Last Friday morning, I went to the central library as usual. I always do my homework and surf the Internet in the library. When I got there and just stood in front of the door, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to take my student card. You know without the student card we cannot get into the library. But on Friday we have no classes and I didn’t know somewhere else I can go and do my own work. Then I braced myself and stepped to the reception counter. I asked the librarian whether I could go into the library. The librarian was very warm-hearted and he asked me to give him my student number so that he could check my profile on the computer. We know that the data on every student in NUS have been stored in the library. Then I thought that the ID account we use to log in the NUS network was exactly the same with the student number. But I was totally wrong. After I told him the wrong number, he began to suspect me. He spoke to me coldly, “The NUS student number contains one letter and six numbers, but what you told me contains seven numbers.” He scanned me with a suspicious look. Then I began to panic and felt at a loss. Finally his eyes fixed on my transparent file folder and the BLACK e-dictionary in it. Suddenly he burst out in a low voice nervously, “What is in your bag?” I was also be frightened by him and I explained immediately, “This is my e-dictionary.” Then I took it out and show it in front of his eyes. I guess that maybe he thought that I wanted to take a bomb or something dangerous into the library. Then we are all relaxed and he said softly, “You should show me any card that can confirm your identity, such as ID card, student card, passport and so on. Or you at least should give me your student number, passport number or any available number that is related to you. Then I can type it into the computer and check. Otherwise I cannot let you in.” But I forgot my passport number and I don’t have any number that is available. I just trudged out of the library sadly.
In modern world, we are not ourselves any more, we are the cards. Only the cards can evince and confirm your identity and existence.
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I can only say you have my pity. In this modern society. Individual identity is a subtle issue.We sometimes find it rediculous that we can't prove ourselves without the term cards or the passport. On second thoughts however, we should admit that most of the time we take our identities for granted. We are surrounded by friends and tutors who are familiar with us. But without our circus of acquientences, what can we find to distinguish ourselves from others. In other words, this issure is actually about what contribute to our identiy. It is triguing. Perhaps we should read some philosophy books to fill in this blank.
ReplyDeleteI believe that using identity card is a way to eliminate much inconvenience. Just think without an identity card to the library, everyone had to queue up for a long time, waiting for library administrators to identify every individual. It will waste a lot of time, and it is a heavy work load for administrators. Of course, it brings inconvenience sometimes; I still think that it has more benefits than disadvantages. By the way, next time when you forget to bring your card, you can just tell them your name, and then they will find your information in the computer and let you in.
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