Intro to a Summer Blogging Correspondence with Joanne Lee!

What a time to be alive! In 2019, even though my friends lived in places like Iowa, Northern California, Colorado, Washington, Michigan, and New York for college, I have been able to maintain close friendships with them all! I am so grateful for modern technology and the continued communication it enables us to have with our friends far away.

However, while most of my friends are coming home for the summer, I have one that I don’t get to see this year: My close friend, Joanne Lee. 

Joanne was one of my best friends in high school. We ran cross country and track together, did bible study together, laughed together, cried together, and had countless inside jokes with each other. Joanne, a fellow Asian (though she’s Korean and I’m Filipino) in a traditionally Dutch high school, was what I liked to call my “sista from anotha mista.” She is a trusted confidant, wonderful accountability partner, honest, genuine, hardworking, talented, and incredibly smart. She is a wonderful example of how a true follower of Jesus serves others and does her best to glorify God in all that she does.

Joanne and I haven’t seen each other in person since Christmas, but thankfully a few nights ago we got the chance to talk to each other on FaceTime! 

During this conversation, we caught up on everything from how second semester of college went, to relationships, her rowing/my running, getting her drivers license, and the abundance of spare time we’ve both found ourselves with this summer.

Spare time is a blessing and a curse. When you’re drowning in school work and sports and commitments during the school year, you’d do anything for an extra hour in a day. And when summer finally comes, those extra hours are in abundance and feel amazing. There’s something nice about the liberty to sleep at midnight and know that if you so desired, you could sleep until noon the next day. Boy oh boy, are we grateful for spare time!

However, after a while, spare time starts to get old. Boredom sets in. And after enough episodes of TV or posts scrolled through on social media, people like Joanne and me start to wonder: “Am I being a good steward of my time?”

In all honesty, the answer is No. Social media is a waste of time (which is why I gotta give mad props to Hoanne (pronounced like you’d read “Joanne” en Español: “ho-ann-eh”) for taking a break from it this summer. In your spare time, you can be reading the bible, reading a book, volunteering, working, or doing that whole list of things you said you’d do but didn’t…

Which in Joanne’s and my case has been, up keeping our blogs.

This epiphany that we could be diligent about writing on our blogs this summer sparked our excitement big time. Over FaceTime, we quickly decided to hold each other accountable to posting on our blogs with a pretty motivating system: I’d give Joanne $45 ($5 for each week I’d be home this summer), and every week when I post on my blog, she’ll send me $5 back. No post, no money back. She did the same. If all goes well, then each of us will walk away this summer without having lost any money. 

In a semi-dramatic moment, we pointed our phone screens to each other on FaceTime and hit the “send” button at the same time on Venmo. The challenge was on! Because nothing keeps you accountable like some monetary incentive!

Joanne, I am super excited to start this blogging challenge with you! It’s going to be a challenge but it will also be so much fun! Here’s to a summer of writing and staying in touch via blogs (Many, if not all, will be written in, “Dear Joanne”/letter format. As inspired by vlogbrothers John and Hank Green with their, “Good morning John, it’s Friday” video intros).  Have a great week and I can’t wait to see your first post of the summer come Sunday, June 8! Can’t wait to hear from you next,

-Mare. 

To see the weekly updates on Joanne’s beautifully coffee-themed blog, CLICK HERE!