The last time I was at home, I grabbed a lot of my old "memory box" stuff. I'm amazed at how much stuff from that time I've simply forgotten - for about three years during Middle/High School I had a pen-pal in Japan. Looking back over the few of them that were saved, I find origami she made for me, talk of the Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo rail, various ideas about culture, and talk of tiredness with studying, all in perfect (but overly proper) English. Some of the letters are on some strange kinds of paper I can't identify, others on rice paper and plastics. As far as I can tell, her name is either Yumi Nimura or Yumi Nimusa (the cursive writing is very neat, but her writing was very tiny), and she lived in Nakano-ku, Tokyo.

Also found: a paper journal in several notebooks starting in 1986 and spanning a few years (entries every few days).

Recent developments in Palestine and Lebanon continue to be really disappointing, even as it looks like Sri Lanka might be moving towards some sort of resolution...