10 years ago, we'd email

not very long ago, an old friend reminded me of how we used to email each other. well, i AM a good corresponding buddy. i had my first penpal when i was like, 7. and my sister would write the letters for me, (well, my handwriting was awful - still is, as u can see). i love the excitement of receiving letters that has my name imprinted on the envelope. always have, always will. and yes i would run outside everytime the mailman arrived, i even know how his motorcycle sounds like.

my first email address was made by my cikgu kelas komputer, her name was mahesh. i was 9, the youngest in the class, (well, my parents can't find anyone to leave me with on weekends, so, they took me along with them to the computer literature class). so, she made me an email account, that contain some 123 in it, with my name, at citymail?? then when i was 11 i get my real email address, which i still use, up to this point. then i also have an email account from britney spears page, a hotmail account and gurlmail? yeah, something like that. 

when i was in taayah, i'll email my friends, mostly from mIRC, of course. well, obviously i made few good friends from mIRC whom i still keep in touch with up to the date. and then i changed to yahoo messenger. leaving the adventurous mIRC world. but the emailing persist. and then friendster comes along. but, email is still one of the major communication medium. i'd get my kakaktua.com (educational portal) subscription and emails from friends. and, i would still receive letters from my cousin. i also made few new friends on friendster and we end up exchanging exam questions as well.

after PMR, Sarah (my best friend)  went to SBP, so we'd call each other during holidays. but other than that, when we're at school we'd email each other stories on what happened in our life. and by 2005 i started blogging using friendster server. and the blog still exist =) but when i read my entries, i'd go "OMG, seriously, i WROTE this???" 

the emailing stopped when i came to Jordan. my inbox are filled with mostly updates from yahoogroups i joined. be it from the society, or the dof3a group. and messenger becomes more prominent in information spreading. even more prominent then cellphones!  the only personal email i'd get is when some files needed to be sent, and messenger is not working properly, then people will email it. sometimes i'd email my sister my latest pictures and stuff. or email my big brother my examination results. i remember how i used to get excited when i see the "you have 2 unread messages" . sadly, nowadays, when i see "you have 23 unread messages" i'd feel like deleting every one of it. but i still write letters and send pictures to my parents.

then somewhere in the late 2007, the ultimate ending to my emailing life appeared. facebook. 

those whom i used to correspond with, just stopped emailing. well, i've become a facebook addict too. no more personal emails. except for online purchase stuff. email is used for serious business only. other than that, people would rather send messages via facebook. 

nothing is ever personal on facebook. there's no need to email a friend about how's your life is going on, because she can definitely see your facebook status updates. and if she needs to see the latest you, she can go through the facebook album.you can have daily conversation with friends 4700 miles away from you. and out of 800 friends i have on facebook, perhaps 30% are people i have never even spoke to, either in real-life or even on facebook!

facebook has undeniably taken away every real substance of socializing. and the joy of emailing.

p.s : after all these have been written, i decided to move all my subscription to another account, so only personal and important email will go to my current main account. yeay. and hopefully i'll get excited again when i see "you have one unread message in your inbox".