A week with Sterling Ink
2024-09-04
It is Hobonichi season! And you know what that means. It means it's time to buy more Hobonichis!
Or... Maybe not.
Recently I came to the conclusion that the Hobonichi Weeks doesn't actually work for me. I wish it did. I spent a few years with the Weeks and had mixed success. I always wished that I could use the horizontal week layout more effectively. My main gripe with it was the fact that the Hobonichi weeks is so narrow. I could never fit everything that I wanted to fit into the tiny space. What I really wanted was an A5 Weeks. Hobonichi is quite stable in their products so I had no hope of that happening any time soon.
Enter Sterling Ink.
I know Sterling Ink through their sticker collections. I'm not a big sticker person, so I kind of dismissed the idea of a sticker company creating planners. Until I actually looked at their offerings. This year, they have an A5 horizontal week planner, with enough pages for a page per day at the back. This is my dream notebook!! I need it, and badly.
But I was unfamiliar with the Sterling Ink format. So. I did what any rational person would do and bought one of their 2024. Yes, I bought a 2024 planner in August 2024. Thankfully, they provide half year books so I got a July-December 2024 planner. They only had the A6 size, but I just wanted to get a feel for the product.
First of all, I loooove the cover. It's a sophisticated, sleek, faux leather cover with minimal branding. It's a bit more in line with the aesthetic that I'm trying to cultivate nowadays as well.
Now, there's a lot about the inside of the planner that I haven't used yet. Such as the quarterly sections and the goal breakdowns. No pictures because I didn't really use them.
Monthlies and Weeklies
Speaking of not using. Or not using effectively. I never really know how to use the monthly and vertical weekly in a beneficial way. I put in my due dates for the courses I'm taking this semester and other random occasions in the monthly.
The vertical weekly never works for me. I used to time block in the Cousin but then I would never look at it again. I rely more on my calendar for hour by hour planning. Things change way too often for me to commit to something on paper. And I like how I can easily play around digitally compared to paper.
Towards the end of the week, I wanted to try something new. I wrote in astrological transits and events. But as you will see later, I like to write that information down in my dailies instead.
On Thursday, you can see that I tried writing down my distractions down at the bottom but then quickly abandoned that idea. I am fully aware of my own vices but I don't think this format is the best way to reflect on them.
Dailies
My daily spread is pretty consistent. I used a similar format in memo pages of the Hobonichi Weeks. The only change here is that for every heading you see, I would usually create a new page for it. I'm not sure why I'm trying to conserve pages when I often didn't use that many pages in the Hobonichi Weeks. So far I'm using around 3 pages per day. But also keep in mind that the A6 is quite small.
I did mention in the previous section that I don't like putting my time blocking on paper. However, I do this every morning to get an idea of what my day is like. The specific times don't matter too much.
The next page is a continuation of Wednesday and onto Thursday. I was playing around with the headings of each day because I wasn't sure how to make it stand out. I also do a little bit of journaling as well.
These next two pages are me trying to plan out September. I get pretty granular. For each item that's due, I try to estimate how long it will take me to accomplish that task. I even try to break down tasks to smaller tasks. I am pretty accurate when it comes to reading assignments but writing assignments, I tend to feel like I overestimate but often end up not estimating enough.
You can also see that I started writing in cursive. I feel like it just looks nicer.
Still trying to play around with headings. I like the little sparkle emoji and tried to replicate it. But I think it doesn't stand out quite enough for me. You can even see me meta-journaling about bullet points vs. check-boxes.
And on the other page, you can see me write out the criteria and steps for my next assignment.
How I feel about Sterling Ink so far
The paper is nice but I am noticing how much ghosting and bleedthrough there is with my pen and ink of choice (Platinum Century 3776 EF with DeAtramentis Document Ink Fog Grey). I suspect it's mostly the ink, because the lighter blue writing looks great (Kyo no Oto: Hisoku with a Sailor Pro Gear F nib).
I was worried about the unstructured blank pages at the end. But I never really had a problem with in it the weeks. I am missing the amount of page space compared to the Weeks. The Sterling Ink grid is 35x24 squares and each square is 3.7x3.9mm. The Weeks is 49x23 with 3.7x3.7mm but somehow each individual square feels smaller. That 0.2mm makes a difference, somehow. That being said, this is the A6 size which is obviously smaller than the N2 Weeks size.
All of my thoughts about the vertical weekly are my same thoughts about the Cousin weekly pages. I just cannot make it work. The structure makes me want to use it that way it's intended. Any dense writing in the small columns are a no go for me. I'm so excited for the horizontal weekly layout.
Either way, I'm quite happy with the book so far! After this little trial run, I have made the decision to buy Sterling Ink for 2025 but that's for a different post.
Misery May 2024 But IRL
2024-06-09
They say life imitates art. Well, I consumed a lot of miserable art last month. And last month also felt quite miserable. Only now, around 20% through the next month, do I finally feel somewhat recovered.
May was really stressful. A lot of overtime at work. And lots of days where I would come home (or, if I was working from home that day, log off) and go directly to my bed to have a nap. By the time I woke up, I would maybe eat dinner and then go back to sleep. I crammed most of my reading on the weekends and was generally unproductive throughout the week. Not all of my weekends were sacred, either. There were a few weekends when I had to be on call and jump onto an issue.
My therapist asked me if every May was like this. It made me wonder if my therapist is into astrology because part way through May, Gemini season began. Gemini is a Mercurial sign and Mercury is always busy doing one thing or another. Lots of stimulation and intellectual activity. I felt that to the core (and still do). But I wasn't able to harness all of that Mercury energy towards things that I would like to do (read, write, create). Instead, just a lot of busywork at, well, work. It left very little energy for non-work stuff.
Back to my therapist's point, thankfully, this doesn't happen often. It was the first time I had to do something like this for work. I understand that some people might have to do this all the time for their job. Some people might even like it. But it is definitely not for me. I don't like the stress of having to be "on" all the time. Nor do I like the stress watching my free time being lost to the bare minimum survival activities like sleep or eating. Or, because of how my brain is too mushy, losing free time to mindlessly watching YouTube videos or scrolling through Reddit.
I think the stress also manifested in stress eating. Usually when I'm in the office, I practice intermittent fasting. But I'm an emotional eater so every time I found myself in the office, I grabbed lunch. Sometimes I would grab dinner if I was only in for the afternoon. And almost every time, I would go buy a sweet pastry. As a result I gained 10lbs in the past month (realistically, maybe half of that is water weight). Now it's hard for me to stop eating like this. It's truly hard for me to stop. Sometimes I wish I could just eat and eat and eat without consequences.
And let me tell ya, there is a lot of family drama going on. Long story short, I really need to start penny pinching. At least that will curb some of my eating habits.
Anyway. Tomorrow is another day. There is still time to turn over a new leaf. Or at least look at a new leaf. Here's to a less stressful month.
Misery May 2024 Reads
2024-06-07
Scott, host of YouTube channel, "Gunpowder, Fiction & Plot" hosted a "Misery May Readathon" this year. I stumbled upon it by pure chance and committed immediately. Miserable reads are my favourite kind of reads. Within the main theme of reading miserable books, there were nine bonus categories.
- Animals: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
I don't really see how this one fit but Scott himself suggested Crime and Punishment for this category. His reasoning was, "there is a, horrbile scene with a horse in it." It happens in just one chapter. Which counts, I guess? I'm glad we're playing loose with the rules. I really enjoyed Crime and Punishment and I think it's going down as one of my favourite pieces of literature.
- Host Pick: N/A
I was going to read Our Bodies, Their Battlefields by Christina Lamb. I had it downloaded to my Kindle and everything. But I had no time to read it, alas. But this is put on the "to read" list.
- Illness: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
I had high hopes for this book. But I really disliked it. I don't require main characters to be likable. In fact, one observation I made while reading Crime and Punishment was that I thought Raskolnikov was utterly despicable. Despite that, I couldn't help but root for him. Not so for the main character of this book. I think the main thing that turned me off is that they were just plain mean. Raskolnikov was pathetic, cowardly, and, yes, mean at times. But his meanness towards certain people felt justified considering his character. In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the main character was mean for really superficial reasons. I couldn't understand it. Maybe that was the book's main flaw: I couldn't understand the main character on an emotional level.
- Translated: Welcome Back, Alice (Volumes 1-7) by Shuuzou Oshimi
I count manga as books so I'm counting this towards the readathon. This was a really miserable read. It was like a pit of despair. But such a page turner. I finished it almost in one sitting. I also read this near the end of the month so it was a good lead up to Pride month.
- War: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
This is a masterpiece. Truly an epic novel. War is not the main theme of this book but there are several chunks of the novel that touches upon it. What this book is instead, is a wonderful survey of the history of a fictionalized town. 100 years of ups and downs and, yes, misery
- Immigrants: N/A
I planned to read "A Brief History of Seven Killings" by Marlon James for this category but I just couldn't get into it. Scott seemed to add the category for diversity but I already read quite a bit of immigrant lit. Or maybe I'm just tired of immigrant lit.
- Feminist: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
This was really miserable at points. But the characters were all so warm that it made the misery tolerable. I really enjoyed this one.
- Classic: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
This is a short story but still a "read" in my books. I don't read a lot of horror but this is my kind of horror. Powerfully feminist. It's a quick read and I definitely recommend it.
- Group Book: Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
This was my favourite read this month. It was truly a very miserable read and I was glued from front to back. Not going to lie, after I finished reading it, I felt a little empty inside. On one hand, it felt like a journey left unfinished. On the other hand, I just wanted it to keep going on forever. But it was a good place to end it. I really just wanted more time with Maggie.
Ranking the books
Self explanatory, considering what I've written above. I'm really grateful for this readathon getting me to read Bodies of Light, as I would not have read it otherwise. It also bumped a few books (One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Yellow Wallpaper, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation) up my "to read" list. Felt nice to finally cross those off!
- Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- Welcome Back, Alice by Shuuzou Oshimi
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Rethinking the Ending of Crime and Punishment
2024-05-11
Kendrick Lamar:
When are we gonna understand that we are put on Earth to love? That's all it's about. Everybody wants to figure out how complicated life is and break it down. I really think that it's going to keep going on. War will keep going on. Frustration will keep going on. Anger will keep going on. 'Til we finally go back down to the simplest word: love.
Growing up, I went through the public Catholic school system. Seeing how Dostoevsky is quite forward with his Christian morals in his writing, it's no surprise that Crime and Punishment was on the reading list for my English high school class. Okay, admittedly, I was not a very bright student so the fact that this was a deliberate choice was lost on me. Not until I read the book. What little I got out of Crime and Punishment in my first read of the book was all through the ending.
Back then I was a devout little Catholic so after reading Crime and Punishment, I was deeply moved by the ending. Raskolnikov finds redemption through Sonia and converts to Christianity. The image of Raskolnikov and Sonia exchanging crosses is forever burned into my mind. I thought it was so powerful that Raskolnikov went back to religion in the end. That his morals were finally straightened out and that he chose a better path for himself.
After re-reading the book over ten years later, I don't view the ending in that way anymore. One: I'm no longer religious so the moment no longer holds any awe for me. And, more importantly, two: I don't think Raskolnikov finds redemption through conversion. What comes to mind is a clip of an interview I stumbled upon on the Internet. In it, Kendrick Lamar talks about the importance of love.
It feels reductive to assign "love" as the main theme of Crime and Punishment. But it was one thing that came up on my mind throughout the entire novel.
Raskolnikov is surrounded by love from beginning to end. His friend Razumikhin (almost weirdly) never gives up on him, asserting himself into Raskolnikov's life to give him help when he needs it. His sister and mother are devoted to him and care for his well-being. Sonia deeply empathizes with him and sees the utmost good in him, even after learning that he is a killer. Despite it all, Raskolnikov rejects their love. He withdraws into himself and is obsessed over his own ego. Even when Raskolnikov is sent to the camps for murder, he still cannot get over himself. He toils over the fact that he is not, by his own definition, an extraordinary person.
The only thing that snaps him out of this is when he realizes that he loves Sonia. He is pulled out of his own mental hell and is confronted with the fact that he cares for her well-being.
Granted, I don't really buy the fact that Raskolnikov actually loves Sonia. I truly wonder if he is capable of love at all. He says he loves his mother and sister but does very little that would actually show it. He was once engaged, but to sickly girl that he used as a microphone, to voice all his inner thoughts to.
But what I really think lies in the redemption of Raskolnikov is that he finally accepts the love from those around him. He constantly pushes away those who loves them. He deems himself unworthy. He assumes that they would be better off without him. It isn't until the end of the book that he finally sees that he would be better off with them. Life is finally worth living once he accepts love and he is ready to give back love in return.
In my humble opinion, I think that compared to a religious epiphany, this is a more powerful epiphany to have. It's a much more universal theme that can speak to all people, regardless of religion.
The Cynic
2024-05-07
In grade twelve, I had to read Crime and Punishment and write an essay on it. I had a couple of friends in that English class but there is one friend in particular that comes to mind when I think of this book. Honestly, friend is a strong word. We talked to each other sometimes, we were in some of the same classes, and we had the same circle of friends. One of our mutual friends confided in me that our English teacher was worried about him. That she thought he was too cynical. It made me wonder. How could our English teacher have come to that conclusion just from reading his essay?
I wasn't a good reader back then. An avid reader, yes. But I read hastily, absorbing the plot and nothing else. Reading to finish, basically. At the time I couldn't see how someone could react to Crime and Punishment cynically. That shows you how much of a terrible reader I was.
Ten years later, I picked up Crime and Punishment again. Throughout the entire time I was reading it, I had that friend from high school in the back of my mind. I understand his cynicism now. But I wish I understood back then. Maybe I could have asked him more about it. What he thought of the book, of the characters. What exactly was he cynical about? I have a lot of theories but I wish I could have heard it in his own words.
I haven't heard from this friend since university. We both entered engineering together. We never had classes together, so I only saw him occasionally. I could probably count the times I talked to him in our first year on one hand. What I did know was that we both didn't do so well in university. We were both slackers but we slacked off in different ways. He slacked off by partying and drinking all the time. I slacked off by staying at home, writing fan-fiction, building websites, and playing Neopets. Neither of us made it to second year engineering. I thankfully turned things around, cleaned up my act, and switched to Computer Science instead. As for him, I don't know where he his now.
I did a quick search for him on the Internet. There are accounts but they are not at all active. The last pictures I can see are from high school. Despite not being close to him whatsoever, it makes me worry. Knowing his cynical nature (and it was apparent, I didn't need to read his essays for that), I can't help but wonder how his life is now. If he is happy. If he is safe. If he is still alive.
After reading Crime and Punishment, I'm trying to choose to be optimistic. I can't help but fall into cynicism myself despite the hopeful ending of the book. But it's my wish that my friend has chosen hope for himself, just like the characters in the book did.