Keeping in touch!

To keep in touch with friends can be difficult especially for students who attend a university not in or near their hometowns. Although I am originally from King Williams Town, which is in the Eastern Cape and only two hours away from Grahamstown I still found it a challenge to keep in touch. Especially with my school friends and all the friends that I made during my four years abroad. All I can say is thank goodness for the internet and modern technology which act as great distance and time minimisers.I would like to offer some tips to all the prospective students who will be flying the nest next year and will be confronted with the ‘keeping in touch challenge’ at university.

1. Mxit is an easy and cheap way to keep in touch with your friends as all you need is a cellphone and ‘wee’ bit of airtime to be able to get online and chat.

2. If you can score an internet connection that is awesome as it opens so many avenues of communication such as email, Skype, Facebook, chatting systems like Google talk and MSN, or you could even start your own blog to keep everyone up to date on what is happening in your life.

3. A calendar can come in very handy (in the case of power failure) to remind you of birthdays as no friend likes it when their birthday is forgotten.

4. And of course there is always the good old faithful letter which can be written and posted.

These are just a few of the tools that I used to tackle the challenge of distance between friends. As they have worked for me this past year I highly recommend them to you.