  Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just fucking rude I have a presentation of a paper to give tomorrow for "journal club" (the name is the brainchild of a woman who is very religious and doesn't seem to appreciate us shortening it to JC, I wonder why?
) but although I've only just got a copy of my chosen paper (ie. I have yet to read it in full, make notes, and make a presentation) I am still thinking about something else (as per bloody usual) I don't want to sound like a Luddite or anything, but I only discovered the wonders of email when I came to university in 1998, and of course text messaging only started around then too. The thing is I use them all the time, and both are incredibly useful, but I don't like it very much at times. I still struggle with the etiquette of emails, how to address people (I tend to be quite formal but if I met them in the dept. I'd call them by their first names) whether to bother replying (I usually do, even though it fills people's inboxes with messages like "thats fine, I'll see you then" when it's totally unnecessary) etc.
Then there's text messaging, I hate it when people text when I'm talking to them. All too often I'll be sitting eating with somebody and out comes the phone, and they spend the next 10 mins trying to get hold of somebody else, I'd rather they just went and had lunch with them. Then there's all those times I see a couple of people sitting together, but both texting other people, why didn't they just stay at home, they might as well be alone because they're not talking to each other.
But worse, far worse than this is when I text somebody and they decide that they will wait ages til they reply (obviously you can't always reply very quickly but there are certain people who seem to have a set length of time which must elapse before they allow themselves to reply, so as not to seem too eager, or to look like they have something better to do. ) or they don't reply at all. My real gripe with both emails and texts is that I never know whether the other person is just being rude, or whether they haven't received the message.
There is actually a reason for this rant. I sent a text the other day (to the aforementioned bloke - see a few posts back) and have never received a reply. Whilst I am certain that he hasn't replied because he's not interested, there is still a small hope that he never received it in the first place.
If I knew that he'd got it, I'd know for sure. It pisses me off though, because I'm sure he's just decided to ignore it, and that's just rude, (especially since it took a lot of courage to send it) he could just have said he was busy or something, I'd have understood. I always reply, however difficult it is thinking of what to say, I just wish other people did the same. 
