Many of us PC users have hardly held a writing pen since graduating from college. Aside from signing checks, credit card slips and filling out forms, that’s probably the only good reasons why I would use a pen. A few days ago I began scribbling some notes on my Searching For Inspiration Notepad from Google (thanks Aileen!) By golly did my penmanship suck! It was an eye-opener. In college I was proud of my nice handwriting. I’m kind of a creative person, so it was easy for me to copy my female friends’ style of writing. Now after spending close to a decade sitting in front of a computer, I’ve lost it! I now write like a doctor! (Check your latest prescription, you’ll know what I mean)

Anyway, as I was searching for something to blog about here, I thought of featuring a notebook. No wait what? Yes, a notebook!

For the past year I’ve been reading in blogging circles about Moleskine. Moleskine (mo-le-skeena) is a brand of notebook manufactured by Milan, Italy company Modo e Modo. Last year, a French investment firm bought the company for 60 million euros. Moleskine is said to have been used by artistic and literary legends such as Vincent Van Gogh (whose moleskine is shown above), Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde and Bruce Chatwin. Bruce Chatwin wrote fondly of his notebooks and his descriptions are the basis of the trendy Moleskines we see today.

I don’t own a PDA and I don’t plan on buying one unless I really need it. While I do have my Google notebook, I think I’m going to purchase a Moleskine soon. I think it’s important for us to go back to the basics sometimes if it means letting go of our computers for a few moments. Yes, going manual can actually be cool.

On the Web: Moleskine Philippines; Moleskine Official; Moleskinerie