Letter to Lucius

Dear Lucius, 

You probably don’t realize this, but writing letters is so tedious. You would really love these text message things that I keep telling you about. I’m happy to hear your brother made it to 15 alive. I suppose I have never worried about my sister making it to 15. Rome has a pretty scary survival rate… maybe it would be a little better if you all cut back on the drinks and didn’t bathe with strangers. In Colorado most of us do bathe daily, but we take showers privately and we usually don’t sit in other peoples disgusting filth unless we go to Water World.

I think you are pretty lucky to live so close to the city though, apart from the fire hazards and high risk of disease it must be pretty nice to be able to walk everywhere you go. I live pretty far away from any city so to the capital of my state it is about 45 minutes away by car (yet another invaluable invention you should really try and look into inventing).

I also heard about your brother’s new toga, that’s exciting. My sister also got a new item of clothing except she bought a zebra print onesie with a hood that has speakers. No one in the family could keep her from buying it. In my generation we are allowed to choose a lot of things like who we marry and at what age, but with the freedom of to choose also comes some bad fashion mistakes on everyone’s part. Arranged marriages don’t really happen much anymore, which is a good thing. On the bright side you will probably never get dumped. 

Congratulations on nearing the end of your education by the way. At 17 in my country you would be just nearing the middle. You would still have one more year of high school and then possibly years of college and graduate school before you would be finished. 

You mentioned that you lived in the city in a poorer neighborhood. Here socio- economic status is often a combination of education, income, and occupation and each of those have an effect on each other essentially putting a box of limitations around many people that is very hard to escape. If some one isn't well educated, then they probably have a low paying job and then there kids may not go to college and then they may not get a high paying job and their children will be effected and so on and so forth. There are also always geniuses who never attend college and yet create some of the worlds most used products like iPhone. I’m still waiting to see if my streak of genius comes out, but my guess is that I will go to college and get a perfectly boring job.

I think its amazing that your family is so close and that you have family meals together. My family rarely eats together. When we are hungry we just go to the refrigerator and get food. We only have large meals together in special occasions. I also think it is realty cool that your father taught you so much about athletics. Where I live it is a little different. Dads teach most kids the rudimentary knowledge about athletics, but when we get into school kids often play on sports teams where coaches take over most of the teaching. I currently play basketball and volleyball. You don’t have either of those sports (but if you are looking for a new idea for an awesome sports think peach basket...enough said.).

I actually forgot what religion you practiced but you will be happy…or unhappy to hear that Christianity is still being widely practiced. Sense the death of Jesus over a hundred different denominations have been formed over both nitpicky disputes and full-fledged wars. I am 7th day Adventist which means I go to church on Saturday where as many other Christians attend church on Sunday. 

It's also exciting that you now have the opportunity to command soldiers. In the United States you must be 18 to enter our army but in your first few years in the military there is virtually no chance that you would command soldiers. I don't think I will be going into the army even though women have the right to join the army.

I have to go write my friend Oga the cave man.

Write soon, 

Your friend Katie