M2504’s Weblog

I think that ambition is not a bad thing. In my opinion, if you want to reach a goal or create anything, ambition is the first thing you should search for. Not only wanting things to happen. We should also work hard for it and achieve certain qualities so we can obtain what we want.

Ambition is something that will give us the will to fight for what are goals are, and as everything in life, there is the negative part of it, in this case people being too ambitious or our ambition is may be not focused on positive things as it should be.

Searching for ambition is not negative, but it can be if we are being too ambitious and it can even lead to the damage of ourselves. Building up a situation of too much ambition is like making you the main thing in the situation and it can get you away from what you are really searching for.

Power we create around ourselves is not negative to ourselves neither, but it can become if we make an excess of it. Feeling or having too much power over other people can be dangerous because we may lose control over what we have reached and instead of creating something positive out of it, it could become something self-destructing.

This happens a lot and we can see it mostly on Hollywood’s young people. They create an atmosphere around them and start with a positive ambition that leads them to fame. Once they reach the top, they think the power they have gained is something unlimited, which at some point it is, and they have the possibilities of doing whatever they want.

At the end is always the same story, they end up without a dollar to pay for their food or in rehab, and it is because of the excess of power they had in their young, inexperienced, and irresponsible hands.

There is this girl, who is only 12 years old. She loves to hang out with her friends since she is a little kid. She’s so used to being around a lot of people, a lot of older people. The thought of ruining her life is not one of her goals, but one day while she was on the streets, with what she calls her best friends, a new boy walked towards her and with a big smile and charming eyes said “Do you want one?” showing her a pack of cigarettes. Remembering everything that had been taught to her and knowing exactly what to say to this kid, she answered “I don’t smoke, but I want to try it”. There she was, standing on the corner of a lonely street, with a cigarette on the night her curiousness beat her. Little she knew about what was really happening to her, it was obvious, she was only 12.

Five long years had gone by and she never saw that boy again. You could see her, inside that dark place, with little lights on, music so loud she could barely hear her friend standing next to her, and yes, both pressing softly a cigarette between her lips. It was almost part of her own body at this time and still she wasn’t aware of the risks she was taking and the ones she took a long time ago.

When she got to college she got a flu, at least that was apparently what she had at the moment. Coughing was something she couldn’t help anymore, she never took it seriously though. She had such a normal life, awesome grades, good friends, a family that loved her unconditionally, and an addiction that was softly killing her.

Meeting the right guy wasn’t hard for her neither. She got married and became pregnant two years later. On her way to the doctor’s office, she decided she was going to light up her last cigarette for the next 9 to 12 months. She never knew it was too late. The doctor said “Lady, I’ve got news for you. Your non stopping vice you have developed in the last 15 years of your life has created an imperfection in your baby’s DNA. I’m sorry to tell you this, your baby… he is sick.” Her eyes opened the size of the moon and tears fell upon her cheeks.

Nine months later her baby was born, overcame the illness, but was born without his left hand. It was so painful for her to see her own kid suffer that way because of her mistakes. He wasn’t the one supposed to pay for that and he did. Every morning she woke up to same nightmare and the feeling of guilt surrounding her, but that didn’t stop her. She never quitted. Now, she was almost 40 years old and her son wasn’t a grown up already, and she, she was being diagnosed with cancer. Months later, she died, leaving her friends, family, a lonely husband, and a kid who will remember her and her mistakes for the rest of his days. All because of a simple “I want to try it”.

“To Althea, from Prison” in my opinion is a poem that is not applicable to modern days in the way that no man is going to get in prison for defending a King, like it says in lines 17-24.

It does make sense in the phrase “stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty”.

No matter in which century we are, I think none of us can feel caged or punished if in our soul we are clean and free of all. There is no one who can take that feelings aways from a person, they may take someone physicaly away but never emotionaly caged.

I believe that if a person loves you and if you love him or her back, that person can make you feel free. It can make you believe that nothing else is happening just with the fact that she or he is around. Like in this poem, the woman makes the man feel free, like no else feels, just because she is there.

What is your reaction to this poem? Is it offensive to women, funny, both, or something else?
I think this poem is not offensive to women. I think it refers and talks about frustrated men who never find someone good enough for them. Men should feel more offended than women with this poem.

Find the hyperboles or exagerations in the poem.
Go and catch a falling star. Who cleft the devil’s foot. Ride ten thousand days and nights.

To whom is this speaker talking? What do you think might have occasioned the poem?
The speaker seems to be talking to other men. What might have occasioned the poem was a deception or a sequence of deceptions towards women who lied to him and that he never found a woman who truly loved him.

In the second stanza, what does the speaker say his listener will diescover about a woman both true and fair?
If someone thinks he met a true and fair woman, he will soon notice she is not really true and fair for that every woman out there is flase.

What hyperboles do you see in love songs, whether modern or from other times? How do the sentiments in Donne’s song compare with those in love songs?
“Ride ten thousand days and nights” it’s an example un Donne’s song. Unlike love songs of years ago, songs from these days are not as much emotional and compromising. I think love songs are not as serious as they used to be and is very unlikely to see a hyerbole in one today.

Today’s popular songs in my opinion have both things, they talk about infidelity and about joy and being in love but, they also now have more graphic lyrics and messages involving sex and how a man or woman need it like in the song called “She Wants It”. This song, in the first chorus says “she wants it, I want to give it to her. She know that, it’s right here for her”. This clearly shows how he thinks she want to have sex and he is willing to give her whatever she wants without any compromise. The first verse says “She work it girl, she work the pole, she break it down, she take it low, she fine as hell, she doing her thing out on the floor. Her money she makin’. Look at the way she shakin’. Make you want to touch it, make you want to taste it” Here we notice that he is talking about a hooker and how the way she moves in the pole, her way of dancing, and her looks make him want her in a very shallow, unloving, and interested only in sex way. “She’s so much more than you’re used to, she knows just how to move to seduce you, she gonna do the right thing and touch the right spot, dance in your lap till you’re ready to pop.” Here it shows how easy and bitchy she can get. She is willing to move and seduce and touch him until he is ready to do it with her. In my opinion, this type of song is more likely to be heard today in the radio or to be more popular among teens than a cheesy love song. Today teens, more guys than girls, look for not so formal realtionships just to get what they want from their boyfriend/girlfriend and do not care too much about the emotional aspect of a relationship and/or how much time they have as a couple. I think, music has a lot to do with it. Not only music but tv shows and movies too. Also the way celebrities live their lives has a lot to do with the influence teen have in theirs. For example, that bitchy airhead blond that has two kids, has been marriend two times and one time it did not even lasted a week. Those kind of examples and/or role models young people have today tend to influence their life and they become careless about serious, healthy, true love relationships.

On the other hand, we have true love songs. An example could be “Quit Your Life” from MXPX. The lyrics say “I’ve been everywhere around the world and finally here tonight. You seem to be the only one to make me feel alright. I feel good when I know you’re coming down, I feel good when I know you’ll be around.” Here we notice how truly this boy loves this girl. He expresses how cool it is just to hang out with her not mentioning other stuff, just the fact that they’re together makes him feel really good. The chorus says “so quit yout life and stay with me, we will order in and watch tv, we will paint the house we will wash the car, we will take a walk but not to far, so quit your life and stay with me” Again, this chorus talks about how a great time they have together watching tv and doing random stuff the two of them. They do not act in superficial ways or try to get away with something else other than to be together. I guess this kind of relationship is the one that most or every girl wants. We want a guy who is always there for us and a guy we can have fun with, not one that will be all over us and try to get something he would probably not get. We girls like to live life like in the movies, we want everything to be perfect and lovely and cute. So I guess this type of song is more likely to be heard by a girl than by a boy, although we have exeptions in boys like my boyfriend who is the coolest guy ever. In fact I named this song because he once sang it to me and was very cute. I guess only truly in love boys, who are not looking for nothing else than to be loved in return, like this songs.

So, I guess we have different types of songs consernign to relationships. We have the naughty ones, which are very superficial and uncaring, and the cool ones, which talk about the joy of true love. In my opinion, we have the same amount of songs concerning to realtionships in a good way than in a bay way, it all depends in which type of songs we like the best.