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Week 1: Childhood? Yes, I remember



I would like you to read/watch and comment on/discuss the presentation –  Childhood? Yes, I remember. You will find it at  
http://konwersatorium3.blogspot.com/2014/03/childhood-yes-i-remember.html
Comment on  it here.

Comments

Tomek said…
I remember most of the things mentioned in the presentation. Apart from that, there were no big stores back then. I used to go to a local store and buy orange flavoured soda during summer. My parents and I travelled to a bigger city to by our first PC and later a printer. The printer cost a lot of money but it worked for a long time, much longer than any other printer we bought later. Windows 3.11 was sold on about 10 floppy disks and there was no broadband Internet.
Maria said…
Tomek, there was no any Internet :)
Unknown said…
Yes I remember most of that really well and this post reminded me of many nice things from my childhood. I used to record tapes with songs and listen to them on my walkman when going to travel to the Polish seaside of course. The thing that reminds me of those times the most is 90s music, or even 80s music that was still played frequently at that time. As probably kids of all generations, I will remember that era as the era of best music.

On another note, we didn't have so many technologies that we have today. Not being aware of their existence probably made people live slower and happier lives, since for example you actually had to physically see someone (or talk on a phone in best case, although this was mostly limited to setting appointments) in order to interact with them. I miss those times in many ways. I'm not saying I'm not appreciating what I have now, because I couldn't just give up on those things partly because everyone else uses it and being an IT student I take pride in being ahead of the times with the newest solutions aimed at improving our "convenience". I feel like people would be happier, however if some things were like they were in the 90s.
Oh, all of my memories came back to me thanks to this article. I remember almost everything what was described. 90's music means cassettes for me. Cassettes which I had to buy at bazaar, because in my small hometown shops like empik didn't exist. I don't think it was legal. Stickers from gums like donald and turbo - we were collecting them and pasting into album. I didn't get them all. Next things is Tamagotchi. Most of my friends ran with funny little devices and took care of some pet. Today it sounds stupid, but it was really fun. What about Internet ? In the late 90's I had Internet in telephone wire, with killing speed of circa 56kb/s. I remember sites, which exist today, such as onet or wp. To communicate with other people I used chat from web portal and yahoo messenger, maybe gadu-gadu and of course IRC. In that time I often wait to 10 p.m. to have a cheaper Internet paid per downloaded data with night tariff. I have a whole image from that times: me with my friends, with whom I played football and hide and seek. Background of this picture is old grey street at my block and driving cars like trabant, wardburg and polish maluch or Fiat 125P. I'm missing the freedom of childohood, where we weren't thinking about future, money or education. From my observation, I have an impression, that nowadays, kids are sitting near the computers or smartphones and are less active. I should keep my memories as long as possible because my childhood will never come back, unfortunately.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
Yes i do remember almost all of that items that were presented in this article. Old good years! Those years were time in which nothing was really important. Everything what was matter to me that time was to meet friends and have fun. Most of my time I spent on football games with my fellows and games.
To the list of the "Do you remember" items we could also add commodore and pegasus.
http://www.geekvintage.com/images/commodore-64-system.jpg
http://leagueoflegends.how2play.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2013/09/PEgasus.jpg
I am pretty sure that most of us had one of the above at home. Or perhaps you are too young for that :S.
Time went so slow back then that it felt like it was infinity. Unfortunately all kids will grow up one day as we all did. I am missing those times when i had no responsibilities whatsoever.

Gosh I just remind myself my first PC :> It meant to be so great back then, now I just realised how useless it was. There were no such a thing like CD-ROM, bet you all remember floppy discs ....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg

When i think about it all from this point, I have to say I am pretty glad i am in 2014, maybe because i love technology and gadgets (toys for older kids).
Sylwia said…
What I am missing the most from my childhood is not a thing, it is a feeling of having limited responsibility, which I even wasn't aware of at this time. There was also two months of holidays, which now seems to be impossible. I remember playing computer games for almost whole night and then sleeping till noon (or sometimes longer). However my greatest memorys are really simple. Connected with spending time with my friends. We were all leaving close, on suburbs and there was one crossroad next to my house. We spent hours there, playing and talking. We played peekaboo, hula hop, jump on rope and all kind of games with ball such as dodgeball.
Kacper K said…
I also grew up in the 90s. From my childhood I remember Back Street Boys, Walkman, ring binding inserts, Turbo, chewing gums, series Sweating Bullets and Thasos Pokémon.

Most of my time outside of school I spent with my group of friends in the backyard playing, talking, listening to music and sometimes arguing. Often in the summer we played "KING" (bouncing the ball off the wall). I think that it is impossible to forget about the battles that took place between backyards. Nobody did not like children from other backyards because they were strange. As a child I thought that I should have had everything and also my parents should have allowed me for doing everything too. I was grown up in my eyes.

Today my opinion is slightly different especially when I watch my younger brother who is 11. Lots of children are forbidden to do something which could make them pleasure (on the other hand they do not have many free time). In most cases adults behave as they had never been children e.g. :
http://wyszlo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/zakaz.jpg
Kasia Kmieć said…
As a 90’s child I share similar memories of that time as the author of the article. That time was filled with music from the Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls and various other boys and girls bands. I also enjoyed collecting all kinds of ring binding inserts, stickers from chewing gums, Tazos and many other things. Personally I would add a little to the authors collection of memories by mentioning my favorite toys to play with such as the Furby : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FurbyAs a child I loved arts and drawing so naturally I’ve spent my fair share of time playing with : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9_kz3a3yPA

Boys already mentioned watching Dragonball but since I am a girl I can’t fail to mention my personal favorite which was Sailormoon, and of course classic Cartoon Network cartoons such as: The Dexter’s Laboratory, Tom & Jerry or The Power Puff Girls.

My room was filled with posters from Bravo magazine, plush toys and all kinds of gadgets from Kinder Surprise. I was really into arts and crafts in my early childhood so I wasted hours trying on my mother’s clothes, making collages and scrapbooks from nearly any kind of material I could put my hands on. I also loved to spend time with friends and my older sister playing hide and seek, jumping the rope or just running outdoors imagining wonders that only a child’s mind can come up with.

Unfortunately nowadays you don’t see that many children playing outdoors. We live in a digital century where children prefer online world from the real one. But we shouldn’t blame it on the children. Very often parents are at fault here since they work many hours and can’t spend time with their beloved ones, so they invest money in digital gadgets to make their children happy. Also toymakers try to keep up with technology and come up with wonders that are surprising or sometimes even scary. Today I encountered something like that: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20957844

Does young children really need that? And what will happen to all those stuck in the virtual world. Because of all that technology and hours spent online children nowadays lack of natural personal skills. They tend to be shy or arrogant and have no idea how to interact with other people in the real world. I just hope that it’s not as bad as I see it and that our children will have a childhood as fantastic as ours.
Darkia said…
i'0m not sure i miss 90's. I was born then, of course there is sentiment... but i really enjoy new ages :D
Last weekend, i finished cleaning my room, i foun a lot of "treasure" from childhood.
I found a lot lot of stickers, ring binding inserts.. i really have a lot of them! now i have problem what to do with it... it's takes to much space.. but it's to sentiment :<
On last party we start play "old" song, britney spears and other hits from our childhood :D It was great :D
Of course I got tamagochi and furby.
Todays children didn's used to play as we do. We spend a lot more time outdoor, now children have PC, tablets, mobile phone. Parents prefer give their electronic accesories beside to play with they children.
Anonymous said…
ohh yes childhood ;). Those were good times. The 90' were full of friends and happiness. Starting from the already mentioned Dragon Ball, when a new episode appeared, all ran to the TV.
I still remember captain Tsubasa, he was the hero of all the guys in the football pitch. Pitch was the most important place in the world and it was for over 15 years :).
There were also pokemon. TV series, cards, caps, clothes and others. It was such a great marketing! At some point, they have already become boring but it sure was a great success in 90.


Very sad that I only have a few pictures :(
Although I was not exactly a big fan of the things mentioned in the presentation, there are other aspects of those times which I recall and somewhat miss. Before I write about those though I just got to say, that when I saw the title of the presentation I thought it would be more about childhood in general. I must admint that I felt relieved when I learned it is about the 90s, it seems like a more interesting topic to me.
There are two things I remember best and miss the most about those times: collectibles and legos.
It was quite a popular thing to collect stuff and in my case it was Pokemon cards. I really loved collecting them and was very serious about it. I remember that I was always frustrated that none of my friends knew how to play the actual game so I quit collecting them at some point. But for a few years I was a real fan of that.
As for legos, I always loved ans still love them. Now I don't really have the time to play with and neither do I really „feel” like doing it anymore, but I still think it's the best toy in the world. Back in the days I used to spend nearly all my free time at home with legos.
Unknown said…
Yes, of course I also remember very well all the things which you've mentioned. Those were the best years of my childhood. I was really busy when I was a child but I really liked playing hide and seek, and fairy tales I remember Dragon Ball and the game Diablo. I remember the band Backstreet Boys and my sister listened to Spice Girls so well known to me, but I was listening to Eminem. I remember also having fun in sneaking. Stickers collected from Turbo chewing gums it was amazing.
Nowadays in the first place are the gadgets: I phone, I pad, I pod, Play Station. Everything has been replaced by electronic toys.

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