Au revoir, [Quiet Man]@uiowa.edu
My uiowa email account has met its match: graduation.
Tomorrow, ITS will put it to sleep forever, deleting the address from their system. Of course, another [Quiet Man] could enroll or work at the university sometime in the future, receiving the exact same email address I had. But, for me, it will forever be mine. I think it deserves a proper send off, and a well written ode.
Until last December, when I set up my Gmail account, [Quiet Man]@uiowa.edu had been my main email account since the fall of 2001. It's seen the gamut of written communication and attachments. Love letters, angry rebuttals, Daily Iowan critiques, short stories, pictures, class notes, mid-term papers, work schedules, to-do lists, conference updates, drunken rants, one line questions, interviews, electronic epics. It mirrored my life in college. That was no easy task. I can say it's been the best email account I've ever had, surpassing my old AltaVista account from high school.
I remember setting it up at freshman orientation, in the little computer lab behind the student box office in the IMU. There were others in my class who didn't like the fact they weren't the only person at the university with their name. Their accounts needed a "-1" or "-2" tacked on after their name. But I was the only [Quiet Man]. I still was last month.
During my first summer at The Daily Iowan, I included my AltaVista address at the end of all my stories. I did the same at the beginning of the fall semester. In the newsroom, though, I'd see the other reporters and the copy editors going to the black Webmail log-in screen. "Webmail" was spelled in large, green letters. It looked like something out of 1994. But I'd forgotten my password and couldn't access the account.
After school started my AltaVista address experienced a bug. I wasn't receiving any email and sometimes couldn't log-in at all. I had to visit ITS and have them reset my uiowa password so I could use it for the time being. They wrote the new password on a card and I carried it in my wallet. I still have it. See:
The account went through different phases. Sometimes it was bombarded by emails, and other times it rarely received any. During my sophomore year I designated it as my account for school and work. I set up a Hotmail account for personal messages, using it alongside my Webmail address until last summer when I completely abandoned it. I was tired of getting nothing but spam.
I rarely used my uiowa address last semester. A lot of spam had started getting past the filter system, so I began using my Gmail account much more. I'd saved a lot of messages from the past. Emails from ____ ________, epics from ____, and the ode to my AltaVista account. Even though it was rated the best (beating Hotmail and Yahoo), AltaVista discontinued their email service. The last message I sent was to my Webmail account, and it's been there ever since, toward the bottom of my inbox, dated 3/30/2002.
It's been a long, good run, but it ends tomorrow. Another end is upon me. Everything seems to be ending. It's almost like I'll have nothing to carry over to the next chapter of my life — no metaphors, characters, or symbols. It's like starting a different book.
Rest in peace, or at least until someone else with my name attends Iowa, even if it's a sorority girl from the suburbs of Chicago.
[Quiet Man]@uiowa.edu
2001-2006
Tomorrow, ITS will put it to sleep forever, deleting the address from their system. Of course, another [Quiet Man] could enroll or work at the university sometime in the future, receiving the exact same email address I had. But, for me, it will forever be mine. I think it deserves a proper send off, and a well written ode.
Until last December, when I set up my Gmail account, [Quiet Man]@uiowa.edu had been my main email account since the fall of 2001. It's seen the gamut of written communication and attachments. Love letters, angry rebuttals, Daily Iowan critiques, short stories, pictures, class notes, mid-term papers, work schedules, to-do lists, conference updates, drunken rants, one line questions, interviews, electronic epics. It mirrored my life in college. That was no easy task. I can say it's been the best email account I've ever had, surpassing my old AltaVista account from high school.
I remember setting it up at freshman orientation, in the little computer lab behind the student box office in the IMU. There were others in my class who didn't like the fact they weren't the only person at the university with their name. Their accounts needed a "-1" or "-2" tacked on after their name. But I was the only [Quiet Man]. I still was last month.
During my first summer at The Daily Iowan, I included my AltaVista address at the end of all my stories. I did the same at the beginning of the fall semester. In the newsroom, though, I'd see the other reporters and the copy editors going to the black Webmail log-in screen. "Webmail" was spelled in large, green letters. It looked like something out of 1994. But I'd forgotten my password and couldn't access the account.
After school started my AltaVista address experienced a bug. I wasn't receiving any email and sometimes couldn't log-in at all. I had to visit ITS and have them reset my uiowa password so I could use it for the time being. They wrote the new password on a card and I carried it in my wallet. I still have it. See:
The account went through different phases. Sometimes it was bombarded by emails, and other times it rarely received any. During my sophomore year I designated it as my account for school and work. I set up a Hotmail account for personal messages, using it alongside my Webmail address until last summer when I completely abandoned it. I was tired of getting nothing but spam.
I rarely used my uiowa address last semester. A lot of spam had started getting past the filter system, so I began using my Gmail account much more. I'd saved a lot of messages from the past. Emails from ____ ________, epics from ____, and the ode to my AltaVista account. Even though it was rated the best (beating Hotmail and Yahoo), AltaVista discontinued their email service. The last message I sent was to my Webmail account, and it's been there ever since, toward the bottom of my inbox, dated 3/30/2002.
It's been a long, good run, but it ends tomorrow. Another end is upon me. Everything seems to be ending. It's almost like I'll have nothing to carry over to the next chapter of my life — no metaphors, characters, or symbols. It's like starting a different book.
Rest in peace, or at least until someone else with my name attends Iowa, even if it's a sorority girl from the suburbs of Chicago.
[Quiet Man]@uiowa.edu
2001-2006
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