EMAIL VS. SNAIL MAIL (AKA THE POSTAL SERVICE)

I vividly remember when I was in basic training when I joined the Army back in 2010, a letter was like gold. Our whole company of about 200 people would gather round at the end of the duty day and open the mail bag. The sergeant in charge would yell out the name of the the person that each envelope was address to, and that person would run up to the front of the formation to get your mail. Those letters and small packages from home made your day. All day while out training or working, you would hope that there would be something for the sergeants to call your name for.
In these days I learned to really cherish a hand written letter. Even if it was typed on a computer and printed, it was still delivered to you by hand. It took time and effort to write a letter to another person, and for those moments when you are constructing those paragraphs, the other person is your whole attention. It's just you and them in that moment.
While drinking from the virtual fire hose, email is just the way of life. If you are trying to finish a deal or ask someone for a correction or even send words of encouragement, email is the standard form. In the year 2016, people can't fathom the idea of making decisions of communicating with other people via the postal system. We are in a time of needing information immediately. To wait for 2-3 days to receive a letter is a waste of time in our instant society. My husband and I recently purchased a home that was in a different state than where we were currently residing, and even all of those transactions were done through email or other virtual contexts. It completely runs our world.
My nostalgic self could pray every night that people could find the love and nurture that comes with hand written letters in the mail. I could wish that we could all just slow down. Send a letter and then surround ourselves with our environment while waiting to receive a response. While I know this is a subject that will only move forward faster than we will ever go back, a girl can dream.

Turning on the water source

I originally decided to take a college class about living and working a virtual world because it fit my schedule. You see, I am a transfer student (I might be new but trust me, I am a career student! I've been around the college block for awhile) so I met with my advisor about the scheduling process and what she would recommend. I have a tiny terrorist that lives in my house that I call my son, so I needed a schedule that didn't require me to drive to Tacoma everyday. A stacked schedule was something I was leaning towards, and this class checked the "early morning class" block for me.

A little background about myself includes a snippet of time from 2010-2014 where I was in the active duty Army as a Signal Support Systems Specialist in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The way the virtual world works is something that I have studied excessively, but for not a single reason that applies to my life today. The first and second day of class got me excited to actually learn about a more "civilian" type of virtual interaction, and less about comsec and radios.

Cheers to a semester of drinking from the water hose of technology!

-Mallory Green