Old Friend.... Renewed Friendship

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of coming across the e-mail address of a good friend from high school. Brent was the boy who lived down the street, sat across the aisle in some of my classes, and frequently trumped me at weekly spelling bees. I never minded too much, even though I was highly competitive when it came to academia.

He moved to a different school, studied abroad in Brazil, and disappeared from my town forever. I remember writing him one letter teasing him about learning to speak "Brazilian," knowing full well that such blatant ignorance would infuriate him; yet, he would not insult my intelligence by double checking whether I really knew that nuts are Brazilian, but the language is not. Anyway, he never replied to my letter, so I didn't write any more. Until just a few weeks ago...

Since our recent reacquaintance, Brent has honored me with two posts on his blog. (He's really too flattering!) (August 13, 2006 and June 25, 2006.) He deserves some recognition on my meager blog.

[CAVEAT: A list is coming up.]

In addition to catching up with life stories--sagas have been lived between us--our recent correspondence has induced me to add more things to my list of things to do sometime.

1. Travel to New Zealand - probably when I finally retire from teaching.
2. Plan to meet up somewhere in Europe soon ("soon" is kind of relative)
3. Start a blog (hence, this blog sooner rather than later)
4. Eat more healthily. Evidently Brent, among other talents, is a cordon bleu chef and an organic foods mavin. He even makes his own cheese!
5. Exercise my creative arts. He is actually an artist too, as witnessed by the book sculpture in Cincinnati, Ohio that he worked on as an intern while studying sculpture. Wow!
6. Check out "skype." This one stresses me out just a little--it's technology, and I'm several years behind on personal technology at home.