In Continuum.

This, is Napoleon Bonaparte, or Napoleon I. Napoleon has been hailed as one of the greatest military strategist that ever walked this earth, and it is not a high claim at that. He realized the French's dreams, conquered empires after empires like a mighty storm, led an unstoppable force and wiped out northern Africa without breaking a sweat, even while he walked through the merciless Sahara with a serious shortage of water. History textbooks would describe his great conquests in great detail, going to great lengths to paint an almighty picture of Napoleon Bonaparte, to shape him into a man adored by millions. But in truth, I'm not sure if I want to respect this master of deceit, the man that fabricated a whole bunch of fancy stories when he came home from the Middle-East, after losing a war and almost all his men. He came back to France, put up a front, and then told everybody about his achievements overseas, shaping him into this glorious king, this dictator loved by all. 

History is written by winners, which is why that is what we usually read in textbooks. But in truth, though we cannot deny that he was a great military leader, he sure was a great storyteller too. He used that gift of his in many occasions, and it certainly fooled a lot of people back home despite everything. When he felt brave enough, he led the French army into Russia and thought that it'd be nice if they have a piece of their land as well, but retreated and ran all the way back to France because Russia was simply too cold for them. They prefer to have french toasts and french fries, food that are not suitable to be eaten in the cold. Not capable of protecting Paris, Napoleon was eventually exiled onto an island off the coast of Italy, where he eventually drank poison with his wife Josephine and died. A romantic story indeed, but probably yet another part of his struggle to gain sympathy votes, for the last time.

Yesterday, Monday, was a dramatic day. It felt like an episode from Days of our Lives, episode #927301 or something like that. The news came to us on Sunday afternoon over the internet, something about the owner of the Bastille finding out about our online petition thing. She called our leader for a hundred times on Sunday afternoon concerning the online petition, crying on the phone and feeling all miserable about the situation. When her sympathy card failed to have any effect on our leader, she decided to use the guilt card, and that also proved to be fruitless against the determined mind of our glorious leader. So it was agreed to have a face to face talk in school along with all of those that signed the petition a few days ago, and I guess our plans to storm her Bastille has failed - all because some guy from the States decided to Google her name and found the petition against her. This guy is the same guy that writes her recommendations, apparently, and reading a letter from her students regarding her misdeeds was clearly something he never expected online. We happened to meet Shen, Esther, Liz and Dom at Chomp Chomp that evening having dinner, and he was munching away on a piece of stingray when I asked if he has any ounce of guilt in him. With food still in his mouth and a hearty chuckle, he replied "No, of course not."

Here is the thing, she claims that she is on the job market right now, looking for jobs other than the one she is having right now. Employers in the States like to look for their potential employees over the Internet, to see if they can dig up anything that might help them to determine whether or not this person is worth hiring. Of course, when the petition was set up, none of us expected the link to appear on a Google search, since it was supposed to be secured. Still, somebody found it online, sent an e-mail to the unknowing one, and everything just erupted into the soap opera that we witnessed in class today. Our names were called, and the rest of the class was excused as she started telling us just how heartbroken she was when she heard about the news. She tried to hold it together in the beginning, but couldn't hold it much longer and started breaking down in front of everybody. I am sure her tears and stories about how she failed to fall asleep last night moved a few people standing there with their hands in the pockets, but all those remorse and guilt went back to square one by the end of the day - here's why.

I suppose, the petition was never set up out of malicious reasons. I don't think any of us actually wanted to destroy her career, or wanted it to be dealt with personally. It was just an effort, on our part, to raise the awareness to the administration in school, this episode about it being on the internet was certainly not part of the plan. She argued that the execution of this petition was wrong, which is something I am willing to stand corrected. It is true that it has rather detrimental effects on her, and that was probably when the lot of us started feeling a little guilty about things. So the accusation card was dealt, that one sort of worked on us for a while, and then she decided to deal out the sympathy cards. She started talking about how our leader was deeply sorry about his doings when she talked to him earlier in the morning, how he wanted to shake her hand and how somebody in class suggested that it'd be wise for him to drop the module. There I was standing at the front of the class and thinking to myself, "Now, wait just a minute there". Shaking hands and feeling deeply sorry is definitely not the style of our leader, and I questioned her in my mind about that, though I never raised any comments whatsoever.

You see, she was already on the edge of things, clinging desperately to what little sanity and hope she had left at that time. The only things that I had in mind were things that would definitely have pushed her over the edge, which was why I kept my silence while some of us spoke up and to voice our opinions. Our point is this: we don't think that bringing the point up to her would have done any good, since she tends to give people the impression that she dismisses opinions or ideas that differ from her own. Contrary to what Liz said about her taking it too seriously, I do think that she had every right to do so. However, at the same time, I think it takes two hands to clap, and her accusation card was definitely dealt out too hastily without much of a thought. I mean, she dismissed our opinions right there and then while she was sobbing through the Kleenex, and she certainly never thought of the consequences of her own actions in the past when she questioned whether or not we thought of the consequences of signing the petition. In retrospect, I did think about the consequences of myself signing the petition. I knew that she was going to be upset about the situation, and that she is going to have a tough time facing the class from then on. I thought about those, and I thought about them deeply. I signed the petition without anymore hesitation. 

After that teary episode in class, we met our leader in the corridor, and we asked him whether or not the things that she said in front of us truly happened. Apparently, he never tried to shake her hand to patch things up, nobody suggested him to drop the module to redeem himself, and he certainly was not deeply sorry about the whole situation. Seriously, I felt that her words were both tactless and fake, especially when we were already on the verge of feeling guilty. I wonder what she was thinking when she made up those things about our leader to us, was she expecting us to swallow it all and not ask him about it? Lying certainly does not help with your case at all, certainly when you are trying to deal the sympathy card here. Our sympathies have turned, once again, into that of disappointment. At least for me, I thought a bit of humanity in you when you started questioning our acts. But I guess, the fact that you lied to gain our agreement and sympathy, is just way below the belt here. It really is quite low. 

I think when it comes to lies, you got to be really good to tell them. You don't want to lie to a bunch of people and hope that they are not going to find out the truth. Things are different right now, people do have much easier avenues to communicate with each other. The people in France certainly did not have the ability to have a deep conversation with those people in Middle-East, to find out whether or not Napoleon did win all those battles he claimed to have won. He lied to everybody, and everybody believed him. It was the perfect lie, and he eradicated the possibility of him being seen as the greatest loser in French history. In fact, if he had lied that he conquered all the way to China while riding on a motorbike, like the one in the picture, people might have believed! It all depends on how you execute a lie, and I think that is something she never learned very well back in school. 

It is a little sad to see what a person can do while being forced into the corner. She might be scared and petrified, angry and ferocious, or she might just breakdown and crumble. A lot of things could happen to a person in desperation, and I guess in her own desperate efforts, she was willing to try anything to win back the hearts of the students, even if it meant that she'd have to fabricate certain things in her statement. Sure, she might have argued that the leader twisted some of her words, but she certainly never held back any opportunities to twist his words either. It is the case of the pot calling the kettle black, all over again. This is the case of the elephant laughing at the camel for having a pair of breasts growing on its back when he has a penis growing on his face. I think such verbal battles, these fights with words, they are like those stinking politicians we read in the news, always twisting each others' words and making themselves sound like the victim of it all. But at the end of the day, I feel, that such verbal wars are really like the Special Olympics. No matter who wins at the end, the winner is still as retarded as the loser.