Compare & Contrast

      When I was first trying to decide which books to chose I was stuck. I soon remembered a Netflix documentary I had watched a couple years ago with my roommate by the name of Mortified Nation. This documentary is all about digging up adults embarrassing journal entries from when they were younger and reading them in front of a crowd in a comedic style. The genres and conventions of all three of the journals I chose are adults reflecting on their journal entries from when they were young and naïve.

            Rewriting Romance by Alexa Alemanni was the first journal I read from Mortified the book. When you look at this journal entry as a whole it looks like a small cluster of drafted letters. Each time the author wanted to reply to a letter from the boy she had a crush in acting summer camp she would write-out draft after draft until she had it just right. Analyzing each of the letters was actually very interesting some letters would give a true representation of how she actually felt about this boy, whereas other letters were very right to the point and emotionless I think this was done like this to show that even though the author had all of these feeling for this boy she needed to suppress these feelings in order to develop a relationship with him.

            The second journal I found was also from the book mortified. The first three things shown before getting to the journal entries are a picture of the writer in a heart shape and the title “The Biblical Sense”. The next picture is a religious quote “The beauty of gods love fills all my days with joy!” The final picture is the author possible still in high school. From the surface level of this journal it’s very easy to assume that the writer is a very religious person whom most likely journals about her religious experiences. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover would definitely come into play for this situation. For each journal entry there is a date meaningful for the author to vent about her sexual frustration. The frustration mostly dwelled down to being faithful to her religion but also wanting to experiment with boys. What all of this tells me is that the author used this journal as her escape and venting tool for when she was stuck in a world where she could not express her thoughts without severe judgment.

The last journal I dissected was one I found online, called The Diary Project. A Russian girl, who grew up in New York, created this blog. She kept a journal since she was 8 years old. The author has uploaded all of entries on to her blog and added a little commentary section where she reflects on what she wrote when she was younger. I read an entry from April 1996. Her journal makes me feel as though she is trying to set the record straight. In 1996 her younger self wrote about how optimistic and positive she was after getting her heart broken, but now present day, year later she is coming back with more experience and confidence to state that the original feeling she wrote down were there to make it sound like she had it all together even though she has distinct memories of falling apart.

            What many people do is try and put the perception out that they are cool calm and collected. Through these journal entries there is an insight on the true feelings that love can bring about. In The Biblical Sense, the author didn’t try and give off the cool calm and collected vibe. Although that vibe might not have been picked up in her writing it was a perception she was giving off to the rest of the world outside from her journaling. All three of these journalists used their journals as a great escape. They couldn’t express their true emotions so they used journals as a way to cope and get through the emotions that have been suppressed. 

            Even though all three of these Journals had a theme of reflection and understanding love, each approach was very different form of writing. Biblical Sense created a stream of journal entries from every other week while Rewriting Romance was the most unique because her entries were all letter drafts.

            I chose the convention type of reflection because one day I think it would be amazing to look back in my journals of forgotten memories and to truly be able to perceive the entries for what they really are. Journals are like time capsule and it’s amazing to see growth and development over the span of a life time.