Texts in Conversations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Texts in Conversations - Essay Example Finally, third wave feminism continues through the contemporary cultural landscape. In addition to large-scale political change, each of these movements is reflected in the artistic and cultural production of feminist writers of the time. This essay critically reviews prominent texts from each of the feminist waves – Virginia Woolf’s ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’, Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘the Second Sex,’ and Rebecca Walker’s ‘Becoming the Third Wave.’ Virginia Woolf was one of the most prominent writers within the first wave spectrum of feminist thought. Today her novels and essays remain widely read for both their literary qualities, as well as their prescient perspective on women’s equality. In terms of her stance on women’s equality, her text ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ represents one of her most powerful statements. Woolf begins this text with the provocative statement, â€Å"It would h ave been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare† (Woolf). In addition to holding significant rhetorical quality, this statement is an indictment of both 17th century Europe, as well as cultural climate of Woolf’s time that severely restricts the rights of women. While Woolf’s text expresses many of the concerns that will later be echoed in second and third wave feminist literature, it’s clear that Woolf’s formulations distinctly constitute proto-feminist concerns. As Woolf’s text unravels it’s clear that it focuses upon the position of a woman in 17th century England. She seminally writes that any, â€Å"woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked† (Woolf). Even as Woolf is referring to the condition of the woman in 17th century Europe, it’s clear that her statements are reflective of her own social challenges. The cultural climate of Woolf’s time remain highly centered on the male as the breadwinner and this carried over into the process of education and social responsibility. In these regards, Woolf is articulating essential aspects of the woman’s experience in her world; namely the nature of patriarchal society as restricting the woman’s full potential and the abhorrent recognition of this reality. While such concerns are more emblematic of first wave feminism, they are reflective of the central of all feminist waves, and are reflected in both de Beauvoir and Walker’s texts. Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘the Second Sex’ is recognized as a seminal text in terms of the second wave feminist movement. While Woolf’s work examined broader feminist and human rights concern, de Beauvoir’s text is more rooted in th e cultural climate of her day. It’s also clear that while Woolf’s text is more concerned with the oppressive social mechanisms that restrict women’s rights, de Beauvoir is further pointed as she directly identifies men as the oppressive party. Consider de Beauvoir who writes, â€Å"The whole of feminine history has been man-made. Just as in America there is no Negro problem, but rather a white problem; just as anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem; so the woman problem has always been a man problem† (De Beauvoir, pg. 102). In these regards,

Fast food Essay Example for Free

Fast food Essay Remember how simple it was to pull up to the drive through and tell the little speaker box what combo you wanted? You weren’t ashamed of asking for large fries and a chocolate milkshake because your stomach can handle anything you decide to digest. The salty golden arches crunched as you took a bite, the juicy double cheeseburger melted in your mouth or the sweet tea quenched your thirst and the hot fudge sundae sent you on a sugar rush. The teenage years were carefree because there was no distinction between healthy and life threatening when it came to choosing where to eat during lunch break. Unfortunately, your figure cannot handle careless food decisions anymore. Now you need to drive past that McDonald’s and find the nearest salad bar. Fast food is not your friend; it’s your enemy. Looking back you must wonder why you thought greasy cheeseburgers and fried chicken were the ideal meal; they certainly did not do any good for your body. Yes it was a quick and easy way to get food but that was during the years you stayed active. As a woman well over her thirties, you are smart enough to know that you don’t have the same metabolism as any eighteen-year-old girl. Face it, you are no longer that little girl who could devour her way through all you can eat buffets and midnight snacks. You are a mother who may have gained a few pounds here and there; nevertheless, you are not allowed to let yourself go. More importantly, do not feed yourself straight into a heart attack because you divert to fast food for dinner. A meat patty is made from the unhealthy parts of the beef. White bread will only make you want to eat again in a couple hours. The oil used to make your favorite value menu snack can eventually clog up your arteries if eaten excessively. Why risk your life for chicken nuggets that never look as good as the ones on the TV commercials? Don’t forget that you are no longer thinking of yourself, you have a husband and children. Are those deep fried onion rings really worth thousands of dollars toward hospital bills and the thought of your family losing its primary caretaker? Now you can pull up to the drive through teller and ask the little speaker box if it knows where the nearest Subway is because you have conquered your need for unhealthy fast food. Don’t let the golden arches confuse you, they are swords to the stomach and the milkshakes will only give you brain freezes. Stay away from that double cheeseburger because it is soaked in oil that leads to high cholesterol and heartburn. Don’t give in to the artificial sweeteners and chocolate because they satisfy you when you have them, but will only make you crash harder. You are stronger than any of the unhealthy products fast food throws your way. If you stay away from them all together, you will no longer have to worry about fast food taking you down. You will come out well figured, healthy, and victorious.

Financial Analysis of Coles Ltd

Financial Analysis of Coles Ltd 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Purpose In this report my purpose is to do a financial analysis of Coles Ltd which provides a basis, on which the valuation of company can be done. 1.2 Scope This report conducts a financial analysis for Coles by performing a trend analysis of financial ratios using the data given for past 5 years. It also includes a cash flow analysis which along with financial ratios helps compare coles with its industry counterparts, Woolworths and Metcash; and finally this analysis would help in price valuation to calculate a fair price for coles share. 1.3 Methodology This report is based on primary data available from Coles website as well as secondary data such as research paper, electronic database and other publications. 1.4 Limitation Although all efforts have been made to use as much available information as possible but there were some constricting factors such as lack of available data of past financial information which restricted this research. Reliability of data and time constraints were also hurdle in performing this analysis. The biggest shortcoming was that current data was based on AIFR and data for years before 2005 was based on AGAAP, which made comparative trend analysis very difficult. 2. FINANCIAL ANALYSIS In this we will be evaluating the firms financial ratios and cash flow measures of the operating, financing, and investing performance of a company in relation to key competitors historical performance. Given the firms strategy and goals, together these tools allow the analyst to investigate and examine a firms performance and its financial condition. Ratio analysis is the tool which involves assessing the firms income statement and balance sheet data. On the other side, the cash flow analysis relies on firms cash flow statement. 2.1 Ratio analysis The ratio analysis deals with evaluation of the performance of Coles in perspective of its mentioned strategies and goals. In order to achieve this objective a combination of cross sectional analysis and time series analysis is performed. Workings of Ratios for 2006 are mentioned in APPENDIX 4. 2.1.1 Profitability analysis If we look at the return on equity (ROE) of Coles, for a period of 5 years, it is being observed that ROE has increased in 2006 as compared to 2002. Although ROE has fallen in 2006 (15. 30%) as compared to 2005 (18.30 %) but it can be seen that on an average Coles ROE has been stable or increased over last 5 years. Return on asset (ROA) has also been stable around 10% during the last 3 years and increasing from 7.17% in 2002 to 9.54% in 2006.The main reason for stable ROE and ROA are better performance delivered by the management and as well as the mature characteristic of the industry, that produces stable return as well as stable growth seeing population demographics in the country. Table 1 Profitability Ratio of Coles Ltd Source: Coles financial statement after adjustment Gross profit has been quite stable and good for the last 5 years but the concerned part is the net profit margin. Net profit margin has been very low, it had been increasing from 2002 to 2005 but it again fell in 2002 to 1.57% from 2.08%. Coles need to reduce its operating and interest expenses so as to increase its net profit margin. Table 2 Profitability Ratio Comparison within the industry in 2006 On comparing the performance of Coles with its industry counterparts we can conclude that Coles Ltd is way behind its major competitor, Woolworths, in terms of ROE and ROA which might be attributable to lower net profit margin and lower financial leverage. Coles has higher financial leverage as compared to Woolworths and metcash, which means it, has greater financial risk. But despite of high leverage it has low ROE which confirms the fact that Coles has low net profit margin asset turnover ratio. 2.1.2 Activity Analysis A firms operating activities require investments in both short-term (inventory and accounts receivable) and long term assets. Activity ratios describe the relationship between the firms level of operations and assets needed to sustain operating activities. Asset turnover is important in determining firms ROA; it also formulates reasons of how it will affect firms ROE. Evaluating the effectiveness of asset management is the purpose of asset turnover analysis. 2.1.2.1 Short term activity ratios Working capital is our main concern while evaluating a company. It can clearly be observed that since Coles has high turnover ratios it uses cash basis in its sales. It can be clearly being seen that it took only 4.48 days on an average for Coles to convert its inventory investment back in to cash. From the figures last 5 years we can clearly interpret that Coles has drastically improved its cash conversion cycle from 23 days in 2002 to 4.48 days in 2006. Table 3 Short-term Activity Ratios for Coles Ltd Table 4 Short-term activity ratio comparison, 2006 Now, if we compare Coles with its competitors we can see that Woolworths has lower cash conversion cycle and metcash has higher cash conversion cycle. Woolworths has lower cash conversion cycle because it keeps inventory in stock for shorter duration and stock is converted in to good sold in less span of time. On the other hand Metcash keeps inventory in stock for lower no. of days but it provides more no. of days to its receivables for payment due to which it has higher cash conversion cycle. Seeing the industry it can be concluded that Coles has good cash conversion cycle but it can improve on it by reducing the Average number of days for which inventory is in stock. 2.1.2.2 Long term activity ratios In the analysis of long term activity ratios, long-term asset turnover and property, plant and equipment turnover have been utilized. Table 5 Long term activity ratios for Coles Ltd On the whole both ratios moved in the same pattern during these periods. Relatively, this pattern shows that asset utilization has improved uniformly for the period ranging from 2002 (310.12%) to 2006(372.70%). This helps to conclude that company is continuously improving its utilization of assets to increase its production. Table 6 Long term activity ratios comparison, 2006 While comparing to its competitors it can be seen that Coles total asset turnover ratio is approximately 30% higher than its competitors. It helps to analyze that Coles is more efficiently utilizing its resources to increase its production as compared to its competitors. Metcashs high PPE turnover ratio can be contributed to the fact that PPE forms a very small part of Metcashs total assets. If compare Coles with its major competitor Woolworth on PPE Turnover Ratio we can conclude that Coles has been utilizing its fixed asset better than Woolworths. 2.1.3 Liquidity Analysis Liquidity is referred to a firms ability to have sufficient funds when needed and convert its non-cash assets in to cash easily. Liquidity Ratios are employed to determine the firms ability to pay its short-term liabilities. Liquidity analysis enables us to determine Coles ability to cover its liquidity risk. Liquidity risk may arise due to shortfall or over liquidity within the firm and this in turn lead to firms disability of fulfilling its liquidity needs. In order to determine firm liquidity level, Current ratio, quick ratio and cash ratio are short- term liquidity ratios which have been employed. Table 7 Coles Short-term Liquidity Ratios On doing the trend analysis for last 5 years it can be observed that Coles current ratio has been consistently falling, which increases the possibility that Coles will not be able to meet up its short term liabilities. Current ratio has fallen from 1.37 in 2002 to 0.98 in 2006 which is of major concern, as a current ratio of less than 1 means that company has negative working capital and is probably facing a liquidity crisis. The more stringent measure of liquidity is quick ratio and cash ratio which have also been falling uniformly in last 5 years. It seems Coles is falling in to liquidity crunch and might need short term funds to meet its current liabilities. There has been lot of volatility in the cash ratio of the firm as they have been rising and again falling, so we can conclude that Coles is not able to maintain stable liquidity. Table 8 Short term liquidity ratios comparisons, 2006 As compared to its competitors Coles has better current ratio than Woolworths but has current ratio less than Metcash. Comparing Coles with its major competitor in retail sector, Woolworth, we can clearly see Coles has better current cash ratio but is behind on quick ratio. On comparing with metcash we see that Coles is behind on all the short term liquidity ratios by a very high margin. Metcash has twice the cash ratio as compared to Coles, which makes Coles ability to meet its short term liabilities questionable. 2.1.4 Long term Debt and solvency Analysis The analysis of a firms capital structure is essential to evaluate its long term risk and return prospects. The long term debt and solvency ratios which we are going to use here are debt to equity, debt to capital and interest coverage ratio. Table 9 Coles long term Debt and Solvency ratios As indicated by Coles debt and long term solvency ratios, it denotes that firm is not a solvent company and relies heavily on debt financing. The firms debt to equity and debt to capital ratios are consistently above 1.00 which shows that Coles employed more debt than equity as its source of financing. Debt to total capital has also been consistently been around 0.55-0.60 during the 5 year period. This shows that firm has been stable with its financing policy and has not done much change with its debt and equity mix. Since it relies so heavily on debt financing, issues can be raised regarding its ability to pay off the interest arising due to long term debt financing but we see that company has EBIT 7 times more than the interest charges it has to pay, so that should concern much. It can be observed interest coverage ratio has declined in 2006, as compared to 2005 2004, but it is still able to meet industry benchmarks. Table 10 Debt and Solvency ratios Comparison 2006 Compared to its competitors, long term solvency ratios of Coles seem to be performing optimally. Woolworths has got the highest debt to equity, debt to capital interest coverage ratio. Historically a debt to equity ratio of 2:1 is considered optimal so Coles can still rely on debt to finance its future undertaking rather then issuing new shares. It can be observed that Coles has interest coverage ratio greater than Metcash but less than Woolworths but that can be attributable to its low profit margin as compared to Woolworths. It seems Coles is at par with its competitors in terms of debt and solvency ratios. 2.2 Cash Flow Analysis Cash flow analysis is essential to understand that whether the firms cash flow have the ability to sustain the business, to meet unexpected obligations and to meet its short term liabilities. This also helps to understand whether firm will be requiring additional financing and firm can take advantage of new business opportunities as they arise. In cash flow analysis we will evaluate 3 ratios; Operating cash flow to current liabilities, Interest coverage (cash flow basis) operating cash flow to dividend payment. Methodology for calculation of cash flow ratios is shown in APPENDIX 5 Table 11 Cash flow ratios for Coles Ltd Based on the table above, we can say that Coles has the ability to service its debts which can be seen in firms interest coverage ratio from cash flow basis. Moreover, we observe that Op. cash flow to dividend payment has fallen over the time span from 2002 to 2006 which could be an area of concern. Operating cash flow to current liabilities has also fallen a bit, which means it can be a problem for the firm if certain unexpected obligation come up due to which it might require additional financing. Table 12 Cash flow ratios Comparison, 2006 If we compare Coles to its competitors in the industry which it operates we observe that Coles has got better interest coverage ratio (cash flow basis) as compared to Woolworths Metcash which means that Coles has better ability to service its debts than its counterparts. Coles also has a shortcoming in operating cash flow to dividend payment ratio, as it can be seen it has the lowest operating cash flow to dividend payment ratio. It can be attributable to the fact that it pays more dividends than it should pay. So it can be concluded that Coles needs to reduce dividend payment as it might lead Coles in to financial difficulties if some unexpected obligations turn up. In terms of operating cash flow to current liabilities we see that although it has fallen substantially for Coles in last 5 years but it is at par with its biggest competitor Woolworths greater than Metcash. 3. Prospective analysis Prospective analysis enables us to determine future performance of the firm based on historical performance of the company. Here will be determining the mean return for sales and earning before interest taxes (EBIT) . Using those mean returns we will be making a sales forecast and EBIT forecast. 3.1 Sales and EBIT forecast In determining the sales growth, I have considered the following assumptions- Past trend of sales is going to continue in the following years. Firm is not going to bring a major change in its pricing policy. The foundation for sales EBIT growth is historical sales EBIT growth and I have used mean reverting model to determine the future sales growth, in which future sales EBIT growth will be mean return of last 4 years sales growth. I have not taken the 5 year sales EBIT growth because EBIT growth rate is to high in 2002 (73%) which could adversely effect the mean return considering present situation of Coles. Table 13 Sales EBIT Growth Rate for Coles Ltd Using the mean reverting model we are able to find out a growth rate of sales for 7.64% EBIT growth rate of 11.87%. Using these growth rates we will be able to make a sales forecast EBIT forecast. This forecast will help in proper valuation of Coles on the basis of its predicted future performance. Figure 1 Line chart for sales EBIT growth Table 14 Sales EBIT Forecast for Coles LTD Using the growth rates we can forecast the sales and EBIT for Coles which helps an analyst in a fair valuation of the company. The main reason we use the sales growth as a base for forecasting, is that the majority of firm income is derived from its supermarket business. This forecast suffers from one serious shortcoming that EBIT growth has fallen from 34.31% in 2004 to 11.16% in 2005 and then to -17.07% in 2006 but we are still predicting a growth in EBIT of 11.87% in 2007 and thereafter. 4. Conclusion I have gone through the multi-step process of ratio analysis, cash flow analysis and prospective analysis to present a report on financial analysis of Coles ltd. During the process, I have identified that Coles is operating in a mature industry with small profit margins. I have performed ratio analysis, cash flow analysis prospective analysis which would help a great deal in valuation of Coles based on its current market situation. During the Ratio analysis I was able to conclude that Coles has got good activity liquidity ratios but the major area of concern is profitability ratios. Coles needs to improve its net profitability so as survive in this competitive environment. Cash flow analysis helped us to depict that Coles has cash flow ratios at par with its competitor, Woolworths, but Coles need to reduce its dividend payout as it is too high as compared to industry counterparts. By doing a prospective analysis I am able to forecast the future sales EBIT for Coles for next 4 years. Growth rate for forecast has been calculated using the mean return for past 4 years. This helps us to understand future growth of the company. I would like to conclude by saying that although Coles is competing in a low profit margin industry but it is the 2nd biggest company in the retail industry, therefore if it brings about certain petite changes in its financing and operating activities it can add a great deal to its shareholders value.

America Needs Preschool for All Children Essay -- Argumentative Persua

America Needs Preschool for All Children As you walk into the room, a pint-sized kid runs up to your legs and squeezes your knees. Squeals of delight bounce off the walls as kids boogie to Disney tunes, and another group is meticulously drawing pictures of rainbow colored snowmen. The faint smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafts through the room. Everywhere you look, there are smiles. Sounds great? Attending preschool is like running through a field of dreams. Unfortunately, not every child gets the opportunity to experience preschool. For low-income families, particularly single mothers, preschool is a huge financial burden. Despite what parents want for their children, it isn’t always a practical option; sometimes, the cost of enrolling their children outweighs the money earned at a job (Mason 46). Soon, mothers are sending their kids to preschool so they can work to make money to pay for preschool. Furthermore, without an education, parents are confined to minimum wage jobs with no hope of advancement (49). Where’s the incentive to work? Robin Mason describes one single mother’s motivation. For her, employment is more than just money; rather, it’s also a means to boost her self-esteem, gain financial independence, and set a positive example for her children. She emphasizes her responsibility to her children to keep a roof over their head, be a good mother, and choose a quality daycare (47). The value of preschool is often overlooked as parents consider it for its utilitarian purposes. Although most preschools do function as a daycare, the merits gained from an early education follow children throughout their entire lives. Children at this ripe age are eager to learn, excited about the buzzing world aroun... ...cial and cognitive skills suffer under the strain (195). But, there is hope: a loving, supportive environment that encourages children to grow into themselves. Preschool. Government programs are in place to help low-income families offset the costs, and national agencies provide multidimensional support for preschoolers and their families. Seven hours in a classroom doesn’t fix the problems at home. Rather, these programs are designed to help low-income families through a multi-faceted approach, attacking several issues in one mighty blow (Olson, Ceballo, and Park 427). These programs offer a variety of resources, including parenting classes, stress management courses, family counseling, and nutrition education. Through these programs, the entire community is assuming responsibility for taking care of its children. After all, it takes a village to raise a child. America Needs Preschool for All Children Essay -- Argumentative Persua America Needs Preschool for All Children As you walk into the room, a pint-sized kid runs up to your legs and squeezes your knees. Squeals of delight bounce off the walls as kids boogie to Disney tunes, and another group is meticulously drawing pictures of rainbow colored snowmen. The faint smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafts through the room. Everywhere you look, there are smiles. Sounds great? Attending preschool is like running through a field of dreams. Unfortunately, not every child gets the opportunity to experience preschool. For low-income families, particularly single mothers, preschool is a huge financial burden. Despite what parents want for their children, it isn’t always a practical option; sometimes, the cost of enrolling their children outweighs the money earned at a job (Mason 46). Soon, mothers are sending their kids to preschool so they can work to make money to pay for preschool. Furthermore, without an education, parents are confined to minimum wage jobs with no hope of advancement (49). Where’s the incentive to work? Robin Mason describes one single mother’s motivation. For her, employment is more than just money; rather, it’s also a means to boost her self-esteem, gain financial independence, and set a positive example for her children. She emphasizes her responsibility to her children to keep a roof over their head, be a good mother, and choose a quality daycare (47). The value of preschool is often overlooked as parents consider it for its utilitarian purposes. Although most preschools do function as a daycare, the merits gained from an early education follow children throughout their entire lives. Children at this ripe age are eager to learn, excited about the buzzing world aroun... ...cial and cognitive skills suffer under the strain (195). But, there is hope: a loving, supportive environment that encourages children to grow into themselves. Preschool. Government programs are in place to help low-income families offset the costs, and national agencies provide multidimensional support for preschoolers and their families. Seven hours in a classroom doesn’t fix the problems at home. Rather, these programs are designed to help low-income families through a multi-faceted approach, attacking several issues in one mighty blow (Olson, Ceballo, and Park 427). These programs offer a variety of resources, including parenting classes, stress management courses, family counseling, and nutrition education. Through these programs, the entire community is assuming responsibility for taking care of its children. After all, it takes a village to raise a child.

Intro to Psychology Essay

I. Describe: Anxiety is something I have been dealing with since I was in my childhood. I never fully understood anxiety until it started getting worse as I got into my adolescent stage. I had talked to my mom and grandma about it a lot of times to make sure I was okay. I have been through several both anxiety and panic attacks. I have been one to worry about everything. Pathological anxiety and fear was very random for me. I never understood what was going on. Growing up whenever I would learn something new an example is, my aunt had a tumor in her armpit and it started as a lump. I one time had a small bump and instantly worried myself that it was a tumor to. Another example is whenever I go to busy places like a restaurant or the mall I start to get a very nervous feeling and start to panic. I used to get real bad panic attacks to different places that whenever I would be on my way there I would freak myself out so much I would throw up. A third example that I didn’t realize was anxiety until I got older was I used to be very nervous about going to middle school. Like I said earlier I worry a lot so I would start to worry about the silliest things like people making fun of me for something I would do or say. Before I would go to school I would start getting a real bad stomachache and sometimes I would just go home and I suddenly felt better. Describing anxiety is very difficult. It took many years until I realized I was actually going through it. II. Explain: My anxiety is very continuum. I can be fine at some places, but other times I can go into a panic attack randomly. I think a lot of this started whenever I was talking to my mom and grandma they were telling me how they both have it, my sisters, my brother, and also my dad has it. So, it’s all in my family. I believe that everyone has a small part of anxiety in them some is just worse than others. I used to have a very high anxiety before I would g o on a date. I would be scared to death and have panic attacks sometimes I wouldn’t even be able to go on a date because I would freak myself out so bad. My mom was really worried about me she thought I had a generalized anxiety disorder so I went to the doctors to get medicine. My dad has anxiety and doesn’t like to be in large crowds or he will start to panic, but he will never admit that to me. He is a very strong-headed person and doesn’t believe anxiety exists. Mine actually just gets bad in certain restaurants, around certain people, and sometimes it comes out of nowhere. The other day at work there was no one in there I just started worrying about small things and next thing I knew I was having a small panic attack. My cognitive bias was just overreacting about small things. The worst thing to ever go through is an anxiety attack. You start to have a heightened physiological arousal, high-strung temperament, and neurochemical imbalance. I literally thought I was dying whenever I was going through one. III. Predict: I thought I was going to go through something more serious then just anxiety if I didn’t do a nything about it. I thought I was going to have depression because I wouldn’t go out and do things because my anxiety would take a toll on me. I thought something even more serious as PTSD. I would stress myself out thinking I was so different and never going to be a normal girl that could go on dates or just go somewhere with friends. The worst part was this all started getting severe in my senior year of high school. So my friends are all going out having fun and I’m just freaking myself out. I worked on a problem-focus coping and realizing what was wrong with me and what I needed to do to not let this bring me down during my senior year. I was adapting to these new changes in my life and starting to realize anxiety is something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. IV Change: I tried to just avoid it all together. I would look up ways on the Internet to avoid getting panic attacks or how to calm my anxiety, but nothing worked. My grandma always told me whenever she would have e ither a panic attack or anxiety attack that she would just remind herself to calm down and tell her self that she is okay. I honestly thought I was the only one in this world that had anxiety and was afraid of everything. I never told anyone except my close friends and family about it cause I didn’t know how other people would take it. When going to restaurants I would counter condition everything and tell myself I was okay and over time anxiety wasn’t as bad. I did a lot of cognitive restructuring as well. I would think of different things I could do to start over coming this anxiety. I started talking to other people about it and hearing that other people have anxiety and deal with the same things I do made me feel like I wasn’t the only one going through it. Dealing with this I knew that systematic desensitization was out of the question. I knew that I didn’t need help from someone hired to help me. I knew I could get through this. I started to just ignore it. Oddly, my anxiety actually went away for a while when I started dating my boyfriend. My mom had told him about my anxiety before we went on our first date and with him knowing and didn’t judge me I felt so much more comfortable. When we went out he did everything he could to make me feel comfortable and I thought it was the sweetest thing. Now that we have been together for a while I don’t get anxiety or panic attacks as frequent as I used to. I still have them sometimes and I just talk myself out of them, or I will talk to him and they will go away cause my mind is distracted. I am starting to completely overcome them although I know deep down I am always going to worry about thing and have a slight sense of anxiety within me. I have a different attitude about things and try not to let my anxiety get the best of me when I go places.

Language Acquisition and Learning Essay

There are several theories as to how people acquire and learn the intricacies of language not only to communicate but also to communicate their ideas across an audience. As a matter of fact, most of these theories if not all of them contends with each other. The two famous contending ideas are that of the Behaviorist Theory purported by B. F. Skinner which argues that language learning is a matter of â€Å"imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habit formation (Author, Year)† and the Innatist Theory posited by Noam Chomsky which presents the notion of a Universal Grammar found in every human being’s mind that made them cognitively capable in learning a language (Author, Year). While both of these theories account for the similarities and differences in first language and second language learning, it is Stephen Krashen who first made a basic distinction that first language is acquired while second language is learned (Author, Year). According to Krashen, to acquire a language is to understand the language just like that of a child acquiring his/her first language without any conscious attention to the language form. On one hand, learning a language is to focus on the form and rules of a particular language. Aside from these basic differences there are also other factors that affect both first language acquisition and second language learning such as the cognitive and environmental aspects. In the cognitive aspect, Chomsky said that humans in terms of language learning have The Critical Period Hypothesis, a genetic program that contains the kinds of knowledge and skill necessary for the learning of a language in a specific period of every human’s life. This further suggests that most of human’s first language endeavor happens in this period which makes it easier to learn as opposed to second language learning that will happen beyond CPH. It is argued that beyond these critical periods, it is already difficult if not impossible to acquire those language learning skills as supported by the case study of a 12-year old boy Victor who grew up in the wilderness of France without any contact with any human language but the sound of the animals and the woods (Author, Year). It is believed that second language can no loner access the innate acquisition they have when they learn their first language which lead them to rely on their other cognitive skills. The second cognitive aspect is the knowledge of a prior language. Second language whether children or adults have already acquired a first language on their own that works both as an advantage and a disadvantage. It is an advantage because of the fact that they have a prior language on how languages work. It is a disadvantage in a sense that this prior knowledge would affect and influence the learner’s knowledge of the second language that would inevitable lead them to make incorrect guesses on how the second language works. Second language learners already have cognitive maturity and metalinguistic awareness that a first language learner does not have which allows them to solve problems and engage themselves in language discussions. Moreover, there are also attitudinal and cultural differences involve in between first language acquisition and second language learning. First is the willingness to use and experiment the new language. For instance, children learning their first language would try to express themselves in different ways sometimes in erroneous ways even when their proficiency in the language is limited. However, adult second language learners would find it stressful to not able to express themselves which inhibits them to endeavor with the language. Lastly, there is an environmental differences involved in language learning acquisition and learning. For instance, first language learners are exposed in an informal environment where parents respond to their children’s language in a natural way such as a correction based on meaning as opposed to a correction based grammar accuracy. Correction is often made through reaction as opposed to a second language learning setting where every wrong utterance is corrected. In this way, second language learners are deprived of the experiencing language in a real communication set- up which is hazardous in their learning.