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 30th August 1998 |
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NursesNurses work hard. They must be kind and patient. They need to know a lot about medicines and the human body too. If you want to be a nurse you must be at least eighteen years old. Then you train for two or three years in a hospital. Florence Nightingale is the name of a famous nurse. She was very good and kind to her patients. Ramesh Pakkiyarajah,
Every individual is a unique person. As human beings we have to interact with various individuals and groups of individuals. We may have to direct people, guide and motivate them to perform in order to reach organizational objectives. So it is very important to know what make individuals different from each other. Psychologists say there are three factors that influence one's personality development. There are biological factors, cultural factors and situational factors. And to determine one's personality is to discover the relationship between these three factors. There are three types of ingredients like hereditary, brain and physical which are the biological factors, while family influence, the Socialization process and the identification process are the cultural factors. So the hereditary influence can have an effect on one's personality traits. For example aggressiveness, fearlessness and timidity influence one's personality to a considerable extent too. However the most valuable biological factor is the brain. The brain controls almost every human action. According to psychologist J.P Guildford an individual can have two types of thinking associated with the two sides of the brain. The left side of the brain and the right side of the brain. However he said traditionally the left side brain is called ''convergent thinking'' and the right side of the brain is called ''divergent thinking''. Convergent thinkers always try to give correct answers to problems. But divergent thinkers are opposite of convergent, and more creative famous writers and artists are often divergent thinkers. Among the cultural factors it is the influence of the family that plays a vital role in the development of personality. Individuals acquire values and norms from their parents and other family members. Often parents train the children according to certain behaviour patterns which they think are correct. These values are further reinforced through education. The influence of educational factors in the development of personality plays a significant role in learning and behaviour modification. Research shows that certain behaviour modifications are grasped by children through their interaction with the environment. Nilanga Daldeniya
Roses are red, Guess who liked them best She was so innocent, kind, helpful and loving Oh! dear Grammy, Ishiya B. Isack
"Mum, my life is not enough to recompense you for what you have done for me." You and I are in this world because of the sacrifices of one woman. That's our beloved mother. She has undergone lots of hardships to bring you and me into this world. But do we think about this? What sort of love does our mother have for you and for me. From the day we were born, she has been behind us. She does her best to give us a good education. She teaches us how to confidently face society. She always encourages us to do our work to the best of our abilities. When we do wrong she always corrects us. She's a great example to all of us. So my dear friends, she's the only person that we have in this world who will always stand by us. Therefore we have to love her, obey her and worship her. So I'd like to request from all of you to sacrifice yourself to make her happy at her time of need. It is hard, sometimes. But try your best. When you make her happy you'll be able to feel that happiness. "Mother, I'm grateful to you forever" Dilshan Nugara
Primitive art is timeless. It is still being practised in many parts of the world. It had its beginnings with the cave paintings of the hunters of 30,000 B.C. Primitive art is bold, colourful and vibrant, whereas modern art has become deadened by contact with our developed and commercialised culture. The art of the early hunters centered around the images of wild beasts and the ways in which they where caught. It survives today among the Bushmen of Africa, the Australian Aborigines and the Eskimos, but it reached its peak during the time of 10,000 B.C. Over the centuries, man used art to express his kinship and fear of nature. Gradually, he tried to impose order on nature and thus began starting and developing the mature city states of the Middle East, and later India, China and South America. During this time, the most interesting primitive art came from Africa and Oceania two places that received few influences from outside. Here, the arts of woodcarving, bronze casting, pottery and textile designing were richly expressive and full of confidence. Primitive art is unique and worth much more than money. It is an integral part of our lives. It binds us together with cords that cannot be broken. Michelle de Saram
Remembering Diana, Princess of WalesBy Uncle DCRTomorrow, August 31 marks the first death anniversary of Diana, Princess of Wales. Exactly one year ago her tragic death in a car crash in Paris stunned her admirers all over the globe. After much talk, the British Philatelic Bureau issued a set of five stamps in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales on 3rd February 1998. The stamps were in great demand and are a collector's treasured item just as the stamps issued after the Royal Wedding were. While Britain issued two stamps of the denominations of 14p and 25p one week prior to the Royal Wedding (22 July l981), countries throughout the world commemorated the event by releasing stamps carrying photographs of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. Among the many countries, which issued stamps on that occasion were Australia, Anguilla, Bahamas, Isle of Man, Niue, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Dominica and Hong Kong. 'The stamps released in February this year were of the denomination of 26p and carried five lovely pictures of Diana. The photographs had been taken by some of the finest cameramen in UK. The first & third stamps seen on the first day cover carried photographs by Snowdon, former husband of Princess Margaret Rose, second & fourth were by Tim Graham and the fifth by Terence Donovan. The picture on the first day cover was also taken by Tim Graham. The stamps were designed by Barry Robinson and printed in UK by Harrison & Sons Ltd. using photogravure process on phosphor bars paper. The size is 30mm x 41mm. Much has been written about Diana both before and after her death. 'Time' magazine in its cover story on 8 September l997 said: "She would never be Queen, but she became ruler of "her own heart and, even in her tragic end the world's true princess". Under the title, 'Death of a Princess - Princess Diana l961-1997'. Time summed up her life thus: "She lived a fabled life and a cautionary tale, a princess of irreducible splendour yet one who bore testimony to the commonality of loneliness and heartbreak. On the day 16 years ago that Charles, the Prince of Wales, married Lady Diana Spencer, the Archbishop of Canterbuly declared, here is "the stuff of which fairy tales are made". That fairy tale ended even before their divorce was announced, a love story that was false, it was shown, from the very beginning. Diana emerged scathed, but she had other causes to tend to - her sons, the sick, the war-ravaged, her own heart. The marriage was dead, but long live the princess. "And now she is gone. "With her go the hopes of a world that had turned her life into part of its own projected biography, a fragile hope for a happy-ever-after even in the face of adversity. To many her struggles blended into the hobbling steps of the 20th century as it limped toward some vague promise of millennium. The crash in Paris that took her life and that of her rich playboy friend Dodi al Fayed is a tragedy so overpowering that it becomes a torrent of feelings. There is only loss. "Beyond that there is guilt - that our desire for her was so strong that it set birds of prey to stalk her. Papparazzi. Even the word has claws. "And now she is gone".
Humans, like other mammals, grow up with little change to the body, apart from size. Insects pass through different stages, called metamorphoses. In most orders there are four stages — the egg, the larva, the pupa or chrysalis, and the adult. A butterfly starts as an egg, hatches into a caterpillar, then changes into a chrysalis, and emerges as a butterfly. A housefly lays eggs which hatch into maggots, change into pupae, then become flies. Only adult insects have wings, but they do not grow. It is the larva, the caterpillar or maggot, which grows. In some groups the metamorphosis is incomplete. In dragonflies the larva, called a nymph, grows up in water. There is no pupa stage. It climbs out and changes directly into a dragonfly. The same happens with grasshoppers, cockroaches and mayflies. Since an insect has a hard outer skin the larva has to moult from time to time. It crawls out of its old skin by means of a wriggling motion. Then it can grow a little more until the new skin hardens. It is the larva which lives the longest — some beetle grubs live for three years. The adult stage is very short, lasting only a day for some mayflies. In warm countries insect life carries on normally throughout the year, but in countries with a cold winter there is a rest period, called hibernation. This is when the insect hides away from frost in a dark corner, sometimes in adult form, sometimes in an earlier stage of development. For example, the tortoise shell butterfly hibernates as an adult, the cabbage white butterfly as a chrysalis. Other insects such as the greenfly lay winter eggs, and then die. Home for maggots The life-cycle of a common insect such as the blow-fly or bluebottle provides just one example of how an insect changes from an egg into an adult. The adult female searches for meat on which to lay her eggs. Hundreds of eggs soon hatch out, and the maggots begin feeding. After moulting a number of times, each fully grown maggot leaves the food and finds a dark place in which to become a pupa. This is usually in the soil. People who breed maggots as bait for fishermen hang rotten meat in sheds, with a tray underneath. Maggots crawl out and fall on to the tray. In the same way, farmers who want to get rid of maggots place manure over trays of water so that they fall in and drown. Breeding time Unlike snails and worms, insects consist of separate females and males which come together in order to mate. Most males find a female either by scent or sight. Some female moths give off a scent which can be picked up by a male over a long distance. The emperor moth can detect the cent of a female as much as 1.5 kilometres away. Other insects which have good eyesight will chase after a female in order to mate. Maybe this is where colour helps, as in the case of drangonflies and butterflies. Although insects probably cannot hear as we do, they are very sensitive to vibrations. In flight, the wing beats give off a note of a certain pitch. Experiments have shown that male mosquitoes are attracted to the females by their wing beats. Whatever the attraction, once a pair of mature insects meet they will mate. With some bees, ants and mayflies this takes place in the air, in a ''mating flight." Mating is usually a straightforward affair, although in some cases there may be a kind of courtship. Some male butterflies appear to dance around a female, other insects may rear up and move their legs. Some insects lay eggs soon after mating, others much later. A queen bee or queen termite can even continue to lay eggs throughout her whole life. Eggs are laid through an opening called an ovipositor, singly or in batches. The mother chooses a spot where the right food can be found by the young. For example, a blow-fly chooses meat, a cabbage white butterfly chooses a cabbage and a tortoiseshell a nettle. Dragonflies choose a place near or on water where the nymphs will grow. The number of offspring produced by insects varies a great deal. Many generations a year are born from aphids, such as greenfly. The housefly lays a batch of about 150 eggs six times during her life. A mayfly lays a single family, lives for a day, and then dies. |
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