Time Travel

Have you ever considered what it would be like to go back in time to relive events and perhaps do things differently?

Being an expert in quantum physics, I have actually thought about this quite a bit.  I can safely conclude that changing the past is never a good idea, and time travel should never be attempted except in cases of essential and pure information gathering.  Even then the risks of causing a universe shattering paradox are just too great.  Sometimes, however, I do wish I could go back and tell myself to not say stupid things to women.

More specifically, I should have learned by now that it is unwise to tell April to “hurry up” when we are going somewhere.  While it is perfectly reasonable to expect we should be on time when going to a movie, I am apparently being “pushy” and “rude” when I imply she is being deliberately “slow” or “obtuse” to the situation.  Such actions cause us to miss the movie entirely, not just be late.

I suppose it would be nice to use the hypothetical time machine to make it to said movie on time, but that again might be pushing it.  Hopefully a simple apology will help. If not, then hopefully an elaborate and very expensive apology will help.

Fairy Tales

All my recent thought about movies has gotten me wondering.  What about all of the fairy tales and folklore from Earth tradition?  My first thought is to assume that they are merely folklore, tales for children and such.  However,  could these stories be part of some true history of this world long forgotten?  Some of my recently immigrated alien brethren seem to think so.  I suppose thinking about ancient gods and what they must have meant, even if they were real is academic, but it does concern me that one of these days someone will foolishly venture to the bottom of the ocean in search of the riches of Atlantis.

That being said, a journey to the bottom of the ocean does sound like an amusing adventure.

More Movies

Introducing my alien culture to human culture through cinema has been an interesting and rewarding experience.  One of the more amusing aspects of this is when they question how real the events they see on screen are.

Everyone understood relatively quickly that the movies themselves were not strict documents of reality. However, there was some debate as to whether these movies were reenacting real events or not.  This took some explaining.

Certainly, some movies are based on real events, so it was more difficult than one would think to reassure them this was not always true.  We are from an alien world where behavior and sometimes physics work quite differently, so there can be no immediate assumption as to what is possible here.  Also, the concept of fictional tales and mythology is a very difficult concept to us.  It may seem elementary to humans, but the differences in reality of “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” are not immediately apparent.

Indeed, if movies are to be believed, humanity has encountered aliens from other worlds countless times.  I am still not convinced these events are entirely fictional.

Charlie Chaplin

Mathematics is a universal language.  Comedy, I have learned, is much more subjective.  However, I have also learned that a good laugh clears many barriers.

I must be complaining too much lately.  Despite my feeling that my relationship with April is continuing to go well, I have apparently spent too much time worrying about the state of the alien refugee situation.  Or as April put it, I have needed to “stop wasting my time putting out fires and do something about it.”

For a moment, I was sure this would lead to another argument born out of my inability to understand female emotions, but she ended up coming up with an interesting solution.  She suggested I “host a movie night.”

My first though was that this was a ridiculous notion, to host my newly immigrated brethren to a “movie night.” Then, April explained.  A local cinema was screening a series of Charlie Chaplin movies, and she thought that a group of aliens would be able to enjoy them because, firstly, they were “silent” movies that relied primarily on visual storytelling without heavy reliance on local language, and secondly, if we could get these aliens to laugh, we all might relax for a change.

I figured it could not hurt much to try, and it actually worked.  Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” character is uniquely human, yet there is some quality that is very easy for an alien to grasp.  We saw a few short films and a couple of his longer feature length pictures.  The one we all appreciated the most was “Modern Times,” I think because we could relate to the conflict with technology, and we generally appreciated a character that seemed out of his element.

I must try more of these. Social events are not something I am used to, but even my sister was very positive about the experience.  Perhaps there is something to finding a cultural touchstone to connect to.

Things Fall Apart

One human concept I learned very quickly working at a school is that children should not be given shiny, expensive things that are prone to breaking.  This is true when my little sister borrows the car as well as when recently arrived aliens learn the concept of capitalism.

After the incident with my fellow refugee last week, the government has been very anxious about this new burden I have accepted.  By “burden I have accepted” I mean the burden they have accepted and passed onto me.  I was starting to wonder what these humans hoped to accomplish by welcoming my alien brethren to the community so quickly, and now I realize, they did not quite know themselves.

I am sure their short-term goals of our advanced technology and such were enough to motivate them, but the cultural divide is starting to form.  My government contacts have been “on edge” lately, and my alien friends do not know quite what to do with themselves much of the time.

I have also become aware that this is an election year in this nation, and that causes the politicians that run this government to behave more irrationally than usual.  Apparently, we are “messing up the jobs numbers” to one or the other side’s dissatisfaction.  I am not even sure which representatives could possible know the truth about us, but it is getting harder for us to stay out of the way.

So, while the local government plays with our shiny toys, I have to pick up the pieces when one of the new immigrants breaks the rules they do not know about or follows the wrong ones.