Holiday Cards Research Articles

Application of project technology in teaching Russian as a foreign language: the case of topic «Day of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)»

The article describes the practical application of the project method in teaching Russian as a foreign language, which allows to activate the educational and cognitive activity of students, to develop their communication and teamwork skills. The author considers the organization of project technology when studying the course of «Country Studies» in a group of Chinese bachelors, namely the topic «The Sakha Republic (Yakutia)». At the pre-text stage, lexical work is carried out with new words, the translation into Chinese of words that are not included in the lexical minimum of students of the basic level of proficiency in Russian is proposed. An educational text about the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) with emphasis was developed. At the post-text stage, work is carried out on questions on comprehending what has been read and performing grammatical tasks on the use and formation of full forms of participles and declension of quantitative and ordinal numerals. The creative projects developed by students on the topic «Sights of the city of Yakutsk», including an illustrated Russian-Chinese terminological dictionary, information about cultural objects, student reviews, are presented. The final creative task was the implementation of the case – the creation of a mock-up of a holiday card for the Day of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). Presenting their work, students developed the skills of oral monological coherent speech. To sum up, the author comes to the conclusion about the expediency and effectiveness of the implementation of the project methodology in teaching Russian as a foreign language, contributing to the creative activity of students and improving their communication skills.

Web Exclusive. Annals Graphic Medicine - Dr. Mom: Holiday Cards for Health Care Workers.

Web Exclusive. Annals Graphic Medicine - Dr. Mom: Holiday Cards for Health Care Workers.

Special delivery by satellite

NASA's Echo 1 was an early experiment in satellite communication. Launched inside a metal sphere, it inflated in low Earth orbit into a giant Mylar balloon, 30.5 meters across. Project personnel dubbed it a “satelloon.” For four years, it circled the globe every 2 hours, reflecting radio, telephone, and TV signals between ground stations. One of its most novel uses occurred on 9 November 1960, when U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield used the satellite to inaugurate Speed Mail, an attempt to propel the traditional postal network into the space age. In Summerfield's first Speed Mail letter, he urged “Mr. and Mrs. America” to post their holiday cards and presents early. That remains sound advice even in the Internet age and certainly during a global pandemic. → For more on the history of satellite mail and Echo 1, see spectrum.ieee.org/pastforward-dec2020.

Editor’s Note

Previous articleNext article FreeEditor’s NotePDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe editorial team wishes to acknowledge the artists and art historians whose lives have been lost in the coronavirus pandemic. The Archives is honored to help preserve their legacies. Our upcoming issues will feature responses from the art world to the pandemic and its social effects as well as highlight Black artists whose work paved the way for the current calls for racial justice.This issue foregrounds how the Archives can support innovative arguments about the performance of gender and sexuality. Two research articles, authored by Katie Anania and Miriam Kienle, explore this subject. Anania examines the artistic teachings of Kimon Nicolaïdes at the Art Students League, as documented in the papers of his student Mamie Harmon. Engaging in a queer reading of the archive, Anania concludes that Harmon’s experiments in drawing and work editing her mentor’s 1941 drawing manual enabled a complex negotiation of her lesbian identity. Kienle digs deeply into Ray Johnson’s practice of creating portraits that imagine identity as fluid and relational rather than fixed and absolute. Her analysis centers on a portrait by Johnson of Sam Wagstaff, elements of which are preserved in the curator’s papers, which Kienle links to Johnson’s (and Wagstaff’s) queerness and the homophobic US art world of the 1960s. Additionally, the commissioned essay in “Archive Matters” reflects on Tirza True Latimer’s decades of research on lesbian portrait painter Romaine Brooks and on her recent efforts to look queerly at archival materials. Latimer calls for the critical examination of ephemera, especially that associated with so-called minor artists and artistic genres, as part of a larger effort to rewrite the history of modernism.This issue also includes an essay by ShiPu Wang that mines the recently acquired papers of Chiura Obata. Focusing on the artist’s correspondence, it sheds new light on the relationship between his visual production and the US government’s forced incarceration of Japanese Americans—including Obata and his family—during World War II. We hope that readers will similarly find rich fodder for future research in new collections, a selection of which Archives staff introduce in each issue.New York-based painter Josh Dorman becomes the latest artist to produce original work for the journal inspired by the Archives’ collections. He transforms a seemingly innocuous watercolor—on a 1933 holiday card sent by landscape painter Charles Burchfield—into a poetic meditation on loss, longing, and regeneration. Dorman’s artwork is a powerful statement for the contemporary moment as we reexamine our responsibilities to nature and to one another. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Archives of American Art Journal Volume 59, Number 2Fall 2020 Sponsored by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/711969 Views: 136 © 2020 by The Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Samsons or Methuselahs? The (Potential) Virtue of Article II Treaties

Why does Wüsthof sell a fancy kitchen knife for US$2000, but mass-produce something similar for US$100? Why do some of us mail holiday cards, while sending anything similar by email? Why does the American Journal of International Law print its journal, when interested readers—and there should be many—can read articles like Julian Nyarko's “Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements” online? Come to think of it, why bother with Article II treaties, when they too have a near substitute, more easily produced, in congressional-executive agreements? On this last question, Nyarko's article offers an interesting approach and an intriguing finding: if we measure the commitment strength of agreements in terms of duration, treaties are measurably longer and, perhaps, stronger. Having spent several years working on treaty issues for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, I am acutely (and perhaps embarrassingly) interested in finding out why they matter. In this essay, I note some misgivings about how the article reckons the substitutability of agreements and about treating their age as a proxy for strength—perhaps Methuselah rivaled Samson's might at some point, but that was not how he distinguished himself—before closing by trying to imagine rival inferences that might be consistent with Nyarko's valuable insights.

In memorium: Koko, a remarkable gorilla.

In memorium: Koko, a remarkable gorilla.

Where are they now? Retention strategies over 25 years in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study.

PurposeIn 1991, we described the recruitment and goals for a cohort of young adults. At the time, little was known about long-term retention of young, healthy and mobile adults or minorities. We present retention strategies and rates over 25 years, and predictors of participation at the year 25 follow-up examination of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study, a longitudinal investigation of coronary artery disease risk factors in a biracial population initially ages 18–30 years recruited from four U.S. centers in 1985.MethodsCARDIA has employed a range of strategies to enhance retention, including two contacts per year, multiple tracking methods to locate participants lost-to-follow-up, use of birthday and holiday cards, participant newsletters, examination scheduling accommodations and monetary reimbursements, and a standing committee whose primary purpose has been to continually review retention rates and strategies and identify problems and successes.ResultsFor 25 years, CARDIA has maintained >90% contact with participants between examinations, over 80% at any 2-year interval, and a 72% 25-year examination attendance rate. Baseline predictors of year 25 examination attendance include white race, female sex, older age, higher education, nonsmoking and moderate alcohol consumption.ConclusionConsistent use of multiple retention strategies, including attention to contact rates and sharing of best strategies across study centers, has resulted in high retention of a diverse, initially young, biracial cohort.

Snowflake No.1

Snowflake No.1 Andrea Mummert Puccini (bio) [End Page 70] My mom’s mother, my Oma, knitted, crocheted, embroidered, and sewed skillfully. In the years I knew her, she spent evenings watching television news programs with my Opa, always working a project in her hands and lap. My mom never learned to knit, but she crocheted and embroidered well, and sewed with even greater precision than her own mother. I learned to sew in middle school home ec. The telephone-shaped pillow and stuffed toy schnauzer I made in that class are among a handful of sewing projects I’ve seen through to finish. I learned the basic knit and purl stitches from my Oma, but my completed knitting projects consist of only two scarves. Crocheting, I never tried. The world of fabric, yarn, and thread feels like my country, but one I left early and have visited only briefly. Rows of heavy bolts of fabric, unrolled and measured against a yard stick built into a counter; cellophane packets of seam binding; neat lines of buttons on backing cards: the aisles of Joann, the chain fabric store, are achingly comfortable, bringing me back to trips there with my mom when she was taking in alterations as a way to make money. My Oma died when I was in college, leaving behind hundreds of blankets, tablecloths, stuffed animals, sweaters, and socks. Too soon after, in my late twenties, my mom died too, and I inherited her handbags and pillow covers, skirts, pants, and dresses, holiday table runners. Tiny hardboiled egg cozies made to look like pastel chicks, with beaks and eyes on one end and pompom tail feathers on the other. And snowflakes, delicate, white, which she used to crochet as Christmas tree decorations. When I was in elementary school, she made it a tradition to crochet one for my teacher each year and give it to her—always a her—in a holiday card before the winter break. Aside from those she gave away, I have a collection of twenty-two snowflakes made by my mom. The blank gap that opens behind me in my mom and Oma’s absence reflects growing up in a time when taking on such projects was a choice rather than routine. I consider myself lucky that I was expected to pursue an education and a profession. I was never expected to care for my family by making and repairing our linens or clothes. And while my family modeled stitchery, when I felt the impulse to create, I gravitated toward arts—drawing, painting, and writing—that felt more communicative, expressive, and, I thought, more personal. I have often wondered if my Oma felt creatively satisfied by her handmade work, or if it felt to her more like repetition, as memorization is to learning—following someone else’s patterns. Yet there is part of me that envies those generations the way their stitch-work gave them daily occasions to meld necessity with beauty, detail beyond what was required for utility alone. ________ Two Christmases ago, as I hung the snowflakes my mom left to me, and again as I packed them away for the year, I was thinking about how she made them for my teachers. I had been wanting for a while to continue that tradition. Especially, I felt, I [End Page 71] would like to make them for the teachers at our preschool, Great Beginnings, whom my husband Stephen and I have known and trusted since my older son started there when he was three years and eight months old. Kelly, Lenay, and Brandi had been role models to me not only as a parent, but also as a human being, practicing calm and patience in the midst of exuberance, crying, or defiance. When things were tough at home with my older son—his insecurity and flaring anger, my unsettled emotions and temper—I’d found true solace in knowing there was a place I could bring him and feel certain that he was okay. But our time at Great Beginnings was running out. My younger son was going into his final year before moving on to kindergarten in public school. The next winter...

More than a pretty picture: How to positively disrupt the university holiday card formula

Each year we face the seemingly banal task of creating institutional holiday cards. There is a simple formula — a pretty picture along with a variation of the standard happy holidays message. Done. But what happens when a marketing communications team puts their heads together to positively disrupt this tradition? How can a holiday card truly become a source of inspiration not just for an internal audience, but for the larger public? And, in the increasingly competitive realm of higher education, how can it be leveraged as a critical tool for brand messaging and recognition? This case study aims to share some answers. By tapping into the full spectrum of University of Southern California’s Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ resources, including their in-house video team, augmented-reality (AR) app, social media channels and e-communications, they have crafted a new model for the annual card. They have taken on holiday-related tropes, such as snow and peppermint, to demonstrate how our conventional views of these can be transformed when examined through the multiple lenses offered by the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. This study will guide readers through the overarching goals USC Dornsife set for transforming their holiday card and video, introduce them to the innovative paradigm they have established over the last three years, and provide an overview of the accompanying rollout they have implemented for their targeted audiences as well as the general public. In addition, a series of takeaways are included so readers can adapt what was learned at USC Dornsife and apply it to their own institutions.

Claddagh Dance (Don’t Fucking Call Me “Ginger”), and: Stings, and: Red Night Desert District, and: Michael, please, and: Collectors

Claddagh Dance (Don’t Fucking Call Me “Ginger”), and: Stings, and: Red Night Desert District, and: Michael, please, and: Collectors Mary Lenoir Bond (bio) Stepchild, fire crotch, ginger balls, does the carpet match the drapes? We are late sunsets scratching autumn across the sky. Rare, fleeting fireworks like fall leaves, specimens collected like fireflies, awaiting a death jar. Ambers, coppers, blueys, strawberry blondes, cinnamon red hots, carrot tops, auburns, cherry pop rocks, I’ve heard them all but I was told my people are going extinct, this mutation in the mc1r gene. We’ll have to band together, procreate. Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Hitler banned redhead marriage for fear of a defiantly tough race. I want to scream down the streets, the halls, collect signatures at the grocery store, march in protests, petition people at the mall. It was a gift from my grandfather, sometimes it skips a generation. The word ginger is derogatory in most of England, it’s an alienation, abomination, a way to further separate. Kick a Ginger Day still exists, holiday cards in Great Britain read: Santa loves everyone, even Gingers, but, Christ!, it’s not a disease, this oddly recessive trait. They say, we are fading away, like the panda, chimp, dolphin, dodo bird, wiped out as early as 2060. And it’s a medical fact: [End Page 95] we are 18 percent more sensitive; doctors and dentists cower. To the hearts who have desired us, it inspired unintentional passion—projected—with no sense of protection, for our strange race. We were once sold for the highest price— at slavery auctions. A blue-eyed redhead is said to be as rare as a four-leafed clover, a mere 1 percent of the population. One man said right to my face, I’m married to a redhead, but I’d like to start a collection, if you’re interested. Oh, and those jokes: Ruddy ranga orangutan, Ginga, Fanta pants, bloodnut slut. I hope you realize we’re not all Irish. We’re also born in Israel, Mexico, Lebanon, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Northwest China, Italy, and Morocco! Some people rub my head, actually pluck hair from my scalp, my back turned away. Do they think I’ll lead them to a pot of gold, for fuck sake!? A stray hair falls out—I do not brush it away. I twist it around my finger, a strange promise ring, braided like hands, a crown, a heart, all on a mission against a merciless fate. Stings Saw my mother fall apartin the afternoons,housework done,threatened to leave us.This reminded me of a bee sting, [End Page 96] leaves the poison and dies.Said she’d fallen before Iwas born too, whenthere was anotherlike me but a doctorin Mexico took it.It was the 1960s. No choice.Mother once told me to livein a box, take nothing buthoneycomb and keys.I snuck in some sagebrushand jellybeans, and a usedGillette razor. I saw my motherthrough a crack in her emptybottle. She was tiredof climbing, all her nailswere bitten down, bloodyfingers, she touchedher face and smearedstreaks that looked tribal.That was the first timeshe became a real person to me,through those childhood eyes.I felt her closing down,as she howled and burrowed ahole away from meto a red-orange world.I followed a few days,ate some worms,turned back and sleptunder a solstice moon.Chomped on daisies and sangJanis Joplin tunes to a crowdof speckled cows in a shade-bluepasture. I rememberedstepping on a bee when I wasfive, calling for my mother, [End Page 97] swollen foot, swollen cries.Mother just said Ishould feel luckyto still be alive. Red Night Desert District Have mercy, I possessed rootsonly for three or four seasons.A natural disaster and then boom—tumbleweeds, still thriving after the wild cycle. This is a good way to see it, the world.It’s a dry desert heat rusting—a ribbon vine green to red to brown.And I, a dead...

“Feel the Warmth” glow: A field experiment on manipulating the act of giving

We conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personalized holiday card to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a treatment group, in which donors were presented with the option to write their own card for the recipient, or a control group, in which donors were not given the option to write their own card for the recipient. We predict that treatment should increase contributions through making the gift more meaningful, but may also decrease contributions by increasing the transaction and social costs of donating. We find evidence in favor of the negative effects of costs from treatment, and no evidence of increased giving. We also observe that our treatment crowds out small donors (donors giving $5 or less).

A Hallmark Moment

A Hallmark Moment

The Cruise

COVER FEATURE The Cruise Alix Ohlin 'The Cruise/' like much of Oh Iiriswork, combines humor and sadness to comment on the vulnerability of both thepsyche and the earth. Because her aunt was both wealthy and caring, because people seemed to believe thatdivorce required a period ofmourn ing accompanied and defined by homemade ritual, because Laureen (the aunt) was also kind of bossy and wouldn't take no for an answer, because she (Reena) had been named for Lau reen and theywere therefore considered by the family and, eventually, themselves, to be spe cially affiliated, because the same people who spoke ofpost-divorce rituals also said that travel broadened themind, because theworld's wild creatures were disappearing and itwas therefore imperative to see them before itwas too late, two women went on a cruise to the Galapagos. "This is going to cheer you up," Laureen said as they boarded the flight to Quito. She had at one time been a highly paid executive secretary who wore black cashmere turtlenecks and tasteful gold jewelry. Now, in retirement, she'd ditched all sobriety, in clothes and oth erwise. She was wearing fuchsia pants and a pink striped blouse and had already downed two alcoholic smoothies at the airport bar. She squeezed Reena's hand, and her breath smelled of Bacardi Breeze. Also chips. Reena's eyes watered, not from the squeeze or thebreath.How longhad itbeen since anyone held her hand? She was touched by Laureen. She was touched by everything these days, not hardened from the divorce but scraped raw by it. This year's holiday cards, even the generic ones from thebank and thedentist, had allmade her eyes water. It's so nice people care, she'd find herself blubbering out loud, tono one, as she put the cards on the otherwise bare mantle of her new apartment. The cruise hadn't been her idea, but she was grateful for it. Itwas something to do, twoweeks of something todo every day and every night, thehours portioned intoparticulars. Two weeks inwhich shewould never have tobe by herself for more than a few minutes, never have to be alone with those terrible scurrying creatures, her thoughts. As they settled in first-class, Laureen ordered more drinks. She had been widowed young and raised her son, Jasper, herself. She was briskly competent and always cheerful and independent and brave and Reena did not want tobe her, she did not ever want to have Laureen's life. But for now they were cruising, and she was grateful. The plane lifted,heavily, with evident effortand a lot of noise. She felt better already. The first part of the trip was a blur: two days in Quito, heat, dehydration, bland hotel food, a dizzying trip up to the Virgen del Panecillo. Sometime after thirtyshe'd gone from mediocre traveler to complete wimp. Laureen was the one who kept afterher, cheerleading her on through thedays. Itwas infantilizing and Reena liked it. She would have liked to have been tucked nto bed and read a story at night. She wouldn't: bave turned down a kiss on the forehead. Her own mother would never do such a thing,would never have takenher on a trip toget hermind off her troubles, in facthad told her that thedivorce was her fault (which belief Reena shared), and Laureen's curt dismissal of this opinion?all she'd said, in front of Reena, was "your mo:her is very narrow-minded"?typified her general auntly excellence. For her part, Laureen seemed most intenton getting Reena drunk, which was a big reason why the firsttwo days passed ina blur. A brief flirtation with stomach flu or food 50 I World Literature Today poisoning, on the day they boarded the cruise ship, came as a relief, giving her some respite from rum. When she emerged, on the second morning of the cruise, she found that the social dynamics of the shipwere already established. In fact,she had been abandoned: Laureen had a boyfriend. His name was Benjamin Moore, like the paint. He was a sixty-year-old civil engineer from Toronto, sensibly dressed inpressed Dockers and a light blue shirt.The equatorial sun had already...

Patient-Family Centered Care: Are We There Yet?

AS THE HOLIDAYS rapidly approach, much of our focus will soon turn away from the daily grind of work and professional activities, and re-center on renewing relationships with our closest family and friends. Many of us are currently spending much of our time sending out Holiday cards, buying just the right gift, and meticulously planning gatherings with family and friends. These gatherings and relationships are, after all, a primary focus of the holiday season. We strive to remain familyand relationship-centered in the midst of the chaotic holiday rush. As we turn our focus on this ‘‘family centered’’ season, I thought it would be appropriate to also explore the meaning of patient-family centered care (PFCC).

Table of Contents

Abstract Think Like You Own the Place Closing Major Gifts How to Lead Up to the Close Marketing Planned Gifts Low‐cost Postcard Help Land 11 Gift Annuities Help Callers Identify Wealth Judge a Prospect's Propensity to Give Psychology Behind Giving Attitude Matters Infect Others With Your Passion Motivational Strategies One Gift Can ‘Raise the Bar’ for Community Support Spending Money to Make Money Assessment Officer Helps Qualify Suspects Planned Gift Policies Have a Policy for Accepting Life Insurance Expect The Unexpected Do Your Homework Before Visiting a Foundation Professional Development Resources Are You Familiar With ADRP? Closing Techniques Offer Gift Ranges? Time Management Tips Net Worth Formulas Science of Asking Questions Stand Out From The Crowd Do Your Holiday Cards Get Lost In the Shuffle? Staff Responsibilities Role of ‘Director of Stewardship’ Clarify Board Responsibilities Make Board Member Expectations Clear Raising Funds Via Events Share‐A‐Chair Party, Non‐Party Raise $44,700 Stewardship Protocol Some Donors Are Changing ‘Pledge Period’ Rules Honing Your Skills Take Time to Evaluate Gift Refusals Flexibility Increases Success Many ‘Capital’ Campaigns Also Include Endowment Goal Give Prospects Ownership in Projects Encourage Prospects to ‘Fill in Funding Blanks’ Employee (and Former Employee) Giving Reach Out to Your Organization's Retirees Cultivation Strategy Consultant Profile Techniques You Can Use Report Helps Prioritize, Point Out Next Steps Among Foundations

The Etiquette of Being a Breast

A funny thing happened on the way to my breast reduction surgery. I grew fond of my 32DDs. Not that fond, mind you. But fond enough to memorialize them by parading in pasties for a homemade holiday card: Season's Greetings from Santa and her Helpers. I have never before sent out Season's Greeting cards. I have never before worn pasties. I don't even believe in The Season. But strangely—maybe because it was during The Season—I felt that the DDs needed to be given their due. Strike up the band! My hangdog breasts were going down in a blaze of glory. They were going to be famous, find their way onto mantels and refrigerator doors all around the country.

Holiday Cards from M. D. Anderson

Holiday Cards from M. D. Anderson

Holiday Cards with a Flair

Holiday Cards with a Flair