Immigrant…
I just finished the story for tomorrow’s class. At first I thought, my gosh 53 pages…but it flowed very well and definitely caught my attention. I really wanted to know what year it was. I realize it is set in the future but knowing how far it is in the future would be very helpful. Also, I wanted to know how much money a credit note actually is. Is it equal to a dollar? He says that making 100 credit notes a day is 10 times as much as he would make on earth. If a credit note is equal to a dollar, then on earth he could only make 10 dollars a day? Not likely.
I was really intrigued by the Kimonians and how they treated Earth. It seemed a lot like Kimon was Earth and Earth was a lesser planet. We think of Earth as the only livable planet and all the other can’t match up to it just like the Kimonians think that everywhere else is barbaric compared to their planet. Did the first settlers in the East think that their place was all there was before the West was discovered like we think that Earth is all there is? Thats a little out there for me but its something to think about.
I really liked the idea about history being dramatized with the Battle of Hastings visit. Maybe the heroes from history didn’t exist but thats depressing. It takes some of the magic out of it. Many people believe that things did happen differently. The DaVinci Code, while a work of mostly fiction as Brown calls it, brings those type of questions into play. I’m a Christian and it does seem possible that Jesus could have had a child. I realize I’ve been taught to not think like that but it could be true. We can’t really know for sure.
It seemed like when Bishop got the job as a babysitter, that it was going to be something like slavery. That the Kimonians were using the Earthlings as slaves to do their jobs that they didn’t want to do. Then it seemed like they were adopting the Earthlings as pets which really made me think about how we treat our pets. I found myself wondering if I respected my dog, which is a really weird thing to think about (I concluded that I do 
).
The story then switched to this whole nature of schooling epiphany. It seems like the schooling in Earth was to prepare Bishop for the schooling in Kimon except the schooling in Kimon was a lot different. Instead of learning only what we are taught through books, SOLS, regurgitation of facts, in Kimon you learn about life and the world. Everyone has a willingness to learn and can learn anything. They aren’t forced to learn certain things. And isn’t that how all schooling should be? Shouldn’t it be something that you want to do and something that is truly interesting and insightful?
Filed in Intro to New Media Studies, Uncategorized 2 Comments so far
I totally respect and love my dog too. Some people love their dogs too much. my old roommate told me that if me and Rosie (her collie) were both about to fall off a cliff, that she would save Rosie. Because she “loves Rosie and doesn’t love me.” I was like what…what…BUT I’M A HUMAN!!!
Reading your blog post, I’m wondering if you’ve read much science fiction. Is this in the future? Or is it a parallel present? Would it really matter if you knew what year it was? What if the author said it was the year 2000 or maybe 2020 or even 3020?
The credits thing is kind of screwy. When he said that 100 was 10 times what he was paid on Earth I thought maybe 1 credit = $10. Then again, he thinks 20 credits won’t cover a round of drinks.
I would compare our thinking that Earth is the only livable planet to Europe in the Dark Ages. They didn’t realize that there was a whole other hemisphere full of people, which eventually they found and exploited.