[Author][Professor][Subject][Date of Submission]
Who could have thought that travelling can be a major source of livelihood? Neither did my parents expect that I can land into this kind of career. I was a big traveller though since my childhood days. I am now a field researcher for a University Extension. I carry my notebook daily as I travel in the villages that are found deep in the forest, and into numerous pristine beaches in the pacific. In this kind of mobility I only trust my slim and handy notebook around me. It is suitable for a person like me that travels light. When I am riding a bumpy jitney heading to the edge of the world, I can still pull my notebook and jot down every idea that crosses my mind. It has the ability to store in detail my wild observations and imaginations.
My traveller’s notebook is also my life saver. My mind has the tendency to slip names that are very important especially when I am a stranger to a village. It seems like a cheap notebook but it contained data that my mind cannot afford to store. Not a long time ago, I forgot the name of the main source of the story that I was digging in one of the tribes of somewhere in the Southeast Asia. I was nearly driven away because they were suspecting that I am a prospector for some kind of a mine. I was saved by my precious notebook because I jot down the name on my way to the village.
Every notebook I fill with stories is worth keeping for life. They are not just notebooks containing data but notebooks filled with stories of hope, struggles, joy, fear and every emotion. When I am on field, I wrote every possible emotion I am feeling every moment so that if I go back to my notes, I can write a vivid story out of them. If my notebooks have feelings, they surely have died of heart attack. It is because I transfer all my feelings to it by writing them down. My negative emotions subside once I have written them. Aside from containing huge data from observations, interviews, and discussions, I can say that my notebooks have been my therapy in times of distress.
If my notebooks can speak, they can tell the best and worst sides of my personality with examples from how I write information. They can decipher every emotion through the words I am using to jot down data, and through the pressure from the pen I am using to write. My notebooks also duplicate my experiences. They suffered the extreme weather as I have; they cross rivers even at night; they shared my fears of the unknown conflicts; and they shared my appreciation of sceneries and community values.
Every leaf of my notebooks cannot be torn off. It is not being sentimental but they will protect me if my sources fail to stand by what they have told me. The leaves of my notebooks are my shields to any attempt to distort the truth. My notebooks are heavy as the precious stones because the contents are my source of living, my life saver, my shield and most of all, the truth. It contains the truth about the world and the truth about me.
Works Cited
Arin B. Terwilliger. Structuring a Descriptive Essay. E-7 Descriptive Essay Guidelines, 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.
Purdue OWL Descriptive Essays. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.
