Time-Turners

There has been a lot of conversation at NYUAD lately about Time-Turners.

(For those of you who don’t know what that is, first, go read all of the Harry Potter books. Not the movies- though if you look at them as inspired by the books, they are decent- but the books. Read them. Then come back and read this.)

Simply, a Time-Turner is a small hourglass shaped object that, when flipped over, takes the wearer back in time. Hermione used it in the series, (3^rd book), in order to take a million classes. Which, when you think about, isn't far from the goal of all NYUAD students. 

I first heard people talking about the idea here actually in relation to me. Long story short, two of my classes have trips on the same weekend, and, obviously, I cannot attend both. It has all been sorted out, and I can complete both classes, but my teacher was saying how she wished I could be in two places at once, and Cleo mentioned the idea of a Time-Turner. 

I then heard it in passing in the DTC garden, and now there was a comment about it because some exams conflict.

But hearing these references makes me think about the logistics of time travel. In the Harry Potter example, it supposes alternate universes woven together.

Are we ready for some brain-twisting?

So say Hermione has Divination and Potions at the same time. (If you are super lost, then go read the books. If you still refuse to read the books, substitute other classes like Math and English).

She goes to Potions, and then turns the hourglass, and then goes to Divination. But what we learn at the middle/end of the book is that you can’t run into yourself, because that would complicate things and mess you up for life (I mean really. The idea of dopplegangers is intimidating enough. But adding an actual flesh-incarnate replication of yourself that you interact with? Freaky.)

But then when do the two selves merge? How are there two people at once? The Hermione in Divination is the same one who went to Potions, but then what about the one in Potions? She would also go back to Divination. And that wouldn’t end it. There would be so many repetitions of that moment of time, but then how do all the selves get merged back together? Because if they didn’t, there would be an infinite number of worlds running at the same time, but still a consciousness that they are there. (Or maybe there really are an infinite number of parallel universes that cross. Hence dopplegangers.)

Now that I am writing this I am (mis?)remembering that the Time-Turner would run out of time- the original person needing to be in a place at a certain time. Is that the merge? And does only one of the selves have the Turner? If that is the case, there are still multiple people running around without a merge.

How would that merge work though? Because, presumably, both of you would be in the same place at the same time.

Unless the other person just disappears when the time runs out. So then the original person has gone to 2 classes, and the person who repeats the first fizzles out into the unknown.

That has moral implications though, and is also a weird concept- you are splitting/cloning/duplicating yourself, and then that duplicate is disposed of once they have served their purpose. Which is true of a lot of things in life, but yourself?

I’m really not sure. But congratulations if you got through all of this!  And now, I am off to read Brecht.

<3

Clarification

After writing yesterday's post, my mom sent me a really sweet email reminding me that there are all kinds of leaders in the world. And so I would just like to clarify a bit further some of the intent behind my writing.

Here at NYUAD, we hear a lot about how we will be "leading countries", how we are the "world's honors college", how many expectations are on us, and how "the world is watching".

It can get really hard to hear, because honestly, we know that there are so many others with the passion, drive, and intellect to be standing here with us. We were lucky, or fate intervened, or random events lined up, or we were blessed- whatever your belief systems fit in with. Being here, you can feel that none of us even know how we got here, why it is us learning and living here.

So much is asked of us, even in our bewilderment. And I think that is a good thing. It builds a work ethic and humility, and grounds you in a reality so you can sometimes evade the question of why. Yet it can also break you down, because we know that not everyone here will lead countries (there aren't enough countries for each of us to lead- not that we have ever thought about this). Not everyone will live up to the expectations placed on us.

There are those of us who never wanted to lead a country. We keep getting told to excel in whatever we plan on doing- whether that be doctor, lawyer, family-maker, president. It is sometimes forgotten we are college kids, living on our own for the first time, in a strange country, trying to do right, do well, and make all of those who helped us get here proud. We don't know what we are doing. We are just trying to "live in the attempt".

We know we have been given an amazing opportunity. Now everyone is watching to see what we do with it.

And as to not end on a slightly sad note, here is a poem I was introduced to while sitting in an airport after realizing we didn't have the right visas to go to India. It was before a long night of frantic applications, a squished drive to NYC, and excruciatingly, worrying long hours at another airport hoping that our passports would arrive in time for our flight. Those 36 hours put a lot of things about the trip back in perspective, and when I think of this poem, that is what I am reminded of. Sitting in an airport in Montreal, darkness falling outside of the windows, us in a circle, talking, writing, reading, thinking. Remembering that the goal of this trip wasn't for us to shop, or swim in a pool, but to make a difference in any small way we could, hoping for a ripple effect. And now it is also beginning to remind me, already, of NYUAD. It doesn't try to explain the question of why, but it does bring joy to the futility of finding an answer. 


Alive Together - Lisel Mueller


Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard's woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pop
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master's bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrong-headed angel,
or Mary's friend. I might have been you.

This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah's Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who--but for endless ifs--
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.


<3

The Future

It is an intimidating concept. We are only freshman, but right now our class is a knot of nerves over internships, classes, majors, study away...

Thinking about it, I begin to wonder about what this school is creating. It is an amazing adventure. But it is really messing with our concept of place and distance. After these four years, we will all be flung again to the corners of the world. This school is creating nomads.

I think we forget how cruel the world can be. We are all idealists, fighting for change. But then there are the moments where you are hit with the darker side of humanity. I am in a class on the 1960's, and we watched excerpts from the movie "Freedom Riders". The entire time all I could think was "How the hell can anyone think this is ok?"

There can also be a lot of cynicism here, because we can see both the light and the dark, and sometimes it seems like there is a lot of pressure on us as the "future world's leaders" to fix everything, and that is impossible. We can see our human limits. Honestly? I don't plan on being a world leader. I plan on volunteering, getting my hands dirty in building and making art in many forms. To some that might seem like a really simple goal. But I will be happy, and I will strive to make a difference, however small.

This environment here, at NYUAD, is amazing to be in. But it sometimes lacks realism, and I don't know how we will adjust to the "real world" after being here- because I don't think that is what we are living.

In the 'Sama bubble' it seems like time is stopped outside these walls. But it isn't. Life is still moving, and changing, and our roles have already changed so much from when we were in high school.

Time moves here though. There is the future that we are being encouraged to plan all out (oh, don't stress about it! But you do need to have a good idea about the next 3 years). I am (nearly 100%) decided that I am going to double major in Theater and Visual Arts, which makes my study away two semesters at NYU New York. They have darkrooms. And photo classes. And darkrooms. Whenever I think about that choice, I know I will love my classes. Yet the nagging, overprotective, hyper-realistic voice in my head is telling me I am not doing anything useful in my life. But I am. My useful is just a bit closer to the earth.

None of us really know anything about our futures. We are young. And my philosophy right now is to follow what I love and what I am passionate about and hope for the best.

<3

The Road

I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy for senior year English in high school. After I read it, the story and the images haunted me for a long time. I wrote part of a college essay on a character, one of my AP English essays on justice in an unjust world, and the book made the short list of ones I would bring to college (it did not make the final list, but it is on my floor at home, which means it was almost in my suitcase).

But even though the images and ideas stuck with me, they faded, as things often do with time. And so I never applied the images and ideas to Abu Dhabi, until now. I was in my friend Norina's room and the book was on her shelf for her Journeys class.

And the images came rushing back and I saw them painted onto the skyline of Abu Dhabi. I can't describe the new skyline I see because the images are what I created from reading the book, but it is a sobering picture that seems very close to what could be reality.

<3