Friday Firsts: First E-mail

I had very limited exposure to the Internet before going to college in 1998. During the last few years of high school, my parents had AOL. It was dial-up and I used it very sparingly for school projects.

We rented a PC from my university, and the first week of school my Assistant Resident Advisor came down and helped me set up my e-mail. It was on the pine system, with a black screen and white letters, and the format looked like basic DOS commands. I remember the whole thing being very foreign to me. I was thrilled to be able to send messages to my then-boyfriend becuase it meant we'd have good communication without a huge phone bill. (Imagine my excitement to discover instant messaging toward Halloween!) Throughout college, I had no idea how to send attachments.

I was very behind the times, as several of my friends at school had been using e-mail for years, as well as messaging. My first e-mail experience was also one of my first memories of meeting Raeanne (the ARA), who became a close friend of mine later in college when I joined the dorm staff as well.