It's official.

My life has completely been taken over by the blogosphere. I'm addicted.

There was about a 5 minutes span of my life where I had to have caffeine in the morning (even if it came in the form of a chocolate bar) but the mornings (and some lunch breaks, commercial breaks on American Idol and weekends) now seem to have been taken over by a bunch of smart, funny, philosophical people that I don't even know.

I check my favourite blogs (some of which are posted in my sidebar but still many hover in my favourites list on my work computer) at least 3 or 4 times a day and I'm always amazed at how intuitive and smart these writers are.

When I first started reading Miss Nobody's blog at the end of last year, I didn't really understand what world I was stepping into. As the month's progressed I could feel my addiction growing. Not only was I easily keeping up with the day to day happenings of my good friend's life but I was also realising what a talented writer she really is and it started me thinking about the interesting things I could talk about if I one day ever got the courage to start my own blog.

When I finally did start my own blog I still didn't realise what potential was out there. After spending way too many work hours exploring blogs and constantly checking out my favourite reads, I really started to see what a diverse community was evolving within the electronic pages of the World Wide Web!

Blogging (especially reading and commenting on other blogs) started to remind me of when I travelled to Europe with a family friend when I was 12. I had my first pen pal ever when I came back home. She was a Swiss girl that spoke little English and we weren't pals for long. But while we were still in Europe we picked up a kids magazine that listed the addresses of other kids from around the world interested in being a pen pal.

I wrote down all of the kids from far off and interesting places. Poland. South Africa. Louisiana (yea, it was interesting back then) and got to writing my first letters.

I kept those pen pals for several years. We exchanged pictures and stories and I learned about growing up in junior high (something we didn't really experience here) or what it was like to have never travelled to the US. I started to connect with more pen pals when chain addresses started up. You wrote your address on a very colourfully constructed pad of paper and added a few of your interests (clearly, this was back in the day before Internet predators!).

I still have some of those girls' addresses. I wonder if they're out there blogging and making contact with new, fascinating people just like I am. Back then they had a passion for the written word and making contact with people from places they had only dreamed of. It would be interesting if I bumped into one of them as I continue on my blogging travels!