Promote Professional Development Essay Example for Free

Promote Professional Development Essay The importance of continually providing knowledge and practice is to keep up with the constant changes that are happening all the time. Globalisation and technology have made changes in health and social care at a rapid rate. There has been a significant change in the way that care is being experienced and there are higher expectations in the quality of care. A more personal approach is required and accessibility to training resources ensures that we can all be the best in our job roles and in line with legal requirements. There are opportunities available now, thanks to technology advancements, to share responsibilities across the board, we have better access to other partnerships, training programs and can store more data than ever before and there are still developments every day. The importance of learning these developments is that we can change with the times and gain the new skills to improve the outcome for service users. The barriers to professional development require you to look in more depth at yourself. Everybody has a different way of learning, someone may learn a lot quicker than someone else, so it’s important to try to see what ways you retain information best. Some people may learn from reading something over and over until it either makes sense or sticks with them. Some people may write down what they want to learn because it ingrains in there memory and some people may just listen to something and retain the information. It’s important to remember that what someone else might learn from a sentence may be more educational to them than if someone else was to read that very same sentence. Motivation can be another barrier; external factors can drive motivation and change behaviour like incentives to learn but internal barriers such as self-esteem, drive and desire can have an effect on professional development. An individual’s personal values, beliefs, attitudes and life priorities can impact significantly on the way people develop. Not having enough time to develop your skills or financial problems can be a big barrier to development. To get through these barriers, Support from peers, advice and mentoring may be required to h elp with individual developments. There are many different sources and systems to support professional development. At my organisation we have internal support which involves monthly supervisions with an advocate. We go through training  requirements, any training refreshment that need to be done; we go over policies and procedures and discuss our progress for professional development. We have training courses that cover every area of the care we provide and e-learning that all employees complete every 6 months, they are designed to refresh our training and inform us of new policies and procedures. You can also learn by working with more experienced colleagues and you can self-teach by reading text books and articles. You can develop your knowledge by using facilities such as libraries and learning resource centres and there is also formal support, colleague and university courses, internet courses, apprenticeships and government incentives. You can also use the policies and procedures put in place by your company to learn what is required and how to do things appropriately. There are so many factors to consider when selecting opportunities and activities for keeping knowledge and practice up to date. There would be no point in starting a course in child care if your real desire was to become a hypnotherapist. Financial issues could be problem, your organisation may cover learning costs or you may need to look into whether you are entitled to government help or whether you will be self-funding. Time requirements could be a problem and your level of commitment; maybe you are a single mother, who cannot get child care to attend night school. Another factor could be, does the opportunity or activity fit with your learning style?, You may learn better from practical activities or learn better from reading and writing, finding the right form of professional development is key to being successful. Be able to prioritise goals and targets for your own professional development In order to prioritise goals and targets for my own professional development, I look at the influences that have helped me to develop my performance so far and look at what my training has taught me and how it’s reflected in my work. I examine my strengths and weaknesses honestly and try to think about the way I practice in a constructive way. I have to evaluate myself by asking; How did I approach my work? Was my approach positive? How did the way I work affect the people I support? Did I work to the best of my ability? Which was the best aspect of my work? Which was the worst aspect of my work? Is there area’s that I can improve? What are they and how will I tackle them? In health and social care there are benchmarks and standards that I can use to measure my own ability against, like the ‘care quality commission standards’ and ‘codes of practice’. By comparing my work against these standards I can improve on the areas that I am failing in, by setting goals of what I need to learn and targets to complete it by. To prioritise my own development goals and targets, I have to think realistically about what is necessary for my job role at that moment, for example; if you are developing your communication skills and working towards building relationships and trust, you cannot plan a set strategy to produce trust and this can take time. But if you were developing your skills for independent living, encouraging accessing the community and shopping, this is something that is currently in my job role and could be a skill I can develop straight away. Making a plan to monitor each stage of developing skills will help me to see at what point something has not worked, for example; I am to Supporting Bobby with his shopping, but due to his mental health problems, he doesn’t feel comfortable being in a busy supermarket around lots of people. Putting a plan together with goals and targets will help to monitor Bobby’s progress; I could put a target in place to build Bobby’s confidence up enough so he can be in a supermarket. By recording this process and evaluating each step that it took to get him there, I improve my own skills and gain knowledge for any similar situations that may arise in the future. Be able to prepare a professional development plan To plan my own professional development with sources of support available to me, I will first have to arrange a meeting with my trainer and supervisor to identify the learning outcomes and objectives that I wish to achieve. We can then put a strategy together to meet these objectives and a time frame in which to complete them by and with their help and resources. When documenting evidence I will specify the duty, a goal, tools needed for reaching my goal and a completion date. I will then undertake the necessary educational activities, training and shadowing and collect more evidence for  my portfolio. I will review my progress at regular intervals with my trainer and supervisor to discuss any updates and get feedback on my development. My portfolio will contain evidence of records of attendance and the support that was given, highlighted areas of what I would have done differently, highlighted areas of successful care and certificates of achievements. I can also show in my portfolio, evidence of what has benefited my colleagues, i.e. protocols or guidelines that have been introduced because of things that I have learnt and feedback from colleagues on a job well done. I will show evidence of evaluating work that wasn’t done to the best of my ability and show evidence of what I have learnt to correct my work. I will put in my development portfolio evidence of any positive feedback, descriptions of new care plans made because of my positive changes, cards, letters or individual comments and positive audit results. This is an example of a plan that I would use for my own professional development. A service user I attend with learning difficulties needs a new wheelchair; the carers are finding it increasingly hard to push the service user around in the wheelchair for social visits. A healthy diet plan was encouraged but is not working as the service user lives independently, a wheelchair with a motor is needed to help the carers avoid any further injury and carry on supporting the service user to access the community. I have been allocated the responsibility to assist the service user pick a new wheelchair with a motor, I can use this opportunity to develop new skills and document and evaluate my progress. There are a few barriers to overcome so monitoring the effectiveness of my support will help to evaluate my performance and relay any significant information to fellow colleagues and others crucial support in their care, ultimately helping the service user in the future. The main barrier is the lady doesn’t like change; it worries her and makes her very anxious, when she is anxious she gets the medical condition hives. Her confidence will need to be built up over time. The goal is to help the lady pick a new motorised wheelchair for accessing the community only, she can continue with the wheelchair she is familiar with, and likes at home, but the goal is to find one that the service user is 100% happy and secure in, to prevent any further injures to carers and to keep the lady involved in her daily routines. The tools needed for succeeding with this duty is to have the families support, a risk assessment, a shop with accessibility and  understanding with this sensitive issue and support from my managers and any other active partners that support with the service users care needs. For evidence I would put in my portfolio the emails from the partnerships, my advocate and myself that detail, the support that is needed, with the evidence that I have been allocated to support with this. The email will also show my reply, for the request of informing all other carers to reassure her when necessary for when she gets anxious and upset. I would put in place a communication diary especially to deal with this task, firstly to monitor any upset behaviour and how my colleagues and I resolved it and secondly I could use it as evidence. I would keep a written account of how many trips to the shops and what her behaviour was like on each visit, I would record what helped keep her calm and feeling secure and record anything that failed and how we made it better. I would keep a medical record of any outbreaks of hives and how it was treated. I would have regular meetings with my advocate to get feedback, discuss updates, ask for any advice or help that I need and review the completion date. I would discuss attending training courses that could help me with addressing this situation to the best of my ability, like manual handling, first aid, communication skills and keep evidence of my achievements. I would finally add to my portfolio evidence of the service user (in line with confidentiality requirements) accomplishing this task, I would get evidence of how long it took to achieve and what the final outcome was. Be able to improve performance through reflective practice Models of reflection encourage a structured process to guide the act of reflection, there is no right model of reflection, but it is important to choose the one that you feel comfortable using and best assists you to learn from your experience. Sometimes it is appropriate to use one model of refection as a basis, but use prompt questions from other models if they suit your particular situation. I found Bortons Model of reflection easy to remember; therefor making it is easy to apply to an experience as it happens. What, So What, Now What, the simplicity of the model helps evaluate quickly and simply an experience but does not allow for specific details as opposed to Gibbs Model. Johns Model of reflection is based more on self-awareness and self-improvement. It allows you to analyse influencing  factors on your thoughts and behaviour, what triggers the behaviour and you can delve far more intimately into your feelings, opinions and judgements and intern how this affected who you are working with. This level of learning allows you to evaluate very deeply on all levels, morals, background, knowledge, self-awareness, past experiences and future practice, making this model of reflection by far more personal and a more appropriate model for self-improvement and self-development. The Kolb model is made up of 4 steps and learning can start at any of the steps at any time, there is no process. When a person carries out an action they can both, observe and reflect upon its underlying process and possible consequences. The action becomes open for analysis, concepts can be tested at further through new experiences in order to both validate and develop them further. Gibbs Model of reflection is a more descriptive model of Kolb’s and it also has a process in which to follow allowing for deeper analysis. Gibbs model gives you more a detailed structure in which to evaluate your experience, which is why I found it to be more widely used in the healthcare industry. The theory follows 6 steps of the model, and each step informs the next. I found that using Gibbs model and examining an experience in greater detail was very beneficial but found the Evaluation, Analysis and conclusion asked very similar questions which seemed to be a little repetitive. But Gibbs model challenged my assumptions more and allowed me to explore more ideas to promote self-improvement more than the other models. Of all the models of refection I have researched I found these 4 more beneficial to my learning and self-improvement and they even challenged what I thought I already knew. By using Gibbs Cycle as a basis and applying the descriptive evaluations of all the other models to the specific levels, I can examine myself in far more depth and improve my quality of work consistently. Reflective practice is thinking or reflecting on what you do, it is learning from an experience and teaching you evaluation skills to examine your actions and reactions. Thinking about what h as happened is part of being human but reflective practice differentiates between casual thinking and reflective practice, it requires a conscious effort to think about events and develop insights into them. Once you get into the habit of using reflective practice, it becomes a skill and you can develop it every day, in every type of situation. Feedback from others is a very important part of reflective  practice, as you cannot always see what your own faults may be or you may not want to hear what faults you have. Considering feedback as another opportunity to learn will develop your self-awareness and can start a process of change that will benefit anyone that you work with. For example, very early on in my healthcare career, I supported an elderly lady with learning disabilities, since her husband past away; she would get very lonely and ask to move a lot. Her social worker and advocate had taken her to see a few warden controlled apartments in a more communal building, but the lady did not like them and it gave her a bad experience of what she thought was available to her. I work in a few homes for elderly service users with learning disabilities and I invited my service user round for tea, so she could see a different kind of living situation, a house share that could be available. Whilst the trip was successful in the way that the lady now knew of a different living arrangement, at a meeting shortly after, that involved other healthcare providers for the service user, I acquired feedback from the ladies advocate that showed my own faults and issues that wasn’t within my capability to see. My intention had been misunderstood and Unknown to me the service user had wanted and was adamant, that a housemate was to move into her own home as she had a spare room; this was not a suitable situation for another vulnerable adult to move into because of the service user’s regular change of behaviour, and the house shares have a carer on duty at all times. If I had informed and attained advice on this situation it could have been dealt with in a different way. My lack of knowledge and understanding of how my actions could been seen as something different for a service user made me evaluate at what level I went wrong and how to rectify this problem so it is not an issue in the future. The advocate commended me on my thoughtfulness but advised certain aspects need to be considered when working with this particular service user. Trial and Error is always going to be a big part of my learning development, working with others there is always going to be the potential for harm, both physically and emotionally. It is imperative that practice changes as a result of these mistakes.

Local Area Networks Interconnection

Local Area Networks Interconnection This lab is designed to demonstrate the implementation of switched local area networks. The simulation in this lab will help you examine the performance of different implementations of local area networks connected by switches and hubs. A hub forwards the packet that arrives on any of its inputs on all the outputs regardless of the destination of the packet. Hub has only one collision domain. On the other hand, a switch forwards incoming packets to one or more outputs depending on the destination(s) of the packets. Switches has separate collision domains for each connection. Here we will study how the throughput and collision of packets in a switched network are affected by the configuration of the network and the types of switching devices that are used. Implementation of Network The implementation involves series of steps as follows: We select the network topology as star and edit all the attributes as per the lab manual. The next step is to configure the nodes of the network for setting the traffic generated by each station. The network consists of 16 nodes each of which is connected to a hub by a 10 Base-T Ethernet. The statistics are chosen for the simulation. We select the delay(sec), traffic sent ( packets/sec), traffic received ( packets/sec) and the collision count. The simulation is configured for the time duration of 2 minutes. The next step involves duplicating the scenario in order to have two hubs connected by one switch. Finally, the simulation is run and the results are compared for their performance based on the statistics chosen for simulation. Lab Results: We have experimented with two scenarios i.e. Scenario1: Only hub Scenario2: Two hubs and a switch. The statistics chosen for comparing the above mentioned scenarios are Ethernet Delay (sec) Traffic sent (packets/sec) Traffic received (packets/sec) Collision count. As per the implementation steps followed, we received the following results given below: The two figures given below compares the traffic sent/received(packets/sec) in the two scenarios. The Fig#1 indicates that the average time to send the data packets in a network with a hub or a hub switch is the same or almost identical. The Fig#2 indicates that the average time to receive data packets or the throughput in case of a hub switch network is more than that of a network with only hub. Fig1. Indicates the time average for traffic sent in packets/sec Fig2. Indicates the time average for traffic received in packets/sec The two figures given below compares the collision count and the time delay in the two scenarios. The Fig#3 indicates that the collision count in a hub and switch network is lesser than in an only hub network. The Fig#4 indicates that Ethernet delay in a hub and switch network is lesser than in an only hub network. Fig3. Indicates Ethernet collision count for the two scenarios Fig 4. Indicates Ethernet delay(sec) for the two scenarios. The Fig#5, compares the collision count in both the scenarios i.e. with only Hub and in HubSwitch networks. It shows that the collision count for only Hub is maximum as compared to the collision count for a HubSwitch network. The collision count for the Hub1 and Hub2 in the office network have almost the same collision rate. Thus, it proves that the collision rate reduces in a network with a switch compared to the network with a hub. Thus, the throughput of switched network is greater than only hub networks. Fig 5. Indicates the collision count of the Hub in the Only Hub network and the Hub1 and Hub used in the Hub and Switch network. Question and Answers Q-1 Explain why adding a switch makes the network perform better in terms of throughput and delay. Ans: As per the collision count identified for both the network with only Hub and other with a Hub Switch, the collision count for the Hub1 and Hub 2 in a switched network is much lesser than the Hub1 in the only Hub network. This happens because of the following reasons: As soon as the Hub receives the packets at its input ports, it forwards them to all outputs irrespective of the destination of the packet to be sent. This increases the chances of collision in hubs. Where as, in case of a switched network, the switch can receive the packets at its input ports in parallel, and forwards multiple packets to their destined addresses at the same time. In the lab experiment, there exists two hubs i.e. Hub1 and Hub2 with a switch connecting the two in the middle. Both the hubs receive the packets. The switch acts a a mediator between the two hubs and forwards the packets from one hub to the other with lesser collision. Thus, the switch helps to reduce the collision rate compared to that with a single hub. Hence, this improves the network performance in terms of throughput and delay. Q 2 We analyzed the collision counts of the hubs. Can you analyze the collision count of the à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Switchà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ? Explain your answer. Ans: In the experiment, we have analyzed the collision counts of the hubs in both single and double hubs with a switch networks. From the results obtained from the experiment, it clears tha fact that the collision count using a switch reduces to a greater amount compared to that without a switch. This is due to the fact, that the switch can receive the packets in parallel and buffer the same in case of heavy incoming traffic and also forward the same in parallel to their destined address. Since, there is always a full duplex communication between the switch and the hub, thus the packets exchanged will never collide with each other. Thus, there are hardly any collisions in case of switch. Q 3 Create two new scenarios. The first one is the same as the OnlyHub scenario but replace the hub with a switch. The second new scenario is the same as the HubAndSwitch scenario but replace both hubs with two switches, remove the old switch, and connect the two switches you just added together with a 10BaseT link. Compare the performance of the four scenarios in terms of delay, throughput, and collision count. Analyze the results. Note: To replace a hub with a switch, right-click on the hub and assign ethernet16_switch to its model attribute. Ans: In the first scenario we have duplicated the scenario consisting of only a hub. Thus, the only hub shown in Fig3.1 has been replaced by a switch as shown in Fig3.2. In the second scenario, we have duplicated the network with Hub and a switch as shown in Fig#8. Thus, the two hubs in Fig3.3 have been replaced by two switches and have removed the older switch as shown in Fig3.4. Both the new switches have been connected using a 10 BaseT link. Fig 3.1 N/W configuration with only hub. Fig 3.2: N/W configuration with only switch. Fig 3.3 N/W configuration with two hubs and one switch Fig3.4 N/W configuration with two switches Comparing the Results: The four scenarios which have been compared include the following: (1) Network with only a hub (2) Network with a Switch and a Hub (3) Network with only a switch (4) Network with two switches. In the Fig3.5, the graph compares the Ethernet delay in seconds for all the four scenarios. It shows, that the time delay is maximum for a network with a single hub and least for networks with no hubs but switch(s). Thus, the graph shows that the time delay reduces with the number of switches added in the network The Fig3.6 compares the throughput i.e. the number of packets received per seconds for all the four scenarios. As per the graph, the throughput is almost the same and maximum for the networks consisting of one or two switches. Whereas, the throughput is less with only hub in the network. Thus, the no. of packets received is greater for the networks which are switched based. Fig 3.5 Compares the Ethernet delay in sec for four scenarios. Fig3.6 Compares the traffic received (Throughput) in packets/ sec for the four scenarios. We have not compared the collision count for the four scenarios because the collision count is very less in case of switched networks. Conclusion From this lab experiment we have concluded that the switched networks have better throughput, delay and collisions compared to the network with Hubs. The difficulty faced while performing the experiment was the reading of collision count for the switched network with two hubs and the switch in middle. We faced issues in collecting the combined results of collision for the first two scenarios. But towards the end of the lab experiment, we received good hands on experience on Opnet, and the advantages of having a switched network compared to hubs.

A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory

A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory Northern Statism at the Margins:   A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory. Today, ‘humanitarian intervention or so-called ‘muscular peacekeeping occurs in contexts known as ‘complex emergencies, which combine elements of civil war, state collapse, human rights violations, ‘criminality and humanitarian crisis.   Often, local agents have formed vested interests connected to external powers, which induce them to reproduce situations of emergency.   Mark Duffield aptly refers to the ‘security-development nexus, in which global assemblages of crisis management are connected to the local reproduction of crisis.   This nexus deploys peacekeeping and peacebuilding as alternatives to recognising the impact of neoliberalism and imperialism on development (****).   Duffields analysis resonates with the idea of crisis-management in the work of Gayatri Spivak (1990: 97-8), who portrays crisis as a constant situation in a postcolonial world where the North constantly wards off the traumatic effects of colonialism.   While clear fro m official documents, this status of responses to the South as crisis management is not apparent in the fantasmatic discourse of public pronouncements and media coverage.   In this context, it becomes crucial to the critique of colonial power to simultaneously see the process of crisis management and its ideological construction to repress the colonial trauma.   An examination of liberal theories of peacekeeping must show their complicity in both these processes. This paper will pursue an approach of ‘seeing together in relation to liberal theory, by reading this theory together with the intervention in Somalia.   It will thus seek to draw out the complicities between false and oppressive assumptions in theory and colonial actions (and failures) in practice.   The main purpose of this paper will be to establish that liberal and instrumentalist peacekeeping theorists share a number of colonial assumptions.   While drawing on postcolonial studies, the approach will also engage with ethnography, anarchism and cultural studies as means of providing multiple angles from which to see situations.   Multivocity is deployed to approximate a complex situation by viewing it from a number of different directions at once, each viewpoint being taken as an incomplete perspective.   Postcolonial theory will here be shadowed firstly by Richard J.F. Days anarchist critique of liberalism, to demonstrate the complicity and interchangeability of c olonial and statist standpoints.   Secondly, it will be traced through reflections on the intervention in Somalia by anthropologists and postcolonial theorists.   While recognising the danger of epistemological violence in the Northern anthropologists representation of the Other, such accounts are useful in exposing the structural gap between the theoretical framing of the situation and the situation as it appears from a more nuanced engagement.   There are doubtless also gaps between the anthropologists reconstruction and the immanent discourse of everyday life, but for the purposes of this paper it is necessary only that the anthropological account be closer to this discourse than is that of the normative theorists.   The article focuses on three related liberal theorists: Nicholas Wheeler, C.A.J. Coady and Fernando Tesà ³n.   The theorists discussed here are similar in their general frame, though varying in the degree of subtlety with which they express it.   Coady offers a more subtle theory that the other authors, but his subtlety supplements rather than overriding the performative effectivity of liberal discourse.   In this article, we treat them as part of a single discourse, and trace their colonial logic through a series of five interlinked assumptions which can be traced through all the theorists discussed. 1. Northern privilege as universalism The first problematic assumption is the view that a desituated Northern agent can assert and establish the content of a universal ethics.   Most often this is constructed in opposition to a straw-man of relativism.   It is not, however, the universalist stance which is most crucial to their colonial status.   Rather, it is the fact that they believe universally true positions can be established by reference solely to Northern experiences and values.   Their approach is thus colonial in foreclosing the need for dialogue with difference.   Northern standpoints are privileged by means of a separation between marked and unmarked terms.   The unmarked term of the civilised world becomes the exclusive referent for justifications of approaches to the ‘uncivilised other.  Ã‚   Hence, the ‘civilised world is ethically tautological: its relation to its Others is justified by its own values, which are the relevant referent because it is ‘civilised, a status it po ssesses by virtue of its values.   This reinforces the view that, despite the tenuousness of its moral realism, liberal cosmopolitanism is a paradigmatic ‘royal science, seeking to give a certain Law to its readers to provide a stable basis for moral order.   As Richard Day writes of Kymlicka, liberal theory produces ‘an utterance that does not anticipate a rejoinder (78).   The construction of monologism takes different forms in each theory.   Wheeler rests his account of the normative force of the duty to intervene on a liberal international relations (IR) perspective which is pitted mainly against the Realist view that states are incapable of normative concern.   His main concern is thus to show that normative restrictions, even if used or formulated in self-interested ways, can still be binding on states (2004: 4, 7, 24).   This sidesteps the question of how ethical positions should be reached, but has a symptomatic side-effect.   This construction of international normativity thus focuses on the emergence of normative communities among states (e.g. 2004: 23, 44).   Stateless societies can be the objects of intervention, but are excluded from the formation of the normative community which legitimates it, effectively relegated to terra nullius by the absence of a relevant international claimant not empty of people as ‘bare life, but e mpty of morally relevant agents, people who ‘matter as normative voices.   Things get no better when Wheeler briefly enters the field of discussion of how positions should be reached, rendering this process the exclusive province of the ‘values of civilized societies (2002: 303).   Hence, ‘civilised societies ask themselves if they are entitled to intervene; nobody thinks to ask the recipients.   In practice, this leads to a situation where the   UN believed that no consent was needed to intervene in Somalia due to the absence of a state able to give such consent (Wheeler 2002: 183).   Fernando Tesà ³n offers the most unreconstituted variant of the universalist global-local.   He adopts a strongly realist moral ontology in which moral truths are absolutely independent of their origins (Tesà ³n 2001:12).   Having asserted ontologically that such truths exist, he nevertheless provides no clear guide to the epistemological means by which they can be known.   But what he does not say, he shows by his performance as speaker of ethical ‘truths.   His reference is to a Northern in-group connected to the dominant fantasy frame, as for instance when he writes of ‘the shock we felt over the Srebrenica massacre (2001: 44).   The type of subject who felt shock at this juncture is of a certain type: tuned into the global media, experiencing the events of Bosnia from the outside, contained in a sphere of safety in which such events are shocking rather than horrifically quotidian and predictable.   This ‘we excludes by gradations the Srebrenica vic tims themselves, whose emotions were likely much sharper than mere shock; the solidarity activists, Muslim and secular, who would be angry but unsurprised at the Serbian atrocity and the UN betrayal; and the other recipients of intervention, the Somalis, Rwandans and so on, whose reactions remain opaque.   Like Tesà ³n, Coady is a moral realist who views ethics as a form of knowledge allowing universal claims and derived from human nature (2002: 13-14, 18).   This position is counterposed to a simplified view of relativism (2002: 14), and again, its ontological firmness is undermined by its silence on epistemology.   No method is provided for distinguishing in practice between relative and universal positions, though such judgements are most definitely made in practice (2002: 16).   Again, it seems that the universal truth is established solely by Northern agents.   One establishes truth through the ‘courts of reason, feeling, experience and conscience, which may or may not produce an obvious answer (2002: 14).   Being internal to the desituated Northern observer, these ‘courts do not require any accountability to non-Northern Others, or any kind of reflexivity.  Ã‚   A Northern subject-position is introduced performatively.   Hence for instance, reactions of Northern media viewers are deemed facts of human nature (2002: 29, 36).   Hence it is clear that, while Others are allowed to make claims in these courts, but the judge remains resolutely Northern.   In practice, such universalism, operating as a global-local, provides space for linguistic despotism.   Deleuze and Guattari have argued that the persistence of despotism after the end of absolutist states relies on the despotic functioning of transcendentalist language (Anti-Oedipus 207).   In peacekeeping discourse, this transcendentalism is expressed especially in the binary between civilised and uncivilised, which creates the conditions for sovereignty and states of exception.   One can thus think of peacekeeping violence in terms of law-founding violence, a suspension of ethics in the creation of a statist order.   Hence, Hardt and Negri are right in arguing that ‘[m]odern sovereignty†¦ does not put an end to violence and fear but rather puts an end to civil war by organizing violence and fear into a coherent and stable political order.   Peacekeeping in the dominant discourse is the violence which forms a bridge between ‘anarchy (the demonised Other) and liberal-democracy, cutting through complexity with the simplicity of brute force (Debrix 110).   The effects of this discursive asymmetry are made clear in Sherene Razacks investigation of peacekeeping violence.   Razacks book focuses on instances of torture and murder by Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia, and accounts for such violence as expressions of discourses of superiority (10).  Ã‚   Razack argues that Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia committed atrocities because of their identity as agents of a civilised nation operating in a hostile, otherworldly context.   They use such categories to construct an ‘affective space of belonging (24).   The identity of Canadian peacekeepers as citizens of a civilised nation lead to the denial of personhood to Somali Others (Razack 9).   The stance as civilised outsiders leads to violence through the operation of a binary of civilised versus savage which is inherently racialised (13).   The civilisers are counterposed to the ‘dark corners of the earth in a narrative which places Northern peacekeepers outside history (12).  Ã‚   They are assigned the task of sorting out problems of Southern others at some risk to themselves (32).   ‘History is evacuated and the simplest of stories remains: more civilized states have to keep less civilized states in line (48).   Sites such as Somalia thus become viewed as utterly hostile, sites of absolute evil in which anarchy blurs with terrain and climate (15, 84).   Since the South is constituted as an inferior category, peacekeepers enter a space where their ability to relate to others humanity is impeded (54, 155).   Such black holes, or extraordinary spaces, become sites of exception and emergency (44).   Excluded from dialogue by the myth of its absolu te evil, the Other is taken to understand little but force (38-9, 93).   Canadian peacekeepers involved in abuses were acting on a narrative bearing little resemblance to their actual situation in a largely peaceful town (73).   They in effect went looking for enemies, scheming to lure and trap Somalis who were then assumed to fit stereotypes (79-81).   The narrative of imposing order amidst chaos creates conditions in which peacekeepers initiate conflict to provide a context in which to respond overwhelmingly and brutally.   Paradoxically, peacekeepers thereby often become unable even to keep the peace between themselves and their local hosts, let alone to impose it among locals.   2.   State as necessary; social order The second problematic grouping of assumptions concern the social role of the state.   Liberal theorists view the state as identical with or essential to society, and as something without which a decent life is impossible.   This is taken as a truism.   As Richard Day argues, liberal scholars systematically ignore arguments that stateless life might be preferable to life under the state, in an intellectual doubling of the move of liberal states to ruthlessly suppress movements aspiring to stateless life.   Despite their criticisms of particular state policies, liberals consistently think about social life from the standpoint of the state.   As Day writes, liberalism identifies with the state by adopting its subject-position (79).   This fixation on the state expresses itself normatively in the attachment of overriding significance to themes of order, security and stability.   For instance, the UN resolution on Somalia called for action ‘to restore peace, stability and law and order (cited Lyons and Samatar 34).   On the other side, metonymic slippage is established between terms like statelessness, lawlessness, anarchy, chaos and barbarism.   This conceptual conflation combines into a single concept at least four distinct phenomena:   state collapse as such, the collapse of society (such as everyday meanings and relations), the existence of a situation of civil war, and the existence of a set of ‘lawless actions similar to criminality (such as murder, torture, rape, armed robbery and extortion).   This runs against the warnings of more informed empirical scholars who emphasise the need to disaggregate these phenomena (Menkhaus State Collapse 405, 407).   On an explanatory level, statist authors tend to attribute the other aspects of a complex emergency, particularly social conflict and ‘lawless actions, to the absence of a state (or of the right kind of state).   Hence, they fail to distinguish between peaceful and warring stateless societies, or between ‘lawless stateless societies and those with some degree of diffuse ‘governance.  Ã‚   A society such as Somalia is stateless, hence necessarily beset by civil war and social predation.   As a result, it is assumed that the response to problems related to civil war and ‘lawlessness must be resolved by the restoration or construction of a proper state.   An absence is taken as the explanation for various effects, with no sense of what specific forces cause these effects.   The possibility that the worst problems in complex emergencies could be mitigated instead by moving towards a more peaceful and less predatory type of statelessness a possibility at the forefront of the empirical literature on Somalia for example is simply ruled out in advance.   Also excluded from the frame is the need to establish and engage with contingent causes of intergroup conflict.   These themes can be traced through the work of the authors under discussion.   Wheeler deems ‘state breakdown and a collapse of law and order a sufficient cause for intervention (2002: 34).   In referring to situations in which ‘the target state had collapsed into lawlessness and civil strife (2002: 2), he clearly conflates statelessness, ‘lawlessness and civil war: state collapse itself means ‘lawlessness and civil strife; this is what a society becomes when a state collapses.   Furthermore, ‘lawlessness and the ‘breakdown of authority are taken to be the cause of famine in Somalia (2002: 176, 206), notwithstanding the continued absence of state authority in the famine-free years since 1994.   Wheeler also rather strangely refers to state-building as the removal of ‘the gun from political life (2002: 306).   States are not known for their lack of guns.   Writing in 2002 by which time Somalia had experienced a stateless peace for nearly a decade   Wheeler argues that ‘[d]isarming the warlords and establishing the rule of law were crucial in preventing Somalia from falling back into civil war and famine (2002: 190).   What Somalia needed, he decided, was a ‘law-governed polity (2002: 173).   To this end, he advocates ‘the imposition of an international protectorate that could provide a security framework for years, if not decades, to come (2002: 306), effectively the recolonisation of the country.   In constructing criteria for the success of an intervention, Wheelers position is again ambiguous.   His exact demand is that a successful intervention establish ‘a political order   hospitable to the protection of human rights (2002: 37).   Yet when he discusses Somalia, and faces the problem that humanitarian relief and state-building were contradictory goals, he takes a pro-statebuilding position (2002: 189-90).   This can be interpreted to mean that he assumes that only a statist order could possibly be hospitable to human rights, notwithstanding the appalling human rights record of the previous Somali state.   Yet there is no reason why local polities could not be assessed in terms of human rights (Menkhaus and Pendergast, 2).   In Tesà ³ns account, a Hobbesian position on state collapse, including the identity of state collapse, societal collapse, ‘lawlessness and civil war, is explicitly advocated.   ‘Anarchy is the complete absence of social order, which inevitably leads to a Hobbesian war of all against all (2001: 7).   People are thus prevented from conducting ‘meaningful life in common (2001: 7).   It is clear that state and society are so closely linked here as to be indistinguishable; it is left unclear if the ‘absence of social order means the absence merely of the state or of other forms of social life.   Given that contexts such as Somalia do not in fact involve the collapse of all social life, it must be assumed that the former is being inferred from the latter.   We see once more the reproduction of the conflation of statelessness with a range of problems, in apparent ignorance of the possibility of other kinds of statelessness.   The solution is taken to be pervasive imposition of liberal social forms.   Humanitarian aid simply addresses ‘the symptoms of anarchy and tyranny, whereas building ‘democratic, rights-based institutions addresses a central cause of the problem and does ‘the right thing for the society (2001: 37).   As a result, situations of anarchy necessarily lead to barbaric interpersonal behaviour which is seriously unjust, causing a ‘moral collapse of sovereignty and a loss of the right to self-government (2001: 2-3).   The difference between statist societies and stateless societies is not, he tersely declares, a matter of legitimate dispute.   The difference is a matter of what all ‘reasonable views will accept and what they will not (2001: 13-14).   This boundary reproduces the tautological ethical stance of the Northern agent.   While emotively related to the extreme effects of civil war and predatory violence, this position in effect declares any stateless society to be beyond the pale regardless of whether it displays these characteristics.   The gesture of Schmittian sovereignty, deciding on the exclusion of those deemed unreasonable, is particularly dangerous given that intervention happens in contexts where the majority of local agents show such characteristi cs.   Peacekeepers primed to enter situations deemed uncondonable are doomed to violent contact with local agents (including ‘victims who do condone them, because their very frame is constructed to exclude engagement.   Again in Coadys work, the assumption that states exist for benevolent purposes is prominent.   States are viewed as responsible for the protection of citizens (2002: 11-12).   Intervention can legitimately be aimed at ‘failed or profoundly unstable states (2002: 21), and has the goals of ‘ensuring political stability and enduring safety (2002: 30), liberal code for state-building.   It is not unusual in peacekeeping theory to find a distinction drawn between ordinary human rights (identified with concrete violations) and extraordinary human rights (identified with the collapse of legitimate state power), a binary which ethically voids the very concept of rights by identifying its actualisation with a particular social order.   In other varieties, one finds it in distinctions between truly shocking and merely wrong forms of violation, between ‘extremely barbarous and mundane abuses, or between law and order as a primary goal of intervention and human security as a secondary luxury (see Coady 2002: 16, 28, Tesà ³n 2001: 37, Walzer Just and Unjust Wars 108, Lund 2003: 28-9, 47-8, Paris 2004: 47-8).   This serves to put the denial of rights, or of the state, in the South (or rather, its crisis-points) in an incommensurable category distinct from human rights abuses in and by the North (and its Southern allies).   With human rights deemed impossible in a stateless society, rights-violation is excused as ‘law-creating violence, the creation of an order where rights become possible, but which does not require prefigurative recognition of rights in the present, a position not dissimilar to the telos of socialism in Stalinist ideology.   The declaration of justice and rights as the purpose of the state sits uncomfortably with the kind of state likely to result in practice from statebuilding in contexts such as Somalia.   Clearly, Tesà ³n has transmuted his normative position on what states should do into an essentialist position on what states are, which leaves him with a project of building a state per se, without regard for whether the project or the resultant state serves the ascribed goals.  Ã‚   In the meantime, the patently obvious existence of customary rights in societies such as Somalia is conveniently ignored.   Presumably, as rights of the ‘uncivilised, these rights do not count as fully ‘human.   In practice, the effects of such a statist frame are to disengage peacekeepers from populations they are supposed to be rescuing, constructing them as epistemologically-privileged bearers of a project of social reconstruction which is in the interests, regardless of the wishes, of the locals.   This framework produces a paradigmatically colonial arrogance.   Peacekeepers misperceived unfamiliar institutions as an absence of institutions, leading to racist effects.   Empirical scholars have approached Somalia with a frame distorted by such statism, as when Lyons and Samatar portray the country as a ‘Hobbesian world without law or institutions, divided between ‘the most vulnerable and ‘the most vicious (Lyons and Samatar 7; c.f. Makinda ****).   In practice, the Somali intervention was framed by Northern insecurities about ‘disorder in the context of global neoliberalism.   According to one cultural analyst, the intervention was an attempt to suture th e field of global disorder, acting out a predetermined script in an attempt to create an appearance of fixed order, namely, neoliberalism as the end of history (Debrix 97-9).   This suture is necessary because of the gap separating neoliberal ideology from the actuality of global disorder (107).   It was to fail because an excess of uncontrollable images arising from local difference began to disempower the global order (Debrix 126).   In Somalia, peacekeepers found themselves in a society with very different assumptions about state power. According to Menkhaus, ‘there is perhaps no other issue on which the worldviews of external and internal actors are more divergent than their radically different understanding of the state (Menkhaus State Collapse 409).   ‘For many Somalis, the state is an instrument of accumulation and domination, enriching and empowering those who control it and exploiting and harassing the rest of the population (Menkhaus Governance 87).  Ã‚   Hence, statebuilding was misconceived as necessary for peacebuilding in a setting where it was virtually impossible.   Menkhaus and Pendergast argue that the ‘radical localization of politics in Somalia is often misunderstood as disorder and crisis, when in fact it is part of the functioning of local social life.  Ã‚   ‘The challenge to the international community is to attempt to work with this â€Å"stateless† pol itical reality in Somalia rather than against it.   It is a myth to see the intervention as rebuilding a state, since an effective state has never existed in Somalia (Menkhaus State Collapse 412).   Somalia has historically been resistant to the implantation of the state-form, and previous colonial and neo-colonial states, arising mainly as channels for global patronage flows, were caught between the extractive and despotic use of concentrated power by the clan which dominated the state and moves to balance against this excessive power by other clans.   Even such an artificial state has been made impossible by changing conditions (Menkhaus and Pendergast 2-3).   Attempts to rebuild a centralised state have exacerbated conflict between clan militias, which compete for the ‘potential spoils of such a state (Menkhaus and Pendergast 13).   With the capital viewed as the site or ‘house of state power, the battle for the state encouraged clan conflicts for control of the capital (Jan 2001: 81; )    Where state-building has occurred in postwar Somalia, it has been similarly marked by strong extractive and divisive tendencies (Lewis 81-3).   Hence, to favour stateb uilding in Somalia is to contribute to exacerbating conflict by taking stances between diffuse forces which favour some and disempower others.   In seeking local collaborators in building the state, the UN ended up favouring some clan militias against others (Rutherford 16, 23, 40-1).   On the other hand, empirical evidence does not confirm the view that peace required a strong state.   Statelessness as such did not cause civil war or social problems.   Until the 1980s, Somalia was extremely safe, despite or because of its weak state; the source of security was communal, not juridical (Menkhaus State Collapse 412).   Similarly, Somalia rapidly returned to peace after the UN departure, with conflict infrequent between 1995 and 2006 (Menkhaus Governance 87-8).   In part, this was due to the declining local influence of warlords inside their own clans.   Ameen Jan analyses the post-UN scenario as a revival of processes frozen by the intervention, which were already moving national power towards clans and clan power towards civilians (2001: 53-5).   Another apparent anomaly is that the de facto independent northwestern region of Somaliland successfully constructed peace and local political institutions with meagre resources, at the same time that expensive U N peace conferences were failing (Lewis ix-x).   This process succeeded because it arose from the grassroots and started with reconciliation on issues of contention, many of which were social issues such as buying off militia members and resolving land disputes (Lewis 91, 94-5; Menkhaus, Governance 91).   Hence, the causes of the civil war in parts of Somalia were contingent products of circumstances which are unlikely to recur (Menkhaus and Pendergast 7, 15).   Having started from the wrong premises, it is no surprise that the wrong conclusions were reached.   Successful peacebuilding in Somalia would involve a transition from a violent diffuse acephalous society to a peaceful diffuse acephalous society, whereas the colonial assumptions of peacekeepers instead sought to override the entire structure of Somali society as a means to construct their preferred form of order.   In practice, this obsession with order and interpellation of otherness as disorder expresses itself in reliance on hard power.   The UN and US sought to rely on technical and military power as a substitute for engagement in the context (Debrix 115, Wheeler 2002: 181, 205).   This tends to reproduce the very context posited by the Northern discourse.   Pieterse has argued that the emphasis on hard power in interventions reinforces or even creates rigid ethnic categories and authoritarian institutions, hence creating the conditions for humanitarian crisis. The emphasis on hard power stemming from the problematic of sovereignty effectively rendered peacebuilding impossible.   While local clan reconciliation conferences were more effective in practice, the UN approach focused on militia leaders, a process which tended to entrench their power and disaggregate them from their support-base (Jan 2001: 63).   This misrepresented their power through the frame of sovereignty.   Clan militias, like Clastrean chiefs, did not hold stable power.   They were speculative and temporary, and subject to rapid decomposition (Lewis 80, Menkhaus and Pendergast 4-5).   Lewis views the Somali militias as clan militias involved mainly in territorial conflicts (Lewis 75).   Far from dominating the context, militias depended on soft power within clans to a great degree, and were unable even to implement accords among themselves due to their limited influence over their clans (Menkhaus and Pendergast 4-5).   Clastres theory of warfare in indigenous societies, the source of the Deleuzian theory of war-machines, emphasises the role of intergroup alliances and balancing as quasi-intentional means of warding off concentrated power and transcendentalism. Intergroup feuding expresses ‘the will of each community to assert its difference,‘[t]o assure the permanence of the dispersion, the parcelling, the atomization of the groups.   Such a situation of centrifugal forces is indeed typical of the kind of conflict settings which peacekeeping interventions target.   Somalis are predominantly nomads, and form the archetypal nomadic war-machines carrying out the diffusion of social power.   The frame applied from the North is, however, rather dangerous: the logic of the war-machine is misunderstood as a primal Hobbesian violence.   This sets peacekeepers up for colonial warfare.   The terminal crisis of the UN intervention arose from the redefinition of one of the two major allia nces of clan militias as an enemy.   Focused unduly on the person of General Aidid, the escalation arose following an attack on UN troops which was interpreted as a violation of transcendental sovereignty, an attack on protected bodies of exceptional value.   In the local frame, however, it was reconfigured as horizontal warfare rather than vertical enforcement, and the UN became seen as the ‘sixteenth Somali faction (Jan 2001: 72).   Hence, it seems that an incapacity to think outside a narrowly statist frame was the source both of a violently colonial intervention, and of the constitutive unrealisability of the goals of the intervention.   It would seem that statism and colonialism intersect, with certain Southern societies judged as inferior for their lack of state forms.   This expresses the promotion of the Northern state, in spite of its increasing authoritarianism and colonial legacy, as an unmarked term to which the world should aspire.   Although it is outside the scope of this paper, it is also apparent that Southern states are typically pathologised as the wrong ‘type of state too corrupt, too contaminated by the dirty world of social life, insufficiently able to mobilise uncontested concentrated power or authority.   It is possible that the club of ‘real democracies, or ‘successful states, is actually a repetition of Fanons club of the civilised, held up as a goal for those w ho are constitutively excluded from it.   3.   Victims The third set of assumptions of such theories are concentrated in the figure of the victim.   The victim is a contradictory figure, for, while she is the quasi-absolute ethical referent of peacekeeping theory, the figure on whose behalf other ethical principles may be suspended, whose call is the source of an imp

Coffee Essay -- Essays Papers

Coffee It is 9:00 A.M. on a Monday morning. By this time, many people are out and about, fully charged. I am still snug in bed, sleeping like a log. The alarm begins to beep. I press the snooze button. Nine minutes later, it beeps again. I press the snooze. One more time. Beep. Snooze. Finally, pressing the button has drained my energy and the next time it begins to beep, it goes on for a good five minutes. The incessant beeping pounds on my brain so I get up, unplug my alarm, crawl out of bed, and to my closet. Thus, the struggle through the day begins. Yet, this morning picture isn't the same picture of happiness and energy that I usually am at about 11:30 A.M. This drastic change is due to one word. This one word brings light to the eyes of non-morning people. This word means hope. This word is coffee. I've become addicted to the frothy warm drink. Five minutes late to class, I still have to stop by the cafeteria to fill up a 16 oz. Styrofoam cup. Without it, my day is incomplete. It gives me the energy I need to get through the day. It told me to try and climb that tree. It gave me my jump. It gives me the bright outlook that I have on life. It tells me that everything will be just fine, even if I haven't studied for that exam that I will be taking in the next hour. I would be a walking zombie without my French Vanilla cappuccino. I would be lying on a bench, asleep, without my French Vanilla cappuccino. It's my one true love. When I smell its sweet perfume, m...

Evaluation of The Psychoanalytic Approach Essay -- Papers Psychology F

Evaluation of The Psychoanalytic Approach Sigmund Freud the founder of psychoanalysis (1896-1939) worked on many ideas and cases that were to do with the mind and the body. Freud spent most of his life in Vienna where he expressed and distinguished the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression. Freud identified psychosexual stages, which are: - Oral stage – (approx 0-2 years) During the first year of life the libido is gratified through stimulation of the mucous membrane of the mouth (breast feeding, sucking behaviour). The child will enjoy sucking and biting. Freud suggested that if a child is weaned too early or too late they can have a fixation by using sucking sensations. Freud though did not give any indication when the correct time is to wean a child in order to overcome these fixations. He did though suggest that the fixations could be apparent in later life in the form of pen sucking or biting of the nail and smoking, as they are all types of oral stimulation/activities. Freud also said that too little stimulation in this early age could lead to the child in adult life having uncaring, self-centred attitude. And the other way with too much stimulation can lead to self controlled, gullible and unrealistic goals. These are both long lasting affects in later life if this stage is not correctly overcome. Anal stage – (approx 2-4 years) Pleasure is focused on the passing or excreaton of faces. On this stage Freud said that if parents were too pushy and strict with toilet training then the child may become anally retentive – resulting in excessive tiredness and cleanliness and very self contr... ...success, it has very much failed in the eyes of most of today's critics. Carl Jung (1875-1961) did not agree with Freud in the distinction between manifest and latent content as to Jung dreams had no deliberate disguised meaning but directly reflected the minds current state. A major difference therefore was that where Freud emphasised the dark and destructive nature of the unconscious Jung was influenced on the positive and constructive nature of these influences. Sigmund Freud has had a huge impact on psychoanalytic techniques and most of them are still used today i.e. dream analysis and the talking technique. Without Freud’s ideas and findings maybe the world of psychoanalysis would not be where it is today as many theorists have used Freud techniques’ as a base for their own modifications and contributions.

Automobile:from Horse To Horsepower :: essays research papers fc

"In the first hundred years of active life, it has been described as a menace ands a blessing, a blight and a godsend, as a savior of our countryside and cities, and as their curse, as socially divisive and the greatest social leveler. It has been worshipped and reviled, celebrated and scorned." The automobile is an invention that has had a tremendous impact on society. The automobile has taken diverse segments of the American population; farmers, small town residents and urban dwellers and given them access to the same opportunities and experiences. Autos have given us motels, shopping plazas, drive-thru’s, vacations, commuting, and, certainly not the least, suburbia. The genesis of the automobile is one of the most profound and important chapters in the development of American culture. Before the automobile, people traveled by means of bicycles, trains, street cars and horse-drawn carriages. These methods of transportation were slow, limited and not private. Up until the about 1880, inventors experimented with building a "horseless carriage." These experiments were powered mainly by steam, and were not practical. They traveled at slow speeds (six miles an hour), were very noisy, frightened horses, smelled awful and polluted the air. Sometimes the coals (used to make steam) would fall off the auto, and burn wooden bridges down. Railroads and stage coach lines hated the automobiles because they did not want competition. Autos were scarce and ridiculed by most of the population. "The car began life as a rich man’s toy, rather than a means of transport or as an instrument of social change." They were displayed in circuses because they were considered a wacky idea with no future. The development and acceptance of the automobile in America took place around the turn of the century, from 1895 to 1910. The most successful steam car was the Stanley Steamer, invented in Newton, Massachusetts in 1897 by Francis and Freelan Stanley. It was produced until 1924. The steam car did not fare well because it was not suited for long distance travel, was too hard to start and posed the hazard of an open fire. In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s the electric car was the most popular type of automobile. William Morrison was the creator of this type of car. People liked the electric car because it was easy to operate, ran quietly and did not give off fumes. Unfortunately for modern society, the electric cars could not go faster than 20 miles an hour, and the battery had to be recharged every fifty miles.

Encounters with peope of different cultures

Encounters with people of different cultures in their own countries or communities 2 3 4 5 Coping with the customs of host countries or communities, e. g. rules and courtesies that local people observe and may expect me to observe. Encountering the different customs of people from other cultures, e. g. dress, spec al occasions, etc. Adapting to the rhythm of life in other cultures, e. g. getting used to different meal times etc. Integrating with the customs or behaviour of host countries, e. g. eginning to use forms of greeting that is very different from my own. Encounters with different cultures in the host university Clarifying areas of uncertainty about university arrangements, e. g. describing what I am used to and asking what happens in the other culture. Adapting to other administrative and academic practices, e. g. using unfamiliar procedures to complete a work task. Coping with different formal ties, e. g. learning new ways of showing respect to senior colleagues from other cultures.Relating to fellow students from other cultures, e. g. learning what they like to talk about during breaks. Being aware of issues to be avoided with a different cultural group, e. g. learning what opics seem to be avoided and what the group's views are likely to be about a current political situation. Building bridges between colleagues ot my own culture and those ot a ditterent culture, e. g. sensing that someone of my culture has said the wrong thing and explaining the misunderstanding to both sides.Section 3 A continuing record of intercultural encounters In this section you can record many kinds of intercultural experiences and encounters that you feel have helped you develop your intercultural skills. In each record, describe what happened and how this enabled you to advance your nowledge and understanding of – or attitude to – intercultural ‘events' ( interactions with people from other cultures, etc). Date: 31109/2012 As soon I arrived at the rent ed place, I found out that my flatmates were both Spanish and I feared that I would be left apart due to my level of Spanish,.However, to my surprised they were both very welcoming and even try their best to understand my poor Spanish and were willing to show me around and give me very helpful tips in relation, to transportation, nightlife and food consumption. Place: Pozuelo de Alarcon The suggestions made by flatmates were quite helpful, on the next day I went to rder my student travel card wish made really easier to travel around Madrid. Their travel system is very similar London travel system which actually work base on the zones you have to move around. However, the store was closed from 12 to 14 0'clock as well as every store around.Such thing was very strange to me and as my flatmates explained it is common thing in Spain for stores to be close at such time due to their weather conditions is too hot work there for thy take a break. It is at that point were a have notice that weather conditions have a huge effect on Spain Culture. Place: Groningen University The team work experience with the guys, gave me the opportunity to improve my communication skills, because we could express one's need, wants and opinion without offending the sensitiveness of the other guys.In addition, I believe I strengthen my Teambuilding skills, as I was the person who motivated the others. The members recognised that, and I was the point of communication between the others. From this experience I realised how much I would like to work for the Human Resources, as I believe to be able to maintain group cooperation and support, and to keep a group updated how it is moving forward to the achievement of the goals. Date: 31/10/2012 On 31/10/12 1 had a presentation to be done together with 3 more students. It was me, a Spanish girl, a Romanian guy, and a Dutch guy.The Dutch guy most of the times we had meeting was quite rude with the other guys. He wanted the work to be done, and he was actually the first not to do it. The day of the presentation, I had a small argument with him. The presentation went well, we scored 7. 2. This guy, during the conversation with our coach said that he was the best and that the other guys, us, did not have the competencies to do the presentation. Place: At first, I got really upset and offended, as he should not dear to say these bad things to his team member.Secondly, I believe he should have told us in a private conversation, as all of us were really embarrassed, and we all thought that what he was saying was not actually true. Finally, I spoke with him and he apologised about what happened with the guys and l. I hope he understood that he should not criticise others, when he is the first person who makes mistakes. Date: 03/11/2012 In these days I was reflecting how the Dutch academic semester works so differently trom the English semester. Here, every semester is made trom two periods.In each period there are at least three mo dules to study, therefore exams, reports, group works and presentations to do. At my university, we only have four modules for semester, whilst here there are at least six for each semester. I could see how I improved time management planning and organizational skills. Place: Groningen My skills improved because the amount of work to do was higher than my expectations. In fact, I had to develop goals for my personal achievements, and identify tasks to be accomplished. In addition, I learnt how prioritise tasks and take esponsibilities for the decisions I made.Based on the above please prepare a SWOT analysis of the stage that you believe are at in terms of cross cultural competence; (i. e. strengths and weaknesses) and where you would like to get to by January. What are the opportunities for enhancing your competence and what are the threats which may thwart your endeavours if left untackled? Studying the first semester of the second year in ESIC located in Madrid, Spain enables me to break down barriers as well as communicate and interact with people from different cultures in ways beyond no lecture room or university hall can.