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.

The Alchemist?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the Alchemist and its meaning. I cannot wrap my head around the idea of a personal legend, because if the worlds greatest lie is that your fate is set, then how do you make your own fate? Isn't your personal legend your destiny or fate? Of course you can choose whether or not to pursue your personal legend, it is what you are fated to do. I guess I just have a hard time grasping the notion that you can have a fate that is destined for you and choose whether to pursue it or not, because if something is destined for you then you really don't have a choice, because it will bother you your entire life. If it was true that you could make your own personal legend, then there wouldn't be omens pushing you towards it, because it would be your decision where you are going, not where your personal legend tells you to go. I mean, I get the whole follow your dreams thing, but it seems contradictory to me if your dream is already picked for you. What if Santiago wanted to see the great Wall of China? Would his personal legend prevent him from doing so? What makes the pyramids so special? It would be different if he really wanted to go there, but when he has some supernatural force pulling him towards the pyramids, that doesnt mean that it was his dream to do that. I just feel like the author kind of went in circles and tried to convey the same idea throughout the entire book. It was kind of cliche. like he leaves the girl finds gold and goes back to her and they live happily ever after. that isnt how it works in real life and it makes me kind of mad that that is how the author chose to tell the story. I mean i enjoyed the book, but it could have been a lot better if it was mroe realistic than how he portrayed it.