Technology and Traveling

Gosh, where did time go? I've been such a bad blogger and blog-hopper. It can be pretty tricky to get back to the swing of things after a long break from writing in a blog. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, but I've felt less the need to share it in my blog, I guess. 

Anyway, last month we had our winter break and we went to London. It was my second time going there and I was planning on meeting some friends again. While waiting for our flight to London at Helsinki airport, I had to turn off my mobile because I felt like it wasn't working properly. When I turned it back on, I had to type in the four-digit code to activate my mobile. I punched in my usual numbers, but my device said that they were the wrong ones.

Uh oh...then I realized what had happened. You see...R2 had changed my provider to a better one about two months prior to our London trip and I had forgotten to change the activation code. I hadn't memorized the new one, either (I tried punching in 0000, but it didn't work, either). The third time around my guess was wrong, so my mobile was locked and I had to enter my PUK code to activate it. Luckily R2 was there with me and since he was the one who ordered the whole thing, he had access to the PUK code. Phew!

I was panicking for a while before R2 found the PUK code, because my mobile had everything necessary for me to contact my friends easily (the ones I were planning to visit in London). Imagine if I had been alone and then my phone was locked like that. There are no more payphones in Helsinki airport these days, so I would have had to borrow someone else's mobile phone to contact R2. Geez...it reminds me how much I rely on my mobile to do so many things these days and how different it was back then when I was growing up. I remember lining up in front of public phone booths in Bali during our High Sschool trip to contact our parents and let them know that we had arrived safely. Dang, the memory makes me feel old HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHHH...

Anyway, I had the pleasure of meeting Nikki again in London. YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! We spent half a day together and we even visited the same cafe we found two years ago. We visited the British Museum (free pass!) and we found a really strange statue that Nikki found disturbing. It was a statue of a woman who was carrying a weird-looking figure in her arms. If the figure was a baby, it would have been understandable, but the small figure in her arms looked like an old man who was pouring some water or something like that. We couldn't find any description regarding the weird-looking little old man in her arms LOL!!!

P.S. Did you notice that I was wearing the same red top, Nikki? :-D I'm glad that the blogosphere brought us together. :-D Until next time!

Whaddup

For the past few days I've been trying WhatsApp for PC because some friends wanted to chat with me using that program. I only have 7 trial days, but I don't think I'm going to pay 15 USD to use this program because of several reasons.

So many people nowadays are connected all the time, but not me. I don't know if I want to be connected 24/7. Even my bro once said how cool WhatsApp was (he uses Android), but I was hesitating. I once downloaded WhatsApp to my mobile, but because I don't have an ongoing internet subscription for my mobile, I realized that it kept on trying to connect even though I'd turned it off, so I decided to delete it. Plus I can't possibly use my mobile during work (always put it in a locker), so what's the use of getting 24/7 internet connection for my mobile if I don't have to travel a lot for work anyway? (Because I can still use my PC to connect at home when I don't have work)

What about WhatsApp for PC? Well, first of all due to the fact that I'm not connected 24/7, I find that chatting via WhatsApp is so...fragmented. Another part of the reason is also 'coz of my random work schedule as well as time differences between me and those friends in WhatsApp. So whenever I log in online using my PC, I've found tons of messages already going back and forth between a few friends and it feels...surreal.


 
I mean in the past none of this could happen. I felt as though I had entered a room filled with a few friends that had stopped talking (and sometimes they've already gone entirely from that room by the time I log in), but I could still view their WHOLE conversation if I wanted to ---> This also takes a lot of time if I log in after a few hundred of messages have been recorded. And moreover, commenting on their conversation felt like "lagging behind" because it had happened already.

I do feel that way sometimes with emails. Sometimes after a summer vacation with hubby when we don't check emails regularly, when we go back home then there are tons of them to read and then I have to think of which important emails to reply to first, but it's not as bad as the feeling of being "left behind" in this kind of WhatsApp chat program. I felt confused, not knowing where to start after being "left behind". Should I start babbling about another topic altogether?


But now after trying WhatsApp for a few days, I begin to understand more why those people in Indo who use BB (Blackberry) chat or WhatsApp to chat are ALWAYS online, because it can be addictive and once you start, it's hard to stop because otherwise you'll miss SO MUCH - logging on every once in a while will only cause so many fragmented conversations. On the other hand, it bothers me to remember the annoyance I felt at being around people who are always checking their mobile and typing stuff and updating the latest photos while they're spending time with me. I also have the fear of turning into those people who have to be "connected" all the time, because when I am spending quality time with my hubby and relatives, I want to focus on them instead of cyber world. And I want them to focus on spending time with me, too. 

glitter-graphics.com

In Indo, we have this term called "eksis" (yeah, based on the word "exist", though it doesn't really mean the same - I think it means "being active in cyber world"). Some people, if they haven't been active in some type of online group/site, consider themselves as "they don't exist". If they're so active in those groups, then they "eksis". It's kinda ironic to think of the pressure to "eksis" these days in Indo, because you DO exist even though you don't "eksis" in cyber world. 


I don't know about you, though...any POV? I do like technology and as you all know, I found love through the internet, but sometimes I feel that we're going into "uncharted territories" (boy, do I feel old/old-fashioned writing these words HA HA HAAHHHH...) and I'm not talking merely about cyber world, but the advance of technology in general. I read an article the other day that the impact of this "online world" can only be researched after a decade or two (if I'm not mistaken), because the current generation (Generation Z ) has spent their entire lives surrounded by the internet. 

Note: Maybe in the future I may feel differently about WhatsApp - dunno. But for the time being I just want to record this here for future reference.

Technology: Then and Now

In this modern age where kids start using computers at such a young age, it seems that my childhood was like a "caveman period" for the new generation of kids. The other day in Facebook someone posted somebody else's picture that made me laugh so much.

It was a picture of a cassette and a pencil next to it. Below it is written: Kids These Days Wouldn't Know The Link Between These Two Objects.

It took me a split second to realize what it meant, then I started laughing. I remember the first time I had ever bought my own cassette. It was a NKOTB (New Kids on The Block) cassette which my cousin and I played over and over again on the tape recorder. One time it was jammed and the roll of tape got entangled inside the tape recorder (see the pic below). I had to stop it and take it out manually and then roll it back neatly using the help of the pencil. However, the second time it happened, I had to actually open the case of the cassette and roll it into place by hand VERY VERY slowlyyyyy so that it wouldn't slip 'coz then I'd have to do it all over again...

glitter-graphics.com

Today I've also been talking to another hometown girl who's just married a Finnish guy and has just moved to Finland two months ago. They also met online, but I realized how different it was back then when I started getting to know Arttu and the time she spent online with him.

She told me that they spent a lot of time sending messages via Facebook because it was cheaper than sending SMSes. When I first got to know Arttu better in 2000, mobile phone providers had just started their SMS services. Back then I still had my 56 Kbps modem to connect to the internet (yeah, so very slow!), so for me it was much cheaper to send SMSes compared to being online all the time. These days in Indonesia there are so many internet providers with faster connections and cheaper prices, so it's natural that it's getting cheaper to connect with people via Facebook or Blackberries compared to sending SMSes.

Talking to the younger generation makes me feel like I came from a distant age and time ha ha ha ha...It doesn't necessarily mean I feel old, though, but it's such a huge contrast that happened in just a few years (I was still using the 56Kbps when I left Indo in 2007 and nowadays the internet connection can be as fast as 1Mbps or even faster than that - depending on what kind of services you subscribe to).

When I look back to my childhood, I remember so many wonderful traditional children's games that we had with my friends and neighbours. Kids these days don't know those wonderful games anymore 'coz they grow up with Wii and stuff like that. These are some of the wonderful games that we played in the olden days:

Congklak
Bola Bekel (explanation can be found in the middle of the page)
Hopscotch

There are also some running/jumping games, but I don't really remember the rules anymore nor could I find any info in English. All I knew was that we had so much fun!!! :-D

Coma and Amnesia

Have you ever thought of being in a coma? (yeah, a morbid thought coming from Amel's brain)

I once saw a movie (don't remember the title, unfortunately) where a woman was in a coma for more than ten years, I think. During that period, her best friend had become SO close to her daughter and husband. I didn't watch the movie from the beginning, so I didn't know how it first started. All I know is that when the woman wakes up from the coma, the hubby, daughter, and best friend are all SO happy. However, then she finds out that reality's changed a lot. Her hubby and best friends are in love and her daughter has considered her best friend as her mother figure. And she's also confused about the "far modern" world she's now in. How scary is that? I think it'd have been better for her to die.

If you're ever in a coma, would you want your loved ones to unhook you from the machines or not?

Well, I guess it all depends on how "bad" the injuries are. Miracles MAY happen in any case, though I wouldn't want to think of myself being supported by machines for too long. If I don't show any brain activities anymore, I would want to be unhooked from the machines.

Sometimes despite the advantages we may enjoy from it, I think modern technology also makes things more complicated, don't you think so? It gets harder for you to make some decisions as there're many more grey areas. What a dilemma!

Speaking of morbid thoughts...how about amnesia?

I've also watched a movie about a guy who had amnesia and then got married to another woman whereas he had actually had a wife. What would the law say about such a matter?

I wonder how the old wife must've felt when she found out that her husband was alive AND married to another woman. And that he'd forgotten most of things about their lives.

I admit I know nothing much about amnesia, yet after watching such a movie, I can't help wondering about the whole situation.

What would I do if I have amnesia? Would I ever remember anything at all in the end? Would I feel frustrated because I don't even know who I am?

Questions, questions, more questions he he he...I'm just rambling here again. ;-D