Creepy figure Essay Example for Free

Creepy figure Essay Miss Havisham seems a particularly creepy figure as she sits at a dressing table in an old, yellowed wedding gown. The room seems to be frozen in time, and Miss Havisham, dressed as a bride, looks more like a corpse. When Pip sees Miss Havisham, she is still wearing her wedding dress. She was dressed in rich materials satins, and lace, and silks all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white vail, dependant from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Making Miss Havisham wear her wedding dress at first gives us the impression that she maybe is meant to be getting married that day. However we do soon find out that she has been in her dress for years. This shows us that Miss Havisham is depressed. Throughout the next 10 or so chapters, Pip leaves and moves to London with the money from an unknown source. Pip becomes a gentleman living with his friend. In Chapter 27, Joe Gargery comes to visit Pip in London. After Pip reads the letter from Joes new wife, he then says Let me confess exactly with what feelings I looked forward to Joes coming. Not with pleasure This sentence shows us that Pip had grown up and matured also. And even become a snob. Pip now looks down on Joe as he is common and not a gentleman like Pip. These few lines spoken by Pip start to make us feel a bit distant from him as he is now so different, its as if the reader doesnt know this man. When Pip arrives, he greets Joe saying How are you Joe? to which Joe replies Pip, how air you Pip? Joes speech is a garbled attempt at sounding over-eloquent. It could read as if Joe is mimicking Pip, trying to say that he is posh, however, I think that all Joe is trying to do is act more upper class than he is infront of Pip so as not to embarrass him. However, he does. Joe then says Us two being alone now sir- as to which Pip interrupts. By calling Pip Sir, and he seems to use his hat to divert his nervous energy, and its constantly falling on the floor. This passage makes the reader feel uncomfortable for both Pip and Joe as the use of dramatic irony sets in. We know what both the characters are thinking and feeling, yet they do not. In Chapter 48, we read that Pip has to travel back to meet Miss Havisham. She has requested to meet with him. In chapter 49 Pip arrives at Miss Havishams house. On of the first few lines we read are after Miss Havisham say Thank you to Pip and we read that Pip remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me. This shows automatically that there has been a role reversal. Earlier Pip had been weak and timid and now it is as if Miss Havisham is the child. The cruelty of her actions seems to have finally hit her, and she breaks down, crying What have I done! and even falls to her knees before Pip and begs his forgiveness. Dickens uses Miss Havisham in this Chapter as if she had seen the light and wants to repent her sins. At first in the book we dont really like her, but now as she repents we grow fond of her and do indeed like her. Pip leaves the room, though returns a few minutes later on some odd presentiment. Just as he walks through the door, the old womans dress catches fire, and Pip wrestles her to the ground to smother the flames. Both of them are burned, Miss Havisham so badly that she is wrapped in gauze and laid out on the bridal table, in a sort of hideous echo of her normal white bridal gear. The doctor warns that there is danger of her going into nervous shock. To conclude. Charles Dickens, one of the great writers of his time, uses many different techniques in Great Expectations to manipulate the readers feelings towards a character, such as repetition, confusion, the use of colours and dramatic irony. He uses his techniques to make us feel sorry for the bad characters yet he controls this so that by the end we do Infact like them, which is why he is know worldwide for his work today.

Harry Houdini Essay -- Essays Papers

Harry Houdini What comes to mind when one thinks of Harry Houdini? There are many things one could say, magic, escapes, perseverance, hard work, determination, fame, etc. Houdini was a master magician as well as a superb escape artist. (Harry 1) Houdini was one of the most determined men in history. He was so obsessed with achieving his goal that no matter what got in his way he pushed it aside. Even if it were his parents he would ignore them. Many things got in his way but he was so focused that he ignored them. This is the story of the greatest Magician that ever lived. On April 6th, 1874 Ehrich Weiss (Harry Houdini) was born to Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weiss and his wife Cecelia on March 24 in Budapest, Hungary. (Timeline 1874 1) After Erich was born, his father had many problems in Hungary and came to Wisconsin. The Weiss family joined Rabbi Weiss in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he led a small Reform congregation. At age nine, Ehrich and some neighborhood friends establish a five-cent circus. Wearing red woolen stockings, he bills himself as "Ehrich, The Prince of the Air." (Timeline 1874 1) Harry Houdini lived a very rough childhood. His father had failure after failure. Since Weiss couldn’t survive in Wisconsin, he brought Erich with him to New York City. In the city, they lived in a boardinghouse on East Seventy-ninth Street. Ehrich works a variety of jobs to help support the family. In 1891, Ehrich teamed up with Jacob Hyman, a friend from his job at neckwear cutting firm. They form a magic act called â€Å"The Brothers Houdini.† (Timeline 1874 1) All his life Ehrich loved magic. One magician he especially admired was Robert-Eugene Houdin. Ehrich started calling himself â€Å"Harry Houdini.† The next year Eric experienced a grave tragedy. His father died on October 5, 1892 at the age of 63. (Timeline 1874 1) Ehrich was seventeen years old. He had experienced such a hard life that he just kept on going. Many people said that his childhood was the reason that he was so mentally strong and determined. Meanwhile â€Å"Harry† as he called himself now was performing on the Midway at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Later that same year, Jacob Hyman left The Brothers Houdini and was replaced by Harry’s brother Theodore, or Dash as he liked to be called. That summer, Harry met fellow performer Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner. After three weeks of getting to... ...(Timeline 1912 1) Later that year, the legacy of Harry Houdini ended as he died in Detroit on Halloween, from complications of appendicitis. Several days earlier, a student had struck him in the stomach in his dressing room, even though he was hurt, he refused to cancel his shows until it was too late. His death triggered mourning and tributes around the world. Houdini's funeral was held on November 4th at the Elks Clubhouse on West Forty-third Street in New York. As many as two thousand mourners packed the ballroom, and the event was widely covered. (Timeline 1912 1) In conclusion, I feel that Harry Houdini was the greatest Magician that ever lived. He was so talented that he was able to do more than just magic. He amazed people for years and was probably 100 years ahead of his time. Harry Houdini will never be forgotten for his achievements. Works Cited Harry Houdini, Master Magician: A study of a master’s childhood and how it affected his adulthood. December 13,2000 Timeline of Harry Houdini’s Life, 1874-1898 December 15, 2000 Timeline of Harry Houdini’s Life, 1899-1910 . December 15, 2000 Timeline of Harry Houdini’s Life, 1912-1926 December 15, 2000

Activity-Based Costing: a Case Study on a Taiwanese Essay

The aim of this paper is to analyze the operational costs of a hot spring inn in the Yang-Ming-Shan area of Taiwan. The activity-based costing method was used to compute lodging, hot spring use and meal serving costs per customer. This paper overcomes all the obstacles to implementing full-scale ABC-based accounting to this hot spring country inn. In this case, products, defined as hot spring use, lodging and meal serving are used as the cost objects. We define five activity centers: the cleaning activity center, the customer service center, the cooking and foodservice center, the reception service center and the management center. Finally, we use the ABC method to calculate the costs of hot spring use, lodging and meal serving as NT$ 31.64, NT$ 306.21 and NT$ 67.28 per customer respectively in the busy winter seasons. The paper also compares the ABC method with the traditional costing method and concludes that the ABC method is practical and appropriate for such a hot spring country inn and yields more accurate information for cost management and pricing decisions. Key Words: Activity-Based costing, Country Inn, Hot Spring, Cost Analysis 1. Introduction Researchers in management accounting have traditionally been, above all, interested in the accounting systems of large manufacturing companies. Most accounting researchers interested in service production have conducted their research in non-profit seeking, public-sector organizations (Pellinen 2003, p. 217). Outside the non-profit sector, the number of studies on the management accounting practices of service organizations (profit seeking) have remained very limited (Brignall et al., 1991; Sharma, 2002). More unfortunately, non-traditional lodging, (i.e. the B&B industry), is totally lacking in management accounting research, in contrast with the traditional lodging industry, which is quite well-researched. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how activity-based costing (ABC) can be applied to a hot spring country inn in order to obtain information on activities and products for decision making purposes. ABC is a cost-accounting method that allocates resource costs to products using a two stage procedure on the basis of activity consumption by drivers. It’s a method which can overcome many of the limitations of traditional cost systems which can distort product cost because they allocate the overhead costs to products mainly by direct labor hours (or volume-related measures). This is particularly prone to result in distortions in cases where there is a large overhead ratio or a high degree of product diversity. The country inn style of non-traditional lodging, especially suitable for ABC application, has various products such as lodging, hot spring use and dining which belong to different market segments. The indirect costs of this inn constitute an important proportion of the total costs (53.46%). In such a typical situation, the valuing of products of this inn may be distorted by a traditional accounting system. This article portrays an attempt to apply the ABC model to a hot spring country inn where the managers normally use a traditional accounting method to acquire product cost information. Our case study is presented in the hope of contributing to management accounting research in the non-traditional accommodations area. In addition to the introduction, there are four main sections in this paper. The subsequent section reviews previous research in management accounting for the lodging industry. The third section presents the ABC model. The fourth section illustrates the implementation of ABC in a specific case. The fifth section compares results of the ABC method and the traditional method. Some conclusions are presented in section six. 2. Literature review Poorani and Smith (1995, p. 58, 63) observe: â€Å"The hotel and the B&B industry have very different financial aspects arising from contrasting ownership motives. In the hotel industry the emphasis is on maximizing profitability whereas the B&B industry has been traditionally characterized by innkeepers who embarked on inn-keeping as a second career to satisfy lifestyle goals. But the current economic environment has blurred that distinction. Hoteliers are trying to be more sensitive to customers’ needs and create an environment for personalized service. Meanwhile, many entrepreneurs are entering the B&B segment with strictly financial motives†. Their investigations attribute financial characteristics to the B&B industry and find that innkeepers in USA with midsize and larger operations not only were highly successful in reaching their career goals but also achieved their economic objectives as measured by return on investment and equity. However, notwithstanding the importance of financial aspects, the studies in cost structure of the B&B industry anywhere in the world were rare. One reason is the inn’s private-ownership arrangements; others are the fragmented industry structure and the lack of systematic cost and revenue data. Unlike the situation in the B&B industry, there have been a large number of studies in the hotel industry. In the management accounting side of the tourism industry, research has been conducted both in tourism management research and in accounting research. Studies have been carried out in passenger transportation (Dent, 1991; Rouse et al., 2002), restaurants (Ahrens and Chapman, 2002), and hotels (Downie, 1997; Edgar, 1998; Noone and Griffin, 1999; Mia and Patiar, 2001; Pellinen, 2003). Downie (1997, p310) emphases the importance of considering how accounting information can be analyzed to support marketing decisions more effectively. Noone and Griffin (1999, p111-128) designed a customer profitability analysis (CPA) integrating activity-based costing (ABC) and customer segments in order to find profit yield in a hotel. Mia and Patiar, (2001, p111) interviewed only 35 managers and indicated that general managers and department managers took equal account of the management accounting system, but general managers were more content with the accounting system and valued financial information more than department managers. Pellinen (2003, p217) studied the pricing decisions in six tourism enterprises (including a hotel) and suggested the enterprises observed all took their prices from the leading company. Thus, the importance of cost accounting is limited with reference to pricing decisions from the managerial viewpoint. Obviously, most of the studies have focused on hotels. As Harris and Brown (1998, p161) pointed out, hotels, which typically comprise food, beverage and lodging, can be used to illustrate that the context of the hospitality product can provide a complete range of characteristics in a single arena. Actually, the B&B industry also has all those characteristics. But this segment, specifically nontraditional lodging (including B&B inns, country inns, small hotels, condominiums, and vacation homes), has remained an enigma to industry analysts and researchers. Lanier et al. (2000, p91) think this is in part because the analysts and researchers willfully overlook it in favor of the traditional lodging industry, pleading lack of data (Statistics dealing with properties of fewer than 20 rooms are usually estimated or based on small samples. Since most country inns do not reach the 20-room threshold, statistics for these properties have not been collected regularly, unlike other industry segments). This is so prevalent in studying management accounting in the accommodation industry and that there is a huge lag for researchers to make up for. Summarizing the above, previous studies on accounting and product costing, pricing of hotels propose that : (1) the knowledge in accounting is essential in hotel management, (2) the connection between accounting information and marketing is important, and (3) activity-based costing, cost-volume-profit analysis, yield management, and segment profit analysis were among the most relevant management accounting methods, (4) the lack of management accounting research in non-traditional lodging industry needs to be made up. 3. Activity-based costing Cooper and Kaplan (1988) have developed what they believe is a better alternative to the traditional cost calculation model. They argue that as products differ in the complex process of manufacture, they consume activities in different proportions. The activity-based costing method (ABC) promoted by Cooper and Kaplan provides a more accurate measure of cost because it traces indirect costs more closely with regard to the different types of activities consumed. Armed with knowledge of what activities are consumed by each product and the resource cost of each activity, one can budget costs for a diversity of products. However, the traditional accounting method usually assigns overhead costs of products by using volume-related allocation bases such as labor hours, direct labor costs, direct material costs, machine hours, etc. This will not critically distort the product costs as the overheads are just a small portion of the production process. But in situation where there is a large diversity of products, or where there is a high level of automation, as Brimson (1991, p. 179) pointed out, the overheads’ distortion will be significant. In our case, for example, high-volume products (hot spring use) may consume more direct labor hours than low-volume products (meal serving), but do not necessarily consume more purchasing activity costs. The ABC model applied to the case of this hot spring country inn is depicted in figure 1. The ABC systems focus on the accurate cost assignment of overheads to products. In the cost assignment view, the assignment of costs through ABC occurs in two stages: cost objects (i.e., products or services) consume activities, activities consume resource costs. In practice, this means that resource costs are assigned to various activity centers by using resource drivers in the first stage. An activity center is composed of a group of related activities, usually defined by function or process. The group of resource drivers is the factor chosen to estimate the consumption of resources by the activities in the activity centers. Every type of resource assigned to an activity center becomes a cost element in an activity cost pool. And, in the second stage, each activity cost is distributed to cost objects by using Figure 1 ABC Model in a Hot Spring Country Inn a suitable activity driver to measure the consumption of activities by products or services (Turney, 1992). Then, the total cost can be calculated by adding the various activities costs to a specific product or service. And the total cost divided by the quantity of the product can acquire the unit cost of product. In our case, the inn provides three products, lodging, hot spring use and meal serving. We define five activity centers, namely the cleaning center, the customer service center, the reception center, the cooking and foodservice center and the management center. Each activity center is composed of related activities, clustered by their function. As Harris and Brown (1998, p161-162) indicated, a hotel operation can be used as an example of hospitality products, in the same way the elements of a hot spring country inn of the B&B industry also can be used to illustrate non traditional accommodation products. For instance, the provision of rooms constitutes a nearly ‘pure service’ product incorporating a large proportion of service elements. It can be defined as the rental of a certain amount of space for a specified period of time and is thus an intangible good containing a high level of service provision. The provision of hot spring use also represents a service product: it includes hot spring rental and service activities. Furthermore, the meal serving provision, comprised of purchasing, distribution and conversion of food into meals, again constitutes a service product. The main advantage of ABC lies in that it provides a more accurate and real cost computation, especially in situations in which product diversity is important and in which the indirect costs, not directly traceable to the products, represent an important proportion of the total costs. In addition, ABC also allows a deeper level analysis of product costs by explaining the relationship between products and activities. The improved accuracy of perception of the cost structure of products and the continuous process improvements in the various departments of an enterprise provide the substance of activity-based management (i.e. using ABC to improve a business). Studies of the implementation of ABC exist in various fields, e.g. of universities (Cropper and Cook, 2000), a hotel (Noone and Griffin, 1999), library service (Ellis-Newman and Robinson, 1998), distribution logistics (Pirttilà ¤ and Hautaniemi, 1995; Themido et al. 2000), (all of which belong to the service sector); of a manufacturing company (Spedding and Sun, 1999), an assembly line (Gunasekaran and Singh, 1999), (which belong to the manufacturing sector); of a wholesale fish market (Lee and Kao, 2001), (agricultural sector); and of a radiotherapy unit (Lievens et al., 2003), (medical sector). All of them agree that ABC is a useful accounting model and able to obtain more accurate information about the cost structure as long as implementing managers choose the right drivers and define activities well. However, it is generally accepted that there is no universally appropriate accounting system suitable to all organizations in all circumstances (Emmanuel et al., 1990). But as Harris and Brown (1998, p162) point out, management accounting needs to be carried out in the context of the hospitality product in order to supply the necessary information for decision-makers if researchers expect to make a significant contribution to the industry.

French Expression Etre Dans Son Assiette - French Plate

Lets start with a mistake you hear all the time: be careful to not say une assiette (a plate) instead of un sià ¨ge (a seat). Students get confused because the verb for to seat is sasseoir, so they think une assiette is related. Hence the mistake. A Plate Une Assiette We have different kind of plates used for different courses: Les Assiettes Plates (Flat): une petite assiette (une assiette à   fromage, une assiette à   dessert par exemple) - smaller plate used for cheese or dessert for example.une grande assiette (une assiette à   entremet) - a bigger plate, used for the main course.une assiette à   pain - a very small plate for the breadNote that a very small plate to put under a cup is called une soucoupe.   Les Assiettes Creuses (Deeper Plate) une assiette à   soupe: soup plate Les Plats (Serving Dishes) There are too many to list: des plats creux (deeper), des plats plats (yes, flat serving dish), and we often sort them by their shape or use : un plat rond, oval, carrà © (round, oval, square...), un plat à   poisson (for the fish), un plat à   tarte (pie)... un plat pour le four (for the oven). Ne Pas Être Dans Son Assiette   This weird idiom means to not feel/look well, to feel/look depressed.   Et bien, Camille, à §a va ? Tu es sure ? Tu nas pas lair dans ton assiette.Well, Camille, are you OK? Are you sure? You dont look well. And it has nothing to do with a plate! Actually, it does come from sasseoir, and has to do with the position one is sitting: Lassiette. Its an old French word, that nowadays is only used for horseback riding. We say: un bon cavalier a une bonne assiette. (a good rider has a good sitting position). Otherwise, the French word une assiette is used for a plate, thats all. Note that for the idiom ne pas à ªtre dans son assiette will always be used in the negative, and the possessive adjective will change to agree with the person you are talking about. Regarde Pierre : il na pas lair dans son assiette.Look at Pierre: he doesnt look well.