Mercury Insider Emails

I spent a tedious hour at the end of my workday putting together the Mercury Insider email. This is a bi-weekly email sent to all Mercury season ticket holders. This is not one of my normal duties. One of the girls in the AES office used to do it before she left, but now my boss shoulders the (burden) duty. My boss is out of the office starting tomorrow, so I was tasked with drawing up the email and sending it to the correct managers for approval and distribution. "Submit a draft by EOD today," she instructed.

There is not much information in the Insider. In fact, there is so little that I had to stretch for some good copy to fill the page, most of which I copied and pasted straight from other sources on the team website. As I wrote a few short sentences to remind people about Hip Hop Squad auditions and the all-important 2 game pre-season schedule, a number of difficult questions gave me pause.

Who is my audience?

What do they want to know? What do they need to know?

How can I effectively communicate this information to my readers?

What do they need to know about me, the author?

How might their past experiences color their perception of my words?

I submitted a solid rough draft at 6:15pm. I'm sure it will get ripped to shreds before it goes out on Wednesday.

First Time Back at Rice

I recently went back to Rice to celebrate its greatest ritual: Beer Bike. It's hard to explain to any one who didn't go to Rice, but, very simply, the kids wake up at 6 in the morning, drink a lot of beer paid for by the colleges, compete in a water balloon fight, and end the afternoon at a bike race.

Photo courtesy of Phoebe Kung.

Traditionally, it's the best excuse to go back to Rice. And all your friends are probably going back for Beer Bike, too, so you go.

I think I had more fun at Beer Bike this year than while I was an undergrad. More than the drinks and the music and the warm sun, I really enjoyed seeing my friends. I teared up a bit when I got to see them. I realized how precious these friendships are. I had four years to get to know these people. Intimately. And they had all that time to get to know me. You don't get the time to form relationships like that in the real world.

I was incredibly sad to leave. I cried for the hour before I left for the airport, in the car on the way to the airport, and in the public bathroom at the airport. What if I only had 4 years with those girls? They mean so much to me. I don't think I'll ever meet other girls as smart, talented, informed, opinionated, or hilarious as they are. My ideal situation would be to live near all of them again at some point. Sporadic weekend visits are fun, but I want to live close enough to share quiet times again.