The Father She Needed Essay Example for Free

The Father She Needed Essay Over time, her relationship with her stepfather strengthens, which in turn gives her the encouragement that she wanted, and the true father figure that she desperately needed. When Stephanie sees a shot-put match take place that her newest stepfather takes her too, she immediately falls in love. She begins to strengthen herself so much that it begins to bother her mother Helen. She is completely against Stephanie’s sport and constantly puts her down. There are many instances in which Helen opposes Stephanie’s steadfastness toward shot-put. As a former Avon consultant, her mother’s view of beauty greatly differs from Stephanie’s. Helen sees beauty as more of an outer aspect rather than inner and this the first step toward extreme conflict with Stephanie. Secondly, Helen simply speaks her opinion on the matter by telling her husband, â€Å"I have to sit alone and watch my daughter, by beautiful Stephanie, do dynamic tension to her neck and arms. Every morning while she chews her toast I look to see if facial hair has started to grow† (Apple, 132). Throughout Max Apple’s â€Å"Stepdaughters,† her mother Helen is antagonizing Stephanie for pursuing a career in shot-put and it’s because of this that her relationship with her new stepfather blossoms. Stephanie has never really developed a relationship with any of her previous fathers. She begins to develop a relationship with her new stepfather when he takes an interest in her life and introduces her to shot-put. There are many instances in the story where her father openly supports her shot-putting. First of all, he ants to develop a real lasting relationship with Stephanie and Helen, and because he openly supports Stephanie, she begins to trust him and consider him a true father figure. One instance of this is that at the beginning of â€Å"Stepdaughters,† he gives her a poster of the band Genesis in hopes that â€Å"it would signify a beginning for the three of us† (Apple, 129). Secondly, he is so steadfast in supporting her dream that at the end of the story he explains â€Å"[Stephanie] has a lot to throw away, this stepdaughter of mine; in eight-pound chunks she might be able to manage it, maybe all the way to the Olympics† (Apple, 135). In the end he supports her and he always will. Despite the confrontation between Stephanie and her mother, he is always there to back her up as she pursues her dream. This was the perfect time when Stephanie needed a father figure; not just to provide for her, but to love, care, and support her in whatever she does. If Stephanie were to start up shot-put, when her mother was single, her dream might have been abruptly ended by her mother opposition to it. Stephanie’s new stepfather was the person to introduce to her a sport that she loves and become the father that she never had. In the sum of it all Stephanie is at a povital point in her life, and her mother may oppose her dream for a long time. But because her new father that she is just getting to know supports her, she may have it a little easier through her new few years than they would be without him. Stephanie tells her father near the end of the story, â€Å"You can pack up whatever you want. You don’t have to put up with us. You must know by now that this not is going to stop. I’m going to give it everything I’ve got for the next three years and you can bet that Mom’s going to fight me every inch. Life around this house is not going to be a picnic† (Apple, 134). Stephanie has seen so many stepfathers come and go that she’s basically saying that she wouldn’t be surprised if he left her too. As he has proved throughout the story, he not going anywhere. He is there to stay because he cares for her and he cares for her mom. She is working steadfastly toward a goal and her father will stand by her side every step of the way. Works Cited Apple, Max. â€Å"Stepdaughters. † The Norton Introduction to Literature. Alsion Booth and Kelly J. Mays. 10th ed. NY: WW Norton, 2010. 129-135. Print. Outline Thesis: In Max Apple’s â€Å"Stepdaughters,† Stephanie, despite constant criticism from her mother Helen, pushes herself to perfect her trade to the best of her ability with her stepfather. Over time, her relationship with her stepfather strengthens, which in turn gives her the encouragement that she wanted, and the true father figure that she desperately needed. Body Paragraph I. Stephanie’s begins to clash with her mother because Helen’s view of beauty greatly differs from Stephanie’s. When Stephanie, starting shot-put, her mother Helen became very critical and annoyed. Her relationship with her father helps her deal with this. A. Helen used to work as an Avon consultant and her view of beauty greatly differs from the narrator’s and Stephanie’s. (Page 132, Paragraph 60) B. Helen disapproves of Stephanie’s love of shot-put. (Page 132, Paragraph 59) C. Helen is also very critical about Stephanie’s choice. (Page 132, Paragraphs 76, 77) Body Paragraph II. Stephanie has never really developed a relationship with any of her previous fathers. She begins to develop a relationship with her new stepfather when he takes an interest in her life and introduces her to shot-put. A. Stephanie’s new father has a desire to make lasting relationships with her and her mother. (Page 129, Paragraphs 11-15) B. Stephanie is introduced to shot-put by her stepdad. (Page 130, Paragraph 15 C. Stephanie’s relationship with her stepdad begins to blossom when he takes a real interest in her life and her activities. The conflict with her mother helps to strengthen the bond between her and her stepdad, because he supports her, when her mother does not. (Page 134, Paragraph 89; Page 135, Paragraph 92) Conclusion

Free Things They Carried Essays: The Problem of Surviving :: Things They Carried Essays

The Things They Carried   In the short story â€Å"The Things They Carried† Tim O’Brien faces Jimmy Cross with the problem of surviving while fighting in Vietnam.   While trying to maintain his sanity, Jimmy struggles between his old self and the person he has to become.   Jimmy has to make some difficult decisions while in his tour, and most of them come to his attention after his friend Ted Lavender is killed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jimmy’s main struggle in dealing with his friends death is to figure out a way he can become a better leader.   He wants to lead his troop with confidence and preciseness.   Before his friend’s death, Jimmy had constructed a bulwark to separate him from the rest of the troop.   Jimmy was in his own world, mainly back in New Jersey with Martha, but sometimes in a fantasy world where nothing felt real and he would do amazing things like fly over Vietnam waving the whole madness goodbye.   His misconception of fantasy and reality is one of the first things that he changes about himself in order to become a better leader.   Making this decision was near impossible, the pictures that he had become inured to seeing everyday were put to flame and Martha was no longer in his thoughts.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   By burning those pictures he not only breaks free from the fantasy world, but also of Martha.   She was a girl back home who he had loved dearly, and had remained in contact with throughout the war.   His infatuation with Martha was not a sexual one, but one that had something much greater weight towards his survival.   He did not think about Martha day in and day out because she was his only true love of the world; he merely needed something to occupy his mind with.   He needed something to keep his thoughts away from the horrible tragedies going on around him.   He was trying to maintain his hope.   Martha gave him a goal, something to shoot for, a reason not to give up.   â€Å"So easy, really.   Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper†¦.†Ã‚   Because of Martha Jimmy cross could not let go.   He could not make himself quit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Part of this great determination came from his conflict with fear and courage.

AMUL – A case study on IT in SCM

AMUL – A case study on IT in SCM A live case of Use of IT Amul is a leading food brand in India. It offers a wide range of products like milk, milk powder, butter, ghee, cheese, chocolates, Shrikhand, ice cream and many more. The brand name AMUL is derived from the Sanskrit word â€Å"Amoolya†, meaning priceless. The first products with the Amul brand name were launched in 1955. Since then, they have been in use in millions of homes in all parts of India, and beyond.Today Amul is a symbol of many things: Of high quality products sold at reasonable prices, of availability, of service. Amul has been accredited with ISO 9001 and HACCP Certification by QAS, Australia-the first food company in Asia to receive the HACCP Certification â€Å"Amul† is a well-acknowledged and live example of making a strong use of IT Formed in the year 1946, Amul initiated the dairy co-operative movement in India and formed an apex co-operative organization called the Gujarat Cooperative M ilk Marketing Federation (GCMMF).Today, this movement is being replicated in 70,000 villages in over 200 districts in India, transforming the rural landscape. This co-operative revolution has made India the largest producer of milk in the world today. Amul is also one of the largest and most celebrated food brands in India. GCMMF markets its products through 50 sales offices throughout India; and distribution is done through a network of 4,000 stockists who, in turn, supply 500,000 retail outlets.The complexity of logistics can be visualized in terms of: millions of litres of milk to be collected from millions of village members. Interestingly, milk is a perishable commodity; hence a strong coordination function is required in storing, processing and distributing the milk in required time. The case of Amul's supply chain is noteworthy simply because the movement has not only lead to efficient collection of milk but, more importantly, has used IT to create higher profits for milk pro ducers. Role of Information Technology IT has played a critical role in the development of the Amul brand.The logistics behind the coordination of approximately six million liters of milk per day from numerous village co-operative societies throughout Gujarat, and storing, processing and producing of milk products at various district dairy societies, is carried out with clock-precision. In these, IT plays a critical role. The installation of over 3,000 Automatic Milk Collection System Units (AMCUS) at village societies to capture member information, milk fat content volume collected, and amount payable to each member, has proved invaluable in ensuring fairness and transparency throughout the entire organization.GCMMF is an apex co-operative organization that comprises affiliated member dairies/district milk unions, each having its own manufacturing unit. These member dairies in turn collect milk from members who supply milk twice a day to the respective village co-operative societie s. To meet the challenge of growing business, IT was decided as the thrust area that would streamline the production and collection process and the processing of milk products. This is where the installation of AMCUS made the entire operation look simple.As milk is a highly perishable commodity in the supply chain, the AMCUS initiative is vital for the operations. More importantly, this initiative has increased the trust and transparency for IT in rural areas'. On an average, around thousand farmers come to sell milk at their local cooperative milk collection center. Each farmer is given a plastic card for identification, at the milk collection counter, the farmer drops the card into a box and the identification number is transmitted to a personal computer attached to the machine.The milk is then weighed and the fat content of the milk measured by an electronic fat testing machine. Both these details are recorded in the PC. The computer then calculates the amount 1 AMUL – A c ase study on IT in SCM due to the farmer on the basis of the fat content. The value of the milk is then printed out on a slip and handed over to the farmer, who collects the payment at the adjacent window. With the help of IT the farmers receive their payments within a matter of minutes.Each member preserves the milk in the cold storage, processing it and producing several products, sold under the Amul brand name. As all products have a limited shelf life, the organization's ability to conduct its operations in a smooth way is much more praiseworthy-especially when one considers the scale of the operations. Amul makes about 10 million payment transactions daily. On the logistics side, more than 5,000 trucks move the milk from the villages to 200 dairy processing plants twice a day, according to a carefully planned schedule.Amul took a strategic decision to redesign and re-organize the existing software applications in 1994 to meet the challenges of growing business. Accordingly, Amu l assigned the ERP software development project named as Enterprise wide integrated application system (EIAS) which covers a plethora of operations like market planning, advertising and promotion, distribution network planning, stock control, sales and accounting, budgetary control, quality control management and co-operative service management.Each of Amul's offices is connected by e-mail and all of them send a daily report on sales and inventory to the main system at Anand. Also, sales offices, C&F points and wholesale distributors of GCMMF have been connected through the Internet for timely exchange of information. Amul is also in the process of Web-enabling the entire supply chain so that it can capture key information at the source and use the same for decision-making. This would include the likes of transporters, member manufacturing units, oil packing stations, suppliers, depots and the ntire field force. A web site (http://www. amul. com) has been constructed featuring sport s information, recipes and quizzes (to stimulate buyer interest and to establish national brand recognition) and business-to- consumer order placement. Amul has a customer feedback channel which uses e-mail addresses like [email  protected] com for cheese products and [email  protected] com for butter products. E-competency has been established at the supply and distribution ends of AMUL's business.At the supply end, a computerized database has been established of all suppliers and their cattle. Computerized equipment measures and records qualities and quantities collected. Computers have been set up at member unions and village cooperatives. At the distribution end, stockists have been provided with basic training and computers. AMUL experts assist stockists and retailers to build promotional web pages. AMUL cyber stores have been set up at various locations in India, the USA, Singapore and Dubai.Each visit to the Indian cyber store sites results in considerable purchases. A st rong e-mail database of more than 10,000 customers has also been developed. In addition to the EIAS, Amul has also been using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to plot zone/depot boundary as well as a pointer for zone, depot and distributor locations, which are superimposed by product-wise sales data. Going forward, there are plans to introduce features like Internet banking services and ATMs which will enable milk societies to credit payments directly to the seller's bank account.In line with this vision, officials at Amul are looking at upgrading the plastic cards, which are being currently used only for identification purposes, to smart cards which can be used to withdraw cash from ATMs. Amul has radically altered the complexion of the supply chain-by eliminating the middleman and bringing the producer closer to the consumer-resulting in benefits for both. Amul has also linked distributors to the network and also incorporated Web pages of top retailers in their web site (www. amul. com) as part of B2B initiatives.Distributors can place their orders on the website, amulb2b. com, especially meant for accepting orders from stockists and promoting Amul's products via 2 AMUL – A case study on IT in SCM E-commerce. A big achievement of IT in Amul has been the automation of the complex supply and delivery chain. The automated supply chain seamlessly integrates the manufacturing dairy units for production, planning and raw material procurement. It handles distribution of milk from surplus unions to deficit unions.It is a live example of practicing Just in time supply chain management with six sigma accuracy! Amul's success in leveraging IT to its advantage lies in the simple fact that the organization has a clear IT vision and has made full use of the potential of IT for managing its supply chain. In 2003, GCMMF won the prestigious international CIO 100 award from IDG's CIO Magazine, USA. The 2003 CIO 100 award recognizes organizations around the world th at excel in positive business performance through resourceful IT management and best practices.GCMMF, whose IT initiatives have been driven by the philosophy of being an IT company in food business, has inspired all its employees to sustain the challenges as a â€Å"change agent† by excelling their IT skills in order to transform the people around them towards IT integration on both the ends of supply chain (village dairy farmer to end-consumer), GCMMF has also won the prestigious Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award for the year 2003.GCMMF has bagged this award for adopting noteworthy quality management practices for logistics and procurement. Over the years, it has established an efficient supply chain that penetrates even the remotest corners of the country. In summary, Amul has developed world-class expertise in the physical distribution of short-life produce. Already advanced in physical logistics, Amul has innovatively explored ways to use IT to enhance its supply ch ain. (Source: amul. com, ExpressComputers(16 Sept 2002: article by Srikanth R P), and other sources)GCMMF: An Overview Members No. of Producer Members No. of Village Societies Milk collection (Total – 2002-03) Milk collection (Daily Average 2002-03) Milk Drying Capacity Sales Turnover (2002-2003) 12 district cooperative milk producers' Union. 2. 28 million. 11,132. 1. 86 billion litres. 5. 08 million litres. 510 metric Tons per day. Rs 27457 Million. IT Enablers used by Amul †¢ Uses automated milk collection system units for collection of milk. †¢ Implemented a customized ERP system which is used in conjunction with GIS. Uses data analysis software for forecasting milk production and increasing productivity. †¢ Has connected all zonal, regional and member dairies through VSAT. †¢ One of the first five Indian organizations to have a Web presence. †¢ Geographic information system for sales and distribution planning. †¢ Data Information System Kiosk for data analysis and decision support to help in improving milk collection. †¢ Web enabled customer feedback channels. †¢ Strong initiatives in e-commerce. 3

Who Can Vote in Canadian Elections

Much like the system of government in the United States, there are three levels of government in Canada: federal, provincial or territorial,  and local. Since Canada has a parliamentary system, its not quite the same as the American electoral process, and some of the rules are different. For instance,  Canadians who are at least 18 years old and inmates in a correctional institution or a federal penitentiary in Canada may vote by special ballot in federal elections, by-elections, and referendums, regardless of the length of the term they are serving. In the U.S., voting by felons is not regulated at the federal level, and only two American states allow incarcerated people to vote.   Canada uses a plurality voting system, which allows each voter to vote for one candidate per office. The candidate who receives more votes than any other candidate is elected, even though he or she may not have a majority of total votes cast. In Canadian federal elections, this is how each district chooses the member who will represent it in Parliament. The rules for elections at the local level in Canada can vary, depending on the purpose of the election and where its being held.   Federal Elections To vote in a Canadian federal election, you must be a Canadian citizen and be 18 or older on election day. The names of most eligible voters in Canada will appear on the National Register of Electors.  This is a database of basic information drawn from various federal and provincial sources, including the Canada Revenue Agency, provinces and territories motor vehicle registries, and the Citizenship and Immigration Canada department. The National Register of Electors is used to prepare the preliminary list of electors for Canadian federal elections. If you want to vote in Canada and youre not on the list, you have to get on the list  or be able to demonstrate your eligibility through other qualifying documentation.   The  Chief Electoral Officer of Canada  and the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer are  not  allowed to vote in a Canadian federal election in order to maintain impartiality. Do You Have to Be a Citizen in Canada to Vote? In most Canadian provinces and territories, only citizens may vote. Until the late 20th and early 21st centuries, British subjects who werent citizens but resided in a Canadian province or territory were eligible to vote in elections at the provincial/territorial level.   In addition to being a Canadian citizen, most provinces and territories require voters to be 18 years old and a resident of the province or territory for six months prior to election day.   There are a few variations on those rules, however. In the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, a voter  must live there for a year prior to election day in order to be eligible. In Ontario, theres no restriction on how long a citizen needs to live there before voting, but refugees, permanent residents, and temporary residents arent eligible.   New Brunswick requires citizens to reside there for 40 days prior to a provincial election to be eligible. Newfoundland voters have to live in the province the day before polling (voting) day to qualify for provincial election voting. And in Nova Scotia, citizens must live there for six months before the day an election is called. In Saskatchewan, British subjects (that is, anyone who resides in Canada but has citizenship in another British Commonwealth) may still vote in municipal elections. Students and military personnel who move into the province are immediately eligible to vote in Saskatchewans elections.