Callistonian.net

In December of 2006 and January of 2007, I kept a journal of small paper squares and here it is for you to see! Each day is represented by one square. Most of the paper displayed was created or acquired on that day.

What follows is an explanation of each square. The explanations were transcribed from notes (the image on the right). If you view the original document and not the transcription below, you’ll:

a. see my handwriting at its worst
b. witness my disregard for spelling/grammar
c. read strange little asides

Anyway, here’s the edited version:
2006.11.18 - receipt for too heavy luggage >_< (until 2006.11.22)
2006.12.02 – Starbucks bag (contained an M&M cookie)
2006.12.03 – library receipt from Jefferson & Civil Liberties: The Darker Side
2006.12.04 – from sheet explaining in-class exercise of Darfur
2006.12.05/06 – from intro drafts on libel paper
2006.12.07 – from package for color splash flash
2006.12.08 – from op-ed assignment sheet
2006.19.09 – from pocky box ^^
2006.12.10 – bought a sweater from J. Crew (it’s pink ♥)
2006.12.11 – from scrap paper
2006.12.12 – white chocolate wrapper
2006.12.13 – cut from notes on Korean wave paper
2006.12.14 – Gourmet Heaven #2 wrapper
2006.12.15 – more from K-wave paper scribbles
2006.12.17 – from scratch paper for Korean final
2006.12.18 – from bag from stationery store on Chapel
? 2006.12.31 – Starbucks
2007.1.03 – Opry Mills movie ticket – Pursuit of Happyness
2007.1.05 – directions to Social Graces, &c.
2007.1.09 – Sims 2 game purchased
2007.1.12 – Anthropologie return mail slip for Jen’s candle
2007.1.18 – from envelope labels
2007.1.20 – J. Crew receipt bag
2007.1.21 – J. Crew clothes tag
2007.1.26 – paper from Anthropologie package with peacock box
2007.1.26 – Asian idol
2007.1.31 – receipt from Labyrinth Books for [Chinese] books
2007. 2.2. Delia’s receipt
2007.2.4 – tag on Delia’s headband

*The images are thumbnails

Everyone, surely, has quirkly little things that they love. As for me, I love history. I find the subject to be this fabulous, wonderful, and unbelievably useful thing. I was always a fan but I used to think that history was easy and that I could teach myself all that there was to know by simply reading.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Regardless, my adoration of history is excessive. For example, I talk about Alexander Hamilton all of the time (i.e. way too bloody much). For reasons that need not be discussed here my friends even know his birthday. In my defense, even though, I say a lot of random historical things - they’re never really annoying and even in the case of Hamilton, I do not ramble. My statements are quick, flighty, and amusing (sometimes acerbic).

Nevertheless, everything historical does not interest me. And I was terribly frightened that I would be forced to devote far too many hours of my life to researching and writing a hell-ish essay of fifty pages euphemistically referred to as my senior essay.

A long time ago, I decided that writing about Korea would be nice. Korea is this cool country in eastern Asia. It produces wonderful movies and dramas; it gets really excited about the World Cup; its history is widely neglected in America (what do you know about Korea? =P); and half of it is kind of crazy.

Great! There’s lots there or so I thought.

But… then I realized that I can’t read classical chinese and so all pre-2oth century history is off-limits. And then, I went to the library and talked to a specialist. The one potentially useful thing that she showed me was an online archive of newspapers from long ago. Awesome~ but, with a catch: the newspapers were in Japanese. So then, I pictured myself (it was terribly, really) bent over a desk at zero o’clock in the morning, attempting to decode (yes, decode) practically ancient Japanese newspapers in hopes of getting something out of them so that I could write a fifty-page long essay on something
that I wasn’t even interested in… what fun.

However, as of to-day, this little historian thinks that she finally has a topic for her senior essay. The following sentence is probably going to be one of the most anti-climactic ever but you certainly can handle it. Anyway, I came to the realization that I could combine several things that I like to write about (feel free to cringe as I list each one (haha): politics, human rights (no cringing), Korea, women, history, historiography, and law) into one topic: comfort women (20th century slaves). Hurrah!