checking my mailbox address book, hmm... 212 contacts. not bad, yesterday i'd spent almost 2 hrs writing email for every individual in my address book. reason? none..... well, yeah there could be one reason: to see how many replies i got. so far i got 20... in 24hrs' time i got 10% reply, so should i expect 100% reply in the next ten days? nah, that's just too optimistic of me. but... i don't know what to say. back in uk, i remembered that i bought dozens of greeting cards, wrote different greetings to different friends that i know back in malaysia, and other countries (wherever they are), you may say i am stupid or i may have too much time. no, i cherish every friendship. i cherish everyone that i came across with. even though it cost some pounds and dollars, effort and time, but it's worth it. i wanna let them know that i still remember them. it's strange when you are sometimes finding yourself so free when you in fact are not, spending some ridiculous hours in the middle of the night just to write that special message to someone you suddenly think of, well you don't necessarily want them to do the same to you, but at least give you a sign, an indication that they've got the message. but no... it's sad.... have you ever encountered in some ways that you would try to make one happy not hoping for a return, as in not doing the same thing to make you happy? yeah, i do that all the time. call me stupid, call me a donkey or whatever, there's always something out there worth doing for. and it's this thing - friendship. it's a big big world, i don't want to boast, but i have almost a few hundred friends out there, but everyone's busy studying, working. who has the time for a message or two? even checking mails is a sacrifice of sleeping time for a few of my friends. yes, i do agree. seeing those forwarded mails i have no idea what to do with them sometimes. if you send me a chain letter, i'd delete it for sure. if you send me a mail with loads of bears and meaningless horoscope craps, i don't know but normally i'd delete them too... forgive me, i would love to write personal emails rather than forwarding these. think of the reality behind this. u are using up more bandwidths in forwarding jpg files than writing emails. so why not sit down for a minute and write an email to that someone whom u consider a friend? 200 contacts in an address book isn't many. in fact i could have written more emails as i have not finished adding all the emails. ...11.28pm in Christchurch now. reply?