An Old Notebook

Much of recorded history is culled from mundane items that were somehow preserved-- an accounting record, a sales contract, a prescription. Same is true for our personal histories. I was rummaging through my car looking for a rag when I stumbled upon an old notebook, stuck in the recesses of the boot. Based on the stuff I wrote there, I used it between 2002 and 2004-- a period that saw huge personal changes and a period that is also very different from my current circumstances. Interesting to look back and see what changed, and what remained the same.

The notebook is a 152mm x216mm, 50-leaf Blue Feather notebook, the standard notebook issued by one of my former employers. Among the contents:

Notes on how to interpret crosstabs. These were the days when the simple two-way table was a technical challenge and error margins were a total mystery. Back then, logit, probit, and tobit were as good as forgetit.

Floor plan of my condo. I drew this a few weeks before moving in, pen and tape measure in hand. I eventually made a better sketch with straight lines and correct proportions (1 inch : 1 metre), allowing me to know which piece of furniture fits where. Been here five years now.

Advice on toning down my language. I sometimes still get this advice, actually. It's good when writing a press release, but not good when writing a report, especially for a politician. No one wants to be told to his face that he has no chance of winning a Senate seat, even if that's exactly what the data say (and what eventually happened).

Model of optimal research effort. Really poor attempt at modelling now that I'm looking at it. I wrote this just before I began graduate school in 2003, probably convincing myself that I was ready for it. I wasn't. But somehow I survived.

Outline of an employee manual. I was supposed to help my admin boss draft a revised manual for our employer. Got repeatedly bumped off of the agenda and we never got down to writing it. I resigned in mid-2004.

Crappy poetry. One of the few times I wrote poetry using a pen, since I preferred to use my typewriter when I wrote anything literary, the noise and vibrations offering some kind of a conversation. I haven't written anything remotely literary lately, Stata and MathType being more frequent companions than my old typewriter. Sigh.

Snack list. Salmon sashimi and fruit salad, which I still like today.

Game theoretic trade model. This is the last thing I wrote in the notebook. I was already more than a year into grad school by then, and I used this model as a basis for three class papers. A long way from those crosstab days.

Now to look for an even older notebook.