The Letter †English Composition Essay

The Letter – English Composition Essay Free Online Research Papers The Letter English Composition Essay Minami wrote down the last words, sealing the letter. She went out alone and was ready to mail it. Standing in front of the postbox, she hesitated, for she had no ideas if the letter should be delivered or not. She wandered for a while, and then went to the beach. Walking along the seashore, she looked at the shadow of herself. Minami stopped. She looked at the moon, felt anxious, and held the letter firmly in her hands, which had the name, â€Å"Izumi† on it. Both they were college students; Minami was a freshman, and Izumi was a sophomore. The first time Minami met Izumi, she had a crush on him. It was an evening and she saw him when he went out of the classroom. He passed her by quickly so she could just give a glance at him. Even only a glance, she had got hooked on the gleam of his eyes. It was so sharp, so haughty that she could not allow herself not to think about it. One day she went to the Audio-visual Center while he was there, doing his part-time job. She was very happy and excited. She borrowed a video, took a seat, and started watching it, but actually she could not concentrated on the movie for his appearance. Minami was very eager to know him, but she was too bashful to talk to him actively. Since then she went to the Audio-visual Center every week when he was there. But she still didn’t know which department he was in, let alone his name. Until one day Minami joined the welcoming camp for the frosh, some strides started to be made. To her surprise, she found that he joined, too. She fixed her eyes upon him as soon as he showed up. During these two days, she had been observing him. And she drew a conclusion that he was sort of shy and not so talkative. He always acted by himself. It seemed that he never felt lonely and wanted some company. Maybe these observations were not objective and accurate. But most important of all, Minami knew that they were in the same department, he was a sophomore, and that his name was Izumi. After the camp, Minami had totally fallen in love with Izumi. Every night she lay in bed and tried not to think about him, though she understood that she was only making vain attempts to resist her desire for seeing him. She wanted to know him more, to get more information about him. She wanted all of him. She suffered a lot and couldn’t bear such desire any more, so she wrote down a letter with all her emotions. Moonlight and sea breeze relaxed Minami. She had made a decision. She went back to the postbox and mailed the letter. Then, she went to the beach again, facing the sea, and said, â€Å"May I be your happiness, and then be part of you, your body, your heart, your soul, like flesh and blood sticking to each other, and never be apart from you. If I am not yours, then I wish you could find your true happiness. And hope all my prayers will be answered.† After that, she lay on the ground, felt relieved much, and thought, â€Å"Let the letter express my feelings, bring the consequences to me, and decide what my life will be.† And then, she slept sound and peace till the sunshine woke her up in the morning. Research Papers on "The Letter" - English Composition EssayTrailblazing by Eric AndersonComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoBook Review on The Autobiography of Malcolm X19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraQuebec and CanadaThe Fifth HorsemanStandardized TestingEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenThe Spring and AutumnMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New Employees

The Tokai Earthquake of the Future

The Tokai Earthquake of the Future The great Tokai Earthquake of the 21st century has not happened yet, but Japan has been getting ready for it for over 30 years. All of Japan is earthquake country, but its most dangerous part is on the Pacific coast of the main island Honshu, just southwest of Tokyo. Here the Philippine Sea plate is moving under the Eurasia plate in an extensive subduction zone. From studying centuries of earthquake records, Japanese geologists have mapped out segments of the subduction zone that seem to rupture regularly and repeatedly. The part southwest of Tokyo, underlying the coast around Suruga Bay, is called the Tokai segment. Tokai Earthquake History The Tokai segment last ruptured in 1854, and before that in 1707. Both events were great earthquakes of magnitude 8.4. The segment ruptured in comparable events in 1605 and in 1498. The pattern is pretty stark: a Tokai earthquake has happened about every 110 years, plus or minus 33 years. As of 2012, it has been 158 years and counting. These facts were put together in the 1970s by Katsuhiko Ishibashi. In 1978, the legislature adopted the Large-Scale Earthquake Countermeasures Act. In 1979, the Tokai segment was declared an area under intensified measures against earthquake disaster. Research began into the historic earthquakes and tectonic structure of the Tokai area. Widespread, persistent public education raised awareness about the expected effects of the Tokai Earthquake. Looking back and visualizing forward, we are not trying to predict the Tokai Earthquake at a specific date  but to clearly foresee it before it happens. Worse than Kobe, Worse than Kanto Professor Ishibashi is now at the University of Kobe, and perhaps that name rings a bell: Kobe was the site of a devastating quake in 1995 that the Japanese know as the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. In Kobe alone, 4571 persons died and more than 200,000 were housed in shelters; in total, 6430 people were killed. More than 100,000 houses collapsed. Millions of homes lost water, power, or both. Some $150 billion in damage was recorded. The other benchmark Japanese quake was the Kanto earthquake of 1923. That event killed more than 120,000 people. The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake was magnitude 7.3. Kanto was 7.9. But at 8.4, the Tokai Earthquake will be substantially larger. Tracking The Tokai Segment With Science The seismic community in Japan is monitoring the Tokai segment at depth as well as watching the level of the land above it. Below, researchers map a large patch of the subduction zone where the two sides are locked; this is what will let loose to cause the quake. Above, careful measurements show that the land surface is being dragged down as the lower plate puts strain energy into the upper plate. Historical studies have capitalized on records of the tsunamis caused by past Tokai earthquakes. New methods allow us to partially reconstruct the causative event from the wave records. Preparation for the Next Tokai Earthquake The Tokai Earthquake is visualized in scenarios used by emergency planners. They need to create plans for an event that will likely cause about 5800 deaths, 19,000 serious injuries, and nearly 1 million damaged buildings in Shizuoka Prefecture alone. Large areas will be shaken at intensity 7, the highest level in the Japanese intensity scale. The Japanese Coast Guard recently produced unsettling tsunami animations for the major harbors in the epicentral region. The Hamaoka nuclear power plant sits where the hardest shaking is foreseen. The operators have begun further strengthening of the structure; based on the same information, popular opposition to the plant has increased. In the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the plants very future existence is clouded. Weaknesses of the Tokai Earthquake Warning System Most of this activity does good, but some aspects can be criticized. First is its reliance on the simple recurrence model of earthquakes, which is based on studies of the historical record. More desirable would be a physical recurrence model based on understanding the physics of the earthquake cycle, and where the region sits in that cycle, but that is still not well known. Also, the law set up an alert system that is less robust than it seems. A panel of six senior seismologists is supposed to assess the evidence and tell the authorities to make a public warning announcement when the Tokai Earthquake is imminent within hours or days. All the drills and practices that follow (for instance, freeway traffic is supposed to slow to 20 kph) assume that this process is scientifically sound, but in fact, theres no consensus on what evidence actually foreshadows earthquakes. In fact, a previous chairman of this Earthquake Assessment Committee, Kiroo Mogi, resigned his position in 1996 over this and other flaws in the system. He reported its grave issues in a 2004 paper in Earth Planets Space. Maybe a better process will be enacted someday- hopefully, ​long before the next Tokai Earthquake.