Earthlings

So I've been thinking about a lot of different things and recently I was inspired to write a book. This book was inspired by an assignment in a class i've been taking, Peace & Conflict in the 20th Century. It's a great class and I have a lot of fun in it. So one of the assignments we got a while ago, the teacher found was kind of funny and I talked to a published author who said it was an interesting idea. People have been so encouraging lately that I decided to try it and this is what I wrote for the assignment that started it all:

Dear Boss,

I have, as you know, been situated on planet earth for some time now. Six months. I have been learning alot about these earthlings or humans as they call themselves. Man is a very interesting creature. They value themselves over all others but they seem to work for it, for the most part. It scared me at first, how powerful they are even though they share this planet with many others. They have this delightful source of entertainment called movies. They are a series of pictures rapidly set in motion! we may have advanced technology but it is nothing like this! They do not just use their technology for entertainment though. Quite often they do not seek utopia like us, they seek only the victory of dominating each other. It pains me to see the amounts of destruction these creatures willingly cause to their own planet. They do know what they’re doing though and they make an effort to fix it. But for all their efforts they do not seem to realize that if they just stop fighting with each other and start treating each creature fairly, they could overcome these issues quite easily. They have these things called War that seem to occur quite often, and according to the internet (another great invention) from what I can tell it seems to be a way of celebrating that almost never ends but creates many casualties. Many humans realize how horrible this is but think that more wars are the solution! Of course they also have other means of celebrating as well. They have many holidays with exquisite names such as: hallows eve or Christmas. They seem to enjoy these holidays very much and spend much time with family, friends and people they love all the while not always appreciating everything they should. This wonderful family has been letting me follow them around and it’s quite informative and entertaining. They have a mother and a father and a two small children. The children are David and Coral, ages 14 & 16. Coral and David go to this building 5 days out of every 7. This is called a school. They learn skills and for the first 18 years of your life, the education is free! Wouldn’t this be beneficial? You can learn whatever you want besides the basics too. Coral is learning French and music. did you know that On this planet most of their music is themed so that it’s about something in this world? I should bring some back for you so that you may learn from them. Some of the cultures they have here on planet earth are interesting too. They all have different beliefs and they believe that they are always right until someone proves otherwise. They are a very curious society. I think that in some ways we could stand to be more like them even if we don’t migrate here. They honor their dead by laying them in a ground with a beautiful ceremony called a funeral. It is very sad and people use this time to mourn their loss but also to celebrate the persons life. There is often singing or beautiful music and many many people come out to remember the life that was lost. They also do the complete opposite. It is called a wedding. I say it is the opposite because everyone is very happy and this celebration is used to join 2 people for the rest of their lives. there is cake and there seems to be quite a bit of white. It is a lot of fun, I went to a wedding when the kids’ aunt got married and I went to a funeral when Coral’s music friend’s father died of something called Cancer. On a happier note, we were discussing the world as a whole the other day, David and Coral and I. Did you know that on this planet I am considered to be 15 years old? anyways, we were discussing travel for quite some time. It turns out that one of the groups they make music with is planning a trip to some other city in this country. They apparently hold great honor in their people’s music and traditions. Oh, David just told me that they are going to a very large mall. (A mall is a very big place that in the case of the place they’re going (Edmonton) has stores, water parks, amusement parks and much more) I find that human society is quite enjoyable for these tiny friends of mine. Along with planning this large trip to Edmonton Coral and David are still very busy. They let me follow them around school sometimes! There was a week where I followed them around and it’s amazing how much time they spend together! they say they don’t get along very well and I’m starting to see why. War isn’t the only conflict in this world. These two siblings argue quite often and can never seem to agree except in music. When they finally do agree with each other it’s quite wonderful and everything around seems to relax and take a deep breath. By the way, Coral is in grade 9 and David is in grade 10. Today I followed Coral to her different classes. It was very informative and taught me a lot about the world. Her first class of the day (most days she tells me) is called Gym. today they ran and apparently this class teaches you the skills of being healthy and active. She says that tomorrow she’s starting health class. After that class she goes to geography. I think that this would be extremely helpful and if we come here it should be the first thing we enroll for. They teach you how to identify different places on the globe and what coordinates are and about the different environments of the planet. Third, she goes to french class (or band on every second day) and today she says they learned about grammar and verbs. This class teaches how to speak and write in french and it confused me until Coral explained that learning a different language allows you to communicate with more humans. After that we went to a choir room which was a bit intimidating at first but I think I’ll get used to it, going there almost every day. There, we ate lunch and talked with David and two of their friends, Sophie and Alix. They talked about many things but one I think you should know about is their Military. David explained this to me as he knows many representatives of the military (soldiers) and he is a cadet. He explained many things and I didn’t understand a lot of it but I will tell you what I did. Their military is very sophisticated and has many smaller divisions that each have individual tasks such as rescuing people or disarming bombs or helping people or flying places or fighting. Once they were finished talking I followed Coral to her next class which also took place during the much hour. Today it was jazz choir. They started with an interesting technique where they composed a song in a matter of minutes. It was quite interesting and seemed almost magical. After that they started singing their music and I learned some of the technicalities behind it. Did you know that there is math and science involved in just about everything? They explained it quite well to me and there are subdivisions within each part of the music and in those subdivisions, the sounds they make can vary greatly and they all sounded very different. They said that parts clashed and those parts hurt my ears. After that we all went to English and they were reading this curious thing out loud. It was called “Shakespeare” now David tells me that it is not called shakespeare but he wrote it. Either way it was confusing, almost like learning another language but Coral explained it to me and tells me that I will learn in time. After English class, Coral took me to peace and conflict where she taught me more about the earthlings and what they do by showing me some things they’ve done. Apparently there are people who do their best to make conflicts go away and there are people who create conflict. Either way, there is always conflict in the world. I won’t go into much detail of the rest of the things they do but David goes to Cadets and Coral is in a musical and they both have choir almost every day. On Wednesday of this week they have a concert that i’m told is a very big deal. It seems that almost anyone can gain an elected status of some kind. The childrens’ choirs are both going to this concert after being voted as two of the best choirs in the city. So they lead very busy lives plus socializing and on any given night they “text” quite often as well. They each text a large number of people and currently text most often about their trips. It seems that everything in this world has to be about something and that everything is instantaneous and if people  don’t get things right away they get annoyed. It is not good and it seems that these humans are ending lives before they even start. That is what I have learned in the past 6 months talking to Coral and David and going to school. Decide for yourself whether we should migrate here or not.

Yours truly,

Ceilidh. (With some notes from Coral and David)

David & Coral: Hello alien community. Human life is quite enjoyable and we understand that you’re planet ( a former Utopia) is now turning to a horrible Dystopia. We are very glad that Ceilidh has come to stay with us and can guarantee her a home for quite a while if you do come live here. Since you are seeking a better place to live we think that it would be beneficial for everyone if you were to come here. We know that may be hard for you to get used to being surrounded by species other than your own but you could teach us a lot and we could teach you.