Last Post

I would just like to say it has been an honor being in this beloved English class. I really enjoyed hearing all of the short stories in class and I am glad that I was able to share mine. It is hard to believe that the school year is already over. It feels like yesterday I was squaring my meals and marching in section. But as reluctant as I am to leave our English class, I know that it is for bigger and....well bigger things. I am going to miss Rub-a-Dubs falling asleep in class and Jake talking about Ke$ha. But all good things must come to an end. I had a great time in English this semester and look forward to seeing you all next year.

Sincerely,
Michael Massaro

La Muneca

I found this play interesting, unlike most of my classmates. I could see the struggle that the main character faced throughout the play. He was struggling with what every boy coming of age struggles with; defining himself. He doesn't really know what he wants to do in his life so he works at a funeral home. He thinks he wants to be a painter but he doesn't actively pursue it. He doesn't know how to talk to women so imagines what it would be like if he had a wife. The only thing that was constant in his life was his dog Peppe. Since the dog died there was no stability. The dog served as something that the main character could depend on being there for him. His father occasionally checks on him, but often only stays for short periods of time and runs off with a woman every night. The main character pushes everyone away and doesn't want to leave the bubble that he has created for himself. It kind of reminds me of Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caufield doesn't want to grow up and calls everything else "phony" when he reality he is the one who is phony. He created a world in which only he lived in and understood. This fear of adulthood is prevalent in La Muneca. This coming of age for the boy creates a tension between the characters. It was really exemplified by his friend who wanted to set him up on a blind date, but the main character refused. I just felt like I could see past the poor set and the fact that it was a Sunday night and understand what the writer was getting at. The play was a bit long for me, but I could understand why it was critically acclaimed in New York. I think its unfair to criticize something without having an open mind. I enjoyed the play and thought that the actors did a good job with the limitations that they were giving (the cga stage is sub par at best).

Facing Plato's Bullet

These three poems represent three different eras of war. The first represented is WWII in Cummings, "Plato Told." It is interesting how the author said that it took a "nipponized bit of the old sixth avenue el in the top of his head to tell him." Cummings is talking about how war is hell and how scrap metal form the Sixth Avenue elevated railway in NYC was torn down in the 1930s in and sold Japan, which they turned into armaments used in WWII. It is kind of ironic how we sell scrap iron to Japan only to be killed by it in a war against them. Cummings demonstrates how the person that he is talking about doesn't fully understand war until he pays the ultimate price, his life. In Komunkyakaa's poem, "Facing it," he talks about his emotions at the Vietnam War memorial. Having served in Vietnam, he speaks on how the sights at the memorial affect him. What I found interesting was that he feels that people are trying to forget about the war. He says, "a woman's trying to erase the names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair." It seems to me that the author feels very strongly about remembering the ones who have fallen and doesn't want their sacrifice to go unremembered. "Here, Bullet," talks about the war in the modern era. The author, Brian Turner, served in Iraq and Bosnia. He talks about the brutality that the bullet causes in war, and how it is where the world ends. Overall, I thought these poems were pretty depressing, and gave horrific views of war. But if that is what the reality of war is like then I guess the poems are pretty accurate.

Light is like water

This story was hard for me to grasp. I understand the metaphor between light and water, but I find it hard to believe that the children actually drowned. It says, "Responding to the alarm call, the firemen forced open the door to the fifth-floor apartment, and found the whole place filled with light, up to the ceiling". If light literally means water then the apartment could technically have been filled with water. But I feel like the light represents fire, and that the children thought that breaking light bulbs would bring water, because it represented the tap. However, in breaking to many light bulbs, a fire started and they all ended up burning to death in the apartment. The inability for the children to distinguish between light and water inevitably led to their demise. But the last paragraph casts doubt on my assertion, because I cannot figure out what the author means when he says that, "Totó was seated at the stern of the rowboat, glued to the oars, with his scuba mask on, searching for the lighthouse of the port until his tanks ran out of air; and Joel floated in the prow, still trying to measure the height of the north star with his sextant, and floating throughout the house were his thirty-six classmates" I feel like there is something more here than just dying in fire. There has to be a reason the author chose to portray the children like this. I just cant seem to put my finger on it. It could be that by breaking the light bulbs and opening the tap, it unleashed the children's imagination of the room being filled with water and so in their reality they thought that they were actually overflowing with water, whereas in real reality they were trapped in a burning room, but did not see it that way. This whole idea of perceptions of reality confuses me and I can not seem to distinguish between what is real and what isn't. But I am going to stand by my statement and say that the children died in a fire and not in water.

Sassoon and Jarrell

I found these two poems very interesting. In "Dreamers," Sassoon describes what it is like to be a soldier under fire. Even though the military may seem glamorous with the nice uniforms and honor, once you are under fire you forget all of that. When you are put in a life or death situation you quickly resort back to thinking about "firelit homes, clean beds, and wives". That glamor that you once wanted is all gone. You would give anything to have your real life back. At the academy, even though we are not at war, we still have sacrificed many things to be here. We have given up the traditional college experience to serve our country. As a highschooler this seemed really honorable, but now that we are actually here dealing with the day to day grind of the academy, it doesnt seem so appealing anymore. Some days it feels like I would give anything to be a civilan again, but then others I feel a sense of pride in being here (although not many). So I can relate to how these soldiers may feel. But in war that feeling must be amplified a hundred times to what its like at the academy. In Jarrell's poem, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," the author talks about the like of a ball turret gunner and how they spend it curled up in the fetal position firing 6 miles off of the gorund until they are killed. This poem almost paralelled to an abortion. When Jarrell said, "When I died they washed me out fo the turret with a hose," it me of a woman given brith to a stillborn. It is a horrid image, but one that results form the author's choice of words. Overall, these poems made me think a lot.

Time for Dinner

OVID

I was surprised that we were reading Ovid in English class. In high school that was usually reserved for only Latin class. Prior to coming to the academy I took Latin for 5 years, so seeing some Latin poetry brought back fond memories of conjugating verbs and translating sentences. I actually didn't need the English to get the gist of what Ovid was talking about. Of course I am not an expert at Latin so I couldn't translate nearly as well the way the author did. Plus its been a while since I've read Latin so I was a little rusty on vocab (needed a handy Latin to English Dictionary). For example the author translated "Dum facit ingenium" into "While she inspires me" whereas I would have said "While she makes my talent" and when the author translated "petite hinc praecepta" into "seek precepts here" I would have said "seek rules from this place". Its basically the same thing except put better into English. Latin is the reason I use the passive voice a lot in my writing. Its hard to distinguish the two tenses for me because it is perfectly fine to write in the passive voice in Latin. But I enjoyed the passages and hope to see some more Ovid or any other famous Roman author.