Other Avenues of Expression

It been months I had it now, but I now had my own paper journal that I’m proud of owning.

It’s actually one of those “way too expensive” things that I found at Kinokuniya which I have adored for quite some time and only recently had the resolve to cough up a premium to get it (and for those who didn’t know, I’m quite a stationery nerd ;)): It’s a fabric bound, bright yellow, B5-sized ring binder file from Kokuyo, which really had sex appeal that immediately catches people’s eye without going blind (yellow is one of those bright colours that I’m quite allergic to, to be honest). Somehow the colour really gave me an feeling of joy, creativity and playfulness and it’s a joy to feel the textured and somewhat silky fabric while I’m holding on to it. And B5 was just the right paper size for me for not being too bulky like A4 or a bit too small and restrictive like A5. (Yeah, I’m quite anal about such details :p)

So it’s quite easy to tell I really fell in love with this perfect format as my own personal, paper-bound journal.

In fact, the last three artworks are actually done while scribbling on it, and I’m personally finding myself writing down more thoughts in that thing: collecting material for any future creative exploits and projects. At times when I can’t really find anything significant to write on this blog, the best outlet for me to express draft concepts is through this journal.

I’m still learning the skills of good journal keeping and organizing thoughts (despite having kept this online journal for like… 5 years?), and it’s really good investment in getting a ring binder file because it gave me the flexibility of moving paper around in the journal as needed so I don’t really need to be too fixated on the fact that I’d find it hard to change stuff later on. One small accomplishment that I’m quite satisfied with is the fact that I finally managed to nail down the five major categories of notes, which really reflects on my interests: arts, personal development, Japanese, drifting thoughts and software development.

I’m also experimenting with various means of recording my thoughts: especially through colours, drawings and freeflow organization. I even purposely bought unruled paper (i.e. blank stock paper) for the purpose of the experiment. The format of the stuff I have recorded is still quite a bit rigid, but it’s really a good start as I’m starting to introduce new design elements to it.

On the online front, I have been using Twitter quite extensively recently: mainly to jot down things that would used to be impromptu or filler posts here. I’m not really into following people through that channel, but rather more like the Impromptu posts I used to do it here to capture some of my smaller thought nuggets and putting them up for the world to read (and hopefully inspire). If anyone of you who would like to get these small little updates, feel free to follow me via Twitter @ felixleong :).

Anyway, I’m currently going through yet another adjustment/transition in life. I’ll post the details later but the main point is that I’ll be moving back to Kuala Lumpur again within this month or the next. I’m still in search for a room or a cheap apartment unit which I could share with my sister, so if any Malaysian readers who happened to read this, I would really love to hear from you if you had any leads to great places to stay which are close to the LRT (excluding KTM).

Till next time!