Humanity has a record of life - fossils, hieroglyphics, the Bible, Shakespeare, movies, telegrams, letters, postcards, emails, and blogs. And I have a red binder collection.
Although it may be no ‘MacBeth’, my red binder collection is my budding collection that will see an adoption of a third red binder today. What, you may ask, are these binders and what do they contain?
The simple answer: work. Each semester, I collect my best and favorite work from my classes along with important handouts and I cluster them together in a lovely little red Boston University binder. The goal: 8 red binders by graduation. Progress: right on track.
Many university classes have given way to the ‘green’ shove and have students submit work online. But at the end, I like to have a physically tangible object to hold and look back over. So I print essay after essay, syllabus after syllabus to file them for posterity in my red binder.
The red binder is an accomplishment - a Cesarean “I came, I saw, I conquered”. This past summer, my Grandad rifled through the books - dutifully reading every piece of paper I had slotted in there. It’s my bridge to my family - and ‘here-look-what-I-did-at-school’ for them to hold on to.
There are moments when you want to hold your arms up the sky and smile, when you feel like you’re in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. I have had so many moments like that during my time at BU, but especially this semester. I am right here right now, I fit into the world, and my work fits into that red binder.
I came. I saw. I tried. I worked. I conquered. And then I put it all in a red binder.
Jennie
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