英会話プライベートレッスン

Hello everyone. It looks like our little taste of spring was in fact just a taste since it is pretty darn cold today. I am coming off of a pretty good weekend. While I did get out to Shibuya for a few drinks with my friends, I also managed get some important stuff done. I am part of a dying breed of people who still write letters to their friends. I mean hand-written, pen-on-paper letters. I originally started writing them as a way to practice my kanji, but over time I started writing to my friends back home.

While instant messaging is convenient, it is also not a very personal way to communicate. People just leave conversations without saying good bye, and they generally don’t put much thought into what they want to say. Writing a letter forces you to think and forces you to make sense. It also forces you to slow down. Most people faster than they think (or faster). No one can write faster than they think. Writing a letter also makes you accountable for your own spelling. Nothing is going to do the spelling for you, so you have to check yourself or risk not making sense.

Letters are a great thing, but there are downsides as well. Specifically, they take a long time to write. Of course, you have to wait for a response. And perhaps the hardest thing about writing a letter is that there is arguably no need to. We do have Facebook, Line, and Twitter, so why bother spending time writing a letter?

Well Facebook, Line and Twitter are all useful and powerful applications, but they aren’t accessible to everyone. I find myself writing mainly to senior citizens or shut-ins who can’t be bothered to use their computers. It’s a niche crowd, but they are diligent when it comes to the craft and are the most thankful when someone younger makes the effort to communicate.

So while I still suffering from sore hands from a Sunday of writing letters, I have no regrets.