Factors Leading Up to the American Revolution essays

Factors Leading Up to the American Revolution essays I think that there were many factors that led to the colonial break and eventual Revolutionary War with England. The Crown and Parliament in London didn't care about the Americans or if they were unhappy about how they were represented or not. The colonies seemingly were there just for the good of the motherland. Eventually, the colonists rebelled against Britain and declared themselves a free country. In my opinion, these were the three most important factors in that led to war with England. First, I think that the Boston Massacre played a major, if not the most important role, on the road to war with England. On March 5, 1770, a group of people outside the Boston customhouse were taunting the redcoat around the customhouse. He then called for help, and more British soldiers arrived. Somebody rang the town fire bell, which just caused, even more, people to show up to the already erupted scene. When one of the British soldiers was knocked over shots were fired into the colonist group. At the end of the day, five Americans were dead, and eight more were wounded. The first to die was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave. He to this day is considered the first casualty of the Revolutionary War. This at the time, had to have had the Americans blood boiling. The fact the soldiers who had killed the colonists stood trial were later acquitted, besides two that were branded on their thumbs. If I were a Bostonian, just a brand on the thumb as a punishment for manslaughter would have set me through the roof. I'm sure that the killing of unarmed townspeople had a major role in the road leading to the start of the Revolutionary War in 1776. The Boston Tea Party was another act by the colonists that led to war. On December 16, 1773, a group of sixteen Patriots, dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into the Boston Harbor. The Patriots that committed these acts remained unknown, much like other ...

Using the Spanish Preposition Desde

Using the Spanish Preposition Desde Desde is one of the most common Spanish prepositions. Typically translated as since or from, it usually indicates some sort of a motion in either time or space from a certain point. Like other prepositions, desde is usually followed by a noun. However, it occasionally is followed by other types of words or phrases. How to Use "Desde" Here are some of the most common uses of desde: Followed by a noun, to indicate when an action begins: Desde nià ±o fue su pasià ³n y su anhelo ser un cantante. (Since he was a child it was his passion and longing to be a singer.) Desde estudiante se destacà ³ por su perseverancia y su espà ­ritu perfeccionista. (Since she was a student she stood out for her perseverance and her perfectionistic spirit.) Desde bebà ©, tiene una identidad propia. (Since he was a baby, he has had his own identity.) Note that sentences such as these typically arent translated word for word into English.Followed by a time, to indicate when an action begins: Desde 1900 hasta 1945, las exportaciones netas se encontraban cercanas a cero. (From 1900 to 1945, net exports were found to be close to zero.) Carlos es desde esta tarde el nuevo presidente. (Since this afternoon, Carlos has been the new president.)  ¿Desde cundo lo sabes? (Since when have you known that? For how long have you known that?)Followed by a phrase, to indicate when an action begi ns: No habr agua desde antes del mediodà ­a hasta despuà ©s de las ocho. (There will not be water from before noon until after 8.) Vivo en Espaà ±a desde hace 3 aà ±os. (I have lived in Spain since three years ago.) To mean from when indicating where an action originates: Hay vuelos especiales a Roma desde Madrid. (There are special flights to Rome from Madrid.) Puedes enviar un mensaje de texto a un celular desde aquà ­. (You can send a text message to a cellular phone from here.) Murià ³ un hombre al tirarse desde la Torre Eiffel y no abrirse el paracaà ­das. (A man died after jumping from the Eiffel Tower when his parachute didnt open.) Se ve la casa desde la calle. (The house can be seen from the street.) A note about verb tense: You may notice that verb tenses used with desde arent always what you would expect, and they may even be inconsistent. Note this sentence in the present tense: No te veo desde hace mucho tiempo. (I have not seen you for a long time.) It is also possible to use a perfect tense, as is done in English: No te he visto hace mucho tiempo. You may encounter both of these usages in everyday speech and writing, depending on the region youre in and the context of the remarks.

The Body Gender and Sexuality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Body Gender and Sexuality - Essay Example They understand on the first sight of a human and animals by their bodies. Gender is best understood by kids through moms and dads. The body parts inside and outside are almost similar. Thoughts and feelings are common for both genders. Hopes, dreams and activities in several arenas are the same for both genders. The knowledge of gender is conceived fairly well even by a school going boy or girl. It is the sexual orientation which is the complex subject for kids – in fact for the whole human race – to understand in its fullest depth. The personal wishes, desires, aspirations and goals manifest in establishing the sexuality of human beings. For example, consider the following statement: The baby boy is fondled and kissed in his sleep. Can we ascertain from this sentence ‘who fondled and kissed?’ Was it a father or a mother? Was it by a man or woman? But the baby boy would exactly find who did it. How? The way and style of fondling or kissing are best differe ntiated by the baby. Thus it is the life style in which we establish our manliness and womanliness which decides our sexuality. We the human ever like pleasure, despite the fact that the other way is also true to be faced. We wish to derive pleasure in everything including our body. This kind of bodily pleasure deriving is named sexual by many folks. But it is quite natural for any living being to derive pleasure from body. Because, it is through the senses centred in the body we are to derive pleasure. Pleasure normally is asexual. It is purely psychological. In our going after pleasure, we find pleasure often comes from the style of being rather than in any other technique. No human being can think anything out of his/her body.... (Bhattacharyya, 2002, p.82). No human being can think anything out of his/her body. Just because one is sane and healthy, his/her ideologies need not be out of body experience. Physique is always physique. But the social norms often get confused with physical and mental health issues. As we have already put pleasure derived from body is completely relished and experienced by the self/soul through senses. This is well established by one Caroline’s (who is physically disabled) encounter with a physician who poisoned her mind with a prescription that she might not have loved her husband. She had just approached the physician to get medical relief for her hip pain suffered during her sexual intercourse with her husband. The price in terms of mental pain she paid for her approaching the physician is horrible. Social crippling of the psyche is more painful than physical disablement, which is medically curable.(Shakespere, 2002, p.145) MEDICAL PERCEPTION OF BODY AND SEXUALITY: Chemic al composition of human body was described in the second half of 18th century dealt with chiefly the chemical composition of food. Different body tissues were compared with various types of food. However, the concept of reference man and reference women developed in late 19th century especially during 1970 when body composition was begun to be measured with the fat mass and fat-free mass for man and woman. While a reference man was gauged with 3% essential fat, a reference woman was found to be composed of 12% essential fat. Essential fat in women includes the fat in mammary glands and pelvic region.(Gropper et al, 2009, p.283) Medicine and chemistry thus has begun to view human body as a product of reconstruction. The analysis of

Popular Music Youth And Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Popular Music Youth And Education - Essay Example According to this paper the author further gives a detailed explanation of the relationship between popular music and education. In this section, the need to integrate pop music in education is overly emphasised. The author concludes the essay by giving an overview of the general importance of music. Autobiographical account of the author’s relationship with music. It makes a conclusion that from the foregoing discourse, it has been established that music surrounds our day to day activities in our diverse cultures. The most outstanding outcome of this essay is that music has a great impact on the academic performance of individuals. Available studies reveal that about 90% of individuals with post graduate degrees participated in music education during their school days. Similarly, schools that spent a big chunk of money on music education post very impressive academic performance in general. It has been indicated that music education increases one's success in the society because such people rarely get involved with drugs and substance abuse. This argument is further supported by research findings that indicate that an education in music increases overall brain activity. Moreover, children that are exposed to music at an early stage in their development possess better reasoning skills than their counterparts who had a different orientation. It is for this reason that students who are good in math, science, and engineering have a craving for music.

Referring to both pharmaceutical Essay Example for Free

Referring to both pharmaceutical Essay Referring to both pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, explain how transnational corporations can influence the health of people in countries at different stages of development (15) Both pharmaceutical and tobacco companies can be transnational corporations and some wield enormous international power and influence covering over one hundred countries with billions of pounds worth of profit; in 2009, GlaxoSmithKline had a net income of approximately. 6 billion! Some corporations have, for example, used their profits to help fight widespread diseases in less economically developed countries (LEDCs), such as GlaxoSmithKlines help in the fight against Lymphatic Filariasis in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some have set up health programmes in more economically developed countries (MEDCs) to reduce common health problems in these areas, such as different types of cancer. However, some corporations only supply people with the means to deteriorate their health, such as some tobacco companies like British American Tobacco, especially in LEDCs, but both pharmaceutical tobacco companies play an important role in the health of the worlds people. A pharmaceutical company is a company, which develops, produces and markets drugs licenced for use as medications, so obviously these companies play a huge role in the health of people worldwide as they provide medication against diseases that would harm health. In LEDCs, medicines can be very expensive and in some countries in the world, in sub-Saharan Africa for example, peoples incomes may be so minuscule that they may not even be able to afford food let alone medicine. Pharmaceutical companies make two types of drug: branded and generic. Branded drugs are three to thirty times more expensive than generic drugs and so in LEDCs they are out of the majoritys reach, but they are patented and their chemical composition cannot be copied for twenty years; this means that should another company wish to reproduce the specific drug so it can be made available at a cheaper price for the market in LEDCs, it is not possible due to the patent. Therefore this has negatively affected peoples health in LEDCs, as the majority of deaths from disease in LEDCs (excluding HIV/AIDS) are curable with modern-day medication but it is how the medication is sold by pharmaceutical companies that prevents medication getting to these countries. Cheaper drugs to combat these common diseases cannot be produced as some pharmaceutical companies patented their branded drugs to increase their profits and eliminate competition from rival pharmaceutical companies. Although pharmaceutical companies may be harming the health of populations in LEDCs by patenting their drugs for twenty years, many of their drugs are manufactured in factories that are located within LEDCs as they are often far cheaper than producing drugs in MEDCs as wage regulations are much stricter and land is much more expensive. Pharmaceutical companies want to manufacture as much product as they can to maximise profit and so, for example, Bayer HealthCare, whose headquarters is in Germany, manufacture drugs in Morocco, Indonesia, Columbia, Guatemala and El Salvador all of which are LEDCs. The fact that vast quantities of drugs are produced in these countries means that the pharmaceutical companies will need a large, low-skilled workforce to do menial jobs in the factory. In comparison to salaries in MEDCs, the workers in LEDCs are paid far less, but it is much more than many people would have been able to earn before their jobs in the factories, as many of these LEDCs rely heavily on agriculture which is often a very low-paid form of employment. With this higher salary, people may be able to afford healthcare and the more expensive branded drugs that they are helping to manufacture. Some workers healthcare may even be partly paid for by their employer, therefore helping better the health of the population in LEDCs. Pharmaceutical companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer HealthCare, are thought to have a social and moral responsibility to help in the fight against diseases if they find a cure for them during their drug research and development. Diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis and African Sleeping Sickness are all curable with drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies. However, these companies are in a widely capitalist industry that wants to maximise profits wherever possible and providing free medical care for people in LEDCs is often not done, but GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer HealthCare have started a revolution in this field by showing that by using only a small fraction of their vast profits they can help improve the health of millions of people worldwide. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, discovered albendazole in 1972 and was found to be effective against roundworms and tapeworms which caused Lymphatic Filariasis (LF), a disease that causes permanent disability and currently 120 million people are infected with the disease in Asia, Africa and South America. Since 2008, GlaxoSmithKline donated over 1. 4 billion albendazole treatments to 48 LEDCs. Their aim is to donate as much albendazole as required to treat the 1 billion people in 83 countries at risk from LF. They also joined the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GAELF) in 2000 as a founding member and work together with governments as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to eliminate LF. This is just one example of the work that pharmaceutical companies have done in LEDCs to improve the health of the inhabitants by providing free medication at the cost of a small proportion of their multi-billion pound annual profit. Pharmaceutical companies have had a large presence in LEDCs in recent history and so have many tobacco companies, traced back to trade and colonial links in the latter part of the millennium. Tobacco companies feel much less of an obligation to help eradicate disease than pharmaceutical companies do and for that reason few tobacco companies have invested, at the expense of their profit, in health schemes to aid the disease-stricken in LEDCs. They are much more interested in securing a long-term community of consumers demanding their product. British American Tobacco (BAT) in Africa is a prime example of this capitalist, profit-driven attitude in LEDCs. In Malawi, BAT advocated the sale of single cigarette sticks, which were very popular with children as they were so cheap; a single cigarette costs one fifth of the price of a single biscuit, which at least has some nutritional value. BAT used a single-stick campaign to try and encourage as many young people as possible to start smoking as they knew that once they had tried a few they would eventually become addicted to their product, which is wondrous news for their profit, as their body tells them that they need a cigarette and so they buy more of their product and for this reason, 80 000 to 100 000 children start smoking worldwide every day. Advertising to children in this way ensured that BAT maintained a constant group of consumers to replace the smokers that either, more likely, died from smoking-related diseases or stopped smoking. Smoking causes many types of cancer, such as lung, throat, kidney and liver cancers, and emphysema is also a common problem and every eight seconds someone dies from tobacco use. Although, like pharmaceutical companies, they provide employment for local people, they are often only few tobacco plant farmers and are paid very little and do not receive the healthcare that pharmaceutical companies provide. So, in LEDCs tobacco companies are having a very bad effect as they cause many life-threatening diseases and their advertising campaigns show little sign of wanting to help eradicate the problem. As well as having a presence in LEDCs, pharmaceutical and tobacco corporations have presence in MEDCs as well. Pharmaceutical corporations headquarters are often based in MEDCs, such as the headquarters of Bayer HealthCare in Germany and GlaxoSmithKline in the UK. They often do most of their research and development in MEDCs, as they have easier access to highly-developed facilities and laboratories to conduct experiments. Much like in LEDCs, pharmaceutical companies provide employment in MEDCs, but this is often much more skilled work in research and lab work and is highly paid unlike in LEDCs where are less strict wage restrictions. The majority of people in MEDCs have a high income in comparison with those in LEDCs and so can therefore afford the branded drugs that pharmaceutical companies produce and cleverly market. The sale of these branded drugs in MEDCs to consumers is where most profits of pharmaceutical companies are made. They are not inaccessible as they were in MEDCs and for that reason the health of the population in MEDCs is often much better and the generic drugs provided to health services in MEDCs are often quite cheap and are easily accessible reducing the level of disease in MEDCs. Even though branded drugs might make cheaper, generic copies of these drugs impossible, because of peoples higher disposable income, people can afford the branded drugs and are willing to pay extra money for the knowledge that is produced by a genuine pharmaceutical company and not a supermarket spin-off. Much like the social and moral responsibility pharmaceutical companies felt in LEDCs, they are also feel obligated to do something about the common diseases in MEDCs as well, despite the lower level of disease. A huge health problem in MEDCs are STIs and STDs among youths and costs healthcare services lots of money to treat these diseases. In the UK in 2008 there were 123,018 new diagnoses of chlamydia in clinics: a record number. Additionally from 1999 to 2008 there were 11 times the number of primary and secondary diagnoses of syphilis. The Bayer HealthCare pharmaceutical company started a family planning initiative in 1961 and now has had family-planning clinics in 130 countries for 50 years. They also created World Contraception Day, which is a day every year to accentuate the importance of contraception. On this day there are fund-raising events, radio talk shows, competitions and events in nightclubs and discos. Tobacco companies are also present in MEDCs as would be expected and have a large market. Currently around 20% of adults in the USA are smokers and there are large markets in many countries. Many of the same health effects as in LEDCs are found in smokers in MEDCs, such as cancer and emphysema, although treatment of these diseases may be better in MEDCs it still costs the health services many millions of pounds to treat these diseases, which could be classified as diseases of affluence as they are brought upon yourself. In the UK smoking costs. 13. 74 billion to the government overall! Cigarettes contain many carcinogens and these will obviously adversely harm health of smokers, but although advertising of cigarettes is banned in many MEDCs the already implemented addiction to cigarettes does not need advertising to continue. Fewer people start smoking in MEDCs than LEDCs as advertising is banned and fewer children start smoking as they are well aware of the health effects smoking has as many MEDCs make it compulsory to learn about the effects it has to reduce the cost to the government. Much like with pharmaceutical companies, tobacco companies provide employment in MEDCs, but it is mostly administrative work in offices as production occurs mainly in LEDCs where there are favourable growing conditions for the tobacco plant. Due to MEDCs laws, tobacco companies must provide some level of healthcare and so in that instance they help better the health of their employees, but again they do little to help with international health problems as they are more concerned with their profit. In conclusion, both tobacco and pharmaceutical companies have great influence on the health of people in countries at different stages of development, whether they be an MEDC or an LEDC. Producing drugs and medicines and health aid provided by pharmaceutical companies are probably the largest positive influences either of these types of companies have on the health of populations. Pharmaceutical companies are generally positively influencing the health of people in countries at different stages of development, but in different ways either by providing aid or employment or through the capitalist nature of the industry they are in. Whereas tobacco companies are trying to maintain a large consumer pool for their product, whilst adversely affecting peoples health due to the carcinogenic nature of tobacco and cigarette products and are therefore negatively influencing the health of people in almost exactly the same way in countries of all stages of development. As tobacco companies have less social and moral responsibility they are not motivated to help in the fight against widespread diseases, like the pharmaceutical companies are.

Distillation Essay -- Organic Chemistry Distillation Water Essays

Distillation I. Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The process of distillation has been used by humans for years to create alcoholic beverages. Distillation is the process of boiling a pair of liquids with different boiling points and then condensing the vapors above the boiling liquid in an attempt to separate them. One might suspect that the mixed two liquids of different boiling points could be separated simply by raising the temperature to the lower boiling point of the two liquids. However, this is not the case. The two liquids â€Å"boil† together at some temperature between their two boiling points.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Raoult’s law states that the vapor pressure of one liquid is equal to the product of the vapor pressure of the pure liquid and the mole fraction of that liquid in the liquid. The total vapor pressure is simply the sum of the partial pressures of the two liquid components. Dalton’s law states that the mole fraction of one liquid in the vapor is equal to the partial pressure of the liquid divided by the total pressure. These laws can help explain the process of fractional distillation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When a mixture of ethanol and water is heated, it will boil at a temperature between 78.3 C (the boiling point of pure ethanol) and 100 C (the boiling point of pure water). In fractional distillation, the vapor will condense on a surface. The condensate will then evaporate again and then condense on another surface. This process will continue until the percentage of ethanol in the mixture continues to get larger as the percentage of water decreases. The more â€Å"surfaces† that the vapor settles on, the higher percentage of ethanol one will collect. However, one will never collect pure ethanol. Ethanol and water form an azeotrope at 78.15 C. An azeoptrope is a mixture of liquids of a certain definite composition that distills at a constant temperature without change in composition. The azeoptrope of ethanol and water will be 95% ethanol and 5% water.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The purpose of this experiment is to compare the processes of distillation and fractional distillation to discover which procedure enables a more pure sample of ethanol to be collected from an ethanol/water mixture. II. Procedure   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For simple distillation, I added 4 mL of a 10-20% ethanol-water mixture to a 5 mL round-bottomed long-necked flask. I joined the flask to a distilling head fitted with a thermometer through... ...iling points will have a constant boiling point. 6. When water is distilled, it does not vaporize all at once when the boiling point is reached. When some water molecules evaporate, the kinetic energy of the remaining liquid goes down and the temperature drops slightly. As a result, the rest of the water needs to be heated again before more molecules of water evaporate. A constant source of heat is needed. 8. It is dangerous to carry out a distillation in a closed apparatus because vapor takes up more space than a liquid. So in a closed apparatus, the vapor pressure would build up, and the apparatus would explode. 9. Slower distillation results in better separation of liquids, because time is needed for the liquids to meet the vapors in the distillation/condensation process. If this is done too fast, then the vapor doesn’t go through as many distillation/condensation cycles, and the final sample will not be separated into its too components as much. 10. A packed fractionating column is more efficient than an unpacked one because a packed column provides more surface area for the vapor to condense on. The more it condenses, the more efficient the separation of the liquids.

The Return: Midnight Chapter 5

â€Å"I thought you wanted to get out so we could talk to Damon,†Stefan said, stil hand in hand with Elena as she made a sharp right turn onto the rickety stairway that led to the second-floor rooms and, above that, to Stefan's attic. â€Å"Wel , unless he kil s Matt and runs I don't see what's to keep us from talking to him tomorrow.†Elena glanced back at Stefan and dimpled. â€Å"I took your advice and thought a little about the two of them. Matt's a pretty tough quarterback and they're both only human now, right? Anyway, it's time for your dinner.† â€Å"Dinner?†Stefan's canine teeth responded automaticaly – embarrassingly quickly – to the word. He real y needed to have a word with Damon later and make sure Damon understood his place as a guest at the boardinghouse – nothing more – but it was true, he could do that tomorrow. It might even be more effective tomorrow, when Damon's own pent-up rage was spent. He pressed his tongue against his fangs, trying to force them back down, but the smal stimulation caused them to sharpen, nicking his lip. Now they were aching pleasantly. Al in response to a single word: dinner. Elena threw him a teasing glance over her shoulder and giggled. She was one of those lucky females with a beautiful laugh. But this was a clearly mischievous giggle, straight from her wicked, scheming childhood. It made Stefan want to tickle her to hear more; it made him want to laugh with her; it made him want to grab her and demand to know the joke. Instead he said, â€Å"What's up, love?† â€Å"Someone has sharp teeth,†she responded innocently, and giggled again. He lost himself in admiration for a second and also suddenly lost hold of her hand. Laughing like a musical cascade of white water over rock, she ran up the stairs ahead of him, both to tease and to show him what good shape she was in, he thought. If she had stumbled, or faltered, she knew he would decide that her donation of blood was harming her. So far it didn't seem to be damaging any of his friends, or he would have insisted on a rest for that person. But even Bonnie, as delicate as a dragonfly, hadn't seemed to be the worse for it. Elena raced up the stairs knowing that Stefan was smiling behind her, and there was no shadow of mistrust in his mind. She didn't deserve it, but that only made her more anxious to please him. â€Å"Have you had your dinner?†Stefan asked as they reached his room. â€Å"Long ago; roast beef – cooked.†She smiled. â€Å"What did Damon say when he final y realized it was you and looked at the food you'd brought?† Elena made herself giggle again. It was al right to have tears in her eyes; her burns and cuts hurt and the episode with Damon justified any amount of weeping. â€Å"He cal ed it bloody hamburger. It was steak tartar. But, Stefan, I don't want to talk about him now.† â€Å"No, of course you don't, love.†Stefan was immediately contrite. And he was trying so hard not to seem eager to feed – but he couldn't even control his canines. And Elena was in no mood to dal y either. She perched on the bed, careful y unwinding the bandage Mrs. Flowers had just wound on it. Stefan suddenly looked troubled. Love – He stopped abruptly. What? Elena finished with the bandage, studying Stefan's face. Well – shall I take it out of your arm instead? You're already in pain and I don't want to fool with Mrs. Flowers's anti-tetanus treatment. There's still plenty of room around it, Elena said cheerful y. But a bite on top of those cuts†¦He stopped again. Elena looked at him. She knew her Stefan. There was something he wanted to say. Tell me, she pressed him. Stefan final y met her eyes directly, and then put his mouth close to her ear. â€Å"I can heal the cuts,†he whispered. â€Å"But – it would mean opening them again so they can bleed. That wil hurt.† â€Å"And it might poison you!†Elena said sharply. â€Å"Don't you see? Mrs. Flowers put heaven knows what on them – â€Å" She could feel his laughter, which sent warm tingles down her spine. â€Å"You can't kil a vampire so easily,†he said. â€Å"We only die if you stake us through the heart. But I don't want to hurt you – even to help you. I could Influence you not to feel anything – â€Å" Once again, Elena cut him off. â€Å"No! No, I don't mind if it hurts. As long as you get as much blood as you need.† Stefan respected Elena enough to know that he shouldn't ask the same question twice. And he could hardly restrain himself any longer. He watched her lie down and then stretched out beside her, bending to get to the green-stained cuts. He licked gently, at first rather tentatively, at the wounds, and then ran a satiny tongue over them. He had no idea how the process worked or what chemicals he was stroking over Elena's injuries. It was as automatic as breathing was to humans. But after a minute, he chuckled softly. What? What? Elena demanded, smiling herself as his breath tickled. Your blood's laced with lemon balm, Stefan replied. Grand mama's healing recipe has lemon balm and alcohol in it! Lemon balm wine! Is that good or bad? Elena asked uncertainly. It's fine – for a change. But I still like your blood straight the best. Does it hurt too much? Elena could feel herself flush. Damon had healed her cheek this way, back in the Dark Dimension, when Elena had, with her own body, protected a bleeding slave from a whiplash. She knew Stefan knew the story, and must know, each time he saw her, that the almost-invisible white line on her cheekbone had been stroked just this gently into healing. Compared to that, these scratches are nothing, she sent. But a sudden chil went through her. Stefan! I never begged your pardon for protecting Ulma at the risk of not being able to save you. Or, worse – for dancing while you were starving – for keeping up the society pretense so we could get the Twin Fox key – Do you think I care about that? Stefan's voice was mock-angry as he gently sealed one cut at her throat. You did what you had to in order to track me – find me – save me – after I'd left you alone here. Don't you think I understand? I didn't deserve the saving – Now Elena felt a smal sob choke her. Never say that! Never! And I suppose – I suppose I knew you would forgive me – or I would have felt every jewel I wore burning like a brand. We had to chase you down like a fox with hounds – and we were so scared that a single misstep could mean you'd be hanged†¦or we would be. Stefan was holding her tightly now. How can I make you understand? he asked. You gave up everything – even your freedom – for me. You became slaves. You – you – were â€Å"Disciplined†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Elena asked wildly, How do you know that? Who told you? You told me, beloved. In your sleep – in your dreams. But, Stefan – Damon took the pain for me. Did you know that? Stefan was silent a moment, then responded, I†¦see. I didn't know that before. Scenes strewn from the Dark Dimension bubbled in Elena's mind. That city of tarnished baubles – of il usive glitter, where a whiplash that spread blood across a wal was as much celebrated as a handful of rubies strewn on the sidewalk†¦. Love, don't think about it. You followed me, and you rescued me, and now we're here together, Stefan said. The last cut closed, he lay his cheek on hers. That's all I care about. You and I – together. Elena was almost dizzily glad to be forgiven – but there was something inside her – something that had grown and grown and grown during the weeks she was in the Dark Dimension. A feeling for Damon that was not just the result of her need for his help. A feeling that Elena had thought Stefan understood. A feeling that might even change the relations between the three of them: her, Stefan, and Damon. But now Stefan seemed to assume that everything would return to the way it was before his kidnapping. Oh, wel , why fret about tomorrow when tonight was enough to make her weep with joy? This was the best feeling in the world, the knowledge that she and Stefan were together, and she made Stefan promise her over and over that he would not ever leave her on another quest again, no matter how briefly, no matter what the cause. By now, Elena could not even focus on what she had been worried about before. She and Stefan had always found heaven in each other's arms. They were meant to be together forever. Nothing else mattered now that she was home. â€Å"Home†was where she and Stefan were together.