The document discusses the writer's enjoyment of calligraphy and fountain pens. It describes how the writer uses Pilot Parallel Pens for calligraphy and finds the activity therapeutic. The writer also discusses their love of fountain pens for everyday writing due to how smooth and effortless they are to use. This led the writer to explore discbound notebooks to organize notes and class materials. The discbound notebooks allow for easy rearrangement and customization with different paper and accessories.

2. Pilot Parallel Pen Fountain Pen
With the lock-down from the
COVID-19 pandemic and from
the Hand Lettering class I took
last semester, I heavily delved into
calligraphy, and I found that I really
enjoy it.
As part of my journey in calligraphy,
I have a couple of sets of Pilot Parallel
Pens. These use a cartridge-based
fountain-pen-type mechanism. The two
parallel (where the name comes from) metal
plates of the nibs (that come in 4 different
sizes) allow ink to come through and are great
for doing certain styles of calligraphy.
I really enjoy just the action, the making of doing
calligraphy; it’s therapeutic in a way. Just the action
of making marks on the paper that can end up as a
beautiful work of art.
Even if I'm not producing calligraphy
artwork, it's still fun for me to make
marks on the page. It's a good exercise
to help with learning how to use the
pen to make the desired strokes.
I use this green parallel pen, the 3.8
mm size for Blackletter and Italic styles
of calligraphy. The blue one, 6 mm size
is also good for Blackletter, since it's a
"chunky" style of letterforms.
Getting into calligraphy then led me to fountain pens,
which I found that I also really love. I now use
fountain pens for everyday use.
I love the way they write far more
than most any other type of
pen. They are so smooth and
effortless to use and write
with, compared to a lot
of other types of
pens that require
putting down
pressure to
be able to
write, but with fountain pens, they require almost no pressure.
The nibs glide along the paper smoothly, easily depositing ink
fluidly and consistently.
I really enjoy using fountain pens; they make the simple act of
writing on paper fun, pleasant, and therapeutic in a way (like
calligraphy), even though I’m just writing down notes and writing
in my planner. Fountain pens have also helped me to get back into
journaling, which is good and helpful for mindfulness.
I also would be happy to just make marks on the paper using my
fountain pens. It's so enjoyable to write with a fountain pen. To
have such a smooth writing pen, it's an incredible and impressive
feat of engineering.

3. Calligraphy
Parallel Pen

4. Discbound Notebooks
Getting into fountain pens then led me to discbound
notebooks. These types of notebooks are really great
because sheets and whatever else you'd want to include
in your notebook can be easily removed and rearranged
to customize and fit whatever you need. Dividers can be
used to help with organization as well and many accessory
inserts can be used too, such as page flags, rulers, list pads,
and plastic sleeves and pockets. Using a corresponding
paper punch, I print out material, punch it and put it in the
notebook wherever I need it to go.
I have one of these notebooks for each of my classes, and
another one as my planner. In the notebooks for class, I take
notes, brainstorm, sketch for projects, and include course
materials such as planned schedules, readings, assignment
and project sheets, and other important documents I want
to be easily accessible. Everything for the class is all in one
place (as opposed to a notebook and a folder), and it helps
me stay organized within all of my classes. And with my
fountain pens, simply writing in my notebooks is actually
very enjoyable and therapeutic in a way.
In my discbound notebook journey, I have found that
the various brands of discbound notebook systems I've
encountered and used do work together interchangeably.
Some of these brands include Staples' Arc, Office Depot's Tul,
Talia, and Happy Planner. For example, with my notebooks, I
have Talia covers with Arc and Tul paper inside them.