I have kept a
journal for most of my life, writing religiously every night to record the events of the day and other miscellaneous
memorable trivia that may have occurred. I have always meant to transfer these
historical volumes into a typed format, but have never had the motivation to do so. At present, I have found a
plethora of inspiration which had been laying dormant in my mind,
silent all these years. This is the result:
A first hand perspective of the life belonging to kaytay.
The Early Years : December 28, 1989 – October 22, 1994 : this is the first 'diary' I’d ever written in. It was the stereotypical pink-covered adolescent girl diary, blatant gender roles exploited to the maximum.
Diary #2 : October 22, 1994 – November 14, 1994 : An unrealistically tiny book in which I spent more time complaining about the small pages than writing about anything useful.
Journal #3 : November 16, 1994 – December 11, 1994 and
Journal #4 : December 11, 1994 – December 24, 1994 : I was in between official journals at this time and was forced to use common notebooks to record my life’s events.
Nostalgic 1920s Journal : December 25, 1994 – August 25, 1995 : This journal was covered with antique-like pictures on a pale pink background.
Limited Jeans Journal : August 26, 1995 – October 25, 1996 : This was a journal I bought at the Limited Too, the place where my mom took me shopping every year for new school clothes. It’s a notebook covered in denim, filled with bizarre drawings pulled from the mind of an adolescent girl.
English Journal : November 13, 1996 – March 12, 1997 : This is the journal we were required to keep during eighth grade for English class. I filled an entire 120 page notebook with cramped writing while most kids struggled to even think of what to write about.
Sophisticated Tulip Journal : October 26, 1996 – February 26, 1997 : It was hard to write in this journal since the cover had a cut out square, but it was so pretty that being practical was out of the question.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal : February 27, 1997 – April 22, 1997 : The cover of this is part of a leaded-glass window called Magnolias and Irises from Tiffany Studios in New York. It’s quite breathtaking if you ever care to see it.
The Scream Journal : April 23, 1997 – July 17, 1997 :One of my favorite pieces of art, The Scream by Edvard Munch, made this journal irresistible.
Vintage French Wine Journal : July 18, 1997 – October 28, 1997 : This one is covered with old wine bottle labels from France. I was interested in the language and the French culture at this time, and the journal was aesthetically pleasing with a nice color scheme.
Egyptian Art Journal : October 29, 1997 – January 20, 1998 : The cover of this journal has graphic design-like patterns and shapes in the Egyptian style , with a large black cat centered on the front.
Good Days/Bad Days Journal : January 21, 1998 – March 5, 1998 : I received this journal as a gift, and found the smiling baby on one side and the same one frowning on the other to be adorable. I didn’t write in it as recommended, however. I just treated it as any journal and wrote cover to cover.
Blank Book Journal : March 6, 1998 – April 29, 1998 : This journal contains no inspirational pictures, but it allowed for maximum writing and I used every inch of space provided.
Cheesy Ying-Yang Journal : April 29, 1998 – July 9, 1998 : I was not able to make it to a store to purchase a journal to suit my own style at this point, so I had to rely on my mother to pick one out and send it to me in the mail. I was disappointed with the results, but in the end, a journal is a journal.
Warren Kimble Art Journal : July 10, 1998 – October 22, 1998 : My grandma sent this to me from Vermont. It has a large picture of a somewhat abstract cow on the cover, which appealed to my affection for cattle.
Lily Journal : October 26, 1998 – present: I now have the largest collection of back stocked journals ever seen. I recently began typing my daily, weekly, sometimes monthly entries and saving them on the computer as opposed to writing everything by hand.
Special Occasion Journals:
European Excursions June 15, 2000 – June 29, 2000 : this oversized blank book has an oeuvre by the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha on the front. I picked it up in London for £4.99. I tried to write every day of the European tour, but we did so much in such a short period of time that writing about it took as long as the actual events.
Day Dreams/Night Dreams Journal March 14, 1997 – present : This journal was yet another gift (shopping for me was easy back in the day), and the cover was so amazingly detailed and beautiful that it was almost too nice to soil with my petty writing. It’s no where near full, but every dream I recorded is extremely bizarre.
The Princess Secret Diary December 26, 1994 – present : This is the diary in which I write things no one else is allowed to see. Childish and somewhat paranoid, but I don’t know what I would do without it.