... focus during the holiday season, when the pressure to spend is at its highest. This year, predictions for holiday spending were very low, but analysts were surprised: Spending was actually even lower than expected. A division of MasterCard showed holiday spending this year was down by as much as 4% over the same period last year, making this year the worst holiday season for them in modern times ... . Even retail behemoths such as Gap experienced a drop in sales by close to 20 percent. Best Buy and other electronics and appliance stores experienced even more significant drops than that ....

• Word Count: 431
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography

... and our land. If the government needs to know all of our business, whereabouts, and anything else that goes on in our lives, I believe we need to know what goes on in theirs. Whatever lies in Area 51 effects every single life that occupies this nation. The government is making new laws every day to "protect our health" and help us to reach the " American Dream". Knowing ... that the government is hiding from several hundred million people, is enough to make anyone sick. Whether it be a remnant from the cold war, or a testing for modern day planes, Area 51 remains one of America's ... m...

• Word Count: 1017
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... interpreted as committing sin. These combination love and shame, has destroyed the rose and was something that Blake found perverted and unhealthy. "The sick rose" is made up of two verses, both four lines long. The rhyme scheme is ABCB. The syllables in this poem, are 5,6,5,5,5,4,6,5. This mad the poem more direct, which contributes to the theme of death. There is only one type of alliteration which ... is the "s" sounds. This appears in rose, sick, invisible, flies, storm, crimson, ... secret, does and destroy. This poem expresses some of the issues that happen in our culture, ... ...

• Word Count: 347
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... Death comes and takes him; he joins all those who the Red Death claimed earlier. This irony shows some of the bizarre and twisted imagination of the gothic writers. The Prince also being slightly disturbed in his mind helped add to the eerie atmosphere of the whole story. The rooms the Prince created show just how distorted the minds of the writers were when this story was written. Instead of ... the flowing plaza, the Prince's hideaway is full of sharp and unnecessary angles. The rooms each have ... their own colors and themes; each of these themes represents some part of the imaginati...

• Word Count: 461
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... bars, movie passes and other promotional items. We put together a thousand bags. The following day we took 200 of these bags to ASU. On average, prior to the bags we were getting out about 100 papers. At the end of the day we had handed out all 200 bags, and the plan was a success. The decision to use the bags was a successful one, although it did cost a bit more money than handing things ... out individually. We believe that the positive side of distributing more papers far outweighs the negative of having the extra cost. The bags ... ...

• Word Count: 498
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... lady who has stolen my heart away. And with that radiance present, these words have captured my heart, and have stored it away. This young ladies" presence causes my heart to yearn for that radiance. And with that yearning comes a self-conscious feeling of affection for this young lady, who has stolen my heart away. You are my unique young lady ... at every meeting of your voice stuns my heart into a breathless trance that could not be broken for the world. And at every meeting of your voice that yearning is revitalized. This I want you to now, because you are the beauty of my life; tha...

• Word Count: 243
• Approx Pages: 1
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . There are many different types of environmental pollution such as acid rain, global warming, desertification, overpopulation, and solid waste disposal. In the following paragraphs I will discuss what I can do to help prevent environmental pollution. I think that all kinds of environmental pollution can be stopped if we all use our heads and just think ... before we throw a piece of trash on the ground, instead throw it into a nearby garbage can. We should look at our Earth ... should not trash it and take advantage of it. If we abuse our Earth now who knows how it will get back at us...

• Word Count: 306
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... of treachery and deceit. The villainy of the play knows no bounds. Family lines are ignored in an overwhelming quest for power. This villainy is epitomized in the character of Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester. The bastard is Elizabethan equivalent of "outsider". As a complete outsider, a cold analyzer and calculator, Edmund personifies an unorthodox malignant view of nature according to which Man, Nature and God ... fall apart.Edmund, the arbeiter of his own fate, is an embodiment of the New Man and the New Age, the age of the 16th and after ... ...

• Word Count: 336
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... Night, is not just about falling in love and making jokes. Beneath all this happiness and laughter lies a considerable amount of hurt and suffering. The Duke Orsino of Illyria suffers from unrequited love. He is in love with Lady Olivia but she has no intention of getting together with him. Duke ... Orsino lives in a fantasy world where Lady Olivia and he are together and happy. Towards the end of Twelfth Night, Orsino feels betrayed by Cesario, his messenger. Lady Olivia is in mourning, for seven years, for her brother. She refuses ... to have anything to do with Duke Orsino. Her sadn...

• Word Count: 254
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

There are many ways to break bad habits, different techniques work well with various bad habits. How difficult the bad habit is to break depends on what it is, for example, it is a lot easier to quit biting your fingernails then to quit smoking cigarettes. The technique I will explain works well with smaller bad habits such as biting your fingernails, or cracking your knuckles. First, you must realize that you have a problem with your bad habit. Biting your fingernails for example, some people do this when they"re nervous. The best way to stop is to think about not doing it. When you catch you...

• Word Count: 213
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... you can depend on and stress. When Sophie was going away he was asked to stay at the house for the night which he did to help Sophie and her family. David gift is "telepathy". Not everybody is born with a special gift like David. It make's me wonder sometime in our modern day if people have unique gifts from God that other people don"t have. In ... chapter five David is facing tuff emotions against his father. Joseph Strorm is a very cruel heartless man. I wouldn't like to have a father like that. The fact that David cannot explain him self is foolish. If I was a father ... I would lov...

• Word Count: 325
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... nearly a year. They had always been close and playful, but they had never discussed love. Newt showed up on Catharine's doorstep by surprise one day, she was looking through a magazine completely devoted to brides. Catharine had fallen in love with a man named Henry while Newt was away, and their wedding was set ... he persisted until she gave in. She told him she was getting married, and he of course knew already from writing to his mother. Catharine asked why Newt was here and he told her he was home to se her, and that he wasn't on leave, he was A.W.O.L. Catharine thought he was kiddi...

• Word Count: 370
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask" (pg 103) And comments are also made concerning the money used to pay the grocer "Monopoly papers we lay on the grocer" (pg 104) When the enter the store Sylvia is hesitant "when we get there I kinda hang back. Not that I"m scared, what's there to be afraid of, just a toy store" (pg 105). She also adds, "But I feel funny, shame ... . But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody. But somehow I can't seem to ... you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don't it?" " (pg 108) Syl...

• Word Count: 445
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... idea of beauty that still can be captured by the eye. The description of the "white flash", "the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony" keep pointing to the fish's beauty. Bishop shows how bright and rich the colors of this fish are, considering the age. Suddenly the image of the fish with "five big hooks grown firmly in his ... mouth" makes Bishop's character see the picture of the fish in a totally different perspective. The admiration of the fish grows through the entire poem ... and suddenly, changes into respect for the fighter an...

• Word Count: 347
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... going on she was stereo- typing me because I had been in special classes when younger. I had a friend in that class named Stacey and she thought that I was crazy. Then one day when I turned in an essay on "Tom Sawyer" and Stacey knew that I had turned it in because we helped each other do it then turned them in at ... the same time. When Mrs. Roads gave everyone back their papers she never gave me mine. I asked her where it was and she insisted that I did not turn it in to her, but Stacey and I knew the truth that I had turned it in. We went to the guidance office and informed them ther...

• Word Count: 888
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... even quits Ralph's group and goes off to form his own tribe because, "I"m not going to play any longer. Not with you." (Golding. Lord of the Flies. p.127) This final act leads to the last stage of the breakdown of the boy's society: the recession of the boys into a tribe. "We want meat." (Golding. Lord of the Flies. p.51) Hunting the wild pigs found on the island the most important thing for Jack; it ... is more important than building shelters ("You wouldn't care to help with the shelters, I suppose?") (Golding. Lord of the Flies. p.51), keeping the signal fire going ("If Jack was ... ...

• Word Count: 707
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Texas judge William Adams, who ironically presides over child abuse cases, caused uproar when daughter Hillary Adams uploaded a video on YouTube of him savagely beating her with a belt when she was sixteen years old. According to Hillary, the abuse was not a one-time thing. Her mother, Hallie Adams who has since divorced William, claimed that her ex-husband had bouts of violence caused by his "addiction," which they kept as a "family secret" for a long time. Because the statute of limitations has lapsed, William cannot be charged with child abuse, although it is yet to be seen whether his care...

• Word Count: 531
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many people today do not give much thought to what their country represents and why they should be proud to live in it. I am very proud to be an American and live in America. An American is someone who loves their country and the people in it, and also believes in bettering their own lives as well as the lives of those around them. I fill that since I live in America I represent the leading country in the world, and I am able to achieve almost anything I set my mind too. Here people have a chance to make something of themselves and are free to decide how they wish to do it. In America when tro...

• Word Count: 164
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... . From "the softness of the earth," a thought came to Rainsford telling him to a Burmise Tiger pit to beat Zaroff (49). Rainsford "stepped back from the quicksand, a dozen feet or so and like some prehistoric hunter began to dig" (49). He made a "Malay Man-catcher" which allowed Zaroff to congratulate Rainsford because "not many men know how to make a Malay Man-catcher" (51). Being resourceful lead Rainsford throughout the game. Thanks to Rainsford ... 's intelligence, determination, and resourcefulness, he beat Zaroff and won the game. Without intelligence Rainsford would not have been a...

• Word Count: 420
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... I am in High School and I know how important it is I want to do the best that I can. Last year I had a problem with turning in assignments, I was not very organized so I either lost the assignment or forgot to do it because I didn't write it down. This year I plan to correct that by organizing my papers and writing down every assignment so I don't forget any. Another way I plan ... to maximize my time in High School is by taking classes that are going ... to prepare me for the carrier that I plan to have. I will try my hardest to get the best grades that I can in all my classes. The on...

• Word Count: 356
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

The First Day of My Life It was a beautiful summer morning, and my parents with my brother, sister and I had driven in our little orange-like car to our piece of land that we called "Berryland" because we mostly grew strawberries there. We also had a big green garage there that contained several interesting things and among them a plastic ... with a heart-shaped hoe in his hands, lazily lifting it up and then dropping it down again. It seemed to me as if he was performing a magic ritual, even though I was not older than a year. Then I saw my mother standing in the distance and the picture o...

• Word Count: 320
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... which I wasn't ready to let go of. Being the timid 13 year-old boy that I was, entering the 7th grade in a new environment was the equivalent of swimming across the Pacific Ocean in my adolescent mind. To make matters worse, the differences between Minnesota and California were infinite. Moving only 15 days prior to the start of school, I took notice at the lack of hospitality compared to "back home". I assumed ... my attempts at making friends would be useless with these covert people, which almost seemed foreign to me. Little did ... made me realize what a perfect friend is. After 6 ye...

• Word Count: 1021
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... there is light upon the situation that the man stumbles. We would usually predict him to stumble in the darkness, but chillingly, we see that as the poem continues along, he operates better in the dark. The doe was "almost cold," (Line 7) yet a couple lines later we are told, "her side was warm." (Line 10) The contradicting statements bring the reader to the realization that this confrontation between the modern man and nature ... is a contradiction too. Depending whose side you are on, nature or modern man, you will believe what you will about the state of life in this story. The autho...

• Word Count: 332
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... I was watching this movie, I was sickened. I found myself debating, in my head, whether or not I should keep watching it. There we some parts where I was appalled. I"m never appalled! Thankfully in the end I was glad I watched this movie, but it was a challenge. This movie did make me think a lot though. Is there one reason in my life that would keep me from ... more important than we make it out to be. A side part about the movie that really upset me was the relationship between the Pianist and the Nazi officer towards the end. He was obviously a guy who had somewhat of a good heart, b...

• Word Count: 800
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... early so when she got the opportunity, that is when the man in the wedding flirts with her, she falls for him right away. She marries the man but he abandons her soon after. Ying-Ying does not want Lena to do the same but she too marries Harold and is unhappy. She cannot bear to see Lena living in this misery. Modern America vs. Traditional China: I think ... that in this chapter there is a clear comparison between the ways of America and the traditions of China. There are many descriptions of how China is ... very different such as the building with bamboo poles as supports with men w...

• Word Count: 295
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School