Favorite Song: Lose Yourself by Eminem

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted-One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs,
but he keeps on forgettin what he wrote down,
the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's choking now, everybody's joking now
The clock's run out, time's up over, bloah!
Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He's so mad, but he won't give up that
Easy, no
He won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropes
It don't matter, he's dope
He knows that, but he's broke
He's so stagnant that he knows
When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again yo
This this whole rhapsody
He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

[Hook:]
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

The soul's escaping, through this hole that it's gaping
This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post mortem
It only grows harder, only grows hotter
He blows us all over these hoes is all on him
Coast to coast shows, he's know as the globetrotter
Lonely roads, God only knows
He's grown farther from home, he's no father
He goes home and barely knows his own daughter
But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmoe who flows
He nose dove and sold nada
So the soap opera is told and unfolds
I suppose it's old partner but the beat goes on
Da da dum da dum da da

[Hook]

No more games, I'ma change what you call rage
Tear this motherfucking roof off like 2 dogs caged
I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed
I been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage
But I kept rhyming and stepwritin the next cypher
Best believe somebody's paying the pied piper
All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I can't get by with my 9 to 5
And I can't provide the right type of life for my family
Cause man, these goddam food stamps don't buy diapers
And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life
And these times are so hard and it's getting even harder
Trying to feed and water my seed, plus
Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a prima donna
Baby mama drama's screaming on and
Too much for me to wanna
Stay in one spot, another day of monotony
Has gotten me to the point, I'm like a snail
I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot
Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not
Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem's lot
So here I go is my shot.
Feet fail me not cause maybe the only opportunity that I got

[Hook]

You can do anything you set your mind to, man


I like this song because it demonstrates how difficult making the serious decisions can be. I have multiple opportunities, however, I still must complete the task that I swore myself to. I have to kill Claudius, and I must set my mind to this, or else I will fail my father.

Acceptance

"Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be"(Act 5, Scene II).

I have decided to fence Laertes in order to win the king's bet. He may be a very skilled fencer, but I have been practicing while he has been away. I go into this fight unsure of what exactly awaits me. I will first talk to Laertes and ask for his forgiveness before we fight. Fate has predetermined everthing, so if something is meant to happen today, it will, and if not, it will happen another day. I have accepted this, and it is time for me to face destiny.

Indecision, Indecision, Oh what to do?

"How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"(Act 4, Scene IV)

Everything is pointing to revenge! I stand here and have not killed my uncle, who murdered my father, took mis throne, and defiled my mother! I have so many reasons to have killed him already, along with the proper motivation, but I cannot bring myself to do it. Fortinbras marches with twenty thousand men to fight over a piece of land that is not even big enough to bury them all, yet I cannot kill my father's murderer. All of my thoughts from now on must be violent, or I shall not consider them at all.

Here, I am holding the skull of a jester that I knew when I was just a boy. He was close to my father and always entertained me. I realize now that all men eventually return to the dust from which all men originally came from.

I have him on the ropes!!

"Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes"(Act 3, Scene II)

Claudius reacted just as I thought he would to the play I devised. Once Lucianus poisoned the king, Claudius jumped up and called for the lights. He stormed out of the room, and Horatio confirmed my suspicions that Claudius had started when Lucianus poured the poison in his ear. I had resolved to kill Claudius on the first chance that I had, however, fate did not have the same plan in mind. When I first had a shot at avenging my father, Claudius was kneeling in prayer. I could not bring myself to kill him for he surely would have went straight to Heaven, and I would have been doing him a huge favor. I have decided to wait until Claudius is committing some sinful deed, so that he will go straight to hell and not have a chance at reaching Heaven. 

Incriminating Evidence

"I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"(Act 2, Scene II).


I have finally figured out how I will truly determine my uncle's guilt. If he is guilty and he sees a play that closely resembles my father's murder, he's got to have some terrible reaction to it. So I figure that I'll set up a play with the players that just got here, and based on Claudius's reaction, I'll know where I have to go from here. It seems simple enough, now let's just hope it works. Otherwise, I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Sworn to Vengeance

"I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown"(Act 1, Scene V).

You would not believe what I heard and saw today. My best friend Horatio told me that he had seen my father's ghost. I obviously had to see for myself, so I went with him to the night watch on top of the castle. Sure enough, the ghost appeared, and not only that, the ghost wanted to talk to me! I had to hear what my father had to tell me, so I went with him. Man, the things he told me. He said he had been murdered and not only that, he said it was my uncle!! I can't believe that my uncle killed my father! I've sworn revenge, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do.


Sources

Song Lyrics:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eminem/loseyourself.html

Hamlet over Claudius Illustration: http://web.sssd.k12.ar.us/highschool/staff/Hotsenpl/Humanities%20web_owens/explanation2.htm

Indecision Illustration:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/hamlet-courtyard-theatre-stratforduponavon-886094.html?action=Popup

Fencing Illustration:
http://www.coronadoplayhouse.com/hamlet/