My First Pen Pal
A pen pal can add many enjoyments to your lives. It can introduce you to new friends and make a bond that others may not have. Also, there’s another side to having a pen pal, not having one and not knowing what to do. Many people feel that meeting someone new can be a bit awkward and in most cases it is. That’s what happened to me, I’ve never had a pen pal before and it totally caught me off guard. I would sit there all class period with a blank facial expression and just thinking to myself what did I get myself into.
A writing experience that I had was being a pen pal with an elementary school student. At first I thought that this would be an easy assignment, but it got harder and harder by the day. During this time, I’ve never had a pen pal before, so I thought it would be a fun time and a really easy assignment, but boy was I wrong.
I got this assignment in the middle of my senior year in my humanities class. My teacher walked into class one day and gave us the assignment and assigned us a student to write to. Immediately, I drew a blank on what to write about. I thought to myself, since I usually have a hard time writing and usually get the dreaded writers block, how am I supposed to write a letter to a little kid? At first, I though it was going to be the most difficult thing in my life, but as I started to think about it, it got a little easier but not by much.
As days went on, my writers block never go better. As a matter of fact, it got worse. In class I would just sit there and watch the time tick by. This phase of doing nothing went on for days. I’ve tried to brainstorm things to say, I even tried to free write and nothing came to mind. So eventually I went to my teacher for some guidance. She told me to literally say the first thing that comes to your mind. She also told me to ask plenty of questions to get to know them, but the only problem was that I didn’t know what kind of questions to ask.
So that night when I went home, I just sat down and tried to think of easy questions to ask. Again, I still couldn’t think of any. So the next morning I went to my teacher again, and this time she told me to some questions to ask, for example she told me to ask them simple questions like what is your favorite color or what do you like to do in your free time and stuff along those lines. When I was sitting in class, I actually started to write. It was a very exciting day for me because I finally got over the writing block mountain.
I finally finished my letter a few days later and I sent it to my pen pal. So the next few days of class I waited there patiently and anxiously. I was anxious because I was worried if what I wrote was ok or not. I would sit there and think that maybe I asked to may questions or maybe I asked to little, was I overdoing it. I was just over thinking it to much.
One day as I walked into class, I saw that we all had letters on our desks. Immediately I got nervous. I sat down at my desk and nervously opened the letter. I read the letter quietly to myself and to my surprise my pen pal really enjoyed my letter. That put the biggest smile on my face knowing that I didn’t mess this up. I really enjoyed reading his letter and I couldn’t wait to get to write him another one. The next letter I wrote to him was a lot easier. I would ask him stuff like what is his favorite book that he has read, what is your favorite video game, what do you like doing on the weekends. Eventually, I would write him a letter every week. It became a very enjoyable activity for me to do.
Once the assignment was coming to an end, my teacher gave us the choice of stopping the letters or to keep writing them in your own time. I decided to keep writing letters to my pen pal. After a few letters I got to know him really well and we eventually became really close friends. I would always look forward to get a letter from him and he was the same way. I kept writing him letters throughout the summer and still every time I received a letter I got really excited.
Once my time to leave for college rolled around, I had to tell him that I would have to stop writing him letters for a while. He was very upset by this idea, but with me going to Virginia Military Institute, it would be hard for me to find the time to write him letters. The last letter I sent him was a very sad letter because I still wanted to write him letters but I wouldn’t have the time. He sent me a letter back wishing me luck in college and he also said goodbye. I was really upset that I wouldn’t be able to write him letters but knowing that I will be able to write him letter over the summer again makes me excited. I hope to send him many letters next year and begin from where we left off.