By James
At the beginning of our homeschool year Mommy gave me a .5mm Zebra mechanical pencil - made in Japan. It was my first mechanical pencil. With this pencil I could write my chinese characters very acurately and do my math very quickly. I went really fast through my Saxon 6/5 mathbook. I even wore down the eraser. For Christmas I got a frying pan eraser and used it to erase mistakes, the pencil still worked. On March 21 I was about to do my math but my pencil had no lead. I tried to refill but it didn't work. I brought it to Mommy and we discovered it was jammed with little pieces of lead. We took it apart and tried to fix it but the metal got bent in the process. Then I felt very sad. As sad as if my best friend wasn't friends with me anymore. I felt sad all day, even in the night it was hard to sleep. I felt sad the next day. Mommy had the same pencil in her pattern drafting box and she gave it to me. I took this picture of my first pencil so I will never forget it. Now I hope my new pencil lasts longer.
James - a good writing tool makes a big difference as you point out. Sometimes work goes faster and is more accurate (and maybe even more fun) with the right pen/pencil.
ReplyDeleteI'll say this: if I were a pencil, I would want to be your pencil. Doing math with you is fun even when I am just watching - I can't even imagine how great it would be if I actually got to write the answers down!
James,
ReplyDeleteYou are a great writer. It made me sad thinking about how hard it must have been for you to have to part with the pencil. I had the same pencil when I was in Japan.
James,
ReplyDeleteI am sad about your pencil breaking. But I also think you are very lucky to have such nice mechanical pencils at your age. I don't think I ever had a .5 mm pencil until I was in high school. Once you use a .5 mm pencil, there is no going back to .7 mm.
Good luck with your new pencil and great job writing the blog.
James, I like your story. I too had a .5mm mechanical lead pencil but not until I was in college. Before that we had wooden pencils that one had to sharpen all the time and it would get dull and the stroke was always too broad.
ReplyDeleteI had a Rotring mechanical pencil that had a ball point tip, an underliner, a tip for a palm top little computer for touch screen application, a red tipped lead pencil and then a .5mm lead pencil. It was the best! But it broke too easy.
Have fun with your new pen James.
Alles Liebe,
Opa
Hi James, so sorry to hear about your pencil breaking down. Glad that your mommy gave you hers. You will like your new pencil too. You will have to show us your new pencil when we come out to visit you.
ReplyDeleteLove, Grandma