What Should We Expect From Our Leaders?

Intelligence, morality, courage, eloquence, and charisma are 5 most important qualities that build up a good leader. Nevertheless, I think that the most important quality is charisma. Charisma is something that attracts people to gather around the leader. Even if a person has intelligence, courage, and eloquence, if that person has no charisma, nobody will support him. If a person has charisma, even if his intelligence is not so good, is not brave enough, and gives poor speeches, other people can help him. His followers can help him analyze situations, push him to do right decisions, and do speeches for him. At my point of view, as long as a leader has charisma, he can own good followers, and his followers may help him build up the qualities that he lacks. Since I’m not familiar with those great leaders in the real life, I’ll give an example from fictions I’ve read. In Infinite Terror, the protagonist, Zheng Za, is a man with poor intelligence and eloquence, but has charisma. He is very stupid and made many mistakes at first, but people were attracted by his charisma and gathered around him, and help the whole team to survive.

Sonnet Reflection

Difference between memorizing Beowulf and the sonnet is actually not small.
For Beowulf, because it's a story, when I am memorizing, I can think about the plot of the story and recall the lines. I can memorize the epic by memorizing the actions. In Beowulf, there are more actions than descriptions. Moreover, I think that Beowulf is easier to understand.
For sonnet 130, although it's shorter, because it focuses on describing the mistress, I found difficulty memorizing. In the sonnet, there are some hard words it's hard to memorize every word that's used to describe the mistress. Another thing is that I feel that the meanings of the lines used to describe the mistress is harder to remember. I searched for the definitions and meanings of every word and every line, but it's just hard to memorize with the original words.
One critical reason that I think most people didn't do well on the sonnet is that we preformed in Beowulf at the beginning of the class, but did the sonnet at the end of the class. I used to use the study hall just before British Literature class to memorize the sonnet, but it's obvious that I've forgot most of them after the class.

Can you ever be too ambitious?

Being ambitious is a good thing. For my opinion, I think that people can be successful only if they are ambitious. However, people sometimes fail because they are TOO ambitious. Many people get too ambitious because they are too proud or too confident. They don't know themselves well, don't know their real ability, and don't know what they are going to face, so they get too ambitious and fail. However, I don't think that I will ever be too ambitious. To be ambitious, I need to have a goal, to have something that we really want to do. However, although I have dreams that I want to achieve, I never set my goal so high that I can never achieve. I know my ability, I know how well or bad I can do, so I really don't think I will ever get too ambitious. Moreover, I am not a person that is ambitious. Although being successful is a good thing and a good dream, it is not what I most want. What I most want is a peace and normal life.

Beowulf vs The 13th Warrior

In the epic, there is only a monster and a hero. The monster, Grendel, kept coming to attack human, and Beowulf only needs to wait for it to come and kill it. Even when the other monsters, like Grendel's mother and the dragon, came, they appears one by one. But in the movie, there are 13 warriors, and the main character goes with them only to bring them "luck". And there are a lot of monsters that appeared. The monsters, unlike Grendel, threw fires and rode horses. And in the movie, the warriors even went to search for the cave and went into the cave to kill the monsters.
In Beowulf, although Beowulf also brought some men with him, the story is mostly 1 vs 1. However, in The 13th Warrior, the battle is a group of people fighting against a bunch of monsters.
One part that I think is most different is the fight between one of the warriors and one of the villagers. When they're digging, the warrior threw mud onto the villager's back, which I don't know if he did it in purpose (looks like he is). And they had a battle. The warrior at first can't fight back, but when the villager is giving the last hit, the villager is too imprudent and was killed by the warrior. In Beowulf, there is nothing like this.

Is love blind?

For me to say, it depends. To say love is blind means that two people fall in love without knowing each other's character clearly. From books and stories I've read, I saw some couples blind but some actually know each other clearly. For example, there are some pairs of lovers in the series of book, Harry Potter. In Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Harry Potter was with Chou Zhang, but they don't know each other's characteristic. Harry likes Chou only because she is pretty and Chou likes Harry only because she is lonely. For this, I will say love is blind. However, the other pair of lovers, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are together. They had been friends for seven years and do know each other very well. They became lovers because of true love. In this case, I will say love is not blind, Ron and Hermione do know what they are doing.

Why Tell Stories in Song?

I remember a song which I first heard when I was still in 3rd grade., which is called "Lemon Tree" by Fools Garden.
The lyrics:
"I'm sitting here in the boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I'm wasting my time
I got nothing to do
I'm hanging around
I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I'm driving around in my car
I'm driving too fast
I'm driving too far
I'd like to change my point of view
I feel so lonely
I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I wonder how

I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon-tree
I'm turning my head up and down
I'm turning turning turning turning turning around
And all that I can see is just another lemon-tree"

I remember all these in my head and never forget it is because I kept listening to the song. I really like the song and sometimes will sing along, and then I naturally remembered the lyrics. I think the reason why songs and lyrics are so memorable, is that we can sing along with it. And after singing a lot of time, people just naturally memorized the lyrics. When we forgot some parts, we sing it again in mind, and we'll naturally recall our memories.
Moreover, unlike stories and like poems, songs have lyrics and music that keep repeating, which make the song even more memorable.

Is Honor Worth Dying For?

I think it really depends on one's personality and settings. For knights in the medieval period, all of them would say that honor is of course worth dying for. If they think that their honor is trampled by other people, they'll fight till death only for that invisible thing. In modern society, people think and act differently. Some people think that honor isn't important at all. They will think that honor cannot bring them food, bring them money, bring them warmth or anything they need to survive. However, there are still some people who think that honor is very important. These people like officers and politicians think that honor is their dignity, and nobody should flout their dignity. People who have strong self-esteem think that honor is worth dying for, but others think that to live is more important than any other things. To me, maybe because I never meet any conditions that I need to die for my honor, I think that honor is important, but is not worth dying for.