SEX AS CRIME 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

SEX AS CRIME 2 - Essay Example The essay will also explore the different situations in which women might find themselves in which predispose them to rape. The sex industry is a large sector where acts of rape are perpetrated and the victims have no means of seeking legal action. In this regard, the essay seeks to bring into perspective the policies that have been put in place to combat sexual offences such as rape. In the essay, challenges that the government, the law enforcement officers and social services officers encounter in assisting victims of sexual violence are explored. Rape is forced sex. It involves forcing an individual to engage in sexual activity without their consent. It may involve penetration through various body openings and using various objects. Rape mostly occurs because of the social inequalities between men and women, or the inequalities related to age and position at the workplace. The most type of rape is date rape, which is done by a familiar person. Marital rape also occurs in marriage- like settings. Sexual violence allows men to control women (Brown miller, 1975). In her analysis of rape, Miller points out that rape is not a crime of irrational impulse or an uncontrollable act, but a deliberate violent, hostile act of degradation possessions on the part of the would be conqueror. According to Miller, rape is designed to intimidate and inspire fear. This explains why many rape cases go unreported and are tolerated in silence by victims. The silence of the society is equated as the silence of the victims. According to a 2005 report by the Sanders, many people believe that a woman bears the responsibility of her rape, either partially or completely, in case she demonstrated flirty behavior. A small percentage of the people interviewed expressed the opinion that a woman is partly to blame if she is raped and she has worn revealing attire or is under the influence of drugs (Sanders, 2005). These reasons do little to shed light on the low number of convicted criminals of sexual violence. Around 14% of the reported cases find their way in a court house, while almost 10% of these are termed as faulty allegations on the suspects. Majority of these are cases that involve women and girls from the age of 16 to 25. Some of these cases are later withdrawn for the victims fear that they are not believed, while others are dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. The above mentioned reasons explain why very few cases are reported by rape victims. The public exudes no confidence in the justice system when it comes to handling sexual violence victims. Vulnerability of rape victims varies with different people. Different situations expose individuals to sexual assault. Adolescents make up the largest and most vulnerable group of individuals most susceptible to rape. They are most vulnerable because of their age. Assailants instill fear in them and they do not report cases of sexual assault until it is too late. On the other hand, teenagers are easily manipulated but their assailants as they are offered gifts and money in return for their sexual services (Phoenix, 2001). These are gifts that are very appealing to the teens as they make them stand out from their peers. Another group that is very vulnerable to rape is that of individuals whose mental health is problematic or unstable. Sexual violence also occurs as part of domestic violence. Studies show that almost 50% of women and 35%

Intrusion Detection System Using Node-Predictive Attack

Intrusion Detection System Using Node-Predictive Attack Intrusion Detection System Using Node-Predictive Attack Graph Model for Cloud Ambikavathi C Dr.S.K.Srivatsa Abstract- The role of Intrusion Detection System (IDS) in security world is considered as a key requirement for any computing model. This traditional methodology can add its own contribution of security to the distributed Cloud environment. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the steps that are needed to be taken in order to efficiently implement the IDS in cloud environment. The proposed system uses node predictive attack graph to correlate the newly occurred attacks with known attacks. The prediction steps are used to later monitor the environment and control the attacks. Keywords-Attack Graph; Cloud Computing; IDS ,; I. INTRODUCTION A. What is Cloud computing? Cloud computing is â€Å"a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction†[1]. This cloud model is co mposed of three service models, four deploy ment models and five essential characteristics . The three service models are So ftware as a Service (SaaS), Platfo rm as a Se rvice (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The four deployment models are private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud and community cloud. The five essential characteristics of cloud are on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service. B. What is IDS? Intrusion detection systems are software or hardware systems that automate the process of monitoring the events occurring in a computer system or network, analyzing them for malicious activities or policy violations and produces reports to a management station. IDSs a rehost-based, network-based and distributed IDSs. Hos t based IDS (HIDS) monitors specific host machines, network-based IDS (NIDS) identifies intrusions on key network points and distributed IDS (DIDS) operates both on host as well as network [7]. IDS can be a valuable addition to the security arsenal. IDS performs the following functionalities : Monitoring and analyzing both user and system activities .Analyzing system configurations and vulnerabilities .Assessing system and file integrity.Ability to recognize patterns typical of attacks.Analysis of abnormal activity patterns.Tracking user policy violations.The extensive use of virtualization in implementing cloud infrastructure brings unique security concerns for customers or tenants of a public cloud service. Virtualization alters the relationship between the OS and underlying hardware. This introduces an additional layer virtualization that itself must be properly configured, managed and secured. Specific concerns include the potential to compromise the virtualization software, or hypervisor. So virtual machine security is essential in cloud environment. C. Attack Graph Attack graphs are used to determine how vulnerable their systems are and to determine what security measures to deploy to defend their systems. In the predictive attack graph, a node represents a host and an edge represents vulnerability. The predictive attack graph representation accurately forecasts the effect of removing vulnerabilities by removing edges from the attack graph. The predictive attack graph is the full attack graph with redundant paths removed. A path is considered redundant if the path contains the same vulnerability-host pair in two or mo replaces along the same attack path. In node predictive attack graph, a node can be host or a group of hosts, and an edge can be vulnerability or a group of vulnerabilities. The node predictive attack graph is a simplified version of the predictive attack graph. The node predictive attack graph’s purpose is to mitigate the effects of â€Å"firewall explosion.† Firewall explosion causes redundancy in the predictive gr aph. Thus, the node predictive attack graph mitigates this issue by merging nodes of the attack graph. Two nodes are merged if the attacker can compromise the two hosts from all hosts the attacker has already compromised. [16] Rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II discusses about the related work done. Proposed system is described briefly in section III. Section IV, presents the implementation part of EIDS and section V concludes with references at the end. II. RELATED WORK In this section, we present related research to our proposed work: Intrusion detection in cloud and attack graph models. A. Anomaly based IDS Anomaly or behavior based detection [7] refers to techniques that define and characterize normal or acceptable behaviors of the system (e.g., CPU usage, job execution time , system ca lls). Behaviors that deviate fro m the expected normal behavior are considered intrusions. Generation of high false alarms is the major drawback of this type which leads to low detection efficiency. But it is able to detect new attack patterns. Here, Input parameter selection and analysis of ciphered data are tedious processes . It attains low throughput but high cost. Metrics and frame work to evaluate this IDS and compare with alternate IDS techniques is in need. Also it is poor in defending themselves from attacks. To avoid false alarms in anomaly based systems the system must be trained to create the appropriate user profiles. It requires extensive training to characterize normal behavior patterns. B. Signature based I DS Signature or Misuse based detection refers to techniques that characterize known methods to penetrate a system. These penetrations are characterized as a ‘pattern’ or a ‘signature’ that the IDS looks for. The pattern/signature might be a static string or a set sequence of actions[9]. It can only detect known attacks. Frequent updation is needed in the database for signatures of new attacks. The advantages of this IDS are, it generates less number of false alarms. A single signature can detect a group of attacks. It does not require extensive training. C. Fuzzy based IDS Fuzzy logic can be used to deal with inexact description of intrusions. It provides some flexibility to the uncertain problem of intrusion detection. Fuzzy logic techniques[5] are used for classification techniques. The classification algorithm is applied to audit data collected which learns to classify new audit data as normal or abnormal data. It allows greater complexity for IDS while it provides some flexibility to the uncertain problem of IDS. Most fuzzy IDS require human intervention to determine fuzzy sets and set of fuzzy rules . D. Artificial Neural Network based The goal of using ANNs for intrusion detection[5] is to be able to generalize data from incomplete data and to be able to classify data as being normal or intrusive. It is best because of it’s self learning capabilities , quick processing and can find small behaviour deviations. But it’s downside is it requires more tra ining sa mples and time consuming. E. Data Mining based IDS Some intrusion attacks are formed based on known attacks or variant of known attacks. To detect such signatures or attacks, signature apriori algorithm can be used, which finds frequent subset (containing some features of original attack) of given attack set. In Cloud, association rules can be used to generate new signatures. Using newly generated signatures, variations of known attacks can be detected in real time[5]. F. Profile based IDS In VM profile based IDS[12], a profile is created for each virtual machine in cloud that describes network behavior of each clouduser. The behavior gathered is then used for detection of network attacks on cloud. It detects the attacks early with robustness and minimum complexity. G. Entropy based IDS Entropy is, in general, used for measuring the data’s degree of impurity using a Threshold value. Entropy based anomaly detection system[14] is mainly proposed to prevent DDoS attacks. This is done in two steps. First users are allowed to pass through a router in network site. It detects for legitimate user using detection algorithm. Second again it passes through a router in cloud site. In this methodology confirmation algorithm is incorporated to detect the intruder by checking a threshold value. H. Multithreaded IDS Multithreading technique improves IDS performance within Cloud computing environment to handle large number of data packet flows. The proposed multi-threaded NIDS[8][4] is based on three modules named: capture module, analysis module and reporting module. The first one is responsible of capturing data packets and sending them to analysis part which analyzes them efficiently through matching against pre-defined set of rules and distinguishes the bad packets to generate alerts. Finally, the reporting module can read alerts and immediately prepare alert report. The authors conducted simulation experiments to show the effectiveness of their proposed method and compared it with single thread which presented high performance in terms of processing and execution time. However, the problem of detecting new types of attacks still needs many works to be done. I. Integrated model IDS It uses the combination two or more o f above techniques. It is advantageous since each technique has some advantages and drawbacks. Grid and Cloud Computing Intrusion Detection System (GCCIDS)[10] proposed the integration of knowledge and behavior analysis to detect specific intrusions. However, the proposed prototype cannot discover new types of attacks or create an attack database which must be considered during implementing IDS. A new integrated intrusion detection approach, called FCA NN[13] is proposed based on ANN and fuzzy clustering. Through fuzzy clustering technique, the heterogeneous training set is divided to several homogenous subsets. Thus complexity of each sub training set is reduced and consequently the detection performance is increased. J. Graph based IDS A graph is constructed in which nodes represent state of attack and edges represent the correlations between attacks. Queue graph, Dependency graph and Attack graph are the existing works done on IDS. To prevent vulnerable virtual machines from be ing compromised in the cloud, a multiphase distributed vulnerability detection, measurement, and countermeasure selection mechanism called NICE[2] is proposed, which is built on attack graph-based analytical models and reconfigurable virtual network-based countermeasures. III. PROP OSED WORK In this section, we describe how to construct and utilize node predictive attack graph model to handle vulnerabilities in cloud environ ment. Any attack has some set of predefined steps to incorporate it. An attack can only be accomplished when all its pre-conditions are met [11]. So that by keen monitoring the attack can be prevented. An attack graph is an abstraction that represents the ways an attacker can violate a security policy by leveraging interdependencies among discovered vulnerabilities. An attack graph can be generated from network configuration details and known vulnerabilities within the network. An attack path is a sequence of steps that starts from an attacker’s initial state to the attacker’s goal state (security policy violation) in an attack graph. Every virtual machine has it’s own logfile for recording the actions of that virtual machine. Th is logfile along with the knowledge base provides information for constructing attack graph. Fig. 1. Proposed Architecture IV. IMPLEMENTATION EIDS is implemented using Openebula[15] and OSSIM (Open Source – Security Information Management)[3] which comprises of traffic analyzers, vulnerability scanners. OS-SIM is embedded as a virtual mach ine in the c loud environment. The ro le of this virtual machine is to monitor all other virtual machines running in the environment. OSSIM provides a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution. It is a one-stop solution and integrated the open source software’s NTOP, Mrtg, Snort, Open VAS, and Nmap. OSSIM is a cost effective solution in the area of monitoring network health and security of network/hosts compared to other propriety products[6]. A. Attack Analyzer Attack Analyzer is built on the top the traffic Analyzer of OS-SIM. It uses each virtual machine’s logfile to analyze and extract attack trace steps. Whenever an attack occurs it is added to the attack graph as a node along with its state and correlation function is invoked. Attack Graph Attack Graph Generator Alert System Knowledge Base Attack Analyzer B. Correlation function Correlation function correlates this new attack with known attacks and gives the prediction steps for this attack. These prediction steps for each attack are used to monitor the further attacks in future. C. Attack Graph Generator Each node in the graph defines an attack and the edge between nodes represent the correlation between that two attacks. V. CONCLUSION Defending distributed environment is difficult. Always prevention is better than cure. Prediction of Intrusions in prior enhances the security of cloud environment. So that predictive attack graph model is chosen for providing security to the distributed cloud environment. At any point the known attacks are correlated with each other to predict new attacks. REFERENCES: [1] NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology ) http://csrc.nist.gov/p ublications/nistp ubs/800-145/SP800-145.p df [2] Chun-Jen Chung, Pankaj Khatkar, Tiany i Xing Jeongkeun Lee, Dijian g Huan g, â€Å"NICE: Network Intrusion Detection and Countermeasure Selection in Virtual Network Systems†, IEEE Transactions On Dependable And Secure Computing, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 198 – 211, July /August 2013. [3] â€Å"OSSIM †, https://www.alienvault.com/ [4] Ms. Parag K. Shelke, M s. Sneha Sontakke, Dr. A. D. Gawande, â€Å"Intrusion Detection Sy stem for Cloud Comp uting†, International Journal of Scientific Technology Research Volume 1, Issue 4, M ay 2012. [5] M odi, C., Patel, D., Patel, H., Borisaniy a, B., Patel, A. Rajarajan, M ., â€Å"A survey of intrusion detection techniques in Cloud†, Journal of Network and Computer App lications. [6] â€Å"OSSIM †, http ://www.op ensourceforu.com/2014/02 /top -10-op en-source-security -tools/ [7] Amirreza Zarrabi, Alireza Zarrabi, â€Å"Internet Intrusion Detection Sy stem Service in a Cloud† IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 9, Issue 5, No 2, Sep tember 2012. [8] I. Gul and M . Hussain, â€Å"Distributed Cloud Intrusion Detection M odel†, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, vol. 34, pp. 71-82, 2011. [9] R. Bhadauria, R. Chaki, N. Chak i, and S. Sany al â€Å"A Survey on Secur ity Issues in Cloud Comp uting†, Available at: http ://arxiv.org/abs/1109.5388 [10] K. Vieira, A. Schulter, C.B. Westp hall, and C.M . Westphall, â€Å"Intrusion Detection for Grid and Cloud comp uting†, IT Professional, Volume: 12 Issue: 4, p p. 38-43, 2010. [11] X. Ou and A. Singhal, â€Å"Quantitative Secur ity Risk Assessment of Enterp rise Networks†, Sp ringerBriefs in Comp uter Scien ce, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1860-3_2,  © The Author(s) 2012 [12] Sanchik a Gupta, Padam Kumar and Ajith Abraham, â€Å"A Profile Based Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Secur in g Cloud Env ironment†, International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, Feb 2013 [13] Swati Ramteke, Rajesh Dongare, Ko mal Ramteke, â€Å"Intrusion Detection System for Cloud Network Using FC-ANN Algorithm†, Int. Journal of Advanced R esearch in Comp uter and Communication En gineeringVo l. 2, Issue 4, April 2013. [14] A.S.Sy ed Navaz, V.San geetha, C.Prabhadevi, â€Å"Entropy based Anomaly Detection System to Prevent DDoS Attacks in Cloud†, Int. Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 62– No.15, January 2013 [15] â€Å"Op ennebula†, http ://opennebula.org [16] Nwokedi C. Idika, â€Å"Characterizin g and A ggregating Attack Grap h-based Security M etrics†, CERIAS Tech Rep ort 2010

Philosophy of Education :: Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Philosophy of Education â€Å"Be all that you can be. Find your future- as a teacher.† No, joining the army is not what Madeline Fuchs Holzer had in mind when she said this quote. Being all you can be in life requires dedication, responsibility and a desire to do what you love. Teaching is a profession that requires 110% from a person. I have the drive and ability to be the best that I can be as a teacher. There is not anything else I would want to do with my life besides teaching. I want to be a reflection to my students that they can be all that they can be. Another quote by Henry Adams, â€Å"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.† To be that type of teacher has been a lifelong goal for me. I want to make my mark in the world and this is my way of doing it. To have the ability to affect a child’s life for an eternity is something that not everyone can say they have accomplished. Teaching definitely is a profession that will affect eternit y. The main reasons for wanting to become a teacher would be my love for children, my family inspirations; God’s calling for me, and my love for learning. All my life I have enjoyed being around children. They have great spirits about them that makes me feel free spirited. Their innocence, undying energy and their love for life makes me take these characteristics and apply them to my own life. Another motivation for me is the inspirations of my grandfather and my father. My grandfather died when I was very young and the one thing everyone has always said about him is his love of flying and teaching. His life was spent on teaching others and when he passed away he was remembered as being a great teacher devoting himself entirely to his family and his students. My father spent the first thirty years of his life going form job to job since he had not finished his schooling younger in life. At middle age he decided to go back to college and earned his degree in education. He felt that becoming a teacher he would be a testimony to children to continue their education to better their future.

Levi’s Organization Essay

Levi Strauss & Co. is a worldwide corporation organized into three geographic divisions: Levi Strauss Americas (LSA), based in the San Francisco headquarters; Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa (LSEMA), based in Brussels; and Asia Pacific Division (APD), based in Singapore. The company employs a staff of approximately 10,500 people worldwide. The core Levi’s was founded in 1873 in San Francisco, specializing in riveted denim jeans and different lines of casual and street fashion.[3] From the early 1960s through the mid-1970s, Levi Strauss experienced significant growth in its business as the more casual look of the 1960s and 1970s ushered in the â€Å"blue jeans craze† and served as a catalyst for the brand. Levi’s, under the leadership of Walter Haas Jr., Peter Haas, Ed Combs, and Mel Bacharach, expanded the firm’s clothing line by adding new fashions and models, including stone-washed jeans through the acquisition of Great Western Garment Co. (GWG), a Canadian clothing manufacturer, and introducing Permanent Press trousers under the Sta-prest name. The company experienced rapid expansion of its manufacturing capacity from 16 plants to more than 63 plants in the United States from 1964 to 1974 and 25 overseas. They used of â€Å"pay for performance† manufacturing at the sewing machine operator level up. 2004 saw a sharp decline of GWG in the face of global outsourcing, so the company was closed and the Edmonton manufacturing plant shut down.[4] The Dockers brand, launched in 1986[5] which is sold largely through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to fade. Dockers were introduced into Europe in 1993. Levi Strauss attempted to sell the Dockers division in 2004 to relieve part of the company’s $2 billion outstanding debt.[6] Launched in 2003, Levi Strauss Signature features jeanswear and casualwear.[7] In November 2007, Levi’s released a mobile phone in co-operation with ModeLabs. Many of the phone’s cosmetic attributes are customisable at the point of purchase.

Deception Point Page 100

I tried to help him, Pickering told himself, recalling all the damaging evidence he had sent Marjorie Tench. Unfortunately, Herney had forbidden its use, leaving Pickering no choice but to take drastic measures. â€Å"Rachel,† Pickering said, â€Å"the information you just faxed off this ship is dangerous. You must understand that. If it gets out, the White House and NASA will look complicit. The backlash against the President and NASA will be enormous. The President and NASA know nothing, Rachel. They are innocent. They believe the meteorite is authentic.† Pickering had not even tried to bring Herney or Ekstrom into the fold because both were far too idealistic to have agreed to any deceit, regardless of its potential to save the presidency or space agency. Administrator Ekstrom's only crime had been persuading the PODS mission supervisor to lie about the anomaly software, a move Ekstrom no doubt regretted the moment he realized how scrutinized this particular meteorite would become. Marjorie Tench, frustrated by Herney's insistence on fighting a clean campaign, conspired with Ekstrom on the PODS lie, hoping a small PODS success might help the President fend off the rising Sexton tide. If Tench had used the photos and bribery data I gave her, none of this would have happened! Tench's murder, though deeply regrettable, had been destined as soon as Rachel called Tench and made accusations of fraud. Pickering knew Tench would investigate ruthlessly until she got to the bottom of Rachel's motives for the outrageous claims, and this was one investigation Pickering obviously could never let happen. Ironically, Tench would serve her president best in death, her violent end helping cement a sympathy vote for the White House as well as cast vague suspicions of foul play on a desperate Sexton campaign which had been so publicly humiliated by Marjorie Tench on CNN. Rachel stood her ground, glaring at her boss. â€Å"Understand,† Pickering said, â€Å"if news of this meteorite fraud gets out, you will destroy an innocent president and an innocent space agency. You will also put a very dangerous man in the Oval Office. I need to know where you faxed the data.† As he spoke those words, a strange look came across Rachel's face. It was the pained expression of horror of someone who had just realized they may have made a grave mistake. Having circled the bow and come back down the port side, Delta-One now stood in the hydrolab from which he had seen Rachel emerge as the chopper had flown in. A computer in the lab displayed an unsettling image-a polychromatic rendering of the pulsating, deepwater vortex that was apparently hovering over the ocean floor somewhere beneath the Goya. Another reason to get the hell out of here, he thought, moving now toward his target. The fax machine was on a counter on the far side of the wall. The tray was filled with a stack of papers, exactly as Pickering had guessed it would be. Delta-One picked up the stack. A note from Rachel was on top. Only two lines. He read it. To the point, he thought. As he flipped through the pages, he was both amazed and dismayed by the extent to which Tolland and Rachel had uncovered the meteorite deception. Whoever saw these printouts would have no doubt what they meant. Fortunately, Delta-One would not even need to hit â€Å"redial† to find out where the printouts had gone. The last fax number was still displayed in the LCD window. A Washington, D.C., prefix. He carefully copied the fax number down, grabbed all the papers, and exited the lab. Tolland's hands felt sweaty on the machine gun as he gripped it, aiming the muzzle at William Pickering's chest. The NRO director was still pressuring Rachel to tell him where the data had been sent, and Tolland was starting to get the uneasy feeling that Pickering was simply trying to buy time. For what? â€Å"The White House and NASA are innocent,† Pickering repeated. â€Å"Work with me. Don't let my mistakes destroy what little credibility NASA has left. NASA will look guilty if this gets out. You and I can come to an arrangement. The country needs this meteorite. Tell me where you faxed the data before it's too late.† â€Å"So you can kill someone else?† Rachel said. â€Å"You make me sick.† Tolland was amazed with Rachel's fortitude. She despised her father, but she clearly had no intention of putting the senator in any danger whatsoever. Unfortunately, Rachel's plan to fax her father for help had backfired. Even if the senator came into his office, saw the fax, and called the President with news of the meteorite fraud and told him to call off the attack, nobody at the White House would have any idea what Sexton was talking about, or even where they were. â€Å"I will only say this one more time,† Pickering said, fixing Rachel with a menacing glare. â€Å"This situation is too complex for you to fully understand. You've made an enormous mistake by sending that data off this ship. You've put your country at risk.† William Pickering was indeed buying time, Tolland now realized. And the reason was striding calmly toward them up the starboard side of the boat. Tolland felt a flash of fear when he saw the soldier sauntering toward them carrying a stack of papers and a machine gun. Tolland reacted with a decisiveness that shocked even himself. Gripping the machine gun, he wheeled, aimed at the soldier, and pulled the trigger. The gun made an innocuous click. â€Å"I found the fax number,† the soldier said, handing Pickering a slip of paper. â€Å"And Mr. Tolland is out of ammunition.† 124 Sedgewick Sexton stormed up the hallway of the Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building. He had no idea how Gabrielle had done it, but she had obviously gotten into his office. While they were speaking on the phone, Sexton had clearly heard the distinctive triple-click of his Jourdain clock in the background. All he could imagine was that Gabrielle's eavesdropping on the SFF meeting had undermined her trust in him and she had gone digging for evidence. How the hell did she get into my office! Sexton was glad he'd changed his computer password. When he arrived at his private office, Sexton typed in his code to deactivate the alarm. Then he fumbled for his keys, unlocked the heavy doors, threw them open, and burst in, intent on catching Gabrielle in the act. But the office was empty and dark, lit only by the glow of his computer screensaver. He turned on the lights, his eyes scanning. Everything looked in place. Dead silence except for the triple-tick of his clock. Where the hell is she? He heard something rustle in his private bathroom and raced over, turning on the light. The bathroom was empty. He looked behind the door. Nothing. Puzzled, Sexton eyed himself in the mirror, wondering if he'd had too much to drink tonight. I heard something. Feeling disoriented and confused, he walked back into his office. â€Å"Gabrielle?† he called out. He went down the hall to her office. She wasn't there. Her office was dark. A toilet flushed in the ladies' room, and Sexton spun, striding now back in the direction of the restrooms. He arrived just as Gabrielle was exiting, drying her hands. She jumped when she saw him. â€Å"My God! You scared me!† she said, looking genuinely frightened. â€Å"What are you doing here?† â€Å"You said you were getting NASA documents from your office,† he declared, eyeing her empty hands. â€Å"Where are they?† â€Å"I couldn't find them. I looked everywhere. That's what took so long.† He stared directly into her eyes. â€Å"Were you in my office?† I owe my life to his fax machine, Gabrielle thought. Only minutes ago she'd been sitting at Sexton's computer, trying to make printouts of the images of illegal checks on his computer. The files were protected somehow, and she was going to need more time to figure out how to print them. She would probably still be trying right now if Sexton's fax machine had not rung, startling her and snapping her back to reality. Gabrielle took it as her cue to get out. Without taking time to see what the incoming fax was, she logged off Sexton's computer, tidied up, and headed out the way she had come. She was just climbing out of Sexton's bathroom when she heard him coming in.

My Worst Day of School Essays

My Worst Day of School Essays My Worst Day of School Paper My Worst Day of School Paper My worst day of school was my freshman year. I had the worst day of school in the beginning of the year, September, to be exact. It wasn’t the first day of school but it was close. It started of as most terrible days of school start, missing the bus. It wasn’t that I just missed my bus it was that I was wearing wrinkled clothes and my hair was all messed up also. When I actually got into the building, the one good thing happened to me, I found a five dollar bill on the floor. But that luck wouldn’t last long, I had lunch fourth period and at the end of my table there was a bunch of jerky seniors. These kids always seemed to ruin my day. They had knocked over some cranberry juice all over my wrinkled white shirt, but that wasn’t the worst of it, I didn’t have a shirt to change into after the incident. Of course, it doesn’t stop there, at ninth period, I had gym class and I didn’t have a change of clothes, so I had to wear the terribly wrinkled and stained shirt. When I got home I had loads of homework that had to be done right away because later that night my mother wanted me to watch a crappy movie on oxygen with her. These movies are of course directed toward women and try as hard as they can to make you cry. So my worst day of school ended with my mother crying over the old woman who never had loved anyone but the man she had just lost to tuberculosis.

Free Essays on Virgil And Dante

DANTE'S VIRGIL: A LIGHT THAT FAILED In memory of J. Arthur Hanson No linked pair of poets has, over the centuries, been considered as so significantly related a pair of poet-prophets as Dante and Virgil. Not only does each of them present himself in the role of the vates or prophet, but their works contain solemn moments of explicitly prophetic utterance, promising us that we shall behold a novam progeniem of one sort or another. It further seems clear that Dante's presentation of himself as prophetic poet is at least importantly joined with his sense of Virgil's own assumption of that role. Among the past generation of Dante's readers it has become increasingly germane to place his role as poet into relation with his self-presentation as Judeo-Christian prophet. The  «Italian school », in which the most significant name in our century is probably that of Bruno Nardi, and the  «scuola arnericana », led by Charles Singleton, have in common, for all their many desperate differences, an awareness of Dante's appropriations of the vestments of such as David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John the Baptist, St. Paul, and of John's vision on Patmos. Surely no one who reads even cursorily in the dantology is innocent of the notion of  «Dante theologus-poeta ». Whether or not this putative reader admires or rejects a theological formulation of the Comedy's essential stance, all can see that the second half of our century has seen the direction of Dante studies move away from aestheticism and toward theology. The questions which such a perception of Dante's theological purposes in his poem necessarily enjoin most dramatically concern Virgil. Just as we should never forget to be amazed at Dante's choice of Virgil as guide and master in this vigorously Christian poem, neither should we cease to be pestered by associated doubts: How can the prophetic enterprise of Virgil be assimilated to the specifically Christian purposes of the Comedy?... Free Essays on Virgil And Dante Free Essays on Virgil And Dante DANTE'S VIRGIL: A LIGHT THAT FAILED In memory of J. Arthur Hanson No linked pair of poets has, over the centuries, been considered as so significantly related a pair of poet-prophets as Dante and Virgil. Not only does each of them present himself in the role of the vates or prophet, but their works contain solemn moments of explicitly prophetic utterance, promising us that we shall behold a novam progeniem of one sort or another. It further seems clear that Dante's presentation of himself as prophetic poet is at least importantly joined with his sense of Virgil's own assumption of that role. Among the past generation of Dante's readers it has become increasingly germane to place his role as poet into relation with his self-presentation as Judeo-Christian prophet. The  «Italian school », in which the most significant name in our century is probably that of Bruno Nardi, and the  «scuola arnericana », led by Charles Singleton, have in common, for all their many desperate differences, an awareness of Dante's appropriations of the vestments of such as David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John the Baptist, St. Paul, and of John's vision on Patmos. Surely no one who reads even cursorily in the dantology is innocent of the notion of  «Dante theologus-poeta ». Whether or not this putative reader admires or rejects a theological formulation of the Comedy's essential stance, all can see that the second half of our century has seen the direction of Dante studies move away from aestheticism and toward theology. The questions which such a perception of Dante's theological purposes in his poem necessarily enjoin most dramatically concern Virgil. Just as we should never forget to be amazed at Dante's choice of Virgil as guide and master in this vigorously Christian poem, neither should we cease to be pestered by associated doubts: How can the prophetic enterprise of Virgil be assimilated to the specifically Christian purposes of the Comedy?...