Journal Entry 13
November 17th:
During class, we took our quiz. I,for the first time, felt very confidence on this quiz. I answered all the questions including the extra credit. Looking at my grade later on during the week, I discovered that got an 110% on the quiz. I was so proud of myself. Also, I remembered that several of my quiz questions were used during the quiz. I was very happy that my hard work paid of at the end of the day. Following the quiz, we honed in on the book 8 of the Education of Cyrus. In this book, Cyrus dies. As a result, all his hard work unfolds. His empire starts practicing immorality and injustice. All this causes for Cyrus’s empire to become more prone to invasion. We discussed the impact that Cyrus’ death had on his empire. I cannot simply believe that Cyrus was a weak leader thus his empire crumbled after his death. I believe, like I stated before, that Cyrus was a strong leader and no one could fill his shoes. He was a one of kind leader. If I could be a leader, I would love to emulate the characteristics that Cyrus had. I believe that Cyrus success as a leader had much to do with two things: his ability to bring people together and his ability to built an empire or network of people. These two abilities strong leadership qualities that most modern day leaders lack. I think they are important because it shows people that you can think outside of yourself by including people also it shows that you have resources or ways to obtain those resources.
November 18th 2015:
Today, I had a physic lab final. I took the hugest L in the history of L’s. I thought I was going to get an A in this class till I took this final. This final really took all my motivation to do work for the rest of the day. I had plans to be very productive after my final. I honestly think that Physic class is difficult for no reason. On top of this, I lost my calculator- a TI 80 something. I do not know what version it was, I just knew that the graphing calculator had light. I ended up spending the rest of the day just reflecting on the my classes. I really need a 4.0 or something close to that. Back, back in the day, I use to do the bare minimum to get a B in most classes. This year, my junior year, helped me realized that I have potential to do excellence in class if I put my heart and soul into it. For the rest of my classes, outside of Ideas in Antiquity, I have an A in. In Ideas in Antiquity, I have no clue what I have in the class. I just feel like I am failing the class or at least have a C. This is one of my more difficult class simple because of the large amounts of reading required in a short period of time. Knowing that I might get an F in this class does upsets me but I know that I put 100% into this class amongst the other classes that I am juggling.
November 19th 2015:
During class, we learned about Alexander the Great. I would like to start off by saying it’s about time. I feel like if you were to mention Ancient Greece to people, the first 4 things that pop up in people’s minds are Pluto, Socrates, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. In class, we tried to discussed the credibility of the source. I find it hard to believe most of the stories we read in this class in the first place simply because a lot can get lost in word of mouth and even in translation. Also, a lot of these stories were written not during when Alexander the great was alive and kicking but after. We, modern day students, do not really know the position of the person when they decided to write about Alexander the Great’s life. Sometimes they want to slander whoever they are writing about. Sometimes they want to over glorify whoever they are writing about. It is hard to tell when truth and motive cross over. I try to just read all the stories as fictional stories simply because it reduces the stress of trying to find out which part is truth and what part is exaggeration or fiction. I can sleep better at night without this stress.
November 20th:
Waking up to hear that a car crashed into the Annex is quite troublesome. But this piece of new did help me get through the day. I do not mean to laugh at all the misfortune that Howard University has gone through but sometimes you have to wonder when will Howard every have a smooth semester in which nothing goes wrong. Every semester since I have been here, there is some problem that seems to affect Howard. Here is a run down of current L’s Howard took this semester from one of my friends:
- Running out of hot water in the tower
- Terror Threat at Howard
- Car Crashed into the Annex
- Wifi is hiding
among many other things.
I had the opportunity of learning about Alexander the great. Compared to Cyrus the Great, they seem similar. Both were fierce leaders amongst their people while also being very kind and gentle. For some stranger reason, people alway wanted to kill Alexander the great. I guess no matter how successful people get, people will always envy your success. Sometimes people will go to the extremes to even kill you. Sometimes I do not understand people. Instead of being jealous of people’s success, people should work their butts off in order to gain the success that they want. I liked how Alexander the Great “tamed” or “trained” a horse without necessarily beating the horse into submission. This is the type of leader we need in modern day. I feel like a leader who can should such restraints can maintain their emotion especially during a time of adversity in order to complete a goal. Some people, if not most people get to caught up in their emotions that they can finish whatever they started until they have their emotions under control. This would make a horrible leader because most things that leaders deal with are time sensitive and can not be pushed back.
November 21st:
I will attempt to do the questionnaire part of the homework:
- Compare and Contrast Alexander to Cyrus, especially in terms of their character. What stories of Alexander, or theme of his early life, remind you of stories we have read of Cyrus?
Firstly, both characters seems to act in a similar manner. They are very well respected men by their people but also kind hearted, something you would not typically expected from a leader. Most of the time, we view leaders as psychopathic which makes our views of leadership bad. We kind of think of leaders as evil or people who do bad things. In reality, they are force to do bad things but they does not necessarily reflect on their character.
2.Select three stories from the life of Alexander that seem especially implausible. How do you think these stories got started and were passed down to Plutarch four hundred years later?
Some of my examples are stories per say but apart of Alexander the Great’s life that I could not see as possible. For one instance, any time I hear Alexander the Great doing anything nice, I am force to reread whatever I read just to make sure I am not imagining that. I kind of feel like the image of Alexander the Great conquering a lot of places is conflicting the with image of Alexander the Great being nice.
Similar to Alexander the Great being nice, I also find it hard to believe that Alexander the Great would get into the art of Healing. I only find this hard to believe simply because I do not think leader should worry himself about physically healing people. He can find other people who can do this job for him.
I also find it hard to believe that Alexander the Great just naturally smell nice. The way he described it, it just seems very impossible for someone to be very sweaty and still smell good. I guess odors were different back in the day. What must of smell bad to us might smell good to them. You just might not know.
3.Do you think Alexander would make a good candidate? Why or Why not? What other characters from the Life of Alexander might be more qualified? Would you yourself expect to be qualified for this role in 10–20 years?
I think Alexander the Great would make an excellent candidate. I believe this because Alexander has the natural ability to become interested in whatever is presented in front of him. This trait is very important especially in terms of academia. This traits will be able to drive Alexander the Great to one of the top candidates for Clark University. I also believe that Aristotle is a more qualifying candidate than Alexander.I do not see myself in 10 or 20 years from now qualified to take this position.