When opening the letter box: Reasons to write letters

Some time ago I wrote about my small collection of typewriters (here), and the fact is that the machines themselves have made me began to write more letters to friends, a hobby that I’m particularly enjoying lately. I don’t know if it’s part of this new trend of liking things of the past –hats, beards, spending less time online, etc.– but I find myself constantly seeing people on social networks writing on paper, either on journals, planners and, of course, writing letters to pen pals, and it’s making me be part of the trend.

I have always loved to send cards in Christmas and birthdays, or postcards when I am on holidays, and I have also received this discontinuous mail from other people, especially from my friends of my University years and the book bloggers I’ve got to know from all over my country, and now from abroad as well. It has slowly turned now into a habit: I write letters often, and the big difference is that I expect – and I usually get – a response from my correspondents. I love it!

So here I am, talking to the hidden correspondent you have inside, encouraging him to take a piece of paper and tell a friend how was your day, or just picking a card to say you were thinking of them.

Five reasons to write more letters

1. Letters make the person who receives them happy. Imagine: you are waking up today and, in another part of the world (why not?), someone’s day has been brightened thanks to you. And you don’t even have to write an eight-page letter; it’s fine if you begin by sending a greeting card or a postcard. Isn’t that awesome?

2. It is a way to disconnect. Not only do you have to write letters away from the computer or TV, disconnecting from the online world, but it also makes you stay away of the daily routine and stress as well.

The act of writing a letter requires calm and concentration, so you mentally spare a length of time in your schedule to devote to writing, thinking about the recipient and what you want to tell them. It is so intimate that I also like to light a candle and maybe listen to music while writing; I usually write my letters on Sunday evenings as a way to relax before starting the next week.

3. It improves your language skills. This is very different from writing an email because you have to actually think what you want to say before writing it down, or you’ll have to cross out half of your letter (no no no!).

My best friend confessed that she first writes a draft and then the real letter, to make sure she doesn’t make mistakes; that’s how elusive our self-confidence has become! Here is where I see the real value of sitting down, thinking about what you want to say and how, saying it in your head, and finally writing it on paper: it is a process that requires effort, like some kind of training and, with time, words began to flow in your head and it becomes easier.

If you think about it, as adults we only write things down on paper and without drafts when we take exams of some sort, if we take them, so our brains have lost some of their languages abilities since school/university, and it’s up to us bring them back again.

Needless to say, when you write letters in another language your language skills improve as well and, believe me, this sometimes is kind of a painful process, but totally worth it!

4. It is a creative activity. The act of writing itself is creative, but the culture around letter writing has evolved profoundly, as I have the opportunity of see every day on social networks.

• There are people who put special effort in choosing their stationery and use their best calligraphy in order to write long letters that are a joy to behold (like Lizzelle’s letters).
• Other people have transferred the art of scrapbooking to their letters, creating a totally new concept of mail: they don’t send letters, but create cards, books and other paper inventions to put together with their letters. Take a glimpse of this video (among thousands).
• Finally, decorating envelopes has become a mandatory task in order to send cute mail, and there is also a wide range of examples, so to pick just one, look at this.

I am a newbie in this burst of creativity around the letter writing community, so what I try to do is copy the masters, try this washi-tape or that calligraphy, see if a typed letter looks good in this kind of paper, etc. I’m not any good, but I enjoy trying! (you can see some of my attempts on my Instagram)

5. It helps you to let go of the addiction to immediacy, because there is no room for rush when it comes to write a letter. There are unwritten rules about the maximum amount of time to wait for a reply to an email, whatsapp, tweet, etc., and in none of them is acceptable to delay your response more than a few hours.

That doesn’t work with letters. There are simply no rules: for a start, you don’t even know when your recipient receives the letter and, second, you don’t expect them to leave whatever they are doing and write you back right after reading it. Letters take time, time to reach their destinations and time to be created; and you want for your correspondent to find a serene moment to sit down, think about you, and devote herself to communicate with you. Because this, my dear, is the beauty and comfort of correspondence: when two people who are far away keep their appreciation for each other alive in the distance and time.

*****

So tell me, do you write letters? If not, do you feel more inspired to do so now?

Sweetness

I have no books to review, so let me tell you what happened today…

I attend to an activity for adults where, recently, a girl with Down syndrome is attending too. I guess her mother couldn’t schedule another hour for her, because she is very young (about 13 years old) and should be in school. Anyway, she is now in class with us – me and other women above 50 years old – but we hardly see her because the instructors make her do different exercises than what we do, so we only see each other at the beginning and the end of the class.

Thanks to my job, I have been in contact with other boys and girls with Down syndrome and I see everybody talks to them as if they are little kids, but that’s difficult to me because I have what I think is a disability to interact with children: I never know what to say, and I certainly can’t speak with that “voice” people use to talk to them, so I end up speaking in my normal tone and I simply ask questions in order to find something in common.

Anyway, everybody in the class seems to talk to this girl like she is a little kid as well, trying to tease her a little (in the good way), and I just smile to her, say hello and talk very little about what I would say to whoever else. She is not very talkative and, as I told you, we don’t see her very much.

But today, as we were arranging our stuff to go home (she is the fastest of all), she came to where I was and said me goodbye. She said, “Isa, goodbye.” Only to me. She even made my name hers, since people there call me Isabel. This girl made me feel so special and appreciated that lightened my day, and I thought that perhaps you would like to hear this little story.

It’s so simple to touch another heart…

How to survive a sleepless night

Last night I couldn’t sleep, and here we are.

I don’t consider myself a particularly stressed person, but from time to time I find myself concerned about everyday issues (exams, for instance) that prevent me for getting enough sleep. And, according to the last book I have read, I think I must  have the brain of a teenager because I need my 7-8 hours of sleep every night to be a functional person.

I have recently read a couple of articles on what to do when you have trouble sleeping (not about sleeping disorders, which should be treated by a doctor), and I’m not going to talk about sleeping habits, but about how to fight insomnia in situ: the night in question and the day after, having tried all the methods myself over the past weeks  😉

Source

The night in question

Let’s start at the beginning: it’s 3 am and you are staring at the ceiling from your bed, thinking about the ton of things you have to do tomorrow.

a) First of all, get out of bed. To me, there’s nothing more counterproductive that trying to sleep when you are awake – I just can’t do it.

b) Make a cup of tile and/or valerian. According to my own experience, this isn’t likely to help until it’s five minutes to get up – that’s the moment when the tile really kicks in, hard. So, why do I still try it? Simply because it gives me hope it will work, if only this time…

c) Then take your cup of hope and do something productive. Keep in mind that the next day you’ll accomplish fewer things than scheduled, so try to get ahead of it tonight. Besides, there is nothing else to do at this hour, and you should know that watching TV or surfing the internet will make you feel guilty in the morning, so get stuff done.

I either study or organize papers. In those sleepless nights is when I realized studying taxes doesn’t always have the effect of a sleeping pill…  This should be a new field of research.

I have never tried to clean, even though I have considered it many times, but I’m confused: I don’t know if cleaning, considered as a soft exercise, might activate your brain even more, making it totally impossible to fall asleep again that night or, on the contrary, it might leave you exhausted and ready for bed. If you have tried it, I’m willing to hear about it.

d) When you begin to feel sleepy, leave whatever you are doing and go to bed. Apparently, we have sleeping circles, and once one of them arrives, the next won’t come until an hour and a half later, so don’t play with fire.

 

The morning after

Today will be all about willpower, believe me.

a) I’m sure you have reset your alarm for a later hour to skip all the healthy morning routines you wanted to do. Getting more sleep, if possible, is a great thing, but I would never-ever skip my breakfast. In fact, I wouldn’t even bother getting up if I’m not going to drink my chocolate milk and eat a toast with butter and jam. Fig jam. Oh God.  😀

b) The last day I suffered from sleep deprivation I did something remarkable I want to share: I woke up and exercised a little bit. I know, I KNOW. Those who do exercise regularly already know that a workout makes the difference between a great morning and a morning in which you just go through, but the effect when you haven’t sleep properly is multiplied by 100. I mean, you won’t do The Workout because this is not the day for that, but I’m talking about no more than 20-30 minutes in order to activate your brain a little. Trust me.

c) Drink as much coffee as you need before 5 pm. We need to get going but we don’t want to be awake when it’s finally time to go to bed.

d) Don’t wear sunglasses. I read this tip in an article talking about how to survive if you partied all night and you have to work the next day, but it applies here too for the same reason: your brain gets activated by the light caught by the eye, so we want all that brightness. It is going to hurt, but it’s necessary.

e) Then, rearrange your tasks in order to do the things that require concentration and/or quietness first. You might feel almost dying, but these first hours of the morning are in fact your best of this particular day, so be ready. If possible, leave errands for later in the day, when you’ll be really tired – you’ll shake off sleepiness by going here and there and it won’t require concentration.

f) When you get home (in my case is for lunch, because in Spain we have lunch very late), don’t nap. I repeat: DON’T NAP. In my own experience, this is the hardest part, but I know I can’t nap for a few minutes – when I haven’t rest well at night it’s impossible for me to wake up from a nap until a couple of hours later and, therefore, that night I’ll go to bed late and the circle of insomnia will continue forever. We don’t want that to happen, so it’s better if you just go for a short walk (remember: without sunglasses!).

g) At around 6 pm you’ll experience a burst of energy. Take advantage of it to do whatever requires your concentration, but keep in mind it won’t last more than 1-2 hours.

h) And finally, go-to-bed. Can there be anything more pleasant? When you began feeling sleepy in the evening, don’t fight it, just embrace your bed early, get advantage of that sleeping circle that just came to you from the heavens, and get the rest you deserve. After all, you survived!

*****

Do you have any survival tips for these occassions? Please, share them!

My umpteenth problem with English: syllabification

I am aware that this post is not about books, but a few days ago I was so annoyed with this issue that I was about to scream it out loud in the middle of the street, until I remembered that a) I wouldn’t like to live in a psychiatric hospital, and b) I have a blog! I can complain here if I need to, right?
If you are reading this, I hope you don’t mind.

Source

Even though learning a new language is a rewarding activity, sometimes one just reach a point in which she can’t take in any more. I didn’t think I knew it all already, far from it, but I liked to tell myself that what was left were little things I could easily absorb by reading and listening to books and films; a new word here, a new expression there… Until I realized I had an unbeatable enemy: syllabification.

I had never come across syllabification while studying English, but I can’t blame my teachers: first, because they had it hard enough trying to make English sound acceptable in our disabled tongues to even think about introducing us to this whole new nightmare, and second, because they really couldn’t have imagined that someday this would be an issue in our future lives – They were almost right.

I first noticed about syllables while reading books in English. From time to time I would see a word broken in two lines that caught my attention for the simplest reason: I couldn’t figure out why it was broken in that particular way that made no sense to me. Then I would find other words in the same awkward fashion until I finally came up with the only possible conclusion: in English you divide the words into syllables at random.

(They should have called me for assistance when they made the rules for written English, don’t you think?)

I had easily avoided syllables in my writings by writing the last word of a line tinier than the rest if I was writing by hand, or by writing my assignments on the computer – the easiest way. But what do you do when you are writing with a typewriter? (I know: this is not a question you are asked every day). I thought the right answer was to follow the my rule: separate the letters at random! I still can’t understand what went wrong…

I was writing a letter with my new Hermes baby and I wanted to make sure my correspondent wasn’t going to think I am stupid, so I asked my friend Jennine to see if there were any rules for this. She, apart from being an angel, suggested two tips:

1) Clap your hands while you say the word out loud. Great, this was going to be easy, indeed! Let’s try it:

2) Check the word with a dictionary.

*epic fail* 😥

Alright, this was also my second option and, for the moment, my only way to know the syllables in a word. Jennine says that, eventually, I’ll start to recognize patterns, and I really want to believe her, but this seems like a whole new business to me.

Due to English pronunciation, which is so different from the Spanish rules on the matter, I just can’t figure out what the syllables are in the words. For example, I know that you pronounce “gaged” like a single sound in the word “engaged”, but in Spanish a single syllable is often composed only of a consonant followed by a vowel, so my brain needs to think I can separate “ga–ged”. Another option just seems too wrong!

As I result, I use my typewriters with the computer beside me, dictionary.com open in the screen. It’s funny, I know, but for now is the only way I have not to make mistakes in my writings. I guess that the goal is not to give up!

**********

Do you also find new problems with your second language almost every day, or it’s only me?

PS: for those English native speakers who are studying Spanish, I want to tell you something: you deserve all our verb tenses!

#ReadersWorkouts: summary of 2015 and goals for the new year

I follow this section on Joy’s blog even though I don’t write a weekly post about exercising, but I feel like it now that the new year has just started.

2015

In 2015 I’ve been using my Polar watch (Polar V800), and I’m in love with it. It has everything I need (GPS, water resistant, etc.) and much more. I wear it 24/7 because it even tells me the quality of my sleep, but what motivates me more is seeing on the web the monthly agenda and statistics.

The last month on the web that Polar provides has been like this:

I’ve been exercising 4-5 days per week, mainly swimming and running, but I also do some strength and walking sessions from time to time.

The blue lines with the percentage are the “daily activity”: the watch knows when you are standing, walking or sitting and everything counts for the activity at the end of the day, not just the workouts. I’m tutoring a girl whose house is 4 kilometers far away from mine, and the days I haven’t exercised or I’ve made a low activity, I leave the car at home and go to her house by walking.

I’m also very happy because running has finally become a routine, and two months ago I even ran my first 10K race 🙂

The hardest thing when running has been the timetable: I like to exercise in the morning, but in winter it’s very dark outside until 8.15 am – at that hour it’s too late for me to go for a run and get to the office on time, and before that hour I can’t go to the park because it’s dark and I’m scared to be alone. So I began running through the city instead of in the park, and it turned out to be a great idea: I see the path, I’m not scared to death because there are always people in the street, and I can go as early as I want. So I’ll be a city runner until summer comes again!

2016

This year I want to continue exercising 5 times per week, at least for the first three months of the year. Then, I want to increase the amount, either more minutes when running, or more workouts; we’ll see.

I also want to achieve the 100% of the daily activity daily – It’s hard on weekends because I sometimes don’t leave home, but I have to try. It’s for my own good!

I have other two 10K races in mind this year, one in Spring and the other in Autumn and, in general, I want to keep on feeling healthy, active and full of energy.

Let’s go!

Anyone out there with exercising goals for 2016?

Happy New Year

What I’m reading – mid-August

Tags

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Cary Elwes, Sarah Sundin

I hate summers, but this one is being remarkable tough in so many ways. The main issue has been my father, who had a scheduled – but serious – heart surgery last Wednesday. My family and I have spent long hours there in hospital with him, and I don’t know what’s wrong about the place, but it leaves you exhausted. Luckily, he is the best of patients, and has been following all the prescriptions and doing all the exercises the nurses and doctors command, and he is at home now, with a long way ahead to make a full recovery, though.

I have begun a couple of books these days, which is not a reading habit that I have, but I suddenly found myself in the hospital, the day of my father’s surgery, with nothing to read and long hours ahead in the waiting room, so I started the last novel of Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Hombres Buenos, still not available in English), which my father had just finished the night before, already hospitalized. It starts well and it’s set in the nineteenth century, a time that I know quite well due to the Law text books that I have to study, and also thanks to some historical fiction novels that I have enjoyed in the past.

Besides, I started a book that I purchased at the beginning of the year: As you wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, by the actor Cary Elwes, which is a delight. If you love The princess bride (the film and the book), not reading it would be inconceivable 😉 My father is also a fan of the film, so these last days I’ve been telling him anecdotes that I’ve read on the book and we had had a lot of fun.

With all the drives up and down the hospital, I have been disconnected from the blogging world and I forgot that I had organized a joint reading with my Spanish fellows! You know that I run a reading challenge for people to read in English, and I organize activities from time to time. We are reading With every letter, by Sarah Sundin, and it is still free on Amazon, if you want to join us. We are commenting the book on twitter with the hastag #WithEveryLetter.

And that’s all for now. I took this afternoon off, and hopefully I will come back to my daily routines tomorrow.

Hope you have a nice week!

The day I purchased a typewriter

Everything started with this Olivetti M40 of my grandfather

It’s hard to believe, but that day was actually last Wednesday, instead of being several decades ago. I was dusting an old typewriter I have in my office, which belonged to my grandfather and now is a mere decoration item – that I love so much – and I told my father how I wish it could work again. My father looked at me with an offended expression on his face and replied that the machine worked perfectly well, except for the new ribbon and all the cleaning it needed. So I shyly asked for ribbons in the office supplies shop I always go, and they actually had them!

Later that morning, I just watched the Olivetti working and I knew I needed my own, so that very afternoon I purchased one in a secondhand goods shop for 20€ and I happily started to write letters to my grandmother and a couple of friends. It’s not an ancient machine – I think that it could have been made in the late seventies – but it’s enough for me to cannot put my hands away from it. I have called it “Sophie”, for the pleasure of having my own typewriter with its own name. How exciting is to hear it coming to life!

My beauty queen, Sophie.
It’s an Olivetti Studio 46

The owner of the shop told me that recently a woman has purchased three small typewriters there because her children liked to write short stories with them, even though they have a computer, of course. So I suppose those children will be the last in the world to say that they wrote on a typewriter when they were young, and that makes me feel nostalgic.

I’m still wondering what I will use it for. For a start, it is perfect for writing letters and I have already sent some written with it. I receive letters from time to time, and these last days I have realized how lucky I am to have friends that surprise you in Christmas or summer holidays with a letter or a postcard, taking into account that it’s more messy, slow and expensive than just sending a text message or an email, but the effect on the correspondent is far more memorable, isn’t it? I’m really grateful to have people who care of me and spend a little of their time to make me smile from time to time.

I would also love to have a little bit of imagination in order to become a writer thanks to my darling Sophie, just as those children who write their own stories with theirs. If it wasn’t so disgusting, I would lit up a cigarette and fill the room with smoke while writing my masterpiece, like the old geniuses of literature. But it will have to be for another time.

So tell me, do you have a crush at the sight of old items that seem useless today, or it’s only me?

Do you also feel sentimental at the sound of a typewriter?

Readers’ workouts – The race at the end of the year

I want to share some thoughts about my workouts, thanks to Joy’s section, now that the year is coming to an end, because it has been a remarkable year for me regarding exercise.

I started to run in February. This sounds unbelievable, but I have worked for 9 years in a gym, teaching 15 hours per week of high impact activities, and I wasn’t able to run for more than 5 minutes. When I left the job I thought about running from time to time, but seeing that I ran for less than 10 and I had to go home because I couldn’t do more was very discouraging, and I never tried it seriously.

However, this year it was different. I really wanted to do it, no matter how down I feel at the beginning, so I followed a plan for beginners whose goal was to run for 40 minutes in 10 weeks. I did it at my own pace, so I repeated some of the workouts or I went some sessions back if I felt it was too hard to go for the next step, and I finally run 40 minutes for the first time in July.

I had a race in mind: it’s called here San Silvestre and takes place at the end of the year. In Spain every town organizes this race and it’s very amusing because some of the runners go in disguises and they had a lot of fun – I wanted to be part of it!

So this weekend I attended to my very first San Silvestre. I went with my boyfriend and a friend of his (the kind of guys who don’t need to train, they just go to a race and are able to run whatever the distance – I’m so jealous!) and we had a great time. There were runners disguised in nativity scences, Santas, even bananas! And two crazy men ran in their underwear, being the temperature 2ºC (I think that’s 35ºF). We ran 7K through the center of my hometown passing by most of the monuments, and there were people throughout the circuit cheering the runners. I ran faster than I normally do (which is slowly nevertheless) and I began feeling exhausted at the middle of the race, but somehow I managed to cross the finish line without stopping even once – I’m very proud of myself!

Here you can take a look at what I did.

My goal for 2015 is keep on exercising. Seeing you improve every day is really satisfying, and even though I’ll never win a race, I think this is about feeling good about yourself, which is exactly my case 😀

Hope you have a very Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas

I’m not writing much lately – my studies don’t let me – but I really wanted to pass by and wish you a Happy Christmas, if you are reading this.

Take care and enjoy the most special holidays of the year.