Tutor ignores emails

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Is it normal for my tutor to go a day without responding to my email?

It's a new course, it's lifelong learning.

My question is a bit complicated but it's also timely because I don't want to get my work wrong.

When I was at uni, a lecturer would have replied by now.

I have social anxiety and I find silences very hard to deal with. When I complain to mum about how hard I find them, she tells me to stop complaining and that other people are busy. Because in her mind, I'm not.

As an Aspie, I tend to do things serially. I do not like multi-tasking. That is an Aspie trait.

At work I have many tasks. These tasks are comprised of many subtask. So say, I am going to test a complex item. I must design the test equipment to test the item. So I design the equipment, I order the parts, I assemble the parts, test my design and finally test the item. Since I like to work serially, when I reach the point where I order the parts, I have to wait a few weeks or months for the parts to arrive. This is time wasted because I am sitting there twiddling my thumbs until the parts arrive. This is time wasted.

That is why there is multi-tasking. A more efficient approach is to switch over to another task and work that other tasks until the parts arrive.

So using a tutor is like a serial approach to problem solving. The tutor is not always available. They have their own series of tasks and are not on 24 hour call. So

Then learn to multi-task. It is a hard skill to learn but well worth while in the end.

It's because she doesn't believe writing is a job. She says it is and she doesn't mind supporting me (not that she does, my ESA does and I pay her rent - I'm on support level ESA because I can't work conventional jobs due to mental illness and the toll it takes) but deep down, I think it.

Bear in mind I have social anxiety not just autism and this is probably a feeling out of that rather than a healthy assessment of her. She always tells me she's 'proud of me' but the fact is that poetry doesn't pay. I'm a middle level poet, not a beginner or someone who never has things published nationally, if there was money in it I'd have it by now.

I'm drafting, drafting, drafting. But what's the point in drafting a poem I have to scrap because it doesn't fit the remit of the course and it's one for class?

24/7 call doesn't make sense but not replying within 24 hours doesn't either. When I get an email which requires a reply, I reply.

I'm just going to carry on doing this and if he says it's wrong then at least I have it for submission to magazines and can get something else done.

1. Email is not an instant messaging service. Other people have lives of their own, which they must attend to first.

2. You do not know what other people are thinking, unless they tell you. Even then, you can never be 100% certain.

OK but how many days do I give it til I know I said something wrong or made a social faux pas?

NTs know what each other are thinking and know what silences mean.

I always think if someone's gone silent for a long time they're judging me.

He said to send the work by Monday so that's the deadline for the work itself.

Oh good he replied and the idea is ok.

This is all stress cos of what one bad teacher said to me at secondary.

What did one bad teacher say to you at secondary?

'Your places are too jumbled' cos I wrote about a place I'd been to which was influenced by other places.

I was new to the school and the area. It made me feel like I really didn't fit in cos people didn't believe my experiences.

This lecturer says it's good to write about such places and that they're more interesting.

She was second generation Polish so I'm not really sure why she didn't understand immigration. Maybe hers was the only Polish family in the neighbourhood. But not in the town, there was a big Polish community in that town.

She gave me a C on A* grade work just because of that. I'm a decently published writer now and for a 14 year old I was a good writer back then.