Essential school supplies

It’s the official countdown – less than a month ’til school starts. The booklist for the Summer I/II sessions came out on Friday so those are ordered and on the way, along with the lab supplies (molecule building blocks!).

Basic school supplies are in.

Specifically the notebooks. B5 size is a better fit for my hands and mind: I take way better notes when it’s easier to visualize the whole sheet of paper at once. It’s sort of the difference between a 15″ laptop and a 17″ in my opinion. Not wrong, just better for different things.

Hobonichi planners have been my go-to for years after buying a knock-off off of Etsy and then going searching for the real thing. The Weeks in particular is the one I’ve been using for the last few years; I retool the inside to be an hour-by-hour breakdown of the day when things are busy, and usually mark it up with washi as I go so it’ll fall open to the fresh/current page.

Washi tape is insidious; you start out using it to help mark up your planner, and next thing you know you’ve got an overflowing gallon bag of tiny rolls of multicolored tape. Hypothetically speaking.
Washi cards, as shown, are the portable solution.

I love writing notes in multiple colors, and the quick switch of it all being in the same pen is where it’s at — especially since (why stop at 0.5mm pen size?) the Uniball is a 0.38 tip. Needlepoint. Similarly, the Liliput is my EDC usually living in my chest pocket at work (as much a happy thought as a practical carry). It’s usually ballpoint in the Weeks, unless I’m getting decorative, but if I’m writing a letter in an envelope you can bet it’s in fountain pen. (Post cards + water soluble ink = irritable postmaster. I try to be nice, especially since at McMurdo we were pretty much all on a first-name basis.)

It’s weird to not be stacking these things up in a backpack to get ready for Orientation. I even bought a great-looking backpack last fall in anticipation; but here we are. Already got the pens I need, got a fresh pack of paper and a notebook. I’ll pick up some binder clips later in the semester when the notebook starts getting full.

And that’s it, except for the headphones.

I got these specifically because I found a good Amazon Warehouse/open box deal (roughly half-price), and they have a big, slappable* mute button that I wouldn’t have to fumble for.

Predictably for a Razer product, they took about an hour of troubleshooting/tweaking before they were usable** and in that hour (broken across two days) I seriously considered dropping them back in the box and returning them. People I’ve tested them with since tweaking say they sound great — mission accomplished.

We’ll see how they hold up, and in the meantime I’m hoping to break them in with some online games.

* This was actually the selling feature in my headphones shopping.
** Four, count ’em, four ways to adjust the volume. You got one cranked the wrong way and everything sounds off or not at all. Fixed by adjusting all four and taping the one on the 3.5mm cable plug in place (with washi tape). Then I moved on to troubleshooting the mic…