Friday, January 25, 2008

The Scrapbook Tradition

(You know, you know: the voting for stories is still on, polls to the left, story synopsis and further explanation under January 19th, or click right here)

I finally remembered to look up the correct definition of "scrapbook" in the dictionary.
I definitely like the idea.
Wherever I go I keep picking up all kinds of stuff, fliers, brochures, freebies, postcards, whatever; I tend to keep tickets and receipts... not to mention the photos I take, and the notes I scribble on the back of all the above mentioned stuff. I still have the rather worn out tiny red notebook with half sentences and fragments from my first trip to Rome, containing all kinds of valuable information (for example: "spiderweb on the Laocoon statue..." or "small oranges in the Palatine gardens - not edible..." and "lizard on Vicus Tuscus, dark green").
Problem is, as soon as I get home after these trips, I have to start composing a "normal" travel journal immediately, otherwise I forget the meaning of half of the notes... (I still can't decipher "Ostia, 6 hours... we are totally nuts" er... why would anyone be nuts who spends any time in Ostia?...)
Yesterday I decided it was time to start the semester officially with cleaning up my room. So I spent my afternoon sitting on the floor with an incredible pile of notes and fliers and papers, sorting through them, and putting scrapbook material into a separate box (a rather huge box, that is).
I think unconsciously I have been doing the scrapbook project all my life, I just didn't put it together. Now I will.
(*imagines grandchildren turning the pages of an enormous book and Granny Csenge saying "Well, that was my boarding pass on my first flight to the US..."*)

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