| Tuesday May 14th 2002 Two weeks ago, guilt finally drove me to dig out the most recent letter from my Japanese pen pal that had her email address in it. I think I got this letter about five months ago, and although my own letter to her happened to be in the mail at the time this one arrived, technically it's my turn again. And despite her providing me with the email address all those months ago, I never tried it. So, it was time to give it a shot. I brought the address to work and sent her a general 'hi how are you? I'll write to you soon' sort of message. Didn't think much about it, and the day went on as usual; read my other email, did some work at my desk, went to a meeting in the afternoon, and checked my telephone messages. One of the telephone messages was a stand-out. Somebody, speaking in a very halting voice, asked my answering machine if they could speak to me, left a twenty second pause, said something unintelligible and hung up. Dense boy that I am, I had to listen to it two more times before finally understanding this was my pen pal, calling me at work from Japan. I'd forgotten my work phone number was in my email footer. So I sent her another email explaining the situation and inviting her to email me back instead of trying to call, and again that I'd write to her soon. I haven' t heard from her, nor have I written that letter yet, and the guilt is starting to settle in once more. Time to get to it! This reminds me of the way we first started. In university I saw a posting on the wall for people interested in Japanese pen pals and thought Hey, why not? So I signed up, and shortly after the notice disappeared. Didn't think anything more about it. A year later I get a letter in the mailbox from someone in Japan, and I'm thinking 'What the heck is this?' But it was my address, my name in the letter, and something about my being interested in writing back. Huh? (I was pretty dense then, too). Six years and twenty five letters later, I don't know how much I've learned about her country, but it's pretty cool getting mail from someone on the other side of the world. It's even more cool going to the post office and saying 'Hi, I need stamps for Japan'. I say it nice and loud, too :) |