It has happened to you before, it will happen again, and if it does not, stop stalking people. I'm talking about that irritating feeling you get when, in your attempts to become a social butterfly, you send a group of your friends a blitz about anything -- meeting up for lunch, say, or asking about a homework assignment -- and much to your chagrin, you get no responses. Any responses you do get are the very Microsoft-esque ones which say something technically correct, but practically useless. You know, when people respond two days after the window of relevance with something like, "Oh hey, I'm sorry, I didn't check my blitz. It's too late now though, try me again some other time." Based on conversations with friends, the class of '09 seems to have difficulty making the best of blitz, at least in the way previous classes have.
I remember that day during the summer, at the beginning of the three-week countdown to DOC Trips, when all of us anxious '09s-to-be were first introduced to the concept of, "Dude, you get my blitz?" It is safe to say that prior to Dartmouth, none of us had ever heard of anything remotely similar to the culture-shaping e-mail client. If we had attended another college, we would have responded to this staple of the Dartmouth lexicon with sheer confusion, wondering why everyone here is so obsessed with tackling quarterbacks.
Our immersion into blitz culture was furthered during Orientation. Little did we know exactly what we were getting into by signing up for the legions of clubs we were "a bit" interested in. Only when our in-boxes started overflowing did we find out just what blitz truly meant to upperclassmen.
I have heard of people receiving blitzes consisting of "hey, you there?" or my personal favorite, "hey, I think there's something wrong with my blitz." You can see just how freely the service is used. This would lead most deductively competent people to believe that blitz is a sort of AIM/e-mail combination. But sadly enough, it seems that many '09s have yet to take full advantage of what has clearly become a quintessential part of the Dartmouth experience.
Sure, I will be the first to admit that it is only the second term for freshmen, and many people claim they are "still getting used to" the whirlwind change in pace that college life can bring. But seriously, who are they kidding? Our generation has been brought up with computers everywhere, and with immediate, portable internet service granting access to e-mail and messaging at anytime, adjusting to this technology should be immediate. Blitz should be the "deus ex machina" of on-campus communication.
Wondering why this seems not to be the case, a friend, Emily Watson '09, explained to me, "AIM is a big part of '09s' life, but cell phones are an even bigger part. People use them so often to get in touch with others immediately that some '09s somehow forget to check their blitz." Perhaps it is a reluctance to give up our cell phones that is stifling our use of blitz. But why hasn't this stopped other classes from accepting the change? Zeke Turner '09 gave me an interesting opinion on the issue. "The way I understood it, good [cell] service in this area is a somewhat recent phenomena, so that might explain why previous classes relied on blitz so much."
Before you start plotting to jump me in that sketchtastic little alley between GDX and Webster Cottage, let me acknowledge those of you out there who have been die-hard blitz fanatics from the first moment you set foot in Hanover. You know who you are -- those people who check blitz every 20 minutes, who know what the "Thayer-Collis run" is, and who are on their prof's hit list because they keep "dinging" during lectures.
Finally, I myself have joined an elite group of blitz addicts who have transcended even waiting in-line for a terminal: we have blitz on our Wi-Fi PDAs (put the phone down). People call us insane, but we "blitz addicts" are a shining beam of light in the inky black void of uncertainty (anyone want to go out? anybody... ?) that some of us must brave in order to create our oh-so-precious "shmobs."
Maybe, just maybe, there is still hope for the class of 2009. Perhaps by spring term, we will finally have accepted blitz as our primary tool for communicating, and will have escaped the business end of upperclassmen jokes about our cell phones. I believe in us.
