So I had an idea.
I was taking notes in class the other day, and realized my penmanship could be much better. Then I thought of how people in colonial days had fantastic handwriting due to the fact that they wrote all the time. Imagine if we hand wrote everything we typed, our penmanship would be fantastic. That led me to wonder through what avenues could I write more aside form a journal or something similar. Then it struck me: Hubski Pen Pals! We'd pair up through some system I'll figure out. I was thinking maybe pen pals could be of opposite genders and have a large age gap to increase differences in pen pals.
If you're interested, comment with your gender and age. I think that'd be the most interesting combination that way the elder of the two could impart some wisdom on the younger. I think this could be something very worthwhile that could last well into the future.
Edit: A few of you have expressed interest in the pairing being random, so since this is a democratic system, that'll how we'll go about it. I'll let this thread go on for a few days to accumulate those interested to amount to at least 10. Also, thanks AnSionnachRua for my first badge!
I'm in. Edit: Perhaps age and gender need not be disclosed? These are some of the things that may be interesting to find out via our letters, right? Even if two people are the same age and sex, you can learn a lot from them. I wouldn't over-think the pairing and make it random. Just my advice.
I agree with thenewgreen. I don't think it would necessarily be better (or worse) if you paired via sex and age. I would be fine with a random assignment. Anyways, I'd be interested in this.
For two years my sister lived in Africa (peace corps). For one of those two years I lived in London, and the other I lived in Cleveland. Writing letters to her during class (when I should have been taking notes) was an incredibly...pleasant..experience. I can't really say why, but it allowed for a different type of conversation between the two of us. I have no idea why I felt the need to express this, but I did, so now you are reading it. ha.
Does this mean you'd be interested in the HPPP or Hubski-Pen-Pal-Program?
I can't say. I'm about to move multiple times and change my life. So I might be in the future, but not until the fall.
I imagine the type of conversation was more meaningful because since writing takes more type than typing, there's more time to focus on what you have to say. Instead of shooting out an email quickly, writing a letter makes you sit down and thoroughly think through your writing. That's another thing I hope to accomplish with this.
I did pen pals when I was younger with peoples from Japan, Taiwan, Florida, Indonesia, and other places. With the age of email, that kind of died out I guess. But I really do miss connecting with random people. I mean, the age of the 'chat room' has come and gone and the internet has now gone towards communicating people you already know (FB). I'd really like to do some communicating with new people :) Age 37
Male
Location: New Zealand So, yeah, I'm in...
Well said. I'm pretty excited about this. Great idea BLOB_CASTLE. lil, did you see this post? You strike me as someone that would make a great pen-pal.
I did see it and even shared it early on. I didn't sign up because I didn't think I could keep it up -- but it is nice to get snail mail. It's even a smidge nicer than being distracted by a "you were mentioned" note from Hubski. A few years back, I signed on to http://www.postcrossing.com and they still miss me. What I have been loving is receiving from and sending books to hubski persons. I received a wonderful book from phree -- just because I showed an interest in an author! and recently sent one to Meriadoc who was asking for a good read a while back. I have more books that I'd love to pass on, if I ever get around to cleaning up. (Talk to you soon TNG, I will listen to the secret podcast tonight... I'm looking forward to it.)
Please sign me up for this. Though I should warn you, I've been journaling for 9 years and sometimes there's no cure for bad handwriting!
Dear Diary, Today lil followed me! It was the best day ever! Love, Lou (except instead of typed lines, it's the usual tangled scrawl)
This. I've been keeping a journal for about 15 years consistently, have probably 4-5 notebooks filled per year... and I'm pretty sure I would be needed to "decode" them should they ever fall into the wrong hands.
If they fell into the "wrong" hands, better to not decode them. Just make something up. :-) Going back and reading old journals (or old snail mail letters) can be interesting (or frustrating if the writing is too messy). I was reading an old journal the other day from when I was in my 20s. I wrote a line about how frustrating my affairs with T, D, and H were. I had no idea who T, D, and H were. I read through the whole journal looking for some reference to T, D, and H - and there was nothing. Eventually I figured it out. T. D. and H. stood for -- Tom, Dick, and Harry - in other words, a reference to men in general.
Yeah, write neatly AND explain your abbreviations so your biographers don't suffer too much.
I'm definitely up for this! I love to write letters - sadly, people usually respond via text or Facebook or something like that. I agree with TNG though - I'd prefer random allocation. I don't like the idea of being artificially put into some sort of "student-teacher" kind of thing, and I don't think gender matters to the medium of letters. I'm up for multiple pen pals, by the way, if there's enough interest.
That's not a bad idea. If there's an odd number I could set you up with multiple. And of more are interested we could probably set it up so that everyone has multiple. I'll post again in a few days to see if those interested would like that.
Sounds good. I think I'll let this go on for a few more days to get all of those interested in. In the next post I'll ask that whoever wants multiple to just give me a heads up.
Well, for penmanship to improve, one needs to consciously make an effort to write a certain way. I used to get annoyed with some of my very young EFL students because they were in the process of learning penmanship and would take forever to write in a gorgeous, scrolled style which is great in general, but not great for speed games aimed at reducing processing time. I like this idea, but I have to say that I have some seriously atrocious handwriting. A lot of people say this, but more often than I'd like to admit, I spend time puzzling over what I've jotted down. Anyway, it sounds like it could be fun and constructive. I like the idea of parameters too.
Hopefully this would help with your writing then! We'll probably have a vote to seeing if people want it random or within those parameters. So far most seem to like the idea of random pairs.
I'm sure anyone could be penpal, are you sure you're not in?
So interested in this. 22.64109589 years old. Female.