FIVE YEAR DIARY

It's not really something a lot of people know, but I've kept a diary for the last two and a half years. Well not exactly. I use this one, the one line a day, five year diary.

The beauty of it is that it's not dated - each page has the month and number but you can fill in yourself what year it is, meaning you can start it at any point. However mine actually arrived on the 2nd January 2012 so I started on the first (since it wasn't that difficult to remember) and have carried on since then. So you can see here that each box has five lines to write on and a box with 20.. for you to fill in the number of the year.

I'm only actually uploading a photo of my writing because there's nothing secret or bad on either of these pages... just some fangirly love for Robbie Williams. Not that I'm always writing secrets! Because there's only five lines to write on, depending on the size of your handwriting you do have to limit what you say and so I normally only choose the highlights of my day and rarely write anything negative because that's not really what I want to remember! However sometimes I end up writing all over the outside of the box and it can get a bit messy.

I've tried to blur out the writing so hopefully you can see what I mean but also not be able to stalk my thoughts. It's actually quite hard to believe that 2014 is my third year of filling this in... I'm closer to the end of the book than the beginning. Crazy. Quite often I do forget to fill it in. There was once I missed a whole month. Fortunately, I'm a prolific tweeter so when I miss a few days I just go back through my tweets to find out what I did on a specific day. 

As for the point of this post, well I think it's a really good idea to start a bit before or even on your year abroad! Obviously it's such a different and unique experience and it's something most people want to record in some way. Blogging can sometimes feel a bit impersonal because it's typed and also since it's on the internet, anyone can find it! I feel like writing a diary/journal is something everyone likes the idea of but then start and don't continue. At least with this it's only 5 small lines a day, maybe two sentences at most! It's a nice way to record your year, and the years that follow like going back to your home university, and your early 20s. 

Writing in it the first year was good but it's always better the second/third time around because then you get to see what you were doing at the same point the year before. It's a way to relive some memories without having to search on Facebook or scroll through hundreds (or thousands in my case) of tweets. 

I definitely think when I finish this one I will start a new one. If you've seen Gossip Girl, you'll remember that scene where Blair Waldorf gets out piles and piles of identical diaries from a box - I'd love to have that for my entire life. Imagine having your entire life (minus the first few incoherent years) written down.

So yes, I recommend this to all of you, whether you're about to embark upon a year abroad or not. 

Until next time, hasta luego.

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