Things I like:

1. The paper quality <3  This is why I wanted a Quo Vadis planner to begin with.  I was looking at Moleskine planners but eventually decided that I wanted nicer paper.  Since I’ve started college I’ve been using Clairefontaine and Rhodia notebooks (what with the expensive pens, pencils, notepads, computer peripherals, etc. the school store must make a lot of money off of me =_=.  I justify it by telling myself that it helps me study…) and after having used their paper it’s hard to go back.  The Trinote, especially, I think, has really beautiful paper.  Really smooth, and holds up well to all sorts of pens.  There isn’t any feathering or leaking to the other side of the paper when you write.  Generally I use a Pentel Slicci 03, which can have some issues with digging into paper, but I had no problems with this paper.  I also tried using a Staedtler fineliner, and it worked beautifully.

2. I like the general format of the Trinote, with one week covering two pages, and days going down in vertical columns, much better than the other kind of paragraph-style that a lot of planners seem to use.  It’s not like I’m a corporate executive or have a huge amount of appointments, but it is still nice to be able to plan out your day with a pre-made format, rather than having just blank space.  The room for notes at  the bottom of each column for each day is also a nice detail.  The design also has a sort of open and uncluttered aesthetic, partially from the variation of font, which I like.

3. The cover: it is just plain black imitation leather, but it’s well made.  It is also unmarked.  I always feel a little irritated when my planners or notebooks have conspicuous brand markings – I want to have a planner, not to be product placement.  And that’s exactly what this is: a nice, discreet, planner.  Also, the cover has a little overhang over the actual pages, which is important so that the pages inside don’t get beat up.

4. Nice details.  There is a little address book attached to the planner at the back cover, which is a nice touch.  At the bottom corners, there are little triangles of the page to be torn off to keep your place.  With my other planner, I was either folding the upper corners down or using a binder clip to keep my place.  There are also some very nice maps of the US, Europe, Asia, etc.  I’m not really sure how much I’ll be using those ^^ but they are nice nonetheless.

Things I didn’t like as much:

1. From quovadisblog.com I’ve seen that a lot of people have had complaints about this planner, especially about the font; I guess I can see their point about the font.  I haven’t had the previous format of the Trinote planner, so I can’t judge exactly, but I have a Visual Exacompta that I purchased before I knew I would be getting this one, and the font is much classier looking in the Visual.   I would probably prefer to have the Trinote with a different font.   However, that being said, I don’t think the font in the new Trinote is that bad. It kind of goes along with the open aesthetic that I mentioned earlier, with the sort of simplistic lines of the font.

2. There are two pages of receipts/payments…the maps are one thing, but I really don’t think most people will be using this planner to track their purchases.  This is functionally completely useless to me, and I would rather have extra space for notes.  Of course, there are other kinds of people who use the Trinote, so it may be useful to them ^^

3. The way that the tear-off corners work.  I really like having these to keep my place, but I’m wondering if there isn’t some better way to design this.  Currently there are little holes punched in a line, forming a triangle to be torn off at the bottom corner of the pages; when I rip these off, I have to be pretty careful, and it feels like it wouldn’t be hard to tear the page along with the corner – which is important, since the next week is on that page.

Overall, my quibbles with the design of this planner are pretty minor ^^.  I really like this planner, and will definitely be using it over the year!

immersed in econometrics this weekend.  someone should do a comparative study on the ‘soporific effects of reading textbooks’, I bet econometrics/math will come in numero uno.

 Haha.  But I think I did end up doing more work than I would have at home.  I worked on french as well, for the final on Saturday.  I still don’t understand how to know which tenses to put with each other: e.g., Au cas ou Cecile reviendrait, Cyril sera heureux…; je le verrai des qu’il arrivera; etc.  I suppose des que is a particular thing on its own, and the former is probably related to usage of the conditional…But I still don’t really get it. 

 Have been working in a private study room, interspersed with watching stage6 videos (I installed the plug in on the library comp. x_x).  I think I probably studied for ~2-3 hours, with 1-2 hour video watching LOL.  Veronica Mars, dubbed into French (couldn’t find the original english, *sad*).  “Duncan” sounds really ridiculous said with a French accent, incidentally. 

I woke up so sore this morning, I don’t know why.  Maybe because I was studying in a weird position before I went to bed. 

In any case, back to work-

stir
of
wind

take my hand; let’s leave this place.

what I have to do before tomorrow, noon.

-Take-home midterm for Econ 473- go through text, reference, academic papers. synthesize material
-Problem Set #4 for Econ 358
-Problem Set #6 for Econ 319
-French corrections

I mean, it’s not as bad as it looks, since I’m 2/3 done with my statistics p-set and 4/5 done with my 358 p-set. French corrections, two minor points remain which I emailed my TA about, because I don’t know how to fix them- and I already read through most of the text for 473. But still T.T

And I want to take 21 credits next semester, who am I kidding :T On that note, why did schedulizer decide to start sucking, I can’t deal with pre-enrollment without it

When I was returning from the botanical gardens, I encountered a family of deer: a doe and two fawns.  I stopped– the first thing I thought of, naturally, was avoiding deer ticks — and they stopped as well.  The three of them were standing in the middle of the path, in the faint light, and just stared at me.  I stared at them too, and thought about how strange they looked.  I recalled mounted stag heads I saw somewhere.  Maybe they thought I looked strange too, with my mis-matching black jumper, pink sweatpants, and scarf~  Life is strange, isn’t it?  In the sense of organisms, animals, etc.  Earth is like a mass of mutated, sizzling, freakish beings crushed together~

I’m in a weird mood, I’m not really psychotic -.- I think.

       Total Utility = Mug Utility + Money Utility

       Total Utility = c + v(c-r) + m

       If the buyer buys: c=1, r=0

       T.U. = 1+ v(1) + (w-p)

       T.U = 1 + 2 + (1000-p)

       if the buyer doesn’t buy: r=0, c=0

       T.U. = 0 + w. 

       The buyer’s reservation value:  T.U. of buying > T.U. of not buying

                So   3-p>o  –>  p<3.