Writing Letters

Father Christmas was kind enough to buy me a Jan Constantine letter writing set this year. I absolutely love writing letters and it is most exciting thing to receive a letter in post. All of my friends are now at university and as I am only in the first year of my A Levels I have decided to keep in touch with some of them via 'snail mail.' I received my first letter from my friend Ellie this week, which not only made my day, my week, my month but even my year. Everyone at college finds it hilarious that I still write letters - heaven forbid - but nothing can ever come even close to the feeling of receiving a letter from the postman. It shows that someone cares enough to put time and effort in to keeping in contact with you. We can all send a text message, the majority of people have 'unlimited' text messaging so why should you feel special when they bother themselves to send you one? Nothing is more special than a letter and I can honestly say I would rather receive a letter once every fortnight than ten text messages every day.
I heard on the news this week that America were going to change their curriculum so children were no longer taught how to write. I think it's absolutely horrendous. Nothing gives me more pride than when I have taken my time to write out my work and it's been handwritten. Handwriting shows personality and individuality and to have this skill taken away from children in appalling and unforgivable. Many people take the fact they are able to write for granted, they would much rather be writing on Microsoft Word on their laptop or writing a reminder on their phone but where would we al be if we weren't able to write? And where does it end? At what point do we draw the line on relying on all of this newfound technology? I understand that this makes me a complete hypocrite; I'm currently writing this, from my brand new laptop, to a website instead of writing in to a diary or journal. My photographs are saved on a file on my computer and I have an awfully large amount of essays stored on my memory stick. What happens when this laptop, much like my last one, breaks and every single memory, every photo, every piece of college work is lost along with it? How many people honestly carry round a diary with them? My Filofax lives in my handbag, along with my Parker fountain pen and at least one spare ink cartridge, but there are so many people who I see take out their iPhone and set an alarm. It's a sorry state of affairs when people are so reliant on technology that they no longer need to write.
On a more positive note, here is my new stationary and the letter I have written :)