"Penpal" assignments

[Remora]

So two days ago, a random person who was in my Skype contact list for some reason asked me if it was okay if they would write to me, and a little later he sent me the following text:

Hello.
My name is William. I live in Viborg, which is located in the middle of Jutland, in Denmark.
I am 13 years old. i have a little brother named Niels, a father named Morten and a mom named Anne. I also have two bunnys, thay are named Evora and Fido.

I speak Danish, English and a little bit of German.
My favorite subjects in school are German, History, and English. but there is nothing better than the holidays, just sitting in front of the computer, and grinding in Battlefield 4, and staying up all night.

I LOVE playing Battlefield 4, Dota 2 and Euro Truck Simulator 2. They are just the most awesome games ever.
I am extremely interrested in car, motorcycles and pc hardware.

At the 1. May im getting confirmed, and im gonna hold a big celebration party, in the “Viborg ro- og kajakklub” which is a kayak club. The club have a big hall where me and my family can hold the party in.

In therms of job, i have a lawnmover, which i use to mow my neighbours lawns. I get about 4 € per lawn that i mow.

And now I have some questions for you. Whats your name? Where do you live? How old are you? Which languagues do you speak? What do you do in the holidays? And last of all which games do you like to play?

Kind regards -
William.

My reply to this was:

Hi!

Thank you very much for the letter! I was pleasantly surprised to find that you'd sent me this this morning.

My name is Simon and i live in De Lier, a small (but cozy!) village in the west of the Netherlands. I have three older sisters and an older brother- sorted from youngest to oldest, Rozemarijn, Annelies, Thomas and Monika. My mom and dad are called Erna and Leo, respectively. I also have two cats, Elbie and Droppie, as well as two chickens, Tokkie and Kiek. On top of that i have four rats called Snorlax, Puff the Magical Dragon, Mr. Heisenberg and Captain Jack Sparrow and two aquariums full of unnamed goldfish and guppies!

Being just 15 years of age, I'm the youngest in not just my family but also my entire generation and class! I personally haven't found being youngest very easy and from my perspective it seems like the older people in a family have a huge advantage, although i shouldn't assume anything until i know what you think about being oldest.

I speak Dutch, of course- my mother language, although i've started using English as main language. I used to play a lot of Runescape when i was younger and i'm certain it helped me build a great part of my English vocabulary. While i've mastered both English and Dutch, i can also speak German and French- although not anywhere near as good as the first two. Wie geht es dir?
I don't do much in the holidays as i'm a rather introverted young man, although I do play a lot of games with friends, varying anywhere from Minecraft to CS:GO to Terraria and even silly games like AdVenture Capitalist. I also really enjoy designing games with one of my best friends, although we usually don't get very far in the production of them and just abandon the project.

Good to hear you have a job! Mine isn't really that reliable as I only get to work if others are unavailable, but I still make €3,50 an hour, which I personally think is pretty decent for a 15 year old, especially considering how fun the job is.

Tell Fido I really like its name! I look forward to hearing from you, William!
Kind regards,
Simon.

So the point of this thread is, do you or did you have to make this kind of assignment too, or have you "fallen victim" to one of them? Did they end up in a friendship or did you never get a reply? ^_^

[Vermilion]

Never had to do this or have ever received a letter like this. However it sounds rather fun and would put a smile on my face.

[Ridonks_CB]

I only ever did this in 4th grade, and we were assigned 3rd grade pen pals, though they were only from another school, not out of state even. She never really talked to me whenever we met so, no...nothing began haha :P

[Emerald Dream]

I did this back in 3rd grade, and our class paired up with another class from a neighboring town. It was arranged late in the year that the two classes would meet for a picnic. Unfortunately, it's only one of a few good memories I have from grade school.

[Typhlosion]

I find it odd, especially considering the modern schooling system, that people are having assignments to interact with complete strangers for some reason. Why should anyone be forced to do that?

I still find it a neat idea, though. Ne'er heard of the idea before.

[Let Me Be a Pony]

I find it odd, especially considering the modern schooling system, that people are having assignments to interact with complete strangers for some reason. Why should anyone be forced to do that?

I still find it a neat idea, though. Ne'er heard of the idea before.

This. Dude, if you're 13 and you're assigned to meet up with strangers over the internet, then the chances of bumping into a creep who's generally habituating the 4chan/r/ board in search for trolls to troll, innocents to harass, etc is 50/50.
I've met countless of adults trolling young children, and even sending them viruses(since if you tell them to stop their antivirus, they'll do exactly that).
It's dangerous.

But yeah, I concur that it's neat if its under a controlled area.