Ad perpetuam memoriam: WORLD 2007

Today was quite a long day...Tracey and I woke up at 0800 and got ready, knocked on Austin and Alex's door and left at 0830. We walked for about ten minutes, got on the Tube, went to Waterloo Train Station and were standing at the meeting point by 0905. I got some breakfast and we hung out until 0935-ish when everyone else showed up. We took a train at 1006 to Hampton Court Palace. We were introduced to the palace at 1130 and toured the Clock Tower area, Henry VIII's State Apartments, King's Apartments of William III, Queen's Apartments, the Garden, the Georgian Rooms, the Tudor Kitchens and played in a Maze. We didn't start back for the train station until after 1600.

This palace is unbelievable large...Every door, window, bed, room, etc, etc, were so oversized that we figured Henry the VIII was making up for something he lacked elsewhere...catch my drift?? I wish I could have taken pictures of the inside of the palace, but I suppose the outdoor pictures will have to suffice...(if you want to see a scandalous picture, and I don't mean a perverted one, email me and I'll send it to you).

As for the Tudor Kitchens, there were originally about 50 of them, with 800 workers preparing the required two meals a day. Can you imagine?? They only have a few of the kitchens open for public viewing, but they had pretty sweet fake food and whatnot lying around...but the weirdest part...was that they actually had something producing the smells that would have risen from the kitchen. It made me gag- and it could have been because it smelled like cat food mixed with malodorous raw beef, some anchovies and topped off with rotten eggs- but I could be wrong. Good idea in theory, not so good for people with weak stomachs. When we first started walking through the Tudor Kitchens there was a little area to the right of us where they implied a butcher would have worked...they had a fake bloody, skinless animal hanging on the wall, blood all over the walls, hunks of meat lying on the counter and best of all...sound effects...of heads being chopped off...Delightful!! Once again, good idea in theory, not so good for people with weak stomachs...truth be told, I was a little disturbed and horrified...and by a little, I mean a lot…I can only imagine the disgusted look on my face...and if you know me, you know exactly which "disgusted looked" I'm referring to...

The garden tour was not so exciting...probably because my back was acting up a little and by this point we had been there quite a while and were starting to get tired...I was disappointed to hear that the gardens were redone in 1974...because that makes them so new compared to the palace, and in turn, that makes them so uncool. They're just not old enough for me to be interested in them. Plus, I have a black thumb- keeping plants/flowers alive just isn’t my cup of tea…

Ever wondered where the term "mind your Ps and Qs" came from? When printing presses became available, they had to set the type backwards so that when they rolled the ink on and pressed the paper against the letters, it would come out correctly. Since this was done backwards, oftentimes people confused their Ps with their Qs. And as you all know, the British are infamous for saying "Mind (insert anything here)." Mind your step. Mind the Gap. MIND THE GAP. Mind that Child. (and so on and so forth) So, there's your adagial history of the day.

I was thinking today...people destroy things all the time, as did people “way back when.” The people “way back when” probably never thought that anyone would be interested in these items, but we are…Nowadays, we collect artefacts and antiques and this and that, but we still get rid of everything. Will the people in the future be like us? Will people in the future have the things from now studied and classified and critiqued? I would like to say yes, but what do we produce now that would even be worth something in the future? We mass produce so much crap, and it is all usually very cheaply made, that it probably won't last for 600 years and if it does, there will be so much of it still around that there will be no uniqueness left to anything. What will that say about us? Will the people of the future be even worse?

If we compare even two decades from the early and late 20th century, look how different the people are...the "corset-wearing, ride-in-a-horse-drawn-carriage, marry-a-man-five-times-my-age-and-pay-him-to-do-so" days are long gone. We've traded in our bonnets for pink hair dye, celibacy for children at age 13 and horse-drawn carriages for cars that have 1000 Horsies (Horsepower). Isn't it strange?

Some say we've proudly become more advanced and are becoming technological masterminds...but what is that going to get us? It always has to be bigger and better and somebody has to outdo someone else and get more money. Isn't anyone else scared of these sorts of events? I'm of the opinion that by mass production (thank you Renaissance) and new and ever-changing technology we are going to destroy ourselves. What happened to modesty and just happy to live another day because you managed to avoid the Plague? Most people look at historical figures and their time periods (or even the 80s) and gasp in shock and awe about how these poor, pathetic people even lived without a (portable) phone or computer or the Internet- it just baffles them! While I thoroughly appreciate my cell phone, Internet and computer, I am able to look back at historical time periods and wonder what happened...what went wrong...and then I'm back to the hope of simplicity.

I do like having modern things, but there comes a point when it becomes a vicious cycle of outsmarting the next guy and doing whatever it takes. I am aware that it has seemingly always been like that, but once again I pose this question, when does it stop?? A lot of the things that we invent and create today are completely unnecessary. What good would it be to transport a molecule across the room do? What good would a vacuum without a cord do? etc. etc. If we can't reach our Coke and hamburger, we could teleport ourselves across the room to get it...right?? And seriously, a vacuum without a cord...was it really that big of a hassle in the first place?

I'm not entirely sure where that came from, (ab intra obviously) but it makes me really angry that a lot of stuff from our lifetime will be thrown away and no one will care what we did, except to learn from our mistakes...it's my hope that future generations are able to put that "special touch" back into things and perhaps create a product of quality (instead of focusing on quantity). Who am I to say these things? I'm just some over-opinionated, naive, confused, cranky, 22-year-old female college student. But I know I'm right...

On that note, though, I'm afraid I must retire for the night. My eyes are drooping, my head nodding and my stomach growling -a lethal combination...So, I will bid you adieu, hope I offended at least someone, and I wish you all a great day...