Well… one thing I can say for certain about Columbus…. his log entries are boring… I think the captain’s log entries in Star Trek were far more interesting.  I have to admit though, my expectations were set too high for this particular reading.  I expected something rather fun, dynamic, full of history and information.  What I got was a well… a log, and a few letters of a controversial figure, all of which was historical, but required much interpretation and not a lot of dynamic.  There were some parts of it that were fun to read though, (surprisingly).

The first part of the 4 Voyages that I had to read through was the digest of the captain’s log.  This account by an unknown member of Columbus’s crew was written from a surprisingly aloof 3rd party perspective.  Admittedly, he tended to side with Columbus, but the way he explained things from a more neutral point of view allowed me to accept the information without much hassle and bother of questioning every word he was writing.  As I began reading the digest, there was quite a bit of information, that gave the appearance of mundane, but wasn’t so mundane after all.  Soon I found myself noticing every symbol of land, every threat of mutiny, while I knew they would get there, I couldn’t help but wonder what was life like on that fateful voyage across the seas, clinging on mere hopes.  It’s no wonder Columbus, when he finally sighted land, was overjoyed.  I was also taken aback by the scale of what Columbus was describing.  Latin America for the first time and yet, he seemed or tried to keep an open view, not calling the natives barbarians (which was what I expected him to do) and although he later descended into slavery, his first foray into the caribbean was almost like a child wandering through a lush forest.

Then came the denial… when he began to realize and wonder if he had made it to Asia.  This I found rather hilarious thanks to my hindsight information, but then again, I had to pity Columbus.  He sailed all the way across the Atlantic, hoping to find a route to Asia and make it big with Castille, only to find he had stumbled across something entirely new.  If only he had a satellite and GPS!

The letters for me, were the hardest.  Everything that Columbus wrote about how he conducted himself and about he situation, I was forced to think and doubt.  After all, the letters were defending his position.  He sounded quite convincing and it wasn’t easy.  In the end, I managed to take everything at face value, yet still manage to understand Columbus’s defense.

In the end, I didn’t enjoy reading the 4 voyages as a whole.  My ideal explorer is something more like the characters in Star Trek.  But there were some fun tidbits and juicy information that I learnt about this interesting early explorer and the challenges he faced on his voyage.

Signing out

Vincent

Wow, after the tragedy of Oedipus and the hell that was Plato, this was awesome.   On several occasions, I wanted to go put on my mail shirt, get my pattern-welded sword, holster my linden-wood shield and step right into my dragon boat.  Unfortunately I don’t have any of those items so all I could do was read onward.  I found Beowulf to be a really entertaining read, although there were some things that stood out to me in particular.

My expectations of Beowulf greatly influenced my reaction to it.  So the elements of religion in Beowulf poked out at me many times.  It contrasted greatly to what I knew about Viking mythology.  Before reading Beowulf I assumed that Beowulf was a Viking saga, and thus expected gods such as Thor or Odin.  However, what I saw instead were references to the Christian god.  This surprised me greatly and threw me off at occasions when I expected a reference to the god of war THor, instead I got a reference to God or Lord.

My assumptions on Beowulf’s Viking background made me think of a ruthless warrior and fighter.  Instead, what I saw was a loyal man, courteous and fair, who tends to rely on his own hands to get the job done.  Albeit, he seems to lack in strategy or cunning like Odysseus, but he makes up for it, by sheer unbreakable will and courage.  In a sense, I found him to be basically the earliest form of an archetypal hero.  In that sense, he is much different from Homer’s hero of Odysseus, who is a cunning hero, ruthless and a sly tongue.  Beowulf is from a much older stock of hero, more similar to the heroes of the pre-Homeric times and yet different.  Unlike a pre-Homeric hero who relies on Arete or prowess in Battle, part of what makes me think Beowulf as a great hero is his loyalty to his people and his comrades.

That being said, Beowulf is kind of a Gary Stu.  Which is a phrase used to describe overly perfect characters created by authors.  Not only is Beowulf somehow in possession of inhuman prowess in strength and combat, with all the fame that goes to his head and the sudden turn of events that led him to become king, it is shockingly surprising that he doesn’t become a corrupt ruler.  Either Hrothgar’s discourse on the dangers of power, were more shocking than I interpreted it, or Beowulf is seriously so hero-like that when the dragon comes along, he goes right out to meet it instead of sending someone else to kill it.

That’s my thoughts on Beowulf

Vincent

Oedipus Rex… was quite the tragedy.  Extraordinarily depressing, next to the blank word document that was my Plato Essay. Having read Antigone, I knew some of the background to Oedipus Rex, but reading the actual tragedy made me wonder… what do you do when the universe has already condemned you?

Oedipus was basically doomed from the start.   The prophet’s prophecy… basically led to Oedipus running from his fate for his entire lie.  An unenviable fate indeed, but one as he found out the hard way, he could not escape.  Of course, this brings up the question of whether his actions created his fate, or whether fate was predetermined for Oedipus.  To my opinion, it’s seems to vary from situation to situation within the text.  Oedipus killing his father… SEEMED like an accident.  It was Laius who struck out against Oedipus who chanced upon running into the king, but if Oedipus hadn’t run away in the first place, he might have never met Laius.  To me though, it seems that the gods and fate are more to blame than Oedipus’s actions.  If he hadn’t known and everything the prophecy predicted happened to him, then the answer would have been obvious, but Sophocles has written the play in such a way that in a sense, Oedipus’s attempt to know his destiny, led to his downfall.

Ignorance and whether ignorance is bliss is also a key factor in the play.  Oedipus, despite his mother/wife Jocasta’s warnings and pleadings, was determined to seek out the shepherd.  This eventually led to her killing herself, which can be seen as Oedipus driving his mother to death, though I’m more inclined to see Jocasta as being primarily responsible.  If Oedipus just ignored his urge to find out the truth of his heritage… that could have changed things greatly, but then again, given the strange nature of fate within the text, it may not have changed anything.  However, to my eyes, Oedipus’s confronting of the truth, eventually led to his downfall of blinding himself.  So in a sense, Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex warns us that the truth, may cause more harm than good and it also make s a commentary on the nature of fate and destiny.

Continuing to read Plato, was an interesting experience.  For one, his arguments are very well-founded and hard to refute.  So on some occasions I agreed with him and when I firmly disagreed with him, I couldn’t really argue with his logic.

There are a number of ideas and suggestions that Plato makes that I firmly agree with.  The idea of women ruling with men being one of them.  It may be one of the more redeeming qualities of Plato that he sees no difference between men and women.  However, the concept which I find myself most intrigued by is the allegory in the cave, in which humans are the ones continuously grasping at the shadows to try and seek the truth, when they can’t.  I wouldn’t say Plato has found the truth in his representation of the perfect kalliopis, but I have to say that his allegory of a cave is a very accurate representation of how we are striving to identify the shadows which seem to change and flicker.

My thoughts on Plato’s suggestions of a bad city state were mixed.  They were all… bad, but historical examples made me question Plato’s argument.  If one looks at the Roman Empire/Republic… there is a parallel to Plato’s argument in there.  There was a republic, that descended into a tyranny.  Yet, if one looks again at the Roman empire, some of the most successful inventions were during the Tyranny.  So… what Plato suggested is that the Roman Empire was a bad city-state… in a sense, it was, but in a sense it wasn’t since it did last for such a long period of time.  Still, I had to admire how Plato described the decay of the city-states as they were later proven by historical examples.

As for the philosopher kings, the auxiliaries and their training?  Well… In theory, they seemed to make sense.  In all practicality… humans don’t obey logic and have desires.  Plato knows that and he tries to address that ‘problem’ with censorship, conditioning and creating a societal role that would make it difficult, for the desires.  However, while I cannot say he’s wrong, I think that Plato is only trying to at the most, set aside the problem of human desire and not addressing the source.  All his limits, censorship and role-molding that he forces upon the philosopher kings would work… but without any sort of true passion for their jobs, the philospher kings would be in effect, screwed because their job is rather thankless.

Still, Plato’s attempt to grasp at the truth of a perfect government, is an attempt and a good attempt at trying to define the shadow of perfect government.

Signed,

Vincent Yam

I have never read Plato’s work personally, though I have heard of him and my IB Theory of Knowledge class did go over his Allegory of the Cave by discussion and by watching ‘The Matrix’ (Only the first one). So going into The Republic, I was rather unprepared for the amount of processing my poor brain had to do.  At this point though, I am enjoying the Republic, though I am becoming steadily uneasy at the content being presented within the dialogue as it does not conform to my views on government (not that I could possibly give a good judgement on).

Having been in IB Theory of Knowledge, we briefly went over Plato and Socrates in discussion, which I am quite used to.  However, the rhetoric and logic presented within The Republic astounded me and yet made sense.  The reasoning was sound and I found myself agreeing with what Socrates/Plato was arguing about.

As Book 1 ended though and Book 2 began, my interest only grew.  I mean, creating a perfect city in which to test their theory of justice and injustice would do that to your interest.  However, as the book began to progress, my eyes went O_O and a crinkle appeared on my brow.  I agreed with the points of a good polis or city such as it should not be so luxurious.  As roles began to be addressed, I still agreed with what they were suggesting.

It was when they reached what the Guardians should learn and not learn that I began to become increasingly worried.  I admit, my modern perspective is not allowing me to understand Plato’s view, but in my opinion, censorship of certain aspects is never a good thing.  The very reason I am able to write good essays was because my parents encouraged me and exposed me to a variety of works and a variety of views.  The training of the guardians, just reminded me of the Hitler Youth.  Basically training dogs of the state.   I also disagreed that the state would work because it was so logical.  My view (though unproven) is that humans do not always think logically and therefore, they do not always do logical things.  The city Plato is suggesting would work provided everybody was logical enough to understand his/her role, but humans who do not think logically would not be able to stand this city.  The only way this city would possibly work, is if the humans were replaced by Star Trek’s Vulcans who are supposed to always think logically.  Thus my admiration for Plato turned sour.

Yet, I also understood some of Plato’s points about the Guardians.  In real life, during the time of the Roman Empire, their was an Emperor called Marcus Aurelius (You may have heard of him in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in which Maximus (Russell Crowe) announces himself as a general of Marcus Aurelius).  He was in fact, as most historians describe him, philosopher turned king and was one of the most successful Roman emperors.  Reading Plato actually made me realize that Marcus Aurelius’s reasons for suppressing the Christians may have possibly been the same reason why Plato is arguing for the suppression of Homeric texts (mega speculation here and going on a wild limb).  The populace, or the guardians should not get ahold of the wrong information and it must be censored or in the Christians case, wiped out.

For people wondering why I said Oh the Irony in my title.  Here is why.  For a piece of work to be called Republic, implying a government made up from elected members of a populace, Plato’s polis, is extraordinarily totalitarian and NOT a republic, and yet this work is called Plato’s Republic.  Oh the irony.

So all in all I found Plato’s Republic a very interesting read, though the content that was suggested furrowed my brow for a couple of hours.

Being a catholic, I have read Genesis before, but this is my first time reading the entire section at once.

Trying to read the bible as a secular document is impossible for me given my beliefs so the way I interpret what I read is heavily influenced by what I know of the catholic church.  The Book of Genesis, is both a historical text and religious text.  Not only is it meant to document the early customs of the Jews and Christians in order for future Jews and Christians to follow, it is also a documentation of the early humans who descended from Adam.  The combination of both religious and historical text gives The Bible a very unique style of writing. Events and religion are blurred together to create a extraordinarily cohesive    piece of writing in which God is dealt with as a real historical being.  Unlike the Greek Myths, in which the gods have very human-like characteristics, the God of the Bible is more distanced, and while human-like characteristics define him, he is less flawed like the Greek Gods, although just as demanding.  Lineage is extraordinarily important.  The Bible continuously provides long lists of names that link the families of Jacob to Abraham, to Noah, to Adam.  In a sense, these lists provide a list of continuity that link the various persons in The Bible together.

Genesis also describes events that can be described today as horrific.  Levi and Simeon’s slaughtering of the men who wanted to marry Dinah for example.  They had a reason, but their action was very monstrous, but since the code of honor at the time was extremely stringent, they might have felt their actions were justified.  These events usually made me narrow my eyes, but they also enlightened me to the code of honor and the conditions at the time.

Possibly the most debatable person in Genesis is God himself.  His actions constantly direct the lives of the men who would become the Israelites and there are some parallels to him and the Greek Gods.  God, does aid the Israelites and the men.  He also punishes men who are bad or evil.  Yet, unlike the Greek Gods, the God of Genesis can be very merciful as he did promise Abraham that if he found 10 good people in Sodom, he would not destroy the entire city.  While God can be extremely powerful and destructive, he is also capable of very compassionate acts.

All in all, it was interesting to read Genesis after reading Medea and The Odyssey.

Vincent

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After reading the epic adventures of Odysseus in The Odyssey, the shorter, more personal and more tragic Medea was quite a change of pace for me.  Several things stood out at me in this play: the depiction of the female and the tragic hero Jason.

Greek society is very patriarchal.  The women basically have no rights.  Their husbands are chosen for them, their path is basically laid out from when they were born.  In Medea though, the play shows the consequences of what happens when one is unfaithful to his wife.  What makes this message more powerful is that Medea is ultimately successful in punishing Jason for his unfaithfulness because he had broken his oath to the Gods.  Hence the play portrays the message that should a man betray his oath to his women, he should expect not only her curse, but divine punishment.  This message is very feministic  making Medea stand out from other Greek plays.

I read an abridged version of how Jason took the Golden Fleece from Daulaire’s bookof Greek Myths.  What I remember is that basically Medea did most of the work once Jason got to the island of the Golden Fleece.  She also sacrificed much to get him the fleece as by helping Jason, she alienated herself from her family who was in possession of the Fleece at the time.  In return, Jason gave his oath to lover her.  I have to say that Jason, by abandoning Medea who got him the Golden Fleece, left her home to follow him and gave him two sons basically sealed his fate when he decided to marry Creon’s daughter.  I mean… what man would not want such a devoted wife?  I may be harsh, but for a very short moment, I felt like telling Jason “Good riddance!” when Medea killed the Princess, for Jason basically brought his fate upon himself through one fatal mistake.

Medea also made me question on the idea of justice and how far can you take it before you become a monster.  Medea’s actions, were in the Gods view, justified, proven when Helios sends chariots to take her away.  I thought that killing the Princess and Creon was justified, but killing her own sons to hurt her husband?  While I do think Jason indirectly caused their death and Medea’s action of killing her sons was the result, I think that it was overkill and she became monstrous in my eyes.

That’s all for now.

My first reaction when I finished The Odyssey, was disappointment in how it ended.  I expected a longer ending that would tell what happened to Odysseus in his old age.  However, I do acknowledge the fact that since Odysseus’s odyssey is over, Homer had no reason to elaborate.  Prior to reading The Odyssey, I’ve only read abridged versions in books such as Daulaire’s book of Greek myths, which captured the essential plot of The Odyssey, but lacked in detail.  What I enjoyed the most about The Odyssey was the epic scale of it.  Homer did take me to mythological Greece, the age of monsters and heroes.   It only makes me admire Homer more for taking me, a modern human and plunking me into this saga.  What I loved most about the Odyssey was the fascinating imagery, the cast of characters, gods and creatures that all aided to create a riveting story that had me hanging at the edge of my seat at moments.  Odysseus’s journey, was a true hero’s journey.  His trials at Polydorus, Poseidon, Circe and Calypso, do inspire pity in me, but at the same time, how he handled them (or at least the effort he took to handle them) made me admire his character.  My other favorite character was Telemachus.  His intelligence, how he took charge of his house, made a name for himself and  him assisting his father, made him a very likable character.  Some things I noticed in The Odyssey was that some of the imagery and description was repeated and often re-used, this helped me to associate the correct image or title with the characters, acting like a tag.  These tags helped me a lot because the cast of The Odyssey is huge and some of the names are extraordinarily difficult to pronounce and spell. I also found reading The Odyssey enlightening to me because it showed how religion played a role in people’s beliefs in Ancient Greece.  It was quite entertaining (in a cathartic way aka glad that’s not happening to me way) reading about Poseidon throwing punishment upon punishment on Odysseus and various characters fearing that any person could be a god in disguise.

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Hello, name is Vincent Yam (Chinese characters: 任光信). You can call me Vincent, Vince, Vinny, Yamfries or Yammer.  Just don’t call me Sweet Potato (I mean it).  I was born in Burnaby, but lived in Vancouver for most of my life with my father, mother and soon to be 17 year old little sister.  Apart from that, I’ve lived in Hong Kong for 5 year from ages 7-13. I graduated from the International Baccalaureate Program of Sir Winston Churchill Secondary (for those who don’t know what IB is, google it.  Is it that difficult?).  I have a strong interest in History, particularly conflict history.  My most knowledgeable time periods being World War 2, though I do know quite a bit about Napoleonic, Medieval and Ancient History. I like playing video games, (don’t own a console though).  I usually like to play computer games such as League of Legends.  Also, I am an avid reader and my favorite genres include fantasy and historical fiction.  My favorite authors are (no particular order): J.K. Rowling, Garth Nix (god of fantasy right there), R.A. Salvatore, Brian Jacques, Tamora Pierce, Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow.  As for TV shows, I like documentaries (Mythbusters, Mayday), food (Top Chef Masters) and some Korean Drama (Dream High, City Hunter).  Don’t call me a slob or couch potato though because I also practice sports.  I have a black belt in Taekwondo (Dan 1) and play soccer.  My favorite hobby is writing my own original stories and fanfiction… I’ve only ever published the fanfiction XD

If I go on for any longer you’ll be bored out so tata!

Vincent