Akilah Beasley
USA, Africa and the World (WISE)
October 1, 2009

Discoveries from Negative Two Hundred

It is the thirty-first day of August, year 2209- archeologist from various regions of the world are gathered in Chicago, Illinois for the 45th annual Archeology Convention. Each year, thousands of unique artifacts are displayed in this convention; different aspects of the artifacts are evaluated and discussed by its founder.
I am Nigel Gurchinstoph, a paleoanthropologist from the island of New Zealand. Today is an extremely significant day, it is my first time displaying an artifact in the convention; my discovery was an ancient flash drive from the year 2009. I discovered the flash drive one cold day in February while I was on an anthropology expedition in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I saw the flash drive lying on the ground of an ancient subway; I was immediately intrigued by it, I quickly gathered it and put it in my back pocket. Later that evening I examined the flash drive closer, I began to analyze the flash drive in hopes of inferring the origins of it and how it was essential to the people of 2009.
The flash drive was approximately one and one half inches long; it was black with a white sliding button which releases a metal USB drive connector. There was writing on the back of the flash drive; I assumed that it was the name that was given to it from its ancient owner- its name was SanDisk.
SanDisk was very interesting, although it is small and compact it was able to house a lot of information that was useful to the people of the 21st century. As I mentioned before, SanDisk had a USB connector which enabled me to insert it into my brand new 4 by 4 inch palmtop computer. As soon as I connected it to my palmtop many different files appeared on the small screen; SanDisk stored 2GB of word documents, mp3s and photos. I instantly began to click on different word documents hoping to find more information about the people who walked the face of the earth in 2009. The first file I saw was a word document written by Akilah Beasley, the document was called The Race to Victory. This was a five page analysis of the Presidential election of 2009. This paper outlined appealing circumstances in the world of politics in 2009; this was the first time in history that there was a woman and an African American man running for President. Information like this allowed me to infer that there were hints of racism and sexism in 2009; the level of racism and sexism wasn’t as dreadful as it was in the past but it was still evident. People had different opinions about a black man and a woman running for president; many stereotypes where outlined in the paper- some people didn’t want to vote for a black man because of his race, and some didn’t want to vote for a woman because of her sex.
The second file I saw was a short paragraph evaluating a current event about the recession of 2009. During this time period many people lost their jobs, homes and filed for bankruptcy. Many businesses went bankrupt as well; they had to borrow money from other companies in order to stay in business. This particular current event spoke of a company that was in need of a loan to stay in business. When the company was granted this loan they used the money to send employees to the spa and out for lunch instead of investing it in the company. After reading this I was able to infer that the people living in 2009 didn’t have their priorities in order; I am sure that this wasn’t the only time something like happened.
There was also a lot of different MP3 files saved on SanDisk, the selection of music was extremely diverse- I could not conclude the age, race, nor gender of the person who one possessed it. Not being able to infer these characteristics was both troubling and rewarding; it was troubling because I felt incompetent- I’ve never been so puzzled in my life- it was rewarding because it showed me that the people of 2009 were open minded individuals who were acceptant to all types of music. In my opinion, people who are open to various types of music are often open to various ideas, principles, cultures, and changes.
I am extremely ecstatic about displaying my discovery in the archeology convention. I believe that my artifact displays both positive and negative aspects of the way people lived in 2009. Hopefully my display is appealing to my audience; I have no doubt that they will learn something from my exhibit.

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