tragedy of it all

I just submitted my final requirement for this semester via email. Hit SEND, and voilà –kiss me, sembreak.

I remember the time when I made my first online submission. It was a reaction paper on Hamlet. I recall being so anxious that I didn’t realize I sent the paper five times (my professor told me so afterward). It was kind of embarrassing to be told off (though I’d like to believe that my professor was more amused than angry); but then again, better safe than sorry, right? :]

There’s something about online submission that always makes me nervous. At the very least, I take 15 minutes before I enter the email address of the professor; another 15 minutes to multiple-check it; a few more minutes to make sure that I’ll be attaching the right file; a minute to actually attach the file; additional 15 minutes to think about what to write on the note area (Here is my paper, Sir/Ma’am. / Should I be friendly? / It’s our last paper, should I say thanks? / Should I say how much I enjoyed the semester? / What if I didn’t? / Should I lie? / Or what the hell, can I just say nothing at all?! ); and if I did decide to say something for propriety’s sake, there must be 20 more minutes to check the grammar; and finally, a good extra 30 minutes to contemplate on whether to truly click the SEND button or not. In the end, after all of these perusing, how must I react should I realize that the tragedy is finding out that the professor DID NOT receive anything at all? Kill me now? Oh God.

But thankfully, that hasn’t happened to me yet; and that’s possibly why the whole process is all the more scary for me because it constantly makes me wonder when my dreaded first time is going to be. HA!

In every submission, there is a deadline –so the most important thing is that you submit the paper before the deadline; If you miss it, you’re dead (not really dead dead, but dead INComplete, or dead tres/cingco; I haven’t really heard of dead DROP but for all you know it might be possible –or dead KICK OUT though that’s probably going overboard). Therefore, if, in your worst luck, your professor failed to receive your paper –then Dear me, may you R.I.P.

Though, of course, you realize you can’t seriously die just yet. You will probably curse the computer, curse the internet, curse your e-mail, curse yourself, or curse your professor, but you can’t rest (certainly NOT in peace) unless you found a way to prove to your professor that you did send that paper on time. In any case, what a real bummer, no?