One Box Lighter

One thing I've been wanting to tackle practically since I graduated college was the giant pile of notebooks my chicken-scratch and doodling filled in those four years. Over the course of my college education, I racked up dozens of spiral notebooks full of notes from my classes. I was a notebook-writing kinda gal; if I'd brought my laptop to class, I'd have spent the whole time playing games and not paying attention. (You gotta know what works for you when it comes to study habits!)

So I acquired all these spiral notebooks. And then I graduated college and they moved back to Texas with me. And then I moved in with Matt, and they followed me then too. And for the past almost three years, they've lived in the guest room closet where no one has looked at them since they were placed there.

Only like, one or two of these are Matt's.

I knew I couldn't just recycle them and be done with it. That would be like throwing away the physical evidence of the knowledge I'd gained over my four years of schooling. Instead, my lofty goal was to scan the pages of my notebooks so that I could haul them around forever without straining my back; to make all those spirals no heavier than the weight of my MacBook Pro.

It was no easy task! (I watched both the Golden Globes and the Grammys as I scanned and scanned.) Hundreds and hundreds of pages etched onto a flash drive and transferred over to the computer. Distant memories from long-forgotten classes dredged up. I took some really interesting classes that I'd forgotten about: Religion, Culture and the Meaning of Life. The Bible as Literature. A women's studies class on body image. Tudor England (one of my favorites). A technology class where we spent the whole time discussing "new" means of communication, like Skype and Google and TiVo. Plus, all the advertising classes you could ever dream of, a perfect fit for a commercial nerd like me.

I may not remember every second of those classes, but I remember which ones I loved and which notebooks got thrown out as soon as the class was over. (I'm looking at YOU, Propaganda and Rhetoric. What should have been a thrilling English class was the most boring three credits ever. Except that we got to read "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood as part of the curriculum, and that was excellent.)

By scanning these pages, though, it's almost as if I'm admitting that digital text makes much more sense than paper and pen. Which kind of saddens me. I've always been so pro-written word, so anti-digital reading.

At the same time, it feels like a huge burden has been lifted. (And placed on Matt's shoulders, because it's his job to take out the recycling bin. And I mean BIN.)

Our giant Rubbermaid "paper recycling bin." At least half of it is old notebook pages.

But once it's taken out, we'll no longer have to carry the weight anymore. And that's a relief.

The remaining spirals are Matt's. Only a few old Bibles and Photoshop magazines are left. Michael Scott approves.

What do you need to organize? Did you keep any of your old school notebooks?