I really hate writing emails to teachers, because I never know what to say.

I tend to apologize overly much, as if it is such an imposition for them to have to read my four-line email asking for a meeting or to arrange a time to pick something up (say, like a creative writing portfolio) or even just turning in a digital copy of a paper.

I hate that I never know what to write, whether or not to expect a response, or least of all, if I used the correct email address to send it. Since I’ve started using gmail—consolidating all my addresses into one account—I’ve double emailed my English teacher a few times, sending first with the wrong address, and then having to resend it to make sure that it will get through the spam filters.

It’s such a hassle having so many email addresses. I think at the moment, I have five that are still in use. The main one for my Earthlink account that I hardly use, the “creative” one through Earthlink that I used all the time, one for my old domain, one for the new one, and gmail.

While each of these addresses are useful, I could stand to get rid of the two earthlink ones since the “creative” one was for my first blog, and the main account is my name, for use in filling out forms and such where I want to be sure that the email will always be correct. Since my gmail account is my name as well, I could cut the Earthlink one, but I’m too lazy, and I can’t remember all the places where I’ve used it.

I also have a work email address, but since I hardly ever use it, I don’t really consider it mine, even though it also is my name. Although, I have thought up a really cool feature that would be, like, totally awesome.

I have to email lawyers. A lot. And unfortunately, they aren’t the most tech-savy of the bunch. Often when I email a transcript file, I blind-carbon-copy the lawyer’s secretary so that she¹ has a copy of the file, and won’t call and ask me for another one. I like to avoid more work that way.

However, it would be brilliant if with the blind-carbon-copy, I could add a blind note which lets the secretary know that the lawyer also received a copy of the file, and that maybe they don’t have to do anything with it. This would work equally well if you were having an email argument with someone (what, haven’t you had one?), and want to include that special invisible someone, while perhaps adding an extra snarky comment or two.

Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking about email for awhile, and essay-avoidance made this post possible. My paper on Frankenstein is due today, and well, I didn’t really want to write it. I’d say it’s the crappiest thing I’ve ever written, but that honor goes to last week’s research paper.

With the end of the semester here (leaving one last essay to finish), I should be able to devote some time to scanning in my work from this semester. I am unsure if I’m going to post all of it, but definitely the essays with teacher’s comments will be up and about by June.

Not that it’ll do anyone any good for this semester.

—”Veneer,” Villains: The Verve Pipe

1. Don’t mean to be sexist, but it my experience, most of the secretaries I have dealt with have been female. [back]

Tagged: coursework, idea, work on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 · No Comments »