Kickin’ It Old School (My Day in '83)
What did you do instead?
Instead of my usual, electronic-filled routine, I spent most of my time reading, and thinking about different things. It was pretty lonely at first, since I couldn’t really talk to anyone, and sometimes I’d hear my phone go off, but I couldn’t do anything about it. So eventually, I turned it off, and found other ways to spend my time.
I did a lot of walking, and staring, and my brother showed me the various clay figurines he made throughout the day: an elephant, a hippo, a dog, and a snake, I think it was. Turns out, he’s a pretty good artist.
One thing I didn’t get to do was listen to music, which made time pass by a lot slower. I only had CD’s, which I’m pretty sure didn’t come until the90’s or late 80’s. I would have looked it up, had I been able to use a computer…or the internet in general. I didn’t even have any tapes to listen to.
The day reminded me of when I was a kid, back when I loved my little books, and listened to goofy tapes to pass the time, and write on my etch-a-sketch. Those little gizmos would have came in handy today. I wished I knew where my old box of toys were, because I was pretty sure they would prove to be entertaining. Yes, this could have been my excuse for immaturity.
How did you communicate?
I talked using our house phone, and talked in person. There wasn’t much communication, and I’ve got to say, it’s pretty hard to persuade your parents to let you go out on your own without a way to stay in contact. I guess we’ve been spoiled by cell phones, a little. My mom told me that they used to have to use payphones sometimes, but they were supposed to be back before the street lights came on so their parents wouldn’t worry about them. That method has proven to be less effective now.
How did you get your news?
There was nothing really going on, so there wasn’t really any news to receive. I spent most of my time with my family members, and it was Sunday, so there wasn’t much going on. The closest thing I got to receiving news was when I heard my parents yelling about the football game upstairs, which I wasn’t interested in.
How did you entertain yourself?
I played the retro arcade Ms. Pacman game that we have in our living room/basement, read a book, wrote in my notebook, and rode my bike. I had fun doing all of this, because it was something I didn’t do often, anymore.
What was the most difficult gadget you had to give up and why? What about the least difficult sacrifice.
The most difficult gadget to give up was my cell phone, because it always came in handy when needed, and was my main way of talking to the people I knew. I noticed before that if I don’t have my cell phone with me, I feel pretty naked. There’s that constant feeling that something is missing, but it’s weird because I already knew what was missing, so it wasn’t as if I were confused. All in all, it felt a little awkward without having my phone in my pocket.
The easiest thing to give up was the TV, because I don’t really watch it anyway, since there doesn’t seem to be any interesting shows on to me. However, it would have been nice to watch on of the old 80’s movies I have.
Were there any surprises for you?
Nope, I’ve been doing this kind of thing throughout elementary and middle school days, so I’m used to it. However, I did find it interesting how dependent I had become on my cell phone. I’m a little curious about what might happen if I didn’t use technology past the early 80’s for an entire week or year. May someday along my little journey, I’ll experiment with that, and see what happens. It’d probably be good for me.
Let’s Talk About the Environment (My Conversation With My Mom)
For this assignment, I talked to my mom about the various types of energy, and how it’s effecting our environment.
To be honest, the conversation between my mother and I started off a little awkward, since it was simply an assigned topic, rather than a conversation we simply stumbled into like we usually do. So at first, we just started going through the list of questions, and answered what we thought on the matter, then attempt a conversation. After a couple of minutes, we got the basic gist of it, and got more into what we were both saying.
I think I had a bit of an advantage here after doing all that research on electricity and how it affects our environment, but I had already talked to my mother about this during the project, so I didn’t have very much new information to provide.
There were a couple questions we didn’t even understand, such as “how do we study global climate.” We both simply shrugged that off with the answer of meteorology. We got more interested once we hit question number six: “Why is there a disconnect between what science is telling us, and what the public and politicians are doing about our climate change?” We both recalled the recent proposition that had just been voted on that was to decide if we were to ignore our environmental restrictions until unemployment reached below five percent. We pointed out how ‘below five percent’ wasn’t an exact number, so they could drag on the whole ‘no environmental restrictions’ as long as they wanted to really. Not only that, but getting rid of environmental restrictions wouldn’t exactly change much when it came to employment. What jobs would they even offer? More tree-cutters, or something? Either way, I didn’t agree with the proposition, since I didn’t think it would be effective, and it doesn’t seem like we have been very concerned with the environment until recently. Were we really trying to turn back? But I’m glad the proposition didn’t pass.
When we started talking about morality and ethics, we thought about animals and Pocahontas. Cheesy, maybe, but it got the point across. We are both people who enjoy forests and such in moderation, and I personally have always felt a need to keep it clean and healthy. I can’t bring myself to litter. I’ve tried before, but I just couldn’t do it because it was just too annoying and inconsiderate, and make things look less pretty than they were. I guess nature just comforts me sometimes, and if it’s not taken care of, it’s harder to relax. However, I won’t lie, I am not a complete environmentalist. If I see a piece of garbage nearby, I don’t always pick it up.
Basically, we went through the questions, and the answers I described were of out longest conversations that stayed on one subject.
