Item: 1 5 1/2 x 4-inch notebook

If I didn't keep all of my old journals, I wouldn't be able to look and see what I was doing at this time 7 years ago, which was wrapping up my MFA program and trying to figure out what I was going to do next.  This particular journal I think must have been on sale for some low price - it's labelled "Lil' Fat Book" and has an obnoxious triangular blue, yellow, and orange design on the cover.  The pages were actually too small for it to be a really good journal.  You wouldn't think things like page size and line length would make such a big difference in how a person writes, but they do.

Anyway, this journal opens in March 1999 with a list of my problems, beginning with:

1. My thesis is due in 19 days.

and ending with:

7. I still have no valuable job skills.
8. I am broke.
9. I have no direction for my life.

That time actually doesn't seem like it was that long ago, that 7 years could have passed.  I may not have figured everything out but unquestionably I have much better ideas about what I want than I did at that time.  I don't know how it happened, but I'm glad it did.

It reminds me of a line from Victor Hugo which I also wrote down in this journal (and which I cannot verify but I'm guessing is from Les Miserables since I was reading it the following summer):  Gradualness is the whole policy of God.

You're still wondering what 2 through 6 were, aren't you!?!!