Reflection (Holocaust Memorial Day)

Today we watched five video about Holocaust Memorial Day, most of the videos were about cases of racism and discrimination. When I saw the video, I was slightly shocked that racism and discrimination was this severe in this world of ours, such as the video where the islamic woman was not allowed into a school just because she was wearing a veil and the black guy who was beaten to death just for being black. In my mind, I was still happy that some people such as that old woman who intervened when two girls were bullying a Jewish girl, if people don't intervene when racism around them happen, our world will be a dark and cruel place, as people think one race or religion is better or worst than another.

If the people acted differently in the video such as the principal allowing the Islamic woman to enter, the woman helping the boy who's father was arrested since he was a Jew, maybe they would have done a little more goodness into this world of ours. Racism in our world now, isn't a very tough problem to solve, is we just dimiss any speculation and low our barriers and embrace each religion as it's own, we can make this world a much better place for this generation and the next.

Reflection (My Birthday Heroes) (17/4/12)

Today, we discussed on the topic of heroes. At first, I presumed a hero was a person who did an act of justice, but after some exercises my definition changed into a much lengthy version where a hero is someone who not necessarily have a special skill or talent who perform a selfless act(s) towards other individuals and society without expecting a from or reward or payment. Personally after all of the activities I feel that a hero can be both famous and unsung, whether it's a valiant act or it's an everyday job that makes people's life easier, they are are all considered heroes. Comparing to the studied poem and song: "First They Came For The Jews" and 'Superman's Song" there are some connections between the definition and the meaning of both poem and song.

In the poem "First They Came For The Jews" after reading the poem I understood that a hero would not let those unjustly acts go unpunished, he/she try to solve the problem as best as they could and not just sit idly by while other's suffer. In the song "Superman's Song" it became clear that a hero's life may not necessarily be glamorous or famous, that heroes don't do it for the money or the fame, a true hero does it out of the intrest to help others in need and that is what I feel what a true hero really is. 

Meaning Of Song and Poem

Today, Miss Abena asked us to analyze two pieces of work. A poem called  First They Came For The Jews and a song called Superman Song.  Well firstly the poem is talking about one not speaking out to injustice, like in the stanza 'Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew." The person clearly knows it's wrong but makes no effort to stop or change the matter, then when trouble falls onto the person's shoulders as in the stanza"Then they came for me, and there was no one to left to speak for me", they was no one left but him so he could not say it wasn't his problem and had to bear the full weight of solving the problem all by himself.

The song Superman's Song, gives a clear distinction from idol to hero is talking about how sometimes, a hero's life may no be flashy or glamorous as everyone thinks by comparing Tarzan, who is very popular, a ladies man and has almost everything in his life, his life had no meaning or purpose, he basically just wasting his life away entertaining Jane and swinging from vine to vine. Superman on the other hand, was counted as a hero as he was never paid to fight the criminals, no one forced him to fight crime, he did it out of his own desire risking his life and limb for the safety of the citizens. 

My Birthday Hero (2)

People usually regard April 1st as a day of practical jokes and wild merriment, known as April Fools Day. But what not many people know that on this same day of laughter and merriment, Russian composer , pianist and conductor Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was born.  Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of romanticism in Russian classical music. 


When he was at the tender age of four his parents were amateur pianists, his mother decided to give he casual piano lessons but it was his grandfather, Arkady Alexandrovich Rachmaninoff, who brought Anna Ornatskaya, a teacher from Saint Petersburg, to teach the 9 year old Sergei in 1882. His parents arranged for him to live in the home of his piano teacher, the severe Nikolai Zverev. The young Rachmaninoff showed great skill in both piano and composition which he studied with Anton Arensky, and while still a student he wrote the one-act opera, Aleko, for which he was awarded a gold medal in composition. Through the following years, he produced many other compositions such as The Sleeping Beauty which won him yet another gold medal.


Of course, Rachmanioff's life wasn't all peachy keen, he suffered several setbacks after the death of his idol Tchaikovsky, criticism about his composition The First Symphony he then fell into a long deep depression that lasted three years. After an autosuggestive therapy which cured his writer's block he produced the symphony Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor Op. 18 which till today is the most popular and most frequently played concerto in the his repertoire. He moved to America but suffered homesickness, he produced a few more pieces there such as Symphony Dances.His last concert performed in the University Of Tennessee, He finally died on 28 March 1943, due to melanoma.


To me Rachmanioff was in certain cases considered a hero to me, even though he suffered a very deep depression, he still had the willpower to recover and continue producing wonderful compositions for the world to hear also even though he had received criticism for his First Symphony, he still was determined to produce more compositions, to prove to the world that he was a good composer and pianist. What we can learn from him is that failure is the mother of success, that we must have encountered failure before we can achieve success. 

My Birthday Hero (30/3/12)

On September 15th, I share the same birthday with famed historian cum novelist James Fenimore Cooper. He was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales,Among his most famous works is the romantic novel The Last Of The Mohicans often regarded as his masterpiece. Cooper was one of the most popular 19th-century American authors, and his work was admired greatly throughout the world. While on his death bed, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert wanted most to read more of Cooper's novels. Honere De Blaze, the French novelist and playwright, admired him greatly Cooper's stories have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe and into some of those of Asia. When someone mentions the word hero, I think of someone who has done an great act of justice, but honestly, I don't really feel that a novelist and historian would be fit the description of a hero, although he has wrote many famous books, he hasn't really done anything to brand him as a hero, so James Fenimore Cooper is a renowned novelist and historian which I admire that I share a birthday with, he's not considered a hero in my viewpoint