Monday, August 24, 2020

Comparison Of Memory Models Psychology Essay

Correlation Of Memory Models Psychology Essay This task is going to analyze the multi-store model Atkinson and shiffrins (1968) and levels of handling Craik and Lockhart (1972) there is proof to help the two hypotheses and proof against. The article will right off the bat depict the multi-store model with a few examinations including Baddeley (1966) Peterson and Peterson (1959) and afterward a concise portrayal of the degrees of preparing model with Craik and Tulvings(1971) and Tyler et al (1979) concentrates at that point will end with an assessment of the two models The multi-store model was the main hypothesis of its sort, it was made to examine the manner in which memory is prepared, and how we hold and store data and why some data remains with us for our entire life and other data is lost. Atkinson and Shiffrins (1968) accepted that when we take care of data it at that point goes into various stores and this decides if the data gets encoded into our drawn out memory or transient memory. (Grahame Hill 2001) So right off the bat when data goes into our tactile store (tangible store meaning anything we contact, see , smell or hear) we have a few seconds to take care of the data in the event that not the data will be lost everlastingly but rather whenever took care of, at that point it will become encoded into our momentary memory . Anyway in any event, when data is in our momentary memory in the event that its not practiced, at that point it can at present be uprooted yet on the off chance that practice has occurred, at that point its bound to be put away in our drawn out memory The Baddeley( 1966 ) study underpins the multi-store model, he set out to accomplish data on climate encoding in transient memory was acoustic or semantic. He gave his subjects a rundown of four letter words. The rundowns were acoustically comparable and disparate and semantically comparable and unique. He at that point read out the words multiple times, following the subjects was given a rundown containing all the words he had perused out yet out of order their errand was to revise the words over into the right request this was to test the transient memory His members that had been given acoustically comparable had most exceedingly awful review with just 10% of review of words being in the right request and the remainder of the rundowns got a 60% to 80% review so in this way transient memory has better acoustic encoding recollections. So this examination bolsters the multi-store that we have a transient memory store. In general the result is that multi-store model is the essential clarification of memory and is exceptionally shortsighted and Baddeleys hypothesis recommend that the transient memory is progressively mind boggling.( Barbara woods 2004) Peterson and Peterson (1959 ) is additionally another hypothesis that underpins Atkinson and Shiffrins (1968 ) multi-store model with respect to momentary memory their trial tried the length of transient memory. They assembled various subjects and given them gibberish trigrams ( ptr, rtw) they tried review following three second spans and afterward tried review following eighteen second stretches. This was to determine whether the data got encoded into their tactile store or momentary memory.( wwwcom) Their finding was that the subjects got a more noteworthy review 90% on the three second span and just 2% on the eighteen second stretch. This demonstrated we have a poor recollections when we dont have a verbal practice which concurs with Atkinson and Shiffrins (1968 ) hypothesis that you need to practice data for it to be encoded into our memory stores Likewise there is Craik and Lockharts (1968) model that proposes that practice isn't the main type of memory and that its increasingly perplexing so they considered the profundities of handling. This demonstrated indeed that the multi store model was excessively shortsighted. (Richard gross and Geoff rolls 2003) The multi-store model clarification is essential and it just clarifies encoding, stockpiling and recovery. Its a shortsighted hypothesis that different physiologists have explained on. Baddeleys ( 1966) hypothesis bolstered the multi-store model that we have two separate memory stores present moment and long haul. The multi-store model doesn't clarify why we can recollect data in our transient memory that we have not practiced. Levels of handling Levels of handling was made as an elective that tested Atkinson and shiffrins multi-store model Craik and Lockhart (1971) contended that practice alone couldn't clarify how individuals put away data in their drawn out memory, so they set out to demonstrate that data is increasingly critical when its progressively significant. Craik and Lockhart (1971) accepted that it was down to how an individual prepared this data; the more profound it gets imbedded then increasingly chance that it will get encoded into the drawn out memory and that they was three sorts of continuing Organization, Distinctiveness and elaboration. To demonstrate this they did an investigation. (Richard gross and Geoff rolls 2003) Craik and Tulving(1971) assembled various subjects and demonstrated them a rundown of 5 letter things and afterward posed inquiries about the words. Questions was in three distinct styles case rhyme and sentence questions, case question; would be is the word in capitals, rhyme question; does the word cap rhyme with the word and finally sentence question; would the word cap fit into the sentence; the .. Is down the road. The subjects could just answer yes or no to the inquiries. Craik and Tulving (1971) at that point examined the discoveries, survey the appropriate responses that the subjects have given to discover which has the more noteworthy review so there for a more profound degree of preparing (Grahame slope 2001) (Richard gross and Geoff Rolls 2003) Their discoveries was agreeable to sentence addresses which falls under semantic preparing with the subjects recollecting 70% of the words so semantic handling has a superior review at that point rhyme question which is phonemic preparing with the subjects recollecting 35% of the words for review and shallow preparing the least with just 15% of the words being reviewed. So shallow handling takes less pondering and therefore the data will be less inclined to be put away in your drawn out memory. Phonemic the subjects needed to ponder the appropriate response, so a portion of the data got in encoded and semantic was the best in general because of the way that the subjects needed to think much more so the data got encoded further so had the best review. (Nicky Hayes and sue Orrel 193l) Their are different investigations that have been made that have concurred and couldn't help contradicting Craik Lockhart(1971) hypothesis that its everything down to the profundity of handling to which you get review . a hypothesis that couldn't help contradicting the hypothesis was Tyler et al (1979) He did a test study which included re-arranged words. two sets. One troublesome model rtoodc and one simple model doctro. Presently if Craik and Lockharts hypothesis was to be legitimized the subjects ought to have thought of a similar outcome as its a similar word so the profundity of the encoding ought to be the equivalent, so review ought to be the equivalent. The subjects showed signs of improvement review with the harder re-arranged word which recommends that the additional time you pay and exertion will show signs of improvement review. Levels of preparing considers the impacts of handling not simply practice and explains on more profound preparing, association, peculiarity and elaboration. Levels of handling gives us approaches to improve memory discovering data that is particular. A contention against this hypothesis is who characterizes what profound handling is? In addition if semantic preparing produces better review thusly semantic handling must be more profound prompting better review so its a round contention. Memory is a mind boggling framework with a huge measure of different therapists undertaking studies to attempt to discover an understanding into how we recall data. The multi-store model even thou its a fundamental and shortsighted it was an extraordinary first endeavor at getting memory and gave future analysts some place to begin from. Atkinson and Shiffrins (1978) model doesn't clarify why some data needn't bother with practice yet at the same time gets encoded into our memory. Anyway in any event, when practice has occurred, its not in every case enough to move the data from present moment to long haul memory store. In spite of the fact that with levels of handling the model is increasingly unmistakable and investigates the various sorts of preparing. In any case, the model doesn't clarify why these various sorts of preparing lead to all the more likely review. Craik and Lockharts (1972) hypothesis additionally accept that semantic handling is more profound then phonemic yet ther e is no proof to demonstrate this. Subsequently the two models have shortcomings and both have proof that supports and backs up the models. The multi-store model is continually going to be the essential hypothesis that different analysts expand on and hence this task is more for the multi-store model at that point levels of handling because of the way that there is more proof to help that there is diverse memory stores and that when we get data it at that point gets encoded and whenever practiced quite possibly the data will at that point be put away into our present moment or long haul memory store.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Using Jomini and Clausewitz, where do these two philosophers draw the Essay

Utilizing Jomini and Clausewitz, where do these two logicians adhere to a meaningful boundary in war among workmanship and science - Essay Example The division of Gaul into east and west offered ascend to Germany as West Francia - Charles the Fat’s (child of Charlemagne) share. The Germans under Otto I, would later remove the crown from the Franks in 962 AD and clutched it generally of the empire’s presence. In 1330 when the state isolated from the congregation because of the counter pope, Wittelsbach Louis IV’s triumph over the popish Habsburg Frederick the Fair ( two contenders to the crown of the Holy Roman domain), the wrecked realm experienced intermittent changes as every imperial family combined its region. The outcomes have for right around a thousand years now since the Declaration of Rense in 1338, turned into the example for strife in Europe. The mass migration out of the Roman Catholic church’ grasp on the people groups of Europe that was the Protestant Reformation (1517â€1648) that started on October 31, 1517 with Martin Luther †prodded several years of strict common wars which s pread in Europe with France at its middle. It started with the French Huguenots revolt, after the Cathars, for example the Albighenses, in 1209 turned into the object of the Crusade drove by Arnold of Amalric after an ecclesiastical legate was executed. The slaughter of Huguenots at Vassaly in 1562 started the supposed Wars of Religion.1 Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1806 in the following French Revoluion, shut down the domain and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II of Austria relinquished. The lines which would later on make up the limits of the countries were not characterized then as they are presently, until the wars that before long followed. Along these lines, the Battle of Austerlitz in 1806, is a negligible outcome of these prior occasions, which had taken a long time since 1330 AD from the time the state isolated from the congregation. Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian officer from a working class group of honorable starting points and had

Friday, July 17, 2020

Essay Sample Can I Be Harmed by Things which Happen after My Death

Essay Sample Can I Be Harmed by Things which Happen after My Death Can I Be Harmed by Things which Happen after My Death? May 31, 2019 in Argumentative Essay Introduction A person can be harmed in different ways by a number of things during his/her life. Can one be harmed by the things which happen after his/her death? Lucretius stated that the soul was material and mortal, and Plato claimed immortality of soul in his works. There are convincing arguments that a person can not be harmed after death, according to Lucretius and Plato. Our universe is a very complicated mechanism. In On the Nature of Things, Lucretius raised issues about atomism, soul, and mind. He explained how people thought, and what a thought appeared to be. Lucretius described how the world was created and developed. He concentrated on terrestrial and celestial phenomena. According to the philosopher, the world and everything in it is being guided by a chance, which is called fortuna (Lucretius 121). The world is not created by a supreme being. In Lucretiuss opinion, the world is created by the combination of different atoms and they are guided by specific rules of the universe (122). Lucretius stated that everything that existed and happened in the world could be explained by the natural laws. He believed that the world was created according to the natural laws. Interactions of atoms did not have a specific purpose; they just cooperated in order to create life in the universe.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Achebe and Fanon on Colonization and Decolonization

Living in the same region for an extended period of time will endow the human inhabitant with a sense of pride in their homeland. When this idea is extended to a certain group of people living in the same area, pride turns into nationalism. The residents not only feel like they geographically own the land, but their history of culture in that given area lends them an emotional connection as well. When people of elsewhere come to take the land from the native inhabitants, many changes occur. In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon gives his insight into how the process of colonization and decolonization happens, and the resulting physical and mental effects on both groups of people. Telling this from a strictly historical and†¦show more content†¦As Fanon states, But the thing he [the settler] does not see, precisely because he is permeated by colonialism and all its ways of thinking, is that the settler, from the moment that the colonial context disappears, has no longer any interest in remaining or in co-existing (Fanon). While the tribe viewed the settlers as nothing more than an unwanted pest and let their guard down, the settlers established a more developed culture right next door and proceeded to take them over right in front of their eyes. As explained by Fanon, there comes a point where the natives either attempt the process of decolonization or give up, and in the case of the Umofia, because their physical leader Okonkwo was absent during the time to revolt, by the time he returned it was too late and the tribe had given in to the white man. Though the full process is not completed in Achebe s book, colonization happens, which, as stated by Fanon, is part of decolonization. Fanon makes the point that decolonization is the process of total upheaval, and more often than not it boils down to violence. He states, That affirmed intention of placing the last at the head of things, and to climb at a pace (too quickly, some say) the well-known steps which characterize an organized society, can only triumph if we use all means to turn the scale, including, of course, that of violence. (Fanon). In Things Fall Apart, though the violenceShow MoreRelatedThe Postcolonial Of Amitav Ghosh s Novels Let Us Begin3362 Words   |  14 Pagespostcolonial readings of Amitav Ghosh’s novels let us begin by understanding what postcolonial literature is. In this chapter, I will try to understand what the postcolonial literature does by theorizing the entire process of imperialization or colonization. In the following chapters I will try to understand the postcolonial perspective in Amitav Ghosh’s fictional works. As Peter Barry observes in his Beginning Theory, postcolonial criticism emerged as a distinct category only in the 1990s. It hasRead MoreHistory And Culture Of The Negritude Movement1658 Words   |  7 Pagesa sign of an awakening of race wistfulness for blacks in the African Diaspora and those in Africa. This new race wistfulness stemmed from the rediscovery of an original self (of the blacks), elicited a group condemnation of Western domination, colonization of the black people, enslavement, and anti-black racism. It seeks to dispel the stereotypes and myths associated with the black people, through acknowledging their achievements, history and culture, as well as repossessing their contributions toRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagestwentieth century as a coherent unit for teaching, as well as for written narrative and analysis. Though they do not exhaust the crucial strands of historical development that tie the century together—one could add, for example, nationalism and decolonization—they cover in depth the defining phenomena of that epoch, which, as the essays demonstrate, very often connect in important ways with these and other major developments. The opening essays of this collection underscore the importance of including

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Mass Incarceration Is Defined As The Imprisonment Of A...

At the simplest level, mass incarceration is defined as the imprisonment of a large amount of people. However, that does not tell the whole story. The majority of people incarcerated are minorities, and although mass incarceration began as a system of unjust racial and social control, today it continues for many political reasons including government grants, swaying voter opinion, and for-profit prison revenue. The United States incarcerates more people, per capita, than any other nation in the entire world. State and local prisons and jails account for about 80% of incarcerations. Although crime rates have decreased since the 1990s, incarceration rates have soared. According to a recent Prison Policy Initiative publication, approximately 2.3 million people are currently â€Å"locked up† in the United States. Of these 2.3 million people, 1 in 5 are locked up for a drug related offense. Statistics show that prisoners and felons imprisoned for drug related crimes are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. The mass incarceration issue in the United States derives from the many arrests associated with these â€Å"offenses† regarding drugs and the war on drugs. Mass incarceration is the inhumane process by which people are cornered into the criminal â€Å"justice† system and recognized as criminals and felons. Criminals in the United States tend to receive longer sentences than those in other countries, even when they commit the same crimes. Furthermore, once these individuals are releasedShow MoreRelatedHow Stratification Creates Inequalities Within The Criminal Justice System2145 Words   |  9 PagesJustice System The population at large in the United Stated is very different than the population of the prison system. Racial inequality in the criminal justice system is often ignored because it does not affect most people. If there is to be a change in racial inequality, this issue is one that must be addressed. According to Inequality and Incarceration, â€Å"497 out of 100,000 Americans are imprisoned.† This means there is â€Å"less than one percent of people† in the United States that are imprisonedRead MoreDeath Of Black And White Penal : Hell Hole, Popular Media, And Mass Incarceration1904 Words   |  8 PagesKids can no longer play outside; people lock their doors at night. People fear daily whether they will make it back to their house at night. Some leave in the morning in a suit and tie off to their nine to five jobs, others go off into the streets, trying to make the best they can with what they have.  America is the leading nation of individuals in prison, represe nting almost a quarter of the worlds imprisoned population. Over the years,  the number of incarcerated individuals  has  increased  as wellRead MoreThe Efficiency Of The Prison System Essay2411 Words   |  10 PagesInstructor Ghent CRTW 201 April 25, 2016 The Efficiency of the Prison System If Johnny Cash described the sad daily life of inmates in his classic  «Ã‚  Folsom Prison Blues  Ã‚ », today it’s all the prison system which is feeling pretty blue. Justice is defined as the administration of law. But within that definition is the implicit understanding that the law must be applied even handedly. The rule of law is meant to apply to all, but currently in America that crucial principle can be questioned. It is blatantlyRead MoreRestorative And Restorative Justice System3870 Words   |  16 Pagesthe outcome of multiple adverse social, economic, cultural and family conditions, and to prevent crime it is critical to have an understanding of its roots. Economic, social and family structures are complex and interrelated topics that have a large amount of impact on offenders that commit crimes. Firstly, economic factors such as poverty and lack of financial resources, most times create a lack of educational opportunities, lack of meaningful employment options, and poor housing. These conditionsRead MoreA Passionate Sermon At Church Essay2141 Words   |  9 Pagesdescriptive statement resonates far from being believable considering we are a nation that promotes itself as being a land of opportunity. However, these opportunities that are glamorized were not established with fairness for all of its people. Accounting for the substantial amount of laws that prompt favor for slavery, dating back to the 1600’s when the first African arrived as cargo on a Dutch ship. Slavery was introduced to the Americans by the Dutch. In the colony of Jamestown Virginia, the demand forRead MoreMass Incarceration Nation : The Failing Of The American Criminal Justice System2691 Words   |  11 Pages Mass Incarceration Nation The Failing of the American Criminal Justice System Sophia Scales Ashford University Criminal Justice 201 Professor Ted Ellis November 17, 2014 American prison systems encompass all three spheres of criminal justice: law enforcement, judiciary, corrections. Within this system, a massive problem exists. America is known as the â€Å"mass incarceration nation† (Hamilton, 2014, p. 1271). Comparatively, the United States encompasses the majority of global prisonersRead MoreThe Issue Of Reoffending Rates1507 Words   |  7 PagesDownes (2001) argues that there is an ideological function of reoffending – to make capitalism look successful. This is because it soaks up a large percentage of the unemployed, therefore making unemployment official statistics look better. Research has identified a correlation between reoffending rates and the length of sentence. One might expect that the people who had originally been given longer sentences would be the more hardened criminals and therefore more likely to be reconvicted. But the highestRead MoreMass Incarceration And Its Effects On Society2911 Words   |  12 Pagesmost prisoners are eventually released, mass incarceration has in turn produced a steep rise in the number of individuals reentering society and undergoing the process of social and economic reintegration. (Travis, 2005). During the period between 1982 and 2007, the number of Americans incarcerated in jails and prisons increased by 274% (Pew Center on the States, 2009). In addition to the increase of the individuals incarcerated, there is an even larger amount of individuals under community supervisionRead MoreIncarceration: Prison and Inmates10532 Words   |  43 Pagesconvicted of crimes. This confinement, whether before or after a cri minal conviction, is called incarceration. Incarceration is one of the main forms of punishment for the commission of illegal offenses. Juveniles and adults alike are subject to incarceration. Incarceration is the detention of a person in a jail or prison. The federal, state, and local governments have facilities to confine people. Individuals awaiting trial, being held pending citations for non-custodial offenses, and thoseRead MoreDiscrimination Based On The Colors Of One s Skin1678 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"thugs† often get the reputations of being dangerous, yet a â€Å"rebellious teen† might get sympathy due to the fact that he or she is young. When in reality everyone should be held equally accountable for their actions and no particular race or group of people should cause this responsibility to be differed. Also, within the job market there is discrimination based on the hues of one’s skin. In an experiment done at Duke University, college students were asked to choose between job candidates who presented

Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE Free Essays

string(89) " He did have the look of an insomniac, I thought \?\? too wide around the eyes, somehow\." Once, when I was sixteen, a plane went supersonic directly over my head. I was walking in the woods when it happened, thinking of some story I was going to write, perhaps, or how great it would be if Doreen Fournier weakened some Friday night and let me take off her panties while we were parked at the end of Cushman Road. In any case I was travelling far roads in my own mind, and when that boom went off, I was caught totally by surprise. We will write a custom essay sample on Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE or any similar topic only for you Order Now I went flat on the leafy ground with my hands over my head and my heart drumming crazily, sure I’d reached the end of my life (and while I was still a virgin). In my forty years, that was the only thing which equalled the final dream of the ‘Manderley series’ for utter terror. I lay on the ground, waiting for the hammer to fall, and when thirty seconds or so passed and no hammer did fall, I began to realize it had just been some jet-jockey from the Brunswick Naval Air Station, too eager to wait until he was out over the Atlantic before going to Mach 1. But, holy shit, who ever could have guessed that it would be so loud? I got slowly to my feet and as I stood there with my heart finally slowing down, I realized I wasn’t the only thing that had been scared witless by that sudden clear-sky boom. For the first time in my memory, the little patch of woods behind our house in Prout’s Neck was entirely silent. I stood there in a dusty bar of sunlight, crumbled leaves all over my tee-shirt and jeans, holding my breath, listening. I had never heard a silence like it. Even on a cold day in January, the woods would have been full of conversation. At last a finch sang. There were two or three seconds of silence, and then a jay replied. Another two or three seconds went by, and then a crow added his two cents’ worth. A woodpecker began to hammer for grubs. A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my left. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully alive with little noises again; it was back to business as usual, and I continued with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it. I thought of that June day often in the wake of the nightmare, and there was nothing so remarkable in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change . . . but first comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the danger if there was danger is gone. Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. Ice and high winds caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a sudden twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward made the digging out hard and the cleanup slow. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic; we get them up this way every year (and two or three in April for good measure, if we’re not lucky), but we never seem to expect them. Every time we get clouted, we take it personally. On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally started to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry at the little restaurant three doors down from the Rite Aid where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword when someone asked, ‘Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? It’s pretty crowded in here today.’ I looked up and saw an old man that I knew but couldn’t quite place. ‘Ralph Roberts,’ he said. ‘I volunteer down at the Red Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.’ ‘Oh, okay, sure,’ I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Roberts was one of the old parties who passed out juice and cookies afterward, telling you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you felt woozy. ‘Please, sit down.’ He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and lying in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. ‘Don’t you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is sort of like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game?’ he asked. I laughed and nodded. ‘I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts . . . because it’s there. Only with the News crossword, no one ever falls off.’ ‘Call me Ralph. Please.’ ‘Okay. And I’m Mike.’ ‘Good.’ He grinned, revealing teeth that were crooked and a little yellow, but all his own. ‘I like getting to the first names. It’s like being able to take off your tie. Was quite a little cap of wind we had, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but it’s warming up nicely now.’ The thermometer had made one of its nimble March leaps, climbing from twenty-five degrees the night before to fifty that morning. Better than the rise in air-temperature, the sun was warm again on your face. It was that warmth that had coaxed me out of the house. ‘Spring’ll get here, I guess. Some years it gets a little lost, but it always seems to find its way back home.’ He sipped his coffee, then set the cup down. ‘Haven’t seen you at the Red Cross lately.’ ‘I’m recycling,’ I said, but that was a fib; I’d come eligible to give another pint two weeks ago. The reminder card was up on the refrigerator. It had just slipped my mind. ‘Next week, for sure.’ ‘I only mention it because I know you’re an A, and we can always use that.’ ‘Save me a couch.’ ‘Count on it. Everything going all right? I only ask because you look tired. If it’s insomnia, I can sympathize, believe me.’ He did have the look of an insomniac, I thought too wide around the eyes, somehow. But he was also a man in his mid- to late seventies, and I don’t think anyone gets that far without showing it. Stick around a little while, and life maybe only jabs at your cheeks and eyes. Stick around a long while and you end up looking like Jake La Motta after a hard fifteen. I opened my mouth to say what I always do when someone asks me if I’m all right, then wondered why I always felt I had to pull that tiresome Marlboro Man shit, just who I was trying to fool. What did I think would happen if I told the guy who gave me a chocolate-chip cookie down at the Red Cross after the nurse took the needle out of my arm that I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent? Earthquakes? Fire and flood? Shit. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I really haven’t been feeling so great, Ralph.’ ‘Flu? It’s been going around.’ ‘Nah. The flu missed me this time, actually. And I’ve been sleeping all right.’ Which was true there had been no recurrence of the Sara Laughs dream in either the normal or the high-octane version. ‘I think I’ve just got the blues.’ ‘Well, you ought to take a vacation,’ he said, then sipped his coffee. When he looked up at me again, he frowned and set his cup down. ‘What? Is something wrong?’ No, I thought of saying. You were just the first bird to sing into the silence, Ralph, that’s all. ‘No, nothing wrong,’ I said, and then, because I sort of wanted to see how the words tasted coming out of my own mouth, I repeated them. ‘A vacation.’ ‘Ayuh,’ he said, smiling. ‘People do it all the time.’ People do it all the time. He was right about that; even people who couldn’t strictly afford to went on vacation. When they got tired. When they got all balled up in their own shit. When the world was too much with them, getting and spending. I could certainly afford a vacation, and I could certainly take the time off from work what work, ha-ha? and yet I’d needed the Red Cross cookie-man to point out what should have been self-evident to a college-educated guy like me: that I hadn’t been on an actual vacation since Jo and I had gone to Bermuda, the winter before she died. My particular grindstone was no longer turning, but I had kept my nose to it all the same. It wasn’t until that summer, when I read Ralph Roberts’s obituary in the News (he was struck by a car), that I fully realized how much I owed him. That advice was better than any glass of orange juice I ever got after giving blood, let me tell you. When I left the restaurant, I didn’t go home but tramped over half of the damned town, the section of newspaper with the partly completed crossword puzzle in it clamped under one arm. I walked until I was chilled in spite of the warming temperatures. I didn’t think about anything, and yet I thought about everything. It was a special kind of thinking, the sort I’d always done when I was getting close to writing a book, and although I hadn’t thought that way in years, I fell into it easily and naturally, as if I had never been away. It’s like some guys with a big truck have pulled up in your driveway and are moving things into your basement. I can’t explain it any better than that. You can’t see what these things are because they’re all wrapped up in padded quilts, but you don’t need to see them. It’s furniture, everything you need to make your house a home, make it just right, just the way you wanted it. When the guys have hopped back into their truck and driven away, you go down to the basement and walk around (the way I went walking around Derry that late morning, slopping up hill and down dale in my old galoshes), touching a padded curve here, a padded angle there. Is this one a sofa? Is that’ one a dresser? It doesn’t matter. Everything is here, the movers didn’t forget a thing, and although you’ll have to get it all upstairs yourself (straining your poor old back in the process, more often than not), that’s okay. The important thing is that the delivery was complete. This time I thought hoped the delivery truck had brought the stuff I needed for the back forty: the years I might have to spend in a No Writing Zone. To the cellar door they had come, and they had knocked politely, and when after several months there was still no answer, they had finally fetched a battering ram. HEY BUDDY, HOPE THE NOISE DIDN’T SCARE YOU TOO BAD, SORRY ABOUT THE DOOR! I didn’t care about the door; I cared about the furniture. Any pieces broken or missing? I didn’t think so. I thought all I had to do was get it upstairs, pull off the furniture pads, and put it where it belonged. On my way back home, I passed The Shade, Derry’s charming little revival movie house, which has prospered in spite of (or perhaps because of) the video revolution. This month they were showing classic SF from the fifties, but April was dedicated to Humphrey Bogart, Jo’s all-time favorite. I stood under the marquee for several moments, studying one of the Coming Attractions posters. Then I went home, picked a travel agent pretty much at random from the phone book, and told the guy I wanted to go to Key Largo. Key West, you mean, the guy said. No, I told him, I mean Key Largo, just like in the movie with Bogie and Bacall. Three weeks. Then I rethought that. I was wealthy, I was on my own, and I was retired. What was this ‘three weeks’ shit? Make it six, I said. Find me a cottage or something. Going to be expensive, he said. I told him I didn’t care. When I came back to Derry, it would be spring. In the meantime, I had some furniture to unwrap. I was enchanted with Key Largo for the first month and bored out of my mind for the last two weeks. I stayed, though, because boredom is good. People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done. I ate about a billion shrimp, drank about a thousand margaritas, and read twenty-three John D. MacDonald novels by actual count. I burned, peeled, and finally tanned. I bought a long-billed cap with PARROTHEAD printed on it in bright green thread. I walked the same stretch of beach until I knew everybody by first name. And I unwrapped furniture. A lot of it I didn’t like, but there was no doubt that it all fit the house. I thought about Jo and our life together. I thought about saying to her that no one was ever going to confuse Being Two with Look Homeward, Angel. ‘You aren’t going to pull a lot of frustrated-artist crap on me, are you, Noonan?’ she had replied . . . and during my time on Key Largo, those words kept coming back, always in Jo’s voice: crap, frustrated-artist crap, all that fucking schoolboy frustrated-artist crap. I thought about her long red woods apron, coming to me with a hatful of black trumpet mushrooms, laughing and triumphant: ‘Nobody on the TR eats better than the Noonans tonight!’ she’d cried. I thought of her painting her toenails, bent over between her own thighs in the way only women doing that particular piece of business can manage. I thought of her throwing a book at me because I laughed at some new haircut. I thought of her trying to learn how to play a breakdown on her banjo and of how she looked braless in a thin sweater. I thought of her crying and laughing and angry. I thought of her telling me it was crap, all that frustrated-artist crap. And I thought about the dreams, especially the culminating dream. I could do that easily, because it never faded as the more ordinary ones do. The final Sara Laughs dream and my very first wet dream (coming upon a girl lying naked in a hammock and eating a plum) are the only two that remain perfectly clear to me, year after year; the rest are either hazy fragments or completely forgotten. There were a great many clear details to the Sara dreams the loons, the crickets, the evening star and my wish upon it, just to name a few but I thought most of those things were just verisimilitude. Scene-setting, if you will. As such, they could be dismissed from my considerations. That left three major elements, three large pieces of furniture to be unwrapped. As I sat on the beach, watching the sun go down between my sandy toes, I didn’t think you had to be a shrink to see how those three things went together. In the Sara dreams, the major elements were the woods behind me, the house below me, and Michael Noonan himself, frozen in the middle. It’s getting dark and there’s danger in the woods. It will be frightening to go to the house below, perhaps because it’s been empty so long, but I never doubt I must go there; scary or not, it’s the only shelter I have. Except I can’t do it. I can’t move. I’ve got writer’s walk. In the nightmare I am finally able to go toward shelter, only the shelter proves false. Proves more dangerous than I had ever expected in my . . . well, yes, in my wildest dreams. My dead wife rushes out, screaming and still tangled in her shroud, to attack me. Even five weeks later and almost three thousand miles from Derry, remembering that speedy white thing with its baggy arms would make me shiver and look back over my shoulder. But was it Johanna? I didn’t really know, did I? The thing was all wrapped up. The coffin looked like the one in which she had been buried, true, but that might just be misdirection. Writer’s walk, writer’s block. I can’t write, I told the voice in the dream. The voice says I can. The voice says the writer’s block is gone, and I believe it because the writer’s walk is gone, I’m finally headed down the driveway, going to shelter. I’m afraid, though. Even before the shapeless white thing makes its appearance, I’m terrified. I say it’s Mrs. Danvers I’m afraid of, but that’s just my dreaming mind getting Sara Laughs and Manderley all mixed up. I’m afraid of ‘I’m afraid of writing,’ I heard myself saying out loud. ‘I’m afraid to even try.’ This was the night before I finally flew back to Maine, and I was half-past sober, going on drunk. By the end of my vacation, I was drinking a lot of evenings. ‘It’s not the block that scares me, it’s undoing the block. I’m really fucked, boys and girls. I’m fucked big-time.’ Fucked or not, I had an idea I’d finally reached the heart of the matter. I was afraid of undoing the block, maybe afraid of picking up the strands of my life and going on without Jo. Yet some deep part of my mind believed I must do it; that’s what the menacing noises behind me in the woods were about. And belief counts for a lot. Too much, maybe, especially if you’re imaginative. When an imaginative person gets into mental trouble, the line between seeming and being has a way of disappearing. Things in the woods, yes, sir. I had one of them right there in my hand as I was thinking these things. I lifted my drink, holding it toward the western sky so that the setting sun seemed to be burning in the glass. I was drinking a lot, and maybe that was okay on Key Largo hell, people were supposed to drink a lot on vacation, it was almost the law but I’d been drinking too much even before I left. The kind of drinking that could get out of hand in no time at all. The kind that could get a man in trouble. Things in the woods, and the potentially safe place guarded by a scary bugbear that was not my wife, but perhaps my wife’s memory. It made sense, because Sara Laughs had always been Jo’s favorite place on earth. That thought led to another, one that made me swing my legs over the side of the chaise I’d been reclining on and sit up in excitement. Sara Laughs had also been the place where the ritual had begun . . . champagne, last line, and the all-important benediction: Well, then, that’s all right, isn’t it? Did I want things to be all right again? Did I truly want that? A month or a year before I mightn’t have been sure, but now I was. The answer was yes. I wanted to move on let go of my dead wife, rehab my heart, move on. But to do that, I’d have to go back. Back to the log house. Back to Sara Laughs. ‘Yeah,’ I said, and my body broke out in gooseflesh. ‘Yeah, you got it.’ So why not? The question made me feel as stupid as Ralph Roberts’s observation that I needed a vacation. If I needed to go back to Sara Laughs now that my vacation was over, indeed why not? It might be a little scary the first night or two, a hangover from my final dream, but just being there might dissolve the dream faster. And (this last thought I allowed in only one humble corner of my conscious mind) something might happen with my writing. It wasn’t likely . . . but it wasn’t impossible, either. Barring a miracle, hadn’t that been my thought on New Year’s Day as I sat on the rim of the tub, holding a damp washcloth to the cut on my forehead? Yes. Barring a miracle. Sometimes blind people fall down, knock their heads, and regain their sight. Sometimes maybe cripples are able to throw their crutches away when they get to the top of the church steps. I had eight or nine months before Harold and Debra started really bugging me for the next novel. I decided to spend the time at Sara Laughs. It would take me a little while to tie things up in Derry, and awhile for Bill Dean to get the house on the lake ready for a year-round resident, but I could be down there by the Fourth of July, easily. I decided that was a good date to shoot for, not just the birthday of our country, but pretty much the end of bug season in western Maine. By the day I packed up my vacation gear (the John D. MacDonald paperbacks I left for the cabin’s next inhabitant), shaved a week’s worth of stubble off a face so tanned it no longer looked like my own to me, and flew back to Maine, I was decided: I’d go back to the place my subconscious mind had identified as shelter against the deepening dark; I’d go back even though my mind had also suggested that doing so would not be without risks. I would not go back expecting Sara to be Lourdes . . . but I would allow myself to hope, and when I saw the evening star peeping out over the lake for the first time, I would allow myself to wish on it. Only one thing didn’t fit into my neat deconstruction of the Sara dreams, and because I couldn’t explain it, I tried to ignore it. I didn’t have much luck, though; part of me was still a writer, I guess, and a writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave. It was the cut on the back of my hand. That cut had been in all the dreams, I would swear it had . . . and then it had actually appeared. You didn’t get that sort of shit in the works of Dr. Freud; stuff like that was strictly for the Psychic Friends hotline. It was a coincidence, that’s all, I thought as my plane started its descent. I was in seat A-2 (the nice thing about flying up front is that if the plane goes down, you’re first to the crash site) and looking at pine forests as we slipped along the glidepath toward Bangor International Airport. The snow was gone for another year; I had vacationed it to death. Only coincidence. How many times have you cut your hands? I mean, they’re always out front, aren’t they, waving themselves around? Practically begging for it. All that should have rung true, and yet somehow it didn’t, quite. It should have, but . . . well . . . It was the boys in the basement. They were the ones who didn’t buy it. The boys in the basement didn’t buy it at all. At that point there was a thump as the 737 touched down, and I put the whole line of thought out of my mind. One afternoon shortly after arriving back home, I rummaged the closets until I found the shoeboxes containing Jo’s old photographs. I sorted them, then studied my way through the ones of Dark Score Lake. There were a staggering number of these, but because Johanna was the shutterbug, there weren’t many with her in them. I found one, though, that I remembered taking in 1990 or ’91. Sometimes even an untalented photographer can take a good picture if seven hundred monkeys spent seven hundred years bashing away at seven hundred typewriters, and all that and this was good. In it Jo was standing on the float with the sun going down red-gold behind her. She was just out of the water, dripping wet, wearing a two-piece swimming suit, gray with red piping. I had caught her laughing and brushing her soaked hair back from her forehead and temples. Her nipples were very prominent against the cups of her halter. She looked like an actress on a movie poster for one of those guilty-pleasure B-pictures about monsters at Party Beach or a serial killer stalking the campus. I was sucker-punched by a sudden powerful lust for her. I wanted her upstairs just as she was in that photograph, with strands of her hair pasted to her cheeks and that wet bathing suit clinging to her. I wanted to suck her nipples through the halter top, taste the cloth and feel their hardness through it. I wanted to suck water out of the cotton like milk, then yank the bottom of her suit off and fuck her until we both exploded. Hands shaking a little, I put the photograph aside, with some others I liked (although there were no others I liked in quite that same way). I had a huge hard-on, one of those ones that feel like stone covered with skin. Get one of those and until it goes away you are good for nothing. The quickest way to solve a problem like that when there’s no woman around willing to help you solve it is to masturbate, but that time the idea never even crossed my mind. Instead I walked restlessly through the upstairs rooms of my house with my fists opening and closing and what looked like a hood ornament stuffed down the front of my jeans. Anger may be a normal stage of the grieving process I’ve read that it is but I was never angry at Johanna in the wake of her death until the day I found that picture. Then, wow. There I was, walking around with a boner that just wouldn’t quit, furious with her. Stupid bitch, why had she been running on one of the hottest days of the year? Stupid, inconsiderate bitch to leave me alone like this, not even able to work. I sat down on the stairs and wondered what I should do. A drink was what I should do, I decided, and then maybe another drink to scratch the first one’s back. I actually got up before deciding that wasn’t a very good idea at all. I went into my office instead, turned on the computer, and did a crossword puzzle. That night when I went to bed, I thought of looking at the picture of Jo in her bathing suit again. I decided that was almost as bad an idea as a few drinks when I was feeling angry and depressed. But I’ll have the dream tonight, I thought as I turned off the light. I’ll have the dream for sure. I didn’t, though. My dreams of Sara Laughs seemed to be finished. A week’s thought made the idea of at least summering at the lake seem better than ever. So, on a Saturday afternoon in early May when I calculated that any self-respecting Maine caretaker would be home watching the Red Sox, I called Bill Dean and told him I’d be at my lake place from the Fourth of July or so . . . and that if things went as I hoped, I’d be spending the fall and winter there as well. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s real good news. A lot of folks down here’ve missed you, Mike. Quite a few that want to condole with you about your wife, don’t you know.’ Was there the faintest note of reproach in his voice, or was that just my imagination? Certainly Jo and I had cast a shadow in the area; we had made significant contributions to the little library which served the Motton-Kashwakamak-Castle View area, and Jo had headed the successful fund drive to get an area bookmobile up and running. In addition to that, she had been part of a ladies’ sewing circle (afghans were her specialty), and a member in good standing of the Castle County Crafts Co-op. Visits to the sick . . . helping out with the annual volunteer fire department blood drive . . . womaning a booth during Summerfest in Castle Rock . . . and stuff like that was only where she had started. She didn’t do it in any ostentatious Lady Bountiful way, either, but unobtrusively and humbly, with her head lowered (often to hide a rather sharp smile, I should add my Jo had a Biercean sense of humor). Christ, I thought, maybe old Bill had a right to sound reproachful. ‘People miss her,’ I said. ‘Ayuh, they do.’ ‘I still miss her a lot myself. I think that’s why I’ve stayed away from the lake. That’s where a lot of our good times were.’ ‘I s’pose so. But it’ll be damned good to see you down this way. I’ll get busy. The place is all right you could move into it this afternoon, if you was a mind but when a house has stood empty the way Sara has, it gets stale.’ ‘I know.’ ‘I’ll get Brenda Meserve to clean the whole shebang from top to bottom. Same gal you always had, don’t you know.’ ‘Brenda’s a little old for comprehensive spring cleaning, isn’t she?’ The lady in question was about sixty-five, stout, kind, and gleefully vulgar. She was especially fond of jokes about the travelling salesman who spent the night like a rabbit, jumping from hole to hole. No Mrs. Danvers she. ‘Ladies like Brenda Meserve never get too old to oversee the festivities,’ Bill said. ‘She’ll get two or three girls to do the vacuuming and heavy lifting. Set you back maybe three hundred dollars. Sound all right?’ ‘Like a bargain.’ ‘The well needs to be tested, and the gennie, too, although I’m sure both of em’s okay. I seen a hornet’s nest by Jo’s old studio that I want to smoke before the woods get dry. Oh, and the roof of the old house you know, the middle piece needs to be reshingled. I shoulda talked to you about that last year, but with you not using the place, I let her slide. You stand good for that, too?’ ‘Yes, up to ten grand. Beyond that, call me.’ ‘If we have to go over ten, I’ll smile and kiss a pig.’ ‘Try to have it all done before I get down there, okay?’ ‘Coss. You’ll want your privacy, I know that . . . just so long’s you know you won’t get any right away. We was shocked when she went so young; all of us were. Shocked and sad. She was a dear.’ From a Yankee mouth, that word rhymes with Leah. ‘Thank you, Bill.’ I felt tears prickle my eyes. Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug. ‘Thanks for saying.’ ‘You’ll get your share of carrot-cakes, chummy.’ He laughed, but a little doubtfully, as if afraid he was committing an impropriety. ‘I can eat a lot of carrot-cake,’ I said, ‘and if folks overdo it, well, hasn’t Kenny Auster still got that big Irish wolfhound?’ ‘Yuh, that thing’d eat cake til he busted!’ Bill cried in high good humor. He cackled until he was coughing. I waited, smiling a little myself. ‘Blueberry, he calls that dog, damned if I know why. Ain’t he the gormiest thing!’ I assumed he meant the dog and not the dog’s master. Kenny Auster, not much more than five feet tall and neatly made, was the opposite of gormy, that peculiar Maine adjective that means clumsy, awkward, and clay-footed. I suddenly realized that I missed these people Bill and Brenda and Buddy Jellison and Kenny Auster and all the others who lived year-round at the lake. I even missed Blueberry, the Irish wolfhound, who trotted everywhere with his head up just as if he had half a brain in it and long strands of saliva depending from his jaws. ‘I’ve also got to get down there and clean up the winter blowdown,’ Bill said. He sounded embarrassed. ‘It ain’t bad this year that last big storm was all snow over our way, thank God but there’s still a fair amount of happy crappy I ain’t got to yet. I shoulda put it behind me long before now. You not using the place ain’t an excuse. I been cashing your checks.’ There was something amusing about listening to the grizzled old fart beating his breast; Jo would have kicked her feet and giggled, I’m quite sure. ‘If everything’s right and running by July Fourth, Bill, I’ll be happy.’ ‘You’ll be happy as a clam in a mudflat, then. That’s a promise.’ Bill sounded as happy as a clam in a mudflat himself, and I was glad. ‘Goingter come down and write a book by the water? Like in the old days? Not that the last couple ain’t been fine, my wife couldn’t put that last one down, but ‘ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, which was the truth. And then an idea struck me. ‘Bill, would you do me a favor before you clean up the driveway and turn Brenda Meserve loose?’ ‘Happy to if I can,’ he said, so I told him what I wanted. Four days later, I got a little package with this laconic return address: DEAN/GEN DELIV/TR-90 (DARK SCORE). I opened it and shook out twenty photographs which had been taken with one of those little cameras you use once and then throw away. Bill had filled out the roll with various views of the house, most conveying that subtle air of neglect a place gets when it’s not used enough . . . even a place that’s caretook (to use Bill’s word) gets that neglected feel after awhile. I barely glanced at these. The first four were the ones I wanted, and I lined them up on the kitchen table, where the strong sunlight would fall directly on them. Bill had taken these from the top of the driveway, pointing the disposable camera down at the sprawl of Sara Laughs. I could see the moss which had grown not only on south wings, as well. I could see the litter of fallen branches and the drifts of pine needles on the driveway. Bill must have been tempted to clear all that away before taking his snaps, but he hadn’t. I’d told him exactly what I wanted ‘warts and all’ was the phrase I had used and Bill had given it to me. The bushes on either side of the driveway had thickened a lot since Jo and I had spent any significant amount of time at the lake; they hadn’t exactly run wild, but yes, some of the longer branches did seem to yearn toward each other across the asphalt like separated lovers. Yet what my eye came back to again and again was the stoop at the foot of the driveway. The other resemblances between the photographs and my dreams of Sara Laughs might only be coincidental (or the writer’s often surprisingly practical imagination at work), but I could explain the sunflowers growing out through the boards of the stoop no more than I had been able to explain the cut on the back of my hand. I turned one of the photos over. On the back, in a spidery script, Bill had written: These fellows are way early . . . and trespassing! I flipped back to the picture side. Three sunflowers, growing up through the boards of the stoop. Not two, not four, but three large sunflowers with faces like searchlights. Just like the ones in my dream. How to cite Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE, Essay examples

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Peer Pressure Essays (338 words) - Educational Psychology, Youth

Peer Pressure Peer pressure can influence a person to start smoking, drinking, or doing drugs and other things that are harmful to his/her body. However, peer pressure can also be helpful by influencing someone to do right instead of wrong. For example, a person can be an example to his/her friends and let them know he/she wants to do right and he/she wants to change how he/she acts or what he/she were like. Peer pressure can be a struggle for some people because they may be depressed by what they have done or what people done to hurt their feelings in the past. Peer pressure can make a person feel really bad about him/herself, but a person must remember that peer pressure can be good or bad. Peer Pressure has been blamed for adolescent behaviors ranging from choice in clothing to drug usage. A new study says that the effects of peer pressure on teenagers behavior may be highly overrated. This study, published in Addiction (Vol. 91, No. 2), adds to a growing body of research that suggests peer pressure is a weaker factor in adolescent behavior than many had believed. When there is so much emphasis on peer pressure, theres a tendency not to discuss or not to look hard for evidence of other factors. We went back and tried to critically examine the importance of peer pressure. Researchers did studies over a twenty year spand to find that peer pressure was easily blamed for teenage behavior but never examined. Other factors such as family life, economic background, environment, and biological tendencies all may be as important or even more important than peer pressure in determining behavior. Kids who smoke tend to choose kids who smoke as friends. Children who have the same habits have a tendency to hang together. Peer pressure may be least factor in the use of drugs and other habits related to teenage life, but nonetheless peer pressure is a factor that influences drug use among teenagers. Social Issues