your life in a different historical era

JoeMulk

Banned
Your challenge is to try to imagine what your life would be like, keeping as many biographical details as possible the same if you were born in a different decade. For example say you were born on january 1, 1990...try to imagine being born on January 1, 1980 or 70 instead with a lot of similar basic details, same place of birth, same college even, same profession of your parents and interests and write what your life would be like or what you would be doing up to the present.
 
Ok, well I am a member of the Jam Generation, so my polotics are all based on anti-Thatcher! I am also a teacher of ICT in school, so if I was born a decade before .......

I would be a chemist, although probably not a teacher (no computers to distract me from chemistry at school!), and would probably be living in Australia or New Zealand cos the 70's in the UK were just so depressing!
 
Your challenge is to try to imagine what your life would be like, keeping as many biographical details as possible the same if you were born in a different decade. For example say you were born on january 1, 1990...try to imagine being born on January 1, 1980 or 70 instead with a lot of similar basic details, same place of birth, same college even, same profession of your parents and interests and write what your life would be like or what you would be doing up to the present.

For me, that would mean 1982 instead of 1992 - aka Brezhnev-era USSR instead of just-independent Russia.
That would be... weird. For example, I would still be visiting my relatives in Tashkent, but go there also for those who IOTL were in Israel (ITTL that would be off-limits).
That also would mean I grow up and go to school in 1989 - aka Gorbachev's last Glasnost period. I'm not sure, but IIRC people then were still unable to choose schools to go to; that means I'm stuck at a school that doesn't really want me (I mean, what sort of school would want an aspie?), probably expelled soon after and end up in the starting 1990 class of the school I ended up in IOTL (which just opened in 1990).
Another weird idea: ITTL, I'm so going to participate in coin-collecting since preschool. IOTL, there wasn't really anything to collect in 1996-99, as the pre-1997 currency tended to be banknotes (imagine having the largest-denomination coin be worth one cent, and you have the 1996 situation; they weren't even actually minted since 1993) and the post-1997 one didn't get to have many varieties (though pre-1997 had even less). But in 1986-89, there was a continuous line of legal tender stretching back to 1926 (for small-denomination coins at least), and 1961+ coins were commonplace; meaning something like several hundred varieties to collect. (My father being into coin collecting as well would also help like it did IOTL - but of course IOTL it ended up being mostly related to Soviet coins anyway.)
That's about all, I think. Don't have a good imagination. :(
 
For me to be born in the same place then that would mean my family leaves Cuba much earlier after the Revolution. My mother would also have gotten pregnant with my brother, and then moved to America, and then have gotten instantly pregnant upon his birth. How plausible that is, I do not know. Let's see. My mother gets pregnant with my brother in late 1983, and gets America. My brother is born here instead of Cuba in August of 84, and gets pregnant with me by February of 85, to have me in November of 85. My father also must have come around this time, as well as my grandmother and grandfather. My mother being 20, she probably would have learned English. Anyways, if we go as in that we continue to have our own traits, then my bro would probably have gone to college and played College Baseball, maybe he makes it to the Major Leagues, maybe not but he would have at least tried. Well actually this all depends. Considering he didn't go to college because of my mothers death in 2001 to cancer it all depends if due to the POD she doesn't develop cancer. If she doesn't then he for sure makes it to college. Anyways, me, where would I be. I was born into a sports family. However, my mothers death in 2001 meant I went to live with my Grandmother at 5 which cared a lot more about school. However, being born in 85, even if my mother still died, and I still went to live with my grandmother in '01, I'd already be 16 and playing baseball. Also since I am suppose to continue having the same interests kinda, I would probably join the Navy in 2003 and go to Iraq or Afghanistan. I would still go for a career in politics. Well it all depends if I continue baseball. The deciding factor here is baseball. If, considering I am quite smart anyways, I get a good baseball and other scholarships, I may not go to the Navy, and go instead to college and study Political Sciences and Law, which would leave me now in 2011 as about to be 26 and still earning my Masters in Law or Political Science. Maybe have my Minor in History by now.

If I joined the Navy, I would probably have switched my Law major to a Philosophy major as that is my current thinking plan. So I'd end up being an Iraqi vet, maybe coming home by 2007 if I only do 4 years, or later if I continue.

Now two possible TL's emerge from this. The one where my mom stills dies, has me in the Navy, the one where the POD allows my mom to not obtain Cancer, or not die from it, see's me go to College on the Baseball and other scholarships I might get.

Quite an interesting topic I might say, seeing where your life is if born in a different decade. Quite fun!
 
Well for this to happen to me would be sort of impossible, as my mum was 15 when she had me (she was 16 the day after), assuming somehow that I am born 9th jan 68 instead of 78, I probably would not be in my present job (which i have had for 15 years) as I only got the job thanks to a family friend who had only worked there for a year.

I was in the army for 18 months from jan 95, if the cold war is on going I probably would have chosen to remain instead of leaving.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
I'm born in 1978 in New York City as in OTL I was born there in 88. I grow up in Connecticut and move back to the city for college in the late 90s. I got heavily involved in activism OTL coming in 2007, particularly anti-war activism although ITTL I probably would be less political since there was simply less going on in the late 90s. Probably live in the East Village instead of further out in Brooklyn per OTL since it was still somewhat affordable back then I think and I vote for Ralph Nader in 2000. Right now it's early 2001 and i'm probably finishing up my junior year of college and looking for work. Who knows the path I would have followed after 9/11? Maybe witnessing it firsthand would make me more hawkish then I am OTL, and perhaps in a sudden bout of patriotism I would have enlisted. Although I would have come around by now, in my early 30s.
 
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Hmmm... I was born in 1987 so....

Let's try 1947.

I'm still born in Memphis, as per the rules and I'm still a musician. Raised by a trouble making Irish-American drummer and a deceptive but charismatic and beautiful interior designer turned small business owner, and I come from a violent and broken home.

Probably coming of age musically in around 1964 during the British Invasion and subsequent Garage Rock phenomenon in Memphis. Taking from rockabilly, blues, and the Mersey Beat influences, I enter the scene as a drummer but move to the guitar wielding front man/composer (As IOTL). It would probably be a lot easier for me to get noticed in an era where there was less inundation of young musicians. I am also a discouraged artist, failed novelist, and ardent civil rights activist.

I catch my big break in 1968 when Willie Mitchell discovers my group, The Infidelles (as in OTL) and mentors us and produces our breakout Garage Soul/Power pop proto-funk record, How Far Is Earshot? at the legendary Royal Studios in Memphis. However, when Bowie hits the states I do a complete one eighty and transform my group into Memphis' answer to glam rock, only dancier (it's in my bones, y'all...). Mitchell's push for us to go into a funkier direction, however, succeeds and the gritty glam-funk, proto-discopop sounds of my now much more theatrical group become the basis for nationwide success.

We're essentially a hookier, catchier version of the band "of Montreal" thirty years early, (instead of being essentially the band "of Montreal" five years late...:p ) but my addictive personality and slutty tendencies lead me to go solo. That leads us to the present...

Future goals at this point: I would dream of entering politics. Which means in the future, I could very probably eventually become one of the few Republicans who rejects the shift to right wing fundamentalism and use my large fanbase and political contacts to establish the moderate/liberal wing of the Republican party, first as a Congressman from Tennessee's Ninth Disctrict, and later as Senator.

At this point in OTL I have political goals, I can't see that this would be any different ITTL.

That was fun!
 
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