This is a bit of an introspective post in light of the dull rainy evening. The air-conditioning is down low and my skin is starting to crawl with goosebumps because of the cool air and suddenly I was transported to when I was a student in gloomy London having similar weather.
I’d been bloghopping and I noticed that there are many blogs by students whether at school or at university, many of whom are studying overseas. Reading their blogs, I can identify with their frustrations and stress as exams approach and the feeling of being all alone in a foreign land. I went through all that.
The difference is that I did not have a blog. In fact, email was in its infancy then.
My only contact with my family was the irregular letters my mom would write on behalf of everyone in the family. I’d hear nothing from her for months and then suddenly, I’d receive a thick letter written over weeks as and when she found time or inclination to write. There were the phone calls of course, but unlike now with VoIP and Skype, phone calls were expensive. I was subject to popping GBP1 coins like candy just to call home and say “Gong Xi Fa Cai!”.
In my final year there, my sis went off to university in the Southern Hemisphere. Wahlaueh! Can you imagine trying to coordinate time zones just to say hello?! There was no MSN, no messenger, no Skype, just the normal landline phone. We did not even have mobile phones much less text/sms capabilities. And she did not even write me letters!
At the time, VoIP was an embryo so I remember signing up for a service called Swiftcall where I could buy say GBP20 worth of talktime and call Australia for 20p per minute and Malaysia for 60p per minute. That beat spending pounds per call. However, because we did not have mobile phones then, it also meant a lot of frustration when there’s no one at home and you want someone to talk to because people were just not so easily accessible then. I’d always make sure I topped up my credit just before exams for that was when I’d be most stressed and my parents will pick up the phone to me wailing “I’M GOING TO FAAAAIIILLLLLLL!!!!” Â
To top it all off, I have friends who don’t even write letters - you know who you are 
and we’ve have 9 months of silence until I got home in summer when we’d try to catch up and make up for the past 9 months. Hotmail was also just up then, and so I had email contact with one friend, but it cost me so much just to get online. I had to get to a cyber cafe and drink multiple cups of coffee just to use the computers. And it wasn’t cheap. Wi-fi? What’s that. I did not even have a computer!
So, when I read these students’ blogs chronicling their student lives, and their comments from their friends or family, I think of how lucky they are. How lucky that they are able to interact with their family and friends even though everyone might be scattered all over the world. How lucky they can write about their stresses and frustrations and let their family and friends share in their lives with their writings and photos.
Nothing beats picking up the phone or having someone there beside you, but having an online presence sure helps with the blues if you have your family and friends clued in of course.
I’ m not being a grinch or a batty not-so-old woman reminiscing about the old days. I’m just saying that progress can be a good thing. It brings people closer and makes the world smaller and maybe just a bit happier 
Some other Related posts:
- You said it was the death of the blogosphere
- Damn you Sony Ericsson!
- How many masks do you wear?
- Blogging and money
- Where’s the CSI team when you need them?
12 comments ↓
Where would we be without the ever present shadow of Internet now, huh? I cannot remember what my life was before email, blogging, IMing, Skyping…
I think I missed out so much on keeping in touch with family, close friends during my student days, without the Net. They all have it so good now.. Then again, everything’s not always a blessing, depending on how you look at it, hor? *throws very mini-tantrum*
Hear hear! I remember calling back to bawl when I arrived on the foreign shores of Ozzieland and the phone ate my coins like some horrid big Greeni. Jeez…dad never fails to remind me of the hundred-something bill I racked up when I did my usual “I’m Going to Faiiiiiillllllll” calls
Thank goodness for technology! But you need the heart to keep in touch too. You can have all the communication, Skype, phone, mail, blog in the world but if you don’t want to communicate then no one can make you!
yeah but think back to our grandparents days when going to london will takes months by ship! slow mails took months also & students can never afford telephone!
can’t imagine how we survived those days without the Internet. I had my fair share of snail mails to and from family and friends, and slowly all those trickled down to just occasional cards on birthdays (like this year!). I don’t mind since I get to communicate faster and cheaper. but I miss holding it in my hands. I know you know what I mean… *wink*
I am probably of a different generation from you.
I first learned to create webpages in the 90s, to share with friends and family of my life abroad, they somehow were not so keen to keep in touch that way. But I picked up some coding skills becoz of that.
I moved from PJ to Melaka 7 years ago, my friends in PJ/KL are not so keen to keep in touch through email/blog as well, they prefer to call me or visit me once or twice a year to catch up, in fact most of my friends are not online very much, as they are not allowed at work and they don’t have time to get online much at home, some don’t even have broadband! Talk about digital divide!!
Hubby and I were in long distance for years, we have gone through the whole spectrum of VOIP from its infancy, the free but fuzzy can’t hear anything, to clear and cheap calls today.
I remember being in Uni and telling a friend about this brand new thing that I was trying out, “Roy, it’s called ICQ!” I remembered how excited I was when I got my first Net connectionand my first email address.
I used to spend hours coding webpages back in the old days of Netscape too. I’ve lost touch with my techie side though. Each time PB talks techie on her blog, I’m open-mouthed with fascination at her knowledge.
How could a friend not write letters! How er… well.. whatever… hmmm….. er… I give you nice angpow next year.
This post reminds me of my first few year abroad too. My friends were (some still are) not the internet savvy type, so we would write gazillions letters to each others,and my parents with their sky high phone bills coz they called me every other day. It is lucky there’s broadband and skype to ease the homesickness now. Make it so much better.
You bring back my eight years in the army. My mom is just like yours with those long letters every blue moon. Loved Christmas with the box(es) of goodies and presents from her. But my friends never wrote. The girls I liked only sent the Dear John letters.
Kids today really should count their blessings.
Well, we are of the same generation…
I remember spending quite a bit to call my then sweetheart (now my wife) about once a month (which was a quid a minute). Now it is so blardy cheap!
I remember checking the ol’ pigeon hole in the university for that much-awaited letter. And of course, your scenario of popping coins calling home struck a chord too.
Thanks for reminding me of how it was. You’re right. Kids get it much easier now.
Hehehe I remembered buying lots of Swiftcall phone cards :p Webcamming with my family was done using a 56.6kbps modem, so imagine the jerky pictures.
Thank God for Skype and all the cheap cheap VOIP thingies now