It’s 2016, last time I checked. My computer should NOT be shutting down when it comes to simple tasks. All I want to do is send an email to my boss, and I’m thinking at this point that it might be quicker to just send him a letter. Not even first class, either. I’m just sitting in my chair, waiting for this whole thing to load and slowly dying of heart failure because this thing drives my blood pressure through the roof. Honestly, if I had-oh, hang on, it’s fine. Yeah, okay, it loaded. Bit of hyperbole.
I guess even in this tech-soaked age, there are still plenty of hang-ups. At least when people used to send letters all the time, it wasn’t instant. You actually had some time between posting and delivery. And it was exciting! I remember seeing the man with the postage satchel coming up the driveway. People sending letters, even if it’s the bank or something, is just a reminder that you’re alive and somebody’s thinking of you. And sometimes they’d reach into their courier satchel and out would come a parcel. Those were the most exciting days of all, clearly, because it meant that exciting things were soon to come. If they were wrapped up in string and brown paper packaging…even better.
What in the internet age can give you something like that? You get an email with an attachment and you don’t bat an eyelid. It’s all just so easy, and blanket emails can be sent out with nothing more than a few keystrokes. There’s nothing really personal about it. I suppose this is just the way we’ve chosen to be: expedient in everything we do. I’m still getting excited when I see the man with his courier satchel, though. Some things truly never change.
-Maria
At the time that I finished high school, I jumped straight into university without a break. So I was very young while completing my first degree which was a bachelor of arts. Many of the other students were about the same ages as me, or slightly older having taken a year or two off to travel, but there was also the odd mature aged student as well. Some were coming back to study after a long stint in the workforce, while others seemed to be what I now call ‘perpetual students’. It was taking them 6-7 years, for instance, to complete their part time degrees, or they were up to their second or third degree and still had a zest for learning. I looked at these people with mixed disapproval and admiration. Why were they still at uni? Were they becoming super intelligent freaks or were they just bumming around?