Taking Notes

Note-taking kills me. It really does. I’m several kinds of strange and nowhere is that more evident than in my notes.

I’m messy. From when I was young, I’ve been a total slob. Never once have I been told “go to your room”. No. It was always “clean your room”.  “Go to your room” would have been preferable, as at least with that there was a preset amount of time and I knew when I’d be free. Room cleaning was (and continues to be) an epic undertaking. It takes several days. I’m the only mess-face in my family though. Growing up, my twin brother’s room was typically immaculate, and so was my mom’s (at least to the extent that it could be with twins going in and out of it all the time).

I’ve not grown out of it. I managed to keep it together when I had roommates, but once I moved out to my own place, old habits returned with a vengeance. Pants hit the floor as soon as the door is closed. I take out clothes and try them on in a feeble attempt to ‘style’ myself and give up, leaving them where they land. You know how it goes...

I can NEVER have people over without notice, because it looks like a frat house/ underachieving bachelor’s pad.

Case in Point: I once called a co-worker (she lived next door) and paid her $10 to make my place presentable because I was hanging out and we randomly decided to go back to my place to play video games. Thank Jesus for large closets, long blankets and spaces under the bed!

But back to the notes: The professors typically give printouts of PowerPoint slides from the lectures. Great. Wonderful. But useless for me. I can’t use them. I have to write it down myself to remember it, especially since I’ll likely never look at those notes again.

Despite the complete and utter chaos in my house, my notes are organized and then some. There is a format. These are just a few of my “note quirks”.

1. Everything must line up, and any diagrams MUST have straight lines. Wobbly lines = NO
2. If there is an A, there MUST be a B, I don’t care if I have to make one up, there needs to be a B
3. Bullets must be evenly spaced
4. Concepts must be on the same page. I can’t turn the page mid-concept. It makes me twitchy
5. DO NOT SCRATCH OUT, GO OVER THE SAME LINE TWICE OR SWITCH WRITING UTENSILS MID-ANYTHING     

About number 5: No, seriously. I...I just can’t. I once had a pen run out about 30 minutes into class. I had to rip the page out and start over with a new pen. I am that kind of special.

With that in mind, it kills me when the professors draw charts or graphs. THEY DON’T FIT IN MY NOTES! Where do they go? I’ve taken to ripping out pages (making sure to get ALL of the little end pieces and getting a complete piece [incorrectly torn pages make my skin crawl]) and drawing the charts or graphs on them, just so I can fit them in my notes later. It really does make me incredibly uncomfortable when I can’t fit things in my notes. EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE! WHY MUST YOU MESS WITH THE NATURAL ORDER OF THE NOTEBOOK?! I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t notes.

Even my doodling, yes I still doodle, must follow the rules. Stay in the margins, no circles, no crossing out and so on. The margins of my pages are full of boxes. There are no circles. I don’t draw circles. Twelve lines and I’ve got a cube. I like cubes. I like straight lines. I don’t like circles. I CAN’T draw circles. The more frustrated I am, the faster I draw. So I’ve got a few pages where the top margin looks black. It’s not black, and it’s not mindless scribbling. It is the result of overlapping cubes.

*sigh* If only some of my rules and organization could spill out of my notebook and into my apartment (which I should be cleaning now instead of blogging, by the way)