...Essay by David Sedaris ’’Me Talk Pretty One Day’’ ’’Me Talk Pretty One Day’’ is an essay written by David Sedaris in 2005. The essay is about David Sedaris himself and his own experiences to learn a foreign language, French. He has some struggles learning it even though Sedaris has taken some French lessons in New York before moving to Paris. But being 41 years old and start all over in school again can be a challenge, especially if you have a strict teacher. Before David Sedaris decided to move to Paris, France, he took a French course in New York, where he lived so that he would not be an absolute beginner when attending the French class in Paris. The first day of school, Sedaris seems excited and it all seems, as he writes, nerve-racking. He already knows that he is expected to perform, which put a definite pressure on him with the French teaching system, ‘’That’s the way they do it here – everyone into the language pool, sink or swim’’. He also does not feel as confident with the French language as the other students, but he realizes that his nervousness is the least of his problems. The teacher of his French course is a very intimidating woman, who seems to have no interest in the students’ well being. She is picking on the students and making fun of their answers, because of their broken French. Their teacher seems very violent, ‘’We soon learned to dodge chalk and protect our heads and stomachs whenever she approached us with a question’’. She does not hit them...
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...Multi-Layered and multi-levelled? Public law architectures for the 21st century Since the 19th century the world has changed. Some aspects of life have changed more, others less. The means of communication, technology and transportation of the 21st century, for example, are light-years away from those of the 19th century. Public law concepts have not kept pace. In the words of an author of the book reviewed here, reflecting on the concept of ‘the state’ and the problem of sovereignty: in political as in constitutional legal theory, we still need to cut off the King’s head,1 as we are still entrenched in the philosophical and constitutional language of the 19th century.2 But recently, with European integration and globalisation, change has also occurred in the traditional concepts of public law such as “state” or “constitution”. The book edited by Bamforth and Leyland is about this change over the last thirty years or so.3 “Public Law in a Multi-Layered Constitution” is a significant contribution to a better understanding of how public law is transformed, in Great Britain and elsewhere. The title of the book as well as its introduction (pp. 1-26) state that its central theme is the transformation of the British constitution into a “multi-layered constitution.” This is meant to refer to a constitution that “contains multiple, but inter-connected and sometimes overlapping European and national layers”,4 where “power (both legislative and political) has been spread away from the Westminister...
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...‘La France est un des pays d’Europe qui offre la plus grande diversité linguistique’. (Dglflf: 2008). Discuss. When speaking about the linguistic diversity of a country we refer to the existence of a variety of languages within that country (Oxford English Dictionary, 2006) .France is made up of both the central “hexagon” and thirteen overseas territories ,departments and collectives ( commonly known as DOM TOM’s). In this essay, I will show that the large geographical scope of France, its multi-cultural population and strong emerging youth-culture make it one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Europe. I will approach the discussion from the outside in, firstly focusing on the languages of the DOM TOM’s, then moving to mainland France and discussing the non-territorial languages. I will then move onto the regional languages of the metropole, their endangered language status and the extent of governments attempt to preserve them. I will focus primarily on the Breton language in this discussion. Finally, I will briefly mention the language of youth and how its deviation from standard French can be viewed as language diversity, all the while commenting on the gradual regression of speakers of minority languages and asking is the idea of France as one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Europe in jeopardy? Despite the numerous living languages In France, the country is officially classed as a monolingual state: French being the only official language...
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...Big essay: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, 2005 In my essay I will focus on the writer’s tone and on the attitude to learning foreign languages that is explored in the text Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day is an essay about the narrator’s, David, time in Paris where he means to learn French. He feels quite intimidated by the other foreign students who, in his opinion, speak excellent French. The teacher assigned to the French class he is partaking in, is extremely tough and intimidating. While going through the alphabet, she proceeds to ask the students questions that will only serve as a humiliating experience for the chosen party. David spends many hours every day studying and preparing for the upcoming classes. His private life is heavily affected by the teacher’s harsh treatment in class, driving him to not to speak in public or on the phone. It feels like an uphill battle for David, but after some months David realizes while in class that he understands everything the teacher is saying. He counteracts the teacher’s provocation with his own sly remark, indicating his perfect understanding of her choice of wording. The tone is this essay moves throughout the essay from being sarcastic through uncomfortable to depressed until it ends on a more hopeful note. In the start the tone is quite sarcastic when he, after the mentioning of his age as being forty-one, describes his start in Paris as that of the circumstances in which a much younger...
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...Essay Three Important dates First draft: Begin prewriting and writing first draft in class on March 22. The first draft must be handwritten. Continue writing draft on April 1. Draft due: Upload as a rich text file via joule by April 3 no later than 11:00 a.m. (10 pts. draft) Peer review: In-class peer review on April 3. Bring two copies of your typed essay. (10 pts./peer review) Revise/edit: In-class revise/edit on April 5. Final draft and self-evaluation: Due on April 8. (100 pts./essay and 10 pts./evaluation) Topic: Select one of the following topics. 1. Compare and contrast your culture to another culture. Select at least three points to c/c. Make sure you are not making random or biased judgments but are exploring similarities, differences, and their significance. 2. Compare and contrast your work ethic to another individual’s work ethic. Select at least three to c/c. Make sure you are not making random or biased judgments but are exploring similarities, differences, and their significance. 3. Compare and contrast two potential places of employment. Select at least three points to c/c. Make sure you are not making random or biased judgments but are exploring similarities, differences, and their significance. 4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living in an individual or collective society. Select at least three points to c/c. Make sure you are not making random or biased judgments but are exploring similarities, differences, and their significance...
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...For other uses, see Essay (disambiguation). Essays of Michel de Montaigne Essays are generally short pieces of writing written from an author's personal point of view, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of an article, a pamphlet and a short story. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population are counterexamples. In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs;...
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...The two pieces I’m going to compare and contrast are both similar, but different at the same time. I chose the painting by Jacques Raymond Brascassat called “A Bull Fight” while at the museum. Then I went home to research other paintings on the museums website and chose “A Gust of Wind” by Gustave Courbet. In my essay I’ll discuss what makes them similar art pieces and how they compare different to each other. Plus, I will describe how each painting used the same visual elements, but also very different ones at the same time. The first painting I will be discussing is “A Bull Fight” by Jacques- Raymond Brascassat which will show the information on how the painting was composed. And it will discuss the differences in this painting compared...
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...|Email |thogan@au.westfield.com | | | | |Unit Code |SSK12 | |Unit name |Introduction to University Learning | |Date |31 March 2012 | |Assignment name |Essay 1 | |Tutor |Kersti Niilus | |Student’s Declaration: | |Except where indicated, the work I am submitting in this assignment is my own work and has not been submitted for assessment in another | |unit....
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...Project Gutenberg's The Essays of Montaigne, Complete, by Michel de Montaigne This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Complete Author: Michel de Montaigne Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3600] Last Updated: September 5, 2012 Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, COMPLETE *** Produced by David Widger ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Translated by Charles Cotton Edited by William Carew Hazlitt 1877 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS PREFACE THE LETTERS OF MONTAIGNE I. — To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE II. — To Monseigneur, Monseigneur de MONTAIGNE. III. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de LANSAC, IV. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de MESMES, Lord of Roissy and Malassize, Privy V. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de L'HOSPITAL, Chancellor of France VI. — To Monsieur, Monsieur de Folx, Privy Councillor, to the Signory of Venice. VII. — To Mademoiselle de MONTAIGNE, my Wife. VIII. — To Monsieur DUPUY, IX. — To the Jurats of Bordeaux. X. — To the same. XI. — To the same. XII. — XIII. — To Mademoiselle PAULMIER. XIV. — To the KING, HENRY IV. XV. — To the same. XVI. — To the Governor...
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...LIFE OF MONTAIGNE [This is translated freely from that prefixed to the 'variorum' Paris edition, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo. This biography is the more desirable that it contains all really interesting and important matter in the journal of the Tour in Germany and Italy, which, as it was merely written under Montaigne's dictation, is in the third person, is scarcely worth publication, as a whole, in an English dress.] The author of the Essays was born, as he informs us himself, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the day, the last of February 1533, at the chateau of St. Michel de Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem, esquire, was successively first Jurat of the town of Bordeaux (1530), Under-Mayor 1536, Jurat for the second time in 1540, Procureur in 1546, and at length Mayor from 1553 to 1556. He was a man of austere probity, who had "a particular regard for honour and for propriety in his person and attire . . . a mighty good faith in his speech, and a conscience and a religious feeling inclining to superstition, rather than to the other extreme."[Essays, ii. 2.] Pierre Eyquem bestowed great care on the education of his children, especially on the practical side of it. To associate closely his son Michel with the people, and attach him to those who stand in need of assistance, he caused him to be held at the font by persons of meanest position; subsequently he put him out to nurse with a poor villager, and then, at a later period, made him accustom himself to the most common sort...
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...Essays are generally scholarly pieces of writing written from an author's personal point of view, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of an article, a pamphlet and a short story. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population are counterexamples. In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs; it may or may not have an accompanying text or captions. Contents...
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...Essay on ”me talk pretty one day” The essay “me talk pretty one day” is an essay written by David Sedaris and published in 2005. It is a expository text about David’s, the author’s, own experiences with learning French in a foreign country and the essay deals with themes such as the attitude towards leaning a foreign language but also that you have to understand the language, before you can speak it. In the essay, the writer David Sedaris shares his experiences with learning French at an international school in France. His first encounter with the strict and yet quite sarcastic French teacher tears down his walls of self-esteem and belief in himself throughout most of the time he spends in the class, because he and his other classmates can not speak the language fluently. In time he becomes more and more frightened that he might say something wrong and he even stop taking any contact with people because he dread anything that requires speaking the language. The students in the class are not fluent in French either and their halting sentences sound like “Sometimes me cry alone at night” (p.8, line 109) and “[…] someday you talk pretty” (p.8 line 109-110.) The author understands his fellow students, although they do not speak fluent French, but when his French teacher talks in class he does not understand half of what she is saying, for instance: “Even a fiuscreza ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine” – (p.7, line 71-71) This tells us exactly how the students...
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...freedom and responsibility are some of the most important words in modern society. We all have the right to liberty - to express overselfs - but with freedom comes responsibility. Every individual needs to take responsibility for his or her own life. You have to struggle with the choices you have taken or will take. This way of living life in a modern society is depicted in the short story A Gap of Sky. The story is about the young, nineteen year old girl Ellie, who lives in London. She deals with an environment full of temptations as drugs and alcohol - but she definetly feels the freedom of todays society, especially in the big citites. The main character in the short story is 19 year old Ellie, as mentioned in the beginning of the essay. She lives alone in appartment in London. This means has the responsebility for her own life now. She has been send here by her parents to study at UCL. Ellie has her own way of living life and that is by staying until late. When she is at a party drink a lot, but she also uses drugs. This might be some way of dealing with her loneliness, but she faces the reality when she wakes up the morning or in her case the afternoon after. It seems as Ellie might think it is difficult to find the whole meaning of life, but she is surrounding by things in the big city who leads her on to an answer on that question. A Gap of Sky is told by a third-person narrator, which means the reader has the oppotunity to know a little about what the character...
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...Nauru, the world’s smallest republic with 21 sq. kilometers of land, is a phosphate rock island with rich deposits near the surface that allows easy strip mining operations. Nauruans enjoyed strip mining for a century as it made them among the richest people in the world. Billions of dollars worth of phosphates had been exported. The damage to their environment due to mining was so severe. The rehabilitation of the devastated land and the replacement of income from phosphate are serious long-term problems. Since 2000, Nauru’s economy has relied largely on payments for fishing rights within its exclusive economic zone and the detention center camps for asylum seekers to Australia, which held Afghan, Burmese, and Sri Lankan refugees. The government-owned mining company, the Republic of Nauru Phosphate Company, or RONPhos, initiated the mining of subsurface secondary reserves of phosphate in late 2009, along with a new rehabilitation program for mined-out land. The rehabilitation program includes the development of a new national cemetery, a nursery for developing native flora for the reforestation of the island, a catchment area for a freshwater reservoir and a conservation area. The Nauru’s example is a warning for the Philippines. The Philippines is the fifth most mineral-rich country in the world for gold, nickel, copper, and chromite. It is home to the largest copper-gold deposit in the world. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau has estimated that the country has an estimated...
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...France The little powerhouse that is France is home to the most romantic city in the world, Paris. Its area is slightly less than the size of Texas at 643,701 sq km. Other major cities in the country are Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Lille, and Cannes which is famous for the film festival. French is the official language, and its neighbors include Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. The United States has quite a few less neighbors at 2, which are Canada and Mexico. France is easily navigable by water as all natural waterways crisscross the country. The Loire River is 625 miles long, beginning in the southeastern part of France and flows into the Bay of Biscay. While the Loire is the longest, the Rhone is the ‘biggest river in France in terms of depth and volume’ (USA Today, Travel Tips). The Seine River comes in third, but is largest as far as popularity and name recognition go. It is home to many places tourists frequent. France is also surrounded by many well-known bodies of water including the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and the Mediterranean Sea. The populations of France and the United States differ tremendously. An estimated 62,814,233 people call France their home while an estimated 313,847,465 people live in America. The French are principally Celtic and Latin, Slavic, North Africa, and Indochinese and Americans are white, black, Asian, Amerindian and Alaska native, native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander (The World...
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