Bernardo Gomez

Montgomery Clift

Initially James Dean was the actor the caught my attention for being young like myself and had similar experiences with his family as me. James Dean moved from Indiana to Santa Monica at a young age because his father wanted to have a better life as a dentist instead of a farmer. I was born in the United States only but at a few months old was taken to Mexico and lived there with my family for about five years. My father was tired of working for his father as a farmer and wanted to obtain his own wealth. We made a transition back to the United States. Initially school was hard for me and I was held back a year because I started school late as well as I wasn’t able to speak english like the other kids in school. James Dean dropped out of college to follow his dream to become an actor. James Dean appearance on an advertisement for pepsi was the jump start to his career. I am fortunate to have family that owns restaurants in San Diego and was able to obtained an internship as assistant manager and chef’s assistant to reach my goal of being a successful business owner and chef. I hope to climb the ropes up as fast as James Dean and be a successful man. James Dean was my initial choice but unfortunately I had to change James Dean because his time frame in his career was really short so I switched to Montgomery Clift.

Montgomery Clift being similar to James Dean was a wise choice to transition to since Montgomery Clift was very alike to James Dean with the same objective to be actor. Montgomery Clift was all about the theater since his mother had alway been the person to push him in his acting career. Montgomery was stubborn knowing that he didn’t want to be a movie star his happiness was theater since Montgomery had been doing theater for about ten years. Similarly, I want want to be a executive chef and that was my career choice since I was young but like Montgomery Clift I was pushed by family to also get a business administrations degree to have the title of a chef along with the business administrations degree. That way I could be successful throughout my future with both degrees. Montgomery Clift was never a fan of moving his talent toward hollywood and making movies. Montgomery Clift wanted his talent to maintain in  theater but the right moment came to spark. When Hollywood made an offer that wasn't for Montgomery Clift to rejectable but Montgomery Clift was wise and told Hollywood that with him there would be no contract because he wasn’t going to be tied down by a contract so to me this was very inspiring. Knowing that I also stand see things in thats perspective knowing that I myself would never tie myself down to something I don't feel is right. I currently have job and was given more responsibilities along with an increase to my pay but after sometime the job was to demanding and it was a bit crazy the way my boss wanted thing to be done but I had told them that I would keep doing thing the way they wanted till the end of summer because I would no longer be doing things to their demand. I wasn't going  be the puppet machine that they wanted me to be because that would be humiliating. In a similar way to the way Montgomery respond to hollywood on the contract I respond back to my boss and said look I am not going to be doing that job anymore or I go back to what I normally doing or take a 2 week notice from me and I am done with this job. Everyone should stand up for their right and never feel humiliated or obligated to do something they don't want to.

Assumption @ 0

Since around the seventh grade, I’ve had a love for poetry. The genres of poetry are endless, but I’ve always been drawn to the type to use descriptive language and vivid imagery. A good poet can use black and white text to form a full color landscape inside the reader’s mind. When a poem is truly heartfelt it will share the author’s deepest fears, passions, insecurities, and ideals.

A piece of writing that really struck me as heartfelt and revealing was “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. The poem is cryptic and can interpreted in many different way depending on the reader's own experiences. My interpretation of the poem is about the allure of death. The narrator is debating whether or not he should venture into the dark woods. He eventually decided that he has too many responsibilities to give in to the temptation of leaving this world behind. If you take the poem at face value, the woods, the horse, and the snow only serve as a visual prop. Delve deeper into the words and a darker elegance is revealed. In my opinion the woods are a symbol of the comfort of darkness and death. It’s warm, soft, and sometimes the temptation is too strong to resist. The horse is a force that reminds him of his societal obligations. It could represent his parents, wife, children, job, or anything else that is dependent on his responsibility. That’s the beauty of an author like Robert Frost. He can write a simplistic poem that is beautiful on the surface and appealing to the ears, but contain a very profound meaning.

The darker aspect of the poem only exists to people who choose to see it. People can dig several different meanings out of the poem that are completely dependent on the reader’s experience. I have an appreciation for the darker things so I noticed the theme immediately. Besides “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” the only other poems I’ve read by Frost are “The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Nothing Gold Can Stay”. I don’t know much about Frost or his other works but considering how much I enjoyed those three poems, I’m sure I’ll fall in love with anything else he writes. I would like to learn about his personal life to gain insight into the mindset behind his poems. Based on what’s known about his life, was “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” really about the allure of death? What was the event that inspired “The Road Not Taken”? Why does he claim to prefer fire in “Fire and Ice”? I don’t know if my questions will be answered, and if they are I fear it may ruin the meaning of his works. Maybe instead I can research about the Literary Movement at the time he was most active or influential. I could also research about the literary works that influenced Frost’s writing, and the writers Frost inspired himself.

For quite a bit of time the Cold War has captivated my mind. I have been determined to immerse myself in the historical context of the time, the want to do so was seeded by my father at a young age, his military experience and pure fascination for military history was pushed onto my impressionable mind. I have heard many stories, learned about many people, and have ‘experienced’ many important events that happened during the fearful decades through the documentation of the time. The stories of the people who experienced the different aspects of the Cold War are what really captures me. Their victory over the fear and uncertainty that filled the time are inspiring and memorable. This time holds many secrets that are important to understand the mindset of the people, so I will try what I can to learn it all.

The Cold War is largely mysterious, the constant spying and infiltration of governments between the undeclared combatants created an untrusting and fearful environment in the countries. However, with this hostile relationship between the countries new technology was of great importance to them. Most of the technology that we use and are dependent on today was derived from this strenuous time, cell phones, computers, space ships etc. were birthed from the technological race that happened between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

When I looked at this time period for my project I knew I was coming into it with some knowledge about various conflicts and events that made up the time, mainly relating to the space race/arms race that lead to CIA and KGB spying. However this time entails much more than that, two world powers of democracy and communism strived to undermine one another and did so through revealing secrets and releasing propaganda that shone each other in a dark light. This competitive mindset between the two lead to large amounts of resources being poured into wars that were fought in countries that had little effect or relevance to the two powers. The countries were left in ruin or close to because of the aggression and opposition the Soviet Union and U.S. had with each other.,Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Egypt, Afghanistan. All these countries were taken advantage of so the these superpowers were able to duel it out without having to fight on their own soil. Still today you can see the effects of the wars and conflict.

One big thing that has been lightly tugging at me to learn about is one of the biggest yet forgotten event of the Cold War, the Korean war. Korea is divided still to this day with a seemingly continuous hatred and intensity between the two but how did such aggression develop? When and how did the country fall into the hands of a dictatorship? And Lastly how could such a war be forgotten?

The wars of communism vs democracy that were created all over the world have been talked about and debated for decades after they occurred. However a war that killed a significant amount on both sides slipped through, were there other wars and conflicts that were hidden from common knowledge? These very questions are what are leading me to pursue this topic and understand why such a war was started and the effects during and after the fact. I don't wish to know who fired the first shot I wish to know why they did so and their plans after doing so.