NASA is the latest competitor who joined the DARPA Robotics Competition for this year. They gave their project the name of a creature from the Viking mythology – “Valkyrie”. This is a humanoid robot that should be able to respond properly to the contest requirements – climbing ladders, driving and using tools. The purpose of this contest is the creation of a robot able to operate in disaster areas replacing the human rescue team members. - See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/mechanic-valkyrie-to-save-lives-in-future/#sthash.t7zWl3QN.dpuf
NASA is the latest competitor who joined the DARPA Robotics Competition for this year. They gave their project the name of a creature from the Viking mythology – “Valkyrie”. This is a humanoid robot that should be able to respond properly to the contest requirements – climbing ladders, driving and using tools. The purpose of this contest is the creation of a robot able to operate in disaster areas replacing the human rescue team members.
Valkyrie is powered by a battery that provides an hour of work before charging. It is located on the robot back and is easily detachable. The robot arms have 7 degree of freedom combined with 6 degree freedom hand. The legs has the same degree of freedom as the hand. The robot has some modular components such as the arms which are interchangeable. And the interchanging is made to be as simple as possible, which is very important in disastrous circumstances.
Valkyrie is equipped with several cameras located on the head, chest (where a sonar is located too), forearms, knees and in the feet. An operator will use these cameras to navigate the robot. Valkyrie is 1,9m tall and 125kg heavy.
This is a joint development of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, University of Texas and Texas A&M University.
Deepavali is the festival of light and joy. We must celebrate the festival with joy and care. Though we wear new clothes and distribute sweets on this day, Deepavali is incomplete without fireworks.
We must take utmost care using fireworks.
A few precautionary steps to be followed:
1. Ignite the crackers/ explosives one at a time kept on the ground from a distance.
2. Use crackers in open space.
3. Do not leave the kids unattended while bursting crackers.
4. Keep water and other fire extinguishers handy in case of emergency.
5. Wear cotton clothes.
'Prevention is better than Cure'. Have a safe and happy Deepavali.
If you enjoy the tapestry weaved by Dan Brown with art and history and a typical doomsday endangering mankind...then Inferno is definitely for you.
The protagonist Robert Langdon has a daunting task of saving the world from the illusionist who believes that the world's population is exploding at an exponentially alarming rate. The only solution to the same is mass biological destruction (making people infertile) which will reduce the population to a sustainable one. The antagonist leaves a trail of clues using Dante Alighieri's classic masterpiece Inferno. The first half of the story lacks momentum. The second half of the story has many twist and turns in keeping one engaged.
This story is sincerely for Dan Brown fanatics though it is far below his The Da Vinci Code.
She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction.
She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank; and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.
She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble house-work aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, land of the two great footmen in knee-breeches who sleep in the big arm-chairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons fitted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men - famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire. When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a table-cloth three days old, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup-tureen and declared with an enchanted air,
“Ah, the good pot-au-feu! I don’t know anything better than that,” she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvellous plates, and of the whispered gallantries which you listen to with a sphinx-like smile, while you are eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that.
She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.
She had a friend, a former school-mate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go and see any more she suffered so much when she came back.
But, one evening, her husband returned home with a triumphant air, and holding a large envelope in his hand.
“There,” said he, “here is something for you.”
She tore the paper sharply, and drew out a printed card which bore these words:
“The Minister of Public Instruction and Mine. Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Mine. Loisel’s company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.”
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain, murmuring: “What do you want me to do with that?”
“But, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had awful trouble to get it. Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there.”
She looked at him with an irritated eye, and she said, impatiently:
“And what do you want me to put on my back?”
He had not thought of that; he stammered:
“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very well, to me.”
He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was crying. Two great tears descended slowly from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. He stuttered: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
But, by a violent effort, she had conquered her grief, and she replied, with a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks:
“Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.”
He was in despair. He resumed: “Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions, something very simple?”
She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the economical clerk.
Finally, she replied, hesitatingly:“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”
He had grown a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks down there, of a Sunday.
But he said: “All right. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty dress.”
The day of the ball drew near, and Mine. Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her dress was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:
“What is the matter? Come, you’ve been so queer these last three days.”
And she answered: “It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress. I should almost rather not go at all.”
He resumed: “You might wear natural flowers. It’s very stylish at this time of the year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”
But her husband cried: “How stupid you are! Go look up your friend Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You’re quite thick enough with her to do that.”
She uttered a cry of joy: “It’s true. I never thought of it.” The next day she went to her friend and told of her distress. Mme. Forestier went to a wardrobe with a glass door, took out a large jewel-box, brought it back, opened it, and said to Mme. Loisel: “Choose, my dear.”
She saw first of all some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross, gold and precious stones of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back.
She kept asking: “Haven’t you any more?”
“Why, yes. Look. I don’t know what you like.”
All of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds; and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of herself.
Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anguish: “Can you lend me that, only that?”
“Why, yes, certainly.”
She sprang upon the neck of her friend, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.
The day of the ball arrived. Mme. Loisel made a great success. She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself.
She danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty in the glory of her success in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these awakened desires, and of that sense of complete victory which is so sweet to woman’s heart.
She went away about four o’clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight, in a little deserted anteroom, with three other gentlemen whose wives were having a very good time.
He threw over her shoulders the wraps which he had brought, modest wraps of common life, whose poverty contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wanted to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs.
Loisel held her back.
“Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will go and call a cab.”
But she did not listen to him, and rapidly descended the stairs. When they were in the street they did not find a carriage; and they began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen whom they saw passing by at a distance. They went down towards the Seine, in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient noctambulant coupés which, exactly as if they were ashamed to show their misery during the day, are never seen round Paris until after nightfall. It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs and once more, sadly, they climbed up homeward. All was ended, for her. And as to him, he reflected that he must be at the Ministry at ten o’clock.
She removed the wraps, which covered her shoulders, before the glass, so as once more to see herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She had no longer the necklace around her neck!
Her husband, already half-undressed, demanded: “What is the matter with you?”
She turned madly towards him: “I have—I have—I’ve lost Mme. Forestier’s necklace.”
He stood up, distracted. “What!—how?—Impossible!”
And they looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere.
They did not find it. He asked: “You’re sure you had it on when you left the ball?”
“Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the palace.”
“But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab.”
“Yes. Probably. Did you take his number?”
“No. And you, didn’t you notice it?”
“No.”
They looked, thunderstruck, at one another. At last Loisel put on his clothes.
“I shall go back on foot,” said he, “over the whole route which we have taken, to see if I can’t find it.”
And he went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without fire, without a thought.
Her husband came back about seven o’clock. He had found nothing.
He went to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper offices, to offer a reward; he went to the cab companies—everywhere, in fact, whither he was urged by the least suspicion of hope.
She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this terrible calamity.
Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face; he had discovered nothing.
“You must write to your friend,” said he, “that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn round.”
She wrote at his dictation. At the end of a week they had lost all hope.
And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared: “We must consider how to replace that ornament.”
The next day they took the box which had contained it, and they went to the jeweller whose name was found within. He consulted his books.
“It was not I, madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have furnished the case.”
Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for a necklace like the other, consulting their memories, sick both of them with chagrin and with anguish.
They found in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they looked for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.
So they begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days yet. And they made a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs, in case they found the other one before the end of February.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers, and all the race of lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked his signature without even knowing if he could meet it; and, frightened by the pains yet to come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and of all the moral tortures which he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, putting down upon. the merchant’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Mme. Loisel took back the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her, with a chilly manner: “You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it.”
She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken Mmm. Loisel for a thief?
Mme. Loisel now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover, all on a sudden, with heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof. She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts, and the dish-cloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping for breath at every landing. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou.
Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.
Her husband worked in the evening making a fair copy of some tradesman’s accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury, and the accumulations of the compound interest.
Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households—strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so feted.
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!
But, one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysées to refresh herself from the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
Mme. Loisel felt moved. Was she going to speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she was going to tell her all about it. Why not?
She went up.
“Good-day, Jeanne.”
The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered: “But—madame!—I do not know—You must have mistaken.”
“No. I am Mathilde Loisel.”
Her friend uttered a cry.
“Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!”
“Yes, I have had days hard enough, since I have seen you, days wretched enough—and that because of you!”
“Of me! How so?”
“Do you remember that diamond necklace which you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, I lost it.”
“What do you mean? You brought it back.”
“I brought you back another just like it. And for this we have been ten years paying. You can understand that it was not easy for us, us who had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad.”
Mme. Forestier had stopped.
“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”
“Yes. You never noticed it, then!’ They were very like.”
And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naïve at once.
Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.
“Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!”
In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!
So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."
At the top of a squatty, three story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hote of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the studio resulted.
That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.
"She has one chance in-let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. "And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-up on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She-she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
"Paint?-bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice-a man, for instance?"
"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth-but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."
Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent. from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of ten."
After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.
Johnsy, lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.
She arranged her board and began a pen and ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to literature.
As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting-counting backward.
"Twelve," she said, and a little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven," almost together.
Sue looked solicitously out the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.
"What is it, dear? Tell you Sudie."
"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine, so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were-let's see exactly what he said-he said the chances were ten to one! Why that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."
"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed on the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go too."
"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I could draw the shade down."
"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.
"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Besides, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."
"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as a fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."
"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at the softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.
Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.
Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.
"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for you fool hermit-dunder-head. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain aof her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Yohnsy."
"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old-old flibbertigibbet."
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half and hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so gooot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. She pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment with out speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.
When Sue awoke from and hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.
"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
But Loa! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a branch some twenty feet above the ground.
"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."
"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"
But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to posses her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.
The day wore away, and even though the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again down from the low Dutch eaves.
When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.
The ivy leaf was still there.
Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.
"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and-no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."
An hour later she said:
"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is-some kind of artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital today to be made more comfortable."
The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've won. Nutrition and care now-that's all."
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and-look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew?
Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece-he painted it there the night the last leaf fell!"
With the experience I gained by the way of teaching for the past 8 years in engineering colleges and through my Industrial exposure spanned for nearly four decades (where the medium of interaction was English) , I intend to say a few things regarding the Presentation skills of the students.
The astonishing truth is that the students from matriculation school background, who used to speak fluently during their school days, also enter into a shell of non- communication along with their class room compatriots. So here are some tips to become atleast a Presenter if not a Better Presenter.
Realising this, our college is trying every nook and corner by conducting workshops, introducing seminar in all the class rooms and many other measures, to make students speak English well.
The main disturbing factor for one to keep away from presenting, is the fear to face the audience.
Tips to remove fear and face the audience:
1. Know Your Stuff: Prepare your material well to raise your confidence level. Believe in yourself and in your abilities. You will be at ease with presenting when you know everything about your topic. Remember, the audience is looking to you to be the expert and expect you to deliver.
2. Clarify your Stand: Make it clear what you want to share with the listeners. (Example: I am here to share with you the presentation techniques during the next two hours.)
3. Be time conscious: Span your time such a way that neither you run with your materials nor do you drag at the end. (Example: some inexperienced News readers.)
4. Rehearse your part well: Your presentation is not different from acting in a drama or picture. So perform yours in the actual stage, after a thorough presentation, rehearsing your part well (at home, preferably in front of a full view mirror).
5. Body language: To engage with your audience you have to be free to walk among the podium. Change your position on stage, so that you will appear to be approachable to everyone in the room. Have eye to eye contact with all. Do not fold your hands at your chest.
6. Speak your presentation: The audience doesnt need you to read your presentation to them. They come to see and hear you speak to them. Remember too much information presented is as bad as too lesser one.
7. Quick questions: Make sure to allow for audience participation at the end. If no one asks a questions, have a few quick questions of your own ready to ask them. This is another way to engage the audience.
8. Use photos, graphics and ppt to explain. use appropriate examples for effectiveness.
9. Remember, very importantly that none is perfect; we are not foreigners who speak in their mother tongue; leave fear and focus on performance on stage.
Wishing the students good luck and good presentation.
Note: With due regards, some tips are taken from Wendy Russell, former About.com Guide.
I was lucky to be amongst the audience in the great music concert conducted by Isai Gnani Ilaya Raja in one of the TV programs. He, not only led the army of music team but also preferred to sing a song. This happened to be the song sung by him in one of the pictures he had played the role of a music director. The song along with the music was moving on splendidly. To my surprise, Isai Gnani raised his right hand suddenly, indicating the music team to stop abruptly, which was obeyed then and there. He told “ I have made a mistake. The lines should have been this. I am sorry.” The whole of the auditorium, applauded after recovering from the initial shock. Then he continued the concert and the programme came to an end as per the schedule.
I realised the following messages, from this incident.
1. A great person becomes greater when he admits his mistake in the way Isai Gnani has done.
2. A great person does not take any work lightly.
3. A great person respects all the people on earth and does not want to deceive them in any manner.
4. Being truthful to the profession and to one's ownself is how the greatness is shown in a person.
5. Humbleness, courage to admit fault, not worrying about the consequences, are the great traits, that are to be followed meticulously by all.
THEME: Quest for family, sense of belonging & love.
Sharing experience of orphaned Jane Eyre who starts her journey from an undernourished Lowood School; her moves to Thornfield as governess to the Rochester family, falling blindly in love with Rochester; facing impediments to a legal wedding with him on becoming aware of Bertha, his wife who is mentally retarded; her stay at the Moor House with cousins; the annihilation of Thornfield in fire; and an appealing climax is all the plot of the novel is about.
“I resisted all the way”—
The sentence of initial chapters foreshadows on the important theme of the rest of the book—tolerance. Other themes like that of class, resistance to power, dominance, judgment, love, dreams, independence, morality, sensuality, spiritual and supernatural elements are also a part of Jane Eyre; and can be far and wide traced all through the novel.
Jane Eyre was written under the pseudonym Currrer Bell. Before the publication of Jane Eyre, women were—under the expectations of the Victorian society—simple and genuine. They were also regarded as icons from whom it is believed that morality sprang. After this novel’s publication, the ‘new woman’ or the ‘ideal woman’ concept became predominant based on the main character, Jane: an independent, strong, forward and a radical woman. Bronte defied the conventions of the Victorian society and raised the comfort bar high by portraying a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than what the society made feasible.
Jane, the protagonist, not only shows the reader her beliefs on female independence through her actions, but also through her thoughts. She relates her feelings to all women, not just those of her class, saying: “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.” (Chapter 12).
Jane Eyre is written in the first person narrative; form Jane’s perception. It can be classified as many types—romance: passionate relation Jane and Rochester form; Mystery: Bertha’s entry revealing the darker side of Thornfield; or gothic: with an eerie effect of the supernatural elements. Adaptations of Jane Eyre include The Sound of Music in English, and Santhi Nilayam (The House of Peace) in Tamil which were a massive hit.
Jane Eyre tasks us with a race to turn its pages and find out its secrets—with a heroine full of craving, the treacherous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte Bronte's challenging and lasting romantic novel is sure a worth try reading.
Happy reading!
DETAILS:
Material: Paperback with 520 pages.
Publication: London: Smith, Elder, and Co., Cornhill, 1847.
