My Teacher

My Teacher, My Hero

        What are teachers? They have been our second mother and from them, we learn a lot of things. Different things that inspires and make us a better person. Because of that, our teachers can be considered as a hero.

One teacher that inspired me was my Mother, Elisa C. Sarmiento, who has been my teacher in school and my entire life. She knew me since preschool for she was, I think, the longest teacher that taught me. She inspired me to do my best in life, since I took the entrance exam in Cavite National Science High School. She showed her support to us exam takers and because of that, I was really courage to pass the exam. Still now, I am at CNSHS, I do my best to impress her, showing everything she taught me was worth it. Every time I visit my alma mater, I see her and she still never fails to inspire me. She is a kind teacher and when you meet her, she acts like a mother that is why every student she handles is very comfortable with her. I'll never forget the things she taught me, the things that made me a better person right now.

Words cannot express how much I am thankful to have her as a teacher. This Teacher's Day, let us let our teachers who inspired us a lot to feel the warmth and love from us students.

Blog 4.2

A warrior needs to face his most challenging choice in his life: between family and responsibility.

In Aenid, Aeneas knew their city being attacked because of the Greeks, to think that he must lead his countrymen and do a step against this war. And that decision is to leave the house and continue fighting against the enemy. Countering his choices, Creusa begs his husband to consider their family’s future if Aeneas is to be killed in that war.

Similar to this, in Iliad, Andromache pleads to his husband, Hector to not endanger his life for the sake of his wife and son. But because of Hector’s reputation and responsibility, he needs to join in the war for the sake of his countrymen and kingdom.

Both stories had these similarities having a warrior as Andromache and Creusa’s husband. They both plead to their husband not to risk their life for the sake of their family’s future. They were both concerned to what will happen and try their best to prevent bad things. But unfortunately, both of their husbands took the risk and went through the battle because of their big responsibility as a future leader. They both listened to plead of their wives but did not follow them.

     There are also differences because in Aenied, Creusa’s life led into a terrible path because she was unfortunately left behind. And also, omens were present in Aenied which is the biggest factor why Aeneas needed to go through the battle and avoid his wife’s plead while in Iliad, Hector’s thoughts pushed him. He thought of his reputation and duty that is the biggest factor for him to go on.

Blog 4.3: Two pleads.

Aeneas's tale of his travels takes up Books II and III of the Aeneid. Aeneas begins by sighing deeply and telling Dido and her court that his is a long and tragic story, but that he is willing to try to recall it for his host. He starts by describing the fall of Troy. The Greeks, aided by the goddess Minerva, construct a huge wooden horse, within which they hide a great many armed soldiers. The rest of the Greeks flee the land. The Trojans rejoice, thinking that they have driven off their opponents. 

In Troy, Hector instructs his mother, Hekuba, about the rites to be held in Athena's temple, and then he goes to find Paris, who has been absent from the battlefield. He discovers his brother at home with Helen and her handmaidens, and he sternly rebukes him for his irresponsibility. Paris admits that he has been disgracing himself, and he prepares himself to join the fight. Hector, meanwhile, goes to visit his own wife and baby son.

He finds Andromache and the baby Astyanax on the walls overlooking the battlefield. Andromache pleads with Hector not to endanger him any longer. Achilles has killed her father and all her brothers, and now Hector is her whole family; she begs him to have pity on her and their infant child.

In the other hand, Anchises does not want to live to see the fall of Troy and asks to be left behind. Aeneas declares that he will never leave his father to die, and he steels himself for battle, but Creusa begs him to protect the house if he has any hope left for their survival.

Blog 4.1 : Sympathy, Yes or No ?

 Blog 4.1 : Sympathy, Yes or No ?

Among the adaptors of Greek culture, none was more brilliant, original, or influential than the poet Virgil. He faced a formidable challenge. Everyone who encountered Greek culture recognized how much it was shaped by Homer. To write a Roman equivalent to The Iliad and The Odyssey required an ability to think, a way with words, and a storytelling capacity that would enable a poet to do for Rome what Homer had done for Greece. Few poets before Virgil had attempted this task; none had succeeded in it.

                        Virgil’s claim is that even the Greeks, the victors, would be able to feel the sorrow of the event if it were told properly from the point of view of the victims. Virgil writes a characteristically evenhanded account, so that both losers and winners earn our sympathy and respect.

          At points during his story, Aeneas emphasizes the irrelevance of mortal concerns in the face of divine will. Venus’s persuasion of Aeneas to not kill Helen, for instance, relies on the ultimate inability of mortals to influence their destinies.

So for me, it earns sympathy.

Curious Smile of Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.  

Leonardo da Vinci had a great scientific mind, but even he couldn't have known the real secret behind the Mona Lisa's smile. The proper understanding of the human visual system was still centuries away. Still, he knew that he pulled some kind of neat trick; the painting was one of his personal favorites and he gave it to the king of France as a gift. 

The secret behind the Mona Lisa is that the "happy" part of her smile is actually buried in a low spatial frequency pattern. So if you're not looking directly at her mouth, her smile looks cheerful. But when you look directly at her smile, parts of it disappear into the background. As a result, you're never quite sure if she's smiling or not.