Response to "Romeo and Juliet"

The non-traslation of "Romeo and Juliet" is difficlut to understand, as there are many old-fashioned words. However, in William Shakespeare's writing, he makes these words sound much more beautiful than they look. Also, this play gives a very romantic image for the audiences. In the play, Romeo uses lots of figurative laguage to describe Juliet, such as "and Juliet is the sun. Arise , fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief." (line 3-5, Act 2, Scene 2 ). We can see that in Romeo' mind, Juliet likes a goddness, pure, noble and beautiful certainly. In addition, Romeo shows his true heart to his lady or we can say that he is very pure. On the other hand, Juliet is afriad to say she loves Romeo because she worries if Romeo thinks she is too easy. She is very intelligent because in the play she says that Montague is a only a name which is not about Romeo; she loves him as he is a man who she loves. It is not about other things, it is about love. Indeed, they both are very brave, since they don't care if their families are enemy. As a result, they overcome the dangerious situation which thay have, and they present their love to all the public in the that time. Unfortunately, they end up with a tragedy. Personally, I think that is the best way for them because people who like them cannot exsit in their society. Also, their death prevents their family fight. Their families feel guilty for these couples, so they stop fight. Obviously, this sets off how great their love is. Actually, nowaddays people have lots of different obstructions between them and their lovers. However, when they face the obstruction, most people choose to give up, and they are not like Romeo and Juliet that try to overcome. People are changing, and they are losing the old spirit of love.

Response to "The riddle of experience vs. memory"

It is true that people cannot strightly think about what is the happiness. The experience self guides what is the happiness for a person. However, this makes happiness becomes too actual, as people shows the definetion with happiness. For me, I think happiness shouldn't be too real. Everyone has different opinions to happiness, but most them want to be happy. There is the question, who doesn't ? People chose to do things because they want to, they feel happy apparently. If one says that experience self leads the happiness, it changes the meaning of happiness. On the other hand, I think that being happy could be very difficult, especialy these days. There are too many things which we don't have choices. We are forced to do things that we don't want, and pretend to be happy. This makes our lives much more harder. My father says that we should always have smile on our face, even though we meet the person who we don't like. However, in the internal feeling, we are not happy, but we have to pretend to be happy. In addition, I think it might be easier for children since they are innocent and they don't need to consider too much. However, if people try to think positively, they could be more happier. Positive thinking reduces lots of pressures from a person. In brife, just try to be positive for everything and appreciate.

2001: A Space Odyssey

The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" divides to three part : A Down of Man, A Mission and Juptor Misson. The first part shows pithecanthropus' lives. They fight for their territories and powers; also, they know how to pertect themsevlf by the bones. This bone is the symbol through the whole moive. It indeed appears in other parts. For instence, the pen and the shap of the space ship look like the bone, and it symbolize the weapon. On the other hand, the second part is set after many years, and the technology advances. As a result, people can fly in the space. The last part is the most important part becuase it manifests the main theme that is about the technology can instead of human; in the worst case, computer systems even can kill people. We can find it in the movie; after Hal knows Dave and Frank is going to disconect him, he kills Frank and all people in the ship.I was very shocked when I saw this view.
Personally, I think Hal doesn't want to kill anyone, and he just tries to defend himself. It is hard to imagine how afvanced the computer is. It even has hunman emotion. Especially, close to the end, Hal says "I can fell it". It sounds like he knows what is the death about. I have sympathy with Dave and Frank. Both they cannot be with their families. This shows another comparision. In the ancient time, most pithecanthropus live in a grounp. However, it turns to the modern times, even though there are lots of technology that helps people to comunicate, they are sill not spending time together. In fact, it is the issue in the recent days, and it happens everywhere in the world. In brief, the moive"2001: A Space Odyssey" is a great moive. As our classmates discussed in the class, they said that the ability of human is limited. People cannot predict and prevent what is going to happen. In fact, there is one thing that confuses me. I don't understand why Dave reborns in the end.
We learned another story in the class which is very difficult, and it is hard to follow. However, I think this kind of story is very interesting, the heros or the monsters. Of cause, the traditional palys: the heros kill the monsters and safe the world. It sounds very proud.

To win a spring

When the sky is turning with the clouds, the sunlight is becoming scattered. Then we know that the winter is coming. What we can see is that full of withered leafs, and to feel the cold winds which shaves your faces. In the street, there are some squirrels which run around to look for a warm place or some foods. It seems like that they are not ready for the cold weather. People too, they pretend thet they do not detest the cold. In fact, they do, it comes suddenly that no one can predict what is going to happen. In the early morning, they still get up and go for their duties, never ends. Indeed, we all know that it takes long time to go through that days. During these times, some people may give up, and hide in their own worlds. On the other hand, other people may persist in what they need to do or what they have to. After the spring comes, people become truely excited. For the people who are hiding in their own worlds, they regreted, but it is too late to go back. Even though you want to change the way at the time, days are already gone. The only thing you can do is that pull you out and  (balke down ). For the other people, they deserved the whole spring.

“A Very Short Story”

It is a very short story which is just as same as its topic. In these few paragraphs give a deep expression to the readers. The main character Luz sounds like “lose” in English and it implies that Luz is going to lose in the end. She maintains the development of the whole story.

In the story, it says that a man who is completely falling love with Luz, and he helps her to do her duties by checking patients temperature, even though he is a patient too. This action shows how deep the man loves the girl. They are supposed to get married, “but there was not enough time for the banns.”(P3) Before the armistice, Luz sends many letters to the man; she tells him she misses him very much. However, after the armistice, Luz asks him if he can have a good job, they will get married. In this case, I believe Luz is already with the Italian man. She knows that the man cannot find the job, so she says like so. Then the man comes back to America, he knows what happens between Luz and the Italian, and they are going to get married in the spring. The man knows that Luz loses. She is not his Luz anymore, so he probably becomes alcoholic and sleeps around. That is why he gets disease from a sales girl.  

Certainly, if Luz doesn’t give too much hope to the man, it won’t happen. If she can be honest in the end, why can’t she be honest in the beginning? I think her name has another meaning which is “loser”. She may have two men at same times, but she becomes alone in the end, so she is a “loser”. We all know that having affair will hurt both the party and the victim thus. Furthermore, the man in the story is very incapable, if he loves the girl very much, he will find a good future for her, but he doesn’t. Also, after he is hurt by Luz’s betray, he doesn’t bestir himself up. This causes him has the duty-bound with getting disease to end up. All of them become a tragedy.

Response to “The Epic of Gilgamesh”

“The Epic of Gilgamesh” is a very ancient mythology. It has three parts, and the one we have read is the first part. It is about a man, Gilgamesh who is a three out of two god. He is the king of Uruk. In addition, Gilgamesh is as powerful as the real god, so he includes the most powers at that time. However, he does not care about his people, and he imposes too much stress to them.   Enkidu is a person, who is made by Aruru goddess. He has appropriate power to Gilgamesh. Then they become friends, and they are dominating Uruk together. Unfortunately, Enkidu dies. After he dies, Gilgamesh is afraid of death; he tries very hard to find a plant that has “the property of rejuvenation”. When he finds the plant, it already is taken away by a snake.

In the story, it mentions about the love from Ishtar goddess. She loves Gilgamesh, and pays court to him, but Gilgamesh refuses. Then she becomes angry, she asks his father Anu god to kill Gilgamesh or Enkidu. From the context, we can know that, love can change a person to hate; Ishtar goddess cannot have the love from Gilgamesh, so she wants him to be died even though he loved him very much. It is sarcasm, and it is very common in social live. Also, it reflects the dark side of human being’s.  In fact, the action she makes is not her fault, it is just human nature.

On the other hand, Gilgamesh wants to live for a long time in the story, so he is looking for the plant. Actually, we know that Gilgamesh is a three out of two god, and he is very powerful. However, even for him he is afraid of death. It shows a theory, although Gilgamesh is very powerful, he is still a human being, and he is going to die in someday. Moreover, great hero is not able to avoid the death, so people need to enjoy the live they have now, and accept the destiny.

In my opinion, I think it is a good opportunity to understand different type of stories. In the story, it uses lots of repetition and some difficult old fashion vocabulary. Those make this story become hard to understand the meaning.

What do you think George, Nick, Ole Anderson, Max, Al will do after the story end?

In the story, George seems to have many experiences with this kind of situation. When Max and Al threaten him to stand in the corner by shotgun, he is not afraid. He knows well how to comfort them that not to endanger him. Also, George doesn’t want to involve to this dangerous plan, so when they are gone, he asks Nick to warn Ole Anderson. Especially, in the end, he uses the towel, which ties in Nick and cook’s mouth to wipe the counter. It shows how comfortable with the situation he is now, so I think he probably will stay in the restaurant.  Unlike George, he is brave at the first time, and tries to save Ole Anderson as much as he can. However, after he has talked with Ole Anderson, he becomes afraid to involve in the situation, so he says that he is going to leave the town. For Ole Anderson, he is a strange man. In the context, “Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed” and “Ole Anderson rolled over toward the wall”, these implies that he may have some troubles in his life, and he doesn’t care about his dangerous circumstance. As Max and Al haven’t waited him in the restaurant, they will continue to look for Ole Anderson. As a result, it is possible for them to get into Ole Anderson’s place and kill him. Since Ole Anderson doesn’t care about himself, he must be going to die.