Romeo and Juliet

That title really is just there to grab attention, but I think that it's also fitting for the post - I didn't just choose it randomly.

Warning: Spoilers for Romeo and Juliet. If that's even possible.

Here's a question for you: would Romeo and Juliet either have died if they had had phones and could text or email each other? Wouldn't Romeo have known that she wasn't really dead?

Also, I have major issues with letting myself go on tangents. I just spent 30 minutes reading up history, reviews, etc. of Romeo and Juliet. Wow...

Think on that for a moment. While that delves into the effects of technology on storylines, stories today about miscommunication that are utterly stupid (Seriously. We have phones. Use them, or your characters are stupid. And this is also why we see "Jamming" devices so often.), and some other really interesting storytelling aspects, I don't want to go into that right now.

I want to talk about a real-life situation. My school. It prides itself on communication; they collect phone numbers, send out test emergency system messages, have a FB page, everything. But there's one key area where the fall down.

Cancelled classes.

This semester alone, my physics class has been cancelled twice. (Please note that I'm not blaming my teacher for any of this. He's been sick on and off, and definitely deserves the days off to get better.) It's not the first time this has happened, either. It was cancelled twice last semester, as was my history class.

ACC does not send out any kind of email reminder when class is cancelled. They have everyone's email. They have it in their system that the class is cancelled. All of the information that they need is right there. They put up printed, official notices on the classroom door. They just don't send out emails.

My history teacher sent them out himself last semester when he was unable to come to class. I was able to go home early both days, saving myself a lot of time.

For physics, last semester, I came up to school early (physics at 9, next class at 2:30), and then found out that physics class was cancelled. It was quite a surprise, and I would much rather have gone home and slept in those days. This semester, the first time, I didn't find out that class was cancelled until class time (1:30). I was on campus for my optional government SI session, but that ended at 10:30, and I had been in the library studying since that time. I could easily have been home before lunch. Or, had I known earlier, not even gone up to campus at all.

The second time, a classmate apparently spotted the notice on the door around 10:00, and emailed the entire class (Yes, it's so easy that any of the students can do it - from their phone), and I was able to go home directly after the SI session. I still wouldn't have gone up to campus if I had known earlier, but at least I had the rest of the day that time.

In conclusion (aka, I'll stop rambling here.), it's ridiculously easy to email all of the students in a class when it's cancelled. Heck, ACC, you should have it as part of your automatic system, the same one that prints out a notice and tells someone to go tape it to the classroom door. It saves people a lot of time and stress. And it's just polite. Please?