Jenny day 1

To start, a little bit about me. I’m Jenny, I’m 16, and I live in the UK. I found out about this project via the Ning, and started it a little late! I worry pretty much constantly about the way I treat other people – in other words, I worry about being nice. So when I read about Project Nice I thought it’d be a great way to get into the habit of doing nice things for people. And as I’m not the most sociable person ever, I thought it could be a way of working on that. As things worked out most of my good deeds ended up being for my friends, but I think that’s okay. I’m also making more of an effort to be nice to people I meet and spend time with. And at the end of it all, I’ve had a great time, and I’d do it again without hesitation.
So without further ado here are my good deeds!
Books for a friend
Date: 10/02/10

One of my closest friends has gone to Canada for 10 months to improve her French and generally gain life experience. I miss her like mad, but we regularly email each other. Quite a while ago she emailed me and mentioned that she wasn’t really reading very much. For her, this is extremely strange. One of her definitive characteristics is being a bookworm. To remedy the emergency situation I went out and bought her three books – a poetry anthology, The Doubtful Guest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was going to send them off as soon as I could, to get them there for Christmas. But as I’m a bit of a procrastinator, time went by, and I missed Christmas and New Year. Then I started Project Nice, and remembered the books. I wrote her a quick letter, wrapped them up and sent them off. Although I would have done it even if I hadn’t been doing the project, I’m still counting it because it spurred me on to send them. Otherwise they’d probably still be sitting here!

Reactions:
She was very pleased. I got an email in which she thanked me, and as a sign of gratitude used correct grammar and punctuation throughout the email. She even capitalised her sentences. Just goes to show what a big nerd I am that I really appreciated that!

Would I do it again? I would if another friend was in the same situation. I probably won’t send anything more over to the same person, as she’s coming back this summer.
Cost: About £15 for the books and £5 postage. Expensive, but it’s a special case and, I think, worth it.
Effort: Very little. I like bookshops, so I don’t count that as effort! Some involved in getting to the post office.
Time: About 40 minutes in total: 10 minutes to buy the books and half an hour for going to post them.