July 2, 2014
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The ink of the month.
It’s fasting month. Commenced from this past weekend, ongoing for a whole month. The weekend seemed so dead. Many shops are closed. The roads that are normally packed and jammed, suddenly showing empty lanes more than a usual Sunday. Where did all the people go?
The past week was surprisingly frantic and crowded everywhere I went. The traffic was just impossible. I missed my gym classes for days in a row because of the major traffic. It was so dreadful that I had to turn back to go home instead. Now the streets seemed deserted. I wonder perhaps they were all accumulating food supply in a rush, so they won’t have to head out during the weekend, when they would feel lethargic due to fasting.
The start of Ramadan signifies the beginning of self-refrain. But a celebration is about to be on display everywhere pretty soon, exactly a month from this past weekend. But for now, the atmosphere is mellow. Very mellow. Productivity is also at its lowest, although theft and other similar criminal activities will be on the rise, as it always does annually this time of the year. Go figure.
It’s a new month, and so it’s time for me to also look forward to a change. A change of ink color and fountain pen to be used for the whole month of July, to be exact. A change that I regularly do on a monthly basis. However, instead of using a particular ink color from the array of selection I have in my ink cabinet, I decided to do something different. Something that I have not done in a while. Ink mixing. Besides, I need to get rid of that purple ink I dislike anyways.
I took out my least favorite ink I have, the purple one, and combined it with leftover brown ink I have not touched in a while. The property of this brown ink is comparable to that of the purple ink, a rather dry one. So I would not to miss them if I was to fail on this experiment. I was hoping to get a new color that is appropriate enough for an everyday writing, other than my usual black, blue, and brown. Unfortunately, the color of the purple ink was so strong that the ink blend still looked rather purplish, as you can see from the stain I got on my fingers.
I then started to imagine what color I would wish to get to start the month of July with. The colors of Ramadan are green and yellow, which are appropriate for summer season. But I disapprove of those colors. Certainly not for a daily note taking. Then it occurred to me the one color I have always desired to write with, but yet to exist in my ink collection, is the color of red wine. So I took out my red ink, which I have an excess of, and poured some into the first ink mixture, already in a bottle.
I jiggled the bottle for a little bit. I was hoping to get a color similar to a Cabernet Sauvignon, or a Merlot, or maybe even a Shiraz. Holding up the bottle of the second ink blend close to a light bulb, the ink liquid inside the bottle presented a rather nice purple-red hue. I was hopeful. But the color of ink inside a bottle almost always never matches exactly to how the color will appear on paper. And so a writing test is essential.
I filled up six different pens with the final ink concoction, knowing how different pens with different nibs would result in a different shade of color with the same ink of choice. I chose two Germans, three Japanese, and a Taiwanese. From the six fountain pens, two came with a medium sized nib, while the rest all came with a fine sized nib. The result, however, was not exactly how I envisioned it would be.
It seems on a regular paper the ink color looks more on a brownish side. Depending on the pen and nib size, the ink color may be thicker and darker or thinner and lighter. The finest result came from the final pen I used to test the ink with. A German special edition fountain pen that I have acquired not long ago. With this pen, the ink color radiates a shade close to what I was looking for in a red wine color, and it is a joy to write with daily now.
Being that it is the holy month of Ramadan, one is encouraged to think about the meaning of things, instead of focusing on the feeling of excitement over a new possession. With this in mind, I looked at my much-needed-of-improvement penmanship and wondered if my handwriting can really reveal my true personality. Having previously blogged about handwriting back in 2013, I decided it’s now time to research on the meaning of one’s handwriting, for real. And here’s what I found…
Article:
Video:
It’s official. I found that I am withdrawn, skeptical, overly self-critical, lazy, impatient, and very private. OKAAYYY… looks like I have a lot to mend on my personality traits. Not exactly a positive characteristic to retain in this spiritual month of Ramadan. Well, maybe it’s just my penmanship that needs an improvement.
So, what does YOUR handwriting says about you? Care to share?
Comments (5)
Hmm… I can’t read my own handwriting now that I work with a computer. It would probably be similar to your analysis.
I am going to check those links out. I once had my writing analyzed at a conference I was attending. The result fitted my personality to a T.
A lot of Muslim countries, who observe Ramadan, keep their stores closed till at least the middle of the day. The Muslims have their early morning meal around 4 and by the time they finish their obligatory prayers etc, it is about 6 am. then like me, most of them head back to bed ( if not working at an office etc) and sleep for a couple more hours. SO they take it easy and open the stores later in the day and keep late hours into the night.
During Christmas here, burglaries and crime increase. People who are poor and don’t have a good income, resort to stealing just so they can have gifts and give presents. it is a sad state of affairs when they do that. But Muslims do not have that kind of custom of expensive gift giving and receiving… unless the West has started influencing their habits. In my home, it’s just money. I give the children and grand children some money so they can buy what they want. period.
I used to write with green ink ALL THE TIME! I think I should start doing that again.
I loved the video and the link that was also explanatory. I think I have average handwriting. My i’s are more to the right than left, and I slash my t’s at the middle if I begin the word with a t, otherwise the slash is right in the middle. I am such a mixed up individual.
lol. i too am a mixed up individual. i slash my t at the middle like you, but i dot my i right above it but sometimes a little to the right with the dot looks more like slash. i write my s and r a little differently at times, as well as my y and g. makes it seems like i’m someone who is indecisive and still searching for who i am as a person.
then maybe it’s time for you to restart writing in green. green fountain pen with a green ink. perfect for ramadan, no?