My Journal
Last year I spent 2 months backpacking around Europe with a friend and her brother. After spending massive amounts of money on a travel bag, a camera, clothes, and anything else you can imagine lugging around in a giant bag, my journal definitely came in most handy. It technically turned into more of a scrapbook, but I was often quite content sitting in a large grass area just people watching and jotting in my journal. I have never been a particularly good writer, but I really did enjoy documenting different experiences, encounters, or sometimes just thoughts. So, in conclusion, my $5 journal was probably used more than anything else on my trip, and I would never travel without it again. As a matter of fact, I am heading to DC and NY in 2 days, and my journal is the only thing I have packed.

Since I was a kid, I have been an avid lover of a good sheet of paper (and a pencil, of course). Being an '80s baby, I stood a 50-50 chance of being a computer geek. When I was a kid, we had on of those clunky IBM computers that were so big that they pretty much required their own room. But, for whatever reason, I never really had much interest in it. Paper, on the other hand, has always been a love of mine (as weird as that may sound). I am obsessive when it comes to taking notes in class, and cannot stand writing on both sides of the paper (hence the title). It's not that I can't use a computer, it just doesn't feel as personal. I prefer that old style pencil and paper at my desk with a good cup of coffee, writing away. Marguerite Duras, a French radical during WWII, once wrote "to be a good writer, one must simply slit their wrist and let the blood flow onto the paper."