Yes, the title is a reference to Free Speech Publications’  This Journal Will Actually Change Your Life!!! planner. Yes, I have one. And yes, I’m writing a journal this year.

Now, before you say writing journals is only reserved for 15-year old girls who can’t get enough of Hannah Montana and that cute young boy who sparkles like Edward Cullen, let me just tell you that keeping a log of one’s daily minutia and significant events alike is also something that real men do. Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci kept a journal. Presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald also kept a journal. Hell, even the great captain of the USS Enterprise Jean-Luc Picard kept one.

Yep. I’m in good company.

I know blogging sort of counts as “keeping a journal”, but take a look at my blog entries and tell me I’ve always been writing about what’s really happening in my life. I’m talking about real journal writing. I’m talking about writing down the things that will make me go “HOLY SHIT, I DID WHAT ON THAT WEEKEND?!” and “Dayum. That was a really boring Tuesday” 10 years from now. I’m sentimental like that. Also, this will make it easier for me to write an autobiography. Yeah, I want to write one. It’s in my bucket list.

I actually started writing a journal when I was still in high school. I did it on and off until one day in college when my then girlfriend saw one of my entries with a girl’s name on it. Needless to say, even though I didn’t do anything wrong, it started a monumental fight. I stopped writing journals after that.

Eventually, I took on blogging and I was happy just writing occasional entries about what’s happening in my life. A few months ago, I decided to start a secret online journal. It didn’t really inspire confidence in terms of security, so by the end of 2008, I made up my mind about starting a journal again. This time, using a real dead tree journal.

Man, this is stupid. I just wrote something about writing stuff. Feh. Also, sorry. I lied in the title. This blog post will not change your life in any way whatsoever. Well, I did waste a few minutes of your life. So there’s that. Sorry again. Now I bid you farewell. I still need to write about this blog entry on my journal before sleepy time. Bye!