Descriptive Essay Example for Free

Descriptive Essay What do I do with my leisure time? Well that’s a funny question, because I don’t have much of it. When I get some extra time I enjoy flying with my good friend Sam. Since Sam is teaching me how to fly, I’ll be able to share all the wonderful and majestic views with you. There’s nothing like a little adrenaline rush at the end of the day. Before we get in the plane, we walk around it, check the oil, the tire pressure and climb up on the wing and open the gas cap on both wings to make sure there is enough fuel. We check the gauges to make sure they work; they always do but that’s all part of inspecting the plane. Once we are done with our preflight inspections we untie the plane and remove the chucks from under the tires. Then we get into the small cockpit. Then we adjust our green leather seats to the proper place, where the seat is comfortable for each one of us; since we do want to be comfortable when flying. The first thing that we do is grab the yoke(the steering wheel) and turn it left and right, and forward and back, to make sure the flight controls are free and correct. When all of that is complete we are ready to turn on the power. Sam turns on the master switch and all the electronics and avionics come on with a beeping or ringing noise. The dashboard looks like a Christmas tree all lit up. Next the key goes in the ignition. That’s when I have to turn the key past the right and left magneto position to start the propeller. Then the propeller goes around a couple of times, which sounds like an oversized fan being turned on, and the plane has been started. He then adjusts his gauges and we put on our head phones. As I put on my headphones I can hear other people talking on the radio. We then tune into the common traffic advisory frequency and we taxi for take-off. In order to take off properly, you have to take off into the wind; so we watch the flag to see which way the wind is blowing. That helps you to determine which runway to use and the direction we will be heading. Then we head to the runway for take-off. Once we are lined up with the proper runway he gives me the nod to let me know we are getting ready for take-off. I let him know that we are ready to go by giving him thumbs up for good luck and a great big cheesy smile. Then he gives the plane full throttle; that’s when the sound of the plane is at full blast. That’s when the fun starts. When our airspeed is around sixty MPH he pulls back on the yoke and we start to leave the smooth landing strip starting towards our beautiful destination. We usually climb out around 400 feet per minute; passing all the beautiful tree tops. On a clear day in about five minutes if we take off from Millville airport, we can see all the wonderful Atlantic City lights in one direction. We’ll also be able to see Philadelphia and Delaware too. When it’s a clear day, preferably almost time for sunset, we usually like to fly over the water. We always get the best views in the world that way of the sunset. Usually that day I’ll bring my camera so I can get some outstanding pictures; I could probably sell those pictures. The unbelievable colors from the water and the sun, it’s just priceless. When it’s a cloudy day we will try to fly up to the clouds and find an opening to fly above the clouds. That’s when the altimeter reads 5000 feet, that’s when I know we reached the place I enjoy the most. You just can’t imagine the beauty in the clouds until you’ve experienced it yourself. No words really can describe the views. That’s my favorite part, not that I don’t enjoy the whole ride, but it is absolutely the most majestic place in the sky, towering clouds everywhere. It’s almost like looking at snowy mountains. He will usually get on the radar at this point since we can’t really see anything around us but clouds. This way we can keep track of every other plane around us. Meanwhile, we are all telling each other over the radio how wonderful the views are. As we continue to take in our unbelievable views we notice it’s starting to get late and we are in need to get fuel also. As we come to the end of our plane ride, we start to head back. On our way back down from the majestic clouds we happen to have a few geese flying parallel with us. They were soaring thru the clouds and all around us. We call into the traffic advisory to make sure the runway is clear for our landing. They let us know we are all clear to make a landing. Then we circle the airport, so we can line up with the runway and get ready for our landing. We then start to descend from our majestic trip up to the clouds; we are coming in fast. We start to see the beautiful tree tops again. We hit the landing strip, it’s a little on the bumpy side, then it starts to smooth out. Then we start to slow down and come to a crawl. We then drive the plane slowly to our parking spot where we park the plane. Then we begin to shut the plane down. We turn the propellers off and all the electronics and avionics off. We then adjust our seats and get out of the plane. Now is the hard part of the whole day. We both have to push the plane back into its parking spot. Then we tie down the plane and put chucks under the wheels. We do this, so if a gust of wind comes through it doesn’t blow the plane away; since that does happen. I would have to say flying is best for leisure time, since this is what I enjoy doing the most when it comes to having leisure time. When it comes to leisure, you are supposed to do something you enjoy doing. That’s why I fly for leisure, since it’s a big adrenaline rush for me but it also is very relaxing for me at the same time. So if you ever want to take a ride with Sam and I just let me know and you’ll get to see all the wonderful things we have seen and some.

Essay About Family: Staying Afloat :: Personal Narrative essay about my family

Staying Afloat My family is having major issues. Mom is not getting beaten and we aren't starving to death, but I can definitely tell that things are escalating. I'm not even sure what the problem is. All four of us used to sit down to dinner, telling about the day's events and being friendly. I can't remember the last time that Dad and I went fishing or our family went on vacation. Now we are all so far apart that we don't know anything about one another. Our situation now is a stop at the fridge for the twice-reheated meal that used to be dinner. With Mom working a fourteen-hour day at Cypress Park Elementary, Dad's business speeding up and slowing down with no warning, and Jeff and I now in high school and participating in extracurricular activities after school, it's not surprising that we are falling apart. * * * It seems we have a solution to the decline in family togetherness. Mom, being a principal has always had a huge heart for her students. Apparently one in particular has caught her eye and shoved her into action. A little girl named Lindsey attending Mom's school is going to be coming to live with us. I don't know the whole story on her but apparently her mom died when she was real young and after bouncing in and out of several foster homes, as well as the courts with her dad she is in need of another family. I've met her before, visiting Mom at her hellhole of a school. Lindsey is in the after school program along with all of the other poor, filthy, and pathetic looking kids you wish you could take home. For me, its almost unbearable visiting Mom's school. I always feel guilty, like my life is too easy compared to what these kids deal with; alcohol, drugs, abuse, they've seen it all. She is pretty much the cutest kid I've ever seen, and I admit, the idea of being her big brother is r eally appealing, but I'm not really sure how adding another member to our strife is going to bring us closer. What I got from the master plan that Mom, and especially Dad, explained to me is that when Lindsey comes it is with hope that we will be able to give her the structure and support by providing her with positive role models and examples of "correct" behavior, that she needs in order to break out of all the bad influences and habits that she has had instilled in her from her environment.

Reflection Paper on Organization Behavior

kiwiberry2900 3/9/2013 MGMT 541 Self-reflection paper Motivation Motivation represents psychological processes that cause arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed. There are substantial positive relations between job characteristics, satisfaction, and motivation. Job characteristics of Variety and Task Significance were found to be particularly important to employee satisfaction and motivation.These are examples that almost everyone will encounter in real life: Job design and job enrichment My work experience when I was in Shanghai was with the Taxation Bureau. Initially I was assigned general work in the department such as doing tax registration for the new companies and I wasn’t motivated. The job was simple, just checking and cataloging all of the documents that the company representatives provided, and giving them the application forms. I also answered related questions and followed up after the companies with the tax license were san ctioned.At this job position, the skill varieties were very limited. The routine work was just following the rules and did not need any professional judgment. After a month or so, I felt bored. Besides the skill variety, the job also lacked autonomy. Sometimes I just went out for some reason, probably there were several company representatives were waiting for me, while other time there is nobody show up in a whole day. As a young woman, I can’t further myself in the job, anyone can do it. I had no progress, no satisfaction about the job and no intrinsic motivation.Although the tasks were significant to the whole bureau, it is hard to see our bigger function of the organization. In the end, after I pleased the human resources department several times, I was allowed to join another department. A lot of young people did not like to be fixed on a general position which would not allow them to accumulate the professional experience and explore the deep side of the field, and that often makes a problem in the hierarchical organization. Equity theory The Shanghai Taxation Bureau in which I had worked for more than 10 years is a hierarchical organization including a lot of levels.It is the administrative and management body that carries out the state’s taxation activities within the administrative jurisdiction of Shanghai Municipality. Its main functions and responsibilities include implementing state taxation laws, regulations and codes, researching and formulating tax development plans and annual work plans for local taxation. The administrative position involves supervising every month’s tax declaration and collection and making sure the money will be transferred into the state treasury according to the related laws, regulations and codes.There are 26 branches attached to the taxation bureau, and over 10000 employees working in the shanghai taxation bureau. Big organizations necessitate more comparison between people, or between branches. Peop le from every section seek to get equal benefits out of their input. There are a lot of couples in Shanghai taxation bureau. So if some branches gave the bonus to their employees, everyone in the whole system knew it. And afterwards other departments will mimic the policy to motivate theirs. That reflected the equity theory.From the equity theory, an individual’s motivation level is correlated to his perception of equity, fairness and justice practiced by the management. The higher an individual’s perception of fairness is, the greater their motivation level and vice versa. In the above context, I remembered that the branch leader who first gave the bonus will emphasize the special task they have completed, in order to stimulate his employees who have experienced high level hardship or difficulties. But other branches will spotlight their own achievements in the assignment, ultimately got the same bonus to protect or comfort their own morale in the workplace.In the yea r-end evaluation, every branch or individual will assess their own projects and achievements in the whole year and the human resource management would make overall balances and give different levels of reward. While some job positions comparatively have more opportunities to make achievements, others have less. Under that kind of situation, the management carried out the policy of job position rotation, therefore, almost every qualified employee with education history of financial and accounting would have the opportunities to rotate their positions. This policy is motivational, Extrinsic motivation and intrinsic otivation At my department people were driven by extrinsic motivation. We compared the bonus income, the benefit to others and calculated the upcoming income or vacation. We also expected to be promoted and got high level benefits. As if that is the core of our daily tasks. Sometimes we did some project according to superior’s will rather than the real information to avoid offending the leader. We even did not consider whether the result was meaningful or not. Although the department management wanted to motivate the employees and gave the gift cards to everyone before the festivals, we were not satisfied.We wanted to get more benefits comparing with employees at other branches. From the theoretic framework, these are hygiene factors which would not make people satisfied. Sometimes we got into research projects and worked with the other teammates. These were independent projects. The person in charge the project totally explained the purpose of the project and we felt we got involved and engaged. We were empowered to use our own way to collect data, analyze it, and draw the conclusion. We felt very satisfied in these projects.We cooperated with each other, attracted by the task, and we can focus solely on the project without complicated interpersonal relationships inside of this kind of temporary group. Further more, it was different from our r outine job, which gave us the opportunity to widen our view, enrich the job content, therefore satisfying all the teammates. This arrangement is like intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on external pressures or a desire for reward.Leadership From my experience, people want to motivate each other. He should build up himself first, has a long-term vision about the organizations, sets a goal for himself, matches the big environment and has the necessary ability or expertise in some area. Then he should also be authorized to be a leader. He may use his social skill and other ability and management resources to motivate people, and bring them together to a higher level. In my personal experience, I met good leaders as well as bad leaders.When I was a volunteer in a nonprofit organization at Chicago, I was elected as a member of the board of trust ees. In this setting, the president is our board leader and he displayed a typical bad leader profile. First of all, he is not a role model. He should have a positive attitude, and be supportive to every volunteer, but unfortunately he always escaped working hard and treated other volunteers like slaves. Secondly, he did not consider the opinions of other board members, he liked to be self-centered and lack of empathy. This character embodied in his schedule and his arrangement.He had no expert power, his personality is awful and he even played tricks in the nonprofit organization, which made everybody astonished. Now he had lost in the election for the board members. Admittedly, the situation above is very unique. Generally most authorized leaders have some attractive traits such as self-awareness, self-confidence, social skills and persuasive abilities. At the same time, they fully understand the organization goals. But different leaders have their own personal features. My friend Fan is a director of the audit department.I had been in his department for 3 years, and we became friends in the end. Fan is a veteran, he had little professional knowledge in auditing, but he knew management well. His job is to motivate all the auditing group leaders and auditors. He used his legitimate power at first to assign tasks to every group. After the tasks were finished, he gave all the evaluation report to every group with the help of his assistant. At the same time, he used his reward and referent power. He always kept the department on the way of organizational goal, showed his positive attitude, gave everybody most extent of autonomy.He also used his personal relationship to strive for the best interest of our department. That is why he got everyone’s respect. In his department, morale is very high. Nobody wanted to leave. Ahthough Fan is a good leader in most aspects except his professional knowledge, he can’t exert his expert power in his leadership. A great leader is a natural leader, who can exert his idealized influence power to his followers, and help to set common goals for the whole organization, incorporate, motivate followers, have them a clear picture of the future, make them active beyond the call of the duty.Bibliography Kreitner, Robert, and Angelo Kinicki. Organizational Behavior. Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw- Hill, 1998. Print. â€Å"Equity Theory of Motivation. † Equity Theory of Motivation. N. p. , n. d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013. â€Å"Welcome to Shanghai Municipal Office of State Administration of Taxation. † Shanghai Municipal Office of State Administration of Taxation. N. p. , n. d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013. W. Chan Kim. â€Å"Fair Process Managing in the Knowledge Economy. † (n. d. ): n. pag. Web.

Intelligent Design An Intelligent Way of Disguising Religion

Could Adam and Eve have been apes? Evolutionists say humans evolved from apes, but many religious people cannot swallow the thought. For years, religious people have voiced their unhappiness that schools teach evolution. The Bible says that God put all the plants, animals, and people on this planet, and evolution completely contradicts that. The idea of including creationism in schools has been brought to courts multiple times but with no success. Now the creationists have a new way of presenting it. They disguise it behind science and use the term Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is a form of creationism under new terminology and is the attempt of many to incorporate religion into school systems and science education; it has no†¦show more content†¦Instead, they claim, some aspects of those organisms must have been created, fully formed, by a so-called ‘intelligent designer’† (McMaster). Anybody can notice that the words Intelligent Designer and God are synonymous which makes it a religious belief. One of the most recent and important court cases focusing on Intelligent Design is Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (Matsumura). Dover High School fought to have Intelligent Design mentioned as a theory in science classes alongside the theory of evolution and to provide students with access to an Intelligent Design textbook (McMaster). In the end, Dover School District lost the case, but Intelligent Design gained much attention. Although Intelligent Design lost, that does not mean it will stop fighting. Intelligent Design claims to differ from creationism, but, truly, it is a more publicly accepted form of creationism. The most obvious difference between Intelligent Design and creationism is that Intelligent Design does not directly state who did the designing, nor does it affiliate itself with any religious texts like the Bible. People can assume on theirShow MoreRelatedEssay on Intelligent Design: The Best of Both Theories 1112 Words   |  5 Pagesschools. What if there was a different approach that took God out of the equation? Public high schools should allow a course in intelligent design to be included in the curriculum as a way of teaching both evolution and creationism without violating the separation of church and state. This is certainly easier said than done. Evolution, creationism, and intelligent design are defined by Merriam-Webster as follows: 1) â€Å"Evolution: a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their originRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesand transmit all or any part of the work under the following conditions: (1) Attribution You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author, namely by citing his name, the book title, and the relevant page numbers (but not in any way that suggests that the book Logical Reasoning or its author endorse you or your use of the work). (2) Noncommercial You may not use this work for commercial purposes (for example, by inserting passages into a book that is sold to students). (3) NoRead MoreOrganisational Theory230255 Words   |  922 Pagesvaluable. Peter Holdt Christensen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark McAuley et al.’s book is thought-provoking, witty and highly relevant for understanding contemporary organizational dilemmas. The book engages in an imaginative way with a wealth of organizational concepts and theories as well as provides insightful examples from the practical world of organizations. The authors’ sound scholarship and transparent style of writing set the book apart, making it an ingenious readRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagespolitical rivalries that generated and were in turn fed by imperialist expansionism, one cannot begin to comprehend the causes and consequences of the Great War that began in 1914. That conflict determined the contours of the twentieth century in myriad ways. 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