Linda | 
09 10th, 2009| 
I’m a big giant fan of journaling. I’ve kept at least one journal at a time since middle school. I remember my first journal my mom glued the first two pages together because she noticed I mentioned a boy. I have 6 or 7 middle school journals I keep at my parents’ house in Houston. I keep them there to save space. They’re too embarrassing to want to look back through them. The rest I haul with me every time I move. I think journaling is a great tool. I refer back sometimes to certain journals and it’s also a great memory and record keeper. I have a thematic system of journaling where I reserve certain journals for certain things. This helps with keeping certain things organized and therefore easier to go through. Here’s a little peek through some of my paper journals.
Everyday Journals
I keep “everyday journals” as a general journal/catch all. These are the journals I write in when I’m trying to sort through some emotions, when I need to vent, when I need to recall some details of certain days I want to remember, where I write my pros and cons list to help with decision making, etc. Sometimes when I don’t have any other journals with me, I’ll use an everyday journal. For instance, if I’m reading a book and I don’t have my reading journal at hand to jot down notes, I’ll just use my everyday journal. My everyday journals gets a lot of use.
I’ve used journals to take notes during conferences or speaking events I’ve gone to. Here’s a peek into a journal circa 2003 with notes from a bioethics conference held at Texas A&M.
A lot of my journals are from friends. Here’s a few, all used as everyday journals.
The Pooh one was a gift from Hillary senior year of high school. She wanted me to “think” in college and not go too crazy. The middle puppy one is the most child like journal (beating out Pooh) I’ve ever owned and it was a gift from Thomas which he got in Taiwan. All the pages had different puppy prints on them. See below for a few glimpses of the printed paper inside.
A hat I wore at Brandi’s 23rd birthday a couple of years ago.
I often use hotel notepads to write my entries on when I’m staying somewhere. It helps with browsing. At a glance, I can know where I was when I wrote something.
Collage Journals
I’m on my third collage journal. I used to have a lot of magazines around and freshmen year of college I started to keep a collage journal. I cut up magazines of pictures that caught my eye, reflected my mood or present circumstance or desires. It’s pretty cool to see what I’m visually drawn to through the years.
Movie Journal
Do you save your stubs and you have no idea what to do with them? You can glue them in a journal. I have found that sometimes I forget what movie I’ve seen with whom, so I now jot it down next to the stub. Sometimes the movie goes along with a side memory, for instance if I saw it after a horrendous day or if I fell asleep during the movie, I jot that next to my stub as well. I only have one of these so far and am about to finish it. I used a journal that was a Christmas gift from Selina way back in 2005.
Quotation Journals
|
I collect quotations. I’ve been bad the last couple of years but I’m slowly recollecting. I refer to these books a lot when I send out letters and greeting cards. I like to mail my correspondence with an aptly chosen quotation on the back of envelopes. Sometimes I find quotations and I just cheat and glue them into my journals. The middle snapshot on the left is from the room service trays when I stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta a few years ago. The snapshot below that is taken from an Oprah magazine. |
Gratitude Journals
Reading Journals
Since I’ve been doing more book reviews on this blog and am utilizing my Good Reads account more often, I’ve used my reading journal a lot less. Also I tend to have access to my everyday journal more when I’m in transit/ am reading in transit, so a lot of reading notes get written in everyday journals. However, I still love having a reading log. It’s not only nice to see some excerpts all in one place but it’s interesting to see when you’ve read what book. I also label the header of each page with the name of the book to make browsing easy.
My Best Advice for Journaling
Date Everything
I regret that my first quote journal did not have any dates written in it. My first TWO collage journals did not have any dates on it. Dates are very useful when you’re putting your past into context. Sometimes people date without the year; don’t forget to date the year. I also leave the first page blank of every journal and when you’re done you can write the dates the journal started and ended on. I do this to my photo albums too.
What if you’re not consistent?
I like to encourage my friends to keep a journal and many of them tell me they don’t because they’re not very good about keeping consistent. It doesn’t matter how often you keep it. I have journals that take me three months to fill and other journals that take me years to fill. Sometimes a year will go by before I revisit a journal. If you allow yourself the liberty to journal as freely as you want, as little as you want, then you’ll find a few sparse entries a year is better than nothing at all. When you flip through randomly, those 3 or 4 entries you managed to write, even when very spread out, is still a nice little window and glimpse into your past.
This journal took me a few months to finish.
While this one took me a couple of years.
What if you’re not eloquent?
So I’ve read a few journals. Mark Twain’s. Sylvia Plath’s. A handful more of journals of these writers and yes, they’re very eloquent and deep, and they’re not embarrassing when reading. At worst, they’re a little convoluted. That’s another freedom you should grant yourself. The freedom to just mind dump onto your own personal pages. Most of us are not professional or talented writers. Most of us will not be published posthumously. Allow yourself the freedom to be stupid in your journal and you’ll find it won’t be such an anxious activity. You’ll find when you get over the irrational pressure of writing beautiful and eloquent entries, you’ll actually be able to write more often and with the higher frequency, who knows, you might find yourself to be a talented wordsmith and just needed to exercise your writing muscle. So just do it!
I close with one last snapshot of my current loot of journals. All of these are in progress.
Texas native. Living and working in Austin, TX. Twenty something. In hot pursuit of good food, adventure, and laughter. Dreams of owning her own place with a big giant library.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Sup dawg, we heard you like journals, so we put a journal in your journal so you can write while you write.
I couldnt resist. (o:
September 10th, 2009 at 2:42 am
dork
September 10th, 2009 at 9:51 am
We both know that I am a dork. I was just surprised and impressed at the amount of journals you have. As you know, I fail horribly at journaling or writing anything down for that matter.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Haha, wow I’m impressed by how many journals you have. I love it!! I love writing down stuff, keeping lists, etc, but mines not nearly as organized…I have one journal where I write about person stuff (omg, I hope noone EVER reads my middle school ones!! way too embarassing) and then I have random notebooks that I used here and there that are all over the place and usually not filled.
My dad was the one that told my sister and I when we were little that we should keep journals! My first one was from first grade, haha. It has entries like “Today was a good day. I got icecream after school.” Awesome, huh? Haha.
I now feel inspired by you to keep better track of my journals and write more stuff down! (I keep a bunch of lists as private xanga entries, haha, but it’s not as cool as having it written down.)
September 10th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Wow … impressive journal collection. May I introduce you to a journal series that I created a few years ago?
“Between Me And You, a few things I’ve been meaning to ask”
http://www.sanddunebooks.com
I’m a one-man business and I created Sand Dune Publishing in order to develop books based on gifts that I gave to my parents one year for Christmas.
Basically, you give them to loved ones and they are returned with handwritten memories. I’d love to know what you think. Thanks…winston
September 10th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Jessica,
that’s kind of cool your dad encouraged you! My mom thought it was a horrible distraction from my studies growing up. I also started to write in code in middle school. Too bad I lost the key haha. I flip through it and some of it is weird symbols and nonsensical groupings of letters and numbers.
I like my online journals too, you can search easily and they’re portable. but there’s something extra gratifying when you’re flipping through actual pages and reading your own handwriting.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Ya know, I don’t think I ever found out what the journal I gave you was used for, haha. Your penchant for celebrating and documenting all the events in your life is definitely something that I noticed when we first met. :-) It definitely rubbed off on me, but I just can’t seem to keep up as well as you do, haha. :-) All hail the queen of documentation!
September 10th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Cindy, it was an everyday journal and it was the last one I completed actually.
I even snapped a picture of them to depict your artwork on it but my entry got too long!! Here are the links haha
http://linda.curious-notions.net/images/blog/memory/journals/cindy2.jpg
http://linda.curious-notions.net/images/blog/memory/journals/cindy.jpg
September 10th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Yeah, I remember my dad used to buy my sister and I matching journals, haha. I don’t know if she kept up with hers or not though. I love shopping for journals! I generally prefer spiral-bound ones so they can be easily bent open while I’m writing!
I dno about you, but I find that I have the most to write when I’m emotional, and of course, those entries I just sound sorta psycho!
I was thinking I really ought to write book reviews. I read all these books and then I kinda forget what they’re about a little while later. Then people ask me about them and I feel stupid when I don’t remember, haha.
I like the journal with the stubs too! I keep all of mine but they’re just in a drawer and I can’t figure out what to do with them, haha.
I also like scrapbooking but I’m too much of a perfectionist for those and it ends up taking me way too long. I did make one in high school that was a journal/scrapbook of my Costa Rica trip with my family! Fun stuff.
September 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I’ve got a couple myself, though I tend to write more when things aren’t working out too well in my life… rather than recording the good. Even then, it’s usually about the relationships that I’ve been in. Each boy gets their own book! It always makes it too melancholy to read back. Still… that’s me. I keep receipts, movie stubs and just about every bits and pieces that you can think about. Funnily (and a good thing too), Pony’s book only has less than five entries throughout the two years that we’ve been together!
September 10th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
@jessica,
yeah I write the most when I’m emotional and they do sound sometimes pyscho. haha. but it’s therapeutic and also that’s what i mean about who cares if it sounds stupid/psycho. it is what it is and when you indulge your emotions on paper, it kinda dilutes your emotions/clarifies things.
it’s for your eyes only,afterall.
also to counter my negativity in my everyday writing, I started the gratitude. good to see evidence of good things.
book reviews are useful. i sometimes have NO recollection what a book is about. just the act of writing about it also reinforces your memory. i’m also like that for movies but i watch too many movies to want to review them all. My movie journal started off as a review book and I couldn’t keep up.
I tried scrapbooking a few times but I mess things up too much and it’s kind of an expensive hobby! Brandi loves loves loves to scrapbook.
@adelyne: haha I only have 2 boys in my life with books. the other dudes have maybe a section each. that’s good about Pony having only about 5 entries! I’m happy for you :)
September 29th, 2009 at 9:34 am
OMG!
This is like awesome. I used to scribble my thoughts down on random books but was consistent. Perhaps that’s coz I wrote on ugly looking books of all shapes and sizes!!!
I dunnoe about you but while I prefer typing thoughts out(my handwriting is ugly), I really love reading what I wrote whenever I stumble upon these random books of mine. I amaze myself when I look back at the things that i wrote in my ugly handwriting (guys do not really have neat handwritings).
I have a secret dream of having my blog printed out in a book so that I can read and laugh at the things I wrote since way back 5 years ago.
I just find reading things on paper more soothing and relaxing than the ones on screen. NICE AND LOVING IT! (:
September 30th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
M,
I want to print out my blog one day too but I also have 1K long true journal entries online at diaryland.com.
so much to do and not enough time!
thanks for stopping by and leaving such a sweet note.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:42 am
[...] presents Curious Notions » Blog Archive » A Peek into my Journal Collection and some Journal Keeping Advice posted at Curious Notions, saying, “A peek at my journal collection and some journal keeping [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Whoa, the bioethics conference! Is that one of the NUBCs, by any chance? I went to the one earlier this year (2009), at Harvard. (It’s kind of sad that I was still a senior in high school in spring of 2007, because the conference was held at MSU — which I now attend — that year. Would’ve been convenient and really cool.)
In any case, thanks so much for the glimpse into your journal keeping! It never occurred to me that I could do anything besides putting a date and then throwing everything into one journal, which…is a real mess, actually. This has been very helpful!
October 7th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
thank you jaylin!
yes i believe that’s the conference. you’re a younging :) I also went to one a couple years later maybe 2004 or 2005 and it was at UPENN. it’s nice to see other people interested in bioethics
you can! my best friend told me about another idea of having a sketchbook for your coffee table that guests can doodle or sketch in.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Wow! I always thought I was the only one with hundreds of journals lying around & having different types of books for certain things.
I feel like I’ve met another me lol. I love this post & the advice you gave out. Thanks!
`=O)
October 20th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Thanks for the kind note vee :)
May 30th, 2010 at 1:37 am
This is amazing. I had “diaries” when I was in middle school, but they too, were sooooo embarrassing!!! Like beyond shameful, and whenever I revisited them years later they’d remind me of what a dork I was. Some memories were painful. That’s when I left it. I don’t know how to overcome the fear of coming across as stupid.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
hello nahl! oh man, i’m still embarrassed sometimes! but it is what it is.. which is our life story.