It's the end of the world as we know it...but I feel fine

So...I have been pondering The Day After Tomorrow recently. No clue why really, except I recently watched the trailer for Brokeback Mountain, which got me thinking about Jake Gyllenhaal...hey I really can't explain how my mind works. Anyway, I realized first of all that I would be of no use if a disaster the magnitude of The Day After Tomorrow did occur. I mean if I am honest, the only work I have ever done is either retail, office related, or for an academic institution. Working as a TA for a couple years has provided me with a lifetime of ‘stupid stories about 18 year olds’ and how to scare students away from office hours, but has not provided me with the knowledge to do anything really useful or practical. I have no clue how to milk a cow - cows by the way scare me - and I like the idea of horses although I have spent only a limited amount of time around them. I have no agricultural skills unless you count the fact that I did keep a tomato plant alive all summer in Bham that had originally been sent from Missouri by USPS. Upon reflection, it seems like my only contact with "useful" or "practical" skills comes from watching tv shows. Unfortunately, I doubt that my hours of watching Dr. Quinn or ER has prepared me to provide medical assistance in a time of trouble or that watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has given me insight into how to run a farm in the mountains. The reality is that if I were to survive some catastrophic disaster that destroyed the modern world, my years of schooling have not given me any skills that would help sustain basic continued existence.

Along those same thoughts, I have begun to consider what assumptions people would make if a Mt. Vesuvius type disaster killed me, but left my apartment completely intact. I think my love of books, movies, Buffy and U2 would be pretty obvious, how about my random picture of the Star Trek: Voyager cast in my bathroom? The books I own also provide and interesting problem. I own 2 sets of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy series, but I also have quite a collection of archives and records management books as well as at least 20 books about 20^th Century China. My masters is in archives, but I only have that collection of Chinese history books because no one would buy them back after last quarter. The same could be said about many of my DVDs. I was given Rob Roy as a gift, but that doesn’t mean I actually enjoy the film. Placement of items in my apartment could also lead archeologists or historians in interesting directions. Most of my books are in the living room, but my crap romance novels live on a bookshelf in my room so that I do not have to explain my secret love of them to anyone that comes to my apartment. However, my mystery books and childhood classics are also located in my room.

I could go on and on, but I will leave you, my loyal readers, with my thoughts on my collection of can food. I have collected quite a few tins of can food over the past 2 years, but their presence in my makeshift pantry could lead people to think that I love canned green beans, when the truth is I can’t make myself eat them and will only do so in a time of emergency. The peaches, however, I save for special occasions. Try and figure out that one. In the end, perhaps this is all a bit egotistical of me. Who in their right mind would actually spend their time trying to figure out the inner workings of a grad student’s apartment…especially mine since I can’t even explain it al!