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Signs (today) that I am old
Twice today I found myself talking about the way college was "back in my day." Yes, it's official, turning 26 has turned me into a grumpy old coot. I'm not ready! Where has my youth gone?
First, there was an email sent out to students reminding them that they are responsible for reading their university email at least twice a week. It would seem that students are coming into the school with so many email addresses that they tend to neglect their university email altogether and miss important announcements. BACK IN MY DAY, I was one of the only people I knew who had (and used) email before they went to college. Email exploded with popularity once we got there and had an exciting constant T1 connection, but it was the early days of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail and the like, and everyone had dial-up at home.
Next, I revealed during a conversation with a student that when I studied in France in 2000-01, when I worked in France and 2002-03 and when I did an internship in France in 2004, I used to send rolls of film home with my visitors in order to take advantage of the cheaper developing costs in the US, then my parents would scan the pictures or (later on, when the technology really got going) have them burned onto a CD. Yes, BACK IN MY DAY we wasted a lot of money by buying film and we couldn't see the pictures until they were developed, so we wasted a lot more money developing pictures of, like, the inside of a backpack. I've never lived abroad with a digital camera! I would like to! I wish I had!
And then we walked uphill both ways to school in six feet of snow, because we couldn't afford to feed the dinosaurs because we only made a nickel a week working in the mines. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!
srah - Friday, 1 September 2006 - 5:13 PM
Tags: back in my day, digital cameras, email, old, technology
Comments (18)
chrispy - September 3, 2006 - 2:50 PM - ℓ
Did you ride your pennyfarthing bicycle?
Charlie - September 5, 2006 - 8:06 AM - ℓ
And people read this.... and are interested. I yet to see the importance, nor the interest in some kid thinking hes old just because stuff is done different now. Get a life.
jamelah - September 5, 2006 - 7:25 PM - ℓ
Also, cell phones. When I drive past the Albion campus (this happens all the time), I notice that there is an incredibly high number of students (who all look 13 -- at least the ones walking to and from Wesley) yapping into cell phones. Back when I lived in Wesley, nobody I knew had a cell phone (except for this one guy who was a yuppie whore) but now it seems that people practically have them surgically grafted onto their heads. Kids these days. Bah.
jday - September 5, 2006 - 7:33 PM - ℓ
Ooh, who was the yuppie whore?
Allison - September 5, 2006 - 11:15 PM - ℓ
I heard on NPR last week: this year's college freshmen have no memory of the Soviet Union.
'Teh old' is right.
Dave - September 7, 2006 - 7:46 PM - ℓ
I'm so old, we didn't have widespread email at the U until I was a junior or so. And by widespread, I mean widespread among the dorks who actually knew what a uniqname was.
Cell phones... er, yeah.
But I'll you what. I wasted the second part of my 20s and a bit of my 30s in a boring craphole town laboring under the idea that I needed this thing called a "job." Don't make my mistake! Leave the craphole state of Ohio as soon as feasible, or you, too, will pine over your wasted y00th!
Fraulein N - September 8, 2006 - 12:28 PM - ℓ
I remember when I first got my college e-mail address (which was about a mile long) and I was all, "What the hell do I need this for?"
Jen - September 13, 2006 - 12:38 PM - ℓ
Remember first semester at Albion when they hadn't upgrade to web-based e-mail and if you mis-typed then you had to start all over on the green screen?!! Oh Lord, the good old days!
Jen - September 13, 2006 - 3:24 PM - ℓ
Yes yes you must be senile. Oh man what was that program called...dang it! We did the conversion during our first semester, but I think it was something that began with a P. Is jday on your postings JACKIE Day?
At least you finally shut up about Stanley from "The Office."