Notes on notes

For pretty much all of my conscious life I have been learning. In the US, kids are put into school at 5 years old, and its round a 16 years journey to earn a college bachelor’s degree (which is what I’m currently doing) so needless to say I have been in classrooms for most days of the year for 14 years. Along this time, I started a journey with note taking, I started to enjoy the act of writing, highlighting, drawing, and decorating pages of notes in middle school.

From the American consumerist pov I guess I really just enjoyed the action of buying something and using it everyday (the same goes for art supplies). Some of my favorite things to buy were Muji pens and Mildliner Highlighters (and in recent years it has been washi tape). When I just started committing to spending more time beautifying my notes, I realized that practically all of the products I like were made in Japan. Or was it because they were from Japan that I liked them? That can be a whole separate essay on its own!

When I started taking Computer Science classes for my college major, I pretty much knew that the content was virtually impossible document with handwritten notes. I found it mush more efficient to use software like Notion with a built-in code previewer. However, I am still pursuing a Biology minor, and these classes give me a better opportunity to use my hoard of stationary supplies.

Using notes as a medium of art can feel easier to me compared to making an original painting for example. Something completely new like that is significantly more personal and creative, and while I wish I could master that too, for the time being I like to put more energy into something simpler but equally as authentic.

Often times I find I spend too much time making my notes look nice, ultimately taking away time from actually studying and retaining the material! This isn’t the best feeling, but I think as long as I’m away of my prioritize I can allow myself to spend some time (and money) on making notes nice.