The Door Museum

When I was a child growing up just outside Olympus, one of my favourite places to go was The Door Museum. For those of you who don't know, it's a quirky museum that contains only doors. But the best thing about it for us kids was that you didn't just look at the doors, you could go through them. You would move from room to room, reading the plaques or listening to a guided tour, choosing each door you would go through.

Today I decided, on a whim, to go back.

It's always a bit worrisome, visiting somewhere that you were enchanted by as a child. You wonder if it will be really as good as you remember, or whether it will be kitsch or childish, or you'll see through the illusion and the golden memory will be gone forever. Because of this, I went alone. I didn't really want anyone tagging along into my childhood memories.

The Door Museum isn't much to look at outside. It's inside an old factory that stands only just inside a respectable part of the city. One block east of the museum and things start getting shady. After lunch, I took the train there and walked from the station with a few families. When I saw the building, and I'm not exaggerating, I actually teared up. I hadn't remembered the entrance doors until I got there but the memory the sight triggered was very strong. There are five doors, all of a different kind: a rotating door, a motion-sensor door, a door from an old house on Earth, a round door with a knob right in the middle, and right in the middle a medieval portcullis that I remember was open on special occasions.

I froze before the doors with all the children, completely transported back to being three or four years old (that's six-eight in Earth years, roughly), spoilt for choice by these doors. I distinctly remember running in and out them all, my hands making smudges off the glass of the rotating door. There were children doing that today. For old time's sake, I went through all four doors, leaving the rotating door for last.

I bought my ticket and went through the huge beautifully carved stone door from Ancient Egypt (replica, naturally) into the hall of doors.

It really is how I remember. Real doors, replicas, fictional doors from stories modern and ancient, some more passages or arches than doors, sliding doors, trapdoors, vehicle doors, airlocks, and some that are not really ordinary doors at all- there's a backless wardrobe from some old tale. Each room is somewhat themed to the two, three, four or five doors that open onto it. One like a forest, another a space vessel, another from early Mars complete with peach sky above.

There's one room, buried deep in the middle, with only one door. The door itself is small and unassuming (I'm not going to tell you where; you will have to find it for yourself). I remembered it but it took me a while to find. You pull up the hatch and push the door and it opens with a hiss. You crawl through it and on the other side there is darkness. It's a huge spherical room, dotted with constellations and planets and the sun. You're standing on a glass grate above Mars, looking down at the turning planet as it is today, blue and orange and red.

I'm not sure if I am particularly tired today, or perhaps its the impending completion of my degree and thus two years of my life combined with the flood of childhood memories of that room, but standing in the darkness looking down at my planet with the globe of universe around me, it was pretty hard to swallow the lump in my throat. Perhaps I am simply over sentimental, heh.

Anyway, the Door Museum is an incredible place, and meant much more to me today as a grown-up. I wasn't the only adult exploring it- because that's what you do; explore it. In some ways, it's like a miniaturisation of the world. All the possible doors, all the possible options- and there are some doors that are difficult to find, or easy to pass by because they look so mundane. The only way not to enjoy it is to sit in the first room and not go anywhere.

Anyway, so I just (well, plus the time it took me to write this) got back. And it was as I remembered. And it was fabulous.

Your explorer,

Teshi

Employment Opportunities

Friday, thank goodness. I hope you're as glad as I am. Another week gone... but another week closer to the end of my degree and the impending need for me to find some form of employment.

The trouble is, just having a history degree isn't the smartest thing I ever did. Atrina, my elder sister (house not bio), did history and vehicle repair and she's presently repairing antique vehicles in Midlothian in the perfect union of usefulness and intellectual knowledge. Some people have all the foresight.

I, on the other hand, opted for the purely intellectual, which usually means I plan to be a scholar or a teacher or a professor, none of which really appeal to me. As I've mentioned before, I would really like to do something. Having no skills except a passing knowledge of the history of the human race isn't terribly conducive to that.

I would also like to travel. This doesn't necessarily mean Earth immediately, which is I think what most people mean by 'travel'. Mars is a big place and there's a lot of it I've not seen. Ideally, I think I would get a short term job here that enables me to get to know this planet before I attempt to make any more drastically expensive trips- which I certainly want to. Nobody in my immediate family has made it off-world yet. I want to be the first!

So looking at various options, and keeping in mind the above things, I've narrowed it down to a couple of options that I'm going to apply for:

1. MNS - I'm not super interested in journalism (shhh), but the MNS does have jobs for students and new graduates that basically involve filling in the gaps where they need people. They have stations all over Mars and some even involve actual travelling. It's kind of a long shot because I've got no journalism experience, but I can write so perhaps they'll consider me. I may even discover I like it.

2. Redbird Travel - I know, being a tour guide doesn't need a degree, but it's actually the only job I've ever had before (I was a tour guide at the afore mentioned museum), so I've got a shot. It doesn't pay very well and the hours are scary, but expenses are paid and you get to travel all over.

3. Personal Courier Services - This is a little company listed by the University's Career's Center. What they are is a company that basically pays you to transport something important that you can't send through the regular mail. It sounds intriguing, but in reality it pays fairly badly and you don't really get to see much of the destination since you go, deliver the package and then return. You might get to sleep over a night if you're traveling a long way. Still, could be exciting.

4. Olympus Museum of Natural History - I actually took a course in natural history and have worked here, so I have a shot. What this job includes is basically entry-level type stuff. Cataloging, copy-writing etc. it also involves more complicated stuff like research assistant. It involve traveling immediately, but at least I could live with my family (until they kick me out) and build up some capital to travel on my own terms.

Anyway. Those are the options. Wish me luck and hopefully I'll have a job when I graduate!

Your soon employed

Teshi

I Know Nothing

There's an old quote (from a play I think) in which one character asks another if he knows everything or nothing. He replies that he knows nothing. Something came up in class last week that made me think of that. We were talking about those times in human history when humans were convinced that they were doomed by war or environmental damage, or some natural disaster like an asteroid impact.

Back in darkest periods of human life on Earth, humans seriously considered the end of the human race: they had created great vaults of seeds for plants of all kinds, and then later the embryos of as many animals as they could fit in, like giant bomb-resistant technologically advanced static arks. And finally the time came to consider building a Vault of Humanity, containing not only humans themselves but also the knowledge of humans.

So humans began to ask themselves the questions, What do humans know? What do humans know that is important? What should we put into this great vault of knowledge?

These questions made me think about what I know, and what I, without the aid of research of any kind, would be able to include in such a vault if I was somehow the only person available to do it. I am supposedly somewhat educated. I know a little about a lot of things, and when you think it is surprising what you know that only one thousand years ago people were still guessing about- I could instruct people to eat well, to cure some disease, to understand the world around them, inform them of their past (it would be strange to wake up on a planet where no evidence of your own evolution exists). But compared to the vast amount of information that was tabulated for the Vault of Humanity, I know nothing. My knowledge, although relatively vast, is basic and shallow. I would have to answer the question in the above quote with "I know nothing".

But (going off into the land of ridiculous, thoughtless philosophy) what about the human race? The Vault of Humanity was never completed, due in part to the sheer complexity of tabulating and storing efficiently all of human knowledge. We were defeated by the weight of what we know. Nowadays, much of our information is stored with massive amounts of redundancies in billions of servers and computers and storage facilities across the occupied world.

Despite this, our scientists still search for cures, our explorers still step in places unexplored, biologists uncover new secrets about plants and animals, historians still delve into the history of the world, philosophers still mull over its truths, and composers still find new ways of turning music into song. Could the human race, with so much understanding, given the choice of black and white only have the (totally absurd) option of saying "I know nothing"?

Eventually, the danger passed and advances in space travel and eventually the terraforming of Mars made the panic to preserve less pressing. The vaults still exist- you've probably heard the term "Vault" applied to something like this, even on Mars. They are now partially museums of a precarious era, but still also perform their old function, giant libraries of their specific area. However, no Vault of Humanity exists. If it was implausible to imagine such a thing back four hundred years, it is all but impossible now. We could try but in the end we might end up just wanting to put everything in: I suppose that in a way we are our own Vault of Humanity.

It's the only way to know everything.

Your Absurd Philosopher-Historian,

Teshi

Mons Snowfall

First- I realised after I posted last night that I should make clear that regardless of how mistaken the outcome of Survivor: Mars had been, it does not undermine for me their bravery. I think that our finest moments are often our most unplanned moments of bravery, and the Survivors certainly rose to the challenge.

For those of you who do not live in Olympus, you have to understand something about our weather. In the meterological shadow of a mountain the size of Olympus Mons, our weather can be unpredictable; depending on the winds, our weather is very dry interspersed with very heavy showers from our heavy atmosphere. In the winter (which it is here) this means sudden dumps of snow.

We woke up this morning to the snow already falling and it's been falling all day, covering our grey winter city with a coat of white. Snow has that way of softening the hard edges of an urban environment. I love it for that. I went for a walk along the river, which was all frozen around the rocks with faintly pink ice. The path along the river is one my favourite places in Olympus, even in the winter. It was quite windy and so there were very few people out.

I walked up the path, following the course of the river up the hill, until I could turn around and look at the city. Because of the way the mountain is formed where the city sits on a kind of plateau towards the bottom of the mountain, even from a few minutes walk up, you can look over the city. The falling snow was so thick at first that I couldn't even see the Zebra Building, but it thinned out a bit when I got a little higher and I could see a long way across the city.

It's hard, seeing a scene like that, not to love Olympus :).

When I leave it (which I guarantee you I will; I am determined that I shall see more of this world), I know I will be sorry to miss the seasons here. Sigh. So torn.

Your tour guide,

Teshi

A Visit To The Tomb of The Unknown Survivor

I lost this whole post. This is attempt number two. Computers conspire against us all.

First, an introduction. This reporter, soon to graduate from the renowned institution University of Olympus is, in a desperate attempt to bring meaning into her life, is beginning this blog. This blog will probably contain the toothing troubles of my expulsion from Eden into the so-called 'real world'.

I was inspired to bring this blog into life by a visit to The Tomb of The Unknown Survivor, which I had never been to before, but as many of you will know is just outside of Olympus, and attracts a huge number of gawping tourists.

Most of you know the mythological version of the story behind this tomb, and the foundation of this Fair City. It's amazing and fascinating that even the most well-documented of historical events can acquire a mythological background in so little as two-hundred years but it is one of the human races most amazing skills. Even the information boards around the Tomb were hazy on the details.

As a person who has completed approximately 5/8ths of a class on this very subject (HIS487) I count myself practically an expert on this topic and I feel it is my duty to enlighten this world and others to the reality of the situation. Let me tell you the story:

Once upon a time there was a really popular television show called Survivor. It was a so-called reality show in which contestants were marooned in some difficult situation and voted each other off until only one remained: the winner. A classic example of the human fascination with competition and the lengths people will go to win. It started in I think the 21st century but went on long enough, on and off, to get the point where humans were beginning to push beyond the limits of their Homeworld (haha). I refer to, of course, the terraforming of Mars.

So in 2451, producers launched (enjoying the pun I hope) the ultimate Survivor, the most expensive Survivor ever, the most daring and, yes, the most deadly. Survivor: Mars. We are somewhat familiar with the next bit of the story. From an eager Earth, sixteen were picked to make up this elite, exciting, daring team whose months on Mars would be captured by the camera crew and change the future of the planet forever.

This is only the very edge of the story. The contestants picked were picked not for their survival or scientific skills but for their strong personalities and- most shockingly- the absence of connections to Earth. You see, this Survivor was going to have a twist; due to budget constraints, only the winner and the runner-up would get the ultimate prize, the ticket home. The Survivors were poor and desperate, convinced to sign on because it was a shot at wealth and fame.

Seems inhumane? Perhaps we could blame it on the nature of the era, but we should remember the violence that broke out in the Olympus suburbs only two years ago. Humans don't change, they only have different circumstances. The Earth was at this time overcrowded, urban, cynical, and desperate for entertainment. And Survivor: Mars offered them more than that, it gave them hope. People were willing to overlook the nitty gritty details of the show to see the windswept grasslands of another world.

Because remember the planet was only half-formed. It was cold and swept by frequent and violent storms, with little flora and even less fauna. It was a harsh environment that was more difficult than anyone really understood. Even the existing civilian colonists (who are also often admitted from this myth) lived in the shelter of the mountains.

I don't really need to tell you many details about the actual show. Only that by the time the show started to be shown to the Earth, the winner and the runner up were already on their way back home and five of the losing contestants were dead from exposure or accidents. All for the sake of entertainment.

I do not wish to undermine the very real heroes the "losing" Survivors were for Mars. We all know that upon the very first episode's release, the ISA received more applications for colonization than it had in its entire history. We know that the crystal clear, artistic images of the Martian skies and the people beneath them "sold" Mars in a way scientific images never had.

But it was a game, a cruel game, and one with a sad ending. How many of the Survivors believed they would be the ones left behind on Mars? How many of them knew they would end up dead? It's not a glorious tale, with valiant hardships.

This is why, when I stood before the Tomb of the Unknown Survivor today, revelation in its paradoxical name, I felt separate from the swarms of jubilant tourists fresh off the buses from Olympus. I felt sad. I felt removed from the bright flags and screens and the merchandising and the overpriced coffee. Is it possible that we have forgotten that the Tomb is in fact a Tomb?

At the same time, I realised something. As much as the reality of the situation of the Survivors wasn't something I want to emulate with my life, I can imagine what it must have been like for them. Stepping for the first time onto a new planet, seeing their first somewhat-familiar Martian animal: doing something.

I realised that I fiercely want to do something of worth, too. I want to... experience things, and do things. I know this is all very common for someone on the brink of graduation. But seeing the Tomb like that brought it all home to me.

Anyway, apologies for waxing poetical. Thanks, hypothetical reader, for listening. Until next hypothetical time.

Your host,

Teshi