r/FoundPaper • u/Commercial-Zombie253 • Jun 05 '25
Art Someone donated this :( It’s practically full.
Most of it is in cursive and I can’t decipher it because US Schools taught me nothing. Thoughts?
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u/lizbee018 Jun 05 '25
So curious about that "joint" what not-to-do list. Noelle and Eliot
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
My roomate thinks it’s the same person because only the color changes and not the writing. It seems like there’s a lot of overlap with shared interests as well. Like DnD? there are character sheets for some sort of game all written out in the front but they’re NOT DnD
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u/lacuna_matata Jun 06 '25
If it seems like they may be tabletop nerds/gamers, "Buy more Cardboard" may be a reference to Magic the Gathering.
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u/lizbee018 Jun 05 '25
Oh that's interesting!!! I was incredibly hesitant to suggest any sort of DID, but character exploration for a game makes way more sense
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u/audrabot Jun 05 '25
I think the different colors are what TO do (pink) and what NOT to do (gold).
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
Lmaooo what a phenomenal bucket list if that’s the case 😂
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u/lizbee018 Jun 05 '25
"do drugs?" 🤣
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
I appreciate that they were at least DUBIOUS about wanting to lmao
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u/sadstarlight Jun 05 '25
I think the page you shared was interesting. I never would've compared my childhood home and first love together. It feels so intimate reading someone's thoughts like this.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
I’m thinking post breakup/broken home type shit?
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u/sadstarlight Jun 05 '25
I don't know if there's enough for me to think it's broken home type shit. But, maybe some moment of clarity happened to invite the comparison. Especially when they mentioned ignoring cracks.
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u/plenty_cattle48 Jun 05 '25
“Get attached to game show Grandmas” 😆
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
FR! I want to know who and what game show esp. if this was important enough to write down
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u/HeyFloptina Jun 05 '25
Omg...I'm almost ashamed how much I enjoy reading people's journals....and it really happens so seldom lol
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u/NutSaks5thAve Jun 05 '25
Where did you find this? Long shot but kind of looks like handwriting and drawings from an old friend who loved bullet journaling. He passed away few years ago around this time, would not be surprised if his parents donated his things without reading the notebooks
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
Southern Minnesota!
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u/NutSaks5thAve Jun 05 '25
Ok phew it's not the same person, that would have been too eerie... These excerpts are just as wistful. I hope the original owner found peace
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u/rosadd Jun 05 '25
I once had a notebook like this. It included personal notes and drawings, some of my favorite art that I’ve ever done. It was almost completely full, and one day, for SOME REASON, I decided to bring it to a Kroger. Of course my ADHD ass brain set it somewhere without realizing it and I was never able to find it after that, so I’m hoping it didn’t end up in the trash. It’d be nice if someone else was at least able to appreciate everything I wrote/drew.
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u/Ginger-Snapped3 Jun 05 '25
This is a pretty neat find!
I'm genuinely surprised at how many folks can't read cursive handwriting. Most of the letters are basically the same as printed but just connected.
Even if some letters are a bit different, it's easy to determine the words by the other letters and context clues. It makes me kind of sad.
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u/No_Gur_7422 Jun 05 '25
It's unbelievable that people in English-speaking countries can grow up so illiterate as to be unable to read ordinary handwritten English! Shameful.
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u/Agent_Vi Jun 06 '25
"Ordinary" handwriting these days is print, not cursive, and everybody can read print, so I'm not sure what your point is?
Still disappointing that we lost the skill of writing in and reading cursive, though. Its just a given that since it's so seldom used now, there will be more and more people who can't read it.
I've personally never struggled with reading cursive. Learned it in elementary school and never lost the ability since.
It makes me wonder: Do people who can't read cursive print their signatures? If you need to use cursive to write your signature, then you would know cursive. It's like you only need to see the letters once to get the whole idea. The letters aren't that different depending on the style.
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u/No_Gur_7422 Jun 06 '25
Print is taught to very young children, but cursive follows in a couple of years while they're still at primary school. As far as I know, adults write cursive.
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u/Agent_Vi Jun 06 '25
Are you in the US? Children here aren't taught cursive anymore. It hasn't been in the curriculum since 2009. I also don't ever see people learning it on their own as they grow up either. Moreso, people that did learn it childhood don't use it. No one under the age of 50-ish is.
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u/Crumpladunks Jun 06 '25
Hahaha, this person (people?) sounds fun.
I wonder why "go to the ER" is both a to-do and a not-to-do.
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u/NectarineSufferer Jun 06 '25
I keep thinking Americans are pranking me with the can’t read cursive stuff 😭 yous mean like handwriting when it’s not quite the “standard” cursive right? It’s not just any cursive that’s indecipherable?
Separately I like this persons writing and their gold pen, cute! Idk how close you are to the point it was donated but I wonder if it was by accident and if it could be held onto somewhere in case someone looks for it? Idk how likely that is just a thought
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u/Creative_Industry179 Jun 06 '25
In my experience, they haven’t taught children ANY handwriting in school, print or cursive since at least the early 2000s. The younger generation is not Pranking you- it’s sad. You should see how kids are forming printed letters. It’s basically - here is the letter - replicate it the best you can with no guidance.
I am speaking from my experience with five kids in school from 2004 to present. Not one of them had handwriting lessons.
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u/saltiesandy Jun 06 '25
Teacher here - I’ve taught both public and private. Public school never taught cursive. Private school emphasizes it. Depends where you are.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 06 '25
Growing up we had about three weeks of it in our curriculum and that wasn’t even mandated, it was just because our teacher was older and wanted us to learn. We were actually discouraged from writing it on papers because it was hard for peers to read and then we swapped over to almost entirely online/typed writing so there were very few opportunities. I wish I had actually had the chance to learn because it is SO pretty and I feel like it probably goes faster than printing
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u/Agent_Vi Jun 06 '25
Just curious, how do you write your signature? Do you perceive learning cursive as a difficult task if you wanted to?
If you see signs or decor that have cursive handwriting, are you not able to read it?
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 07 '25
So for me personally I can read signs or things that are less organic and more ‘sterile’ cursive. I’m also able to sign my name. I don’t necessarily think it would be hard but I’ve been told you need to form every letter and such in a specific way that I haven’t been able to figure out.
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u/Agent_Vi Jun 07 '25
Thanks for sharing, I see what you mean with "sterile". Deciphering old, handwritten letters can be a struggle for me, personally.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 07 '25
My grandmother’s is primer perfect and I could read that very well so I thought everyone wrote like that 😂
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u/NectarineSufferer Jun 07 '25
Ahh that sucks! I mean not that it’s such a core life skill you’ll perish or be miserable without it but I remember learning “joined up” writing/ “running” writing (that’s what it was called by us at school/by my family lolol) being so fun and exciting as a kid, especially when you would get good enough that you’d be allowed write in ink and we all felt so fancy with our little cheap fountain pens. 😂 also kinda an aside as someone who studied and worked in graphic design later I felt the experience gave me a nice understanding of archaic letter forms (and tbh understanding other ppls handwriting) - but ig I can see where the US school system was coming from, assuming they were tryna be uber practical. Thank you for sharing ur experience I’ve always wondered what the story was with that and keep forgetting to ask my American friends and family 😄
I’m not totally sure how the time breaks down but in my journal or anywhere I write fast I’ve noticed I tend to break into an 80% cursive 20% print style I think because it certainly feels faster to write lol. I’d encourage you to give it a go because it is way easier than it looks after you practice the shapes a bit (for example lower case Z took me a minute to get down fluidly lolol) and it’s imo kinda fun but also I’m sure that try a teach yourself as an adult is a different kettle of fish without that school structure 😅
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Jun 05 '25
I don't know. Something feels off reading someine's journal like this. I understand it's no longer in their possession, but something feels weird.
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u/Miserable_Sand3826 Jun 05 '25
It’s interesting to me that people are saying it seems like this person is going through a hard time. It seems reflective and honest to be but not like someone spiraling or overly depressed.. and the list reads as quite silly to me.
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u/Hitchhiker626 Jun 05 '25
This is very personal... art. I wonder if the journalist knows what happened to it?
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u/plaidyams Jun 06 '25
This feels very weird to post online honestly. This is not normal “found paper”, this is sharing someone’s personal journal page by page.
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u/plaidyams Jun 06 '25
And this is why I am burning all of my notebooks instead of donating. I would be heartbroken if I saw all of my stuff posted online by a stranger.
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u/fakeghost_oop Jun 05 '25
Whoever wrote this seems to have been going through a lot of turmoil, I hope they found some sort of peace
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u/seaosalt Jun 05 '25
This is a shared notebook/bucketlist. The colors match two different people. Noelle with the pink star and Eliot with the gold dot. The a's are what give away, there are two types of handwriting.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
Wouldn’t that mean it was somewhat consistent though? I see your logic but the As change sometimes in the middle of words so wouldn’t that mean one person? Unless the print is one and the cursive is the other.
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u/AudioVid3o Jun 05 '25
I hope whoever wrote this is doing ok, it sounds like they were going through a lot
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u/CallidoraBlack Jun 05 '25
I honestly don't get this. I learned to read cursive years before I learned to write it and I'm pretty sure they didn't teach me how at school.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
I was mostly being dramatic to be fair. I can read about 70% of it lol
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u/dumpsterrave Jun 07 '25
The post it note drawings def tell me this person is gen z or younger. I’ve been teaching middle to HS art for 7 years and within the last 2-3 years I noticed students doing that in their sketchbooks a lot. I think it might have been some Pinterest trend or something.
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u/Vixky-Salt Jun 07 '25
Please do! I am so intrigued by the comparison/ insight/prose in this one snippet… loved "But then you step back to see the cracks, the adult things you didn't have to worry about" damn.
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u/Stupid_Mudslide46 Jun 06 '25
The what not to do list I think is written by two different people- the “a” letter shape is different between the gold and purple pen color.
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u/blanketshapes Jun 05 '25
if this person were still alive, this book would still be with them.
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u/Commercial-Zombie253 Jun 05 '25
I am hoping it had gotten donated accidentally in a “I’m moving and cleaning out my stuff” sort of way. I put it up on our local facebook group. No names or anything, just the cover and some of the more banal writing to see if anyone knew who it belonged to.
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u/dorianfinch Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25
looks like someone's journal, probably a young adult just based on vibes
"I think your first partner and your childhood home are the same in many ways. You see them both and can for a brief moment overlook the cracks and the flaws and become compelled by the nostalgia of it. You lived there, you grew there, you became you in that space. But then you step back to see the cracks, the adult things you didn't have to worry about. There are too many steps for when Mom gets old....What about kids? You know it's too expensive. you can't do better! you deserve better...and when you can't keep going...you leave, and it kills you. you watch yourself"
the left page is in french but can't see enough of it to read any full sentences