In just over 2 months, I will be in Montreal, Canada for the CHI conference!
Yet I realized today that I will…be in another country. That I will be roaming internationally with my cellphone. 69 cents a minute in Canada for Verizon (not including taxes and other surcharges)! How will I survive with my random, spontaneous meetups? How will I find…toomim! Most of all, how will I live?!
It\’s interesting how quickly our lives have adapted to this mobility. I got my first cellphone only during my third year in undergrad, less than 4 years ago and yet I take it all for granted. When I am about to meet someone, I don\’t give times anymore. I just say, \”I\’ll call you when I am done.\” A nice flexibility. But yet this allows for too much sometimes. It means that people can be late because they can always call to let me know. It means that people can get lost because they can rely on calling someone. We don\’t have to be prepared anymore. Punctuality is not a big concern.
But I find myself getting very irritated when I need to reach someone and I just can\’t get through. The phone is off. The phone was left somewhere. They can\’t hear their phone ring. It\’s nice to be able to reach someone all the time, and yet what happened to the old-fashioned ways?
Use onesuite.com, it\’s a calling card that works from payphones and you can recharge your account over the internet. Also, I think you can setup a voicemail box too.
If you think you\’ll be near a computer and will have enough bandwidth, (unlike the wireless at last year\’s CHI), Skype works well. I think you can setup voice mail boxes with that.