Intellectual Craftsmanship Essay Example for Free

Intellectual Craftsmanship Essay TO THE INDIVIDUAL social scientist who feels himself a part of the classic tradition, social science is the practice of a craft. A man at work on problems of substance, he is among those who are quickly made impatient and weary by elaborate discussions of method-and-theory-in-general; so much of it interrupts his proper studies. It is much better, he believes, to have one account by a working student of how he is going about his work than a dozen , codifications of procedure by specialists who as often as not have never done much work of consequence. Only by conversations in which experienced thinkers exchange information about their actual ways of working can a useful sense of method and theory be imparted to the beginning student. I feel it useful, therefore, to report in some detail how I go about my craft. This is necessarily a personal statement, but it is written with the hope that others, especially those beginning independent work, will make it less personal by the facts of their own experience. 1.  It is best to begin, I think, by reminding you, the beginning student, that the most admirable thinkers within the scholarly community you have chosen to join do not split their work from their lives. They seem to take both too seriously to allow such dissociation, and they want to use each for the enrichment of the other. Of course, such a split is the prevailing convention among men in general, deriving, I suppose, from the hollowness of the work which men in general now do. But you will have recognized that as a scholar you have the exceptional opportunity of designing a way of living which will encourage the habits of good workmanship. Scholarship is a choice of how to live as well as a choice of career; whether he knows it or not, the intellectual workman forms his own self as he works toward the perfection of his craft; to realize his own potentialities, and any opportunities that come his way, he constructs a character which has as its core the qualities of the good workman. What this means is that you must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship is the center of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you may work. To say that you can have experience, means, for one thing, that your past plays into and affects your present, and that it defines your capacity for future, experience. As a social scientist, you have to control this rather elaborate interplay, to capture what you experience and sort it out; only in this way can you hope to use it to guide and test your reflection, and in the process shape yourself as an intellectual craftsman. But how can you do this? One answer is: you must set up a file, which is, I suppose, a sociologists way of saying: keep a journal. Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologists need for systematic reflection demands it. In such a file as I am going to describe, there is joined personal experience and professional activities, studies under way and studies planned. In this file, you, as an intellectual craftsman, will try to get together what you are doing intellectually and what you are experiencing as a person. Here you will not be afraid to use your experience and relate it directly to various work in progress. By serving as a check on repetitious work, your file also enables you to conserve your energy. It also encourages you to capture fringe-thoughts: various ideas which may be by-products of everyday life, snatches of conversation overheard on the street, or, for that matter, dreams. Once noted, these may lead to more systematic thinking, as well as lend intellectual relevance to more directed experience. You will have often noticed how carefully accomplished thinkers treat their own minds, how closely they observe their development and organize their experience. The reason they treasure their smallest experiences is that, in the course of a lifetime, modem man has so very little personal experience and yet experience is so important as a source of original intellectual work. To be able to trust yet to be skeptical of your own experience, I have come to believe, is one mark of the mature workman. This ambiguous confidence is indispensable to originality in any intellectual pursuit, and the file is one way by which you can develop and justify such confidence. By keeping an adequate file and thus developing self-reflective habits, you learn how to keep your inner world awake. Whenever you feel strongly about events or ideas you must try not to let them pass from your mind, but instead to formulate them for your files and in so doing draw out their implications, show yourself either how foolish these feelings or ideas are, or how they might be articulated into productive shape. The file also helps you build up the habit of writing. You cannot keep your hand in if you do not write something at least every week. In developing the file, you can experiment as a writer and thus, as they say, develop your powers of expression. To maintain a file is to engage in the controlled experience. One of the very worst things that happens to social scientists is that they feel the need to write of their plans on only one occasion: when they are going to ask for money for a specific piece of research or a project. It is as a request for funds that most planning is done, or at least carefully written about. However standard the practice, I think this very bad: It is bound in some degree to be salesmanship, and, given prevailing expectations, very likely to result in painstaking pretensions; the project is likely to be Presented, rounded out in some arbitrary manner long before it ought to be; it is often a contrived thing, aimed at getting the money for ulterior purposes, however valuable, as well as for the research presented. A practicing social scientist ought periodically to review the state of my problems and plans. A young man, just at the beginning of his independent work, ought to reflect on this, but he cannot be expected-and shouldnt expect himself-to get very far with it, and certainly he ought not to become rigidly committed to any one plan. About all he can do is line up his thesis, which unfortunately is often his first supposedly independent piece of work of any length. It is when you are about half-way through the time you have for work, or about one-third through, that such reviewing is most likely to be fruitful -and perhaps even of interest to others. Any working social scientist who is well on his way ought at all times to have so many plans, which is to say ideas, that the question is always, which of them am I, ought I, to work on next? And he should keep a special little file for his master agenda, which he writes and rewrites just for himself and perhaps for discussion with friends. From time to time he ought to review this very carefully and purposefully, and sometimes too, when he is relaxed. Some such procedure is one of the indispensable means by which your intellectual enterprise is kept oriented and under control. A widespread, informal interchange of such reviews of the state of my problems among working social scientists is, I suggest, the only basis for an adequate statement of the leading problems of social science. It is unlikely that in any free intellectual community there would be and certainly there ought not to be any monolithic array of problems. In such a community, were it flourishing in a vigorous way, there would be interludes of discussion among individuals about future work. Three kinds of interludes-on problems, methods, theory-ought to come out of the work of social scientists, and lead into it again; they should be shaped by work-in-progress and to some extent guide that work. It is for such interludes that a professional association finds its intellectual reason for being. And for them too your own file is needed. Under various topics in your file there are ideas, personal notes, excerpts from books, bibliographical items and outlines of projects. It is, I suppose, a matter of arbitrary habit, but I think you will find it well to sort all these items into a master file of projects, with many subdivisions. The topics, of course, change, sometimes quite frequently. For instance, as a student working toward the preliminary examination, writing a thesis, and, at the same time, doing term papers, your files will be arranged in those three areas of endeavor. But after a year or so of graduate work, you will begin to re-organize the whole file in relation to the main project of your thesis. Then as you pursue your work you will notice that no one project ever dominates it, or sets the master categories in which it is arranged. In fact, the use of the file encourages expansion of the categories which you use in your thinking. And the way in which these categories change, some being dropped and others being added-is an index of your intellectual progress and breadth. Eventually, the files will come to be arranged according to several large projects, having many sub-projects that change from year to year. All this involves the taking of notes. You will have to acquire the habit of taking a large volume of notes from any worth-while book you read-although, I have to say, you may get better work out of yourself when you read really bad books. The first step in translating experience, either of other mens writing, or of your own life, into the intellectual sphere, is to give it form. Merely to name an item of experience often invites you to explain it; the mere taking of a note from a book is often a prod to reflection. At the same time, of course, the taking of a note is a great aid in comprehending what you are reading. Your notes may turn out, as mine do, to be of two sorts: in reading certain very important books you try to grasp the structure of the writers argument, and take notes accordingly; but more frequently, and after a few years of independent work, rather than read entire books, you will very often read parts of many books from the point of view of some particular theme or topic in which you are interested and concerning which you have plans in your file. Therefore, you will take notes which do not fairly represent the books you read. You are using this particular idea, this particular fact, for the realization of your own projects. 2 But how is this file-which so far must seem to you more like a curious sort of literary journal-used in intellectual production? The maintenance of such a file is intellectual production. It is a continually growing store of facts and ideas, from the most vague to the most finished. For example, the first thing I did upon deciding on a study of the elite was to make a crude outline based on a listing of the types of people that I wished to understand. Just how and why I decided to do such a study may suggest one way in which ones life experiences feed ones intellectual work. I forget just when I became technically concerned with stratification, but I think it must have been on first reading Veblen. He had always seemed to me very loose, even vague, about his business and industrial employments, which are a kind of translation of Marx for the academic American public. At any rate, I wrote a book on labor organizations and labor leaders-a politically motivated task; then a book on the middle classes-a task primarily motivated by the desire to articulate my own experience in New York City since 1945. It was thereupon suggested by friends that I ought to round out a trilogy by writing a book on the upper classes. I think the possibility had been in my mind; I had read Balzac off and on especially during the forties, and had been much taken with his self-appointed task of covering, all the major classes and types in the society of the era he wished to make his own. I had also written a paper on The Business Elite, and had collected and arranged statistics about the careers of the topmost men in American politics since the Constitution. These two tasks were primarily inspired by seminar work in American history. In doing these several articles and books and in preparing courses in stratification, there was of course a residue of ideas and facts about the upper classes. Especially in the study of social stratification is it difficult to avoid going beyond ones immediate subject, because the reality of any one stratum is in large part its relations to the rest. Accordingly, I began to think of a book on the elite. And yet that is not really how the project arose; what really happened is (1) that the idea and the plan came out of my files, for all projects with me begin and end with them, and books are simply organized releases from the continuous work that goes into them; (2) that after a while, the whole set of problems involved came to dominate me. After making my crude outline I examined my entire file, not only those parts of it that obviously bore on my topic, but also those which seemed to have no relevance whatsoever. Imagination is often successfully invited by putting together hitherto isolated items, by finding unsuspected connections. I made new units in the file for this particular range of problems, which of course, led to new arrangements of other parts of the file. As you re-arrange a filing system, you often find that you are, as it were, loosening your imagination. Apparently this occurs by means of your attempt to combine various ideas and notes on different topics. It is a sort of logic of combination, and chance sometimes plays a curiously large part in it. In a relaxed way, you try to engage your intellectual resources, as exemplified in the file, with the new themes. In the present case, I also began to use my observations and daily experiences. I thought first of experiences I had had which bore upon elite problems, and then I went and talked with those who, I thought, might have experienced or considered the issues. As a matter of fact, I now began to alter the character of my routine so as to include in it (1) people who were among, those whom I wanted to study, (2) people in close contact with them, and (3) people interested in them usually in some professional way. I do not know the full social conditions of the best intellectual workmanship, but certainly surrounding oneself by a circle of people who will listen and talk-and at times they have to be imaginary characters-is one of them. At any rate I try to surround myself with all the relevant environment-social and intellectual-that I think might lead me into thinking well along the lines of my work. That is one meaning of my remarks above about the fusion of personal and intellectual life. Good work in social science today is not, and usually cannot be, made up of one clear-cut empirical research. It is, rather, composed of a good many studies which at key points anchor general statements about the shape and the trend of the subject. So the decision-what are these anchor points? -cannot be made until existing materials are re-worked and general hypothetical statements constructed. Now, among existing materials, I found in the files three types relevant to my study of the elite: several theories having to do with the topic; materials already worked up by others as evidence for those theories; and materials already gathered and in various stages of accessible centralization, but not yet made theoretically relevant. Only after completing a first draft of a theory with the aid of such existing materials as these can I efficiently locate my own pivotal assertions and hunches and design researches to test them-and maybe I will not have to, although of course I know I will later have to shuttle back and forth between existing materials and my own research. Any final statement must not only cover the data so far as the data are available and known to me, but must also in some way, positively or negatively, take into, account the available theories. Sometimes this taking into account of an idea is easily done by a simple confrontation of the idea with overturning or supporting fact; sometimes a detailed analysis or qualification is needed. Sometimes I can arrange the available theories systematically as a range of choices, and so allow their range to organize the problem itself. (1) But sometimes I allow such theories to come up only in my own arrangement, in quite various contexts. At any rate, in the book on the elite I had to take into account the work of such men as Mosca, Schumpeter, Veblen, Marx, Lasswell, Michel, Weber, and Pareto. In looking over some of the notes on these writers, I find that they offer three types of statement: (a) from some, you learn directly by restating systematically what the man says on given points or as a whole; (b) some you accept or refute, giving reasons and arguments; (c) others you use as a source of suggestions for your own elaborations and projects. This involves grasping a point and then asking: How can I put this into testable shape, and how can I test it? How can I use this as a center from which to elaborate-as a perspective from which descriptive details emerge as relevant? It is in this handling of existing ideas, of course, that you feel yourself in continuity with previous work. Here are two excerpts from preliminary notes on Mosca, which may illustrate what I have been trying to describe: In addition to his historical anecdotes, Mosca backs up his thesis with this assertion: Its the power of organization that enables the minority always to rule. There are organized minorities and they run things and men. There are unorganized majorities and they are run. (2) But: why not also consider (1) the organized minority, (2) the organized majority, (3) the unorganized minority, (4) the unorganized majority. This is worth full-scale exploration. The first thing that has to be straightened out: just what is the meaning of organized? I think Mosca means: capable of more or less continuous and co-ordinated policies and actions. If so, his thesis is right by definition. He would also say, I believe, that an organized majority is impossible because all it would amount to is that new leaders, new elites, would be on top of these majority organizations, and he is quite ready to pick up these leaders in his The Ruling Class. He calls them directing minorities, all of which is pretty flimsy stuff alongside his big statement. One thing that occurs to me (1 think it is the core of the problems of definition that Mosca presents to us) is this: from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, we have witnessed a shift from a society organized as 1 and 4 to a society established more in terms of 3 and 2. We have moved from an elite state to an organization state, in which the elite is no longer so organized nor so unilaterally powerful, and the mass is more organized and more powerful. Some power has been made in the streets, and around it the whole social structures and their elites have pivoted. And what section of the ruling class is more organized than the farm bloc? Thats not a rhetorical question: I can answer it either way at this time; its a matter of degree. All I want now is to get it out in the open. Mosca makes one point that seems to me excellent and worth elaborating further: There is often in the ruling class, according to him, a top clique and there is this second and larger stratum, with which (a) the top is in continuous and immediate contact, and with which (b) it shares ideas and sentiments and hence, he believes, policies. (page 430) Cheek and see if anywhere else in the book, he makes other points of connection. Is the clique recruited largely from the second level? Is the top, in some way, responsible for, or at least sensitive to, this second stratum? Now forget Mosca: in another vocabulary, we have, (a) the elite, by which we here mean that top clique, (b) those who count, and (c) all the others. Membership in the second and third, in this scheme, is defined by the first, and the second may be quite varied in its size and composition and relations with the first and the third. (What, by the way, is the range of variations of the relations of (b) to (a) and to (c)? Examine Mosca for hints and further extend this by considering it systematically. ) This scheme may enable me more neatly to take into account the different elites, which are elites according to the several dimensions of stratification. Also, of course, to pick up in a neat and meaningful way the Paretian distinction of governing and non-governing elites in a way less formal than Pareto. Certainly many top-status people would at least be in the second. So would the big rich. The Clique or The Elite would refer to power, or to authority, as the case may be. The elite in this vocabulary would always mean the power elite. The other top people would be the upper classes or the upper circles. So in a way, maybe, we can use this in connection with two major problems: the structure of the elite; and the conceptual-later perhaps, the substantive-relations of stratification and elite theories. (Work this out. ) From the standpoint of power, it is easier to pick out those who count than those who rule. When we try to do the first we select the top levels as a sort of loose aggregate and we are guided by position. But when we attempt the second, we must indicate in clear detail how they wield power and just how they are related to the social instrumentalities through which power is exercised. Also we deal more with persons than positions, or at least have to take persons into account. Now power in the United States involves more than one elite. How can we judge the relative positions of these several elites? Depends upon the issue and decisions being made. One elite sees another as among those who count. There is this mutual recognition among the elite, that other elites count; in one way or another they are important people to one another. Project: select 3 or 4 key decisions of last decade-to drop the atom, to cut or raise steel production, the C. M. strike of 45-and trace in detail the personnel involved in each of them. Might use decisions and decision-making as interview pegs when you go out for intensives. 3 There comes a time in the course of your work when you are through with other books. Whatever you want from them is down in your notes and abstracts; and on the margins of these notes, as well as in a separate file, are ideas for empirical studies. Now I do not like to do empirical work if I can possibly avoid it. If one has no staff it is a great deal of trouble; if one does employ a staff, then the staff is often even more trouble. In the intellectual condition of the social sciences today, there is so much to do by way of initial structuring (let the word stand for the kind of work I am describing) that much empirical research is bound to be thin and uninteresting. Much of it, in fact, is a formal exercise for beginning students, and sometimes a useful pursuit for those who are not able to handle the more difficult substantive problems of social science. There is no more virtue in empirical inquiry as such than in reading as such. The purpose of empirical inquiry is to settle disagreements and doubts about facts, and thus to make arguments more fruitful by basing all sides more substantively. Facts discipline reason; but reason is the advance guard in any field of learning. Although you will never be able to get the money with which to do many of the empirical studies you design, it is necessary that you continue designing them. For once you lay out an empirical study, even if you do not follow it through, it leads you to a new search for data, which often turn out to have unsuspected relevance to your problems. Just as it is foolish to design a field study if the answer can be found in a library, it is foolish to think you have exhausted the books before you have translated them into appropriate empirical studies, which merely means into questions of fact. Empirical projects necessary to my kind of work must promise, first, to have relevance for the first draft, of which I wrote above; they have to confirm it in its original form or they have to cause its modification. Or to put it more pretentiously, they must have implications for theoretical constructions. Second, the projects must be efficient and neat and, if possible, ingenious. By this I mean that they must promise to yield a great deal of material in proportion to the time and effort they involve. But how is this to be done? The most economical way to state a problem is in such a way as to solve as much of it as possible by reasoning alone. By reasoning we try (a) to isolate each question of fact that remains; (b) to ask these questions of fact in such ways that the answers promise to help us solve further problems by further reasoning. (3) To take hold of problems in this way, you have to pay attention to four stages; but it is usually best to go through all four many times rather than to get stuck in any one of them too long. The steps are: (1) the elements and definitions that, from your general awareness of the topic, issue, or area of concern, you think you are going to have to take into account; (2) the logical relations between these definitions and elements; building these little preliminary models, by the way, affords the best chance for the play of the sociological imagination; (3) the elimination of false views due to omissions of needed elements, improper or unclear definitions of terms, or undue emphasis on some part of the range and its logical extensions; (4) statement and re-statement of the questions of fact that remain. The third step, by the way, is a very necessary but often neglected part of any adequate statement of a problem. The popular awareness of the problem-the problem as an issue and as a trouble-must be carefully taken into account: that is part of the problem. Scholarly statements, of course, must be carefully examined and either used up in the re-statement being made, or thrown out. Before deciding upon the empirical studies necessary for the job at hand, I began to sketch a larger design within which various small-scale studies began to arise. Again, I excerpt from the files: I am not yet in a position to study the upper circles as a whole in a systematic and empirical way. So what I do is set forth some definitions and procedures that form a sort of ideal design for such a study. I can then attempt, first, to gather existing materials that approximate this design; second, to think of convenient ways of gathering materials, given the existing indices, that satisfy it at crucial points; and third, as I proceed, to make more specific the full-scale, empirical researches that would in the end be necessary. The upper circles must, of course, be defined systematically in terms of specific variables. Formally-and this is more or less Paretos way they are the people who have the most of whatever is available of any given value or set of values. So I have to make two decisions: What variables shall I take as the criteria, and what do I mean by the most? After Ive decided on my variables, I must construct the best indices I can, if possible quantifiable indices, in order to distribute the population in terms of them; only then can I begin to decide what I mean by the most. For this should, in part, be left for determination by empirical inspection of the various distributions, and their overlaps. My key variables should, at first, be general enough to give me some latitude in the choice of indices, yet specific enough to invite the search for empirical indices. As I go along, Ill have to shuttle between conceptions and indices, guided by the desire not to lose intended meanings and yet to be quite specific about them. Here are the four Weberian variables with which I will begin: I. Class refers to sources and amounts of income. So Ill need property distributions and income distributions. The ideal material here (which is very scarce, and unfortunately dated) is a cross-tabulation of source and amount of annual income. Thus, we know that X per cent of the population received during 1936 Y millions or over, and that Z per cent of all this money was from property, W per cent from entrepreneurial withdrawal, Q per cent from wages and salaries. Along this class dimension, I can define the upper circles-those who have the most-either as those who receive given amounts of income during a given time-or, as those who make up the upper two per cent of the income pyramid. Look into treasury records and lists of big taxpayers. See if TNEC tables on source and amount of income can be brought up to date. II. Status refers to the amounts of deference received. For this, there are no simple or quantifiable indices. Existing indices require personal interviews for their application, are limited so far to local community studies, and are mostly no good anyway. There is the further problem that, unlike class, status involves social relations: at least one to receive and one to bestow the deference. It is easy to confuse publicity with deference-or rather, we do not yet know whether or not volume of publicity should be used as an index to status position, although it is the most easily available (For example: On one or two successive days in mid-March 1952, the following categories of people were mentioned by name in the New York Times-or on selected pages-work this out) III. Power refers to the realization of ones will even if others resist. Like status, this has not been well indexed. I dont think I can keep it a single dimension, but will have to talk (a) of formal authority defined by rights and powers of positions in various institutions, especially military, political, and economic. And (b) powers known informally to be exercised but not formally instituted-pressure group leaders, propagandists with extensive media at their disposal, and so on. IV. Occupation refers to activities that are paid for. Here, again, I must choose just which feature of occupation I should seize upon. (a) If I use the average incomes of various occupations, to rank them, I am of course using occupation as an index, and as the basis of, class. In like manner (b) if I use the status or the power typically attached to different occupations, then I am using occupations as indices, and bases, of power and skill or talent. But this is by no means an easy way to classify people. Skill-no more than status-is not a homogeneous something of which there is more or less. Attempts to treat it as such have usually been put in terms of the length of time required to acquire various skills, and maybe that will have to do, although I hope I can think of something better. Those are the types of problems I will have to solve in order to define analytically and empirically the upper circles, in terms of these four key variables. For purposes of design, assume I have solved them to my satisfaction, and that I have distributed the population in terms of each of them. I would then have four sets of people: those at the top in class, status, power, and skill. Suppose further, that I had singled out the top two per cent of each distribution, as an upper circle. I then confront this empirically answerable question: How much, if any, overlap is there among each of these four distributions? One range of possibilities can be located within this simple chart: (+ = top two per cent; = lower 98 per cent). CLASS ___________________________________________ + __ STATUS STATUS ____________________________________________________________ _____________ + __ + __ + Skill + 1 2 3 4 Power __ 5 6 8 8 Skill + 9 10 11 12 __ 13 14 15 16 __________________ _______________________________________________________ This diagram, if I had the materials to fill it, would contain major data and many important problems for a study of the upper circles. It would provide keys to many definitional and substantive questions. I dont have the data, and I shant be able to get it-which makes it all the more important that I speculate about it, for in the course of such reflection, if it is guided by the desire to approximate the empirical requirements.

Case Study Theory Guided Practice Evidence Based Practice Nursing Essay

Case Study Theory Guided Practice Evidence Based Practice Nursing Essay This paper is a presentation of the board of the hospital which will present the arguments from two committees; an evidence-based committee and theory-based committee. A summarized report of each committees presentation is included on why the hospital should implement integrated evidenced-based practice (EBP) or theory-based practice into their clinical setting. After analysing the arguments and supporting points of both sides, merits and drawbacks of the implementation of each practice were taken into account and put forward. Finally, the rationale and recommendation for a theory-guided, evidence-based nursing approach will be asserted. The evidence-guided committee states that by implementing an evidence-based approach into the hospital, nurses will be able to make clinical decisions using current best research evidence. This is then blended with approved policies and clinical guidelines, clinical expertise and judgment, and patient preferences (). They argue that EBP will improve clients present and future health outcomes. The committee brought into example a study done in a hospital setting using research-based nursing intervention. The study found that 72% of the clients had 28% better outcomes physically, behaviourally, intellectually, and socio-psychologically when evidence-based practice (1988). They stressed the importance of integrating the best sound evidence of client care in the nursing profession with an aim to improve that care. The committee also believes that EBP will help to narrow the existing gap between research and practice. When EBP is utilized, nurses will be able to use research finding to establish or guide their actions in clinical settings. They will no longer rely on fads or the advice of colleagues that may not be valid or reliable (). In addition, EBP will increase the availability and utilization of quality research that is based on randomised controlled trail designs (). This will in turn help nurses to keep up with the large amounts of continuously yield research findings and will allow them to utilize rigorous research rather than methodologically weak and unreliable research (). The theory-guided committee argued that implementing a conceptual approach in clinical practice would facilitate processes that significantly benefit clients, nurses, the healthcare system and the broader environment (). Theory would provide nurses with a purpose in their clinical practice while giving them a perspective with which to view clients situations. By implementing theory-based practice nurses, we would be able to systematize, analyse and interpret the daily experiences and information gained from providing care to clients. This in turn would help nurses better manipulate outcomes of the care provided, better communicate with clients and other health care professionals and make their practice more efficient overall. Theory-guided nursing practice will make nursing a unique profession with its own boundaries and will help guide the direction the profession to follow in the future. The theory-based committee also provided examples of applying major human science theories into practice and strongly urged us to designate a specific theory to guide the nursing practice within the hospital. Some examples include Parses theory of human becoming and the formation of meaning to health and quality of life, and Newmans theory of expanding consciousness and pattern recognition through the collaboration with clients. They described a hospice setting and how such theories can be implemented to dying clients and their families. For example, if the practice is guided by Parses theory, the nurse is able to provide an individualized care to clients, viewing each client as a unique human being and an expert of his or her own life. Another example given was towards clients with disabilities. When the practice is guided by Newmans theory, nurses are able to form relationships with their clients and find an unfolding pattern in their lives. In this way both are able to expand thei r consciousness; nurses and clients are able to grow, find new meanings in life, and form new and deeper relationships. Many nurses reported that when such theories were implemented in clinical settings, their job was more rewarding and professional, in turn improving both client and nurse satisfaction (). The committee argues that implementing theory based practice will help nurses understand clients better and in turn improve clients health and well-being, as well as provide the nurses with a unique body of knowledge. After closely listening to both committees it is clear that both EBP and theory-based practice have both advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, when EBP is used, some nurses might find it difficult to incorporate it into the clinical setting as they might simply not understand how to do so, or they may lack the knowledge and skill of interpreting research finding and applying them to practice. Whereas, when theory-guided practice is used to guide nurses thinking and actions, nurses can better comprehend and put meaning to what they are doing and why. Furthermore, time constrains can impede nurses from utilizing EBP (Canadian Nurses Association, 2004). Nurses often have heavy workloads and so can be too busy to engage in such practices. In addition, nurses may not have the appropriate access to current information and resources to support the search for new knowledge. For example, hospital libraries may not have current research journals. Nurses may also find it difficult to implement theory-based practice into clinical settings. Nurses may have hard time to decide how and in what situations to apply theory as they may not have a clear understanding of or may not recognize the principles and concepts related to client care and needs. In fact, there is very little material in the literature relating to the application of theory to modern practice. All of the later contributes further to the already existing theory-practice gap. Moreover, nursing theory in the literature often is subjective and focuses on restricted, ideal situations. Nursing theory often describes how nursing practice should be rather than how it really is in real life situations. In fact, the knowledge of theory does not always produce good practice. As observed by Allmark (1995), practice development and progression many times lacks theoretical base. Therefore, we must be vigilant in the conscientious application of nursing theory to relevant situati ons. If used effectively, both EBP and theory-based practice can greatly contribute to nursing practice. EBP is a universally applicable phenomenon which uses up-to-date top research evidences and facilitates sound judgment in clinical settings and cost-effective care. It can also promote nurses and students alike to question common clinical practice actions. Nursing theory can create new ideas and help put forward solutions to the many problems that are encountered in the experiential world of the clinical setting. Whereas nursing theory puts greater emphasis on client centered care, EBP also considers client preferences and so together they can ensure a more client centered approach. This way, clients and nurses will be able to engage in a therapeutic relationship, where trust, acceptance and mutuality are co-created by nursing and client, improving quality of care. I believe that theory guided practice in a way allows EBP to progress by generating conceptual problems. I think that integrating both EBP and theory based practice would yield the best results for both clients and nurses alike. It would lead to improved professional autonomy and give nurses a unique identity that guides our practice by what we know rather than by delegating nursing responsibilities. Also, nurses will be able to care for clients in a way that improves their health and well being within their own environments. Nursing theory can be used to provide guidance in creating and implementing evidence-based practice. In order to make a theory-guided, evidence-based practice possible and narrow the gap between research, theory and practice, a number of factors must be considered and addressed. Firstly, to help narrow the theory-practice gap, theory development should be targeted towards nurse educators as well as nurse practitioners. Institutions must make efforts to promote theory and practice as a whole unit rather than separate nursing actions. This in turn will help nurses apply relevance to academic knowledge in clinical practice. Students and nurses should also be exposed to theoretical principles more often. As well, effective guidelines for the application of theory in nursing practice should be developed and encouraged to be utilized. Furthermore, EBP can also be incorporated in educational faculties such as universities and within practice settings themselves. Hospitals should incorporate programs, seminars, orientation sessions, workshops and offer nurses continuing education courses that will focus on theoretical concepts and principles as well as skills such as searching and critiquing research and applying it to practice. Other programs can also be developed that will train nurses and focus on improving their knowledge and skill to critically evaluate research findings and its effect of their practice. Moreover, hospitals should have libraries near or within the clinical setting that will include current research journals in the libraries. Hospitals should also provide internet access in the clinical setting with good databases containing theory-based and evidence-based research articles. Hospitals should also implement policies, procedures and practice guidelines that are based on current evidence. It is also important for the theorists and researchers to directly participate in clinical settings. This will allow them to base their theories or research on real life experiences and use a language that could be easily understood by nurses. Moreover, it is essential to support information-seeking behaviours that demonstrate the use of present evidence- based and theory based practices. By promoting the benefits of EBP and theory-based practice, nurses can be the change champions who implement the best of both practices. Raudonis, B., Acton, G. (1997). Theory-based nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26(1), 138-145. Canadian Nurses Association (2004). Making Best Practice Guidelines a Reality from Nursing Now: Issues and Trends in Canadian Nursing, No 17, 1-4.

VoIP: A New Frontier for Security and Vulnerabilities Essay -- essays

VoIP: A New Frontier for Security and Vulnerabilities Introduction to Voice over IP Technology   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The promise of extremely cheap telephone service, utilizing the Internet to transmit voice, has made voice over IP an attractive and profitable idea. Vonage (http://www.vonage.com/) and other service providers entice consumers by charging a flat, monthly rate for unlimited long distance in the U.S. and Canada; the rate is often less than it would cost for a regular phone line without any long distance charges. An entity with an enormous call volume, such as a worldwide retail corporation, could benefit from tremendous cost savings by transitioning all of its telephony networks to VoIP.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Voice over IP uses a server to connect all telephones in a local area network and act as a gateway for VoIP packets traveling to and from the Internet. Consumers with broadband internet connections can purchase VoIP handsets or routers with an RJ-11 jack to connect regular telephones. Businesses must implement a VoIP application server to handle corporate telephone use, much like mail servers are used to manage email. The Internet Protocol Private Branch eXchange (IP PBX) is telephone equipment used by private companies, rather than telephone service providers, for the management of VoIP calls placed on the data network. When considering VoIP, organizations should focus on necessary quality of service (QoS) requirements, the cost to implement, and a number of security precautions needed to protect the network (Mullins, 2005). Protocols   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The two most common protocols central to VoIP are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323. Both also rely on a number of other protocols, such as DNS and ENUM, in order to locate and navigate to other hosts on the Internet.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  SIP first uses either TCP or UDP to signal a host on port 5060; then the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) is used to transmit an audio stream over UDP ports 16384 through 32767 (Mullins, 2005). It is a broader specification, generally used to connect network devices to servers or other kinds of control equipment. SIP supports user authentication and the transmission of any type of media, including audio, video, and messaging.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On the other hand, H.323 is a bit more complex, deri... ....org/columns/futuretense/2005/03/08.shtml. Hall, M. (2005, March 21). SIP tips VoIP into secure. Computerworld. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,100497,00.html Korzeniowski, P. (2005, February 16). Why VoIP is raising new security concerns. IT Manager’s Journal. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://software.itmanagersjournal.com/print.pl?sid=05/02/11/0028208. McArdle, D. (2005, February 18). Group tackles VoIP security fears. ElectricNews.Net. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.enn.ie/print.html?code=9589191. Mullins, M. (2005, November 3). Doing the VoIP security groundwork. CNETAsia. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://asia.cnet.com. Rendon, J. (2004, December 8). The security risks of VoIP. CIO News. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid19_gci1032194,00.html. Sullivan, A. (2005, March 21). Scam artists dial for dollars on Internet phones. Computerworld. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,100549,00.html.

U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? Essay -- Essays Pap

U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? In the United States’ current state of war with Iraq, its relationships to other world powers have become increasingly important. The U.S.’s relationship with Mexico, in particular, has emerged as one of the most crucial relationships that the U.S. must work to maintain in this state of war. In recent years, the U.S. and Mexico have established and developed a famously strong relationship, and the friendship between U.S. President Bush and Mexico President Vicente Fox has continued to solidify the connection between the two countries. Bush was quoted in the Economist as saying, back in 2001, â€Å"America has no closer relationship† . The closeness of this relationship has placed both countries in precarious, high-pressure positions relative to one another with regard to the war in Iraq. In particular, negotiations between the two leaders on issues of trade and immigration laws have shaped the current relationship between Mexico and the U.S. and have consequ ently contributed to the strain that both leaders have felt, and continue to feel, as they struggle to maintain this close relationship in the face of the war. More specifically, recent developments, or lack thereof, with regard to these issues have significantly influenced Fox’s decision of whether or not to support the U.S. in the war against Iraq. Furthermore, media portrayal both of negotiations between the two countries and of the effects that the negotiations are having on U.S./Mexico relations is influencing public perceptions of the relationship in both countries, and, as a result, may even be affecting the relationship itself in the process. As America prepared to attack Iraq, Mexico faced the difficult decisio... ...urrent issues that strain the crucial bond between Mexico and the United States. Works Cited 1.) http://www.economist.com/cities/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1608395 2.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 3.) http://larouchein2004.net/pages/interviews/2002/021119excelsior.htm 4.) http://www.rense.com/general48/tue.htm 5.) http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/07/41704.html 6.) http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/13/venezuela/ 7.) http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200207/show.html 8.) http://usembassy.state.gov/mumbai/wwwhwashnews810.html 9.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1019250,00.html 10.) http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03172003/utah/38978.asp 11.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 12.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/05/national/main604190.shtml 13.) http://eatthestate.org/07-19/ItsAboutMexicos.htm U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? Essay -- Essays Pap U.S./Mexico Relations: Surviving the War in Iraq? In the United States’ current state of war with Iraq, its relationships to other world powers have become increasingly important. The U.S.’s relationship with Mexico, in particular, has emerged as one of the most crucial relationships that the U.S. must work to maintain in this state of war. In recent years, the U.S. and Mexico have established and developed a famously strong relationship, and the friendship between U.S. President Bush and Mexico President Vicente Fox has continued to solidify the connection between the two countries. Bush was quoted in the Economist as saying, back in 2001, â€Å"America has no closer relationship† . The closeness of this relationship has placed both countries in precarious, high-pressure positions relative to one another with regard to the war in Iraq. In particular, negotiations between the two leaders on issues of trade and immigration laws have shaped the current relationship between Mexico and the U.S. and have consequ ently contributed to the strain that both leaders have felt, and continue to feel, as they struggle to maintain this close relationship in the face of the war. More specifically, recent developments, or lack thereof, with regard to these issues have significantly influenced Fox’s decision of whether or not to support the U.S. in the war against Iraq. Furthermore, media portrayal both of negotiations between the two countries and of the effects that the negotiations are having on U.S./Mexico relations is influencing public perceptions of the relationship in both countries, and, as a result, may even be affecting the relationship itself in the process. As America prepared to attack Iraq, Mexico faced the difficult decisio... ...urrent issues that strain the crucial bond between Mexico and the United States. Works Cited 1.) http://www.economist.com/cities/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1608395 2.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 3.) http://larouchein2004.net/pages/interviews/2002/021119excelsior.htm 4.) http://www.rense.com/general48/tue.htm 5.) http://english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/07/41704.html 6.) http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/13/venezuela/ 7.) http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200207/show.html 8.) http://usembassy.state.gov/mumbai/wwwhwashnews810.html 9.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1019250,00.html 10.) http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03172003/utah/38978.asp 11.) http://aztlan.net/mexicounsc.htm 12.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/05/national/main604190.shtml 13.) http://eatthestate.org/07-19/ItsAboutMexicos.htm

William Blakes The Sick Rose Essay -- Blake Poetry Poem Sick Rose Ess

William Blake's The Sick Rose "The sick rose" is a very ambiguous poem and open to several interpretations, Blake uses lots of imagery and effective metaphors. My first impression of the poem was that it?s very negative and includes elements of destruction revenge and perhaps even murder. I think the poems about two lovers, one of which cheated on their partner and the other wants revenge. The poem is very contradictory, this is shown in the first line 'O Rose, thou art sick.' A rose usually symbolises beauty, romance and love, it?s a very feminine image but then it is said to be sick so we instantly sense something is wrong. The rose could be damaged or hurt. I think the rose is playing the part of the woman and the worm is personified as the man. ?The invisible worm? The image of the worm is very unusual but yet very effective. Worms are seen as slimy, dirty, and they feed on death, it even holds some kind of sexual element. The fact that the worm is invisible indicates it can?t be stopped and nothing can be done because it can?t be seen. I bel...

Lu Theology 201 Quiz 5 Study Guid

QUIZ 5 STUDY GUIDE Towns: Chapter IV What is foretelling? prophesying, predicting future events p 182 What is forthtelling? a preacher to people Why is it essential that Christ was born of a virgin? he would no be able to save himself because he would not be a sinless savior p 185; to have parents without a sin nature What was Christ’s threefold office? prophet, priest, king p 180 What is the incarnation? â€Å"the word became flesh and dwelt among us† p 191; god took on human flesh p 191 What does the act of the kenosis as stated in Philippians 2 mean? ade himself of no reputation; emptied himself; veiling his glory, accepting the limitations of human nature; voluntarily giving up the independent use of his comparative attributes p 191 â€Å"christ surrendered no attribute of deity but that he did voluntarily restrict their independent use in keeping with his purpose of living among men and their limitations p 192 What is hypostatic union? jesus is both god and man, the union of two distinct natures in one person, jesus christ the god man p 197-198 What does â€Å"temptability† mean? enerally understood as the enticement of a person to commit sin by offering some seeming enticement p 208 to have an appeal What does â€Å"impeccability† mean? christ could not and did not sin p 209 What is vicarious suffering? suffering endured by one person in the stead of another p 215 What is a vicar? a substitute, one who takes the place of the other and acts in his stead p 215 What does â€Å"redemption† mean? to be freed p 220 to buy back p 219 What does â€Å"propitiation† mean? the turning away of wrath by an offering p 220How is every person a sinner on three counts? guilty of personal sin, imputed sin, sin nature p 224 What is the difference between judicial guilt and personal guilt? judicial: non experiential condition of the sinner who stands guilty before god (born in sin , has sin nature, personally commits sin); personal: experiential, how a sinner feels convicted of sins p 225 What theory taught that Christ did not really die on the cross but that the soldiers just thought he did? swoon theory p 233 Know the 12 proofs of the resurrection. p 236What is the biblical definition of death? separation of a person's body and spirit p 239 True or False Christ was not God when he was on earth. false Without the shedding of blood, there is no payment for sins. true The law is a unit; to break one is to break all. true Man is not reconciled to God through the blood of Christ; rather, the blood is a metaphor for the moral and noble life we should live. False The disciples were surprised at Christ’s resurrection. True At the resurrection, Christ’s body and spirit were reunited. True

The Silver Linings Playbook Chapter 29

My Movie's Montage Explaining how I learned Tiffany's routine and became an excellent dancer would be difficult – mostly because our rehearsals are long and grueling and extremely boring. We do the same little things over and over again endlessly. For example, if I had to lift a finger in the air for the routine, Tiffany would make me do it a thousand times every single day until I could do it to her liking on command. So I will spare you most of the boring details. To make things even more complicated, Tiffany has forbidden me to document our rehearsals in any thorough manner that would allow others to steal her training techniques. As she wants to open up a studio someday, she is very guarded about her methods – and her choreography too. Luckily, as I am starting to write this part, I remember that in every one of his films, whenever Rocky needs to become a better boxer, they show clips of him doing one-arm push-ups, running on the beach, punching slabs of meat, running the stairs of the art museum, gazing at Adrian lovingly, or being yelled at by Mickey or Apollo Creed or even Paulie – all while his theme song plays, which is perhaps the greatest song in the world, â€Å"Gonna Fly Now.† In the Rocky movies, it only takes a few minutes to cover weeks of training, and yet the audience still understands that a lot of preparation went into the actual development of Rocky's boxing skills, even though we only get to see a few clips of the Italian Stallion working hard. During a therapy session, I ask Cliff what this movie technique is called. He has to call his wife, Sonja, on his cell phone, but she knows the answer and tells us that what I am trying to describe is called a montage. So that is what I am now going to create below, my movie's montage. Maybe you'll want to play â€Å"Gonna Fly Now† on your CD player, if you have a copy handy – or you could put on any song you find inspiring – and read along to the music. Music is not required, however. Okay, here it is, my montage: In anticipation of our big performance, I'm running a little faster with Tiffany every day. We push ourselves, and when we get to the park, we sprint the last mile to her house and get really sweaty. I always beat Tiffany, because I am a man, yes, but also because I am an excellent runner. See me pumping iron: bench press, leg lifts, sit-ups on the Stomach Master 6000, bike riding, squats, knuckle push-ups, curls – the works. â€Å"Crawl!† Tiffany yells. So I crawl on the hardwood floor of her dance studio. â€Å"Crawl like you have no legs and you haven't eaten for two weeks and there's a single apple in the middle of the room and another man with no legs is also crawling toward the apple. You want to crawl faster, but you cannot, because you are maimed. Desperation flows out of your face like sweat! You are so afraid you will not get to the apple before the other legless man! He will not share the apple with – no, no, no. Stop! You're doing it all wrong! Jesus Christ, Pat! We only have four weeks left!† â€Å"Jeanie,† I hear my father say. He is in the kitchen eating his breakfast. I am on the basement stairs listening. â€Å"Why does Pat close his eyes and hum every time I mention the Eagles? Is he going crazy again? Should I be concerned?† â€Å"What's this I hear about you missing the Saints game?† Jake says through the telephone when I call him back sometime after 11:00 p.m. He has called two nights in a row, and the note my mother left for me on my pillow read Call your brother back no matter how late. IMPORTANT. â€Å"Don't you want to see what Baskett does this week? Why are you humming?† â€Å"When you are a dancer, you are allowed to put your hands anywhere on your partner's body, Pat. It's not sexual. So when you do this first lift, yes, your hands will be cradling my ass and crotch. Why are you pacing? Pat, it's not sexual – it's modern dance.† See me pumping iron: bench press, leg lifts, sit-ups on the Stomach Master 6000, bike riding, knuckle push-ups, curls – the works. â€Å"I'm Okay, Pat. I'm fucking fine. You're going to drop me a few times while we're learning the lifts, but it's not because you're not strong enough. You need to center your palm directly at the base of my crotch. If you need me to get more specific, I will. Here. I'll show you. Put out your hand.† â€Å"Your mother tells me you will not discuss Eagles football with your – why are you humming?† Cliff asks. â€Å"I did not mention that certain saxophonist's name. What's this all about?† â€Å"I never thought I would say this, but maybe you should consider taking a break from your dance training and watch the game with Jake and your dad,† my mother says. â€Å"You know I hate football, but you and your father seemed to be making a connection, and Jake and you are just getting back to being brotherly again. Pat, please stop humming.† â€Å"For the second lift you need to look up at me, Pat. Especially just before I go into the flip. You don't have to look at my crotch, but you have to be ready to push up so I'll get more height. If you don't give me a push when I bend my knees, I won't be able to complete the flip and will probably crack my head open on the floor.† â€Å"I know you can hear me through the humming, Pat. Look at you!† my father says. â€Å"Curled up in your bed, humming like a child. Birds lose by a field goal in New Orleans, and your boy Baskett had zero catches. Zilch. Don't think your dancing through the game didn't affect the outcome.† â€Å"You look like a retarded snake! You are supposed to crawl with your arms – not slither or wiggle or whatever the fuck you are doing down there. Here. Watch me.† In anticipation of our big performance, I'm running a little faster with Tiffany every day. We push ourselves, and when we get to the park, we sprint the last mile to her house and get really sweaty. I always beat Tiffany, because I am a man, yes, but also because I am an excellent runner. â€Å"What's Tiffany holding over you?† Ronnie says. We are in my parents' basement. I have already spotted him as he benched one wimpy sixty-pound rep, and now he is taking a break. This is a surprise visit disguised to look like a prework lifting session. â€Å"I told you to protect yourself. I'm telling you, Pat, you don't know what that woman is capable of. My sister-in-law is capable of anything. Anything!† â€Å"You're making the sun with your arms. In the center of the stage, you represent the sun. And when you make the huge circle with your arms, it has to be slow and deliberate – just like the sun. The dance is one day's worth of sun. You are going to rise and set all onstage – to the flow of our song. Understand?† â€Å"I want you to talk to Tiffany and tell her it's important for you to watch the Eagles game with your father,† Mom says. â€Å"Please stop humming, Pat. Please, just stop humming!† â€Å"The second lift is the hardest by far, as it requires you to go from a squatting position to a standing position with me standing on your hands, which will be just above your shoulders. Do you think you're strong enough to do this, because we can do something else if you are too weak, but let's try it now and we'll just see.† â€Å"Why is this dance competition so important to you?† Cliff asks me. I look up at the sun painted on the ceiling of his office and smile. â€Å"What?† he says. â€Å"The dancing lets me be that,† I say, and point up. Cliff's eyes follow my finger. â€Å"It lets you be the sun?† â€Å"Yes,† I say, and smile again at Cliff, because I really like being the sun, exactly what allows clouds to have a silver lining. Also, being the sun is what will provide me with the opportunity to write letters to Nikki. â€Å"Please stop humming into the phone, Pat. I'm on your side here. I understand wanting to learn an art for a woman. Don't you remember my playing the piano for you? But the difference is that Caitlin would never ask me to miss an Eagles game, because she knows it's more than just football to me. I can hear you fucking humming through the phone, Pat, but I'm just going to keep talking, all right? You're acting crazy, you know. And if the Eagles lose tomorrow against the Buccaneers, Dad is going to think you cursed the Birds.† â€Å"Okay, you know your routine – roughly, anyway. So now I want you to watch mine. I'll say ‘lift' when it's time for one of your lifts, just so you know when they're coming. But don't worry, because as long as you do your routine, I'll make sure we link up with the lifts. Okay?† Tiffany is in tights and a T-shirt like every other day, but she transforms her face just before she pushes play on the CD player. So solemn. Those sad piano notes and those two dueling voices fill the room, and Tiffany begins to dance beautifully but sadly. Her body moves so gracefully, and it is only now that I understand what she means by crying through movement. She jumps, she rolls, she spins, she runs, she slides. She yells â€Å"Lift!† and then falls to the floor dead, only to explode upward in resurrection when the music picks up again. And her dancing is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I could watch her dance for the rest of my life, and strangely, watching Tiffany soar around the dance floor makes me feel like I am floating over waves with baby Emily. Tiffany is that good. â€Å"Your father has stopped eating dinner with me, Pat. He's not taking walks with me either. Ever since the Eagles lost to the Buccaneers, he's back to his – Pat, please stop humming. Pat!† In anticipation of our big performance, I'm running a little faster with Tiffany every day. We push ourselves, and when we get to the park, we sprint the last mile to her house and get really sweaty. I always beat Tiffany, because I am a man, yes, but also because I am an excellent runner. â€Å"I don't think you understand how much this means to my sister,† Veronica says, and I am shocked to see her and baby Emily in my basement gym. â€Å"Do you know that since Tommy passed, she has never asked her family to see her dance? In fact, for two years she's banned us from attending any of her performances. But this year she thinks she is going to perform flawlessly enough to invite her family – she's convinced, in fact – and while I am glad to see her so happy, I'm afraid to even think about what she might do if you guys screw up the performance. She's not a stable person, Pat. You do understand that, right? You do understand that your performing poorly will result in months of serious depression? So I need to ask you how are the rehearsals really going? Do you truly think you can win? Do you?† Before I turn off the lights, I stare into framed-picture Nikki's eyes. I see her freckled nose, her strawberry blond hair, her full lips. I kiss her so many times. â€Å"Soon,† I say. â€Å"I'm doing everything I can. I won't let you down. Remember – ‘Forever's gonna start tonight.'† See me pumping iron: bench press, leg lifts, sit-ups on the Stomach Master 6000, bike riding, knuckle push-ups, curls – the works. â€Å"The Asian Invasion will pick you up at – † Cliff nods at me and smiles. â€Å"Ah, the humming again. Your mother tells me you won't talk to anyone about Eagles football, but you aren't seriously going to miss a home game, are you?† â€Å"The most important thing is to make the lifts look effortless, as if you are holding up air. I should appear to be floating. Understand? Good, because I need you to stop shaking during the routine, Pat. You look like you have fucking Parkinson's disease, for Christ's sake.† â€Å"How does a four-and-one team lose three games straight?† Dad yells down from the top of the basement steps. â€Å"A team that beat the Dallas Cowboys handily? A team with a first-ranked offense and more sacks than any other team in the league? You can hum all you want, Pat. But that don't change the fact that you took the good luck away from the Birds and are ruining our season!† See me pumping iron: bench press, leg lifts, sit-ups on the Stomach Master 6000, bike riding, knuckle push-ups, curls – the works. â€Å"Okay. Not bad. You got the crawling down, and one of the lifts doesn't look awful anymore. But we only have a week left. Can we do this? Can we do this?† â€Å"I bought you a present,† Tiffany tells me. â€Å"Go into the powder room and try it on.† In her studio's washroom, I remove a pair of yellow tights from a plastic bag. â€Å"What's this?† I call out to Tiffany. â€Å"It's your outfit. Put it on, and we'll have a dress rehearsal.† â€Å"Where's the shirt?† â€Å"Again,† Tiffany says, even though it is 10:41 p.m. and my elbows feel as though they might explode. I am dancing on raw nerves. I am dancing on bone. â€Å"Again!† Eleven fifty-nine p.m. â€Å"Again,† Tiffany says, and then takes her place at the left side of the studio. Knowing that arguing is no use, I drop to the floor and prepare to crawl. â€Å"This might tickle some,† Tiffany says just before she slides her pink lady razor through the shaving cream coating my chest, and then she shows me how much hair is in the teacup she rinses the blade in. I am lying on a yoga mat in the middle of her dance studio. My chest is covered with some sort of green aloe shaving gel that turns white when you make foam. Being shaved by Tiffany sort of makes me feel strange, as I have never been shaved by a woman before and have never had my torso shaved at all. When she lathers me up, I close my eyes, and my fingers and toes tingle wildly. I sort of giggle each time she shaves a line of hair off my chest. I sort of giggle each time she shaves a line of hair off my back. â€Å"We want those muscles to gleam like the sun onstage, right?† â€Å"Why can't I just wear a shirt?† I say, even though – in a weird sort of way – I secretly enjoy being shaved by Tiffany. â€Å"Does the sun wear a shirt?† The sun does not wear yellow tights either, but I do not say so. In anticipation of our big performance, I'm running a little faster with Tiffany every day. We push ourselves, and when we get to the park, we sprint the last mile to her house and get really sweaty. I always beat Tiffany, because I am a man, yes, but also because I am an excellent runner. Two days before the competition, just before we are about to perform the routine for the twenty-fifth time that day – twenty-five being Tiffany's favorite number – she says, â€Å"We need to do this flawlessly.† So I try my best, and as I watch bits of our routine in the mirrors that surround us, I think, We really are dancing flawlessly! I am so excited when we finish, because I know we will win – especially since we have improved ourselves so much with sacrifice and hard training. This mini-movie will have a happy ending for sure! But something about Tiffany's demeanor is off as we take our water break. She is not yelling at me, nor is she using the f-word, so I ask, â€Å"What's wrong?† â€Å"How many people did you recruit to come to the competition?† â€Å"I asked everyone I know.† â€Å"Veronica tells me your family is mad at you for abandoning the Eagles.† â€Å"Not my mom.† â€Å"I'm worried that if we don't get enough fans there to cheer for us, the judges might be swayed by another dancer's larger fan base. We might not win, and then I would not be able to act as your liaison, Pat.† â€Å"Maybe if you are not doing anything tomorrow night, you might want to bring your wife and children to my dance recital,† I tell Cliff. â€Å"We've really got a good routine, and I think we can win if only we have enough audience support, and I don't think that my father or brother will be likely to show up, so – â€Å" â€Å"After tomorrow night, you'll be done with these long rehearsals?† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"So you will be able to go to the Redskins game on – â€Å" â€Å"Hmmmmmm.† â€Å"Just tell me this, if I go to the dance recital, will you go to the Eagles game with us on Sunday? The Asian Invasion misses you, and truthfully, we sort of feel like you've cursed the Eagles by abandoning them mid-season. Poor Baskett has only caught two balls in the last three games and had zero catches last week. And the Birds have lost three straight. We miss you down at the Linc, Pat.† â€Å"I can't talk about that subject until my dance recital is over tomorrow night. I can only say that I need to recruit as many people as possible to cheer for Tiffany and me so the judges will be swayed. Let me just say that winning is really important, and Tiffany says that crowd reaction can sway the judges.† â€Å"If I come, will you talk to me about that-thing-you-are-not-allowed-to-talk-about after your performance?† â€Å"Cliff, I can't talk about that until after the performance.† â€Å"Well then, neither can I tell you whether I will be at your performance,† Cliff says. At first I think he is bluffing, but he doesn't bring up the subject again, and by the end of our therapy session I feel as though I have blown my shot at getting Cliff to bring his wife to my recital, which makes me feel very depressed. Hello, you've reached Jake and Caitlin's machine. Please leave a message after the beep. Beep. â€Å"Jake. Sorry to call so late, but I just got done rehearsing. I know that you are mad at me because you think I jinxed those-people-who-make-me-hum-at-the-present-moment, but if you bring Caitlin to my dance recital, there's a chance I might be able to do that thing we used to do on Sundays, especially if you cheer for Tiffany and me very loudly. We need people to cheer for us, because the judges are sometimes swayed by the audience. It's really important that we win this competition. So as your brother, I'm asking you to please bring your wife to the Plaza – â€Å" Beep. I hang up and redial the number. Hello, you've reached Jake and Caitlin's machine. Please leave a message after the beep. Beep. â€Å"That's the Plaza Hotel at – â€Å" â€Å"Hello? Is everything okay?† It's Caitlin's voice, which makes me nervous, so I hang up, fully realizing I have blown my shot at getting Jake to come to my dance recital. â€Å"Pat, you know I'll be there. And I'll cheer so loudly for you, but winning isn't everything,† my mom says. â€Å"It's the fact that you were able to learn to dance in only a few weeks that is impressive.† â€Å"Just ask Dad, okay?† â€Å"I will. But I don't want you to get your hopes up. A dance recital is not something he would have attended even if the Eagles won the last three games.†