Subscribe

RSS Feed (xml)

Powered By

Skin Design:
Free Blogger Skins

Powered by Blogger

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Effects of war

Before the holidays had started,our Language Arts teacher started on the new topic of war poetry.That was why she gave us a list of books and movies to read or watch to help us understand the cruelty of war and feel the pain for all who went through war such as the ones in 1914 and 1940.

I watched two movies since I did not like to read and was perhaps a bit lazy to borrow them.They were Saving Private Ryan and Letters of Iwo Jima.Amazingly,I found Saving Private Ryan on youtube and told my friend about it took.I wonder why youtube did not take it down due to copyright issues... Anyway,I woulds tell you a short summary on these two films to show that I actually had watched these films.

Okay,so I will start will Saving Private Ryan.The main star of the film is Tom Hanks and is named Miller.He is the captain for the mission of finding Ryan.So the first 30 mins of the film is intense combat on the shores of Normandy on D-Day which is June 6, 1944 if some are unaware of.So the first assault shown on screen was the landing of Allied forces on Omaha Beach where the Americans got bogged down my machine gun fire from the Germans.Many people died and seriously really a huge lot of people got shot.I was puking by then(exaggerated)as the spurt of blood and the bloody red water that approached the shore was all too obvious and gory.As many wade through the water,many get killed in the water before they even reach land.Those on land could also have been shot in the head at any moment and nobody would know or cared.However,the enormous invasion of Normandy,France had overcame the German forces along the beach and the allied took the beach and established camp.In this attack alone,3 Ryan Brothers were killed in action.I am not sure how many Ryan brothers died in that attack but in all, 3 of the 4 Ryan Brothers were killed in the movie at that time.The general decided to called back the last Ryan which was a paratrooper and had landed before the invasion had begun. So Miller the captain had a group consisting of 8 soldiers including himself had the task of finding the last Ryan.There was one time when the team came into a destroyed town and they were French civilians.One father begged the Americans to take his daughter to the beach.One of the American soldiers was kind to help them but the next minute,he got shot by a German sniper.The whole landscape was devastated by bombing and combat.After a whole lot of trouble,they found the Ryan they were looking for after losing two soldiers(one by the sniper)However,the Ryan refused to go back home as he did not want to abandon his friends when an approaching counterattack on the city they had captured was imminent.So Miller and his team stayed with Ryan and his team to face more than 50 German soldiers with heavy artillery such as tanks.Only 2 out of 8 of Miller's team had survived.Miller himself got fatally wounded by a gunshot.Luckily,air support and reinforcements arrived in time to fend off the German forces.In the end,Miller had died and Ryan had survived and returned home safely.

Letters of Iwo Jima is a Japanese film and almost the whole movie was spoken in Japanese.Lucky for me,,there was subtitles.This film is shown in the Japanese soldiers point of view near the end of the war when the Japanese was losing the war.The Japanese forces were in Iwo Jima protecting the island which would be the Allies main air fleet base to attack mainland Japan.The small numbers of Japanese were on the island preparing,digging trenches and tunnels for the battle with the Americans.They had no air support,naval support and could rely on limited ammunition and medical support.The small Japanese forces went against the force of 50 warships which bombarded the coast of Iwo Jima for the allied forces to invade.The Japanese fought bravely but was unable to hold the Americans back.They lasted five days before the Allied took the island.The Japanese was forced into desperation and many had committed suicide in the tunnels as it was the honorable way to die.They fought hard but they had lost in the end and the whole film was very sad as all except 2 Japanese soldiers had survived the invasion.

Seeing the films,I am suppose to create a mind-map of the short term and long term effects of war.I had gather some information from the films I watched but most of them was from common knowledge and websites. So here it is....










I hope this will do.

The Merchant of Venice

Wow,I haven't written a blog post in ages... Okay, sorry about that.I guess I got caught up in the holiday spirit.Though that is not really a good excuse but it will have to do.

Our Language Arts teacher had made it compulsory to read up a book,the Merchant of Venice,much to the dismay to my classmates.It is actually a play not a book but the publisher compiled all the scenes,the summary,the glossary etc into one convenient book.You may be thinking reading the book will be a snap. Well,no,it is not that simple.The play was written by William Shakespeare during the 16th century in England. Yes,it is written in Ancient English.I do not call it "Old English".If not for the glossary at the side of each page,I would not understand 3 quarters of the book.The first time I picked up the book, I got so put off that after reading the first page and not understanding a word of it,I put down the book and walked away.It is that hard.I wonder how is this going to be a Secondary 2 Literature book?

So I soon got on will my Secondary 2 life and in a few days,I read finish the book.It was an accomplishment I must say.Our teacher had requested us to do a mind map on the plot of the story and put it on the blog.I was stumped.Do a plot on a mind-map.How am I suppose to do that.Wouldn't it be easier writing the summary of the plot on the blog itself.Did she meant otherwise?Sadly,she did not really be specific and I guess I follow my own interpretation of the instructions.I just write the plot summary and everything I know about the book onto the mind-map.I believe I won't go so far of from there.

Here it is!











I have to do another mind-map soon on war and the effects of it on soldiers and civilians.Sigh,another mind-map.I rather do it straight on the blog.This blog post is much shorter than the usual terribly long one so I shall end it of with...Goodnight.