Things not to say in an email if you want me to keep respecting you:
"You'd think it would be kind of nice to have someone new in the department who works on a similar topic to me. I mean, I'd be able to talk to him about the project. But the problem is, he's a bit weird. Like, he's from Pakistan. So, kind of Al Qaeda."
"Sounds like you're pretty busy with all your teaching. As for me, I've got three weeks holiday coming up. Do you want to go to Trinidad? I was thinking the first week of August."
"What? Your mother is still sick? You mean that cancer thing? That was so long ago---what, April, right?---I thought she'd be all better by now."
Yes, these are all from the same short email.
7 Comments:
Wow. Big wow. How did you respond?
I suggested she should take the Pakistani guy to Trinidad, and that if he really was an Al Qaeda member, he'd be arrested at the airport and she'd be free of him, but that if he wasn't, it might give her a chance to, well, give HIM a chance.
Yeah, seriously, wow. "So, kind of Al Qaeda"?? This is something I'd only (possibly) expect coming out of the mouth of a reactionary, patriotic American.
dear lord. scary...
what does kind of al qaeda mean anyway?
anyway, yeah, what's up with your mother still milking this cancer thing. get over it, right? right.
The question I have is, why are you still exchanging emails with this person? and why is s/he inviting you to Trinidad next week?
Ianqui: she's German. But I don't think her attitudes reflect so much on what's "typical" for Germans so much as on her extremely racist upbringing. Her mother to me once, "So, do you like Maoris?"
Me, "Um, what? Uh, I have some friends who are Maori. Yeah."
Her, "That's interesting. I thought they would be like Turks. I don't like Turks. They are dirty."
Anastasia, maybe "kind of Al Qaeda" means he plans terrorist attacks but never gets around to carrying them out?
Horace, this person is kind of family, in a "we've known each other since forever and we are friends with each other's entire extended family and friend networks as well" sort of way. However clueless she is, it's not a relationship that is going to go away.
As for why she is inviting me to Trinidad next week, I would have to say, because she is completely unable to put herself in anyone else's shoes and realise that maybe not everyone can drop everything in the middle of semester and raise the money for an expensive overseas holiday.
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)