Cross Country Snow Reflection

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading the Nick Adams stories. I fully expected to struggle with Hemingway's iceberg technique and not be able to understand what was going on in each of the stories. One of the stories in particular made me think the most and that was Cross Country Snow.

Being a story that is about taking responsibility and truly becoming a man, the story hit close to home with me because I feel like I am so close to have to do that on my own. I am sure it wasn't just me feeling this as well. Most of us are going to have to go out into the real world and get jobs and become contributing members of society in the near future. This, like most of the Nick Adams stories, was definitely a coming of age story. Something that completely reflects my life today.

This story also seemed to be more frank about what the reader was supposed to take away from it. Hemingway tends to leave out all of the details and descriptors that would make solving the puzzle to the moral of the story easy, and instead he makes the reader work for it. This story however seemed to be easier to grasp the moral than most.

Meeting Number 4: The Final Meeting

Mansour and I met for the final time today. After a full semester including 3 failed meetings,  and 3 good meetings, we reached the end of the semester. Obviously I did not get to meet with Mansour for the full eight times and I am kind of disappointed. Unfortunately I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. We met the first time at the end of September and everything was looking great. Then Mansour didn't respond to my emails for a good three weeks. Finally we had three meetings that were scheduled but Mansour didn't show up for, strange but I guess we had miscommunication.

Regardless, our last meeting went great. We talked about what each of us did over thanksgiving break and agreed wholeheartedly that the break was too short. He told me about the turkey he had cooked himself, it was the first time he had ever had turkey.

We also got on a random tangent of the Internet and the differences between here and Saudi Arabia. I was very interested in this because I spend so much time on the Internet. Mansour told me that the government in Saudi Arabia has certain sites blocked for the entire country, for example adult content and anti-government blogs. I found this interesting because it causes the citizens of Saudi Arabia to only use the Internet in sparing fashions because it is so limited. I, on the other hand, have a completely different view of the Internet. Yes, there are sites out there that are explicit in nature, but I see the Internet as a bridge to success that has never been there before. With the computer access in the US, just about anyone can start a company on the web and be on the road to success for a low barrier to entry cost. Needless to say I was a little disappointed when Mansour explained how limited the Internet is in Saudi Arabia.

Mansour and I also discussed how different the education experience is here. In Saudi Arabia, you can learn as well from the textbook as you can from the professor. Here, the classes are much more interactive and less lecture. Mansour told me that his plans to get a degree from a university in the US was a daunting task because of how much harder the schooling is over here.

Overall I felt that I had a great experience meeting with Mansour. I wish that we could have met more often and that we hadn't had so many issues scheduling meetings but I'm glad we got to meet at least four times. Mansour is a great guy and I wish him the best of luck.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man

I guess I have something for coming of age stories because "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" by Richard Wright was another story that I really enjoyed this semester. When I was younger, I always looked up to my Dad and wanted to be a man just like him. I would follow behind him while he mowed the lawn pushing my toy lawn mower and when he went to weed eat the grass I would flip over my plastic nine-iron and cut the grass behind him with a buzzing noise from my mouth. I can relate to the main character in this story because I wanted so badly to be grown up that I would do anything to get there. Ironically, I now wish I could go back to the simple times of being a little kid. A time when a piece of string could entertain me for hours.

I like the ending of this story because Dave makes the normal choice but not the expected choice. While that may sound confusing, my point is that in most stories that I have read the main character seems to eventually settle on the "right" answer. In The Man Who Was Almost a Man however, Dave chooses to run from his responsibilities after shooting Jenny the mule.

This was another one of those stories that was true to actual life and not dolled up or anything. Those seem to be the kind of stories that I enjoy most in this class. Stories that I can relate to on a  personal level and that don't seem too farfetched to have actually happened.

Where was I when I heard about 9/11...

Like most kids on September 11th, 2001 I was in school, fourth grade to be exact. At around 8:45 that morning my mom checked me out of school to go to an dentist appointment. As soon as I got in the car my mom told me that something had happened in New York City and that some building had gotten hit by a plane. I had no idea what she was talking about, nor did I know what the world trade center was so I brushed it off and didn't really worry about it.

Once we got to the dentist office and we walked back into the back room where I was going to have my teeth cleaned I caught a glimpse of the news coverage on TV. I saw the second tower get hit live on TV. It was surreal, I couldn't quite understand the magnitude of the situation but as I looked around the room and saw the horror on the faces of adults all around me I figured out quickly that it was serious.

I had a short cleaning and my mom decided to keep me at home for the rest of the day and not send me back to school. I, of course, was ecstatic that I didn't have to go back to school.

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do all day and I turned the TV on to watch some cartoons. The TV clicked on and the first thing I saw was the news coverage of the towers collapsing. I was completely taken back. There were news anchors speaking and they just kept looping the same clips of video over and over again. My mom and I sat there for most of the morning watching the news and taking it all in. It was surreal.

I understand now that I did not fully grasp the magnitude of this event. I find myself lucky and partially unique because I heard about 9/11 as it was happening. After I went back to school the next day, everyone was talking about the attacks and I found out that most of the teachers in the school didn't even tell there students what was going on and so most kids didn't find out until they got home after school. I can see the reasoning behind that logic, but I partially disagree with the decision to hide it.

My Least Favorite Teacher

In seventh grade I began to realize how easy math was becoming for me. I was finishing all of the homework assignments in class while the teacher was lecturing on the material. When my parents took notice of this they decided that I should get a book for eighth grade math problems to work through once I finished my actual homework. For about half of the year, I went through the same routine every day in math. During the lecture I would finish the homework and then during the homework time I would work problems out of my advanced book. At the end of the year I took a test and ended up skipping eighth grade math all together and going straight into algebra one. It was in algebra one that I encountered my least favorite teacher ever.

Her name was Mrs. Jones, and while she was a nice person I couldn't learn from her at all. Every day that I went into that class I felt frustrated because I couldn't understand the material she was teaching no matter how hard I tried. For the longest time I felt that I was the problem and that I just wasn't smart enough but then I noticed the countless other students that were struggling just as much as I was. We had lengthy homework every night in that class, ranging from forty to fifty problems a night, the worst part was that it was graded for accuracy. At the beginning of every class we would grade the previous night's homework and turn it in.  I remember that I was incredibly frustrated by this because I felt that I shouldn't be penalized for not retaining the information immediately. Almost always, our homework that night was over the new material we had learned in class that day. I don't feel that I had enough time to actually understand the material before I was graded on it.

It took me until nearly winter break before I began to figure out that I simply could not learn from her teaching style. The unfortunate part though, is that she wouldn't teach any other way. It was her way or the highway. I would ask her during class to explain things different ways and she would just repeat what she had said before.

I struggled through that class and it was by far the hardest class I had taken up to that point. She is only my least favorite teacher because she did nothing to help me succeed. The only reason I passed that class was because I went out and learned the material in other ways on my own. She never took the time to even consider that the way she was teaching wasn't working for everyone sitting in her classroom.

A Transitional Event

There I was, a skinny, tall, awkward freshman in high school. It was nearing the end of summer, and I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. The transition to high school was something that I was not looking forward to. Change is not my best friend; in fact change and I don’t like to meet often. Regardless, there I was packing my bag for a 4-day trip, a 4-day trip that would change my life. I was terrified. I was about to embark on the Technical Entertainment Crew’s (TEC) leadership retreat as the only freshman.  I had been asked to go by our faculty advisor, Mr. Poole but I had never really looked at myself as a leader before. I mean I had been a captain on a few sports teams and lead some small school group projects before but nothing that I thought was to extraordinary or exceptional.

I went out on a limb and put my trust in my parents and Mr. Poole and showed up anyways. I didn’t really know anyone and wasn’t quite sure how to act or what to expect. As I arrived at the school that fateful morning I was immediately asked to help finish putting labels on to dividers in the binders that we were going to be given for the week of meetings. I noticed something as I slid those seven labels into 11 different binders. First, these were the tasks we had to complete in the 4 days; second there were nearly 100 pages already there with space for notes, comments and even more notes. I was starting to realize that this might be a bigger deal than I had anticipated.

We went out to the van and loaded up all the gear, TV, duffel bags, backpacks, food, coolers, binders, practically everything you could think of. We all piled into the van, every seat was filled, the gas tank was full, the stuff was packed away and off we went on the 45-minute drive to the lake house that where we would be staying for the weekend.

That weekend I sat in countless hours of meetings, threw the football on a dry lakebed, sat out on a lake dock until the wee hours of the morning and many other things. At the last meeting on the first dayeverything started to click for me, I started to understand more about what was going on. I felt I could take on some responsibility and be a useful member of the organization. I was making friends with many of the people there and was starting to feel the “love” in a way. I was actually able to contribute to the conversation and understand those acronyms that were being thrown about. I noticed something else; I wasn’t using the mirror. Instead I was able to look everyone in the eye and pay attention to the meeting in first person rather than third person.

That night we played a game of Apples to Apples which was a tradition started many officer retreats before the one I went on. It was such a great time. We didn’t even play the game by the rules though, we made up our own rules, going for the funniest responses and just having a good time. I laughed so hard that my stomach felt as if it was going to explode. I was one of the guys; there was no more awkwardness, no more exclusion but now total inclusion. 

That trip was one of the experiences in my life that I will never forget. I know that sounds cliché but its true. There is a good reason for that, sure I made some good friends and had a fun time but little did I know at the time that the entire trajectory of my life had been altered.  Instead of following the path of the typical average high school athlete that I was, I found myself loving other things in life. TEC is the reason for my love of technology, photography, video, and leadership today. All of these are staples in my daily life. I can’t go a day without my iPhone, computer or camera. TEC is the only organization or association that I have ever bled, cried, screamed, or tired for and yet was happy every minute of it. I spent thousands of hours working with and for the Technical Entertainment Crew during high school, I was an officer all 4 of my years and elected president my last 2 years (something that has only been done twice before). I poured all of myself into that organization and got just as much out.
 

A Christmas I Won't Ever Forget

6:30 am: It's the early hours of Christmas day. My brothers and I are gathered in my room counting down the seconds, trying whatever we can to make the time go by faster. Matt is playing cards with Cade and I am sitting on my bed reading a book. 7:00 am is a magical number come Christmas time in the Favaron household, for as long as I can remember this number signified the earliest moment that my brothers and I could wake up my parents to open gifts on Christmas.

6:55 am: As the magical time nears my brothers and I grow anxious. Cade is running around upstairs with so much adrenaline that he can't stop moving. We get ready to knock on our parents bedroom door to wake them up.

7:00 am: The second we see the clock hit 7:00 am we open the door and rush into my parents room. Matt wakes my dad up, I wake my mom up and Cade stands giddy with excitement in the back of the room.

As we head down the stairs the lights are all off, my mom leads the line of children and my dad brings up the rear. Matt and Cade both have huge smiles on their faces. The moment of truth comes, my mom turns to flip on the light and as soon as the room is illuminated I see exactly what I was hoping for. Sitting in a corner of the room is an unwrapped Dell computer. I scream in excitement and run over to see it. It is an amazing desktop computer, monitor, keyboard and mouse and I can't believe it is all mine.

I give each of my parents a hug and thank them for my first computer. I can't wait to turn it on, in fact I set it up right there in the living room. Everyone around me was still opening gifts and I couldn't get beyond my computer.

I don't remember any other gift I received that Christmas. I am sure I loved every single one of them but let's be honest, it would be hard to top a computer. This was a special Christmas for me because looking back I realize that it was the beginning of a long journey to who I am today. Today I love computers and are fascinated with them,  had I not gotten that computer on that day I don't know what my interests would be today.

Conversation Partner: Meeting Number 3

Yesterday I met with Mansour, my conversation partner again. He brought me a picture of all of his brothers and I was taken back as to the size of the family. We spoke more about why we think the 'need' for big families has gone away in the US but not yet in Saudi Arabia. He told me that he sees a coming change in Saudi culture where they will start trending towards smaller families because of the housing situations.

Mansour also explained how different the housing market is now compared to just 15 years ago. When his parents got married they built a large home that is bigger than most average US homes. Now Mansour says it is normal for a family to get an apartment instead of a home because of the cost of land and homes.

We also bonded over video games and talked about FIFA and Call of Duty, I learned that Mansour's 4 year old nephew is allowed to play Grand Theft Auto, a game that you can't purchase until you are 17 years old in the US. Mansour has a self-proclaimed obsession with FIFA and plays for hours on end, even showing me the his callous hands from the controller. While I don't play nearly as much as he does, it was interesting to me to see that even in two completely different cultures video games can be enjoyed in the same fashion. It also surprises me that Call of Duty is as popular as it is with Saudi Arabian youth. It seems like a game that often makes your culture the 'bad guys' wouldn't be popular but apparently not.

Our meeting this time was cut slightly short because Mansour was sick and felt he needed to get home and get some rest. Hopefully by our next meeting he will be feeling 100% again.

The Lottery

I had read "The Lottery" before and I thought it was a great short story back then. Starting the class off with it this year was interesting for me because I was surprised with myself about how much I remembered after 4 years had past.

I thought this was an interesting story because of the dark twist at the end. The title is misleading and the reader believes throughout the whole story that winning the lottery is a good thing. Then you start to see right at the end that the lottery is a bad thing when Mrs. Hutchinson begins challenging the decision as soon as she finds out that she wins.

This story is interesting to me because I can't imagine what the reaction must have been when it was initially published. This is such a progressive story, detailing human sacrifice and essentially showing that everyone in the story agrees with it. Today, I think there are some people that are disturbed by the ending of this story and find the idea of it appalling.

Overall "The Lottery" was one of my favorite reads this semester. It was unique story that was fairly easy to understand but also had a great twist for an ending.

Cathedral

Cathedral was the short story that I chose to do my lead respondent project on. There was no specific reason that I chose this story other than the fact that the title seemed like something I may be interested in reading more in depth about. Once I read through this story the first time I thought that it had a great message, sometimes the sighted are blind.

I connected with this theme because I strive in my daily life to not be short sighted and to look beyond the superficial and try and understand the reasoning behind things. I think that it is important to do this because some of the greatest innovations in human history have come from critical thinking and imaginative thinking. I don't want to find myself stuck in a single track of unimaginative thought for my entire life.

Another part of this story that I really enjoyed was the realness of it. It was true, nitty gritty, non-hollywoodized reality, something Carver is known for. I found this style of writing to be refreshing and intriguing. Due to the minimalist and real nature of the writing, a reader could take this short story in both a superficial manner and a deeper meaning manner, but either way the story was enjoyable. I feel like this is where Carver compares most to Hemingway.

Cathedral was a nice change up from the short stories we had been reading up until that point in class. It brought the stories from way out there,  like The Yellow Wallpaper, back down to earth for me.

Conversation Partner: Meeting #2

I had my second meeting with my conversation partner the other day. Unfortunately time got away from both myself and my partner and it took nearly three weeks for us to meet again since the first time we met. We met again at the bookstore and unlike I expected, our second meeting wasn't awkward at all.

We talked about his family and life back in Saudi Arabia and specifically focused on the difference in school systems. I found out that his younger brother will be coming next semester to begin studying english here. I learned more about the english program here at TCU and feel much more informed about it than I was before. I didn't realize how detached from TCU it is and how differently the schedule is structured from our class schedule. They have one level of each class per month and then change classes at the end of the month. This would be hard to get used to.

One of the most interesting things we talked about was the difference in the "weekend" here as opposed to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, Saturday's are equivalent to our Monday's here. There weekends start on Wednesday nights and end on Saturday mornings. Mansour said that it is hard to get used to the difference here because the basis of his reference point for time has changed. I know that if I had to change something as integral and second-nature to my life as when the weekend is, I would be lost.

Overall, our second meeting was excellent and I can't wait to meet with him again.

Library Research #2

I read the Dec. 22nd, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Being the closest issue the published to Christmas that year I fully expected to see advertisements and articles about the upcoming holiday throughout. Immediately, I saw the cover photo a young girl in jean overalls holding the leash of and walking with a miniature horse.

First I was actually a little surprised to see so much of this issue printed in color. Obviously I expected the cover to be in color but much of the advertisements were also in color. Given the early 1950’s time period I was a little surprised by this. Now I did notice that only the cover and advertisements were in color suggesting that advertisers had to pay extra to have the add printed and distributed in color.

As soon as I flipped the magazine open, I saw that the first two pages were a large spread of photos sent in by readers. It appeared as if LIFE had held a contest for the best Christmas card design. My hypothesis that the whole magazine would be about Christmas was being proven true. Except that this was the last time LIFE mentioned the Christmas holiday until the last two pages of the magazine…

Flipping through the articles I found a picture that grabbed my attention. It was nearly a half page sized photo of a table covered with knives. As I read the article the photo was explained saying that there were rioters somewhere that had been arrested and nearly 500 knives of varying sizes were confiscated. This entire article struck me as odd because of the issue that it was published in. The day the issue was published there were only three days until Christmas and LIFE is writing about armed protesters using knives. I realize that at the time this was news that had to be shared throughout the news publications with the public but it seemed bizarre that an article near the centerfold of the issue would be on something as dreadful as protest and war. These were not the kind of articles I expected to see in a LIFE magazine published so close to Christmas.

On the flip side nearly every advertisement in the entire magazine was Christmas themed. The text was red and green, or the box had a bow on it, or there were holly leaves surrounding the product, regardless of the type of product Christmas was factored into the advertisement. I found it interesting as well that nearly every single ad was for alcohol or cigarettes.

Despite the fact the magazine was not in fact Christmas themed, I did find many interesting articles to read.

There was a bizarre article about a horse named Lady Wonder, she was a physic and was able to spell out responses using wooden letters. The horse was said to have used her abilities to spell out words to let a local police officer know where a missing child was located. Miraculously the child was found exactly where Lady had said the boy was and ever since the horse has been a well-known physic power. To reinforce the point LIFE even had Lady spell out the title “Talking Horse” for the article, taking pictures of each letter. It was weird for me to realize that LIFE was actually seriously writing about this horse and weren’t just being sarcastic. It obviously was a different time period and the article was written nearly 70 years ago.

Oxygen masks were growing in popularity according to LIFE magazine. There was a two-page spread in the issue that spoke about the ability to cure hangovers and hone athletic skills by simply breathing 20% pure oxygen out of these masks. I understood the purposes during sporting events, many of the pictures on the page showed athletes using the oxygen masks to replenish their bodies. But there was one photo that stuck out, it was a man in a bar in San Antonio, Texas standing at what appeared to be an oxygen vending machine. There was a mask attached to the large machine and you put in a few quarters and the air flowed through the mask for a minute or two. The machine was advertised as a way to ‘sober-up’ before you went home, or to lessen the effects of a hangover the next morning.  This article caught my attention because oxygen masks are commonplace now a day. The first thing that an EMT does when you get on an ambulance is put an oxygen mask on, athletes around the world use them during games, and even the elderly use them on a daily basis.

As I sat back and thought on how odd it seemed to me that this magazine appeared that it could have been published on any random day of the year. The articles were purely generic and had little if anything to do with the upcoming holiday. Then it hit me. LIFE didn’t need to make their issue ‘Christmas-themed’; people weren’t purchasing the magazine to read about how Macy’s in New York City planned to decorate the store. They were buying the magazine to get the news, be it world news or national news, it needed to be news. The advertisers on the other hand wanted to take advantage of the Christmas holiday to sell more of their products.

Finally as I neared the end of the magazine I saw the article I expected to see for the whole magazine. A two-page spread on the company Christmas party at Bausch and Louis Optical Company. This however was no ordinary company Christmas party. Any children from ages two to four left with a present given to them by Santa, and Santa also was there to write down the gift that each child wanted. Included in the party festivities was a large train to drive the children around the party and a zoo exhibit for the children to look at different kinds of animals.

Just before this article, there was an ad for the next issue of LIFE magazine. The editors at LIFE had hired the famous Broadway composers Rogers and Hammerstein to write a carol for them. That Christmas carol was published in the December 29^th issue of LIFE, only slightly to late for Christmas.   

Conversation Partner: First encounter

I met with my conversation partner for the first time just over a week ago. He is a 27 year old fro Saudi Arabia named Mansour. When Mansour and I first sat down at the bookstore I found that he had many interesting things to share and I found it intriguing that he was dressed like any typical American in jeans and a t-shirt.

He moved to the United States in July of 2011 and is now learning English formally for the first time. He told me how he used movies and TV shows to learn as much english as he could before he moved over to America. We started by talking about his family and siblings, he lives in the same house as his parents and his grandparents (something quite common in Saudi culture) and is the middle child of the 10 children. He spoke about how growing up with such a big family is quite common in Saudi Arabia and it is simply apart of the culture there.

Mansour is the only member of his family to travel to the United States and the only one formally learning english. I quickly inquired what his purpose for learning english was and he answered that finding a job in Saudi Arabia is nearly impossible now without a college degree and fluent english. I was quite amazed, thinking that a country with Arabic as the national language would have nearly all jobs requiring knowledge of the english language. He said that not even five years ago you could easily find a job only being able to speak arabic.

Mansour's ultimate goal is to learn english and then move on to getting a college degree in business (specifically human resources) from a college in San Antonio, Texas. He told me though that learning english outside the classroom here is hard because the only interaction he has with the language and native speakers is at restaurants. I am glad that I will be able to help him in this respect by giving him someone to speak to in english.

Here are just a few interesting facts I learned about Mansour:

• He loves to play Fifa on the Playstation 3
• He bought a copy of Call Of Duty for many of his brothers (you can't get this is Saudi Arabia)
• He thought Texans would ride horses around like the wild west
• He loves watching movies
• He loves watching soccer

Library Research Day 1

The Time Magazine I read through was the issue from May 21st, 1928 just 2 days (and 64 years) before my actual birthday. While reading through the magazine I found some truly interesting things. I found it interesting to compare life in 1928 to life now through the differences in writing style, advertisements and content of this Time magazine.  

First off, one small thing I noticed was that all of the letters to the editor were addressed to "Sirs:" which I thought was odd at first but then realized what time period I was reading. Addressing the editors and writers at Time as 'sirs' was quite commonplace in 1928 as women did not work for publications. Another example of this that seemed bizarre to me was the references to fraternity life in a publication such as Time. I found this odd because I have never read about fraternities in a national publication before. The article was talking about the renewed prestige of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity at Harvard, and the reason behind it being the then recent announcement that some business executives only wanted to hire Phi Beta Kappa alumnus. 

The second section that I dwelled on was the Science section. I thought it would be interesting to see what kinds of technology was being released and announced at this time. As it turns out there were a few inventions that stood out to me because in a form they are still with us today. The toot-light was announced in this issue of Time and it was the first introduction of a three-colored traffic light. There was one big difference from what we know of today though. These traffic lights were pre-timed based on traffic patterns and changed through the colors showing red as stop and a green light as go. You could do one more thing though, each traffic light was equipped with a telephone transmitter, and when you honked your horn the light would change from red to green for you and stay green for ten seconds. I found this invention to be an interesting one to say the least, I can see why this invention did not stick to the wall per say but it was a great idea none the less. Another invention was listed shortly after the toot-light and it was introducing the idea of self-winding wrist watches, watches that used your regular wrist motion to be sure that they kept the correct time. 

I found it intriguing that there were times before some of these inventions. For example, I have a hard time imagining life without automatic traffic lights that use Red, Yellow and Green, yet there was a time not even 70 years ago when that was reality. 

The advertisements were by far my favorite part of reading through this 65 year old magazine. I noticed that I was able to draw many conclusions about culture and general way of life during the year of 1928 by simply reading through the advertisements.  There were even some advertisements that I nearly found comical because of the lack of relevance that they have to our society and culture now. For example, one of the first advertisements that was for natural gas to be used for heating. To me it seemed silly that this company was trying to convince me that natural gas was the best way to heat your household because it is simply commonplace now-a-days. I also saw an interesting advertisement for what appeared to be a voice recording machine that would allow you to record memos and play them back for people. It was supposed to revolutionize business. 

One of the most interesting reads I found in this issue of the magazine was an article about John D. Rockefeller. The article spoke to his philosophy on how an individual should handle money as well as what a typical day of his was like. This gave me even more insight into what life was like in the 20's. For example, Rockefeller's day included time to be leisurely driven around the city always going over 35 mph, something that is one a foreign concept to us now. For one thing, driving over 35 mph is normal given that most posted speed limits are 30+ mph, and driving is much more of a chore now rather than a luxury. I also drew the conclusion that not many people in the US had access to cars because the richest man in the country was taking time out of his day to be sure he enjoyed the fact that he had a car to ride in. 

Finally, I noticed that the writing style in this magazine was different from that of today's magazines. It seemed much more sophisticated and academic than the fifth grade reading level writing of today.