scrappy notebook

I flipped through my writing notebook today, which has robots on the cover and serves as both class notebook and sketch book. It is full of scraps of this and that covered with drawings or notes or scribbled poems and almost as disheveled as my English binder is. So I was flipping through page after page of random illegibility, and I realized that perhaps this is why I sometimes struggle with finding the notes that I need for a given test. My organizational system in high school involved tabs and folders and hole punchers and clear, neat labeling plus highlighters and alphabetical ordering. My organizational system now involves an orange binder that contains everything I happen to get my hands on throughout the day. I keep meaning to put it all in a tidy fashion. But don't. Do you know how difficult it is to three-hole-punch a piece of paper with a one-hole-puncher? You have to have a way better eye than I do, otherwise you end up punching 14 holes in the margin just to get the paper fitted into those metal rings.

Example: I knew I took detailed and specific and helpful notes on the nine generalizations characteristic of Miltonic poetry a few weeks ago, thinking mistakenly that the test was that next week. And while I ended up having lots of time before the test, it was so lovely and unlike me to have possession of a premeditated study aid that I didn't worry about the notes until right before the test*. At which point I could not find them anywhere, until I searched (logically) between my handout on how to write a postcard and some drawings of a tree man.

I've included a few shots of my notebook so that you can see what an attentive literary genius I am.

*Received an A despite lack of organization.