Penpal of the Week #30

Please welcome our Penpal of the Week this time: Fabi from Germany.

1. Please tell us about you!

First I want to wish all the readers a Happy New Year. I am the first Penpal of the Week in 2010 and it feels good.

My name is Fabienne, but please be so nice and tell me Fabi. No one here calls me Fabienne, so why should you do? I feel unhappy when someone says Fabienne.

I am 22 years old and was born on the 19th November 1987. I am a Scorpio.

My hair and my eyes are brown. But my eyes can be green as well, it depends on my mood. Right now they are brown, as I feel really good.

I love that picture, as I wear my favourite gothic dress on it,
even if you don't see it - sorry.

Soon I will finally start a therapy because of my depressions, which makes me so happy, that I forgot why I need it, but I remember well the bad days in my life. So I want to quit feeling depressed and I want to learn how to fight against it. After that I will search for a good job and maybe start a new school career. My life until now was not so easy and I had a lot of problems which has as the result that I don't work at the moment and never really did. But now I want to change that and do something good for my future. I would like to study one day and become a teacher for handicapped kids, but we will see what will happen in the next years.

I am addicted to a lot of things, for example postcards, Twilight, letter paper, writing, my laptop and chocolate. I really love that all. My postcard collection has more than 2000 postcards inside and I am still really active at postcrossing. My profile there is Fabi. Visit my page to see what I like.

Twilight is my addiction since February 2009. I heard of it before but never read it and then I got a voucher from an online book shop and finally bought it. 2 nights and I have read all the books and started from the beginning. I am still addicted to it and I would do anything for meeting Robert Pattinson. I just want to see him in front of me one time and maybe get a picture with him.

I am addicted to Snooker as well. I love Snooker since 2004 and I really enjoy watching Matthew Stevens or Neil Robertson. I met them twice and they are really cool and nice guys. I hope I can meet them again this year.

Getting a kiss from my fave snooker player Matthew Stevens!

I have a big fantasy and one of my hobbies is writing stories. Since some weeks I got back to Fanfictions and started to write 2 Twilight fanfics and one Robert Pattinson fanfic. I am not so good in English, so I wrote in German.

You can find me on Facebook.
(Please write me where you know me from when you send a friend request.)

And Interpals.
Feel free to write me.


2. Describe your personality in 10 words!

10 words? That is not so easy, but I will try.

Crazy – I asked a lot of my friends for describing me and all of them said crazy. It is not in a negative way. I am just myself and if I feel like dancing, I dance and if I feel like singing, I just sing. So I am just myself and they call it crazy. But if you ask me: Yeah, I am crazy. My mind is crazy and everything on me. But in a good way, not a psycho way.

Having fun in de Efteling in the Netherlands.

Trustworthy – If I tell you that I will be there, I will be there. If my friends need me, I am there for them and if you want me to keep a secret, no one will get to know it from me. I am trustworthy and a lot of my friends like that part of me. For me it is just normal. I don't want my friends to tell all my secrets to other people, so I don't do it as well.

Smiling – If you see me and I am in a normal mood, I will smile. I am always smiling, when I don't have depressions, but even in my depressions I am smiling on the outside. My grandma once said that she never knew what is in my head, as I was always smiling. So, I am a sunshine.

Talkative – Oh my God, never talk to me if you can't stand listening for hours. I once talked with a friend for 16 hours at the phone. We even had to change the batteries of our phones because our call was not over. I still could do that, but no one calls me. So if you like to talk, feel free to write me. You will see - I am really talkative.

Jealous – I am not jealous of my pen pals or so. But when my boyfriend talks with another girl I can get a crisis. It is really a problem, but I want to show some of my bad things as well. Being jealous is something I was always. Maybe it will change one day.

My boyfriend Torsten and me.

Childish AND serious – I have to put this in one point, as you shouldn't think that I am just childish. I can be childish in the right situation and I can be serious as well. But normally I am childish. So if you want someone who is always open to a joke or one who likes to talk about deeper themes, write me. I am open for both.

Open Minded – My friend Rox said to me: If there is one thing that I know about you, is that you are open minded and that for sure. And I think this is true. I have all kinds of friends and I don't judge them. I have a transsexual friend, a gay friend and a lot of other different friends who are not "normal". But I accept them like they are. So if you are handicapped, gay, transsexual or something not "normal" you can write me as well. I don't mind – I like to write and talk with not normal people as I count myself to the not normal ones as well.

Emotional – I can cry because of Bambi and I do cry because of sad music. I love to cry sometimes but most of the time it is not wanted. I mean, who likes to cry? I am really emotional and I always try to figure out how my pen pals felt in different situations. So if you want to talk about your feelings with me, I love that.

Good listener – I am always there for my friends. If they have a problem they can call me at night, at day and whenever they feel like to do it. I try to help as much as possible and even if it means just listening - I am there. I never leave my friends alone when they need help.

And a last one: Helpful – when I see someone whose bag fell down, I always help to get it up again and such stuff. Wherever I go, I help as much as I can. Even when I travelled, I helped the other travellers with their baggage and such stuff.

Sabrina, my helpful hand at the youth centre,
and me at work (youth centre).

3. How long have you been penpalling? How did you first start? Tell us about your first penpal!

I have been penpalling since I was 10, which means 12 years now, which means I started in 1998. My first pen pal and me met in holidays on a farm. We wanted to stay in contact and as I loved writing, we started to write. I still have contact with her online and I still write sometimes with her. My other longest pen pal and me are writing for 7 years now. I really love that. My first pen pal is called Nicole. She is living 2 hours from my home and we met 3 times after starting to write. It was so cool and we had a lot of fun together.


4. How many penpals do you have now and where are they from?

This is a good question. I guess I have around 15 regular pen pals and 10 or more unregular pen pals. I have pen pals from all over the world. My longest one is from Germany, but others are from South Korea, Spain, Netherlands, England, Sweden, USA, Australia, New Zealand and so much other countries. I don't mind where they are from, so I have pen pals from nearly everywhere.

I love to learn different kinds of writing. Like Korean letters or Chinese letters. I can write my name in Korean and I can write Germany in Chinese. I love that. And I love to learn different languages just by letters. Simple sentences or so. It is cool to learn from letters.

I learnt a lot about the countries cultures by letters and once I had to talk in front of my old class about South Korea, so I asked my pen pal from there for help and she helped me a lot. I had the best speech and all the others were so jealous. Since that day I know that you can learn from pen pal friendships.

Shinea and me - Shinea is a pen pal and visited me over Christmas 2009.

5. What are your favorite topics to discuss in letters?

Everything. You can discuss with me about feelings, your jobs, travelling and all the other stuff you want to tell me. But maybe my favourite topic are feelings. As I love to hear the feelings of my friends. But I have to say that the cultural exchange is cool as well. So maybe culture is a big topic in my letters as well?! Who knows, just try!


6. What are you looking for in a penpal?

He/She should be nice, open minded, a little bit crazy and special. I don't want a perfect pen pal and you can't tell me that there are perfect people. My pen pal should have personality and an own mind. I don't want a friend who is talking the same like me or behind my back and such stuff.


7. What do you like the most about penpalling?

I love to open the mailbox and find something that travelled around the world and finally found the way to me. I mean, I have pen pals in my own town as well, so I don't want my letters to travel far. But the feeling that someone had it in his/her hands before bringing it to you is so cool. I love when I see that my pen pals thought of me and really answered my letters and not copy and paste the same letter to everyone.

To know that you have friends everywhere around the world is something I don't want to miss. Sometimes I hear a town in the TV and then I am like: Oh, there is xyx my pen pal living. And then it becomes more interesting for me.


8. In what language(s) do you correspond?

English and German, not more, sorry. But maybe one day. We will see...

I love making pictures and work on them with Photoshop.

9. What are some of your habits in regards to letter writing?

I like to write my letters in bed. I always take them with me and write while others are normally sleeping. The night is my writing time and I love to sit on my bed with a cocoa and my letter. I need some time for responding at the moment, because of some time problems, but it will be better again, soon. I hope. I usually write back in a month and when it is okay again it will take me around 2 or 3 weeks for responding.

I always use letter paper, even when I write with my computer. Sometimes I do that, because of my hand. It is hurting sometimes, so I can't write with my hand then. And when I am in the mood for writing I am writing at computer then.


10. Has anything strange/funny ever happened to you since you've been penpalling?

I got a voucher from Africa for a camel, if I will marry him. So you see, really strange.

And my other African pen pal wrote first that he is a girl and suddenly his name turned into George and he was soooo in love with me... Oh my God. Thanks for that.


11. Have you met any of your penpals?

I met a lot of my pen pals. My last meeting was for Christmas. My South Korean pen pal Sinae was here. We spent 5 wonderful days and I hope to meet her soon again.

Then there is Roxy which I met 6 times (I guess) this year. She is one of my fave girls and I love meeting her. Our next meeting will be in January already.

Then I met a lot of my other pen pals: Alke (2 times), Carolien (3 times), Marjolein (1 time), Sasha (1 time) and so on.

Me and my pen pal Roxy at our meeting in Burgers Zoo, 2009.

12. Are you currently looking for more penpals?

If you think we fit together and you want to write with me, feel free to contact me on Interpals or Facebook. I will think of it then. I am not really searching, but if someone nice finds me, I normally not say no.


Thank you, Fabi!

If anyone would like to be featured on my blog as Penpal of the Week, just reply to this post with your email address.

Julie xox