Odysseus

A hero is a hero, depending on the situation. For example, the fire fighters who went in the twin towers, who risked their lives to save others, are heroes. A parent who finds the child’s lost stuffed animal, is a hero. If the fire fighters killed people, they wouldn’t be a hero. If the parent threw away the stuffed animal, they wouldn’t be a hero. Odysseus did do heroic deeds, but did do many selfless and stupid actions as well. Odysseus is not a hero; from his actions in the situations he was in.

Odysseus wasn’t nice to his crew at all. He could have prevented things that happened to his crew. He didn’t listen to his men when they were dealing with the Cyclopes. His men said to leave but Odysseus said that they should stay at the Cyclops’s cave. Odysseus got a bag full if bad wind from the god Aeolus, but didn’t tell his crew about it, and not to open it. The crew opened the bag full of bad wind and a storm comes and wrecked their boat. Odysseus doesn’t only kill his crew but he kills his relationship with his faithful wife.

Odysseus promised to stay true his wife, but he didn’t. Instead of staying true his wife, he cheats on her with goddesses. “I have been detained long by Calypso, loveliest among goddesses, who held me in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight, as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress desired me, and detained me.” Odysseus could have not done this, but still went along with these actions. His wife is home without a husband and men are competing for and she stays true; Odysseus can’t stay true even if one woman comes close to him. His wife, Penelope, stays true because she awaits her husband to return form battle. Odysseus doesn’t think while he does his actions, he just acts.

Night

Bad things happen to everyone, some worse to others. People all suffer in pain but they recover mentally and physically at some point. In 1944 Elie in Night suffered more pain and suffering than we can ever know. Getting sent to a camp that treats you like dirt, getting barely enough food to survive, and being separated from half his family. That pain and suffering is nothing like breaking a bone, or losing a loved one. Before entering the worst place on earth at the time, Elie was a very religious teen. He loved to be Jewish and the qualities it came with, well most of them. Before entering the concentration camp, religion was very important to Elie, and then he lost that and didn’t believe in God.

Elie used to be very religious and tried his best to follow Jewish rules and laws. “‘By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple’“.(pg.3) He always wanted to have religion in his life. He grew up like this and loved how it was involved in his life. He was like the little kid who is so excited to go to church Sunday morning. He is ready to do his part to make God super proud. Once he was in the concentration camp wasn’t like this for long.

Slowly but surely he lost belief in God. Elie kept asking himself how God could let this happen to everyone. He didn’t understand how God could let these entire innocent people die for just being Jewish. This made him not want to be Jewish. “I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused”. (pg. 68) For example, when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers on 9-11, people blamed God. This is how Elie felt; he couldn’t understand why this happened. Elie wasn’t the only one who felt and thought this way.
Elie completely lost faith in God. Near the end of his time in the camp people totally lost hope and trust in God. Even a Rabbi said “‘it’s over. God is no longer with us’“(pg. 76). When Jewish holidays came up most people celebrated them. Elie felt no need to because he lost faith. A holiday included fasting; he didn’t because he said they were always fasting. Losing religion was the least of his worries, he wanted to live.

Elie had such horrible times in the camp. Once he was released he got very ill and went to the hospital for two weeks, in and out of life and death. He finally got up and looked at himself. “From depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.”(pg.115) He seems to be more effected by seeing himself than going through the worst experience of his life.

Really Pakistan, really...

Pakistan is becoming more and more strict on everything their people see and do now.

Pakistan has decided to get rid of You Tube now, as well as 450 others links. They are becoming the new China. They are getting rid of the websites they don't want and or like. The day before they got rid of You Tube they won't allow Facebook. With Pakistan cracking down like this, the people will really begin to hate whats going on. They are getting rid of things because it is effecting how peoples thoughts. That's way they got rid of Facebook because "of a page urging people to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed". Pakistan is trying to get the control they "need". They are trying to be a big, powerful and protective country but it could be making things worse.

Friends!!

Friends are one of the greatest things ever. They are they when you need them and even when you don’t they’re always with you. Without friends life would so boring. I have so many friends and I love them all. Hannah, Batool and Kelly, are just a few of my closest friends at school. I am friends with a lot people but they are my closest.

I know if I’m with them I will always have a great time. Hanging out for two minutes we could have a new inside joke. I love how whenever we are together we always have a great time, whether it is at Batool’s palace playing ping-pong, or at Kelly’s watching The Office, of at lunch I always have such a great time! We are always laughing and saying the stupidest things ever and loving every moment of it. We have some many inside jokes that sometimes one of us forgets about it. We say probably one of the most common, but greatest joke ever known as “That’s what she said!”. We say that even it doesn’t make sense and still just laugh as if it did. We constantly make fun of each other, I mean how can you not be best friends without making fun of each other, it’s like the law.

I love my friends. They are the greatest friends I could ask for! Without them I don’t know what to do. I we have a different lunch, I feel like a part of me is missing. That may sound lame, but it’s true. My life would be so boring without them making me laugh. They make my day when we laugh, which is all the time. Time with my friends is always so much! We all like to have a great time, and no matter what we are doing we find some way to have a great time. You would think that studying for finals would be really boring and stressful but not the way we study. We made it in to a Jeopardy type of game. We laughed more than we studied but still did well on the final and had fun, it was a win-win situation.

I think that my friends feel the same way. Without each other we just aren’t the same. They are the only reason I want to come to school. We don’t come to school to learn but to have hang out with friends, well that’s my reason why I come to school. I love my friends and I hope they do too!

SIMUN!!

During SIMUN I was given the country Tanzania. I thought that would be very difficult because I had no idea what goes on there, and how they feel. Getting to SIMUN was very stressful because I really didn’t know what was going to happen or how things were going to work. SIMUN was way better than I thought, I thought it would be straight work and no fun at all, I was wrong. I’m glad we had to do SIMUN because it ended up being fun. Acting like powerful people was a good change I could get used too. I didn’t feel, to me, that we were little high school kids but important people to world.

During SIMUN I wasn’t involved with any situation at all! I didn’t know how to get myself involved, so I didn’t do a lot of speeches, I only did one. I did ask many questions, to try to get myself involved. I felt kind of out of place because I wasn’t involved at all. I don’t understand why my country wasn’t involved at all though, everyone’s at one point with a news flash or the whole situation.

Preparing for SIMUN was very stressful because finding all the information you needed for the topic was hard to find. You need such detail and explanation to understand. Most news sites don’t really give you that. If I hadn’t prepared I would have been so lost, you wouldn’t even know. I would ask my parents if they knew anything about it and they were like, Madi what are you talking about. So preparation was a huge part of SIMUN! Without it no one would really know what’s going on.

Next year I will most defiantly prepare more, and hopefully get a country that will be involved more because if a country that doesn’t do anything it’s difficult to do things. Next year, I will look deeper into the situations and have thoughts about the situation and how my country would react to it, before I go in. Going back into SIMUN with the knowledge of what to do will make things a lot easier. Teachers tried to prepare us but they really can’t until your there. Once your there for a day, you get the feel for things and get into the grove of government people. SIMUN overall was a great experience, I wouldn’t say I’m good at it but I did have fun. I don’t think I want to do MAMUN because I don’t think I like SIMUN stuff that much. I did have fun and enjoyed the three days, and I’m looking forward to next year.

Tanzania would....

Of the situation was that Taliban was going to take over Pakistan, and the USA was going to come in and take control, Tanzania would most likely side with the USA. If we (Tanzania) had a powerful, hateful group come in and try to take over our government, we would want help. We wouldn’t want long lasting help, but to just get the situation solved and have the helpers, USA in this case, leave.

Pakistan needs help, even though they aren’t saying it, they will soon need it when the Taliban is taking over. If the Taliban took over, really bad things could happen, to Pakistan and the rest of the world. The Taliban would take the nuclear weapons and wipe the people they hate most off of the planet.

With the U.S. going in to help would help, everyone. Pakistan wouldn’t like it but there would be many supporters, like Tanzania and most of the U.S.’s allies. Even though Pakistan would feel intruded, it would help them in the long run, if someone came in and helped. If the situation were happening to Tanzania, we would want help. We would probably not want it at first but it would help us out in the long run. So with that being said, Tanzania would support the U.S. on going into Pakistan to help with the Taliban, issues.

Night

Night written by Elie Wiesel. This wonderfully written about one of the worst events in history, the Holocaust. This is more detailed than any show about it on History Channel. You can feel how he felt. He is really great at tell the pain and struggle he went through when he was a young teen.

A thought that I and Mr. Fielder came to was, how do you leave an experience like the Holocaust and function. People now go through a death in the family and completely shut down. When Elie saw hundreds of deaths and was in constant fear. With a young boy coming out of a horrible event in life and the world and to come out normal, is really fascinating to figure that out. How can something so tragic not affect you, like one death does to someone else. The strength to keep hope is outstanding. Going through any tragic event, most likely, affects peoples’ lives for a while or their life time. Why isn’t this the case for Elie Wiesel?

I think the fact that he knew something was coming similar to what had happened may have prepared him for what actually had happened. In the book he doubts God and doesn’t understand how He could let this happen to him and his people. He doesn’t really use God for strength, he has hope and that’s about. He uses his mind to live and not his heart and soul. He lives his way in the concentration camp to the way where he can live the longest. This man has a powerful mind and can take anything in life.