I am becoming an alien

After writing the midterm for my honours seminar this afternoon, I have opted to write a post today in a form of celebratory writing. Based on the comment by Anonymous in the post below, I have decided to tell a little tale ... a tale involving English, movies, and gruesome images. Prepare yourself.

Last semester, my honours seminar was about apartheid literature from South Africa. As part of the class, we actually watched two movies, which was neato! One of those movies was District 9. For those of you who have not seen it, I now give a selective brief summary. Aliens come to earth above the Townships in South Africa (Township = designated area for coloured people during apartheid. Apartheid = split between whites and coloureds that we hopefully now all recognize was horrible). Well! This dude named Wikus is put in charge of moving all the aliens into District 9 from the makeshift huts they currently inhabit. Of course this is intertwined with a love plot and a father-in-law who wants to destroy Wikus, but that is beside the point. Wikus becomes contaminated by alien fluids. *Cue dramatic music* He slowly starts to change after this, into AN ALIEN! Of course a lot of dramatic things happen after this, including capture, explosions, cool weapons, and suits that look like the Transformers; there are racial undertones and symbolic statements about apartheid, etc.

At the same time in my own life, for an unknown reason (which is still undetermined, but

may be resolved after a specialist appointment next Monday), two of my fingernails were slowly detaching themselves from their nail beds. Yep, I am telling you this embarrassing life story for the sake of entertainment. Enjoy. Now, in District 9, one of the first indicators that Wikus is becoming an alien is that his fingernails fall off. That's right, I was becoming an alien. It was just one event in a series of ironies called my life. Talk about getting involved with your class! But, needless to say, it was quite disturbing. Teachers out there: Text-to-self connection. So, of course I told the class, and my fellow students and professor gave me possible causes, all of which had been disproved by doctors. If you hear of some crazy person who slowly became an alien, it was probably me. It'll make a good party story for you! Or even just library talk. Maybe there will be a plaque, dedicating the library to me instead of the other option, something catchy with Alien in the title . . .

(As a clarification, said condition is not contagious, and has been improving. One fingernail is now fully returned to normal, and the other appears to be on the same path. Do not fear me, earthlings, I am not actually an alien and cannot infect you with a foreign parasite).