Ideas For Monster Joke Month

Monster Joke Month is nearly upon us and I thought I'd share some ideas on ways you can find a reason to send a post card or a letter if you aren't already a fan and user of snail mail! If you're new to the idea, check out this years announcement post HERE.

1. Sign up to IGGPPC - International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club is a place where geeks and snail mail collide! The community is super awesome and sign ups for pen pals this month are already open and will be till the end of the month. Also guys don't let the name fool you, there are plenty of male Iggles out there too!

2. Sign up to Postcrossing - You send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person in the world. This is super fun and I've used it a lot before and have received postcards from Russia, America and even China.

3. Tell a friend/family member you miss them - We all have that one friend or family member that we love but we just don't get to see as often as we'd like. Send them a card or a quick note, or heck even an 18 page (front and back) masterpiece just to say that you're thinking about them.

4. Send a letter through Post Pals - Regardless of Monster Joke Month, this charity is one that you should definitely look into as you can brighten the lives of sick children. Taking a few minutes to write a card could really make a difference.

If you have any other ideas, please share with me! Lets get as many people as we can involved and excited about Monster Joke Month.

These are just a few ideas and there are other options for each idea, there are lots of places online where you can find the right pen pal or right mail exchange etc for you. These ideas are ones I've had personal experience with and so can say they are good to use!

How many people are planning to join in with Monster Joke Month between the 1st and 31st of October, lets see a show of hands/claws/paws/tentacles?

Monster Joke Month 2016 Snail Mail Project

I can't believe it's this time of year again already and I'm here to announce that I will be hosting Monster Joke Month for its second year this October!

If you're new to the idea, see my original announcement post here from last year. But the general idea is that for every bit of post that you send in the month of October, you put a monster joke on the envelope and then when you send or receive a piece of post with a monster joke on, you use the hashtag #MonsterJokeMonth and/or #MJM2K16 to post it on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook etc. At the end of October I will then do a new post collating my favourite from throughout the month!

It was popular last year, but I'd really like to see loads more people join in this year! Even if you don't normally send snail mail, find a reason to send a friend a post card or write to someone you haven't seen in a while. (You could even sign up to somewhere like IGGPPC and get a pen pal and introduce yourself with a joke!).

As another idea, last year I made Halloween cards and sent them out to my penpals and this year I'm hoping to do something similar, just to more people!

The cheesier the better for your jokes. I've included some pictures of ones I used last year to show how hilariously bad some of them were. I also included bonus jokes on the inside of the cards too, so feel free to put your jokes wherever you prefer!

So get writing and posting between the 1st and the 31st of October and lets have some monsterish fun!

Don't forget to let me know if your are participating and as long as you use one of the hashtags, I should be able to see all your lovely photos.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what people come up with this year!

The Iliad - Homer

My most recent buddy read was a bit more intense than the previous few, our choice was The Iliad by Homer, translation done by Alexander Pope. It was also a little different as there was three of us working our way through this one.

When me and my buddy reader where coming near to the end of our previous buddy read (Pillars Of The Earth) when one of our friends from the IGGPPC (International Geek Girl Pan Pal Club) community got in touch to say that if we ever chose to read The Iliad that she'd love to buddy read alongside us. As it was on both our buddy read wish lists we decided to just make it our next read and then we could all get started.

When I started to read following the introduction to the first chapter/book I was really surprised to find that it was written in the form of a rhyming poem. I'm not exactly sure what I expected, it just was not this. At first I really enjoyed this as it was really easy to read and I was flying through my daily pages. After a while though I realised that I was not taking in a single word, I was just following the flow of the words without actually absorbing what was going on. I ended up having to go back a few days worth of reading to re read and slow myself down so I could know what was going on. According to research done by our newest buddy reader, this is actually one of the worst translations to read unless you already know the story inside and out.

Once I'd got into the habit of slowing myself down and the occasional use of Wikipedia, I quite enjoyed the epic tale that was told. I would definitely like to have seen more information into some stories, though I'm not 100% on the timeline so it may have not made sense at the time. I think the battles were the hardest to read as they just seemed to be a list of names rather than anything actually happening, whereas other bits seemed very graphic. As in War and Peace, people each had more than one name and it wasn't always very clear who was who. It did get easier as I went along and checked online if I couldn't figure it out, but it definitely didn't help towards the overall enjoyment.

I'm rating this book 2 stars and I feel that I am actually rating the translation/edition rather than the story itself, so maybe one day when I feel up to it, I'll find a better version and try again. But for now, something was definitely lost in translation.

Thank you to both my lovely buddy readers for getting me through this and actually concentrate on what I'm reading.

We read this from the 20th of May 2016 to the 1st of July 2016.
I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Monster Joke Month 2015 Snail Mail Project

A few weeks ago I had an idea which I thought was really fun and the more I've thought about it the more I wanted to share it with other people and hopefully for those people to get involved and join in.

My idea is that for the entire month of October, every piece of mail that I send out, whether it's a letter, package or a post card, will have a monster joke on it. I absolutely love Halloween and I thought this would be a really fun way of celebrating it using snail mail and sharing the fun with other people.

For other people to join in, I thought that I would create a hashtag and then every piece of mail you receive/send with a monster joke on, you could post a pic on Twitter or Instagram (or any other form of social media that you use) with the hashtag #MonsterJokeMonth or #MJM2K15

I really hope that people get involved as I am really excited about this and I'm really looking forward to seeing the monster jokes, the cheesier the better!

Please let me know if you're planning on joining me and I'll be watching the hashtags and re-tweeting/re-gramming any and all that I find. I'll also be blogging about the project throughout the month of October and I'll share some of my favourite jokes.

Snail Mail August 2015 Round Up

I thought I'd share something a little different this month and show my snail mail stats. I'm a member of the International Geek Girl Pen Pal Club (IGGPPC) and through them I have met a lot of wonderful friends that I exchange letters and postcards with. During August I've been keeping a record of how far each of my letters have travelled for both incoming and outgoing mail. I recorded the distances as the crow flies rather than by transport as I have no way of knowing which route any of them would take.

I sent a total of five letters and 2 postcards throughout the month and individually they travelled the following distances

Letter one travelled 4049 miles
Letter two travelled 33 miles
Letter three travelled 4782 miles
Letter four travelled 70 miles
Letter five travelled 5198 miles
Postcard one travelled 155 miles
Postcard two travelled 65 miles

I received one letter and two postcards which travelled the following distances

Letter one received travelled 70 miles
Postcard one travelled 4043 miles
Postcard two travelled 3797 miles

I then thought it might be fun to add up the distances to see how far in total everything has travelled, I'm thinking of maybe doing an quarterly and annual round up to see just how far my post travels

Letters sent total distance travelled 14.132 miles
Postcards sent total distance travelled 220 miles
Post sent total distance travelled 14,352 miles

Letters received total distance travelled 70 miles
Postcards received total distance travelled 7840 miles
Post received total distance travelled 7910 miles

Overall total distance travelled
Letters - 14,202 miles
Postcards - 8060 miles
Combined - 22,262 miles

I really hope you enjoyed having a look into my snail mail life, I'm hoping to do more blogs about the kind of things I do with my pen pals in the future.