Little Women By Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Essays -

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Type of Work: Sentimental, life drama Setting A small New England town; mid 1800s Principal Characters Mrs. March ("Marinee"), mother of four daughters Mr. March, her husband, and army chaplain in the U.S. Civil War Meg, their 16-year-old daughter Jo, 15, wants to be an independent writer (and serves as the novel's narrator) Beth, a frail girl of 13, the "heart" of her family Amy, 12, the beautiful pampered youngest daughter Theodore Lawrence (Laurie), the boy who moves in next door Story Overveiw The upcoming Christmas looked like it would be a bleak affair to the four March girls. With their father at the Civil War battlefront, and their saintly mother, Marmee, as they called her, working to support her family, the holiday would be void of many of its traditional pleasures. With the dollar Marmee said they might spend, the girls each settled on buying simple gifts for their mother and for the Hummel family down the road; and receiving, in kind, surprise treats of ice cream and bonbons from rich old Mr. Lawrence next door. The girls resolved to face life as Pilgrims, to overcome their weaknesses, and be "good little women" by the time their father returned. The oldest, Meg, determined to enjoy her work more and fret less about her looks. The tomboy, Jo, pledged to better control her temper, upgrade her writing abilities and develop feminine qualities. Amy desired to be less selfish and less vain concerning her beautiful golden hair. Everyone believed Beth, the home-body, to be perfect, but she earnestly prayed to overcome her fear of people. The girls labored for the next year to acquire these qualities, with much success and occasional failure. At year's end, Meg confidently and excitedly attended a fashionable New Year's dance. She talked Jo into accompanying her, but Jo didn't care much for "girls or girlish gossip," and felt as much out of place as a "colt in a flower garden." Running from a prospective dance-mate, Jo hid behind a curtain. But she wasn't the only bashful one. To her surprise, there she met little Theodore Lawrence, or "Laurie," as everyone referred to him, the new next-door-neighbor boy. Awkwardly, they introduced themselves, but as they peeped through the curtain together, gossiping and chatting, they soon felt like old acquaintances. A lifelong friendship was formed. Laurie had been orphaned as a baby and now lived with his crusty Grandfather Lawrence in his great mansion. In the March family, Laurie found a circle of sisters and a mother he never knew; and they found, in him, a brother and a son. Through that year, the girls learned to be happy in their work. Meg, by spending two weeks at the estate of a wealthy girl friend, discovered how wonderful her own home life was, even if her family was poor. Jo detected that she was not the only one struggling with outbursts of anger. Much to her amazement, her mother also possessed a hidden temper. This knowledge helped Jo believe she could, with effort, control hers. After all, her great wish was to become a famous romance writer; reaching that goal would require discipline. Jo's romantic novels were soon published. Amy continued to grow more beautiful, but also came to understand the need for humility. After being embarrassingly reprimanded before the whole school, she began to understand that "conceit spoils the finest genius." And Beth remained extremely shy, but was still the heart and joy of her family. Everyone, especially Jo, came to gentle Beth for comfort. One winter day, a telegram arrived from the war department: Mr. March was critically ill. Heartsick by this news, Marmee felt she needed to be with her husband. With no money to spare, Joe offered to sell her only vanity - her long, flowing chestnut hair. The sacrifice, though tearfully made, brought twenty-five dollars, and financed the trip. Mr. Lawrence sent along John Brooke, Laurie's tutor, to assist Mrs. March in her journey. Both Mr. and Mrs. March grew to be very fond of John - and he, in turn, became very fond of Meg. Back at home, dark days were to visit the little women. Patterning herself after her mother, Beth continued to care for the large, impoverished Hummel family. One night she returned home depressed and crying. She had just held the Hummel baby in her arms as he died of Scarlet Fever. Beth also contracted the fever, becoming much more infirm than anyone expected. It was a somber time for all, as she hovered near death. Fearing the worst, the girls finally telegraphed their mother of Beth's deteriorating

10 Best Alternatives to Student Loans

10 Best Alternatives to Student Loans Getting into the college of your dreams is only the first hurdle many students need to overcome. By far the most difficult part of going to college is coming up with the money to pay for it. With student loan problems splashed across every newspaper, blog and financial website in the universe, many students are beginning to explore alternatives to traditional student financing. Weve rounded up the 10 most promising alternatives. 1. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending Peer-to-peer lending, often abbreviated to P2P, is a type of private loans which takes place between two individuals, or peers. Some characterize P2P lending as the corporate worlds spin on one friend loaning another some money†. While perhaps an oversimplification, thats essentially what it is. In peer-to-peer lending there are no credit checks, bank or government involvement in the loan itself. Private lenders offer loans for a set interest rate and its conducted as a private business. The largest lending platforms in the United States are Prosper and Lending Club. 2. Work Study Programs If youre already working part-time, you may qualify for the Federal Work Study (FWS) Program. This is a fund maintained by the government to help students who work part-time and go to school full time. Applications can be submitted through your schools Student Office as well as directly through the programs website. 3. Tuition Reimbursement Many companies offer a tuition reimbursement program. These program pay students back a portion of their school tuition, but does not include fees or textbook costs. This kind of program is typically offered in companies that traditionally promote from within and have various options for career growth. 4. Scholarships You dont always need to have the best grades or crazy athletic skills to land a scholarship. Scholarships are awarded by schools, companies, organizations, clubs and churches. There are thousands of scholarships that range from a few hundred dollars and go up to $10,000 and more. Local scholarships can be found through community organizations, churches and private businesses. Check your local library, community swim team and the local businesses that support softball, baseball, football or other local teams. Have your parents ask at work – many companies offer special scholarships to the children on employees. National and international scholarships can be found easily online or with the help of a high school or college adviser. 5. Grants In contrast to scholarships, grants are typically need based and are offered through the Federal Government. These grants can be applied for directly through the student aid website of the US Government. Several grants are also available at the state level. Grants do not have to be repaid and can be applied for either once a year or, in some cases, during each quarter or semester. 7. The Military Every branch of the US Military offers a number of grants, scholarships and financial aid opportunities for active and former servicemen and women as well as the families of those soldiers. If youre willing to postpone college a few years and enlist yourself, you could easily get a free ride, no matter what your degree. As a bonus youll get plenty of hands on experience in your chosen field and a history of military service makes a great impression on resumes and in an interview. 8. AmeriCorps AmeriCorps is a program maintained by the US federal government. It aims to get people more involved with various non-profit charities, schools and other community centered organizations on both a state and national level. It could involve working with the homeless, teaching children how to read, working with at risk teens or any other kind of public service. A 12 month stint with AmeriCorps snags you a living allowance, help with housing and, once youre done, some nice Education Credits you can apply to your tuition and other education costs. 9. Cap in Hand Where do people turn to in times of trouble and need? The internet, of course! Hitting up people for small (or large) donations online is nothing new, but plenty of people never consider it when looking into ways to pay for college. From asking for financing on a specific university project through a website like Kickstarter to just taking up a page and using it to ask for donations, the internet can be a great way to raise funds. Alex Tew made history in 2005 when he set up the Million Dollar Homepage and sold ad space online for $1 per pixel in order to pay for his university education in Wiltshire, England. The ploy paid off and, in 2006, Tew grossed $1,037,000. 10. Rich Relatives or Winning the Lottery Perhaps a bit less pragmatic than our other options but, hey, if you havent seen Great Uncle Norbert for awhile, this might be a great time to catch up! Failing that, hit the Bingo haul with Grandma and dont forget to borrow one of her lucky troll dolls!

Portrait of Teresa and Salt of the Earth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Portrait of Teresa and Salt of the Earth - Essay Example The film Portrait of Teresa by the Cuban director Pastor Vega deals with the struggle of Teresa to â€Å"fit into† the ideals of revolutionary Cuba. The film Salt of the Earth by the American director Herbert J. Biberman deals with the theme of male domination and female struggle against the same. Thesis statement: an investigation into the roles of Teresa in ‘Portrait of Teresa’ and Esperanza Quintero in ‘Salt of the Earth’ by comparison/contrast method. In the movie ‘Portrait of Teresa’, the role of Teresa is so significant because her life and experience reflects the role of women in the Cuban society. The character of Teresa reveals the contradiction between revolutionary and traditional values. For example, Teresa was forced to take on major responsibilities in her family, which consist of her husband and sons. The development in the Cuban society provides immense opportunities to its citizens. Teresa works in a textile factory in the skyline of Havana to fulfill her personal responsibility towards her family. In addition, she works at a recreational dance group in the evening. The changing values of the domestic and public field affect her life and she ineffectually tries to satisfy both the spheres. The character of Teresa represents the hard working women folk in the Cuban society. She operates textile machinery in the morning session and involves in dance rehearsals in the evening. So, one can easily identify th at female life in Cuban society is a struggle for survival. Teresa’s late night rehearsals irritate her husband and it badly affects her personal life. But this leads to her short temperedness towards others at the textile factory meeting. She does all the works at home like preparing breakfast, helping her children, preparing evening meals, and cleaning the house. Here, one can see that almost all household works are done

Analysis of Relational Technology Tool Research Paper

Analysis of Relational Technology Tool - Research Paper Example These aspects are covered with an eye towards being able to understand the achievement of the function of Facebook as a relational technology; the application of Facebook to one aspect of computer-mediated communication or CMC; critiquing how Facebook supports the achievement of the goals of CMC; and making recommendations on better means of accomplishing the goals related to CMC (Lord, 2003; Barnes, 2002). Facebook touts itself as being in the business of creating products that provide utility value to advertisers, developers and end-users, through the Facebook platform. That platform is a social media platform that end-users utilize to be able to connect and interact with their families and friends, as well as to know more about the world through the news and the shared information from friends and created pages that are made possible through their being posted on the social media platform. Developers have a stake in making use of the platform to create applications that leverage t he user base and the technical and social media strength of the platform. Advertisers on the other hand, as the third leg of the ecosystem after users and developers, can leverage the large user base of Facebook and the social nature of their interactions to reach large targeted audiences for their products and services (Google, 2013). The end-user focused products are many and have been well-developed and evolved after many years of use by millions of users around the world. Those products are made available to users on the Facebook platform, which in turn can be accessed from a host of devices, from personal computers to tablets to smart phones by the largest providers of devices in the world, from Apple to Android devices to other operating system platforms and form factors. The key end-user products include Timeline, News Feed, Places, Pages, and the photo uploading service. There is also an email and a chat facility to complement the other forms of sharing and communication on the platform. News Feed is a personalized platform for the sharing of information, news and status posts from friends, from various Pages, and from other parties that have presence on Facebook. Pages are user-created Facebook pages that cater to various content and interests providers and enthusiasts, and include Fan pages for artists, pages for news and media organizations, official pages of artists and public figures, and the like. The scale of the Pages product is demonstrated in the stat which says that as of the second quarter of 2012, about 42 million pages exist on Facebook, that have ten or more Likes. Likes is a Facebook feature that allows users to tag posts and Pages that they like. The photo service is another end-user product that allows users to upload, share and archive digital images on Facebook. The Places product, meanwhile, allows users to share their locations and the places that they visit to friends and family. The tagging functionality in the Photos app allows for another layer of social sharing of photos that include information on the users who are in the photos. This is a social way of annotating and sharing the photos (Reuters, 2013). II. History of the

Conflict Management Strategies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Conflict Management Strategies - Assignment Example This approach helps in maintaining positive and stable relationships among employees; such relationships are considered more important than competition between the parties (Jones and Brinkert, 2007). Yielding is the most appropriate conflict management strategy in Scenario one because it is evident that parties are interested only in pushing their own preferences without listening to each other, which may be counterproductive and harmful in the long run. Therefore, yielding will help avoid ugliness and negative consequences of continuing contention. In Scenario 2, avoiding will be the most appropriate conflict management strategy. Dana (2000) notes that avoiding is a strategy where a party to a conflict does not pursue his own concerns or that of the other party, immediately. This implies that he does not seek to address the conflict. This strategy is considered as a diplomatic way of postponing or sidestepping an issue until a time when it can be considered proper to deal with it, or let the conflict to fade away on its own. It is also a way of withdrawing from a situation that is viewed as threatening. Most conflict management professions argue that this method may cause more problems to the existing situation because failure to address conflict situations may allow the situation to get out of control. However, it is the preferred strategy in certain situations. Scenario 2 calls for avoiding because the decisions that the Engineering department wants to be deliberated upon have little or no impact at all to the department’s ability to develop a marketing program for the new product. As such, deliberating on the decision is not so much necessary and can be avoided altogether because its impacts are negligible. Considering the issues brought out in Scenario 3, compromising is the most appropriate conflict management strategy. Compromising strategy is where both parties seek to arrive at mutually- acceptable solution which satisfies both parties,

Myspace Is A Social Networking Music Media Essay

Myspace Is A Social Networking Music Media Essay 1.0 INTRODUCTION In 2003, MySpace began. It was created by a small group of programmers who already had work in eUniverse, MySpace has grown by leaps and bounds. MySpace soon became one of the largest online companies. It was all due to the dream of Thomas Anderson and some of his friend who was members of Friendster and already had everything they needed to get started and create MySpace. In July 2005, MySpace was bought out by Rupert Murdochs News Corp. They changed the companys name to Intermix Media. News Corp is owned by Fox Broadcasting. Later, in 2006, Fox launched a UK version of MySpace. They successful attempt at adding the UK music scene to MySpace. Later they also release MySpace in other country. Currently, MySpace head office is in California. They are in the same building as Fox Interactive Media. They only have 300 people working for them, but they have gain over 200,000 new users everyday and have over 100 million users worldwide. Nowadays, MySpace is considered as a social networking website that provides us a highly personalized experience in entertainment. Besides that, MySpace also helps to connect music, celebrities, TV, movies and the game that we love. MySpace is easy and convenient for every user. It is similar to Friendster which allows their users to pick or build their favorite theme themselves. Furthermore, MySpace also allows users to upload their video, music, photo and other else that they want to share with other MySpace users. Games are also provided for users. There are many different kinds of games in MySpace. Some of the MySpace users expand their social network through MySpace. Some of them also use MySpace to connect with their long-distance friends. In short, MySpace is a social networking website that is very convenient to us. We can play game, watch video, hear music and do other things in MySpace. 2.0 MySpace Music Music is MySpaces territory. There have huge of artist and band pages. Some artists have millions of friends and the pages allow streaming music, artist control over the look and feel of the site and etc. MySpace also have  music streaming, playlists, downloads, merchandise sales, ring tones and other features.  (Facebook v. MySpace in the U.S. Market: The Music  Factor, Michael Arrington, Aug 22, 2008) MySpace Music is allowed users to search their favourite music by city. Besides that, MySpace users are allow to download music, link to news articles, and concert information and musician advertisement on MySpace Music website. MySpace creator, Anderson, makes no distinctions about talent level. He allowed anyone with music that can be downloaded can post on MySpace Music. (Website looks to get the word out about Pittsburgh musicians, By  Rege Behe, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, February 25, 2011) 3.0 ARTISTS Artist is a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination. They have their own official profile in MySpace. Their official profile is allowing MySpace users to know their recently situation. 3.1 How To Search The Favorite Artist Step 1: For those who already had their MySpace account, go into MySpace website (www.myspace.com) and login with your account. For those who dont have their MySpace account, go into MySpace and press sign-up. Step 2: No matter you are login or sign-up, you will enter your homepage. After that, you will see a bar on your top page, find the Music word, and click into it. Step 3: You will see a search box on your right hand side, type your favorite artist inside the box and press search. Step 4: Waiting your result come out. 3.2 The Results That I Searched Based on the topic, I had chosen the artist that I loved. I chose Britney Spears in this time. Britney Spears is my favorite artists all the time. She is an American recording artist and entertainer. I have followed the steps above to search the artists that I love. I found that is showing 3517 result for Britney Spears. In 3517 results, there were including artists, albums, songs and music videos results. For artists, there were 1000 results about Britney Spears. And the song, there were also 1000 results. Besides that, it had 526 results for the album and 1000 results for the music videos. The results just like the picture show on above. For artists part, I pressed the Most Relevant beside the artist results; I saw that had some related results about Britney Spears, but it was some only. I saw the Britney Spears official MySpace profile on the first and other was just a normal profile named Britney Spears. For songs part, I chose the Most Popular to find out what is the most popular Britney Spears song. As the results, I found that Britney Spears popular song was Womanizer, Circus, If You Seek Amy and other. The ranking was based on how many times does the song plays. Other side, I also chose Most Recent to find out what is the most recent song. The most recent song was based on the latest Britney Spears album. I found that had Circus, Lucky and etc. For the albums part, I chose Most Popular and Most Recent, but after I click in, I realize some of the album was not about Britney Spears. After that, I chose Most Relevant to find out Britney Spears album. There had Britney, Circus, Blackout and other albums. There had a Buy Album button under the all of the albums. We can download the album songs from MySpace to iTunes or Amazon MP3 and it cost $7.99 per album. For the music videos part, I click Most Popular to find out what is the most popular video. I found that some of the video was not about Britney Spears MV and some was some people recorded and posted the video that they sang. After that, I chose Most Recent. I found the result almost not Britney Spears MV. Therefore, I chose Most Relevant, I can see that most of the Britney Spears MV was found. There were Hold It against Me, Gimme More and etc. 3.3 Visit Britney Spears Profile I visited Britney Spears official MySpace profile, and I saw above of the profile, there had Britney Spears status. It will update what does Britney Spears done recently and let all MySpace users know her situation. Besides that, I found Britney Spears has 706989 friends on MySpace. She had so many friends because when we add her as a friend, the system will approve us automatically. But compare to some top artists, such like Eminem, Britney Spears not much more than him. I also found there were 925 people like this profile on Facebook. It might be used for promote Britney Spears MySpace page on Facebook. On the general info there, there had some details such as last login, profile views, records label, type of label and etc. It is give some general information to those who visited her profile. After that, I followed the step as the picture on my left. I went into the Music page and click Featured. I saw that had some songs on the playlist such as Till the World End, Hold It against Me, 3 and etc. Those songs put on featured playlist were the recommended songs. The songs those in featured playlist were recommended by Britney Spears. It might be some songs took from her albums as a theme song to promote her albums. For example, the Hold It against Me album, Britney Spears chose the song named Hold It against Me as her album theme song. But some of the songs in featured playlist are not exactly the theme song of the album. It might be the nice songs in her album. After searching the songs, I search the featured video. I followed the step in the picture on my left, click Videos. I found that already had a featured video when I came inside the page. The featured video is Hold It against me. This music video just came out recently. It was Britney Spears new album music video. Britney Spears had recommended her new album music video to all users of MySpace. Besides that, we can follow the video. When you follow the video, it is mean that you already like the video. The result of how many people like this video will show under the video. Other, you also can share this video on Facebook by click to all Facebook users. 4.0 PLAYLIST Playlist is a collection of songs from a music library created by users. MySpace also allow all users of MySpace to create their own playlist. 4.1 How To Create Playlist It might have some ways to create playlist. The proper way had shown as below: Step 1: Login into MySpace. After that, click My Stuff. Step 2: You will see Create Playlist. Click it. Follow the picture on above Step 3: Click the Add New Playlist, type your playlist name and press OK. Step 4: Your playlist have been done. The other way to create playlist is find the song that you want. You will see a + button, click it. After that, a box will come out. If you want to create a playlist and add the song into the new playlist, click Create a playlist, and type your playlist name inside. Then, click Add. Your playlist have been created. 4.2 Add Song To Playlist It is so easy to add song into the playlist. It might have some ways. The easier way was after you create a playlist, just searched the song that you want on the search box. Your results will be shown. After that, drag or drop the song that you want into the playlist. The other way to add songs into the playlist was you just saw the song that you want, click the song. You will see a + button, press it. After that, an Add to playlist box will come out. Choose the album that you want add into, then click Add. Beside these two ways, it also might have other ways to add song into playlist. Add song to playlist, it will let MySpace users easier to find the songs to hear that already save in playlist. 4.3 Edit Playlist After you created a music playlist on MySpace, you might need to edit it some times. Up to your playlist, it might have somethings can change. For example, you can change your playlist name through press the name of playlist, then edit it.Besides that, you also might add some description on the playlist to dsicribe the playlist that you created. There were also have three buttons named Share Playlist, Buy Playlist and Make Private to let you choose. Share Playlist can let you share your playlist to MySpace itself, Facebook, Twitter and Digg. The Buy Playlist was allow us to buy playlist which created by ourself. The prices were depends on how many songs we add into our playlist. Last, there was a button named Make Private. After you click that button, you will not share your playlist to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Digg. The playlist just can play by your own MySpace account. In additional, you will also can delete songs which you dont want in the playlist. It was so easy to delete. You just need to click a x button behine the song name. Then the song will delete. You can just see the picture as below. 5.0 SAFETY TIPS MySpace is a lifestyle social networking that contain over millions of peoples. All of the users in MySpace include you and me are playing a very important role in keeping the community safe. Safety Tips is a webpage in MySpace that helping us to know how all MySpace users can keep safe while playing social networking like MySpace. On this page, you will find some safety information, tips and some resources to navigate online communities. MySpace promise that to keep MySpace users safe online through unique safety features and technology, partnerships with safety organizations and law enforcement, and our support of new laws that will nurture the growth of online safety tools, education and research. 5.1 For Parents and Educators Millions of people are using MySpace. Some of them are teenagers. They have their own personal MySpace profile. As a parent or educator, you may worry about what do teenagers do with MySpace. Do they safety while playing MySpace? There are a lots of question might be come out from parents and educators. For parents and educators, MySpace have already set some rules and regulations for teenagers. For those teenagers who want to register a MySpace account, must be at least 13 years old. Those teenagers are below 13 years old are not permitted to register. MySpace provide this rule because those teenagers are below 13 years old is not mature. They dont have analysis skill to analyse what can learn and what they cant learn. In additional, MySpace also will automatically assign a Private Profile for those users are below 18 years old. Private Profile means that only account users will know their last name or email address can contact them or view their profile. This information will not show to other MySpace users. MySpace needs to protect some teenagers are below 18 years old. It is because their personal details might be stealing and contact with them. No matter how many rules and regulations that MySpace had set, parents and educators must keep looking on their child. It is because rules and regulations just have little helps. The most important is parents and educators must always communicate with their children. They need to talk with them always and ask what they doing with MySpace. 5.2 For Teenagers MySpace is a public space. It might have some stranger add you as friend. For teenagers, you might not put your contact number, house address and something easy to contact you in MySpace. It will let stranger easier to find you. Besides that, you also not take some harmful picture and those pictures with your uniform. It can cause stranger go your school to find you. Furthermore, teenagers might protect your privacy. Remember set your profile to private which lets only your friends can view your profile. Teenagers also might only accept friend invitations from people you know and trust. Moreover, if teenagers see those inappropriate contents, they should tell their parents or adults report these kinds of thing to MySpace. Inappropriate contents such as violence picture, sexual picture and etc. These  will affect the  thinking of  teenagers. Think before you post. Teenagers must think before what you have post on MySpace. When you uploaded something on MySpace, it can downloaded by someone else. Hence, teenagers might not post anything that they dont want show to other. 6.0 CONCLUSION MySpace is a social networking that provide us highly entertainment such as music, video, games and else. There had huge of people become MySpace members. MySpace created in 2003 until present. MySpace is similar with Friendster. Both of them also can let users design layout themselves. The most famous application in MySpace is MySpace Music. MySpace Music can let us search the artist that we loved and add the artists song into our playlist. We also can buy artists songs and artists album through MySpace. MySpace Music will also have Top Artists, Top Albums and Top Videos in MySpace. Before I do this assignment, I dont know what MySpace is. According to my opinion, MySpace just is a social networking. But, after I do my assignment, I feel that I was wrong. MySpace is not only a social networking. It is also a place that helps us connect with our favourite artists. We can know what our favourite artists do recently in MySpace. Through doing this assignment, I also know we can create a playlist that we want in MySpace. Besides create playlist, I know how to add songs into playlist and edit playlist. Furthermore, I also know how to find the artists result that I want. I found that MySpace really have many benefit for those who like music. Music is a part of our life. We can search the artist latest songs on our artists MySpace profile. MySpace really is a good website to us. I will introduce this website to all of my friends to share the benefit.

What Astronomy Really Is :: Astronomy Solar Systems Roman Gods Essays

What Astronomy Really Is What is astronomy? Astronomy consist of a lot of things that make up our solar system such as: the nine planets, asteroids, meteorites, the moon and the sun. Astronomy is also a fascinating hobby that can be followed by anyone. You do not need to be, as some people seem to imagine, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"mathematically-mindedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ , in order to start, or even to become a very experienced observer. Yet astronomy is one of the few hobbies where not only can you gain great enjoyment, but if you feel want to can very easily make observations of great scientific value. I know that astronomy is getting more popular by the day since the comet came and all those people got killed. But that really did not have anything to do with astronomy, so I am not going to get into that. To me astronomy is really cool. If you have a telescope and it is a clear night you can see different constellations such as: Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Hercules, Pegasus, Perseus there are many more that is so cool. But it is even cooler to look up and see them in the sky. To do all of that you first have to be in the correct place. What you can do first is look for the north star, when you find that then you are all set. If you cannot find it just simply face north and look for the brightest star in that direction. If you still cannot find it buy a compass then hopefully you will find it. If you still cannot find it ask somebody, I made no grantee that you would find it these ways. That is really all I know about astronomy, but after this paper I bet you I will know a whole lot more. THE SUN The Sun is a huge, bright sphere that is mostly made up of gas that is about 5 billion years old. The Sun is the closest to the Earth, it is 145 million km distant (this distance is called an Astronomical Unit). The next closest star is 300,000 times further away. There are probably millions of similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy (and even more galaxies in the Universe), but the Sun is the most important to us because it supports life on Earth.