I have been to the moon and it is good.
When I was a freshman in high school, I had this great earth science teacher. When we were learning about the moon’s different phases he offered us a tremendous amount of extra credit. To receive this largess of bonus points we would have to simulate going to the moon by living in a bathroom for 3 days. A bathroom is roughly as large as the Apollo space craft’s interior and of course 3 days is how long it takes to travel to the moon. We were allowed to do it in groups of up to 3. I decided to do it myself. Almost every group brought a laptop, a television, lots of dvds, and some form of game console. I took a 6 inch tv/radio, a couple of books, and my TI-84 Plus calculator. For food I brought 6 cans of soup, 10 little bags of assorted Frito-Lay snacks, a banana, 24 pieces of red licorice, and plenty of vitamins. Along with a sleeping bag, an extra blanket, and two pillows.
For the three days I would wake up around 9:00 a.m. I ate the banana on the first morning and took a vitamin the other days. I would sit and watch the local news. Around 10:30 a.m. I would move all of my blankets and pillows into the bath tub. There I would read for about 2 hours. My lunch was cold soup right out of the can and an individual bag of some Frito-Lay snack. I turned on the tv and watched the news at noon. After lunch I would lie in the bathtub and try to sleep. I could never fall back asleep. Usually I would play calculator games. This may sound pathetic but I could play games on my calculator for hours. My thumbs would cramp more than they ever did on any expensive console. Around 5:00 p.m. I would eat dinner, cold soup and a snack, except dinner came with dessert, two or three pieces of licorice. After dinner I would scroll through the dial and flick between UHF and VHF watching the various common dinner time shows: Simpsons, Seinfeld, Malcolm in the Middle, Bernie Mac, whatever. When the shows stopped so did I and sleep commenced around 9:00 p.m.
I did this for three days and it was worth it. Not just for the extra credit but for the perspective it gave me. When I watched the local news I saw the most horrible things. They showed me murder, rape, drug abuse, political corruption, global crisis, and any number of horrors. When I saw these things I merely looked at my own surroundings. My world was clean and pure. My capsule had no murder or rape. No one was starving or oppressed here. My world had order, theirs had chaos. I was in control, they weren’t. I have been a prisoner bound by the void of space but, at least I wasn’t living in fear or at someone else’s mercy.
When I left the bathroom, my house felt enormous. It boggled my mind of how much space my family took up. I came downstairs and found my parents watching the news. War coverage. The box flickered images of boys only a few years older than me killing other boys. Then it dawned on me that I had returned to that terrible chaotic world of humanity.
I highly recommend this experiment to everyone.
Maybe you should have stayed in there. :)
Interesting topic. You know, Aldous Huxley stated in his book, the Doors of Perception that if men could just learn how to quietly sit in their room all day twiddling their thumbs, the world would be a better place. I mean I can see how you believe you're living in order while the rest of the world in entropy but its that transition that makes you a man. I admit, i'm still living under a bubble because i'm scared. I don't want to be in the real world yet.
+mspin
That is an awesome extra credit project. It definatley beats a 1000 word paper or something. You actually learned a valuable life lesson from this AND you got to experience what it would be like to travel to the moon. Sounds like its worth a try.
And Z-tris is amazing...