Service Encounter Journal Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Service Encounter Journal - Assignment Example The service is easily accessible and the customer chooses on the basis of his requirements but the stock is limited at times and one has to choose from the products available. Moreover the shipping costs are high. My reaction was normal. I needed the bed and I got one but the bidding procedure irritated me. I was somewhat satisfied but was worried of the extra shipping cost I had to incur. However the exchange terms were good. I am undecided about my return decision as it depends upon the urgency of my requirement. If I felt to buy something without taking the trouble of going to a shop, I may search the product at ebay. However, my decision to buy may involve the cost at home and the cost at any retail shop. The more preferable would be the one that offers less cost with more attractive replacement package. My encounter with Adobe Inc. was an above average contact service. I had to go through some pdf files while my adobe reader got corrupted. I instantly typed the web site and searched for the required software. I got it instantly and free of cost. I felt glad and overwhelmed by the fact that if I encounter any problem with adobe I can have the solution instantly. The website offers superior customer service by segregating different types of customers and providing relevant software. My satisfaction resulted due to the fact the most commonly needed software like adobe reader are provided without any cost. It’s a fact that no operating system can operate fully without adobe softwares. Whether it is Photoshop, flash work or pdf files, we need the product but the most overwhelming feeling results due to the fact that all of them are so easily accessible and the most common are offered free of cost. So there is no question of not visiting the site when one needs any of its software. I think it’s the first choice and most probably the last too. My encounter to Valvoline was a below average contact service. Whenever

A) To what extent can it be argued that a Seperation of Powers exists Essay

A) To what extent can it be argued that a Seperation of Powers exists within the British Political system B)What are the arguments for and against Britian ado - Essay Example The latter privilege allows it to acquire and dispose of land, etc., the way ordinary individuals can. In contrast to this, the powers of local authorities are very much subject to statutes and regulations. In this sense, the executive powers of the local government is limited and constrained when compared with the powers of the Crown. â€Å"The power to order and reorganize the civil service derives either from the royal prerogative or the normal powers of a body recognized by law to enter into employment relations. It is detailed by Orders in Council, but these leave much leeway to ministers. It is this `flexible friend that has been used to establish Executive Agencies in the civil service and various other innovations over the years. All of this without the need for recourse to Parliament or law.† (Oliver 1994, p.641) The executive powers of the ministers, though loosely regulated, nevertheless provide them with â€Å"powers to make contracts for the supply of goods and services to departments and the public† (Shell 1994, p.301). The last fifty years had seen moves to implement more statutory controls over the executive branch. This is because the older methods of control were inappropriate and irrelevant to the modern times. Some examples include, reduction of powers of local authorities in favor of school governors and teachers; enhancement of responsibilities of hospital managers and general practitioners within the framework of the National Health Service. Both these cases suggest a move toward decentralization of executive powers. (Oliver 1994, p.639) The independence of the judicial power was solidly established in England by the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. Ever since, one of the implicit conditions of this outcome was that the judges should take care not to encroach on the legitimate spheres of discretion of the sovereign political authorities, Crown and Parliament. The legal control of the government is aided by the Supreme Court Act,

How great websites help improve your business Essay Example for Free

How great websites help improve your business Essay Mission Statement Our diversity mission is to foster a culture that integrates diversity and inclusion into all aspects of the business in order to further fulfill dreams through the experiences of motorcycling.   Vision Statement Harley-Davidson values, embraces and celebrates diversity in order to develop and continuously improve mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders to fulfill dreams and provide extraordinary customer experiences in an increasingly dynamic, diverse and global market.   Objectives   Create a viable brand that would effectively compete within the Non-Menthol, Lo-Fi category. Attract more young adult (25-49) male smokers into the Lorillard family.   Develop a highly targeted â€Å"Niche Brand’ that would generate modest share goals.   Build strong brand awareness and imaginary.   Gain trial and repeat purchase. Create consumer confidence.   Strategies MARKET PENETRATION Get some more market share from the existing market, like U. S, U. K, and Japan etc through more marketing techniques like advertising. Harley-Davidson has a good brand name so it’s easy for them to eat up the competitor market share if they can provide some more customer benefit. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Younger generation and female are now coming to this segment so expand the motor cycle segments to younger generation and females.   MARKET DEVELOPMENT Harley-Davidson can bring in their vehicle to Asian countries like India and China, because these countries have a high population and the market potential is also high.   DIVERSIFICATION Bring new bikes to attract customer and market.   INVESTING IN THE BRAND The Company is reinforcing its support of the Harley-Davidson brand, accelerating its ongoing marketing efforts to reach out to emerging rider groups, including younger and diverse riders. In addition, the Company will continue to focus on product innovations targeted at specific growth opportunities with its strong core customer base and new riders.   ADJUSTING THE COST STRUCTURE Consolidate its two engine and transmission plants in the Milwaukee area into its facility in Menomonee Falls, Wis.   OBTAINING ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR HDFS The Company said it is evaluating a range of options to provide the necessary liquidity for the wholesale and retail lending activities of Harley-Davidson Financial Services (HDFS) Recommended Mission To be branded as the best motorcycle available in the world. Recommended Vision The best quality motorcycle, motorcycle products and financial services will be provided worldwide is the commitment of Harley-Davidson. Customer satisfaction is our motto and the Harley-Davidson customers can experience the taste of reality of motorcycle dreams by relaying their satisfaction on us. Harley- Davidson is dedicated to use the advanced technology to produce the most superior motorcycle in domestic and international markets. Stay competitive and continue growth worldwide remain profitable and survive is our philosophy. Employees of Harley-Davidson are the foundation of the company and they are the driving force behind the Harley-Davidson name. The total team effort of Harley-Davidson employees is devoted to fulfilling dreams of customers and we believe that there is not a motorcycle riding experience like a Harley-Davidson’s. Excellence is our push though our Harley-Davidson bar and shield logo that says superior quality. Honesty and customer loyalty and these morals are the heartbeat of Harley-Davidson organization. Harley-Davidson do our part in supporting all environmental laws in every country we do business. Determination and commitment is the place where Harley-Davidson intends to stay.   External Opportunities The European demand for Harley Davidson is the highest in the international market and represents the single largest motorcycle market in the world Women and younger riders are increasing becoming interested in bikes   The international heavy weight market is growing and is now larger than the U. S. heavyweight market Market share increasing in Europe and Asia for the last two years   Increasing demand in US markets for bike. Buell division needs to continue to produce a quality motorcycle under Harley’s brand name.   Competitive Profile Matrix: Critical success factor| Harley- Davidson| Honda| | Weight| Rating| Score| Weight| Rating| Score| Advertising| 0. 10| 4| 0. 40| 0. 10| 3| 0. 30| Product Quality| 0. 15| 4| 0. 60| 0. 15| 3| 0. 45| Price Competitiveness| 0. 20| 1| 0. 20| 0. 20| 3| 0. 60| Management| 0. 10| 3| 0. 30| 0. 10| 4| 0. 40| Financial Position| 0. 15| 2| 0. 30| 0. 10| 4| 0. 40| Customer Loyalty| 0. 15| 4| 0. 60| 0. 15| 2| 0. 30| Global Expansion| 0. 05| 3| 0. 15| 0. 05| 4| 0. 20| Market Share| 0. 15| 2| 0. 30| 0. 15| 3| 0. 45| Total| 1| | 2. 85| 1| | 3. 10|   External Factor Evaluation Matrix Key External Factors| Weight| Rating| Score| OPPORTUNITIES| | | | The European demand for Harley Davidson is the highest in the international market and represents the single largest motorcycle market in the world| 0. 15 | 4| 0. 60| The international heavy weight market is growing and is now larger than the U. S. heavyweight market| 0. 15 | 4| 0. 60| Women and younger riders are increasing becoming interested in bikes| 0. 10 | 3| 0. 30| Market share increasing in Europe and Asia for the last two years| 0. 05 | 2| 0. 10| Increasing demand in US markets for bikes| 0. 05 | 2| 0. 10| Customers value quality parts| 0. 02 5| 1| 0. 025| THREATS| | | | Harleys ongoing capacity restraints caused a shortage supply and a loss in domestic market share in recent years| 0. 15 | 4| 0. 60| Harleys average buying age is 42 years old and increasing| 0. 05| 2| 0. 10| The European Union’s motorcycles noise standards are more stringent than those of Environmental Protection Agencies in theU. S and increased environmental stand| 0. 05 | 2| 0. 10| Some competitors of Harley Davidson have larger financial andmarketing resources and they are more diversified| 0. 05 | 2| 0. 10| Environmental protection laws| 0. 15| 4| 0. 60| Buell division needs to continue to produce a quality motorcycleunder Harley’s brand name| 0. 025| 1| 0. 025| Total | 1| | 3. 25|   Internal Strength   The standard and performance segments of Harley Davidson make up 70% of the European heavy weight motorcycle market. Harley-Davidson operates in two segments: Harley-Davidson motorcycles related products and HDFS (Harley-Davidson Financial Services).   Harley-Davidson is the only major American heavyweight motorcycle manufacturer.   Strong brand name.   The HOG (Harley Owners Group), which have a 7, 50,000 members worldwide is the industry’s largest company sponsored motorcycle enthusiast organization.   Buell Riders Adventure Group (BRAG) was also formed recent Customization of the bikes, this is Harley-Davidson’s major revenue maker. Harley-Davidson has a good marketing division and it’s divided as dealer promotions, customer events, magazine and direct-mail advertising, and public relations.   Internal Weakness   High price Harley-Davidson has problems in gaining more market share in some European countries (That’s one of the main markets for Heavyweight motorcycles outside U. S).   They didn’t yet start its sales in India, one of the biggest markets. Required production is not met, analyzing the future of Heavyweight motorcycle market.   Recommended specific Strategies and Implementations. MARKET PENETRATION   Get some more market share from the existing market, like U. S, U. K, and Japan etc through more marketing techniques like advertising. Harley-Davidson has a good brand name so it’s easy for them to eat up the competitor market share if they can provide some more customer benefit.   Competition is high in this segment mostly in U. S so market penetration can be a good choice for the company.   Expand the HOG (Harley Owners Group) to Asian countries, if the company can provide the customer satisfaction that they are providing to the U.S customers to the Asian customers they can increase the sales. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Younger generation and female are now coming to this segment so expand the motor cycle segments to younger generation and females.   In Europe they can increase or expand the Buell’s market share by introducing new motorcycles.   MARKET DEVELOPMENT   Harley-Davidson can bring in their vehicle to Asian countries like India and China, because these countries have a high population and the market potential is also high. The cost to bring in the old vehicles (old product) to India is so much difficult because there are so much environmental laws are there which won’t allow that type of vehicles to come to India, and its difficult that taxes and levis are high in India so starting new plant in India can solve this problem. Negotiations with the Government can solve these problems.   DIVERSIFICATION   Bring in new vehicles to new markets like India and china is a good choice, but it’s too costly.   Bringing new types of recreational vehicles is a best choice.   Recommended Long-Term Objectives. Establish Harley-Davidson as a recognized leader in the development and participation of its people, to maximize each employees potential.   Grow and maintain demand by providing exceptional product styling, performance, quality, reliability and customer service at prices our customers can afford.   Meet the demand by expanding our existing distribution and manufacturing capacity, and, where necessary, adding new production and retail distribution points.   Improve information services capabilities to enable all stakeholders to easily do business with Harley-Davidson, through the creative integration of information technologies. Drive financial results to the levels achieved by acknowledged high-performing companies.   Recommended Procedure for Strategy Review and Evaluation   Review underlying bases of strategy   Once again prepare all the internal and external analysis.   Compare the already prepared analysis with the one which will be prepared after the new strategy implementation. Measuring organization preferences   Analyze all financial ratios current and the future.   If any advantage, then implement the new strategy, otherwise continue with the present one.

Price Elasticity of Demand and Monopolistic Competition

Price Elasticity of Demand and Monopolistic Competition The Price Elasticity of demand is inversely related to excess capacity in the monopolistic competitive market – Discuss Before we even dwell and discuss on the abovementioned topic, it would vital for us to understand and define what Price Elasticity of Demand, Excess Capacity and Monopolistic Competitive Market are all about from the economic perspective. By understanding the aforementioned than only we would be able to discuss and deliberate the abovementioned topic in detail. Elasticity From the economics perspective based on journal and article in Wikipedia, elasticity can be defined as the measurement of how receptive or responsive an economic variable is, to a change of the other. For example: If we lower or reduce the price of our product, how much more will it be sold? If we raise or increase the price of one product, how will that affect sales of the other product? If we learn that a resource is becoming infrequent or limited, will people rush to acquire it? We can further elaborate that an elastic variable (or elasticity value greater than 1) is one which responds more than proportionately to changes in other variables. On the other hand, an inelastic variable (or elasticity value less than 1) is one which changes less than proportionately in response to changes in other variables. Elasticity can be measured as the ratio of the percentage change in one variable to the percentage change in another variable, when the latter variable has a fundamental influence on the former. It is a tool for measuring the responsiveness of a variable, or of the function that determines it, to changes in contributory variables. Frequently used elasticities include price elasticity of demand, price elasticity of supply, income elasticity of demand, elasticity of substitution between factors of production and elasticity of substitution. Elasticity is one of the most vital concepts in a traditional economic theory. It is valuable in understanding the rate of indirect taxation, marginal concepts as they relate to the company, and distribution of wealth and different types of goods as they relate to the theory of consumer choice. Elasticity is also crucially imperative in any discussion of welfare distribution, in particular consumer surplus, producer surplus, or government surplus. In a pragmatic work environment, an elasticity is the estimated coefficient in a linear regression equation where both the dependent variable and the independent variable are in natural logs. Elasticity is a common tool amongst observers because it is independent of units and thus simplifies data analysis. Price Elasticity of Demand On the other hand, according to Alfred Marshall, Price elasticity of demand (PED or Ed) is a measurement used in economics to illustrate the responsiveness or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price. More accurately, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price (ceteris paribus, i.e. holding constant all the other determinants of demand, such as income). Price elasticities are almost always negative, although analysts tend to ignore the sign even though this can lead to uncertainty. Only goods which do not conform to the law of demand, have a positive PED. Generally, the demand for a good is said to be inelastic (or relatively inelastic) when the PED is less than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively small effect on the quantity of the good demanded. The demand for a good is said to be elastic (or relatively elastic) when its PED is greater than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively large effect on the quantity of a good demanded. Revenue is maximized when price is determined so that the PED is exactly one. The PED of a good can also be used to predict the rate of a tax on that good. Various research approaches are used to determine price elasticity, including test markets, analysis of historical sales data and conjoint analysis. Nevertheless, according to Professor Dominick Salvatore in its book, Managerial Economics – Principle and Worldwide Application, mentioned that â€Å"Sometimes, lowering the price of the commodity or products increases sales sufficiently to increase total revenues. At other times, lowering the commodity or products prices reduces the firm’s total revenues†. Thus, lowering the price of a particular products will not necessarily increase the total profitability of a company. This is due to the fact that it also have an impact on the production cost. Therefore, we can also say that the higher the price elasticity, the more sensitive consumers are to price changes. A very high price elasticity indicates that when the price of a good increase, consumers will buy less of the items and when the price of that good falls, consumers will buy more. A very low price elasticity suggests the opposite, that changes in price have slight influence on demand. As such, it is imperative for a company to really understand the economics and the concept of PED before any decision is made for a price review or for a pricing strategy. Excess Capacity Meanwhile, Excess Capacity, based on our reading, as defined in Wikipedia is a situation in which actual production is less than what is achievable or optimal for a company. This often means that the demand in the market for the product is below what the firm could potentially supply to the market. The amount of excess capacity within an industry is a signal of both the performance of that industry and the demand for the products it produces. Excess capacity is also seen as a good thing for consumers, as it is not likely to lead to the price inflation that would be seen in periods of near-full capacity. A company with sizable excess capacity can often lose a considerable amount of money if it is not able to meet the high fixed costs that are associated with producers. In other words, it could also be the case that in the long run, the production is operating not at the lowest of its long run average cost curve. Instead, it is operating on a gauge that is smaller and less efficient which the company has, in fact, a capacity to produce more at a lower average cost. , each firm is serving a market that is too small, and there are too many firms, so that the product group as a whole has the capacity to serve more customers than there are. Excess capacity exists when marginal cost is less than average cost and it is still possible to decrease average (unit) cost by producing more goods and services. Excess capacity may be measured as the increase in the current level of output that is required to reduce unit costs of production to a minimum. Excess capacity may also arise because as demand increases, firms have to invest and expand capacity in uneven or inseparable portions. Company may also choose to maintain excess capacity as a part of a deliberate strategy to deter or prevent entry of new firms. Monopolistic Competitive Market Monopolistic competition from economic perspective is a category of imperfect competition such that many producers sell products that are different from one another as goods but not perfect substitutes (such as from branding, quality, or price). In monopolistic competition, a firm takes the prices charged by its competitors as given and ignores the impact of its own prices on the prices of other company. In the presence of strong government, monopolistic competition will fall into government-granted monopoly. Unlike perfect competition, the firm maintains spare capacity. Models of monopolistic competition are often used to model industries. Examples of industries with market structures similar to monopolistic competition include restaurants, cereal, clothing, shoes, and service industries in large cities. The founding father of the theory of monopolistic competition is Edward Hastings Chamberlin, who wrote a pioneering book on the subject, Theory of Monopolistic Competition. Joan Rob inson published a book The Economics of Imperfect Competition with a comparable theme of distinguishing perfect from imperfect competition. The characteristic of a monopolistic competitive markets are as follow: There are many producers and many consumers in the market, and no business has total control over the market price. Consumers perceive that there are non-price differences among the competitors products. There are few barriers to entry and exit. Producers have a degree of control over price. In the long-run characteristics of a monopolistically competitive market are almost the same as a perfectly competitive market. Two differences between the two are that monopolistic competition produces diverse products and that monopolistic competition involves a great deal of non-price competition, which is based on subtle product differentiation. A firm making profits in the short run will nonetheless only break even in the long run because demand will decrease and average total cost will increase. This means in the long run, a monopolistically competitive firm will make zero economic profit. This illustrates the amount of influence the firm has over the market; because of brand loyalty, it can raise its prices without losing all of its customers. This means that an individual firms demand curve is downward sloping, in contrast to perfect competition, which has a perfectly elastic demand schedule. Differences between Perfect and Monopolistic Competition To show that the PED is inversely related to excess capacity in the monopolistic competitive market, in this discussion, we will be comparing mostly between perfect competitive market and monopolistic competitive market which is also an imperfect market. There are two main differences between perfect competition and monopolistic competition. First is excess capacity; in perfect competition, firms usually will produce a product up to the maximum capacity of its production to get the lowest average total cost, ATC. Meanwhile in monopolistic competition, the firms will have an excess capacity if they produce less than the quantity at which average total cost is at minimum; which if they lower the price, they could sell more but they might producing at a point where their cost will exceed their revenue. The second differences are mark-up. In perfect competition, P=MC, but in monopolistic competition, P > MC because of its marked up. The marked up is because of the price discrimination which use by the firms in monopolistic market. Price and Output in Monopolistic Competition First of all, let us look at the factors affecting the PED. As we can see, in monopolistic competition market, there are high numbers of substitutes available for the products that produce by the firms. This is because each of the firms produce similar product but not identical. Because of this, the market has a greater PED. Any changes in price will make a possibility of consumer to change their demand for other substitute products. This is why, monopolistic market are also called price searcher market, as they are actually looking for the best price for their product. Since the firms produce similar product, they cannot fight their price using the ATC, where they cannot produce more than they can sell. They can only produce the quantity at which the marginal revenue is equal to the marginal cost. Can we say that monopolistic competition is inefficient? Yes, because in monopolistic competition P > MC, marginal benefits is larger than marginal cost. In order to reach the highest possible profit, firms competing in three important area of product differentiation, which is the quality, price and marketing. The quality of the product is just not only about the reliability of the product, but also about the design and the services, more on the after sales services. Using this quality aspect, firms can do the price discrimination, which differentiated their product with other product. However there is a trade off between prices and quality. The lower the price, the lower the product quality can be. As to further increase the sales, firms have to do a good product packaging and advertising. Since consumer value a variety, and variety is a cost, it is reasonable for the firms to price discriminate other products. However in monopolistic market, since no barrier to entry and exit from the market, firms have to be careful not to gain high profit in the long run as it can attract new competitors into the market. Product Development and Marketing Since monopolistic firms need to maintain their economic profit, in the condition of high ATC, there are needs to keep and sustain a continuous product development. In the market where the competitors are always looking for new innovation, new technology and attractable product, they need to be in line with the up to date trend of consumers. New product development would allow a firm to gain a competitive advantage, even sometimes temporarily before competitors imitate the innovation. Looking at the scenario where competitors usually keep imitate the new innovation produce, it might cross our mind why firms need to be the innovation leaders since after that the competitors will had it imitate. The innovation cost are high compare to imitate cost, but the benefit as innovation leaders have a value to consumer and also would increases total revenue. Firms usually will pursue product development until their marginal revenue from innovation equals to the marginal cost of innovation. As a human, consumer have a natural willing feeling to pay higher for the products that have a high value to them, even sometimes the price is ridiculous. The marginal social benefit of an innovation is the increase of price to the product and also a marginal social cost to the firms for the cost of innovation. Basically, the profit is maximized when MR=MC, but in monopolistic competition P>MR. Because of that, amount of innovation is less than efficient. Compare to the perfect competition market, monopolistic market have a higher selling cost since they need to spend a lot on promoting the uniqueness of their product compare to other substitutes product. The increase in selling cost will increase ATC at any level of output, but would not affect the MC of production. If their effort in promotion and advertising increases the demand of the product, then they are considered success. This is the cost that the monopolistic firms have to pay, to reduce their excess capacity, by increasing the demand of the products. But advertising is not only use to promote the variety and the uniqueness of the product, but also sometimes use to remind the market of their high quality product. Conclusion From the comparison that we highlight between perfect competition market and monopolistic competitive market, we can see the relation between the increasing of selling cost, increase of demand and reduced in excess capacity. When the firm concentrate in having a continuous product development with greater advertising and promotion effort, they can increase the demand of the product which in turn inversely reduce the excess capacity of the firms.

A Brief Overview of Feminism Essay example -- essays papers

A Brief Overview of Feminism Feminism can be roughly described as a movement that seeks to enhance the quality of women’s lives by impacting the norms and moves of a society based on male dominance and subsequent female subordination. Although feminist literary writings began to gain popularity in the 20th century, feminist characters have been around for ages. â€Å"Feminist criticism’s self transformations over the past several decades as it engages with both critiques from within and encounters from without- encounters with psychoanalysis, Marxism, Post-Structuralisms, ethnic studies, post-colonial theory, and lesbian and gay studies- have produced a complex proliferation of work not easily subsumed to a single description. (Rivkin 527)†. According to Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan in their essay â€Å"Feminist Paradigms†, feminist criticism includes several other ideas. Gayle Rubin, author of â€Å"The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sexà ¢â‚¬ , also adds: The literature on women- both feminist and anti-feminist- is a long rumination on the question of the nature and genesis of women’s oppression and social subordination.† Some of the earlier feminist characters include Kate, from The Taming of the Shrew and The Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales. Unfortunately, during their times these women were viewed as either crazy or troublesome. There was little respect for their opinions and ideas. Trailblazers such as Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and Geo...

War Poems: Totoy’s War, State of Siege, and War is Kind Essay -- Totoy

â€Å"Totoy’s War† by Luz Maranan, â€Å"State of Siege† by Eric Gumalinda, and â€Å"War is Kind† by Stephen Crane Throughout our history, both recorded and unrecorded, there have been countless violent battles fought. From small skirmishes to full on declarations of war, humans have been involved with battling on another for all the reasons that they have. The only thing alarming is that, as time and technology progresses, the number of casualties and collateral damage have been increasing as well. In addition, the implications to the human mind, brought upon by the excessive violence, can be equally damaging. With that being said, the psychological implications brought upon by war can be reflected in several art forms, such as poetry. War poems usually deals with how the persona of a particular poem, reacts to life altering events such as war. â€Å"Totoy’s War† by Luz Maranan, â€Å"State of Siege† by Eric Gumalinda, and â€Å"War is Kind† by Stephen Crane are just three examples of the many war poems that exist. Each of the poems conveys different messages, as well as utilizing different methods to convey the said message, despite having one common theme. The Fear of the Children â€Å"Totoy’s War† by Luz Maranan is easier to read poem, as compared to the other two poems mentioned. The poem is about the fear that people have during war times and how it affects various people, of all ages. The poem itself has no subliminal message that it wants to portray to its readers and is very direct with the matter of war – no use of metaphors, ironies, or difficult figurative language, whatsoever. The dramatic situation in the poem is that a child, Totoy, came to the persona asking â€Å"Is there a war?† (Maranan 2) with fear in his eyes. The persona then goes into c... ..., as well as the readers. Stephen Crane’s poem in contrast, uses irony to try and convey the message about the ugliness war brings. Eric Gumalinda’ poem on the other hand, is the one that is sort of off-tangent to the two. This poem in particular, shows the readers a glimpse of what is happening on a damaged person’s mind. It shows the readers a first-hand view on what people during war times could do, and all their intentions. Works Cited Crane, Stephen. "War Is Kind by Stephen Crane." About.com Poetry. About.com, n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2015. . Gumalinda, Eric. Lyrics from a Dead Language poems 1977-1991. Manila: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1991. Print. Santiago, Lillia. In the Name of the Mother: 100 Years of Philippine Feminist Poetry (1898-1989). Manila: University of the Philippines Press , 2002. Print.

Beginnings

All great things In life start with an even greater beginning. When I was 12 years old I Joined my first competitive swim team; I swam for the downtown Suffolk YMCA. At first I only swam because of all of my friends that swam and I wanted to spend more time with them, but then realized how much more potential I had In swimming. After that moment I started to become more and more dedicated to swimming. I began to realize the true competitive nature of swimming and I liked it. Swimming has become a big part of my life since then and the beginning is the most important part to all good decisions.I first started swimming to be with friends and to make new friends. After we were on the same team we started to challenge each other and race one another to see who was the fastest. That's how I began to see the competitive nature of swimming. Nick Burton and Joey Kauffman are two guys I started racing me near the beginning of my swimming career and I still race them now to get better. My fami ly always supported me when I went to my meets. My brother would be swimming In the same meet, he could be In the next event, but he always took time to cheer for me; Then, I started to do the same for him.My mom Is the only reason could even do swimming, without her I would never have had a ride to any practices. Karen Keenan was my first coach on ODDS; she is the reason I am where I am at today. The first team I ever joined the YMCA cancelled the entire swimming team program. I had a choice put in front of me: stop sports all together, Join ODDS, or find another mediocre swim team. I chose to Join ODDS; ODDS stands for Old Dominion Aquatic Club. Once I joined ODDS I began to practice more and more. I spent more and more and more energy on practices and I could feel myself getting better, so it was equivalent to a new beginning in my eyes.I was more prepared to race on a higher level and I wanted to. After I got my first tastes of true competition, all I wanted was more of It. I be gan to practice harder than I ever had before In order to get to the next level. The next level for me was to get 3 state championship time standards and make It to the high performance group. Once I made t there I did not stop I still wanted to get better and try my hardest; there is always a higher goal. My next goal was to make national standards; I did not stop there, my new goal is to make the US Open and race against the top athletes in this country.In Conclusion, Swimming is one of my greatest achievements; I only made it this far because of how I began in swimming. Beginnings are one of the most important parts of beginning something new, along with Influential people, A lot of dedication, and a strive to do more than you ever have before. Those key factors are the reasons some people get so good at what they do. Just always remember, Beginnings are Important. Beginnings By loggias All great things in life start with an even greater beginning. When I was 12 years more time w ith them, but then realized how much more potential I had in swimming. Supported me when I went to my meets.My brother would be swimming in the same meet, he could be in the next event, but he always took time to cheer for me; Then, I started to do the same for him. My mom is the only reason I could even do swimming, The first team I ever Joined the YMCA cancelled the entire swimming team Aquatic Club. Once I Joined ODDS I began to practice more and more. I spent more After I got my first tastes of true competition, all I wanted was more of it. I began to practice harder than I ever had before in order to get to the next level. The next level for me was to get 3 state championship time standards and make it to the high important.