Journal Entries In Quotes

She needs a new journal. The one she has is problematic. To get to the present, she needs to page through the past, and when she does, she remembers things, and her new journal entries become, for the most part, reactions to the days she regrets, wants to correct, rewrite.

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

But the truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do with it." (Online journal entry for January 31, 2009)

Do you know,” he says, closing the cover of the journal only to lay his hand on top of it. Protecting it. Staring at it. “I couldn’t sleep for days after I read that entry. I kept wanting to know which people were chasing you down the street, who it was you were running from. I wanted to find them,” he says, so softly, “and I wanted to rip their limbs off, one by one. I wanted to murder them in ways that would horrify you to hear.

Girls are always saying things like, “I’m so unhappy that I’m going to overdose on aspirin,” but they’d be awfully surprised if they succeeded. They have no intention of dying. At the first sight of blood, they panic.

A good journal entry- like a good song, or sketch, or photograph- ought to break up the habitual and life away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought to be a love letter to the world.

That journal entry is fascinating, but all wrong. I was at home when you called that night. And I broke every speed limit to get to you.

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur." ("Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.") [Journal entry, 10 December 1801]

A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.

Eric penned nearly a dozen new journal entries in the next two months. "I have a goal to destroy as much as possible," he wrote, "so I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy, or any of that." It was a mark of Eric's ruthlessness that he comprehended the pain and consciously fought the urge to spare it. "I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom," [the computer game he played day and night] he wrote. "I have to turn off my feelings.

There is beauty in the midst of tragedy. As if beauty were condensing in the heart of ugliness. It's very strange.

This book made me feel strangely awkward, because I'm afraid of finding my own story in it. I take books too seriously.

Keeping a journal: The short entries are often as dry as instant tea. Writing them down is like pouring hot water over them to release their aroma.

JOURNAL ENTRY: Stop waiting for something or someone to come and make you happy. Meditate daily. Breathe. Come on. You’re okay. You have friends. Love them. Respect them. Go out and play. Learn to be alone.

Diaries were horribly organized and awfully prescriptive. They involved dates and plans and regular entries and the suffocating weight of commitment. Journals, on the other hand, were deliciously wild and lawless things. One could abandon a journal for weeks, then crack it open one Saturday evening under the influence of wine and marshmallows without an ounce of guilt.

Blessed is he who keeps daily diary and compares the work of this week with that of the last, for he will realize God quickly!

It's a wonderful, inspiring feeling to have real friends who love and understand you. I have never had that feeling before.

The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see.

I really don't know what's happened to me, but I have changed from top to toe. I am living in a strange mixture of memories of yesterday and today.

Captain James Kirk was named after Captain James Cook and the USS Enterprise was named after the HMS Endeavour. Star Trek’s catchphrase “to boldly go where no man has gone before” was inspired by Cook’s journal entry “ambition leads me … farther than any other man has been before me”. Enterprise and Endeavour, the first and last space shuttles, were named after the ships of Kirk and Cook. There are bound to be other links between Captain Cook, Star Trek and the US Space Program and some Australian university will no doubt award a grant to explore this issue of undisputed national significance.

Some people won't dog-ear the pages. Others won't place the book facedown, pages splayed. Some won't dare make a mark in the margin. Get over it. Books exist to impart their worlds to you, not to be beautiful objects to save for some other day. We implore you to fold, crack, and scribble on your books whenever the desire takes you. Underline the good bits, exclaim "YES!" and "NO!" in the margins. Invite others to inscribe and date the frontispiece. Draw pictures, jot down phone numbers and Web addresses, make journal entries, draft letters to friends or world leaders. Scribble down ideas for a novel of your own, sketch bridges you want to build, dresses you want to design. Stick postcards and pressed flowers between the pages. When next you open the book, you'll be able to find the bits that made you think, laugh, and cry the first time around. And you'll remember that you picked up that coffee stain in the cafe where you also picked up that handsome waiter. Favorite books should be naked, faded, torn, their pages spilling out. Love them like a friend, or at least a favorite toy. Let them wrinkle and age along with you.

Even in the most liberal of countries and cultures, it is not easy for a pre-debut trainee to publicly voice his complaints about the label’s CEO. And Korea is a country where idol groups cannot be launched without significant capital, time, and planning know-how. In spite of this, Bang Si-Hyuk had the members write their own blog posts and publicly share their thoughts and feelings as trainees alongside their mixtapes and journal entries.

And instead of dying Immediately after they shot him, he would go on to survive several days solely because of the cold that January. Maybe that's why we are drawn to those who posses the coldest of hearts ... In effort to survive. 

Tonight I write this journal entry on my laptop. Other nights I have handwritten entries in notebooks. Sometimes I jot down notes as I ride home in the cab or wait for an appointment. I want all of this -- everything and everyone -- to stay with me.

I think for a time I was unsure what love meant. And now at least I AM sure that a very big part of it involves caring about someone SO much, that you find yourself using Your energy to make their life the BEST it can possibly be. And in turn they do the same for you. Until you both are strong enough to overcome whatever struggles you might have battled on your own, and also struggles you still have yet to face.

I do not write every day. I write to the questions and issues before me. I write to deadlines. I write out of my passions. And I write to make peace with my own contradictory nature. For me, writing is a spiritual practice. A small bowl of water sits on my desk, a reminder that even if nothing is happening on the page, something is happening in the room--evaporation. And I always light a candle when I begin to write, a reminder that I have now entered another realm, call it the realm of the Spirit. I am mindful that when one writes, one leaves this world and enters another. My books are collages made from journals, research, and personal experience. I love the images rendered in journal entries, the immediacy that is captured on the page, the handwritten notes. I love the depth of ideas and perspective that research brings to a story, be it biological or anthropological studies or the insights brought to the page by the scholarly work of art historians. When I go into a library, I feel like I am a sleuth looking to solve a mystery. I am completely inspired by the pursuit of knowledge through various references. I read newpapers voraciously. I love what newspapers say about contemporary culture. And then you go back to your own perceptions, your own words, and weigh them against all you have brought together. I am interested in the kaleidoscope of ideas, how you bring many strands of thought into a book and weave them together as one piece of coherent fabric, while at the same time trying to create beautiful language in the service of the story. This is the blood work of the writer. Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another critical component of my life as a writer. I cannot separate the writing life from a spiritual life, from a life as a teacher or activist or my life intertwined with family and the responsibilities we carry within our own homes. Writing is daring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its own form of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty.

You ought to write down your goals. It serves as a guidepost and gives strength for purposeful action.

a body on the sand. My journal gets very spotty here, with only a single detailed entry

Victorian London. Rome in the fifth century. Egypt in the early twentieth. There must have been a hundred different places listed, all with small journal entries, like Saw the Queen as she and the Prince rode past us on their way to Buckingham Palace and The camel nearly ate Gus’s hair, ripped it from his scalp like grass and My God, if I never see another big-bellied man wrapped in a toga…

It is my practice to index my Journal entries every other week or so. I find that this is more efficient than indexing them straight away. After some time has passed it is easier to separate the important from the ephemeral.

Ravens and crows. Rats Mists and clouds. Insects and corruption. Strange events and odd occurrences. The ordinary twisted and strange. Wonders! The dead are beginning to walk and some see them. Others do not, but more and more, we all fear the night. These have been our days. They rain upon us beneath a dead sky, crushing us with their fury, until as one we beg: "Let it begin!" -Journal of the Unknown Scholar, entry for The Feast of Freia, 1000 NE

As I work on yet another draft of my story, I try to remember these lessons. A journal entry is for its writer; it helps its writer refine, perceive, and process the world. But a story—a finished piece of writing—is for its reader; it should help its reader refine, perceive, and process the world—the one particular world of the story, which

Mr. Blake idly turned over the books on his bedroom table. I had taken the precaution of looking at them, when we first entered the room. THE GUARDIAN; THE TATLER; Richardson's PAMELA; Mackenzie's MAN OF FEELING; Roscoe's LORENZO DE MEDICI; and Robertson's CHARLES THE FIFTH—all classical works; all (of course) immeasurably superior to anything produced in later times; and all (from my present point of view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody's interest, and exciting nobody's brain. I left Mr. Blake to the composing influence of Standard Literature, and occupied myself in making this entry in my journal.

After years of pining over something she could never have, she would choose to embrace the cold comfort of reality instead. No more daydreams of his smile, no more journal entries with his name, no more prayers for the impossible. She would not allow it.

To get the maximum benefit from this practice, you’ll need to write in your journal daily about your thoughts and reactions to events and the people in your life. You don’t need to write long entries, but aim to be honest and open about your emotions, motivations and behaviors.

In these journals I would frequently write messages to myself, a person whom I addressed as Big Me, or The Future Me. Rereading these entries as the addressee, I try not to be insulted, since my former self admonishes me frequently. "I hope you are not a failure," he says. "I hope you are happy," he says.

In every bit of honest writing in the world,” he noted in a 1938 journal entry,” . . . there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

He’d decided to keep a journal in the hope that this might help. He looked at the recent entries. Probably Tuesday: hot, flies. Dinner: honey ants. Attacked by honey ants. Fell into waterhole. Wednesday, with any luck: hot, flies. Dinner: either bush raisins or kangaroo droppings. Chased by hunters, don’t know why. Fell into waterhole. Thursday (could be): hot, flies. Dinner: blue-tongued lizard. Savaged by blue-tongued lizard. Chased by different hunters. Fell off cliff, bounced into tree, pissed on by small grey incontinent teddy bear, landed in a waterhole. Friday: hot, flies. Dinner: some kind of roots which tasted like sick. This saved time. Saturday: hotter than yesterday, extra flies. V. thirsty. Sunday: hot. Delirious with thirst and flies. Nothing but nothing as far as the eye can see, with bushes in it. Decided to die, collapsed, fell down sand dune into waterhole.

In short, I'm not very concerned with quantity and quality; I just want a reasonable entry for every day of my life, starting now.

It wasn’t really a journal. I tried keeping a journal, but it would always be one long entry filling the first seven pages, and then just nothing. Too hard.

By most people the 'sense of reality' is understood to be the submission to events and indeed illusion is often salvation.

A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart.

good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world.

There can be no deeper despair, no pain less easy to assuage, than losing a husband when you are young.

It seemed to me that I was suddenly in the presence of incosolable, unavoidable, and immense pain. The thought of that death hunted me and turned everything else into nothing.

[from an entry by her daughter Camille] ...research published fifteen years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine: eggs from chickens that ranged freely on grass have about half the cholesterol of factory-farmed eggs, and it's mostly HDL, the cholesterol that's good for you. They also have more vitamin E, beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids than their cooped-up counterparts.

And yes, I recall every entry I read. I usually memorise anything by reading it once. I took special care of her journal. Now all her words, her vents, and her confusions and fake personality are integrated into my head. When I grow old and my memory starts demanding to delete files to be able to remember others, I’d choose her stupid journal over books by philosophers and psychologists any day. Chaos. She’s fucking chaos.

Topic and page number, you capture your thoughts as short, objective sentences known as Bullets. Each Bullet is paired with a specific symbol to categorize your entry. We use Bullets not only because it takes less time,

In your journal, reserve a section for painful experiences, writing them down right afterward. Leave two lines below each entry. After one month, return to the journal and write in the first blank line what you learned from that bad experience in the intervening period. After six months, fill in the second line with the positives that ultimately came from it. You will be amazed at how this exercise changes your perspective on your past.

There is an entry in Baudelaire’s Journal Intime that is fearful in the precision of its cynicism: “One must work, if not from taste then at least from despair. For, to reduce everything to a single truth: work is less boring than pleasure.

While we took the children off to Disneyland. A visit to this magical kingdom should be a compulsory part of being an American---who else on earth would put so much ingenuity into simply having fun? The rides were fabulous: a real life pirate ship with real life pirates; a roller coaster that tppk you inside the Matterhorn (that was my favourite); and the Haunted House, with its flickering lights and a moving floor. By the end of the day, our feet were aching and our voices were hoarse, but it was well worth it. We all had a tremendous time !

I must write about the things of the world with no glazing.” She fought doggedly against the great suction into her own subjectivity: “I shall perish if I can write about no one but myself.” Something like this went through nearly every entry in her journal over long periods. In

I leave entry for the first day of the tenth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls This morning I fetched the small cardboard box with the word AQUARIUM and the picture of an octopus on it. It is the box that originally contained the shoes Dr Ketterley gave me. When Dr Ketterley told me to hide Myself from 16, I took the ornaments out of my hair and placed them in the box. But now, wanting to look my best when I enter the New World, I spent two or three hours putting them back in, all the pretty things that I have found or made: seashells, coral beads, pearls, tiny pebbles and interesting fishbones. When Raphael arrived, she seemed rather astonished at my pleasant appearance. I took my messenger bag with all my Journals and my favourite pens and we walked towards the two Minotaurs in the South-Eastern Corner. The shadows between them shimmered slightly. The shadows suggested the shape of a corridor or alleyway with dim walls and, at the end of it, lights, flashes of moving colour that my eye could not interpret. I took one last look at the Eternal House. I shivered. Raphael took my hand. Then, together, we walked into the corridor.

If my work has taught me anything, it is this: While a great many curiosities can be explained using thorough scientific research and sound logic, there are a handful of them that resist such easy hypothesis. These mysteries tend to be the most human. The most important. Chief among them is love.

For every transaction, a journal entry must be recorded that includes both a debit and a credit. Debits increase asset accounts and decrease equity and liability accounts. Credits decrease asset accounts and increase equity and liability accounts. Debits increase expense accounts, while credits increase revenue accounts.

Pressing my nails firmly into the bark of the tree, I watch as a silhouette reveals itself in the moonlight. Tall and built, the human frame enters the clearing that I stand in. My eyes are immediately drawn to the breathtaking sight of his face. I am familiar with those deep brown eyes, which draw me gently towards him. I let him pull me into his warm embrace. “Kirano!” I breathe, pressing my head against his regal blue jacket. I can hear his heart beating rapidly with excitement. “Aisha,” Kirano’s voice is as soothing as I remember. Looking up, I see his warm, adoring smile. “I see that you tied your favourite silk scarf to the tree.

From my heel to my toe is a measured space of 29.7 centimetres or 11.7 inches. This is a unit of progress and it is also a unit of thought. 'I can only meditate when I am walking,' wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the fourth book of his 'Confessions', 'when I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.' Søren Kierkegaard speculated that the mind might function optimally at the pedestrian pace of three miles per hour, and in a journal entry describes going out for a wander and finding himself 'so overwhelmed with ideas' that he 'could scarcely walk'. Christopher Morley wrote of Wordsworth as 'employ[ing] his legs as an instrument of philosophy' and Wordsworth of his own 'feeling intellect'. Nietzsche was typically absolute on the subject - 'Only those thoughts which come from 'walking' have a value' - and Wallace Stevens typically tentative: 'Perhaps / The truth depends on a walk around the lake.' In all of these accounts, walking is not the action by which one arrives at knowledge; it is itself the means of knowing.

My journaling method ranges from being a very specific, structured process—listing what I’m grateful for, acknowledging my accomplishments, clarifying what areas I want to improve on, and planning which specific actions I’m committed to taking to improve—to being pretty traditional, just a dated entry with a synopsis of my day. I find both to be very valuable, and it’s nice to mix it up.

So it was a bit of shock, years later, when P.T. delivered a sermon, one of his few memorable ones, in which he told us all that the word "Word" was translated from the Greek word *Logos,* which didn't really mean "word" at all, but rather something closer to "plea" or even premise." It was a small betrayal for my little apostle's heart to find out that I had gotten my journal entry wrong. Worse still, I felt then, was the betrayal of language in translation. Why didn't English have a better word than "Word" if "Word" was not precise enough? I started to approach my Bible with suspicion. What else had I missed? Even though I felt ambushed, I did like the ambiguity that the revelation introduced into that verse. In the beginning there was an idea, a premise; there was a question.

A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.

I read a lot of travel books before I came here. Fantasised what it would be like. I read Scott’s journal. Those last entries as they froze to death in that tent. ‘Had we lived, I should have made a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.’ I got totally caught up in the romance.” “Scott was a self-aggrandising dick.

Craig inscribed something in the journal and Bob walked over to study the entry. "Does the name Bob Ford mean anything to you? Craig dipped his quill in the ink bottle and scripted cursively on a brown blotter. "Is that your actual name or your alias?" "Actual," said Bob, and he grinned with delight when he saw the name recorded in Craig's elegant calligraphy. "Pretty soon all of America will know who Bob Ford is.

The human heart weights (on average) eleven ounces and beats (approximately) one hundred thousand times per day. In Ancient Greece, the theory was widely held that, as the most powerful and vital part of the body, the heart acted as a brain of sorts- collecting information from all other organs through the circulatory system. Aristotle included thoughts and emotions in his hypotheses relating to the aforementioned information- a fact that modern scientists find quaint in its lack of basic anatomical understanding. There are reports that long after a person is pronounced dead and a mind and soul gone from its casing, under certain conditions, the heart might continue beating for hours. I find myself wondering if in those instances the organ might continue to feel as well. And, if it does, whether it feels more or less pain than mine at present time.

I've had so much time to think down here, and I want to say that I think that the most important thing in life are thankfulness, forgiveness, and love. Mama taught me to always be thankful. And when you say thank you it makes other people feel happy. And forgiveness, because, life is too short to be cross. It's also not fun. And, last but not least, love- because when you have love in your heart, nothing and no one can take it away from you.

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long considered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popularity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study, Milton’s reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century. Very soon after his death – and continuing to the present day – Milton became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliot’s belief that “of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making unlawful entry.” Milton’s radical, republican politics and heretical religious views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latinate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent generations—particularly the Romantic movement—the man whom Samuel Johnson disparaged as “an acrimonious and surly republican” must be counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time. Source: Wikipedia

We tend to think this world is about us. But our story, in the expanse of history, is nothing but a vignette, a small picture with blurred edges, a brief journal entry. Life is really about another story. When we can begin to see the commonality in our species, when we acknowledge that we are all broken yet redeemed for a higher purpose, when we get that, we forgive. As my father has reminded me often, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Ideas for Journal Entries You may find the following ideas useful in beginning your journal or keeping the entries varied. If you are not used to expressing your thoughts on paper, it may seem awkward at first. The longer you do it, the easier it will become. You’ll be amazed at the insight you gain into your life. -Write about your most memorable experience with social anxiety. How did you feel? What did you think? How did others react? Why do you think the event happened? -Write about situations that make you anxious every day. Record your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You may want to divide the page into columns with the headings: situation or event; negative thoughts; physical reactions; and actions. Following is an example of how this may look: Situation or Event Should I attend the first art class after school. Negative Thoughts I thought about skipping out. I was afraid of what people would think. I wanted to do a good job. Physical Reactions I felt a shortness of breath. In general, I was nervous and in a bad mood. Actions I took some deep breaths and visualized the class going well. Later, I became engrossed in my drawing. -Write about a time when you were pleased with how you acted in a social situation. -Identify times when anxiety symptoms kept you from doing something that you really wanted to do. How did you feel? What might have happened if you had not been afraid? -Write a letter to someone who made you feel bad about yourself. You aren’t going to show the letter to anyone, so feel free to write whatever you want. -Write out a conversation with your inner voice. Begin the entry with a question directed to yourself, then write your mental response. It may help to label the different voices A and B. Dialogue writing is a very effective way to get to the heart of the matter.

Asking a writer why they like to write {in the theoretical sense of the question} is like asking a person why they breathe. For me, writing is a natural reflex to the beauty, the events, and the people I see around me. As Anais Nin put it, "We write to taste life twice." I live and then I write. The one transfers to the other, for me, in a gentle, necessary way. As prosaic as it sounds, I believe I process by writing. Part of the way I deal with stressful situations, catty people, or great joy or great trials in my own life is by conjuring it onto paper in some way; a journal entry, a blog post, my writing notebook, or my latest story. While I am a fair conversationalist, my real forte is expressing myself in words on paper. If I leave it all chasing round my head like rabbits in a warren, I'm apt to become a bug-bear to live with and my family would not thank me. Some people need counselors. Some people need long, drawn-out phone-calls with a trusted friend. Some people need to go out for a run. I need to get away to a quiet, lonesome corner--preferably on the front steps at gloaming with the North Star trembling against the darkening blue. I need to set my pen fiercely against the page {for at such moments I must be writing--not typing.} and I need to convert the stress or excitement or happiness into something to be shared with another person. The beauty of the relationship between reading and writing is its give-and-take dynamic. For years I gathered and read every book in the near vicinity and absorbed tale upon tale, story upon story, adventures and sagas and dramas and classics. I fed my fancy, my tastes, and my ideas upon good books and thus those aspects of myself grew up to be none too shabby. When I began to employ my fancy, tastes, and ideas in writing my own books, the dawning of a strange and wonderful idea tinged the horizon of thought with blush-rose colors: If I persisted and worked hard and poured myself into the craft, I could create one of those books. One of the heart-books that foster a love of reading and even writing in another person somewhere. I could have a hand in forming another person's mind. A great responsibility and a great privilege that, and one I would love to be a party to. Books can change a person. I am a firm believer in that. I cannot tell you how many sentiments or noble ideas or parts of my own personality are woven from threads of things I've read over the years. I hoard quotations and shadows of quotations and general impressions of books like a tzar of Russia hoards his icy treasures. They make up a large part of who I am. I think it's worth saying again: books can change a person. For better or for worse. As a writer it's my two-edged gift to be able to slay or heal where I will. It's my responsibility to wield that weapon aright and do only good with my words. Or only purposeful cutting. I am not set against the surgeon's method of butchery--the nicking of a person's spirit, the rubbing in of a salty, stinging salve, and the ultimate healing-over of that wound that makes for a healthier person in the end. It's the bitter herbs that heal the best, so now and again you might be called upon to write something with more cayenne than honey about it. But the end must be good. We cannot let the Light fade from our words.

She hunts down the most vivid details and links them in sequences that will let a reader see, smell, and hear a world that seems complete in itself; she builds a stage set and painstakingly hides all the struts and wires and nail holes, then stands back and hopes whoever might come to see it will believe. As I work on yet another draft of my story, I try to remember these lessons. A journal entry is for its writer; it helps its writer refine, perceive, and process the world. But a story—a finished piece of writing—is for its reader; it should help its reader refine, perceive, and process the world—the one particular world of the story, which is an invention, a dream. A writer manufactures a dream. And each draft should present a version of that dream that is more precisely rendered and more consistently sustained than the last. Every morning I try to remind myself to give unreservedly, to pore over everything, to test each sentence for fractures in the dream.

Woolf drew on her memories of her holidays in Cornwall for To the Lighthouse, which was conceived in part as an elegy on her parents. Her father was a vigorous walker and an Alpinist of some renown, a member of the Alpine Club and editor of the Alpine Journal from 1868 to 1872; he was the first person to climb the Schreckhorn in the Alps and he wrote on Alpine pleasures in The Playground of Europe (1871). By the time he married Julia Duckworth in 1878, however, a more sedentary Leslie Stephen was the established editor of the Cornhill Magazine, from which he later resigned to take up the editorship of the Dictionary of National Biography in 1882, the year of Woolf ’s birth. Stephen laboured on this monumental Victorian enterprise until 1990, editing single-handed the first twenty-six volumes and writing well over 300 biographical entries. He also published numerous volumes of criticism, the most important of which were on eighteenth-century thought and literature.

Arin had bathed. He was wearing house clothes, and when Kestrel saw him standing in the doorway his shoulders were relaxed. Without being invited, he strode into the room, pulled out the other chair at the small table where Kestrel waited, and sat. He arranged his arms in a position of negligent ease and leaned into the brocaded chair as if he owned it. He seemed, Kestrel thought, at home. But then, he had also seemed so in the forge. Kestrel looked away from him, stacking the Bite and Sting tiles on the table. It occurred to her that it was a talent for Arin to be comfortable in such different environments. She wondered how she would fare in his world. He said, “This is not a sitting room.” “Oh?” Kestrel mixed the tiles. “And here I thought we were sitting.” His mouth curved slightly. “This is a writing room. Or, rather”--he pulled his six tiles--“it was.” Kestrel drew her Bite and Sting hand. She decided to show no sign of curiosity. She would not allow herself to be distracted. She arranged her tiles facedown. “Wait,” he said. “What are the stakes?” She had given this careful consideration. She took a small wooden box from her skirt pocket and set it on the table. Arin picked up the box and shook it, listening to the thin, sliding rattle of its contents. “Matches.” He tossed the box back onto the table. “Hardly high stakes.” But what were appropriate stakes for a slave who had nothing to gamble? This question had troubled Kestrel ever since she had proposed the game. She shrugged and said, “Perhaps I am afraid to lose.” She split the matches between them. “Hmm,” he said, and they each put in their ante. Arin positioned his tiles so that he could see their engravings without revealing them to Kestrel. His eyes flicked to them briefly, then lifted to examine the luxury of his surroundings. This annoyed her--both because she could glean nothing from his expression and because he was acting the gentleman by averting his gaze, offering her a moment to study her tiles without fear of giving away something to him. As if she needed such an advantage. “How do you know?” she said. “How do I know what?” “That this was a writing room. I have never heard of such a thing.” She began to position her own tiles. It was only when she saw their designs that she wondered whether Arin had really been polite in looking away, or if he had been deliberately provoking her. She concentrated on her draw, relieved to see that she had a good set. A tiger (the highest tile); a wolf, a mouse, a fox (not a bad trio, except the mouse); and a pair of scorpions. She liked the Sting tiles. They were often underestimated. Kestrel realized that Arin had been waiting to answer her question. He was watching her. “I know,” he said, “because of this room’s position in your suite, the cream color of the walls, and the paintings of swans. This was where a Herrani lady would pen her letters or write journal entries. It’s a private room. I shouldn’t be allowed inside.” “Well,” said Kestrel, uncomfortable, “it is no longer what it was.

Slowly, Rachel helped me to comprehend that the emotional scar tissue from my childhood had grown thick and heavy, blocking my ability to move forward in my life in a healthy way. She brought me to see that my mother’s rage was not my fault and that my own rage was a replication of my experiences with Mama. JOURNAL ENTRY: The reality of the darkness I’ve lived through is staggering. I have Mama’s anger. I go off on people just like Mama used to go off on me. I just want to be better. God, please help me to stop being so scared all the time.

She told me to keep writing. After my journal filled up, I bought another one. As I wrote and read my entries to Joan, I felt myself metamorphosing. My growth was like the tide, coming in waves, retracting out of reach, coming back. Sometimes undercurrents came, pulling at my feet, sucking the sand out from under them. I dug my toes in hard and closed my eyes and managed to stay mostly upright, but those riptides came anyway, guided by the same moon that looked so benevolent, so white and happy against the indigo sky, so serene and fat and innocent, so far away. (141)

March 28, 2012 The dreams won’t subside. I don’t just have them at night anymore but during the day as well. Erotic flashes of her lips, her breasts, her thighs. My imagination does not rest. I yearn to know what she feels like, what she tastes like. My dreams make me long for more. This woman is a virus. Every cell in my body has been infected by her. I try to remain civil, normal when I’m in her presence but she’ll lick her lips or play with the top of her collar and suddenly memories of my dreams will come flooding back. This woman is a virus that has dominated every part of my being. She attacks my lungs, squeezing the breath out of me until I’m hopelessly gasping for air. This isn’t a want. This isn’t a need. This is an ache. I ache with wanting. I ache with need. I ache until the pain finally leaves me feeling numb. I long for that numbness. It’s the only time I feel like…I don’t feel. I try to run away, to keep my distance but this woman is a virus. She’s in my blood. Her smile stops my feet from moving. The only time she allows me to breathe freely is when I inhale her perfume. I feel myself losing control. These dreams, this ache is slowly driving me insane. This woman is a virus and she’s eating me alive.

And doesn't a writer do the same thing? Isn't she knitting together scraps of dreams? She hunts down the most vivid details and links them in sequences that will let a reader see, smell, and hear a world that seems complete in itself; she builds a stage set and painstakingly hides all the struts and wires and nail holes, then stands back and hopes whoever might come to see it will believe....A journal entry is for a its writer; it helps its writer refine, perceive, and process the world. But a story - a finished pieces of writing - is for its reader; it should help its reader refine, perceive, and process the world...

I’m tired of thinking about Agatha. Well, not about her, but about my loss of her. Today I went through some old boxes of mine and found some journal entries I wrote in the second grade. One was about the loss of a girl, the S name on my list, so I’ll copy and paste it for posterity: Today was a bad day. Stephany broke up with me for Tommy. I don’t like that slimy Tommy. Tommy is a turtle. I used to like turtles but now I like warm blooded creetures. Maybe Stephany is a reptile disguised as a human jerkface. I won’t cry because I am a soldier. Soldiers do not dispense tears. Soldiers kill their enemies. Tommy is my enemy. But the code of the moose says a warrior must eat what he kills. Does this mean I should have eaten my neighbors cat? I will not cry today or ever. I am fearless like my dad. My dad is a superhero. He is courageous and invisible. I haven’t seen him in four years. When I see him next he’ll probably tell me I am taller. Maybe I will tell him he is shorter. And fatter and balder. Maybe he will appear again and I can be normal. I would very much like to not wear wooden shoes anymore. Cats tongues are rough like sandpaper. Cats must never lick my shoes. Nobody licked my shoes the way Stephany did. I will miss her and her early-onset male pattern baldness.

So I asked Krickitt if she’d like to come to Las Vegas and see my team play a few games. She said she didn’t know. Before she decided, she would have to think and pray about it. And she did think and pray. Years later, when Krickitt allowed me to read her journal from that time, I saw the evidence of it. One entry reads: “Lord, I really need your wisdom and Spirit to guide me with Kimmer. . . . Part of me wants to meet him—I think it would be fun. Part of me doesn’t because I don’t want to begin to have feelings for him if this is not of you. If it is, I pray you would show me that. I want to be led by you. I see so many ways in which we relate, but you must be the center.

[author quoting from his journal entry] "To feel safe is to stop living in my head and sink down into my heart and feel liked and accepted...not having to hide anymore and distract myself with books, television, movies, ice cream, shallow conversation...staying in the present moment and not escaping into the past or projecting into the future, alert and attentive to the now...feeling relaxed and not nervous or jittery...no need to impress or dazzle others or draw attention to myself...Unselfconscious, a new way of being with myself, a new way of being in the world...calm, unafraid, no anxiety about what's going to happen next...loved and valued...just being together as an end in itself." (p. 31)

March 22, 2014 I have found the truth in the lies I told myself. I thought I could run from this woman, but she continues to chase me. In my mind, my heart, she’s always there. An entire bottle of whiskey can’t drown out her voice. I wake up each morning hoping it will finally be the day that I get over her. But then night falls and memories of her begin to torture me until sleep is no longer an option. Each night I fall into this abyss of nothingness, feeling only the emptiness of not having her beside me. I have found the truth in the lies I told myself. I slept with another woman, all the while wishing it was her and I still went through with it. What a fool I was. I still long to feel the satisfaction I was supposed to have felt that night. I still long to feel the freedom I’d hoped to gain from seeking refuge in the arms of another woman. But I’ll never be free of her. It will take an eternity to break out of these shackles. For one month, ONE month I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants and yet for two years I haven’t even so much as looked at another woman. I’ve remained completely faithful to a memory. Devoted to her smile. Committed to her ever-changing green eyes. I have read through the past entries in this journal and I noticed that I have never used her name. As if inking it would somehow solidify the feelings I think I’ve always felt. I have found the truth in the lies I told myself. I do love her. Love is this painful.

The plunge was easier than the pull. The serrated edge caught the flaps of skin on the way out. It wasn’t the nature of the blade; he’d chosen specific tools for the torture and wasn’t about to skimp on the final cut. Most would have picked the sharpest. The sharpest would allow smooth entry both into and out of the body. He’d used the sharpest on the torso; four quick stabs just above the waist and one to pierce his side. No water; only blood. This final task required a specific tool and he’d chosen a bread knife. It’d been used for that too; winter soups with a rustic loaf, hearty bacon sandwiches in the family home. Use only a little pressure, move it back and forth, letting the edge do the work. That was the easy way to do it, but this wasn’t

In 1976, a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham in England demonstrated that randomizing letters in the middle of words had no effect on the ability of readers to understand sentences. In tihs setncene, for emalxpe, ervey scarbelmd wrod rmenias bcilasaly leibgle. Why? Because we are deeply accustomed to seeing letters arranged in certain patterns. Because the eye is in a rush, and the brain, eager to locate meaning, makes assumptions. This is true of phrases, too. An author writes “crack of dawn” or “sidelong glance” or “crystal clear” and the reader’s eye continues on, at ease with combinations of words it has encountered innumerable times before. But does the reader, or the writer, actually expend the energy to see what is cracking at dawn or what is clear about a crystal? The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential—X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw—actually saw—a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs. We need habit to get through a day, to get to work, to feed our children. But habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic. The eye sees something—gray-brown bark, say, fissured into broad, vertical plates—and the brain spits out tree trunk and the eye moves on. But did I really take the time to see the tree? I glimpse hazel hair, high cheekbones, a field of freckles, and I think Shauna. But did I take the time to see my wife? “Habitualization,” a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, “devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.” What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things—words, friends, apartments—as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.

How Journal Writing Helps Because of your social anxiety, you may be so afraid that any opinions you have are wrong that you remain neutral on most subjects. Or, you might feel like a chameleon who changes opinions depending on the situation. Not expressing your opinions can make you feel empty and unsure of what you really believe. Writing your thoughts and feelings in a journal can help you figure out your likes and dislikes, your opinions on tough issues, and what you stand for. Once you have your true beliefs down on paper, they will seem more concrete and you will be able to remember them during social situations. Although you probably are aware of what causes you the most anxiety, you also may have worries that are more difficult to identify. People often use various mental tricks to bury problems that are painful or difficult. As you write in your journal, you will become more aware of hidden fears and worries. Once they are brought into the open, you can begin to cope with them more effectively. Writing about events also makes it easier to be objective. While a belief, such as “Everyone thinks I’m stupid,” may cross your mind unconsciously, writing it down makes you realize how false and exaggerated it is. Once you see how maladaptive some of your thoughts are, it is easier to change them. In addition, a journal is valuable whenever you feel discouraged. Reviewing past entries will remind you how much you have improved over time. This insight will help you stay motivated and will make you want to keep working on the problem. Past entries are also helpful in figuring out how to deal with events in the present. You can look back at various situations, discover what actions worked (or didn’t), and feel confident in repeating them (or not).

Mother charged about five hundred dollars for a delivery, and this was another way midwifing changed her: suddenly she had money. Dad didn’t believe that women should work, but I suppose he thought it was all right for Mother to be paid for midwifing, because it undermined the Government. Also, we needed the money. Dad worked harder than any man I knew, but scrapping and building barns and hay sheds didn’t bring in much, and it helped that Mother could buy groceries with the envelopes of small bills she kept in her purse. Sometimes, if we’d spent the whole day flying about the valley, delivering herbs and doing prenatal exams, Mother would use that money to take me and Audrey out to eat. Grandma-over-in-town had given me a journal, pink with a caramel-colored teddy bear on the cover, and in it I recorded the first time Mother took us to a restaurant, which I described as “real fancy with menus and everything.” According to the entry, my meal came to $3.30.

From every direction, the place is under assault—and unlike in the past, the adversary is not concentrated in a single force, such as the Bureau of Reclamation, but takes the form of separate outfits conducting smaller attacks that are, in many ways, far more insidious. From directly above, the air-tour industry has succeeded in scuttling all efforts to dial it back, most recently through the intervention of Arizona’s senators, John Kyl and John McCain, and is continuing to destroy one of the canyon’s greatest treasures, which is its silence. From the east has come a dramatic increase in uranium-mining claims, while the once remote and untrammeled country of the North Rim now suffers from an ever-growing influx of recreational ATVs. On the South Rim, an Italian real estate company recently secured approval for a massive development whose water demands are all but guaranteed to compromise many of the canyon’s springs, along with the oases that they nourish. Worst of all, the Navajo tribe is currently planning to cooperate in constructing a monstrous tramway to the bottom of the canyon, complete with a restaurant and a resort, at the confluence of the Little Colorado and the Colorado, the very spot where John Wesley Powell made his famous journal entry in the summer of 1869 about venturing “down the Great Unknown.” As vexing as all these things are, what Litton finds even more disheartening is the country’s failure to rally to the canyon’s defense—or for that matter, to the defense of its other imperiled natural wonders. The movement that he and David Brower helped build is not only in retreat but finds itself the target of bottomless contempt. On talk radio and cable TV, environmentalists are derided as “wackos” and “extremists.” The country has swung decisively toward something smaller and more selfish than what it once was, and in addition to ushering in a disdain for the notion that wilderness might have a value that extends beyond the metrics of economics or business, much of the nation ignorantly embraces the benefits of engineering and technology while simultaneously rejecting basic science.

Journaling Tips -Try to write every day. Set aside a special time--perhaps right before you go to bed--to reflect on what happened during that day. Writing things down soon after they happen will help you to be honest and objective. If you wait, you may not remember the details as well, and maladaptive thinking patterns may cloud your interpretations. -Record the date and time for every entry. Also, give each entry a title that reflects what you wrote about. This will help when you search for old entries about a particular day or topic. -Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, and punctuation, or organization. Being a perfectionist will lead to frustration. You aren’t going to be graded on your journal--just write whatever comes to mind. -Leave blank space for future comments. Reflecting on entries weeks, months, or even years after you wrote them will help you record your progress. -Keep the journal in a safe place. Journal writing is most effective when you are completely honest. This may be hard if you are afraid your parents or siblings might read it.

November 1 SINGING YOUR OWN PRAISES “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” —A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh As an introvert, you might have grown up feeling anything but grateful for your personality. You tried to cure your introversion by mimicking extroverted behavior. Of course, this didn’t work because you can’t fix what isn’t broken. You are an introvert. You like people, but sometimes you like your alone time more. You think deeply and choose your words carefully. You enjoy different pastimes than the extrovert down the street. None of this makes you a bad person. In fact, there are billions of other people who share your preferences. So, let’s try a different approach, shall we? Let’s try on a little self-acceptance for size. Instead of trying to fix or cure, let’s celebrate our strengths. For the longest time, I saw my quietness as a fatal flaw, a sign that I was not friendly or feminine enough. Now, I see it as just another piece of the intricate mosaic that is my personality. Alongside my quietness, there is also intuition, wisdom, and an ability to read between the lines. Sure, I speak slowly and pause often, but I am singing on the inside. Those who matter can hear my silent song. This month’s entries will help you to see the beauty in your introverted nature and guide you toward singing your own praises (quietly, of course).

School Library Journal Gr 3–6—This interactive manual is fun to read and even more fun to put into practice. From hopscotch to dodge ball, jacks to solitaire, and string games to memory games, all types of activities are included. Games to play with a ball, with cards, in a car on the go, alone, or in a group are all here to be enjoyed. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. There are also historical and factual asides for many of the entries. Some include variations on the main game or alternate names for the activity that have been used through the years. The illustrations depict children demonstrating a particular aspect of a game or just enjoying themselves playing. This is a great resource for parents and teachers, as well as for children.—Cynde Suite, Bartow County Library System, Adairsville, GA

From a nitty-gritty, practical standpoint, here is the drill that can get you there:   Loose Papers Pull out all miscellaneous scraps of paper, business cards, receipts, and so on that have crept into the crevices of your desk, clothing, and accessories. Put it all into your in-basket for processing.   Process Your Notes Review any journal entries, meeting notes, or miscellaneous notes scribbled on notebook paper. List action items, projects, waiting-fors, calendar events, and someday/ maybes, as appropriate. File any reference notes and materials. Stage your “Read/Review” material. Be ruthless with yourself, processing all notes and thoughts relative to interactions, projects, new initiatives, and input that have come your way since your last download, and purging those not needed.   Previous Calendar Data Review past calendar dates in detail for remaining action items, reference information, and so on, and transfer that data into the active system. Be able to archive your last week’s calendar with nothing left uncaptured.   Upcoming Calendar Look at future calendar events (long- and short-term). Capture actions about arrangements and preparations for any upcoming events.   Empty Your Head Put in writing (in appropriate categories) any new projects, action items, waiting-fors, someday/maybes, and so forth that you haven’t yet captured.   Review “Projects” (and Larger Outcome) Lists Evaluate the status of projects, goals, and outcomes one by one, ensuring that at least one current kick-start action for each is in your system.   Review “Next Actions” Lists Mark off completed actions. Review for reminders of further action steps to capture.   Review “Waiting For” List Record appropriate actions for any needed follow-up. Check off received items.   Review Any Relevant Checklists Is there anything you haven’t done that you need to do?   Review “Someday/Maybe” List Check for any projects that may have become active and transfer them to “Projects.” Delete items no longer of interest.   Review “Pending” and Support Files Browse through all work-in-progress support material to trigger new actions, completions, and waiting-fors.   Be Creative and Courageous Are there any new, wonderful, hare-brained, creative, thought-provoking, risk-taking ideas you can add to your system?

    Based on these journal entries, it would appear that the main

Spiritual fitness was important, too. I never allowed myself to forget who was in command as I went through these paces. In the journal I kept, the final words in each entry were the same every day: “Thank you, God, for one more day.” No matter how bad things would get, I’d never forget to tell Him that.

Although his log entries do not speak of America per se, a chart created by Admiral Zheng was used to make a detailed map of the world. A copy of this map, drawn in 1763, was found in a second-hand bookshop and was offered as evidence that Zheng’s fleet was the first to discover America. At the age of 61, Admiral Zheng died aboard ship and befittingly was buried at sea. The Chinese sailed on very large ships, some of which were 450 feet long and 180 feet wide, in fact larger than any other of that time. They were certainly large enough to circumnavigate the world. Typical donut-shaped stone anchors of the type used by the Chinese have been found off the coast of California, as well as the west coast of South America, substantiating their claims. Zheng’s journal states that it took 270 days to sail from China to California on his voyage across the Pacific. On another expedition, he described rounding the bottom of Africa and sailing into the Atlantic, to what could well have been South America and the Caribbean.

My journal entries revealed what mattered to the real me, and the path I needed to take. As I got in touch with my deepest thoughts, feelings, and desires, I began to change my whole way of life. I learned to think with my heart and not just my head.

Amount of Homework in Elementary and Secondary School Many newcomers are often surprised at how little homework students are assigned on a daily basis. This is because in BC, the teachers see more value in the quality of the work, rather than the quantity. In addition, the teachers must follow the guidelines set by the BC Ministry of Education about the amount of homework to be given to elementary and secondary students. The guidelines are as follows: Elementary School From Kindergarten to Grade 3: no homework is given From Grade 4 to Grade 7: ½ hour per night of homework is given Some examples of homework given are: Complete work given in class, read a book for a specified time, write a journal entry and work with classmates on a class project. Secondary School Grades 8 to 12: 1 to 2 hours per night, however students learning English will take longer. Some examples of homework given are: Gather information from various sources, think or reflect on a given topic and write about it, read chapters of a book or work with classmates on a group or class project. For more detailed descriptions of the homework assigned to students, please see the homework brochures on the Multilanguage parent information brochures page on the VSB website.

time. The trial balance is typically prepared at the end of a period, prior to preparing the primary financial statements. The purpose of the trial balance is to check that debits—in total—are equal to the total amount of credits. If debits do not equal credits, you know that an erroneous journal entry must have been posted. While a trial balance is a helpful check, it’s far from perfect, as there are numerous types of errors that a trial balance doesn’t catch. (For example, a trial balance wouldn’t alert you if the wrong asset account had been debited for a given transaction, as the error wouldn’t throw off the total amount of debits.) Chapter 8 Simple Summary For every transaction, a journal entry must be recorded that includes both a debit and a credit. Debits

It is not an easy task to write and make an honest effort at exploring a person’s impermanence. Writing is the most difficult task imaginable for a person such as me who suffers from communication deficits. It is even more frightening for a secretive person, armed to the teeth with protective defense mechanism, to share their thoughts with other people. Insidious personal thoughts plague me including night terrors and grandiose notions. Has anyone else ever reviewed a polemic paper, a pretentious journal entry, or prattling letter that one wrote ten years ago, and he or she failed to recognize the ponderous author’s pedantic piffle? Has anyone else ever been embarrassed at his or her lightweight, amphigory, and pretentious utterings? My presumptuous and nonsensical mutterings, abortive philosophies of a younger man, and disconcerting remembrances of a gabby dramatist, create a conspicuous barrier to placing any other thoughts onto paper. Personal essay writing is a daunting task because personal erudition reveals all the defects in a person’s thinking patterns, an edict only a fool, an intrepid adventurer, or scholarly tragedian dares to defy.

tip. I always try to catch a moment when I just stand back and quietly watch my family and friends enjoying themselves and each other. Let that moment wash over you so you can store it up for the times when life gets stressful. Those moments are like precious treasures we can pause to look at again and again. You might even keep a hospitality journal—a book to record the memories of your time together. Or, like we have, a guest book by the front door for our friends to sign so we remember our time together. Entries can be short and sweet, just enough to jog your memory: ice cream sandwiches on the patio with family and friends, game night with the grandparents, pizza party with the neighbors. You might write down what was on the menu, who attended, any details that you cherished—twinkly lights on the porch, the smell of homemade brownies baking, or jokes you laughed at, stories you shared. There

dedicated individuals and popular movements can shape history and have, though how and when we might win and how long it takes is not predictable. Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it; despair is a confident memory of the future, in Gonzalez’s resonant phrase. Optimism is similarly confident about what will happen. Both are grounds for not acting. Hope can be the knowledge that we don’t have that memory and that reality doesn’t necessarily match our plans; hope like creative ability can come from what the Romantic poet John Keats called Negative Capability. On a midwinter’s night in 1817, a little over a century before Woolf’s journal entry on darkness, the poet John Keats walked home talking with some friends and as he wrote in a celebrated letter describing that walk, “several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature.

My heart wasn’t where Mike Seaver’s was—or the bulk of the male population’s. I never got a DUI because I didn’t drink. The only thing I ever smoked was a ham for Thanksgiving. Maybe I would have had more free time to get into trouble with girls if I wasn’t so busy killing rats to feed my snakes. All I wanted was to find one girl and be with her for life. July 25, 1987 I really wish that I will meet someone that is so special, and wants to be with me as much as I want to be with her and who will be excited for me about my career and will not be interested in Kirk Cameron the actor, star of Growing Pains. I’m looking for someone who could be my best friend. Someone who is not the least bit phony but who is just so honest and open about her feelings and who genuinely cares about mine and wants to share her feelings with me. Not too long after I wrote that journal entry, I met a girl on the set. She came in for a quick guest role, and we began seeing each other off set. I grew very fond of her and her family—especially her father, who later became very instrumental in answering my questions about God. Within a year, my immaturity had made a royal mess of that relationship and left that sweet girl heartbroken and confused. She was the last girl I went out with until the most breathtaking woman in the world entered my life.

For about 81 weeks as of this writing, I’ve tracked my daily habits on a “Lights Spreadsheet”; it’s got entries like — Did I adhere to set wake-time? Did I wake 3+ hours before first appointments? Is today clear/known? Is health high, moderate, low?   Morning Routine Meditate 10+ Min Zazen Journal Move Active Project(s) Forwards Early Review Commitments and Time Sensitive   Recharge: Nap Recharge: Music Health & Athletics Eat Right (Y: 8 Best Groups, Half: Nothing Processed, N: Something processed)    Review Day Plan Tomorrow Set Wake Time Sleep Well   I mark those with a simple green “Y” if I do them, a yellow “Half” if I partially did them, a red “N” if I don’t do them.   ***

Alma wrote in depth about laurel, mimosa, and verbena. She wrote about grapes and camellias, about the myrtle orange, about the cosseting of figs, She published under the name "A. Whittaker." Neither she nor George Hawkes believed that it would much benefit Alma to announce herself in print as female. In the scientific world of the day, there was still a strict division between "botany" (the study of plants by men) and "polite botany" was often indistinguishable from "botany"- except that one field was regarded with respect and the other was not- but still, Alma did not wish to be shrugged off as a mere polite botanist. Of course, the Whittaker name was famous in the world of plants and science, so a good number of botanists already knew precisely who "A. Whittaker" was. Not all of them, however. In response to her articles, then, Alma sometimes received letters from botanists around the world, sent to her in care of George Hawkes's print shop. Some of these letters began, "My dear Sir." Other letters were written to "Mr. A. Whittaker." One quite memorable missive even came addressed to "Dr. A. Whittaker." ( Alma kept that letter for a long time, tickled by the unexpected honorific.)