Reading Some Old "Journals"

I took a class one time where we had to write a weekly "journal" of our experiences in the class, our thoughts, etc.

I remember it was something that needed to be accomplished, and that I did accomplish it right along with the need. I never once showed up with a blank sheet of paper. Yet it was still moderately difficult, mixed in with everything else I was doing in my day to day life. It was a chore.

Today I was going through some papers, trying to get myself down to a virtually paper-free life, and came across the whole stash of journals. I already had the original files on various discs and hard drives, since they were all written on the computer I had at the time. But the papers I got out today were the ones that had the instructors' comments written in the margins.

As I recall -- and this would be very typical of me -- I avoided reading their comments at the time. And really the only ones I read today were the ones that leaped out at me and couldn't be avoided. Generally I didn't want to read what they had to say at the time ... and I don't want to read what they had to say now. I got the gist. All I wanted was to get the task accomplished and move on. Plus, it's embarrassing to read comments like that.

But I must have glanced at them -- not very much though -- because you have to be at least vaguely familiar with what the teachers want when you're taking a class.

Just looking at the stack -- and especially the comments -- made me feel a little ill. I reacted against them, even though I'm trying to scan stuff into my computer so I can get rid of the originals. But these, I didn't really want to see them, but also I didn't want to throw them away without making a digital copy. So I made it through. Ordered them by date and scanned them. Now the originals can go!

In glancing through my stuff, I recalled what a chore it was to write the journals. But at this point I'm thinking it shouldn't have been such a chore. Just sit there and clack it out. Actually that's what I did!