This week, let's hear it for Zsuzsanna from Costa Rica, a wonderful person that I met on Twitter! :)
1. Please tell us about you!
Me, me, me, me! ^_^ That's actually one of my favorite topics, which is why I write blogs and journals. But then, when it comes to write or talk about me I freeze. Does that happen to everybody? My first reaction usually is to describe myself as you'd describe a suspect to a cop: female, 132 pounds, 5'4, long dark hair... But that's not the point of this, right? So let me see how can I start.
My boyfriend and I in Krakkow... not like you can see the city... 
A moment captured in a picture. We were the best of friends for 24 hours, then disappeared forever. 
This is the king of my heart, my cat Hyperion. And that's what he does: he looks good. Period. 2. Describe your personality in 10 words!
The dreaded 10 words. Well, lemme see...Crazy - Wicked: This is the word that has been used the most to describe me. I don't mind it much, because it works also as a shield that lets me go my own way. I like finding my own path in life, and that has earned me the title. Be unconventional, seek for different solutions... this is called "crazy" and if it is so, I don't want to be sane.Organized - Control Freak: I love to plan things in advance. Sure, love a bit of freedom and random here and there, but I plan out the most important things. This is how I plan a trip through a whole year, even if I'll do the exact same trip the next year. Haven't gotten as far as to use Microsoft project to plan my vacations, but I'm close. Really. I don't have agendas or filofaxes anymore, but I run around with a PDA and keep two calendars in the computer (one home, one at the office) and generally work with five calendars. Why? Well, one is a Rugby calendar, so that has its own function, but other than that, it's basically so I constantly have present what I have to do. As part of this "organizing rush", I use loads and loads of post-its and markers.
So, when I said I was "organized", it was more like "I'm addicted to Post-its". 
My favorite mug and my favorite beverage.
Person - Human (opposed to woman or girlfriend and other labels): I don't like being regarded as a "woman" or a "girlfriend" or a "girl". I'm a person. Regardless of my age, my gender, my race, my religion, I'm a person, and this is something I fight a lot for.
A peaceful lunch at the park. 3. How long have you been penpalling? How did you first start? Tell us about your first penpal!
Ever since I was able to write. Well, no, first my brother and I dictated our letters to my grandparents and my aunt. You see, we are half Hungarian, half Costa Rican, and we live in Costa Rica, so we exchanged letters with my mom's family in Hungary. First I learned to write my name and then "lots of kisses" in Hungarian. I basically learned to read and write to pen pal!
Later on, in order to help me keep the language, my aunt and grandmother and grandfather found me pen pals, kids they knew through their acquaintances, and got them to write to me. I wrote thus, to some distant relatives and kids from the neighbourhood. My family's neighbourhood. Had then some penpals in Costa Rica, but those never kept up for long, except when I went to Hungary to study and my Costa Rican friends wrote to me (back in the pre-e-mail times). There I realized that Spanish, or many of my letters to my Costa Rican friends are different from those to anyone else because I tend to go funny. Quixote like.
A fun lunch at the office with the coworkers. Everybody brought something and we all ate! 4. How many penpals do you have now and where are they from?
Now? Oh, well... I'm starting up some penpal friends, so... I have no idea. For sure I have... Well, one for sure, my friend Gyula, in Hungary. We've been writing to each other since 1996. He was the best friend of my ex-fiancé. We weren't close before, though there was something that drawn me to him. If I must be honest, he bedazzled me. We wrote to each other the most beautiful letters ever, and through these letters we came to be so close, now we consider each other as brother and sister. So much his parents see me as another daughter and my parents love him like crazy.My penpals usually come and go, again, like beautiful shooting stars. I don't mind them leaving, life happens and people move, that's the natural way of life, but I keep their letters in a trunk next to my bed. I don't know how other people feel about it, but I like to re-read old letters, remember what it was like to receive them, answer them.5. What are your favorite topics to discuss in letters?
It depends on my penpals. I love to write about ideas, but the topic we delve into depends on what we settle on. Freedom, Independence, Love, Life, Beauty, Purity, Goodness and Evil... Nonsense, gossip, funny things, politics. Sex, also sex. Some people like to write about that too, and I don't mind it. I'm very open about the subject, and I find it so rewarding when my penpals share with me such intimate things, as long as it is not in a sleezy way. In general, I'm deeply touched and honored when someone opens and shares their thoughts, their ideas and lets me in their soul.
This is the essence of happiness: amazing beauty in random places nobody cares to look at. 6. What are you looking for in a penpal?
A unique way of saying things, a creative mind, a strong sense of self, a delicious personality and thought of their own. I don't like people who think that penpalling is either writing only about what they think and what happens to them, regardless of what you write back, or people who won't share about themselves as much as they expect you to share about yourself. A letter is a dialogue breaking the barriers of time, ignoring it, but a dialogue in the end. I don't think you have to necessarily pose questions, but when a topic is posed you should address it, expose your opinion and comment on the opinion of the other person... always in a respectful manner.I have met people, mostly through the e-mail, who were either interested only in what they had to say, so it made you feel like you were receiving a newsletter, where your reaction was meaningless, and also stalkers who sent you long lists of questions ignoring the times you told them you do not feel comfortable answering some of them, and sending them over and over, making you feel like you are a "cyberthing", not even a real human, and so they had the right to dissect you and pump out all the info they wanted. From a person, you were degraded to a "character".7. What do you like the most about penpalling?
The style in which you write. The flow of ideas and how people write in a manner so different from the way they talk. I love that sweet, human poetry that happens on the paper.8. In what language(s) do you correspond?
Hungarian mostly, but also English and Spanish.
My boyfriend and I in Wien this spring. 9. What are some of your habits in regards to letter writing?
I take a little bit of time, mostly because I tend to write a lot. I love to write on colored paper, but with no lines and usually no designs. I do have some stationary with thin ivy leave designs, but other than that I use plain paper, pink, red or green, though sometimes white as well. I write leaving no margins, so I can pretty much cram 32 to 36 lines into a letter sized page. I write only with black ink, and sometimes I draw here and there, and sometimes I feel like writing with a pencil rather than a pen. I'd love to write letters on black paper, but for long couldn't find the right pen for it, until recently I discovered that you can write on black paper with pencils. It looks so pretty!I don't do colorful writing and I certainly don't do stickers. Have friends who do so, but I feel so strange putting stickers on my letters, specially because I'd rather use that space with words or a doodle.
There's one thing I ALWAYS have to have with me: my journal and a pen. 10. Has anything strange/funny ever happened to you since you've been penpalling?
A friend of mine, whom I met in a summer camp, told me once that he used to laugh so hard reading my letters, that one day his brother snatched the letter from his hands and read it and soon the two of them were rolling on the floor reading, and so since then they read my letters together.The funny thing was that that happened with a letter where I wasn't actually trying to be funny... I was just being myself.Now, an interesting story is the way I met a friend of mine (with whom I have lost touch a while ago now...). When I returned to Costa Rica after being in Hungary for 2 years, I started writing and e-mailing to a cousin of my then fiancé. She used the nick "krixi". One day I sent her a mail and forgot the "r". To my surprise "kixi" answered me, and we became friends, and very good, loving friends for a long time.11. Have you met any of your penpals?
Well, I know most of my penpals, since I usually first know them and then start writing to them, but yes, I have met some of them, like Melcsi. You know, the first time we met, I went to the village in Hungary were she lived, and I stayed at her home, with her parents, up to that moment, two strangers. They received me with such deep and warm love I was overwhelmed. I can't forget since then how that first night, she from her bed, and I from her sister's, in the dark, she whispered: "I'm so happy you are here". Penpals do grow close and tight, and defy the idea so many people have, that nothing real and strong could grow through the distance.
Our window and our first plant. None of us knew what the name of the plant was. 12. Are you currently looking for more penpals?
As a matter of fact I do. But snail mail only! Sure, I end up e-mailing here and there, but I love snail mail better because it kind of gives you more chances, more time to work your ideas, wrap them in envelopes and send them with love. The instant delivery of e-mails takes so much time and care from words!Thank you for such an inspiring interview, Zsuzsanna!
I'm looking for 2 people who would like to be featured on my blog as Penpal of the Week in November, so if you're interested, please let me know!
Julie xox
