the coach :: essays research papers

I had been running track all through high school and was just about to start my senior season. I had never been great, but good enough to make states last year in the middle distances. Up until this year our only coaches were your typical, out of shape, over the hill, middle aged women who only coached track because they were either mean old biddies who liked to boss around young women or were athletes themselves before they let themselves go and now wanted to relive their fantasies of victory through our hard work and sweat. This spring though, things changed. We had a student teacher that offered to help out with the track team. She had run track in both high school and college but had used up her last year of eligibility and now was working on her Masters of Education. Her name was Naomi and she was assigned the runners since she obviously was better at it than any of our other coaches. Not only that, but she was faster than anyone else on the team except our top girl in the 100. She could easily beat everyone else in any distance up to the mile. Add to that the fact that she was prettier than most of the girls on the team and our fragile egos were taking a beating. If she hadn't been one of the nicest and most helpful people in the world things might have gotten ugly. Instead, she became one of our best friends, as well as our coach and some of our teacher. I don't know exactly why, but Naomi seemed to make me her special project for the season. From the first day of practice she pushed me harder than anyone else, spent more time with me and made sure that I pushed myself. Maybe it was because I ran the same distances she ran, but then again so did a few of the other girls. Maybe it was because she saw something in me that none of the other coaches had. I wasn't sure what it was, but at times I enjoyed the extra attention, at other times I hated it when she made me run the extra distance or work extra hard. She seemed to be able to know exactly how to get the best out of me though because by mid season she had me running the best times I had ever run and even a few college scouts were starting to stop by at our meets to check me out.

Anylasis of three extracts

The three extracts I am comparing are written by three different authors. The first extract I am going to tell you about is written by a famous author called ‘Terry Pratchett'. The second extract is written by a children's author ‘Charles Dickens'. And finally, the third extract I am going to explain, is written by another well-known author, ‘Eoin Colfer'. With these three extracts, I am going to inform and describe how the characters and settings are developed. In the first extract the characters are well described using many adjectives. For example ‘Mr Horsefry' was described as a ‘youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and driving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty and impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride. ‘ I can picture this man with so many chains and not being able to speak properly. This is a funny description and makes the reader want to read on and see what else the reader writes about Mr Horsefry. Terry Pratchett' also writes that Mr Horsefry is: ‘Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in a wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wondered in out of the rain. When I read this description I was laughing, and I could imagine a man dressed up as a woman who has god knows how many chains and seeing him wondering in the rain. Also listening to him when he speaks, it would be difficult to understand him because his chins would get in the way. This is a very good and clear description of ‘Mr Horsefry' and enjoyable to read and if someone reads this description they would know what ‘Mr Horsefry' looks like and what his personality is like. Also in this extract, it is a shame that ‘Terry Pratchett' didn't describe the settings as much as he describes ‘Mr Horsefry'. For example the quote, â€Å"Ah, this would be . . . what is it now . . . the glass ceiling? † said lord Vetinari brightly. â€Å"No, my lord. That is something else. I believe you may be thinking about the ‘Agatean Wall†. This quote tells me what the ceilings and the walls may look like, but it doesn't tell me what else the place looks like. The writer could have described what the canary looked like or what time of year it was, for example was it in the middle of winter, or was it in late summer. But I don't know because this wasn't explained in the extract. However ‘Terry Pratchett' could have explained this in the beginning of the story or later on in the story, I'm not to sure. Describing the setting would make the story a lot better and when the reader reads this extract they would be able to picture what is going on and where the characters are, as that is what happening now, I am confused where the characters are and I am thinking of a completely different place to what the writer is thinking of when he wrote this book. In the second extract ‘Charles Dickens' describes the character, ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past' as: ‘It's hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, and if with age; and not yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if it hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprang a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. ‘ This is a brilliant description of the sprit and I can picture what ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past' looks like. I know exactly what her hair, skin, feet, legs and what she was wearing. This is also a very clear description as well. It is easy to understand and easy to see what the ghost looks like. In this extract ‘Charles Dickens' does not describe the setting as much in detail as he did with the character ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past'. For example the quote: ‘Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtain of his bed drawn aside;' this quote tells me a little bit about Cosmos room and the curtains. However I find this quote quite confusing as I am not to sure whether or not the curtains are in Cosmo's room and where else are the curtains. Also I am not sure where he is, is he in his room? Or is he somewhere less? For example, is Cosmo in a huge empty mansion? Or is he in some hall way? Who knows? That is why it is important to tell the reader where the character is otherwise the reader gets lost. The finial extract is written by anther well known author ‘Eoin Colfer'. He has developed his characters in his story by using a few adjectives. He describes a character, Cosmo who is a young boy aged fourteen years old as: ‘Cosmo receives his schooling from education software, his teeth were whiter that white and his hair was lustrous and flake-free, but his insides felt like they were being scoured with a radioactive wire brush. Eventually Cosmo realized that the orphanage was slowly killing him. It was time to get out. ‘ ‘Eoin Colfer' didn't use as much adjectives as the other writers did. The description of Cosmo was not that clear, as I didn't know exactly what he looked like. However the quote: ‘†¦ aby Cosmo was discovered swaddled in an insulated Cheery Pizza envelope on Cosmonaut Hill in Moscowtown. The state police swabbed him for DNA, search for a match in the Satellite mainframe and came up blank. Nothing unusual about that, orphans turn up every day in the city. So the newly christened Cosmo Hill was dipped in a vaccine vat and sent on a tube to the Clarissa Frayne Institute or Parentally Challenged Boys Freight. ‘ This quote tells me that Cosmo was an orphan and was found on ‘Cosmonaut Hill in Moscowtown'. This quote many not tell me what Cosmo looks like but it does tell me about how he was found. So this is a pretty good description of where he was found. Also in this extract ‘Eoin Colfer' has used many descriptive words to develop the setting. For example the quote: ‘Satellite City was not part of any welfare state, so the institution had to raise funds any way they could. Clarissa Frayne's speciality was product testing. Whenever a new modified food or untested pharmaceutical product was being developed, the orphanage volunteered its charges as guinea pigs. It made perfect financial sense. The orphans got fed and cleaned, and the Frayne Institute got paid for the privilege. This quote tells me about the orphanage and ‘Clarisse Frayne'. This quote may not describe the settings as much as the other stories did but it tells me a lot about the orphanage, but at least that is something. So overall I have realised that it is important to describe the character in the stories, otherwise the reader would think of something else that the writer may not be thing of. Also this is the same for the settings. You have to explain but the area is like and where the characters are. This is important as well so that the reader can picture what is going on without getting confused.

Understanding String Literals in Ruby

String objects hold ordered sequences of bytes, typically characters, usually to form pieces of human-readable text. Theyre a very common object type in all programming languages, and Ruby has a number of high-level and a few low-level ways to create, access and manipulate String objects. Strings are most often created with a String literal. A literal is a special syntax in the Ruby language that creates an object of a specific type. For example, 23 is a literal that creates a ​Fixnum object. As for String literals, there are several forms. Single-Quotes and Double-Quoted Strings Most languages have a String literal similar to this, so this may be familiar. The types of quotes, (single quote, apostrophe or hard quote) and (double quote or soft quote) are used to enclose string literals, anything between them will be turned into String objects. The following example demonstrates this. But there are some differences between single and double quotes. Double quotes  or soft quotes enable some magic to happen behind the scenes. Most useful is interpolation inside strings, useful for inserting the value of a variable into the middle of a string. This is achieved by using the #{ †¦ } sequence. The following example will ask you for your name and greet you, using interpolation to insert your name into the string literal thats printed. Note that any code can go inside the braces, not just variable names. Ruby will evaluate that code and whatever is returned it will attempt to insert it into the string. So you could just as easily say Hello, #{gets.chomp} and forget about the name variable. However, its good practice not to put long expressions inside the braces. Single quotes, apostrophes, or hard quotes are much more restrictive. Inside of the single quotes, Ruby will perform no interpolation or escape sequences other than escaping the single quote character and backslash itself (\ and \\ respectively). If you dont intend to use interpolation, its recommended to use single quotes more often than not. The following example will attempt to interpolate a variable inside of single quotes. If you run this youll get no error, but what will be printed? The interpolation sequence was passed through uninterpreted. When Should I Use Single and Double Quotes This is a matter of style. Some prefer to use double quotes all of the time unless they become inconvenient. Others would rather use single quotes unless the interpolation behavior is intended. Theres nothing inherently dangerous about using double quotes all of the time, but it does make some code easier to read. You dont need to read a string when reading through code if you know there are no interpolations in it  because you know the string itself wont have any side effects. So which string literal form you use is up to you, there is no real right and wrong way here. Escape Sequences What if, in a string literal, you want to include a quote character? For instance, the string Steve said Moo!  wont work. And neither will Cant touch this!. Both of these strings include the quote character inside of the string, effectively ending the string literal and causing a syntax error. You could switch quote characters, like Steve said Moo!, but that doesnt really solve the problem. Instead, you can escape any quote character inside the string, and it will lose its special meaning (in this case, the special meaning is to close the string). To escape a character, prepend it with the backslash character. The backslash character tells Ruby to ignore any special meaning the next character may have. If its a matching quote character, dont end the string. If its a hash sign, dont start an interpolation block. The following example demonstrates this use of backslash to escape special characters. The backslash character can be used to remove any special meaning from the following character but, confusingly, it can also be used to denote special behavior in double-quoted strings. Most of these special behaviors have to do with inserting characters and byte sequences that cannot be typed or represented visually. Not all Strings are character strings  or may contain control sequences intended for the terminal, and not the user. Ruby gives you the ability to insert these types of strings using the backslash escape character. \n - A newline character. The puts method does this automatically, but if you wish to insert one in the middle of a string, or the string is destined for something other than the puts method, you can use this to insert a newline in a string.\t - A tab character. The tab character moves the cursor over (on most terminals) to a multiple of 8, so this is very useful for display tabular data. However, there are better ways of doing this, and using the tab character is considered a bit archaic or hackish.\nnn - A backslash followed by 3 numbers will denote an ASCII character represented by 3 octal digits. Why octal? Mostly for historical reasons.\xnn - A backslash, an x, and 2 hex digits. The same as the octal version, only with hex digits. Youll probably never use most of these, but know that they exist. And also remember that they only work in double-quoted strings. The next page discusses multi-line strings and an alternate syntax for string literals. Multi-Line Strings Most languages dont allow multi-line string literals, but Ruby does. Theres no need to end your strings and append more strings for the next line, Ruby handles multi-line string literals just fine with the default  syntax. Alternate Syntax As with most other literals, Ruby provides an alternate syntax for string literals. If youre using a lot of quote characters inside your literals, for example, you may want to use this syntax. When you use this syntax is a matter of style, theyre usually not needed for strings. To use the alternate syntax, use the following sequence for single-quoted strings  %q{ †¦ }. Similarly, use the following syntax for double-quoted strings  %Q{ †¦ }. This alternate syntax follows all the same rules as their normal cousins.  Also,  note that you can use any characters you wish instead of braces. If you use a brace, square bracket, angle bracket or parenthesis, then the matching character will end the literal. If you dont want to use matching characters, you can use any other symbol (anything not a letter or number). The literal will be closed with another of the same symbol. The following example shows you several ways to use this syntax. The alternate syntax also works as a multi-line string.