What does college mean to you? Studying? Partying? I’m almost certain it doesn’t mean emailing a TA while you are on pain medication. For Abby Hamele, this is the case.
After taking hydrocodone while recovering from surgery extracting her wisdom teeth, University of Nebraska at Lincoln sophomore, Abby woke up to a very strange email response.
“This email was, uh, a bit unorthodox,” wrote Kevin Patton, her Philosophy 101 teaching assistant.
Abby was very confused and had absolutely no recollection of what she had done. She looked at what Patton was replying to and was mortified. Abby sent the following email to her TA:
Kevin-
I believe that i relmebmer you said we, as us students, would be able to send you our papers for classss for you to look at over before we turn them in to cColin if we got them to you by the 22nd of Novermber.
I unfortmately got my wisdom teeth sliced outr and have not not been reacting very well to the surgeryy nor the medicatioon i were given/ so I do not thimk that I will be able to habe my paper finisherd by Tuesday at all.
Is tehere any way I would be able to send you my paper at any later date??? I wnt to do very good on this paper you know becayse i like to do well in my classes.
please sir I workled very hard and thouught that I would be abel to finish it on timme but my doctor said I will most likelly not be normal again until at least Thanksginvg turkey. If you say no then that is okay but i would be sad and i would reallyyyy lik e it if you said yes. Thank you Kevin, my dude.
Abby Jo Hamele (pronounced hah-mil-lee) (if you were wondering)
P.S. I will answer youpr questions in class forever so theere are not any more awkard silence. and i will buy you expo markers that work (even thougjh our tuition should pay for markers that work)
love you bye
Patton found the email hilarious. He assumed she was on the pain medication mentioned and assured her that her assignment was not due for another week.
Abby was embarrassed, but took to Twitter to share her email. She knew other students would get a kick out of it.
As of Saturday morning, her tweet was re-tweeted 31,000 times and liked 73,000 times. Hamele’s Twitter following rose from 775 to 1,912, and Buzzfeed, Daily Mail, Distractify and The Huffington Post have published articles about her hilarious email.
The huge response has been overwhelming! But Abby is using her social media celebrity status for good. She changed her Facebook and Twitter profiles to a picture of her smiling with “you are enough” written in black marker on her outstretched palm. It’s meant, she said, to let people know “they are enough and they are worth it, and they’re more than their mental illness.”
Hamele belongs to the Hope IV Us club, through which she and other college students give presentations about mental illness to Nebraska high schools in order to reduce any stigma about the subject.
“I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason,” she said. “I didn’t do anything to deserve all this attention. I don’t even remember sending (the email) at all. I’m trying to make the best out of it rather than feel super overwhelmed, which is why I changed my Twitter profile.”
So, if you do something silly in your college years, take the time to learn from it and do some good! Great job Abby!
I EMAILED MY PHILOSOPHY TA WHILE I WAS HIGH ON HYDROCODON I'M DEAD pic.twitter.com/ncJ8XX4zoe
— Abby Jo Hamele (@jabbyo3) November 21, 2016
this was the response I got if anyone was wondering pic.twitter.com/wMJC2CSsID
— Abby Jo Hamele (@jabbyo3) November 21, 2016