notebooks

about my notebook practices and preferences

misc

written on 2024-12-19

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i'm at home for the holidays. something that i always do at home is dig out this small stack of pocket notebooks that i keep in a small nightstand drawer and flip through them, recounting old todo lists, crushes, dreams, anxieties, etc. these notebooks probably capture a good half of my time in college as a young adult. i remember i took a ridiculous amount of blanks from a hackathon in my freshman year, i liked the cheap but decent construction, cardstock cover, simple staple binding, dot grid paper, and most importantly the size. they were really easy to toss into pockets (even jean pockets!) just being barely bigger than smartphones back in the late 2010s. i only really hated that they would have tech company taglines or logos on them and i would often collage tape, stickers, wrappers, and other trash on top.

today i also found a big box of notebooks/stationery I'd collected during my college years outside of these hackathon pocket notebooks. the collection includes:

• several muji notebooks of various sizes
• around 10 hackathon notebooks from Hudson river trading, which are double the size of the aforementioned pocket notebooks but similar in their cardstock and dot grid and ugly tech logo
• one very long orange rhodia notebook (?? why did i think i would use this? it's cool tho, although i think the blue line grid is hard to write on)
• two moleskine notebooks, one standard black one and one for watercolor i think (which is unopened)
• one shinola hardcover notebook in a beautiful green color but it has lined paper (no thanks)
• some random one off/no brand notebooks (probably some Asian stationery brand that i won't care to look up)
• one new soho sketchbook which is honestly sooooo nice, i got from kinokuniya in like California but i probably will never use unless i take drawing/painting seriously again
• two engineering pads (loll my fave, melody told me that they were required to use these for psets and can never do math on any other paper ever again. so real, that's not my life tho)
• other misc. stationery including some beautiful washi tapes, tiny wooden pin clips, two muji binders, many many post its

what makes me most likely to use a notebook? in college, aside from the hackathon notebooks, i refused to use other notebooks aside from shitty partially used notepads i'd found at jobs or around campus. i would fully transition to taking notes on my laptop at some point as well. i was a horribly careless student and often did not account for or archive notes in any meaningful way, even though i would do my best to be a diligent notetaker, often recording things verbatim as if i were transcribing a lecture. in my senior year, i had to keep sketchbooks for arts classes and i would make sketchbooks myself by haphazardly stapling together cut sheets of newsprint i stole from the printmaking studio. i remember one that i bound with a binder clip and a cut piece of cardboard as a backing. these did not survive very well in my backpack, but i committed to the bit (of being entirely DIY and frugal) to the best of my ability and lost a fair amount of sketches in the progress. to that end, i think a key quality of a notebook that i'll 100% use is that it has to be sort of shitty and cheap -- nice paper is not something i feel comfortable using and will generally avoid for as long as i can. other must haves include some kind of grid/ruling -- engineering grid is S tier, followed by dot in A tier, regular grid in B, and blank and ruled in the C and D tiers. the smaller the notebook (within reason), the more likely i will use it. my current stack of notebooks includes:

• troika construction lilipad notebook, which i definitely got from a museum store, probably in California because i have a distinct memory of being with my ex and showing him. this is not really the type of notebook i would gravitate towards but i do like the dot grid. i especially like the little pen that's attached to it and have found this feature incredibly useful especially in circumstances where a pen is lacking and needed. I've also used the little screwdriver on the end of the pen a couple of times which has really endeared me to this notebook. i use this notebook almost exclusively for todo lists, which feels a bit of a waste for such a nice notebook but whatever. i don't like that it's gray. i don't use the built in pocket at all.
• one of the HRT hackathon notebooks, it's fine and has a ton of water stains on it lol. this notebook is for my teaching/ceramics jobs. i started using it to keep track of studio preparation tasks/long term studio improvements at my previous teaching job; when i started my current job i began taking notes from the last page in reverse order. this notebook is sturdy enough to withstand the elements it encounters in a ceramics studio and is also cheap enough where i don't care if it gets utterly destroyed.
• a broken green 3 ring binder (it says "collage materials" on the cover, from the previous owner) that I've filled with engineering paper (<3) that i use to sketch ideas for projects. i only use pen nowadays (i don't know when i started doing this, looking at my college pocket notebooks there's a fair amount of writing in pencil) and all of my sketches are simple and mainly linear. i like this notebook/binder because it turns out i like having a lot of space to doodle, and i love engineering paper and it never comes in a small size so this is what i have to work with. however because it is so big i don't often carry it with me and it's a hassle to lug to the studio. this is an issue because i will always forget the sketches i wanted to reference if i don't bring the binder with me. however, i like that i can leave it on my windowsill by my bed and just sketch in it before sleeping and not really feel constrained by the size or anything. it's great for larger-scale sketches like woodworking projects where i have to take down measurements/sketch things from multiple angles.
• there was a remnant diy-newsprint-staple-bound notebook that i kept on my windowsill for general journaling but i don't think I've put an entry in there for many months. maybe over half a year at this point.
• a notepad i bought in cdmx last year that has a pear print on it. the notes themselves are not sticky so i just use it like a notebook, and it's honestly kind of shitty/not meant for that. i also don't like that ink doesn't for whatever reason adhere to the part that is printed with different color ink (for the pear). i use this for todo lists as well...
• a longer rectangular notepad that i keep on my desk that I've used for design/commission work; I've used pages from this to hand draw type, sketch rough ideas, etc. i think i actually would not consider this part of my main stack
• another notebook i have abandoned is a 2024-2025 (?) planner i picked up on someones porch in Toronto (<3) i used it consistently for the initial part of the year but have not found that it integrated well into my daily life. it's easier for me to plan week by week rather than month-to-month. so it is abandoned on my desk even though it is nice and lovely and a sweet memento of that trip.

stretch break

would archiving these notebooks be a worthwhile project? I've forgotten a lot of my college life for better or for worse. i haven't felt very introspective for a few months now (see lack of journaling). it is nice to witness how much of my practice was (and still is) hoarding items and memories.

excerpts

• first notebook is only decorated with a green del monte banana sticker. the first page says "FIX JQUERY LOOP --> link to HTML <-- edit CSS" as well as a bullet list (1. Hana's .json file 2. CSS (format) 3. Microsoft API 4. author). lol this was definitely from a hackathon
• second page of first notebook: "FREE, TINY NOTEBOOK --> less pages, more progress, less excuses to NOT write!" tiny is circled. this is all in pencil btw one of my second conversations with my now ex bf about photography, and a dream log from February 27th, 2017. the dream was about making something (that's so vague..)
• i used to take notes about people i met, in the format of [name]: [some kind of detail from a conversation we had i guess]. some quotes lol
• "My brother: what was the worst fashion choice you made in HS"
• "TODAY'S SENSATION --> thunder in the subway"
• 3/11/17 --> a wasteful purchase (7.20), i wanted to use wifi (3.76), subway fare (10.00). 20.96...oh no... (drinks used to be less than 4 dollars?? lmfao)
• (second notebook's first page) FIND BEAUTY...IN A ... SNAIL, as well as a recollection of AAWW karaoke where i did super bass with claire. and someone did a tribute to ed Sheeran. it's so blatantly clear who i was crushing on this summer
• some excerpts lifted from a book i read that summer, which had a sex scene and i was probably so flustered and captivated by that
• guest writing from michelle who wrote in the last page of this notebook when we were trying to communicate during an event we went to
• in sophomore year, i switched to pen. i think this is because muji pens are like loot drop at Columbia, so i picked up a fair amount of them. thank god because my handwriting is so hard to read
• beginning of depression (some of the pages are burnt/ripped)
• an amazing page from office hours with TA genji, where i wrote notes in blue muji pen and went back over with red ink pilot gel pen because i felt all the information was so important and i couldn't lose it because of my bad handwriting. shoutout motoni fong-hodges who was the school therapist they recommended to me LOLLL
• "I love you in many ways but not in others" real
• handwriting changes when i get sad
• i coat checked a carton of eggs at the Guggenheim and they did not crack. i assume in January of 2018
• "3) I am beginning 2 think it is a lot easier to say 'it's because i'm a virgo' instead of 'i was never trained to communicate my wants properly/only to deliver on the wants of other people/be of service'"
• the big 3 of my TA crush at this time (taurus/gemini/libra)

stretch break

i'm bored of this. i'll get ice cream. cya later...