The Confessions of a Generation Slash/Slash Baby
If a mad scientist had approached me for a cloning experiment back in high school, I would have said yes. My intention would not have been at all altruistic. Pure and simple, I needed a clone.
Michael Keaton’s film about clones, Multiplicity, couldn’t have premiered at a better time in 1996, right when I was swamped with schoolwork, club meetings, contest preparations and school paper duties. I salivated at the thought of having one clone to write articles for the school paper and another to finish projects and assignments while I reread all my Judith McNaughts. Needless to say, I fixated on the idea for a long time.
But no Amyline 2 or Amyliner 3 came to be. There is only “me”, who after 15 years, is still eating stress for breakfast. Nothing much has changed. I still multi-task. My schedule book is still filled to the rafters. I still have my fair share of slashes: Section Editor/Writer/M.A. Student/Bag and Accessories Designer/Entrepreneur/ (just recently) Mo-Jo (mobile journalist) wannabe.
But taking on multiple careers isn’t much of a crazy as it was before. Technology and gadgets have paved the rough roads with seamless communication, real-time updates and on-the-go work habits. Now smart phones with internet can pretty much do what my office computer can do. For instance, what would be a wasted 15 minute-waiting time for the next train can now be spent fact checking articles. I can write and submit a reaction paper or a video assignment to my professor while waiting for a press conference to start or follow up on a bazaar schedule while in line to a movie theater or sneak a quick tweet in between meetings. Whether for work or pleasure, technology has allowed people to milk a minute to its last squeezable seconds.
And mind you, mobile internet now isn’t the “Ferrari” that it was once were. I would even call it cheap considering the trade-off: more time to do other things. Globe, for instance, recently came up with great mobile internet plans that I have been “exploiting” thus far. My favorites are the Globe SUPERSURF50 (unlimited internet for a day) and the POWERSURF30 (unlimited for three hours). I would avail of them on days when I am “on the field”. However, if my prepaid credits are running low, I would often turn to either UNLIMAIL20 (unlimited email for one day) or Globe’s unlimited per site surfing, which also costs P20. I avail of the latter every time I want to check on orders for accessories and bags in Facebook.
What’s good about it is the flexible and really affordable plans that would fit any mobile browsing activity that users have. I use each depending on my needs and the beauty of the whole scheme is it’s completely upon my whim. No need to unregister, the whole text message semantics of which, I find too taxing to do or remember. When the time is up, the service will just be cancelled. If you need it, just send another text message. One tip though, keep track of your internet time or at the very least save the registration message from Globe. There was one time when I forgot that my unlimited day was already over and I incurred per minute charges!
Of course, I am not such a work geek. And thanks to technology, I get to enjoy while I am working. As I am replying to emails, I am also checking out the latest it bags or the key trends for the upcoming season. I especially love looking at fashion blogs, The Sartorialist and Lookbook.Nu, where I draw styling inspirations. I also browse through the look books of Mango, Zara, F21 and Accessorize or check out runway reports and photos in the sites of international magazines. I also frequent Purse Blog and Bag Snob to update myself with the new bags and accessories designs abroad.
For my news fix, I go to the Yahoo homepage, which I find very comprehensive. I also bookmark a lot of the lifestyle features in New York Times, Salon.com and Wired. Locally, I quite enjoy Globe’s freebie: magazine content from Summit Publishing like Entrepreneur, Preview, Smart Parenting that I download from m.globe portal. And being the App geek that I am, I check out Nokia’s Ovi store for new content all the time. Right now, I am loving this camera app Panorama, which allows my Nokia phone to seam together three separate panoramic shots. Neat!
As you may have guessed, my phone is much like my life. Multiple windows open. Multiple sites uploading. Multiple apps on. And I have done it without stepping into some lab rat’s lair. Sadly for Keaton’s character, he wasn’t born in the time of the Generation Slash/Slash, who can take on multiple careers without breaking a sweat. Multiplicity without the clones if you may.
I wonder… just how much would he have given to live in our time? His clone perhaps? Too bad, there isn’t any need for it anymore.
Check out Globe’s mobile browsing services by texting POWERSURF INFO, SUPERSURF or BB INFO to 8888
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