I am a freelance sound engineer doing live sound for a popular Noon Time TV show here in the Philippines, sometimes I do corporate shows after my day gig. I've been married for 7 years and a father of two. Yes at 35 (turning 36 this April) I am a xennial, among the small gap of generation of people who were born around 80-90ish. We are in the border of Generation-X and the people who are now called the Millenials.
I was born at the same period that the first generation of modern computers were invented, I grew up with the word "computer" in my mind, although I haven't touched a real computer until the Computer subject was first introduced in our school, during my first year High School. I saw an Atari when I was a little child. My mother worked abroad for 2 years as a DH(Domestic Helper) in Singapore, she bought me my first toy computer, it's an electronic toy with 3 to 4 line alphanumeric lcd screen like a big calculator, different guessing games, spelling and math. I finished all the levels, and got bored, eventually I tore it apart being so curious on what's inside, but I never got to put the parts back again. Then my father brought us our own Nintendo Family Computer, I got so into it that I even discovered a bug/hack while playing Rockman 6, whenever I press the "B" button on the Player 2 Joystick, my character didn't die, so what I did was to put some small weight on Joystick 2 enough to keep the "B" button pressed down while I play and finish the game, then again, I finished all the levels and got bored, but this time I didn't try tearing it apart. My father taught me how to open it properly, clean it inside, and putting it back into it's working state. Then I became interested in learning electronics as a hobby, began building DIY Electronic Kits, studying how radios work, and each electronic components, it's principles and how they are used in real-world application. I then became my father's assistant in our sound system rental and electronic repair shop business until my High School, business went so low. I went to college through a scholarship but unfortunately I didn't finished it, I even changed my course. I was too young and confused. During my high school until my first year of college I was already using old-school computers like the 386 machines, using DOS, programming in BASIC. I learned how the computer technicians fixed our computers in the laboratory, and when they are not available, I tried fixing them myself and it worked. Since then I became our sort of in-house tech in the class. Being a Xennial, my generation is the only one who experienced listening to cassette tapes and cds, watched movies on VHS and DVDs. I also had a first hand experience on using the Netscape Navigator, heard that handshake tone burst of a 28.8Kbps modem connecting thru the telephone line, had my first Hotmail email account. Google wasn't yet there, Metcrawler was my favorite back then. Askjeeves.com, Excite, Lycos, Geocities, and Friendster was still alive. Napster, remember? Then Frostwire came, uTorrent, and other P2P filesharing sites was born, but prior to them, #mIRC, FTP and BBS was the geek hip. Technolgy back then were thought to be high tech
already, until DSL connections started to be available to the masses and wireless broadband connections too. Computer development was so fast, every 6 months there are new things and more improvements came, then the mobile communications went booming too, having our first crude MicroTAC Motorola mobile phone was such an unforgettable experience having to call our relatives anywhere no wires attached! That was so funny to remember now because everything is almost wireless now. With the internet now populated with so much data or as they call it - Big Data, Neural Network and others - everything can be reach with a press of a button, a single touch on a screen and now a single voice command that device can be your all-in-one assistant, organizer, researcher and soon to be a companion emulating human emotions as if a real person is really talking to you, the only question is, how are the future generation is going to discern a real human from an AI? The answer lies on the generation that will develop it... For the millenials, brace yourselves! With the extreme exponential development of the technologies and even in the financial sector, cryptocurrencies would even make this generation learn how hard about financial education even on the basic level like what the middle class and the majority of all the population has been taught, study hard, get a job, buy a house, and die.... While the families and heirs of th one percent that owns 95% of everything in this world were raised on a different way of thinking, that is, the way how the rich people thinks. As of now the world has a lot to offer for the Millenials, but they must learn studying the ropes of life in an era where social networking results in people having anti-social behavior, where security and privacy is just an illusion. I believe that the next big thing that will change the world is cryptocurrency. People young and old must be really educated on how to use these technologies and really learn it's purpose. Till next reading. Thank you very much!