My Siren

In the Odyssey, the Sirens were beautiful women who are half human, half bird. They lived on the island of Sirenum Scopuli, and would sing to passing ships so the ships would crash on the rocks on the island. This expresses something that looks, or sounds, beautiful but has bad consequences.

I would think of myself as an example of a modern day siren. Yes I'm a siren to myself. I try to convince myself that certain actions won't affect me, but of course I am wrong.

One example would be, when I was in 5th grade, and this amazing new game console called the Wii came out. It wasn't like any other console. You couldn't just sit on the couch to play. You had to be standing up, wireless controller in hand, and be moving around to win. Who has ever heard of playing tennis in your living room?

  
Obviously I was hooked on getting my little, 9 year old hands on one of these console contraptions. As luck would have it my birthday was approaching. All I had to do was relay the message to my parents. Now, this was a very delicate task. One false move and it was over. I cleverly slipped a magazine with an ad about the Wii in it into my parents room. They took the bait! All I had to do was wait. (Admittedly, I stole this idea form the movie A Christmas Story).

One day my mom came home with a suspicious looking package the shape of a cube. She was trying quite hard to bring it into the house without anybody seeing. Of course, I picked up this awkward behavior like a hawk. I decided to do some detective work. In a chest in our attic, there was a Trader Joe's paper bag with a white box in it. I knew what the box had in it before I even read the side panel. A Wii! I was so excited I could hardly contain myself! When the day of the party came, I knew my days of torture were over. I could finally play my Wii!

Though I had many fun times with that Wii, sadly, it now ceases to amuse me. I could have been playing real tennis at the park rather than being inside all day. This is not the only case of these sad stories. There is one up side though. At least I'm not alone. :) 

A long Journey

I guess I never really thought about what it would be like to be Odysseus. Just think about it. Twenty years ago your first son was just born and boom, you get drafted into the army. You get stranded on an island on your way back from the war and the island happens to be inhabited by flesh eating Cyclopses! Your only chance of survival is by keeping a cool head and outsmarting the enemy.

I recently watch a movie that reminded me of this story. Its called War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. It is the story of a single father trying to get his children to Boston where they will be safe from the alien invaders. Throughout the movie he has to think of his kids lives before his. For instance, when an alien ship picks his daughter up, he lets it pick him up too so he can save her. This is like when Odysseus is trying to escape the cyclopes cave and put his life on the line to try and save his men.

Two men from two different time period, with the same long journey, who are both heroes. Joseph Campbell was right when he said that almost all myths have the same basic ideas. The ideas from hundreds of years ago still interest people in this modern world. The ideas of love, war, family, and persevering to get back home are for in both stories, The War of the Worlds and The Odyssey.   

Another similarity is in the Ancient Greece story of the Trojan horse being too good to be true for the Trojans. There are multiple cases in The War of the Worlds that are examples of something being to good to be true. In one scene, people are scrambling to get on a ferry that will take them to safety. This was true until one of the alien ships is seen under the boat. The people who didn't make it on the ferry were safe while those on the ferry were in peril. Another scene shows how no cars are working because of a freak electrical storm. All the cars except for Tom Cruise’s. This seems good until they almost lose their lives trying to keep the car from the prying hands of all the other refugees. One man holds them at gun point to get the car, and then he becomes the victim of the crowd.

This relationship has helped open my eyes to the possibilities of more everyday stories having similarities to these epics. It will be fun to find out how they link together.

First Post

Last week we learned about creation. I though it was fun to learn about the old Greek myths like Pandora's Box. Im into that stuff :) My favorite part was when we created our own stories of creation. I also enjoyed eating swedish fish! My least favorite part was when we had to take the tests on the computers. It was too long. I have a feeling this will be a fun year :)