revealed. She wondered if the people were all men but herself, thinking of the attempt by the men of the household to wait on her at her bath the evening before. She could not tell, now, by looking, for everyone wore a robe similar to her own, and most wore hoods; and only a few wore beards. â€Å"Lady,† said a voice she knew, and she turned and saw Corlath, and Fireheart followed him. â€Å"Another long ride?† she said, feeling a flush in her cheeks for being called lady by the Hill-king. â€Å"Yes, another long ride, but we need not travel so quickly.† She nodded, and a smile came and went on the king's face, so quickly that she did not see it, as he realized that she would not plead, nor ask questions. â€Å"You will need this,† he said, and handed her a hood like the one he and most everyone else were wearing. She stood turning it over helplessly in her hands, for it was little more than a long tapered tube of soft material, and not too plainly meant as one thing or another to someone who had never seen one before. He took it away from her again and put it on her, then produced a scarf and showed her how to wrap it in place. â€Å"It grows easier with practice,† he said. â€Å"Thank you,† she said. Another voice spoke behind them, and both turned; a man stood with another horse at his heels. This man was dressed in brown, and wore leggings and a tunic above his tall boots and bore a small white mark on his right cheek; and Corlath told her that so the men of the horse, the grooms, dressed; men of the hunt, who cared for the cats and dogs, were dressed similarly, but their belts were red, and they wore red scarves over their hoods and their white mark of office was on the left cheek. â€Å"I – I thought all the Hillfolk wore sashes,† Harry said hesitantly. â€Å"No,† Corlath answered readily enough; â€Å"only those who also may carry swords.† The brown-clad man turned to the horse he had brought them. â€Å"His name is Red Wind, Rolinin,† Corlath said; he was another red bay, though not so bright as Fireheart. â€Å"For the present, you will ride him.† She speculated, a little nervously, about the for the present. She was pleased at the idea of not bumping on somebody else's saddlebow, but as she looked up at the tall horse, and he looked kindly down on her, she collected her courage and said, â€Å"I – I am accustomed to bit and bridle.† She thought, I am accustomed to stirrups too, but I can probably cope without them – at least if nothing too exciting occurs. He looks like he'll have nice gaits †¦ Oh dear. â€Å"Yes,† said Corlath in his inscrutable voice, and Harry looked up at him in dismay. â€Å"Red Wind will teach you how we of the Hills ride.† She hesitated a minute longer, but couldn't think of anything further to say that wouldn't be too humiliating, like â€Å"I'm scared.† So when the brown man went down on one knee and cupped his hands for her foot, she stepped up and was lifted gently into the saddle. No reins. She looked at her hands as if they should be somewhere else, rubbed them briefly down the legs, and then laid them across the rounded pommel like stunned rabbits brought home from a hunt. Red Wind's ears flicked back at her and his back shifted under her. She closed her legs delicately around his barrel and he waited, listening; she squeezed gently and he stepped gravely forward; she sat back and he stopped. Perhaps they would get along. Corlath mounted while she was arranging her hands; I suppose they'll expect me to learn to mount without help too, she thought irascibly; when she looked up from Red Wind's obedient ears Fireheart moved off, and Red Wind willingly followed. They traveled for some days. She meant to keep count, but she did not have the presence of mind immediately to find a bit of leather or rock to scratch the days on as they passed, and somewhere around four or five or six she lost count. The days of travel continued for some time after the four or five or six; every muscle in her body ached and protested from the unaccustomed exercise, after months of soft living at the Residency and aboard ship. She was grateful for her weariness, however, for it granted her heavy sleep without dreams. She developed saddlesores, and gritted her teeth and ignored them, and rather than getting worse as she had expected, they eased and then went away altogether, and with them the aches and pains. Her old skill in the saddle came back to her; she did not miss the stirrups except while mounting – she still needed someone to be a mounting-block for her every day – and slowly she learned to guide her patient horse without reins. She could bind her boots to her legs and her hood round her head as deftly – almost – as though she had been doing these things all her life. She learned to eat gracefully with her fingers. She met four women who were part of Corlath's traveling camp; they all four wore sashes. She learned the name of the friendly cat: Narknon. She often found her keeping her feet warm when she woke up in the morning. Narknon also, for all her carnivorous heritage, had a taste for porridge. Harry continued to eat at the king's table for the evening meal, with the eighteen Riders and Corlath; she still sat at the king's left hand, and she was still politely served and equably ignored. She began to understand, or at least to suspect, that Corlath kept her near him not only because the Hillfolk were not accustomed to dealing with enemy prisoners, but more because he was hoping to make her feel like a respected guest – he was quick to answer her questions, partly perhaps because she did not abuse the privilege; and there was often almost diffidence in his manner when he offered her something: a new cloak, or a piece of fruit of a sort she had never seen before. He wants me to like it here, she thought. She still slept in the king's tent, but a corner was now modestly curtained off for her, and when she woke in the morning and put the curtains back, Corlath was already gone. One of the men of the household would see her, and bring her towels and water, and breakfast. She grew fond of the porridge; sometimes they made it into little flat cakes, and fried them, and put honey over them. The honey was made from flowers she had never seen nor smelled; the rich exotic fragrance of it set her dreaming. She never asked Corlath why she was here, or what her future was to be. In the mornings, after breakfast, while the camp was broken, or, if they were staying an extra day while messengers came from nowhere to talk to the king, she rode Red Wind and, as Corlath had told her, taught herself, or let the horse teach her, to ride as the Hillfolk rode. After her riding-lesson, if they were not traveling that day, she wandered through the camp, and watched the work going forward: everything was aired and washed or shaken out or combed, and the beasts were all brushed till they gleamed. No one, horse or dog or cat or human being, ever tried to stop the Outlander from wandering anywhere in particular, or watching anything in particular; occasionally she was even allowed to pick up a currycomb or polishing-cloth or rug-beater, but it was obvious that she was so permitted out of kindness, for her help was never needed. But she was grateful for the kindness. She spoke her few words of Hill-speech: May I? And Thank you, and the Hillfolk smiled at her and said, Our pr ivilege, slowly and carefully, back to her. Sometimes she watched the hunts ride out; the dogs hunted in their groups, the cats alone or occasionally in pairs. There did not seem to be any order to those who rode with them, other than the presence of at least one man of the hunt; and she never saw any return without a kill: desert hares, or the small digging orobog – Corlath told her the names – or the great horned dundi that had to be hung on a pole and carried between two horses. She was homesick in unexpected spasms so strong that Red Wind, who was a faithful old plug by Hill standards and could be trusted to children and idiots, would feel her freeze on his back, and toss his head uncomfortably and prance. She had not wept herself to sleep since her first night in the king's tent and she thought, carefully, rationally, that it was hard to say what exactly she was homesick for: the Homeland seemed long past, and she did not miss her months at the Residency in Istan. She recalled the faces of Sir Charles and Lady Amelia with a pang, and she missed her brother anxiously, and worried about what he must think about his lost sister. She found she also missed the wise patient understanding of Jack Dedham; but she thought of him with a strange sort of peacefulness, as if his feeling for his adopted country would transcend the seeming impossibility of what had happened to her, and he would know that she was well. That sickness of dislocation came to her most often w hen she was most at ease in the strange adventure she was living. She might be staring at the line of Hills before them, closer every day, watching how sharply the edges of them struck into the sky; Red Wind at Fireheart's heels, the desert wind brushing her cheek and the sun on her shoulders and hooded head; and suddenly she would be gasping with the thing she called homesickness. It would strike her as she sat at the king's table, cross-legged, eating her favorite cheese, sweet and brown and crumbly, listening wistfully to the conversation she still could not understand, beyond the occasional word or phrase. I'm missing what I don't have, she thought late one night, squirming on her cushions. It's nothing to do with what I should be homesick for – Jack would understand, the oldest colonel still active, looking across the desert at the Hills. It's that I don't belong here. It doesn't matter that I'm getting burned as dark as they are, that I can sit a horse all day and not complain. It doesn't matter even that their Water of Sight works in me as it does in only a few of their own. It is only astonishing that it would work in one not of the Hills; it does not make that one any more of the Hills than she was before. There was a certain bitter humor to lying awake wishing for something one cannot have, after lying awake not so long ago wishing for the opposite thing that one had just lost. Not a very useful sort of adaptability, this, she thought. But, her thought added despairingly, what kind of adaptability – or genius – would be useful to me? She traced her life back to her childhood, and for the first time in many years recalled the temper tantrums that she had grown out of so early it was hard to remember them clearly; but she did remember that they had frightened even her, dimly, still a baby in her crib, realizing there was something not quite right about them. They had scared two nursemaids into leaving; it had been her mother who had at last successfully coped, grimly, with her and them. That memory brought into focus another memory she also had pushed aside many years ago: the memory, or knowledge, of not-quite-rightness that grew up after the tantrums had passed; and with that knowledge had also grown an odd non-muscular kind of control. She had thought at the time, with a child's first wistfulness upon being faced with approaching adulthood, that this was a control that everyone learned; but now, lying in the desert dark, she was not so sure. There was something in her new, still inexplicable and unforeseeable life in the Hills that touched and tried to shape that old long-ignored sense of restraint; and something in her that eagerly reached out for the lesson, but could not – yet – quite grasp it or make use of it. There was, too, a reality to her new life that her old life had lacked, and she realized with a shock that she had never truly loved or hated, for she had never seen the world she had been used to living in closely enough for it to evoke passion in her. This world was already more vivid to her, exhilaratingly, terrifyingly more vivid, than the sweet green country, affectionately but indistinctly recalled, of her former lif e. She did not have much appetite for breakfast the next morning, and fed hers to Narknon, who gave a pleased burp and went back to sleep again till the men of the household routed her out when they took down the king's tent. They were nearly to the foothills by the time they halted that evening. The scrub around them had begun to produce the occasional real leaf, and the occasional real leaf was green. For the first time, there was an open stream that ran past their camp, instead of the small secret desert springs; and Harry had a real bath in the big silver basin for the first time since her first evening with the camp, for there had been little water to spare since then. This time the men of the household left towels and a clean yellow robe for her, and left her, as soon as her bath was full. They made camp behind a ridge that ran into what was certainly itself a hill. The tents were pitched around a clear space at the center, with the king's tent at one edge of it. That clear space always held a fire in the evenings, but tonight the fire was built up till it roared and flung itself taller than the height of a man; and as everyone's duties were completed, all came and sat around it till they ringed it. The dogs' pale coats turned red and cinnamon in the firelight; the cats' shadowy pelts were more mysterious than ever. The wall of the king's tent facing the fire was rolled up, and Harry and the king and his Riders sat at the open edge and stared at the fire with the rest. After a time no more dark figures came to join the circle; the fire shadows fell and sidled and swam so that Harry could not guess how many people there were. The fire itself began to burn down till it was no more than the kind of glorious bonfire she and her brother had had now and again when they were children and the weather and their parents' mood had conspired together in their favor. Then the singing began. There were several stringed instruments like lutes, and several wooden pipes for accompaniment and harmony. She recognized ballads even when she could not understand the words, and she wished again that she could understand, and fidgeted on her rug, and glanced at Corlath. He looked back at her, intercepting her frustration, and while there was nothing particularly encouraging about that look, still there was nothing particularly discouraging about it either – as was usual with the looks he gave her now; as was also usual, there was an edge of wistfulness, or sheepishness, in his glance. He had either lost or, as she thought more likely, learned to restrain the slightly resentful puzzlement she had seen the night she had drunk the Water of Sight. She stood up and went over to him and sat down beside him, and pulled up her knees and put her chin on them and stared at the fire, and listened to the words she could not understand. She knew that there had to be at least one more person in the camp who spoke Homelander, the man who had acted as Corlath's interpreter – and, as Peterson had guessed, unnecessarily – at the Residency, but she had never learned who that man was. Someone else who might have spoken to her, and taught her some more Hill words, that she might be able to talk to those around her – might be able to translate the words of the songs they were singing now. But someone who had chosen not to make himself known to her; someone who liked his skill so little that he felt no pity for her isolation: she, an Outlander, who did not belong to the desert and the Hills. Corlath was watching her face as these thoughts went through her mind, and perhaps he read something of them there, for he said without prompting: â€Å"They sing of what is past, hundreds of years past, when the possession of kelar was so common it was hardly thought a Gift, any more than the length of your nose is a Gift. â€Å"Those given the kelar are far fewer today than they were then. I – we – believe that we are soon to learn at our gravest cost the worth of what we have lost.† He thought, wearily, looking at her and unable to read her expression, What does she see? What do we look like to her? And with a flash of anger he thought, Why is it so arranged that I must hope for the comprehension of an Outlander? Why must it be an Outlander who carries so precious a Gift? A Gift she may choose to repudiate or – or use against us, who need the strength so sorely? Harry hugged her knees closer, and for a moment she saw again a bright narrow thread of riders trotting up a mountain way. So I have the Gift, she thought, but of what use is it to see uninterpretable visions? She came back to herself as Corlath said: â€Å"We sing because we have returned to our Hills; tonight is the first night we sleep again in their shadow. â€Å"Listen. They will sing a ballad of Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer.† Harry listened, listened hard, with the muscles of her back and of her thighs, as if the Hill-speech were a fractious horse she might tame; and out of the firelight came a figure, wavering with the leap and flicker of the flames, and with hair that was fire itself. A tall broad-shouldered figure with a pale face, and in its right hand it held a long slim blade that glittered blue. Harry stared till her eyes felt as dry as sand, and then the figure's face swam into focus, and it was a woman's face, and it smiled at her. But it didn't smile, it grinned, the wry affectionate grin of an elder sister; and Harry's head swam with love and despair. Then the woman shook her head gently, and her aureole of hair flamed and rippled about her, and she reached out her empty left hand, and Harry found herself on her hands and knees, reaching her hand back. But a gust of wind came from nowhere and whipped the fire as though it were an unruly dog, and the figure vanished. Harry fell where she had knelt, and pressed her face to the earth. One real dog sat up and howled. Corlath picked her up as gently as if she were a baby, fallen down after its first steps; and she found there were tears running down her face. He stood up, holding her in his arms, and she cared nothing but that Lady Aerin, Firehair and Dragon-Killer, had come to her and then left her again, more alone than she had ever been before. She threw her arms around the Hill-king's neck and buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed. And Corlath, holding her, her tears on his neck, felt his resentment waver and dim and fall to ashes; and he felt pity instead for the Outlander, as he had felt pity when she tasted the Meeldtar. The Gift had been a hard enough thing for him, he who had grown up with it, had always known it existed and been trained from childhood in its use, or at least its acceptance. He had had his father to tell him what to expect, and his father had not scorned him when he wept as the Outlander now wept; had, in fact, cradled and comforted him and soothed the headaches the kelar brought. He would help this girl now, as much as he might, stranger and thief as he might be to her. He would do what he could. Harry woke up the next morning in her usual corner, behind the usual curtains, her face still smudged with dirt and tears, and she remembered what she had done rather than what she had seen, and she went hot with shame and swallowed hard, wondering if she dared show herself outside her curtains, even for water to wash in. She could not think about seeing Corlath again at all. She thought, He must have laid the sleep on me again, as he did when he first took me away; put me to sleep like an unruly child because I behaved like an unruly child. Narknon didn't care; she walked up Harry's legs and rubbed her head against Harry's smudgy face, and Harry blinked hard and petted her fiercely. She put back her curtains with an effort, and washed her face, and ate her breakfast as she might have eaten wood chips, silent and stony-faced. A voice broke in on her sorry reflections, and she looked up, surprised, and was still more surprised to see one of the Riders: the short square grim man she had noticed during her first meal in the king's tent: the one man who had tasted the Water and made no sign. He spoke to her again. Whatever the words were, they had the inflection of â€Å"Good morning,† so she said, â€Å"Good morning.† Some expression passed lightly over his face, and still he looked at her till she began to wonder if â€Å"Good morning† in their language sounded like a terrible insult and he was now considering whether to strike her dead on the spot or spare her ignorance. Maybe he was only musing on how best to handle an unruly child. But he spoke to her again, slowly, patiently, and she was distracted from her shame of the night before. He broke his words down into syllables; so she took a deep breath and said them back to him. This time the flicker of expression was definitely kin to a smile, although she would never have seen it if she had not been watching his face so closely. He corrected her accent, and she said the phrase again, and this time apparently she said it properly; for next he bowed, laid a hand upon his chest, and said, â€Å"Mathin.† She said â€Å"Mathin† back at him, and she knew his name already from Corlath's speaking it and his answering. Then he stretched his hand out till the tips of his fingers did not quite touch her collarbone. â€Å"Harry,† she said, thinking that the two-syllable version of her impossible name would keep them both out of trouble; and Richard wasn't there to disapprove. â€Å"Hari?† he said, a little taken aback; and she nodded, and made hi m a small bow. It must have been a long day for Mathin. She knew he was one of the eighteen Riders, yet he did nothing till sunset but take her around the camp and touch various objects and speak their names. She also learned some useful all-purpose verbs, and the names – or at least she heard the names and tried to remember them – of about half of the men who sat around Corlath's table. She knew Faran and Innath already, for she had picked out their names from Corlath's calling of them, as she had Mathin's. They met her eyes as they were introduced, and quietly bowed, as if she had nothing to do with the awkward baggage their king had taken from the Outlander town in their company a few weeks ago; as if they were seeing her for the first time. Forloy was the man with the scar on his chin; Dapsim rode the black mare who won the horseraces often held in the evenings, till the other riders would no longer let her run. She did not see Corlath that day, nor the next. The camp remained whe re it was, in the shadow of the Hills, though the evening fires were small again, and there was no more singing. The hunting-beasts went out every day, and returned laden with a far wider variety of wildlife than the desert had offered. Harry learned that Narknon hunted alone, and was famous for permitting no other beast near her; she occasionally made friends with a human being, but she was very choosy about such friendships. Harry felt flattered. As the days passed, lean faces and flanks grew a bit plumper on men and beasts; but Narknon still begged for her porridge. Mathin came for Harry after breakfast each morning. By the end of the third day she was speaking in sentences, simple, painful, and ungrammatical ones; but she found that certain Hill words were creeping into her Homelander vocabulary and staying there; and the few people besides Mathin she tried to speak to stopped to listen to her and to answer. She was no longer invisible, and that was the best of all. She was fascinated by the specialties of the language she was learning; there were, for example, a number of kinds of tent. The king's great tent, with its internal grove of poles to hold it up, was called a zotar, the only one in this traveling camp. The smaller tents, where most of the people were housed, were called the barkash; the stable tents were pituin. Then there were several terms she didn't have quite straightened out yet that referred to how the thing was made, how many corners it had, made of what material, and so on. A dalgut was a cheap, poorly made tent; there were no dalguti in the king's camp, and to refer to another man's tent as a dalgut, if it wasn't one, was a profound insult. She woke up earlier than usual on the morning of the fourth day of Corlath's absence, and, despite Narknon's protests, went outside to stare at the eastern greyness that heralded the swift desert dawn. She heard the desert lark's song, a little speckled brown bird the Hillfolk called a britti. The camp was astir already; several of the men whose names she could recall hailed her as Hari-sol. She'd heard this the last two days and wondered if it was a term of respect, of definition, or a way of spinning out a name she could see did not meet with unqualified approval. As the early light flowed down into the mountains, she saw the trees and rocky ridges pick themselves out of the shadows and assert their individuality. She didn't notice till they rode into the center of camp that Corlath and three companions had returned. She turned around on her heel as she heard his voice, but her attention was distracted at once. Corlath still sat on Fireheart, who stood as still as a great red rock; and beside them stood another horse, riderless, as tall as Fireheart and a stallion like him, but golden, a chestnut as gold as the kicking flames of the bonfire three nights ago. She walked toward them silently, her bare feet in the still-cool sandy earth, but the chestnut horse turned his head and looked at her. She heard Corlath murmur something as she drew near, and at his words the horse took a step toward her, and lowered his head till she was looking into a calm, mahogany-brown eye. She raised her hands and cupped them, and she felt his warm breath, and his s oft nose touched her fingers. Corlath spoke aloud and a man of the horse appeared at once, carrying a saddle, golden leather only a few shades darker than the horse, with red stitching; and he set it delicately on the chestnut's back. The horse ignored him, not even shuddering his golden skin as the saddle settled into place; but he lipped Harry's fingers, and leaned his cheek against her shoulder. â€Å"I brought him back for you,† Corlath said, and she raised her eyes and found his resting on her; â€Å"I seem to have chosen well,† he said, and he smiled. The brown-clad man had girthed up the saddle and stood watching her expectantly. â€Å"Come, we will try his paces,† said Corlath. It wasn't till she was tossed into the saddle and felt the great horse quiver under her as her legs found their places against the long supple flaps of the saddle that she realized that Corlath had spoken to her in the Hill tongue. It was a glorious morning; more glorious than any she'd known since she had awakened as a disheveled huddle on the lee side of a scraggy little dune – more glorious than any since she'd set sail from the Homeland. â€Å"His name is Sungold,† Corlath told her, and this he translated. â€Å"Sungold,† she said. â€Å"Tsornin.† Corlath sent Fireheart forward at a long-striding trot, as though they would leap into the dawn; and as soon as her legs closed against the big chestnut's sides he surged forward to follow. She was, for the first few minutes, fearful of her own lack of skill, and of the strength of the big horse; but she found that they understood each other. She felt half grateful, half ashamed, of the time and patience the good Red Wind had spent on her; and at the same time she felt almost uneasy that it was too simple, that she understood too readily. But she was too caught up in the beauty of it to wish to doubt it long. If she thought of it at all, she drove it out of her head at once: didn't she deserve something for all her bruises, of both body and spirit, over the last weeks? She could think of nothing better than the feel of Sungold's mane as it washed over her hands. When the sun was almost overhead, and its rays were dazzling when they reflected off Tsornin's bright neck, and the emptiness of her stomach was beginning to force itself into her attention despite everything, Corlath said, â€Å"Enough,† and wheeled Fireheart back toward camp. Sungold waited for her signal, and she stood a moment, first looking at Fireheart's quarters jogging away from them and then up, where a brown hawk swung on an updraft, high overhead. Just to test the magnificence of her power, she kneed her horse a half-turn to the left and shot him off at a gallop; and just as he reached the peak of his speed she brought him back to a gentle canter, circled once, and sent him after Corlath, who had paused and was watching her antics. They stopped beside Fireheart and his rider, and the two stallions nodded to each other. Harry expected a lecture on frivolity, or something, and lowered her eyes to Sungold's withers; but Corlath said nothing. She looked up again as she heard the ring of metal on metal; Corlath had drawn the sword that hung at his side. She watched, surprised, as he held it, point up, and the sun glared fiercely on it. She remembered that this morning, as he rode into camp, he had been carrying it, the first time she had ever seen him armed with anything more ostentatiously threatening than a long dagger, or the slim short knives all the Hillfolk carried to cut up their food and perform any minor tasks where something with a sharp point was necessary. She'd forgotten about it as soon as she'd noticed Sungold; and now that she saw it more closely she decided she didn't much like the look of it. This was obviously a war-sword; it was much too unwieldy for anything but serious hacking and hewing. Corlath took the deadly thing in his left hand and handed it to her, hilt first. â€Å"Take it.† She grasped it, warily, and when Corlath let go it did not knock her out of the saddle, but it tried. â€Å"Lift it,† he said. And as she tried, â€Å"You've never held a sword.† â€Å"No.† She lifted it as if it were a snake that would crawl up its own tail and bite her. Corlath edged Isfahel out of harm's way as her arm and shoulder experimented with this new thing. She swung it in a short half-arc, and Tsornin came suddenly to life, and bounced forward on his hind legs, neighing. â€Å"Ouch,† she said, as he came to earth again; his ears were tipped back toward her, and all his muscles were tense. â€Å"Sungold's a war-horse,† Corlath said mildly. â€Å"You're giving him ideas.† She turned to glower at him, and he rode up beside her and took the sword back. There was a gleam of humor in his eye as he returned her glower; and they turned back toward camp together. He said something that she didn't quite catch, and as she turned to him to ask him to repeat it, Fireheart leaped forward into a gallop that flattened out to full stretch at once. After a moment's shock she recognized the challenge, and Sungold bolted after them, and gained ground till her face was flicked by Fireheart's streaming tail, and then Sungold's nose drew even with Corlath's toe; and then they were sweeping into the camp, and the horses steadied down to a canter, and then a walk. Their nostrils showed red as they breathed, and Sungold turned away from the camp, asking for more; but Harry said, â€Å"I don't think so,† and Sungold heaved a sigh and followed docilely at Fireheart's heels. It was only when she dismounted that she realized she was still barefoot. Corlath and Harry had b reakfast together, on one square of the long table. Harry did not speak, except to Narknon, who was inclined to be sulky; and Corlath's attention was for the men who came to speak with him, about the minor things that had gone wrong in his absence, and about messages they had received for him; and Harry understood much of what they said, and wondered if Corlath cared that it was no longer entirely safe to talk secrets around his Outlander. After they had eaten, a man of the household entered the zotar and handed the king a long thin bundle wrapped in linen. He bowed and retired; and Corlath shook the thing free of its covering and held up another sword. This one was appreciably smaller than the one he himself wore, but Harry still watched it with dislike. Corlath ran a quick hand over the scabbard with the linen cloth and then offered her, again, the hilt. She took it reluctantly, and rather than drawing it smoothly out, she backed up awkwardly, so that it rang free with a sullen cl unk. â€Å"You'll have to do better than that,† said Corlath; and she was sure that he was amused. â€Å"Why?† she said, anger beginning to uncoil itself somewhere deep inside her and make its way to the surface. â€Å"Why? What have swords and – † she gulped, for she loved Sungold already – â€Å"war-horses to do with me?† He came a step or two closer to her as she stood with the point of the sword unhandily dug into the heaped carpets, and her arm out, as if to keep the undesired object as far from her as she could; and he looked, thoughtfully, into her eyes. â€Å"It is because of what you have seen,† he replied. â€Å"When you tasted the Water of Sight you saw a war-party coming to battle; I and all my Riders heard you cry out what you saw – in the ancient tongue of our forebears here, the tongue that was spoken when Damar was one land, a great and green land, before †¦ â€Å" Before my people came, she thought, but she was not going to say it aloud if he was not. â€Å"And several days past the entire camp saw the Lady Aerin come out of the fire to greet you, carrying the Blue Sword, Gonturan, with which she won back the Hero's Crown and defeated the armies of the North.† He hesitated. â€Å"Aerin had not been seen since my father's father's day; and yet she has always looked after her country well, since she first rode out to face the Black Dragon, before Gonturan had come to her hand; and our dearest legends speak of her.† The bright bubbles of anger in her eyes burst and disappeared. She bowed her head; then bent her elbow and brought the sword under her eyes. The long wicked edge of it winked at her. It had a silver handle, nearly plain, with a few faint graceful scrolls on the underpart of the hand-guard, where it met the hilt. She stared at them unhappily: the sweep and arch of them seemed to her a more likely ornament for a church pew than a sword. Her wrist began to quiver with the unaccustomed weight. He said, as gently as he could: â€Å"Here, anyone who is granted the Gift of Seeing is given to what they see; it is thought to be a guide, a direction, a help sent by the gods; or by the heroes of our past greatness, who still care what happens to their children's children. Children now sip the Water when they meet their tenth birthday, in the hope that they may be told what apprenticeship they are most fit for. Many see nothing, for, as I have told you, the Water does not work for many people; and then the simpler considerations of parentage and availability are allowed to decide. But all our priests were given Sight of the priesthood on their tenth birthday; each of my Riders saw himself carrying a sword †¦ many of them will only choose a war-horse the color they saw themselves riding in the vision.† She broke out frantically: â€Å"But this is nothing to do with me. I am an Outlander, not of your Hills at all. If it is war I have seen, my people have feared war too; it is not strange that even I should feel it. This thing you have done to me, I – † She choked off, for she had heard herself speaking: Outlander she had instinctively said, and she was speaking swiftly in the Hill tongue that she had only – or so she had thought and now desperately was not sure – begun to learn, haltingly, a few days before. She heaved a breath that had she been a year younger might have been a sob; but it was not. She stood, trembling, holding the sword, waiting for it to speak to her too, to tell her her awful destiny. Corlath took her right wrist in his hand and then turned her around till she was standing next to him; he rearranged her fingers on the hilt, curled her thumb under it for her. She felt at once, wearily, that this was the way it was supposed to be held; and wondered if swordsmanship, like riding a war-stallion and speaking a language strange to her, was suddenly going to awaken in her blood like a disease. â€Å"Lady,† Corlath said over her shoulder, his right hand still supporting her wrist, â€Å"I know it is difficult for you. Perhaps this may make it easier: you have given my people hope by your presence, by your visions, by your very foreignness. It is the first hope we have had since we knew that the Northerners would come. We need that hope, my lady. It is so nearly the only thing we have.† She pulled away from his hand on her arm so that she could turn and look up at him. She stared, appalled, and he looked gently down at her. A frown collected slowly on his brow. â€Å"What is it they call you – Hari? That cannot be your name.† She grimaced. â€Å"No. it's a – † She did not know the Hill term for nickname and her mysterious sixth sense didn't seem to want to provide it for her. â€Å"It's a short-name. I don't like my real name.† â€Å"And it is?† There was a pause. â€Å"Angharad,† she said finally. He turned this over on his tongue a few times. â€Å"We will call you Harimad,† he said. â€Å"Harimad-sol, for you are of high rank. Few See so clearly that others too may see, as all saw Aerin-sol come out of the fire. â€Å"Try to have faith: even in these things that are strange to you. My kelar told me to bring you here, and your kelar speaks through you now. Lady, I know no more of your fate than that; but I believe, as do all the people in this camp, that your fate is important to us. And Aerin, who has long been the friend of her people, has given you her protection.† That does not make Aerin my friend, she thought sourly, but when she remembered the elder-sister grin Aerin had given her, she could not believe ill of her. And Corlath's kelar told him to bring me here. Oh dear. I suppose that explains something. Harimad. Mad Harry. I wish Aerin would stay long enough to talk to me – tell me what is going on. She looked up at him and tried to smile. It was a gallant effort; it was even almost a smile. But Corlath's gold-flecked brown eyes saw more than just the gallantry, and his heart went out to her; and he turned away from her and clapped his hands, and a man of the household b rought the hot brown drink Harry had first tasted behind a scrubby small sand hill, barefoot and in her Homelander dressing-gown, and that she had learned since to call malak. That evening Corlath and the Riders and Harimad-sol ate a great dinner of many dishes, and Harry made first acquaintance with the Hill mustard made of the jictal seeds, which burned out not only her mouth and tongue, but her throat and stomach lining; and the front of the zotar was rolled up, and outside much of the rest of the camp sat on rugs before small low tables and ate also, under the moon and the white stars. Harry began pulling nervously at her sleeves and twiddling the ends of her belt as the end of the meal approached; there was a tension hanging over the camp that she did not like, and she hoped that the tooled leather bag was not to put in an appearance tonight. It did not, but she suspected Corlath of eyeing her nervousness wryly. The conversation went too quickly for her to catch all of it – or perhaps her sixth sense had overstrained itself and was resting – but she understood that the purpose of the journey they had been on was to discover how well, or ill, prepared the many small mountain villages, north, south, and east of the great central desert, were for holding off Northerners; and how many horses, arms and warriors, supplies and supply transport, each could provide. It had not been a very cheerful journey, not least for the western excursion into Outlander territory, where a stubborn and pompous old man had refused to listen to the truth; but Corlath had expected what he found and – she thought – saw no use in being discouraged. They were near the end of their trek now: in the Hills before them, although still several days' journey hence, was Corlath's city, where his palace lay, and where what there was of a standing army was quartered. Harry rather thought, from the way they referred to it, that â€Å"the City† was the only city in Corlath's realm; his people were not much interested in building and maintaining and living in cities, beyond the king's own, which had the advantage of being thick with kelar. But the Hillfolk were an independent lot; they preferred to hold their own bits of land and work them, and neither cities nor positions in a regular army appealed to them. As she heard the word often, Harry was beginning to understand better what the word kelar indicated. It was something like magic; a Gift was the specific manifestation of kelar in a particular human being. Kelar was also something like a charm or a sorcery that hung in the air in a few places in the Hills; and one of those places was the City, where certain things might happen and other things be forbidden to happen, in ways quite unlike the usual physical laws. When all else was lost, the Hillfolk could retreat to the City; if the Northerners took or laid waste to all else, a few might live still in the City, for in it was some of the strength of the Damar of old. She began to speculate about the City, to look forward to seeing it. Around her the Riders and their king spoke of repairs to be made, and new forging to be done, and the best blacksmiths – dhogos – and leatherworkers – parisi – in the Hills. Narknon had her front half in Harry's lap, and was purring to rattle the bones of them both. It was very late. The Riders stared at their empty cups, the men outside stared at the stars; Harry was falling asleep, still listening to the hum in the air, and still unable to account for it. â€Å"Mathin,† said Corlath, and Harry twitched and woke up. Mathin looked up the table, and his eyes rested briefly on the golden-haired girl in the maroon robe before he looked at his king. â€Å"The laprun trials will be held six weeks from tomorrow on the plains before the City.† Mathin knew this perfectly well, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl look up at Corlath, puzzled, and then glance down the table at her patient language teacher. â€Å"Harimad-sol will ride in them.† Mathin nodded; he had expected this, and, having taken some measure of Hari in the days past, was not displeased. Harimad-sol herself swallowed rather sharply, but found she wasn't too surprised either; and after a day of war-horses and swords could guess the sort of thing the trials (what was a laprun?) would prove to be. Poor Mathin. She wondered what he thought of the idea-six weeks to knock the rawest of beginners, even if kelar-guided, into shape – and resigned herself to not knowing. â€Å"We will ride out two hours before dawn tomorrow,† said Mathin. Six weeks, thought Harry. How much can you learn in six weeks, even if Aerin is keeping an eye on you?