Graduating Class of 2007: A Short Activity
Monday, May 28, 2007
HackCollege in Student 2.0

Yes, I, Rosario Doriott, am graduating TODAY (or, I'm writing this entry earlier and editing the timestamp, but that's rather unimportant) with the rest of Yale's Undergraduate Class of 2007. Woohoo!

But, no, I am not going to depart with any words of wisdom. I'm sure all of you will hear more than enough of that today from everybody else. Rather, I'd like to propose a quick, easy activity --inspired by my high school sociology teacher.

In high school, this one teacher had all her students write letters to "their future self", stamp the envelopes, and give a "permanent mailing address". She mailed these letters 5 years later --paying for the extra inflation, herself.

This was an amazing idea, and I loved reading my own letter. However, with the price of stamps always, gradually increasing and not really having a way to delay the delivery of mail, yourself, it's not a very practical one. So, I'd like to propose the utilization Web 2.0 for those of you interested in writing to "your future self": CallTheFuture.org and FutureMe.org.

CallTheFuture.org will allow you to place a call up to 2 years in the future. Designate a phone number, a text to be read, a voice, and whatever CallerID you feel like using. If the demo allowance hasn't been succeeded already (which frequently happens unfortunately), the call will be placed in the system for future delivery. Cool. Probably eerie, but still very cool.

FutureMe.org offers a similar service, using email. FutureMe will allow an email to be placed for delivery of up to 30 years in the future. Choose an email address you think you'll still have by then, and there you go. Type away. Probably much cooler.

Seriously, 2007. Tell "your future self" whatever. At the very least, you'll probably laugh at "yourself". ;)

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