Hotel Rwanda

I think most of the war movies focus on telling the accurate history of the war and also the love between the characters in the movie. Similar to those movies, I felt that this movie's key intention was to let us know about this incident; to show how those inhumane genocide happened and how it changed a person's life which wasn't that long time ago. Many people didn't know what was happening in Rwanda during the genocide and I think the writer and the director of the movie wanted to tell what exactly happened there and that it could happen anywhere else if we don't pay attention to other countries near us. I have never heard about this genocide in Rwanda and I was ashamed at myself for being ignorant and I was glad that I saw this movie. It showed me how being indifferent to others in order to save myself could really destroy them even though it may not seem of a big deal.

Hotel Rwanda

As I read one of the articles that are on edline, I noticed that there were lot of controversies over America's saying that they did not know the seriousness of the genocide going on in Rwanda where 8,000 people were being killed everyday. Maybe it was that America or other countries did not want to intervene in the war and lose their men but I think that media didn't portray the seriousness of the war well enough so that other people out of Rwanda would understand. In the interview with the BBC reporter, the reporter said that it took a while for him to realize the seriousness of the war even though he was in Rwanda himself. In the movie, there was a woman who said that genocide was not happening in Rwanda and I think that those kinds of words gave an impression to the people outside of Rwanda that it wasn't a big deal but just a normal civil war. I totally agreed when a person in the movie said that when people see bad news they would just say 'oh what a bad thing' and then continue to flip the channel. If the media isn't that strong enough to grab the audience's attention, then nothing would actually change.

August

August

-by Mary Oliver

When the blackberries hang

swollen in the woods, in the brambles

nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high

branches, reaching

my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming

the black honey of summer

into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark

creeks that run by there is

this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is

this happy tongue.

When I read this poem, it instantly made me picture a girl eating blackberries from a tree and I also thought that it would be nice to be in this poem since it's so cold out here. At first, I thought this poem was about Mary Oliver's personal experience when she was little, but then I thought that 'my life darting among the black bells' was a metaphor. I think she was trying to symbolize our life into blackberries and that we have to accept it as it is. I also think that she was picturing a day when we just relax and spend time thinking of our own life and enjoying it.

My questions are: 1) Do you have any other analysis of what Mary Oliver was trying to say? 2) Why do you think she picked blackberries to use as a symbol? 3) What do you think 'there is this happy tongue' mean?

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice

-by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favore fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

This poem may seem short but I think it has lots of connotations in it. I figured out after reading few times that Robert Frost wasn't saying fire and ice just literally, but they each have meanings. By fire I think he meant to say something hot like passion or desire and by ice he meant to say something cold like apathy. He says at the beginning that either desire or apathy would end the world and I think he didn’t mean that literally either. Frost says that he had tasted desire before and agrees with people that said that desire would destroy the world. By that, I thought that he had had some bad experiences by having a strong desire for something. I quite don’t get what ‘But if it had to perish twice,’ but I agree with him that desire and apathy both have potential to destroy the world.

348

348

-by Emily Dickinson

I dreaded that first Robin, so,

But He is mastered, now,

I'm accustomed to Him grown,

He hurts a little, though --

I thought If I could only live

Till that first Shout got by --

Not all Pianos in the Woods

Had power to mangle me --

I dared not meet the Daffodils --

For fear their Yellow Gown

Would pierce me with a fashion

So foreign to my own --

I wished the Grass would hurry --

So -- when 'twas time to see --

He'd be too tall, the tallest one

Could stretch -- to look at me --

I could not bear the Bees should come,

I wished they'd stay away

In those dim countries where they go,

What word had they, for me?

They're here, though; not a creature failed --

No Blossom stayed away

In gentle deference to me --

The Queen of Calvary --

Each one salutes me, as he goes,

And I, my childish Plumes,

Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment

Of their unthinking Drums --

When I read this poem for the first time, it was so hard that I couldn't understand most of it(and I still don't), but after reading it over and over again, I could understand more about what Dickinson was trying to say. The speaker in this poem is afraid of Spring; in a more broad way of changes. She says that she does not dare to meet daffodils and that she doesn't want the bees to come near her. The speaker doesn't want any new things to happen to her and she wants to run away from it. However, she says in the sixth stanza that even though she rejected changes, they all came to her anyways disregarding of her fears. So in conclusion, I think the poem is saying that changes will come to us even though we may not welcome it.

I think the speaker of this poem is Emily Dickinson herself. I don't know about her feelings and thoughts when she was writing this, but I think that she must have been going through changes that she doesn't want to happen.