Saturday, August 22, 2009

Looking Back

This weekend has been a walk down memory lane...

When we were still in the States, I started on a project to convert my journals (that I have kept since 1981) to electronic versions before the spiral binders all completely fall apart. I got quite a bit done during that time, in between school, volunteering for Google and maintaining our household. Then of course we moved to another country and projects were put on hold (yes, there are more than just one).

It has been nagging me for a long time but I just haven't be able to convince myself that I have the time to deal with it, so I haven't. But I have decided that none of these projects are going to get done if I don't make time for them and it is just a matter of managing my time into little bits...doesn't matter if I get them all done in one sitting, I just need to take little bites out of them until they are done.

So, for some reason, yesterday (Saturday here), I decided to at least figure out where I was with the journal project and get it organized. I went through them all (I brought them this time around so I could continue this project, last time I left them in storage) and figured out exactly where I was. Turns out, I am in the middle of 1985.

So I grabbed the one I was working on and the next one and decided to get to work. Now converting them to electronic copy entails actually typing them all in to my computer (spelling and grammar errors included). This is actually time consuming for several reasons, mostly though, it is due to the fact that a lot of it is in pencil and hard to read so I have to actually go over things before I can start typing.

Okay, so I told myself as a goal for the weekend, I wanted to get the two notebooks done (the one I was already in and the next one). I worked on it last night while watching a movie and then this morning while watching a movie.

The funny thing is that during this time in my life, I was REALLY into Prince....loved the 1999 album and the Purple Rain albums...and listened to them constantly. So you know what comes on the movie channel as I am finishing up the second notebook this afternoon? PURPLE RAIN!!! Wow, what a flashback...nothing takes you back like music can.

One thing that really struck me is that (at least at this point in my writing), I dont't really talk about what I am doing or listening to or watching at the movies...I am purely focused on crushes, and friends....I guess at that age, nothing else much matters. In most of the journals, I don't even have the year listed so I had to figure out some if on my own yesterday. I guess you also don't think that 25 years down the road, you will be reading what you wrote when you were in highschool.

I wish now that I had written more about what was going on around me, what music I was listening too (I only know about Prince because I remember it), what movies I was watching, where we were living, what my sister was doing (besides annoying me)...I will start paying more attention to what I write in my journal currently so that I do cover some of those things....it seems like otherwise it is just the ramblings of my mind rather than an actual account of my life at that time. Although now that I blog my everyday activities, I guess it might be okay for my journal to just be the ramblings....who knows.

I also noticed that I can spend several notebooks in one month because I was writing it in several times a day depending on what was going on in my life at the time. But as an adult, I have smaller handwriting and I don't write as frequently, so one notebook (I have switched to bound Mead notebooks) lasts me at least a year if not longer. I guess I have other outlets for my feelings and thoughts and that is part of it as well.

It is so funny to read my journals and realize what a teenager I was and how every thing that happened was so important and life or death. I was convinced that whomever I had a crush on at the moment was forever (which we all know is not the case) and that my life would never be right if Mom and Dad didn't let me do something, or my friends at school didn't like what I said or wore that day. It is amazing how small your world is when you are a kid and how easy life really is even though you don't realize it at the moment.

_____________________

Four Years Ago on In My Words...Little League World Series

4 comments:

Haha said...

I am so glad you kept journals - I always envied your dedication to your writing. Perhaps someday you can wrap a book around them. I did take a bit of joy in the fact that you realized that the end of the world was alway moments away when you were a teen. There is something to be said for living in the moment though and that is what teenagers do best. You were a wonderful teen to be around though!

... said...

Thanks Mom....from what I read though...I must have still been quite a task for you and Dad...

Mary and Sean said...

Hi Mishka,
I've always loved keeping a journal myself... good for you for wanting to preserve them...I think most of mine get lost or thrown out somehow after they serve their purpose of letting me "purge" my inner workings onto them. I just heard on NPR about several services that enable us to scan all our old photos to digital ones. Wouldn't it be great if we could do that with old writings as well?

Thanks for your comments on the vietnam trip. I'd love to see your pictures sometime! You seem like a fairly adventurous traveler? Would you be up for a trip to India and Katmandu this fall?

... said...

Mary, yes it would be great if we could scan in our journals to cut down on the time transcribing them although my handwriting is so terrible, I would probably spend just as much time correcting the scan errors...haha. It has been kind of fun to read over them while I am putting them in so I guess as long as I have the time, the typing is not too big of a deal.

Thanks for the invite for the fall but right now I have more on my plate than I can possibly manage so I would have to decline. I hope you have fun there though...sounds like a great trip.