Breaching Experiment Essay

Have you ever been to a wedding and just felt completely confused because one of the female guests decided she was going to wear a wedding gown of her own to someone else’s wedding? Wouldn’t it be weird if one day, you walked into one of your discussion classes to find that your cool, hip, macho male T.A. just all of a sudden decided that to put on make-up, wear fake rubber breasts, and dress like a female to teach his class? Is this normal? What exactly is normal and who is to define what is normal and what is not? Norms, as defined by Schaefer’s Seventh Edition Sociology text, are standards of behavior that are maintained by society. However, there are several types of norms, in which all act upon its distinctive ways. Informal norms, however, are behaviors that are maintained by society that are generally understood, but not precisely recorded. The wedding gown and the macho, but very pretty T.A. were both examples of informal norms. There are no specific punishments for the awkward behavior of these two people. However, a few might confront the bride and tell her she is being disrespectful or the T.A.’s students might ridicule him, calling him different names. The society has no precise penalty for people such as the two mentioned above. The response from the people around them would be their only result of breaching an informal norm. At most times, when in public, or even around your friends, a standard distance is usually kept in respect to others. Personal space is at least an arm’s length, or about 1  ½ to 3 feet around the body. Most people do not like having their personal space invaded and everyone reacts to this in their own personal matter, depending on that person’s preference and the approach of invasion as well. In most cases, this personal space is set for the comfort ability of one another, especially while conversing. However, in my experiment, I decided to breach this norm, and took a few situations into action. I deliberately invaded personal spaces of friends, adult strangers, and adolescent strangers and observed the many reactions of these individuals. The feedback I received from the invasion of my friends’ personal space  differed from the response of invading a stranger’s. As I had gone shopping with one of my female friends, I would walk really close to her stay by her side most of the time. She had no dramatic reaction toward my invasion but just questioned if something was wrong or if I was afraid of something because I was remained so close to her at all times. As with my male friend, my physical being of closeness to him did not affect him physically, but instead it confused him mentally. He and I went out to eat one time and instead of him being on one side of the booth at the restaurant and me on the other, I decided that I would sit right next to him on his side instead, leaving the opposite end unoccupied. As we were eating, I would once and a while just stare at him, and when he looked at me, I would just give him a smile. He had no major reaction toward my gesture, but, his generosity toward me had increased and the next time when we went out, he dressed up very nicely and even did his hair. Later that week, I had heard from one of my friends that he was beginning to believe that I had a crush on him. It was then that I decided to keep my distant from him before he would take an approach into things himself. However, when I approached the adult group of strangers, their reaction toward my entrance into their space was different. While I was at the Brea Mall, I randomly spotted a Caucasian man who was sitting on a bench reading a magazine. As I sat down right beside him just to relax a bit, the man stopped reading and looked over at me, got up and just walked away. On the other hand, when I sat right down, at the same mall, by an Asian women shopper, she looked over at me and smiled. She seemed nervous at first, but as soon as I smiled back at her, she said hi and seemed more at ease and we even carried on a short conversation. The effects of invading the personal space of the teenage crowd produced a much more interesting outcome. As I stood in line at the Commons at the University of California, Riverside, right by the side of another Asian female student, she turned toward me and gave me a look of annoyance due to the fact that I was standing less than two feet behind her. Yet, I remained at this distance until she had reached the counter register to pay for her lunch. As a result, when she walked away with her lunch in her hand, she  turned her head one last time and gave me this look of hatred with the squinting of her eyes gazing directly at me as I just looked away. On the contrary, my encounter with an Asian male student also attending the University of California, Riverside, was an experience of amusement. When I occupied the vacant seat that was placed right next to his in the Rivera Library, he remained in his own world, continuing to study. As I sat there right next to him, I was not doing much but just flipping through my notebook and occasionally would just glance at him, just to get his attention in hopes for a reaction. After a short moment of silence, this student spoke to me. However, his first words to me were, â€Å"Ni hao. Ni jiao suh ma ming juh†, meaning hi, what is your name, in mandarin. I’m assuming that he thought I did not speak much English and chose to speak in Mandarin to me because of the Chinese papers that he might have seen while I was flipping through my notebook. Luckily I was capable of conversing shortly in Mandarin. It seems that he thought I chose to sit by him because I did not know much of English and I wanted to ask him for assistance around the library. After my brief conversation with him, I left that vicinity as soon as I can, trying to escape so that he would stop conversing with me in Mandarin since I was not that fluent with that language. In my conduction of this experiment, there were several variables that contributed to the reactions of these random individuals. In the case with my friends, my girl friend, being the caring and emotional companion that most female friends would be, noted my physical closeness not as an invasion, but believed that I was having problems and was trying to catch her attention. As with my male friend, because of our social acquaintance, my short and abrupt attachment to him gave him must have shocked him, giving him the impression that I was interested in him. Also, after my first approach toward his personal space, the next time I went out with him, I noticed how he had engaged in Erving Goffman’s impression management. He had dressed in apparel that he would not normally wear when he went out with his friends but did with me. I assume he was trying to create a distinctive appearance to try to impress me, thinking that I was interested in him as well from my actions when we had gone out before. As with the two adults that I encountered in the Mall, the man and the woman both responded toward my approach in their own polite way. Even though the two were at about the same age group, one more issue became involved with the situation. First of all, the Caucasian man and I were of dissimilar race and ethnicity, which holds a possibility of being a factor to his response. Then again, the lady’s courteous behavior when I sat down by her may be from the issue that we were of the same ethnicity and of the same sex as well, giving her the comfort ability with my presence being near. I have observed that gender has a great affect on invading personal space. When my male group member made his approach with an Asian adult female at the mall, I witnessed her negative response toward his action while my experience resulted positively. Another observation of mine with the other male member of my group also involved the issue of gender. While he stood very closely to an adult couple in an elevator, the stranger male pulled his female significant other closer toward his body. However, when a female member of my group approached the same situation, the outcome was vice versa, where the female stranger drew closer to her male significant other. Carrying out this study of personal space invasion has not presented me with any obvious result of negativity until I stumbled upon an Asian female student at UCR. One reason I believe, that may have cause such an indecent behavior may be because we were of the same ethnicity, sex and same age group. In such cases, as would most adolescents during this example, would contribute to Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach. Goffman’s perspective is that people resemble performers, and most adolescents of this young age group are these performers in a matter in which they are concerned with their image. This leads to another aspect of the self, face-work. In this sense, people make efforts to maintain proper image and avoid embarrassment in public. With a majority of youngster’s, there is tension between one another, creating competition and the want to with hold an image that they want everyone to view them as. I would assume that the UCR girl reacted with such offensiveness because she wanted to protect her own image, to show that she was strong, where if she had just walked away without showing me a sign of anger, it would be taken into her opinion that I had the power of harassing her and putting her down. Therefore, her rude expression was her  way of defending herself against the action I took upon her. Through my experimentation of the human response to the invasion of personal space, it was obvious that there was no positive or negative correlation. It was a qualitative research in which everything was measured through naturalistic settings. My approach of invading one’s personal space was the control variable used. The individuals that were randomly sampled were the independent variables, which had fixed traits, such as gender, race and age. The difference in gender affects personal space. Generally, members of the opposite sexes are more acceptable of another being close to them. Personal space reactions also alter with age, as the older one may be; the more mature their manner gets if their space gets invaded. In conclusion, the social norm of having personal space is frequently taken for granted. As observed, there are no real consequences when this norm is breached. On the other hand, the reactions of others when their space that is needed to be at comfort in that particular environment is violated, their responses may result negatively or positively, depending on the variables of gender, age, sex, ethnicity and an individual’s preference. Many informal norms are taken for granted by society without realizing how much it may affect us all if it was breached. How would you react if you and a stranger were the only ones in an elevator, but instead of being spaced out, this individual decided they would stand right in back of you, where you can almost feel their breath on your neck? Would a situation like this be normal? How would you respond? Works Cited *Luce, Tracy ohttp://gradeng.en.iup.edu/classes/en202/Papers2000/Luce.htm *Schaefer, Richard T. oSociology seventh edition McGraw Hill, Copyright 2001

How Tax Cuts can revive the Economy Essay

Tax cuts have been employed in the government’s fiscal policy especially during times of economic slowdown to revive the economy. When the economy is slumping, the people’s consumption power also slumps. The aggregate demand for goods and services in the market also falls. This creates a shock wave which hits industries like manufacturing, the housing sector and the service industry hard, leading to rising levels of unemployment (Toomey & Soloveichik 2009). At such a time, a cut in taxes becomes one of the mechanisms available for pumping some life into the economy. Tax cuts for economic revival target especially people in the lower and middle classes. When implemented, tax cuts increase the amount of disposable income, that is, income after taxation, in the pockets of these people. Disposable income is perhaps the most critical factor in consumption. The availability of more money to spend in the pockets of the masses raises the aggregate demand for goods and services, creating jobs in the various sector of the economy therefore increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Toomey & Soloveichik 2009), a key indicator of the state of the economy. A cut in taxes works like a raise in salary. Tax cuts take effect through the multiplier effect which can be defined as the ratio of change between aggregate economic output (represented by the GDP) and a change in taxes since not all disposable income after a reduction in taxation rates actually translates to direct consumption. The multiplier, obtained by multiplying the marginal propensity to consume with the expenditure multiplier, is used as an indicator to the change in fiscal policy induced government taxes required to result to a desired level of aggregate output. If coupled with increased government expenditure on services like health and education (which could actually be termed as an integral part of the cuts or economic stimulus package), tax cuts can revive the economy (Toomey & Soloveichik 2009).

Beliefs And Practices In China

The three main religions in China – Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – originated at about the same time and share common beliefs in human goodness and the need to behave kindly and justly. However, they differ in their practices and, more importantly, in how they view deities and the afterlife. Derived from Confucius’ teachings around 500 BC, Confucianism emphasizes justice, sincerity, morality, and hierarchy.It emphasizes conduct and decorum over spirituality, emphasizing self-control and obedience instead of religious doctrine in the Judeo-Christian sense. Its practices include being sincere, just, and deferential to elders, since it embraces a strict view of worldly hierarchy and the need for etiquette rather than one governed by gods or an omnipotent single God. In this sense, it is less a religion than â€Å"a tradition of ritual/propriety† (Yao 191) which upholds sacrifices to heavenly, earthly, and ancestral spirits (generally performed in temple s).It is hard to define as a religion because it does not fit the Western world’s criteria and is more a tradition and code of behavior; indeed, it was initially used to govern the actions of China’s ancient bureaucrats. (Yao 39) Daoism evolved at about the same time as Confucianism and also embraces virtues like justice, patience, and decency. However, it is more of a religion than Confucianism because it mandates reverence for the Dao (roughly meaning â€Å"the way†), which is â€Å"a cosmic principle, permeating and infusing all aspects of creation with vitality.† (Oldstone-Moore 23) To become one with the Dao, one must attain enlightenment by practicing good, proper behavior in addition to cultivating a spiritual wisdom and serenity through unity with the Tao. Here, Taoism differs sharply from Confucianism, which does not place as much importance on cosmic forces or one’s spiritual nature. It also embraces a more concrete idea of the afterlife than Confucianism, since the Daoist view has the soul entering Hell, being forced to atone, and being reincarnated.(Oldstone-Moore 84-87) Originating in India at roughly the same time as Confucianism and Daoism, Buddhism shares with them the principles of harmony and balance, though to a Westerner it seems more like a religion than either of its fellow faiths. Indeed, its doctrines and rituals are more evolved and clearly-defined than those of China’s other two main religions. Like them, Buddhism teaches that while human nature is essentially good, the world is corrupt and one must practice pure-mindedness and good, just behavior.It also shares with Daoism the importance of seeking cosmic enlightenment, though Buddhists attain it through meditation and discipline. (Wangu 8) However, it also mandates a degree of asceticism (like varying degrees of vegetarianism) not required by Confucianism or Daoism, asking its laypeople to refrain from violence, theft, sexual misconduct, usi ng intoxicants, and â€Å"incorrect speech† (lying, gossiping, etc. ).Also, Buddhism’s concepts of the soul and afterlife are much more developed than those of either Confucianism or Daoism, and it places more emphasis on its written scriptures (which were committed to print during the first century AD). However, it has no supreme being and does not demand exclusive allegiance, as do Western religions; its appeal â€Å"has rested solely on the message of its founder and its flexibility in adapting to different cultures and philosophies. † (Wangu 10) China’s three chief religions share common traits and basic outlooks (which they openly exchanged over the centuries).Confucianism is the most secular and least spiritual, while Daoism has a more evolved sense of the spirit and afterlife and Buddhism the most evolved concepts of these, as well as the most involved code of practices. In all, they represent varying degrees of spirituality and what Westerners wou ld call â€Å"religion. † BIBLIOGRAPHY Oldstone-Moore, Jennifer. Taoism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Wangu, Madhu Bazaz. Buddhism. New York: Facts on File, 2002. Yao, Xinzhong. Religions of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Approaches of New Criticism Essay Example for Free

Approaches of New Criticism Essay A literary movement that started in the late 1920s and 1930s and originated in reaction to traditional criticism that new critics saw as largely concerned with matters extraneous to the text, e.g., with the biography or psychology of the author or the work’s relationship to literary history. New Criticism proposed that a work of literary art should be regarded as autonomous, and so should not be judged by reference to considerations beyond itself. A poem consists less of a series of referential and verifiable statements about the ‘real’ world beyond it, than of the presentation and sophisticated organization of a set of complex experiences in a verbal form (Hawkes, pp. 150-151). Major figures of New Criticism include I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, Cleanth Brooks, David Daiches, William Empson, Murray Krieger, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, F. R. Leavis, Robert Penn Warren, W. K. Wimsatt, R. P. Blackmur, Rene Wellek, Ausin Warren, and Ivor Winters. A form of criticism based largely on the works of C. G. Jung (YOONG) and Joseph Campbell (and myth itself). Some of the school’s major figures include Robert Graves, Francis Fergusson, Philip Wheelwright, Leslie Fiedler, Northrop Frye, Maud Bodkin, and G. Wilson Knight. These critics view the genres and individual plot patterns of literature, including highly sophisticated and realistic works, as recurrences of certain archetypes and essential mythic formulae. Archetypes, according to Jung, are â€Å"primordial images†; the â€Å"psychic residue† of repeated types of experience in the lives of very ancient ancestors which are inherited in the â€Å"collective unconscious† of the human race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies, as well as in the works of literature (Abrams, p. 10, 112). Some common examples of archetypes include water, sun, moon, colors, circles, the Great Mother, Wise Old Man, etc. In terms of archetypal crit icism, the color white might be associated with innocence or could signify death or the supernatural. The application of specific psychological principles (particularly those of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan [zhawk lawk-KAWN]) to the study of literature. Psychoanalytic criticism may focus on the writer’s psyche, the study of the creative process, the study of psychological types and principles present within works of literature, or the effects of literature upon its readers (Wellek and Warren, p. 81). In addition to Freud and Lacan, major figures include Shoshona Felman, Jane Gallop, Norman Holland, George Klein, Elizabeth Wright, Frederick Hoffman, and, Simon Lesser. A sociological approach to literature that viewed works of literature or art as the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material conditions in which they were formed. In Marxist ideology, what we often classify as a world view (such as the Victorian age) is actually the articulations of the dominant class. Marxism generally focuses on the clash between the dominant and repressed classes in any given age and also may encourage art to imitate what is often termed an â€Å"objective† reality. Contemporary Marxism is much broader in its focus, and views art as simultaneously reflective and autonomous to the age in which it was produced. The Frankfurt School is also associated with Marxism (Abrams, p. 178, Childers and Hentzi, pp. 175-179). Major figures include Karl Marx, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams, Louis Althusser (ALT-whos-sair), Walter Benjamin (ben-yeh-MEEN), Antonio Gramsci (GRAWM-shee), Georg Lukacs (lou-KOTCH), and Friedrich Engels, Theordor Adorno (a-DOR-no), Edward Ahern, Gilles Deleuze (DAY-looz) and Felix Guattari (GUAT-eh-ree Literally, postcolonialism refers to the period following the decline of colonialism, e.g., the end or lessening of domination by European empires. Although the term postcolonialism generally refers to the period after colonialism, the distinction is not always made. In its use as a critical approach, postcolonialism refers to â€Å"a collection of theoretical and critical strategies used to examine the culture (literature, politics, history, and so forth) of former colonies of the European empires, and their relation to the rest of the world† (Makaryk 155 – see General Resources below). Among the many challenges facing postcolonial writers are the attempt both to resurrect their culture and to combat preconceptions about their culture. Edward Said, for example, uses the word Orientalism to describe the discourse about the East constructed by the West. Major figures include Edward Said (sah-EED), Homi Bhabha (bah-bah), Frantz Fanon (fah-NAWN), Gayatri Spivak, Chinua Ach ebe (ah-CHAY-bay) , Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Jamaica Kincaid, and Buchi Emecheta Existentialism is a philosophy (promoted especially by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus) that views each person as an isolated being who is cast into an alien universe, and conceives the world as possessing no inherent human truth, value, or meaning. A person’s life, then, as it moves from the nothingness from which it came toward the nothingness where it must end, defines an existence which is both anguished and absurd (Guerin). In a world without sense, all choices are possible, a situation which Sartre viewed as human beings central dilemma: â€Å"Man [woman] is condemned to be free.† In contrast to atheist existentialism, Sà ¸ren Kierkegaard theorized that belief in God (given that we are provided with no proof or assurance) required a conscious choice or â€Å"leap of faith.† The major figures include Sà ¸ren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre (sart or SAR-treh), Albert Camus (kah-MUE or ka-MOO) , Simone de Beauvoir (bohv -WAHR) , Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers (YASS-pers), and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (mer-LOH pawn-TEE). Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is predominantly concerned with the perceptions and description of structures. At its simplest, structuralism claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself, and in fact is determined by all the other elements involved in that situation. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part (Hawkes, p. 11). Structuralists believe that all human activity is constructed, not natural or â€Å"essential.† Consequently, it is the systems of organization that are important (what we do is always a matter of selection within a given construct). By this formulation, â€Å"any activity, from the actions of a narrative to not eating one’s peas with a knife, takes place within a system of differences and has meaning only in its relation to other possible activities within that system, not to some mean ing that emanates from nature or the divine† (Childers & Hentzi, p. 286.). Major figures include Claude Là ©vi-Strauss (LAY-vee-strows), A. J. Greimas (GREE-mahs), Jonathan Culler, Roland Barthes (bart), Ferdinand de Saussure (soh-SURR or soh-ZHOR), Roman Jakobson (YAH-keb-sen), Vladimir Propp, and Terence Hawkes. Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction Post-Structuralism (which is often used synonymously with Deconstruction or Postmodernism) is a reaction to structuralism and works against seeing language as a stable, closed system. â€Å"It is a shift from seeing the poem or novel as a closed entity, equipped with definite meanings which it is the critic’s task to decipher, to seeing literature as irreducibly plural, an endless play of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single center, essence, or meaning† (Eagleton 120 – see reference below under â€Å"General References†). Jacques Derrida’s (dair-ree-DAH) paper on â€Å"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences† (delivered in 1966) proved particularly influential in the creation of post-structuralism. Derrida argued against, in essence, the notion of a knowable center (the Western ideal of logocentrism), a structure that could organize the differential play of language or thought but somehow rema in immune to the same â€Å"play† it depicts (Abrams, 258-9). Derrida’s critique of structuralism also heralded the advent of deconstruction that–like post-structuralism–critiques the notion of â€Å"origin† built into structuralism. In negative terms, deconstruction–particularly as articulated by Derrida–has often come to be interpreted as â€Å"anything goes† since nothing has any real meaning or truth. More positively, it may posited that Derrida, like Paul de Man (de-MAHN) and other post-structuralists, really asks for rigor, that is, a type of interpretation that is constantly and ruthlessly self-conscious and on guard. Similarly, Christopher Norris (in â€Å"What’s Wrong with Postmodernism?†) launches a cogent argument against simplistic attacks of Derrida’s theories: Approaches of New Criticism. (2016, Dec 24).

Critically evaluate the above statement, referring to the case law of Essay

Critically evaluate the above statement, referring to the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, that of the national courts in the UK, and two other Member States - Essay Example The central issue circles around the interpersonal relationship between the European Court of Justice and the national courts related to supremacy claim over the national law that is embedded in the ECJ’s jurisdiction. At the base level, clashes between the community laws along with the national law are readily apparent. It has also been observed that according to the ECJ, it has decided that the law associated with the European Community (EC) must be supreme related to any kind of conflict that might arise in the decisions of the community and the national courts. On the basis of the new regulations, it has been observed that the principle of ECJ’s supremacy over the rulings of the national courts has been well recognised in the case of Costa v. ENEL among others2. This study intends to discuss the relevant gaps between the decisions of the European Court of Justice and the national courts. The presented views include the internal authority of the EU law that essential ly places the national constitutions and the EU legal order on a collision course. ECJ had been established in the year 1952 with a view to mitigate the three roles that are associated with the member states that frame the part of the European Community (EC). One of the three major roles includes laying a constant check upon the EC’s legislative and the executive bodies. Another key role depicts clarifying along with interpreting the indefinite EC’s law. The last vital role entails the implementation of non-compliance of the EC jurisdiction by the member States3. The development of the jurisdiction under the ‘European Legal System’ has enabled to enlighten certain flaws associated with the system. It has been observed that the member States have apparently supported the ‘European Legal System’. Member States have readily passed on the authority to the ECJ for carrying out the judicial

Personal Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personal Paper - Essay Example They lived in a broken down shack. They slept on the floor, and they did not have any electricity or running water. My grandmother was the caretaker, while my grandfather supported the family. He worked in the tobacco fields. My mother’s sisters and brothers all pitched in to do all the chores. They had no specific roles. They all cleaned the house together, took turns sweeping the floor, and fetching water. My grandfather and his family finally migrated to New York in 1951. Upon relocating to New York, my family did not move into a Hispanic community, instead they moved into an African American community called Harlem, which is a predominately African American Community. It is believed my grandfather wanted to get away from the Hispanic community. It was very difficult for them due to the language barriers. The family did not speak any English except my grandfather. Upon entering school my mother, her sister’s and brother’s were all placed in the same grade, because they lacked the ability to speak the native language. The school gave them a bilingual teacher who taught them to speak the native language. She was also a big support to my mother’s family, and due to the school support, and the support of the community my mother’s family adjusted very well to their new environment. All of my aunts and uncles married, and soon branched out into different communities, and had children of their own. I was born and raised in a New York City Housing Project (NYCHA) called Jefferson, which consisted of a multicultural community. I resided in the home with my mother, father and five siblings. Despite my mother never obtaining an education she was very active within the community. She did voluntary work as a school Para Professional with special needs children, and my father worked in a garment factory. Most of the friends came from single-families households. Their main sources of income were either

Individual Reflection Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Individual Reflection Report - Essay Example In addition, I also had difficulty getting through examinations and processing instructions for my various course requirements. As mentioned, I am not a native speaker and I still have a long way to go mastering the English language. It was extremely difficult particularly whenever I am about to take an exam. Reviewing the course and subjects was already difficult to begin with, especially whenever I had to deal with new words and concepts. So whenever there was an exam, my anxiety doubles up. Definitely, the language barrier was the main reason for slow progress in academics. In my classes, I double my effort to follow the instructions and syllabus needed for the course. Aside from taking notes, I also compare with other students so I could monitor my progress. I consult regularly with my professors to be able to ensure that I am catching up on the lessons. I have already missed a lot of things in my first year and I am determined to make it this time around. I feel that I am improv ing, little by little, so that eventually, I could reach my goals. At present, I am still working on making it better by continuously improving on my communication skills. By this, I do not only mean speaking the language, but more importantly, be able to get along well with other people and build relationships. In school, I am trying again to get better by taking the courses I failed last term, and doubling my efforts to successfully pass them this time. I have started building friendship with other foreign students who also share the same sentiments and hurdles with me. This way, we can assist each other in the adjustment processes. I talk to my professors regarding my performance, and seek help whenever I need it. Guidance is important for me at this point, as I need all the assistance I could get so I could truly get synchronized into the system. I engage in group studies, join groups that would help me improve my performance. I am now focusing on simultaneously mastering the la nguage and learning all the concepts being taught. More than memory work, I have to immerse myself into various situations and participate in activities that would allow me to create relationships and form a support group that would help me improve my performance. Eventually, I want to be really familiar with University life, finish my courses with flying course and eventually get a Degree in Business and Management. I want to have the capacity to eventually apply for a job in UK, a job that would not consider my being non-native a disadvantage. Later on, when I would be getting advanced courses, I would be able to really participate in the learning process even more. My perseverance would eventually lead me towards the achievement of my goals. So far, I think I am a work in progress, as I have already basically learned the language, and can now somehow communicate whenever I have to go out, do my errands, shop or simply interact with other people. I am slowly building my confidence to be able to engage in simple conversations even outside the university. Though there are still new challenges and hurdles that come along now that I am in the university, I think that with careful planning and evaluation, I can get my objectives done in time. CAREER As I said, I am taking up Business and Management because of my goal to secure a long tern job from the private sector. I want to given the chance to apply for corporate job in probably a bank, or in