Breathe

In, out, in, out, in, out—get out food, food to mouth, breathe in, out, mouth op—OW! My breathing rhythm during the second Varsity NorCal mountain biking race of the season was abruptly shattered by my cry of excruciating pain and fear. Gingerly, I tried to open my mouth again and quickly shut it with a moan. If I opened my jaw further than about a centimeter, an intense pain stabbed through the left joint of my jaw: it was locked almost completely shut. All-encompassing terror rose through me like so much floodwater, relentlessly filling me from head to toe until it felt like I couldn’t breathe. With this unfamiliarly overwhelming panic inundating my mind and blocking out every single rational thought, I felt myself slipping under into the realm of mentally being unable to finish the race. No. That feeling of slipping jolted and horrified me, shocking me back into my regular breathing rhythm—in, out, in, out†¦ Ever so slowly, I relaxed my jaw enough to drink a small amount of water and laboriously chew and swallow two energy shot blocks. Picking up my cadence to match the pace I had been cycling before, I headed into the third and final lap of the race, determined to finish what I had set out to do regardless of the level of my discomfort. During those last miles, however, I found my determination wavering. Every time the pain seemed to reach a new high and the fear would start to swell once again, the letters â€Å"DNF† (short for â€Å"did not finish†) flashed through my mind. I knew that despite the loss of points it would cause, my team wouldn’t blame me for bailing from the race; I was going through spasms of pain and panic every few minutes as my jaw alternated between being completely locked, and being unlocked but still tight. However, I also knew that I needed to finish what I had set out to do while I was still physically and mentally capable of doing so. Thusly, whenever the thought of not finishing the race entered into my mind, I quickly swept it away, recognizing my physical abilit y to race my bike to end as being largely unhindered, and refusing to let any mental weakness prevent me from crossing the finish line. And suddenly, seven grueling miles later, I was rounding the final turn of the course. I stood up on my bike and threw my whole body and mind into that last stretch, surging across the finish line as the third rider in my category before exiting the course and collapsing with exhaustion. Crossing that finish line gave me something far better than earning a place on the podium; it proved that I am able to avoid succumbing to fear, pain, doubt, or any other mental or physical limits. These limits have instead pushed me to improve in many areas of life, such as speaking at the SCTA Fall Leadership Conference this year as the co-president of my school’s GSA instead of buckling under societal pressures and hate. Rather than give in, I will continue to use these limits in order to learn, to grow, to accomplish—to cross the line of what I bel ieved to be possible.

Risk management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Risk management - Essay Example Various related sub-topics are discussed, such as ‘Admitted’ and ‘Non-Admitted’ besides analysing each mentioned domicile destination so that the most preferable domicile is finalised. Starting with Australia, other domiciles are discussed in detail. Guernsey takes the lead as it has maximum favourable points keeping in view the long-term strategic risk-management planning for an Australian conglomerate. The ends by pointing out the difference between a captive and other insurance companies, as a captive insurance can not cover certain insurances. TABLE OF CONTENT Executive Summary...........................................................................................................1 Table of Content................................................................................. ... ..........................5 4. Impact of Australia’s DOFI legislation on the company decision..................................6 5. Addressing the ‘Admitted’ vs. ‘Non Admitted’..............................................................7 6. Australia...........................................................................................................................8 7. Guernsey...........................................................................................................................9 7.1 Guernsey Plus-side..........................................................................................................9 7.2 The Non-EU Status of Guernsey...................................................................................10 7.3 The Advantageous Legislative Design..........................................................................10 8. Bermuda............................................................................. ..............................................11 9. Singapore..........................................................................................................................12 10. Conclusion & Recommendation.....................................................................................13 11. A class of insurance that the captive can’t cover.............................................................13 12. References.......................................................................................................................14 Captive Insurance 1. Introduction Increasing doubts in the world economy and random highs in premiums in the commercial insurance sector have encouraged companies from varied industries to plan their own captive insurance companies. Firms over a varied length of

Secure Networking Technologies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Secure Networking Technologies - Essay Example Furthermore the paper would also state the methods to mitigate the effects of these threats that have been suggested by various authors and experts. The results of the research have proven a few things. The first finding is that switches and routers are some of the safest devices that are used to connect two different networks or different parts of a network. Other than that firewalls must always be obtained from authentic vendors, as there are individuals who disguise malware in the form of firewalls to gain access to personal computers. The third finding is regarding IDPS. These systems are relatively new and more research needs to be carried out before these systems are perfected and made available for use by the mass population. Securing Networks Introduction The invention of internet brought with it multiple opportunities. Internet helped people share, store and manage data in a completely new way. Access to data became easier and faster than ever before. Where many saw internet as a tool to benefit mankind others saw the internet as a tool to gain unauthorized access to private data. ... Moreover this paper would also suggest various methods with which these threats and vulnerabilities could be mitigated. Network switches and routers Main features and functions: Switch is a device used for the purposes of telecommunication that connects various network parts of a network to each other or connects a particular device to the network. A switch receives signals from a particular device and sends those signals to the device for which they were meant. This is one of the reasons why switches are more popular than hubs. Switches are crucial to the working of Local Area Networks (LAN) with a number of switches being a part of an average sized LAN topology (DiMarzio, 2001). The switch creates a different collision domain for every port on the network by working at the data link layer of the OSI model. That means that conversations between two different pairs of users would not be hindered with the use of a switch. Using a full duplex channel the two different pairs of users ca n even communicate with each other (DiMarzio, 2001). Routers on the other hand are used to connect two or more than two different networks to each other. Once the router receives the data packet it reads the address on the packet that informs the router where the packet has to go. Once the address is extracted the router uses its routing table to determine the network address of the packet’s destination. Form the above stated functions one can say that the router directs all the traffic on the network. The process of directing a data packet continues until the packet reaches the node it was meant for (The TCP/IP Guide, 2005). When more than one router is used to