Excellent Adventures

During our training in Rome, the volunteers we were replacing spent a few days with us.  They talked about tips on life in Malawi, the people they knew, and the places they had been.  Then we came to Malawi and went through a lot of the same adjustments, met the same people, and visited many of the same places.  Now we are heading to Rome for the same meeting we had two years ago with the roles reversed.  The first time, when I was looking at the returning volunteers and realized that is how I would look in two years, it reminded my of the scene at the beginning (and the end) of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures.  For those who are unfamiliar, it is about a two high school students that travel through time to pass their history final, thus ensuring a peace loving, enlightened future inspired by their rock band the Wyld Stallions.  Anywho, after they meet their time traveling guide Rufus, their future selves show up through a misunderstanding in the use of their time traveling telephone booth (what a great movie).  The Future Bill and Ted tell the present Bill and Ted everything they will do, but it doesn't make any sense because the present Bill and Ted don't understand what is going on yet.  Then Future Ted tells Present Ted not to forget to wind his watch which he inevitably does and has to remind himself when Present Bill and Ted go through the whole adventure and become the Future Bill and Ted in the very same meeting at the end of the movie.  This might seem like a long a pointless tangent to the original idea of meeting our past selves going to the mission for the first time, but it is a really good movie and if I could fully explain the parallels in a coherent way you would agree that it is most excellent.