At the start of school year, the main objective was always the same: Get good grades. How is that accomplished? By staying organized, of course. And the key to organization seemed to lie in having a binder that zipped all around.

 

With color-coded folders, of course.

 

It had the perfect setup. Pockets in every corner for everything: pencils, erasers, a large sheet of paper, index cards, even weird pockets in which you weren’t exactly sure what to put. Missing teeth? Locks of hair? Maybe a piece of ABC gum for rainy days? It didn’t matter, because you had your stuff together. The official, obnoxious zipper sound it made every single time you had to pull out a sheet of paper was just an authorized stamp of your organizational and cool skills.

 

You deserved that stamp – for the first week anyway. It was just a matter of time before that portable filing cabinet turned into a graveyard for handouts and old test papers. Soon enough, that big grin that spread over your face when you unzipped your binder became a look of shame. Loose papers got caught in the zipper or fell all over the floor while your math homework seemed to get devoured by that mammoth binder. At least that’s what you told your teacher.

 

Organization grade? F. Better luck next year. But don’t worry, a new binder should do the trick.

 

kaoutram@Syr.edu

Published on August 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm