Friday, November 14, 2008

Holiday Card Making

5 years ago, when I lived in rural Japan and taught English to hormonal high school freshmen, I had them write letters in English to their future 20 year old selves. I promised that I would keep the letters for five years, then mail it back to them at their coming of age day, which is a Japanese national holiday in January for all those turning 20 years old for that particular year. Fast forward 5 years later, to 2008: I have the letters stashed in my parent's home in Ohio, and this year is the year that the kids (now adults) get their letters back. When I did the project with them, I never really thought through the mechanics of doing this 5 years later. While I have the letters and can easily send them via air mail, I thought it would be nice to send each person a personalized greeting card because I am sure that most of my students have long forgotten that this letter exists! Some ideas for greeting cards I have are: 1) using SnapFish to insert photos and a personalized message to make lots of cards easily and cheaply, or 2) acquiring these cool stamps from yellow owl workshop to make unique greeting cards using card stock. The former is more practical, but the latter appeals to my crafty side - I haven't decided what I am going to do, given limited time and resources. But card making aside, I think it would be fun to reconnect with that part of my life again - I am curious to see how my students fared during the past 5 years... We'll see what happens.
Note: The picture for this posting was taken by one of my students in my English conversation classes. This bridge was one of two bridges that connected Kiyosato/Hokuto to the rest of civilization!

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