Graduation Speech: Thanks for the Good Times :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

Hello classmates of 2012. It is almost time for us to depart from one another. We will go our own ways and achieve our goals very soon, but before we go, I would like to share some memories with everyone. I have attended Tates Creek High School (TC) for two years. And during those two years, I have learned a lot from the school staff and from my peers. They all have taught me something new. This is what makes them so awesome. The school is small and so diverse that it makes it easier to meet everyone. It took me seven years in elementary school to get to know just about everyone, but at TC, I knew just about everyone in less than a year. The students are kind and very helpful. They help each other with assignments and help one another with catching up on homework when they have missed school. The staff here at TC are great. They help the students with questions on homework assignments and on just about anything. They are also here to listen to us and when we need someone to talk to, we can go talk to any one of them and they'll be there to help. We receive a lot of homework everyday, but it's no big deal. With many homework assignments, I am not able to slack off. I have to finish all of my assignmanets for one reason, and that reason is to not get any incomplete stamps. The homework load keeps me busy and keeps me from doing bad things that a lot of other middle school children are doing. There are nights where I have very little time or no time at all for fun, except for the weekends. On some days of the week, I have to do things after school. TC has set up enrichment classes for the students to do homework. I usually sign up for homework jumpstart, that way, I am able to get a jump start on my homework. The enrichment class helps me a lot, that way I'll have time to go do other things after school. TC has high standards for education. The staff here, at TC wants all of their students to be successful people in the future. They want what's best for us that's why they push us to try our best in everything we do. Our Basic Standard Testing scores are very high.

What is life

What is life? Is it a mystery? Is it an adventure? Is it a way to help others? Or is it so brief compared to the rest of the time in the universe it has no meaning at all? People have been wondering this for thousands of years, yet no one has found an answer. Many look for complicated ways to understand life, yet the answer is so simple; life is a book. Since the day the binding was opened for the first time,and the author began writting the story; every thought, action, and emotion that is experienced is written into the book. Memory is just rereading the book. Some pages torn, stuck together, smeared so we can’t remember it as well, but it is all writtten down. Every hope, every dream, every fear is recorded in time forever. Some books have flashy, tacky covers, but tell the most troublesome stories on the inside. Some have dull, nondescript covers, but tell the warmest, most adventurous stories that causes one to recall some earlier chapter in ones own life. Every experience is a chapter. Some chapters speak of friends and family, some speak of the most horrible fears and the most dreamed about opes, and some tell of Love and Loss that the author experienced. Some chapters are not finished and will be completed at a later time. Some chapters are blurred, because not even the author knows what happened, or what he wishes would happen. And some chapters are blank pages, waiting to be filled. More than once, the author has wished he could go back a few pages and rewrite it differently, but alas, the book has already been published, and cannot be changed. As the book ages, it loses some of its shine, pages tear and fade, and the binding becomes loose. Some pages suddenly become so clear, you can’t understand why you didn’t see it before, while others become so transparent that you can’t even remember reading them. And after the book has become so old that it can’t even be read or moved without falling apart, it is taken out of circulation and stored. Not only in a physical place, but in people’s heart, those who loved the book as if it was their best friend. It is stored with every other book of every person’s life back before humanity could even speak with more than grunts and body langauge. It is stored in the Great Library. As you look around this glorous library, the books stack higher than any mountain, and strech farther than any eye can see. And on every shelf are books, and in the center of the room are thousands of books open to different pages and chapters recording the author’s dictations from the start of the book until it is finished and published. And then there are the old books that are being called out of circulation, catalogued and stored. You reach out and begin reading one of the many books. It is the life of your friend. You take notice of how many times your own book overlaps with your riend’s book, and how similar the stories are. As you read this book, you see the meaning of life, not what the stories are, or what the cover looks like, but how every book tells a different story; and while many may overlap and share dreams, hopes, and fears, they each contain knowledge and together make up life. You see, you can’t judge a book by its cover, nor can you judge a person by appearance, each complete with fears, dreams, joys, sorrows, memories, friends and familes. Together we all make up life, and our stories inspire others to grow and to have the best story they can.

The Lost Tribes of Israel Claims by Herbert Armstrong

The Lost Tribes of Israel Catholic. com Around 926 b. c. , the kingdom of Israel split in two. Up to that point, all twelve tribes of Israel (plus the priestly tribe of Levi) had been united under the monarchies of Saul, David, and Solomon. But when Solomon’s son Rehoboam ascended to the throne, the ten Northern tribes rebelled and seceded from the union. This left only two tribes—Judah and Benjamin (plus much of Levi)—under the control of the king in Jerusalem. From that time on, the tribes were divided into two nations, which came to be called the House of Israel (the Northern ten tribes) and the House of Judah (the Southern two tribes).This situation continued until around 723 B. C. , when the Assyrians conquered the Northern kingdom. To keep conquered nations in subjection, it was Assyrian policy to break them up by deporting their native populations to other areas and resettling the land with newcomers. When the House of Israel was conquered, most people bel onging to the ten Northern tribes were deported and settled elsewhere in the Assyrian kingdom, including places near Nineveh, Haran, and on what is now the Iran-Iraq border.They were replaced by settlers from locations in or near Babylon and Syria. These settlers intermarried, together with the remaining Israelites, and became the Samaritans mentioned in the New Testament (a few hundred of whom still survive today). The Israelites who had been deported also intermarried with the peoples of the places where they had been resettled. They eventually lost their distinct identity, disappeared, and their culture was lost to history. Some refer to them as â€Å"the lost tribes of Israel. â€Å"A movement called â€Å"British Israelism† claims to have found the ten â€Å"lost tribes,† however, and in some very unlikely places. For many years, one of the leaders in the British Israelism movement was Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the self-proclaimed â€Å"Worldwide Church of God. † Especially for Americans, Armstrong was just about the only person they ever heard advocating British Israelism. With his own paid television program, Armstrong regularly advertised his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, which advocated the view. British Israelism was not Armstrong’s only eccentric view.Among other things, he believed in Saturday rather than Sunday worship and, most seriously, he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and claimed that individual humans could be added to the Godhead. After Armstrong’s death, the Worldwide Church of God did a serious review of the doctrines it had taught up to that point and moved to a more biblically and theologically orthodox position. Today, the organization is basically another Evangelical Protestant church (they have even been admitted to the National Association of Evangelicals), though with a few distinctive practices.Many of their congregations still worship on Saturdays, for example, b ut they no longer regard keeping the Jewish Sabbath and feasts as points of doctrine. They have embraced the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that created beings can become part of the Godhead, and acknowledged that other churches contain true Christians. They have also rejected the distinctive idea behind British Israelism—the claim that the lost tribes of Israel are to be specially identified with the Anglo-Saxons.Unfortunately, there are still advocates of British Israelism out there (including some groups that split off from the Worldwide Church of God when it underwent its doctrinal renewal), and, though the book is out of print, Herbert W. Armstrong’s The United States and Britain in Prophecy continues to circulate. The United States and Britain in Prophecy teaches the notion that the Lost Tribes of Israel are really the descendants of Anglo-Saxons, which is to say the British and Americans of British extraction. This exotic doctrine had been around for decades be fore Herbert W.Armstrong founded his church in 1933, and it appeals, naturally enough, to those of British heritage. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a member of the â€Å"chosen race† (assuming there is one)? And according to Armstrong, that’s precisely what the Anglo-Saxons are—God’s chosen race, where can be found the direct descendants of King David and, even today, the true â€Å"heirs† to King David’s throne. The United States and Britain in Prophecy opens with this epigraph: â€Å"The prophecies of the Bible have been grievously misunderstood. And no wonder!For the vital key, needed to unlock prophetic doors to understanding, had become lost. That key is a definite knowledge of the true identity of the American and British peoples in biblical prophecy. † Only the first sentence of this epigraph is strictly correct, and a good share of the â€Å"grievous misunderstanding† is by people who put faith in the writing s of Herbert W. Armstrong. The Argument Begins â€Å"We know Bible prophecies definitely refer to Russia, Italy, Ethiopia, Libya, and Egypt of today. Could they then ignore modern nations like Britain and America?Is it reasonable? † This is how the argument begins, and notice what kind of argument it is. If these â€Å"lesser† countries are mentioned in Scripture, would it be fair for God to ignore us, important as we are? (We won’t examine here the highly dubious premise that Russia is mentioned in Scripture. ) You might call this an â€Å"appeal to pride. † Never fear, says Armstrong. â€Å"The fact is, [the British and Americans] are mentioned more often than any other race [sic]. Yet their prophetic identity has remained hidden to the many. Why is that? you ask. Because the Bible doesn’t refer to them by their modern names, but by an ancient name. And what is that name? None other than Israel. â€Å"Hold it! † you say. The people who ca me from Israel are Jews. Britons and Americans, for the most part, aren’t Jewish. How can one claim otherwise? Easily. Armstrong assures us that, â€Å"The house of Israel is not Jewish! Those who constitute it are not Jews, and never were! That fact we shall now see conclusively, beyond refute. † Actually, there is something of a point here.The term â€Å"Jew† originated as a way of referring to the people of the southern kingdom of Judah, whether their own tribe was Judah, Benjamin, or Levi. The term appears late in Israel’s history—after the division into northern and southern kingdoms—and it can be fairly claimed that the term does not apply to the members of the ten northern tribes, who are properly known as â€Å"Israelites† since they belonged to the House of Israel rather than the House of Judah. Armstrong asserted: â€Å"Certainly this proves that the Jews are a different nation altogether from the House of Israel,† cl aims Armstrong. The Jews of today are Judah! They call their nation ‘Israel’ today because they, too, descend from the patriarch Israel or Jacob. But remember that the ‘House of Israel’—the ten tribes that separated from Judah—does not mean Jew! Whoever the lost ten tribes of Israel are today, they are not Jews! † â€Å"By the year 721 B. C. , the House of Israel was conquered and its people were soon driven out of their own land—out of their homes and cities—and carried captives to Assyria, near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea! † So it was in 721 B.C. that the Lost Tribes got â€Å"lost. † The Year Nothing Happened Had the tribes remained faithful to God, all would have been well, Armstrong explains. â€Å"But, if they refused and rebelled, they were to be punished seven times—a duration of 2,520 years—in slavery, servitude, and want. † They did rebel, and Armstrong theorizes that their punishment extended from 721 B. C. to A. D. 1800. And what remarkable thing happened in 1800? Well, if we don’t count the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency of the United States, not a whole lot.In fact, 1800 was a pretty dull year for history. But Armstrong disagrees, saying that from that date, Britain and America became world powers; the former (at that time) politically, and the latter economically (and later, also politically). According to Armstrong’s scheme, the figure of â€Å"2,520 years of punishment† is arrived at by multiplying the â€Å"seven years of punishment† by 360—the number of days in the year as it was reckoned by the ancients—on the principle that each â€Å"day† of punishment really stood for a whole year of punishment.If you think this is convoluted reasoning, just wait until you read the remainder of the argument in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It’s enough to note here th at Armstrong determines from Scripture that the Lost Tribes ended up on islands in the sea, and these islands are northwest of Palestine. We’re told, for example, that the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah begins with, â€Å"Listen, O isles, unto me. † Do you see how this suggests the British Isles? Armstrong says, â€Å"Take a map of Europe.Lay a line due northwest of Jerusalem across the continent of Europe, until you come to the sea, and then to the islands in the sea! This line takes you direct to the British Isles! † The skeptic might note that the line first comes to the Aegean islands, which are also in the sea—the Mediterranean Sea—but this would mean the Greeks are the Lost Tribes, therefore, the theory would not play into the desires of some British or Americans to identify themselves with the lost tribes. Linguistic Legerdemain You want more proof? Armstrong has it. The House of Israel,† he explains, â€Å"is the ‘covenant peopl e. ’ The Hebrew word for ‘covenant’ is brit [b’rith]. And the word for ‘covenant man,’ or ‘covenant people,’ would therefore sound, in English word order, Brit-ish (the word ish means ‘man’ in Hebrew, and it is also an English suffix on nouns and adjectives). And so, is it mere coincidence that the true covenant people today are called the ‘British’? And they reside in the ‘British Isles’! † This reasoning may impress some, but no linguist would take this seriously.The word â€Å"British† is not derived from Hebrew but from the Celtic word Brettas. It’s significant that the Celtic Brettas referred to the Britons, who were inhabitants of England before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons that Armstrong claims were Israelites. One possible reason for Armstrong’s linguistic confusions may be that in Webster’s Diction-ary (for example, in the 3,200-page unabridged ed ition published in 1932—an edition Armstrong may have had access to) the entry for b’rith (Hebrew: covenant) appears sandwiched between the entries for â€Å"Britannic† and â€Å"Briticism. Perhaps he simply didn’t read carefully enough and assumed, wrongly, that b’rith must somehow be etymologically connected with the other the words before and after pertaining to things British. Neither does the common English suffix -ish derive from the Hebrew word for man. Instead, it derives from the Greek diminutive suffix -iskos It was bad enough to suggest that the word â€Å"British† is Hebrew, but he also made another claim: If you take the name â€Å"Isaac,† you see it’s easy for someone to drop the â€Å"I† when speaking quickly and to end up with â€Å"Saac† as the name of the patriarch.He had descendants, of course, and these may be called â€Å"Saac’s sons,† from which we get the word â€Å"Saxons. à ¢â‚¬  â€Å"Is it only coincidence,† asks Armstrong, â€Å"that ‘Saxons’ sounds the same as ‘Saac’s sons’—sons of Isaac? † This doesn’t even qualify as a coincidence, since Armstrong had to make up the nickname of â€Å"Saac† in order for the â€Å"coincidence† to exist. In reality, the term â€Å"Saxon† is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word â€Å"seax,† which means knife or dagger, not the Hebrew word â€Å"Isaac† (Yitskhaq), which means â€Å"laughter† (cf.Gen. 17:15–19, 18:9–15). Another Remarkable Coincidence? Armstrong found other coincidences. When the Lost Tribes were scattered, he says, they â€Å"brought with them certain remarkable things, including a harp and a wonderful stone called lia-fail, or stone of destiny. A peculiar coincidence is that Hebrew reads from right to left, while English reads from left to right. Read this name either way—and it still is lia-fail. Another strange coincidence—or is it just coincidence? is that many kings in the history of Ireland, Scotland, and England have been coronated sitting over a remarkable stone—including the present queen [sic]. The stone rests today in Westminster Abbey in London, and the coronation chair is built over and around it. A sign once beside it labeled it ‘Jacob’s pillar-stone. ’† Here Armstrong’s argument becomes even weaker. After all, one could note that Hebrew and English are not the only languages which, when contrasted, are read in different directions. For example, Arabic is read right to left, while Gaelic is read left to right.What does that prove? Nothing! Just as Armstrong’s muddled reasoning proves nothing at all about a connection between Hebrew and English. If it did, one could just as easily â€Å"prove† that the Lost Tribes were also responsible for bringing the Blarney Stone with them. And that ’s just plain blarney. Armstrongism’s Appeal What makes Armstrong’s notion so attractive to some folks? First, it appeals to their nationalistic vanity: â€Å"I’m of English descent, and now I see that I’m right in the thick of things, biblically speaking.Having English blood in my veins makes me special. It puts me above the rest of the crowd. † It also perpetuates ethnic prejudice: â€Å"Thank God I’m not Italian! I never liked Italians anyway, and now I see they aren’t descended from the Lost Tribes and so are only secondary players in the divine drama—something I always suspected. † At first glance, Armstrong’s argument seems to be based on a sophisticated understanding of Scripture: â€Å"Armstrong provides lots of citations, and I can’t find fault with his argument. It’s so convoluted and technical it

Beginning Of House Music Essays - African-American Music

Beginning Of House Music Essays - African-American Music Beginning Of House Music Early House To trace the origins of todays house music, one needs to time travel back to the 80s, following a bizarre trail that spans the Atlantic ocean, hits the Mediterranean dance floors of Ibiza, sneak into the backdoors of New Yorks recording studios, and have V.I.P. passes to the clubs of Chicago and London. Since we cant deliver any of that, heres a brief retelling of the birth of modern dance music. House musics earliest roots are found in the musical hotspots of Chicago around 1985. Transplanted New York DJ Frankie Knuckles had a regular gig at a club called The Warehouse. Knuckles would tinker with soul and disco tunes by laying down a drum machine-generated 4/4 beat on top of them. The clubbers loved this new sound and house music, named for the club, was born. More DJs took to the tables and the studios, and soon there was an abundance of new house tracks penetrating both the clubs and airwaves of Chicago. The new sound found its way to the East Coast, where DJs in Philly and New Yo rk spun their own interpretations of classic dance tunes with a house beat on top. But the biggest fans of the Chicago sound werent in the U.S. at all Simultaneously, pirate radio in Britain took to the Chicago sounds. Incidentally, at the time pirate stations were the only ones playing black music of any kind in the U.K. Before long, house was the new soundtrack of the underground clubs of London. The first house tune to break the underground ceiling was Farley Jackmaster Funks cover of Isaac Hayes Love Cant Turn Around, which reached the national charts in September 1986. The UK couldnt seem to get enough. Soon, commercial success beckoned several of the early artists. Steve Silk Hurley was the first to reach the ultimate accolade, the UK No.1, with Jack Your Body in January 1987. This success paved the way for a house-flavored single to hit internationally. The collaboration of British artists Colourbox and A.R. Kane, known as M/A/R/R/S, hit the big time with Pump up the Volume. Considered lightweight by many house purists, the track nonetheless took over dance floors worldwide and delivered house beats to the planets masses for the first time. But many fans werent receptive of houses sudden commercial success, and they went looking for a sound to drive it back underground. One inspiration for a house mutation came in the form of the Roland TB 303 synthesizer. One of the earliest instigators of this new sound was Britains DJ Pierre, whose work with the Roland dated back to 1985. Pierre cut drums on top of the 303s bassline, and gave the results to a DJ working at Chicagos Music Box club named Ron Hardy. Hardy renamed it Acid Trax (after a well-fabled incident in which the clubs water supply was dosed with LSD) and played it incessantly. It barely made a ripple outside Chicago in 1986, but Acid Trax was a sign of things to come. Acid, as it came to be known, was a hybrid of house with its roots on both sides of the Atlantic, and would define a new generation of dance music. Acid House parties sprang up over the U.K., scaring parents senseless with its double-entendre. Of course, the drug inferences and the trademark t-shirt symbol, a smiley face with a bullethole in the forehead, increased acid musics popularity with the kids, and the music world took note. Mainstream pop artists began exhibiting acid influence in their records, and more crossovers from the underground appeared on the charts. Chicagos house masterminds were busier than ever finding new grooves to lay down. College buddies Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, and Derrick May all produced records both influential and resonating (Mays The Dance was sampled countless times for years to come) throughout the Windy City. Meanwhile, two other producers, Eddie Fowlkes and Blake Baxter fused Eurobeats with the funk of George Clinton. This was a creation they called techno. 1988 saw house branching out even more, as in the eclectic marriage of house beats with quasi-industrial music. K nown as the Balearic movement, it found an audience in the Mediterranean

Fun and Interesting Chemistry Facts and Trivia

Fun and Interesting Chemistry Facts and Trivia Chemistry is a fascinating science full of unusual trivia. A list of some of the  most fun and most  interesting chemistry facts: The only solid elements that assume liquid form ​at room temperature are bromine and mercury. However, you can melt gallium by holding a lump in the warmth of your hand.Unlike many substances, water expands as it freezes. An ice cube takes up about 9% more volume than the water used to make it.If you pour a handful of salt into a full glass of water, the water level will actually go down rather than overflowing the glass.Similarly, if you mix half a liter of alcohol and half a liter of water, the total volume of the liquid will be less than one liter.There is about 1/2 lb or 250 g of salt (NaCl) in the average adult human body.A pure element takes many forms. For example, diamond and graphite both are forms of pure carbon.Many radioactive elements actually glow in the dark.The chemical name for water (H2O) is dihydrogen monoxide.The only letter not appearing on the periodic table is J.Lightning strikes produce O3, which is ozone, and strengthen the ozone layer of the atmospher e.The only two non-silvery metals are gold and copper. Although oxygen gas is colorless, the liquid and solid forms of oxygen are blue.The human body contains enough carbon to provide lead (which is really graphite) for about 9,000 pencils.Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, while oxygen is the most abundant element in the earths atmosphere, crust, and oceans (about 49.5%).The rarest naturally-occurring element in the earths crust may be astatine. The entire crust appears to contain about 28 g of the element.Hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive that it will dissolve glass. Although it is corrosive, hydrofluoric acid is considered to be a weak acid.One bucket full of water contains more atoms than there are buckets of water in the Atlantic ocean.Approximately 20% of the oxygen in the atmosphere was produced by the Amazon rainforest.Helium balloons float because helium is lighter than air.Bee stings are acidic while wasp stings are alkaline.Hot peppers get their heat from a molecule called capsaicin. While the molecule acts as an irritant to mammals, including humans, birds lack the receptor responsible for the effect and are immune to the burning sensation from exposure. Its possible to die from drinking too much water.Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide (CO2).Liquid air has a bluish tint, similar to water.You cant freeze helium simply by cooling it to absolute zero. It will freeze if you apply extremely intense pressure.By the time you feel thirsty, youve already lost about 1% of your bodys water.Mars is red because its surface contains a lot of iron oxide or rust.Sometimes hot water freezes more quickly than cold water. A high school student documented the effect, which bears his name (the Mpemba effect).

The Hun-Driven Barbarian Invaders of the Roman Empire

The Hun-Driven Barbarian Invaders of the Roman Empire The Mongol Great Khan Genghis ancient precursor, Attila,  was the devastating fifth-century Hun warrior  who terrified all in his path, before dying suddenly, under mysterious circumstances, on his wedding night, in 453. We know only limited, specific details about his people, the Huns- armed, mounted archers, illiterate, nomadic Steppe people from Central Asia, perhaps of Turkic rather than Mongolian origin and responsible for the collapse of Asian empires. We do know, however, that their actions induced waves of migrations into Roman territory. Later, the recent immigrants, including Huns, fought on the Roman side against other movements of people considered- by the proud Romans- barbarian invaders. [T]he status quo of the period was disturbed not only by their direct action but even more by their being instrumental in setting into motion the great upheaval of peoples commonly known as the Và ¶lkerwanderung.~ The Hun Period, by Denis Sinor; The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia 1990 The Huns, who appeared on the borders of eastern Europe, after A.D. 350, continued to migrate in a generally westward direction, pushing the peoples they encountered further west into the path of Roman citizens. Some of these, mainly Germanic, tribes eventually set out from Europe into northern Roman-controlled Africa. The Goths and Huns Agriculturist Goths from the lower Vistula (the longest river in modern Poland) began attacking areas of the Roman Empire in the third century, attacking along the Black Sea and Aegean regions, including northern Greece. The Romans settled them in Dacia where they stayed until the Huns pushed them. Tribes of Goths, the Tervingi (at the time, under Athanaric) and Greuthungi, asked for help in 376 and settled. Then they moved further into Roman territory, attacked Greece, defeated Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, in 378. In 382 a treaty with them put them inland in Thrace and Dacia, but the treaty ended with the death of Theodosius (395). Emperor Arcadius offered them territory in 397 and may have extended a military post to Alaric. Soon they were on the move again, into the western empire. After they sacked Rome in 410, they moved over the Alps into Southwest Gaul and became foederati in Aquitaine. The sixth-century historian Jordanes relates an early connection between the Huns and Goths, a story that Gothic witches producing the Huns: XXIV (121) But after a short space of time, as Orosius relates, the race of the Huns, fiercer than ferocity itself, flamed forth against the Goths. We learn from old traditions that their origin was as follows: Filimer, king of the Goths, son of Gadaric the Great, who was the fifth in succession to hold the rule of the Getae after their departure from the island of Scandza,and who, as we have said, entered the land of Scythia with his tribe,found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his native tongue Haliurunnae. Suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. (122) There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps,a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. Such was th e descent of the Huns who came to the country of the Goths.Jordanes The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, translated by Charles C. Mierow Vandals, Alans, and Sueves Alans were Sarmatian pastoral nomads; the Vandals and Sueves (Suevi or Suebes), Germanic. They were allies from around 400. Huns attacked the Vandals in the 370s. The Vandals and company crossed the icy Rhine at Mainz into Gaul, on the last night of 406, reaching an area that the Roman government had largely abandoned. Later, they pushed on across the Pyrenees into Spain where they drove out Roman landowners in the south and west. The allies divided the territory, supposedly by lot, initially so that Baetica (including Cadiz and Cordoba) went to a branch of the Vandals known as Siling; Lusitania and Cathaginiensis, to the Alans; Gallaecia, to the Suevi and Adsing Vandals. In 429 they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into northern Africa where they took St. Augustines city of Hippo and Carthage, which they established as their capital. By 477 they also had the Balearic Islands, and the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. The Burgundians and Franks The Burgundians were another Germanic group probably living along the Vistula and part of the group whom the Huns drove across the Rhine at the end of 406. In 436, at Worms, they almost came to an end, at Roman and Hunnish hands, but some survived. Under the Roman general Aetius, they became Roman hospites, in Savoy, in 443. Their descendants still live in the Rhà ´ne Valley. These Germanic people lived along the lower and middle Rhine by the third century. They made forays into Roman territory in Gaul and Spain, without the incentive of the Huns, but later, when the Huns invaded Gaul in 451, they joined forces with the Romans to repel the invaders. The famous Merovingian king Clovis was a Frank. Sources Ancient Rome - William E. Dunstan 2010.The Early Germans, by Malcolm Todd; John Wiley Sons, Feb 4, 2009Wood, I. N. The barbarian invasions and first settlements. Cambridge Ancient History: The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425. Eds. Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey. Cambridge University Press, 1998.Huns, Vandals, by Matthew Bennett. The Oxford Companion to Military History, Edited by Richard Holmes; Oxford University Press: 2001The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, by Peter Heather; The English Historical Review, Vol. 110, No. 435 (Feb. 1995), pp. 4-41.On Foederati, Hospitalitas, and the Settlement of the Goths in A.D. 418, by Hagith Sivan: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 108, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 759-772The Settlement of the Barbarians in Southern Gaul, by E. A. Thompson; The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 46, Parts 1 and 2 (1956), pp. 65-75 * See: Archaeology And The Arian Controversy in the Fourth Century, by David M. Gwynn, in Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, edited by David M. Gwynn, Susanne Bangert, and Luke Lavan; Brill Academic Publishers. Leiden; Boston: Brill 2010

Health and Wellbeing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Health and Wellbeing - Essay Example The main problem is that the impact of stress on performance and lifestyle is perhaps greater now than at any time in history. Modern society lives in an increasingly complex, high-technology world in which the potential for catastrophic error has greatly increased. Knowledge of stresses-related issues plays a crucial role in medial practice, and influences healthcare programs and methods, quality of the decisions made by health and social care professionals. Stress is defined as "relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing ... and endangering his or her well-being" (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 19 cited Fletcher et al 2006, p. 92). For healthcare professionals, it is difficult enough to make decisions in operational settings where the stakes are high and data are ambiguous. Whether the stressors are time constraints, noise, workload, or threat, they can play havoc with the clear thinking needed in these settings. In life of patients, they can degrade the quality of judgments, prevent the use of rational decision strategies, and severely compromise performance; at least, that is a popular appraisal of stressors. Decision makers are adaptive in their reactions to stressors. The decision strategies used in the presence of stressors may be simpler, but they are rational and make powerful use of experience. Health Health and social care professionals should understand internal and external factors that influence the individual and his emotional and psychological reaction to these factors. Stress reactions are controlled by self-regulative processing constructs, including the stable knowledge structures that support self-beliefs and motivations, processing routines for self-monitoring and self-evaluation, 'metacognitive beliefs' about the utility of emotion-focused coping, and coping skills (Fletcher et al 2006). Self-regulation is organized at three levels: a lower, automatic level that generates intrusive thoughts, an executive level that regulates coping, and schema-like self-knowledge in long-term memory. Knowledge gives freedom and guarantees complete control over the programs and methods, ways of treatment and improvements in healthcare plans. A focus on a single health behavior does not adequately represent the complexity of behavioral effects on health (Cribb and Duncan 2002). Strategie s such as decision analysis using subjective expected utility judgments and multiattribute utility analyses are best suited for cases in which there is less time pressure, more carefully collected data, multiple stakeholders, or generally lower levels of experience. The strategies are termed compensatory strategies, because they are designed to compensate for a small weakness on one or two attributes or evaluation dimensions if an option shows major strengths on other evaluation dimensions (Gandee et al 1998). For health and social care professionals, there are a variety of sources of information that can be used to derive a model of human performance under stress: accident analysis, incident analysis, operator protocols and lifestyle (Fletcher et al 2006). Transactional stress processes may generate both direct and indirect effects on performance, mediated by coping and self-regulative processes. Direct effects follow from task-related coping efforts, such as voluntary decisions to adopt a risky speed-accuracy trade-off, to prioritize one of two