Hello all! I have realized that while I posted excerpts from my journal, I did not really introduce myself or my project. I’m Carolyn, I use she/her/hers pronouns, and I am junior history major from Easton, Pennsylvania. Currently, I am at home with my family, participating in online classes, and trying to adjust to our new reality.
For this term, I plan to share and improve my journaling and photography. I have kept a journal since the age of 10. While I use my journal to document private thoughts and feelings, I have also used it to describe and observe the world around me.
This excerpt from 2011 is the first instance I could find of me addressing my reader. I was a strange 12-year-old. Since then, I have tended to write to an unspecified “you,” whether it be my journal or a future reader.
I plan to use this blog somewhat similarly to my journal. I am still writing in my paper journal, but this is important to me as a private emotional outlet, which I do not want to share with anyone right now. I plan to add scans of my journal into the archive with a delayed-release date; maybe 10 years will do? My weekly posts will be somewhere between my journal and journalism, hopefully including relevant photos, and offered in an authentic and informal voice. The topics will be varied, primarily documenting my experience, my communities (Carleton, family, Easton, church, friends, etc), and my thoughts on news, politics, and life under coronavirus quarantine.
It’s so cool that you’ve kept up the journaling for so long, Carolyn. I know I journaled as a kid and then somewhere along the line I got out of the habit. I’m trying to pick it back up now but it’s taking a bit. Having read the small portion you already posted on the blog I think this is going to be a very meaningful contribution to what we’re trying to do as a group and as historians right now. I’m excited to keep reading excerpts and I’m sure future historians will be very thankful for all the work you’re putting into this!