Throughout my lifetime I have found journaling to be a way to explore all of the thoughts running through my mind—to sort them out and try to make sense of them, as well as to serve as a method of remembrance. This is the case with journaling on a vacation as well. When we go on vacation our minds let go as we relax and let the busyness of life slip from our thoughts but how often do you wish you could remember the places you visited and all of the funny stories or people you met? Journaling is a piece of remembering those things, photographs being the other major source which I’ll talk about another time.
Line Dancing in Hanoi, Vietnam
My journals from my trips help me to place locations/buildings from photographs—an added bonus to writing it down—you’ll know what all of your pictures are of. I’ve also been able to see how the events of my vacations have changed me. I came back from my summer teaching English in Vietnam a much changed person, just ask my best friends from college. It was a tough time for me to work through those changes. Having my journals, I am able to look back at my time there, weaving construction paper baskets for an Easter egg hunt or working with my students on the skit they chose to do and teaching them the Electric Slide to Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart. J One of the entries that I rarely need to look at to remember was the last one about saying a sad good-bye to my students who came to the airport to see us off. It was heartbreaking for all of us as we hugged and cried-recognizing the importance of that last moment together realizing we didn’t know when or if we would see each other again. Those sad memories can be brightened by turning back a few pages to the last day I spent with my students-a Saturday where they took me to some of their favorite places around the city of Hanoi shopping, eating, and sharing in one another’s company as we explored together. I got to experience the city and its amazing people through the eyes of teenagers willing to befriend a blonde-haired Midwestern girl only a couple of years older than themselves.
Exploring with Students in Hanoi, Vietnam
You might be able to tell how difficult it is to refrain from becoming engrossed in the past from what I’ve written already. Journaling allows you to go back and explore the events of your trip retrospectively. Hindsight can open our eyes a little more clearly to the events of our trip and how/why they happened the way they did. Don’t be afraid to go back to those memories whether good or bad, happy or sad. We can better recognize the events that influenced ourselves and how they effected change in our lives when we see the events written out as they happened. If you want to make the most of a vacation or trip, give it the respect it deserves and keep a journal even if it only highlights the main events of your days. You’ll be amazed what you discover about yourself and how you view the world by what you record about your time. Remember though, that journaling doesn’t have to all be serious but can allow you to relive the funny jokes you heard from the family camping next to your or the silly/embarrassing things that happened like trying to practice your speaking skills in a foreign language only to discover you switched your words and ended up saying something about the other person’s mother. You live and learn-why not do it through keeping a journal? I highly recommend it. Just try it once and you’ll never stop…even if you want to. J
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