Aliens!
You know what I hate? When movies end with aliens. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe in the high probability of some other sentient life form inhabiting another planet in any number of distant solar systems similar to our own. But I just nearly scream with frustration when a decent-to-good movie, for example Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, culminates with the discovery of some ancient, super-human extraterrestrial race that eliminates nearly every degree of believablility from the pre-ceding and post-ceding sections of the film. In my eyes it is a complete cop out by the director as he or she, instead of imagining an ingenious yet believable climax, simply answers the question put forth by the exposition with ALIENS. OOOOOOO!!
This minor qualm I have with the film industry was once again realized in the movie “Knowing” with Nicholas Cage, which I watched only 3 days ago. I was entranced by the first 80 minutes of the movie, even when the plot twisted nearly beyond belief and the only reasonable solution seemed undeniably outlandish. The acting was good, the logical puzzles that the protagonist, John, solves are fascinating, and even the CGI was not half bad. I even enjoyed John’s ubiquitously pessimistic philosophy of life and the randomness of events, his argument for spontaneity over determinism. But then my opinion did a 180. Enter the Whisperer People! Aliens! Ahhhhh that’s the solution! Suddenly, the aliens swoop in, save random children across the globe and the earth is engulfed in an anomalous, explosively hot emission of thermal energy from the sun. By the Hammer of Zeus! What is humanity to do? Luckily, the children saved by the abnormally white Whisperer People are put onto a new planet harboring a hospitable environment to re-cultivate the Human species and begin life anew. So, although I still believe that the movie was worth watching, I would have loved to see a more creative, less abrupt, and more believable dénouement to the film.
But on to life at Duke and his outlying provinces. I had the pleasure of going home last weekend, July 4th included, to a fun-filled 3 days of nothing, nothing, and more nothing. It makes one realize how, despite the difficulty of lab work and the knowledge the unending stream of responsibilities outside of lab to maintain a degree of sanity and health in life, that to be busy and productive and learning is truly an ideal situation. Even though it is truly a relief to have someone to cook your meals and clean your clothing while you relax in the land of doldrums, there is something to be said about harvesting the rewards of independence, bringing home a pay check, and simply standing on your own two feet for once.
Speaking of giving speeches, this past weak served witness to the Mid-Program Chalk talks of the HHRF, a 4 day extravaganza of blissful learning. We were each tasked with an 8 minute talk about our research up to this point which was subsequently followed by 2 minutes of questions. My initial goal going into the presentation was to do a generally good job of explaining dorsal closure, and then spend only a fraction of the time integrating this information into the experiments I am actually doing. I valiantly drew some pictures, and spoke what I thought was English, and probably made a more garbled, convoluted, series of explanations that I thought previously possible. So all in all, it went pretty well! I will update the blog with my research in under 24hrs, but until then please try not to die of anticipation.
Last, let me urge you never to forget one simple fact, that “Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty. “
