Friday Five:
Man, my answers are depressing this week.

1. Would you say that you’re good at keeping in touch with people?
No. I suck at it. You’d think living so far away I’d have learned the importance, but sadly no. I talk to my immediate family pretty regularly, but as for my friends, I’m the worst pen pal in the world. I don’t talk to anybody from high school on a regular basis, and there are only a few college buddies that I keep up with. It’s just hard.

2. Which communication method do you usually prefer/use: e-mail, telephone, snail mail, blog comments, or meeting in person? Why?
Phone with the fam, because I miss hearing their voices. With everybody else, internet communication is the method of choice. (Of course, I’d go for “in person” if I could, but at $1600 a plane ticket, that’s an expensive option.)

3. Do you have an instant messenger program? How many? Why/why not? How often do you use it?
Yep. I started out on Yahoo Messenger many years ago but quickly switched to AIM when I figured out that’s where most of my friends were. Now thanks to iChat and our ADSL connection, I’m logged in 24 hours a day. The time difference to the States makes it difficult, but I occasionally catch folks on there.

4. Do most of your close friends live nearby or far away?
Do I need to answer this? Far, far away.

5. Are you an “out of sight, out of mind” person, or do you believe that “distance makes the heart grow fonder”?
A little bit of both. When you live this far from everybody, you necessarily have to try to put them out of mind or you’d just be homesick all the time. I still get my moments, though, when I realize how much I’ve missed out on and how much I miss certain people.