Dear Diarrhea

When I read the prompt I immediately was brought back to my mission. I know it's such a typical BYU thing to say, but this is the first time I've brought it up all semester, so hear me out.

On a mission you only get to communicate with friends and family via email and letters, or sometimes you get the "Dear Elder" letters that are just emails that are sent through the mail. So it's the combination of the boring type of an email without the convenience of getting it right away. An awful idea within the United States.

This brought up a lot of issues in communication. Letters could be fun and more natural than email because you could write all over the page, draw, and have the personal feel of handwriting. However, because it took so long for letters to get from the Dominican Republic to Alaska, my girlfriend (now fiancee) and I would lose a lot of the context and meaning behind the letters so a direct reply or answer to a question wouldn't ever make sense. It's easy to lose track of a conversation that only goes back and forth once every 3 weeks.

Email, like texting, can quickly get informal and lazy. This creates a really bad environment for sharing accurate thoughts and feelings. I also found that email was an easy way to put up a wall if I didn't want to tell my family that it sucked sometimes and I wasn't having fun. It is a lot harder to hide your feelings and emotions over the phone or in person.

I continue to find out more about my friends' missions as they tell stories in person even though I read about them our entire missions. Writing rarely depicts the reality of what we are all experiencing or what we wish to convey.

Missing Out by Being Filled In

Cute gal texts: "Have you ever heard of The Weepies?"
Cute dude texts back: "Oh yeah, I love them!  World Spins Madly On is one of my favorites."

...Not.

Using writing to communicate on a more personal level can be dangerous!

Along with the varied miscommunication mentioned in others' posts, writing gives us a pause between delivering our words and the audience receiving them.  This gap actually allows for us to fictitiously recreate ourselves.  I confess, numerous times I've been Facebook messaging or texting someone when they drop a name, place, or idea that I'm not familiar with. In that instant my pride and resources kick in; instead of asking "Oh, what's that?  I'm not familiar with it," I scour the Internet for quick and simplistic information so I can make an educated reply.

The general idea of this goes along with how one can use a certain tone or set of words to depict themselves differently in writing than they are in real life.  I haven't really thought about it until now, but that lack of being genuine with myself and others isn't something I'm a fan of.  Yeah, I look well-informed and part of what's going on, but I miss out on that interaction I would usually get in person, where I inevitably do have to ask what on this good Earth they're talking about.  I miss out on giving them the opportunity to willingly, and perhaps excitedly, share their knowledge with me on a personal level, potentially furthering discussion and debate and friendship.

"Fetch, Boy"

While talking about the dangers that Plato and Socrates warned against the nature of writing, I doubted that they could have imagined a society like ours.  Not only are we wholly reliant on writing (thank you, professors), but in our digital age it has taken on a completely different form. 

Texting is an obvious writing skill (yes, I do believe it is a skill) that has the tendency to reduce our use of oratory.  I use texting to communicate with my parents when I’m in class or they’re in meetings.  My friends and I use it when we want to share funny jokes, but we don’t want to interrupt them.  There are great uses for it.  However, I know a young man who frequently asks girls out on dates over text message.  Not just once, but multiple times.  When I told my dad this, he exclaimed, “Gone are the days of chivalry when a boy would actually ask a girl.”  It made me think: If a new trend conflicts with long-standing societal morals, then it should send up red flags.

Cheesecake

Text conversations are tricky, because they allow you more time to formulate a response. They come without an attached tonality. Emoticons can help, but as Laycee Liston mentioned, everyone has their own idea of what each emoji means.

Last semester, I had a (verbal) conversation with a guy in my ward that went something like this.

Guy: Hey,do you like cheesecake?

Me: Based on what you know of me, what do you think my answer to that question would be?

Guy: Haha, I’m gonna assume yes?

Me: Of course! I mean, I guess some people don’t like cheesecake, but you really shouldn’t hang out with those people. Nobody needs that kind of negativity in their life.

Guy: Well I’m gonna make some sometime, so you could come over.

Me: Totally! Just let me know. 

And then I made a graceful exit because I’m cool like that. As I walked back to my apartment, I group texted my roommates, hoping for some help in analyzing whether or not this was a date…however, the responses I got were surprising.

"Katelyn! Don’t you know that cheesecake is code at BYU?? For NCMO's!!!" (Non-committal make out session).

While at first I didn't believe them, the continual texts I got ended up convincing me that they were telling the truth. And I started to freak out. It was at this point that there was a knock on the door. And who could it have been but cheesecake guy?

He came in. “So, cheesecake’s ready.”

At this point I’m near hyperventilating but trying to hide it.

I tried to stall for a while, as my roommates snickered behind my back. It wasn't until they burst out laughing that I realized--

IT WAS A JOKE. A PRANK. A TRICK.

My dear, sweet roommates ran to this poor guy’s room after I texted and CONSPIRED AGAINST ME. AND HE PLAYED ALONG.

Had my roommates tried in person to convince me that cheesecake was code, I doubt it would have worked. They wouldn't have had time to conspire together, and I would have been able to hear the teasing in their voices. However, because the trickery occurred over text messaging, I was essentially blind from all information except what they wanted to tell me. It resulted in a very convincing (and hilarious) prank--and one that I'm sure I will never live down.

Notes? Nope........ Kindling

Maybe I am the only one who feels this way, but ever since I’ve started in school I have felt like taking notes does absolutely nothing for me. We have been told our entire academic careers that taking notes would enhance our learning and help us get better grades. I don’t doubt that for some people this is true, but for myself I just can’t relate. I honestly can’t remember the last time that I actually went back and reviewed my notes that I took in class in preparation for a homework assignment or test. In fact I use my notes most when it’s time to start a bonfire. It is interesting because I have always been puzzled as to why I never went back and checked my notes in preparation for exams. Of course this would be the most logical thing to do.

It wasn’t until our last lecture that I started to get an idea as to why I never used my notes. In looking back at all of my past notebooks it is very apparent that what I was writing down was only a small fraction of what I was truly learning. The experience that I was having in the moment of learning could not be replicated in mere words. I did my best to do so in writing my notes but it just didn’t reflect my true learning. In fact I think that I have struggled with the same problem in essay writing as well. I just can’t accurately describe in words what is going on in my head, and it is so unsatisfying. Ironically I am experiencing the same phenomenon as I am writing currently. If only there was a way to truly communicate the learning experience using mere words on a computer screen.

Wanted: Waffle Thief

One day, during my freshman year, I was doing homework on the couch when my roommate Jane* came in and asked very sweetly, “Maren, did you eat my waffle?” I replied that I hadn’t and she said, “Well someone took a bite of my waffle but then threw the rest of it away in the trashcan.” “Oh,” I replied, turning back to my homework. “Well, it wasn’t me.” She just shrugged and went back to her room. No big deal, right?

Three weeks later, another waffle went missing. Not one of Jane’s, but no one had fessed up to taking her waffle and apparently she was still upset. So she decided to make a statement.

And these appeared on our fridge.

Jane expressed her frustrations (like the eating of her waffles) with the rest of us through notes. She never told us she was upset or had a problem. She just wrote a note.

Her intent, I think, was to avoid confrontation. But we ended up with more problems than if she would have told us she was upset about something.

First, there was often an uncomfortable feeling in our dorm—especially after a new note showed up. We weren’t really sure how to respond. Should we talk about it? We usually didn’t.

Second, we didn’t really take the notes seriously. Without the face-to-face discussion none of us felt that responsible to actually follow the notes. We even made fun of them sometimes.

Confrontation and conversation about problems can be awkward, but I think the notes were worse. With discussion everyone could have said her piece. We could have discussed solutions and the problem could have been solved more effectively, without confusion.

As for the waffle-thief, she was never discovered…

 *Name changed

I Just Got Hit By a Car... But I'm Okay.

Have you received a text from someone important which read, "I just got hit by a car" or "I just cut my hand" or "I just backed up into a mailbox ... but I'm okay"? I received one of these very texts tonight from someone very important to me, and let me tell you, it just about gave me a heart attack. The one thing that prevented me from actually needing a defibrillator was that last phrase: "but I'm okay." Why is it these three small words can bring some sort of peace despite jarring news that the prior words brought?

One thing to consider is the medium in which these written messages are received: text. Most of the text messages we receive contain simple, light, funny, and normal messages. Like Alysha talked about in her post, these texts most often include invitations to parties and emoticons; short blurbs about the quotidian details of our lives. The weightier matters are usually left to in-person conversations or phone calls. Any text message that is either prefaced or finished with the words "I'm okay" do come as a shock because the medium of text messaging is not where we expect these events to be conveyed. However, our culture has primed us to trust the news that come from our little glass screens.

Going back to Alysha's post, she trusted and believed the contents of that text message. She thought, "wow, my friend doesn't like me anymore. That's it, I won't go to the party" just because of a few poorly spelled words on her cute little phone. Why do we trust the words we are sent via text? Does it have more to do with the person who is on the other side of the phone, or the medium itself? Regardless, when any of us see the news on our phones that someone we love had some kind of accident but they are okay, it brings us some amount of peace that everything will be all right. Is the trust we have placed in this technological messaging system well-founded? Perhaps. But the next time you send this text to someone, just think if a phone call might be more suited.