Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure there were a few years of my life where I was known as the “pen girl.”
In middle school, I used to carry around this giant lunchbox-sized pencil case that had anything you could have ever wished for. I had washable markers, permanent markers, colored pencils, gel pens, ballpoint pens, Wite-Out, brush pens, mechanical pencils,
drawing pencils, regular pencils, and probably some more. I lugged this thing around with me every day from maybe sixth grade until early eighth grade, when I finally decided that carrying around that much stationery just wasn’t sustainable.
So, in eighth grade, I cut down on what I brought with me to school, and condensed it into a tiny plastic Muji pencil case. Here’s a deep dive into what that pencil case holds today:
PENCILS
1.) Muji Polycarbonate Mechanical Pencil 0.5 mm. I can’t find this pencil on the Muji website anymore, but they change up their stock a lot. This mechanical pencil is on the cheaper side, which makes me feel better when I use it because I’m not scared about breaking it. Most of the time, when I’m in school, you’ll see me using this pencil, because it’s so lightweight and I seriously just don’t care about it. But even so, it’s a great pencil. It’s comfortable enough to hold, sturdy, and I like that pretty much the whole thing is clear. The only problem I have is that it’s so old that it’s starting to yellow.
2.) Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.5 mm. This pencil is definitely the bougiest out of all of my mechanical pencils. It’s a drafting pencil with great features, including a tip that is retractable (so it won’t get damaged), a clip, a protected eraser, and a little mechanism to allow you to label what type of lead you have inside. It has a pretty good weight to it, so sometimes writing with it for long periods of time makes my hand hurt, but in general, the weight actually feels nice.
3.) uni Alpha-Gel Shaker Mechanical Pencil 0.5 mm. If I could only keep one pencil, it would be this one. The grip on this one is probably the squishiest that you can find, and you can extend the lead by shaking the pencil, which saves me a lot of time when I’m taking math tests. There honestly isn’t much to say about this one, because really, there isn’t much wrong with it.
If you couldn’t tell by now, I almost exclusively use pencils that have 0.5 mm lead. I own a pencil with 0.3 mm lead that I’ll use sometimes if I need to be really precise with my writing, but don’t even try to convince me to use 0.7 mm. And people who use 1.0 mm lead are literally psychopaths.
PENS
1.) Zebra Sarasa Select 5 Color Multi Pen – Limited Edition Disney. This pen is so old that the Mickey Mouse design on it is starting to rub off. There used to be a red band that said “Sarasa Select” on it, but that has pretty much disappeared entirely. Normally, I’m not a fan of multi-pens, but I realized that this is one of the only ways that I can keep colors with me that I don’t regularly use but still want access to. This one is customizable, so I have in it a red, blue, black, gold, and shiny pink. It’s good for color-coding notes or for adding a pop of color to a worksheet.
2.) Zebra Sarasa Clip Marble Color Gel Pen 0.5 mm – Limited Edition Disney – modified with a Pentel Energel Ink Refill. So originally, this pen had this crazy fun swirly ink inside that changes color as you write. However, I liked the body of it better than I liked the ink, so I replaced the ink with a Pentel Energel refill. Turns out, they are interchangeable! I totally could have put black Sarasa ink inside, but I found that as a lefty, the Pentel one is nicer because it dries faster. I also find that it skips a little less, and it has a needle tip. This is my go-to black pen that I use every day, and I go through approximately one refill every month.
3.) Tombow Mono Graph Lite Ballpoint Pen 0.5 mm. This is a ballpoint pen, but it doesn’t really feel like those normal, chunky ones. In case you didn’t know, ballpoint pens are water-resistant, so this is just handy to have!
4.) Zebra Sarasa Clip Gel Pen 0.5 mm – Brown. I found that sometimes I like writing in brown better because it’s a little less jarring on my eyes. I also keep this pen around because I really enjoy drawing with brown pens, so this one is almost exclusively used in my sketchbooks.
5.) Zebra Sarasa Clip Gel Pen 0.5 mm – Vintage Red Black. Yeah, I really like Zebra Sarasa pens. This one is part of their “Vintage Color” collection, which is just a bunch of pens that have muted colors and are in a slightly different pen body. I like having a red pen on me for my math notes and for doing corrections for my teachers, and this color isn’t too searing.
OTHER
1.) Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen – Hard Tip – Black. I didn’t really know where to categorize this, so I’m sticking it here. My favorite marker/pen/brush pen to ever exist. I use this for everything. It has a flexible tip so I can do calligraphy, but it’s stiff enough to where this can just be a black marker. I’ve gone through dozens of these in the last four years.
2.) Sun-Star Stickyle Scissors. These are a pair of pen-sized scissors that are easy to carry around, but they don’t really work all that well.
3.) Sakura Arch Foam Eraser. The best eraser I have ever come across. It will erase literally everything.
4.) Wite-Out. For when I make mistakes.
5.) Random papers. I have a lot of random papers in my pencil case, but
it just feels wrong to get rid of them. I have the “KNOW & COMMUNICATE YOUR Sexual Boundaries & Limits” sheet that Mrs. Nesci gave us in sophomore year health, three homework/rest passes for French class, a random slip of paper that says “24” on it, and a business card for the Senior Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at WashU St. Louis. Do I ever look at any of these? No, not really. Do any of these serve a purpose? Besides the French tickets, I don’t think so. Am I going to keep them? Absolutely.