The other day, I got a comment at another website that meant more to me most other comments I’ve received put together:

Hello! I want to say thanks, because you was (no, are still) very good english teacher… you’s lessons helps me very much, now I’m live in Ireland, and I m still learn… If you want to write me: [email and name redacted]: 1,2e ”zarzadzanie inf, terrorysci…”bye

In a class of “difficult” students (who, in retrospect, were angels), this young lady was one of the few students I could count on consistently. She caused any disruption; she rarely came to class unprepared; she rarely wasn’t smiling and happy.

Naturally, I wrote back. And of course I got this in return:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. t the moment you cannot send a message to [reacted], try again later ¹: retry timeout exceeded

I tried again, knowing it was a futile effort. Still, the thought that it might not go through, and she’ll think my response to her invitation to contact her was, “Um, no thanks,” irritates to no end, so I tried. And yet again.

And so, I. Z., if you are reading this, please know: I wrote you back, but onet.pl is cranky and often does not take email from my account.

Which leads me to a question for all tech folks who read this (both of you): What could be causing a consistent problem with delivering email to Polish servers from a given account here in the States? I’ve asked tech support for my web host — they think I’m crazy. But consistently email sent from any address that uses the server this site is hosted on gets bounced back, or simply disappears. As in, “Did you get that email?” “What email?”

What I wouldn’t give, sometimes, for a return to consistent use of regular mail for correspondence…