Things I grew up with

So I'm back in my hometown Penang after a very long time. It never fails. Every time I come home I look at the things on my study table, the things in its drawers, the things that lie around my room and memories come back to me. 

All these little things are little keys to memories stored in my mind.

 So while Princess was sitting on my bed blogging away, I took some time in the afternoon and I took out a few old things in my room and started thinking how I got that and what I had went through with it.

1) This was the very same alarm clock that would wake me up for school every morning. 

When I was in primary school I had an alarm clock that beeped but I grew to love sleep even more as I grew older. So by the time I was in secondary school, I got this alarm clock that let out a very loud ringing sound. It was so loud that sometimes I get a shock and I jump out of bed right away trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

That couldn't have been good for my young heart at the time, but it worked. By the time I realized that the loud ringing sound was coming from my alarm clock, I would be wide awake!

2) This was some handcraft that I bought from some students from a girl school in Penang. 

I can't remember which school or who were the girls selling it but what I do remember is that it was for a charity drive.

I think I had a small crush on one of the girls who were selling it so I ended up buying one. It cost me like RM20 or something. A lot of money back then for a secondary school student.

I do think it was worth it though. I mean think of the creativity it took to make this out of matchboxes, marbles, satay sticks and other random materials you find around the house.

3) This is my Audi TT remote control car that I bought when I was 17. 

Yes I still did like playing remote control cars back then. In fact, if I had the chance to play one now I might still enjoy it. Nothing like being able to control a little toy car from a distance.

4) I don't know about you guys but back in school, these watches were the BOMB!

The Casio calculator watches that had everything inside. You name it, world clock, calculator, scheduler, teleporter... you name it. I remember when I managed to successfully beg my Dad to buy me one in Standard 6 because most of my friends in school had it too. When I wore it to school the next day, it felt like I was in some ELITE club. I felt POWER... I felt like THE MAN, that was until G-Shock became the craze and my calculator watch started to look a little lame. Damn fast moving trends!!!

The girls didn't pay much attention to my calculator watch or the G-Shock though. They probably thought it was an ugly watch.

And now, looking back at it... I can't say they were wrong.

Some 13 years later I'm wearing a watch that does nothing more than tell the time. 

No.. it doesn't even beam me up to my spaceship in orbit.

5) Since we're talking about technology now, lets talk about my mobile phones. 

My parents were the kind who always wanted to know where I was. I guess knowing that I always got in trouble in school, they wanted to make sure I didn't get myself in trouble anywhere OUTSIDE school. So the first mobile phone I used was an Ericsson phone that came out right after that famous Motorola brick phone with the flap. I remember how everyone also had to bring out like 2-3 spare batteries with the phone so that you could keep using it the whole day.

It wasn't like "my phone" in the sense that I kept it with me all the time. It was just one of those phones that we had in the house and if I were going out alone, I was supposed to take it with me in case my parents wanted to reach me. 

So I ended up mostly with Ericsson phones until one day I started getting worried about all the talk on radiation from mobile phones causing brain tumours and all that. So I started doing some research on which phones don't emit a lot of radiation and somehow word was that this Siemens phone had low radiation.

I eventually ended up getting one of these.

While all my other friends had the cooler phones like the Nokia "Butterfly". Remember how cool those were back then? They were like the hottest phone around.

Many years later when I got into college though, my Godparents gave me a present. Probably the first and last time they spoilt me. (Ever since then my parents told them not to give me anything like that anymore) 

They bought me this Nokia 8310 which was at the time one of the coolest phones around.

I mean back then it was like the THE phone to have! It could just have these little ringtones, send SMS and make calls but yet it was like... one of the best phones around then. Don't even talk about having a camera or accessing the internet, all that stuff didn't exist commercially yet.

Fast forward today and I'm still one of those geeky guys crazy about phones. So I'm on an iPhone which can do everything my old Nokia 8310 can do but like 10,000 things more. 

How technology changes in such a short time.

The Nokia 8310 though was probably one of the most reliable phones I've ever had. Never failed me.

6) Okay... this is going to surprise some of you but... I actually played the Harmonica as a teenager.

Yes it's true. I had a table tennis teacher who was taught me to play the Harmonica every week. I started off with this beginner one 

and he eventually bought me a better one.

It's not too difficult though. But today I think I can only remember to play 1-2 songs. And they're really old songs like Red River Valley or something.

There is one more thing that I was thinking of sharing here. Something I found in my room. The thing that inspired me to become an entrepreneur but I think I'll write about that in the next entry. This entry is long enough.

Hope you guys are having a great holiday :)