We live in the 'age of cards '. While some years ago we heared about cards only when we played with them, nowadays it seems that we cannot really get along in our everyday lives without them. A 'modern' man has dozens of cards with him : some bank cards and credit cards; a few tons of visiting cards; in several countries the driving licence is a card as well (which is an ID card at the same time); we can also get consumers' cards so that we can purchase cheaper in particular shops or get gas for less money at some filling stations; certain airlines offer similar cards for their regular passengers, too; there are cards of different clubs and associations and of course we must not forget about one of the greatest inventions - telephone cards.
We could continue the list for some hours, but we will not. There are many kinds of cards and the universities of Pécs ( how lucky we are ! ) provided us with a brand new one - the chip card.
When we became the members of this university we had to buy a so-called ' University ID Card ' , which was to be used as ' key ' to the computer center and also to prove that we are university students. Some optimists may still be waiting for that day...This must clearly show how enormous our joy was when we got to know this idea - a new card, some new expenditures, so a new adventure in our otherwise boring lives. To make it even more interesting photos were taken about us with a camera and a computer. Some geniouses felt the smell of a forecoming disaster at the moment when they first saw the several miles long line of people waiting for this extremely funny procedure. They were absolutely right ! I do not think that there is anyone among us who would show his or her picture to others than perhaps the blind.
However, we could not avoid our fate; in spite of John Connor's words in ' Terminator 2 ' - " There's no fate " ; and finally we got these sensational, beautiful, practical, etc. cards. When I first saw it I thought it was a new design of the phone cards. I was informed that it was not. Then, looking at its back side, I was absolutely sure that it was an interesting way of advertisement - it was covered by the trade marks of some well-known companies ( as they have not payed I will not mention their names ). I was mistaken again. With some friends, who were in the same mental state as me after some hours of guessing what this card could be, we finally came to the conclusion that it had to be that chip-card-thing. We were very happy untill the moment when another question came to our minds : what was it for ?
First we tried to find a phone that operated with cards - maybe the others were wrong and it was a phone card. The phone did not share our point of view and immediately went wrong to prevent our further attempts. We were totally helpless. We were approaching the state of Michael Douglas in ' Falling Down ' ( ' Összeomlás ' in Hungarian ), but then came the Messiah - a guy from the Students' Office and provided us with the necessary information : the chip card served as a season ticket on the local buses, the distributed lecture notes assistence ( ie. jegyzetbón ) will also be on it and this will be our students' ID card as well.
This sounded fairly nice ( cool as Beavis and Butthead would say ), but then he went on with some other concepts about the possible uses of the card in the future : it can be used as a kind of a key to enter the dorms and the university buildings. We could not decide whether we should laugh or cry, we just tried to imagine ourselves in a crowd of two thousand students waiting to enter JPU with their chip cards. As we could not imagine such an interesting situation we started to think over the already existing uses of our precious properties.
So, it is our new kind of season ticket. This is really a great idea; at least for those who often travel by bus. For me it means that I do not have to watch the calendar at the end of every month so that I can buy the new season ticket in time. This was a big problem before : sometimes I forgot about it, sometimes I simply did not have time to visit the places where I could get one or to wait in the long lines in front of the pay-desks (these lines again...). Therefore I appreciated the idea that we do not have to line up any more, but the price of the season ticket (moreover a reduced price ) will be discounted from our bursaries every month. Some other students cannot agree with me and I do understand their problem : that they do not go anywhere by bus, so they would not need any kind of ticket; yet its price is discounted from their money as well.
Finishing this philosophizing we wanted to try it out in practice. The only problem was that the Pécs bus company had not even heared about this plan. We asked the bus driver about it - he may still be convinced that we were lunatics escaping from the mental hospital in Rét street. Neither had the officers of the company heared such a thing. Soon after this little incident we got to know that the card would be valid only a few weeks later.
Considering the other uses of this card, which we began to love more and more, we decided that now we would ask first and put it into practise in case of a positive reaction. What is the case with that assistence then ?- we asked. We were calmed that we should not worry about it - it takes some months till we get it. After this satisfactory answer they added that we will also get a code of four numbers whithout which we cannot pay with the card. Some of us exclaimed desparately; they still could not memorize the code of their bank cards and here is a new code to remember. But they were calmed again : first, everyone will have the same code ( a very complicated one - 1,2,3,4 ) and they can have it changed if they want it.
But we received some good news as well : we can use this card in several shops of the town. Furthermore, we get things 5-15% cheaper in such places. It also meant that we do not need to buy notes or text-books with this assistence, but anything that we would like to. This is important for the students of the Faculty Of Arts, especially for the ones who study at the language departments, as these departments do not offer and use many official university notes, rather photocopies from several books or the books themselves.
However, its function as a students' ID card was still unclear to us. Could we throw away the former ones then ? Of course, we could not. We needed both of them : the chip card on the local buses, the other one on our ways to our hometowns. Evidently, this new card was not accepted on the trains and the coaches for the 75% ( now only 70% ) discount.
So the old question arises again : what can we do with this card ? Now it is already our season ticket and it also contains the notes' assistence, but nothing more. But let us see some ideas for its further possible uses :
* It could serve as a bank card, so that we need not carry two cards
* It should be accepted as a university students' ID card by all the bus companies ( volán-s ) and by MÁV, so that we need not keep the old ID-books, most of which are in pieces after half a year
* It could be a credit card as well, which would enable us to pay with this card in most of the shops of the country
* As I have already mentioned, the driving licences are similar cards in many Western countries. Why cannnot we also use the chip cards for that purpose - putting a special sign on it that indicates what kind of licence one has (A,B,C,etc. ) and its date of validity.
* Due to its similarity to the phone cards, it could be used for that, too - setting up phones in the university buildings and in the dorms that would use the amount of money stored on the card.
These were only a few ideas about how the chip cards could be used in the future. Perhaps some of these cannot be carried out, but it may worth thinking about them.
Some of my friends suggested other solutions, too. For instance we could build little castles from the cards we have ( chip card, the OTP card, telephone cards, the so-called ' hallgatói azonosítókártya ', the ' social insurance card ', etc. ) or simply play games with them. Others - the extremists, who ( I do not know why ) are fed up with all these cards - said that we should have burned our cards. They are wrong : a modern man cannot live without as many cards as one can have and we are supposed to represent the future of our nation.
To sum it up, we really need this chip card, it indicates our future : carrying thousands of tiny little cards with us for different purposes. If we cannot use them all the time, do not worry - at least if we leave our keys at home we still have a great choice of different cards to open the door with. We just need a little practise.
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