Guest post: Mia's Scholar

Here is a writer who I love love LOVE: Mia from Meems, Myself and I.  She's an awesome lady, and she gracefully agreed to do a guest post for me!  Thanks Mia!!!


You know where I'm going with this. Yes, those are planners up there, and yeah, I would agree that the one on top does look a lot like the one underneath it. What's this? It is the same planner? Just a brand new color, sturdier cover texture, and improved features? Well slap yo' grandma, I think I'm cured!

That's right, dudes. Remember when I told you that I really, honestly, truly to goodnessly had found "The One?" Well, I am pleased to inform you that Quo Vadis and I have been happily married for an entire year now. That leathery purple thing up there is my 2011 Quo Vadis Scholar.



I started my love affairs with QV back in 2008, when my boss at my first internship offered to buy me a planner while we were browsing around a little bookstore on Newbury St. in Boston. "Pick a planner, any planner," she told me. Blindly, I grabbed a burgundy, vinyl QV Textagenda that caught my eye simply because it had an academic format (I was about to start my senior year of college) and lots of space to write on each date (I have large handwriting.)

Unfortunately, my planner ADD hit mere months later, and it got lost in the hullabaloo of college kiddery. In retrospect, I think its downfall turned out to be its thickness. It never laid flat enough for me to really feel comfortable writing in it, which is important for me when I'm committing to a planner. The simplicity of the QV style, however, stuck in my mind anyway, and when it came time to again buy a planner, I chose the QV Scholar in red vinyl. And the rest is history.

I actually lucked out this year. I knew I wanted to upgrade to a nicer cover- maybe equology or leather, so I tried the Barnes & Noble website, thinking that I'd have to suck it up and pay for shipping. Nope! By the grace of the planner gods, I just happened to log on during a free-shipping + 15% off sale they were having, which meant I spent about $12 (with tax, shipping, everything) on my purple leather Scholar this year when I should have been paying almost $20.

If that little savings didn't further my love affair with my 2011 QV Scholar, the new improvements they've made surely did. Check it out:

1. The new 17-month format. If you get down to the end of July only to realize those remaining pages aren't the rest of August, but just maps and note pages, you will then be forced to run out and scrounge through whatever's left of the academic planners. (Lemme tell ya, it's not much.) But worry no more. You now have five more months to procrastinate and then run out and scrounge. A possibility that one of my friends pointed out was that this could be QV's way of turning the Scholar into a Jan-Dec planner for 2012 instead of its usual academic format. Not sure how true that is, but it's a thought for all you academic lovers out there.

2. The attached address book. Last year, I expressed concern about the address book being an insert rather than an attached part of the planner. I didn't want to write my friends' and contacts' personal information in there and risk having it fall out on the street somewhere and wind up in the wrong hands. This pretty much rendered this feature useless to me. I eventually just threw the address book aside, and it fell victim to the mess on my desk (RIP). But this year, it's sewn in with the rest of the pages, so there's minimal risk of me being the sole reason all my friends' identities get stolen. As Windows 7 people would say, "The attached address book was my idea." ;D

3. The thickness. This is due to the 5 extra months, the attached address book, and a few more note and year-long calendar pages. I think it gives the 2011 planners a sense of sturdiness, especially with the leather cover, and makes it look a bit more professional.

As far as next year goes, I'm still crossing my fingers for three things:

1. Pockets. I still use the inside flaps of the cover to stow loose papers and whatnots, but I wouldn't hate having some actual pockets somewhere. (Anywhere!?) This thing is basically my catch-all and my carry-all. It goes everywhere with me, even though it might not be built for that, but I'm hoping that next year, it will be.

2. Perforated notes pages. Last year, I asked Santa for more notes pages in the 2011 Scholar. Well, this year, I got exactly two more. Guess I shouldda been more specific/had a number in mind. If you notice, this year, I'm not even focusing on the "more" part, instead I'll go with "perforated." Wouldn't the world be a better place if I had, like, 10 pages to not only write notes on, but also to tear them out should I so need? Yes, yes it would.

3. A pen holder? Don't look at me like that. I know it's a lot to ask, and I swear, I am not trying to turn the simplicity of the QV into the overloaded monstrosity that is Franklin Covey or anything like that. I just think it'd be cool to add a little elastic pen loop. Nothing fancy. Call me "anal girl," but I can't handle the disjointedness of using more than one different type of pen in my planner. My ADD will start itching, and we all know plannerholics will do anything to stay away from that when we fall in love with one. So, I'll just throw this one out there and hope. That's all I can do. Hope.

For the most part, though, the 2011 QV Scholars are almost identical to their predecessors. They still have all of the features that make them great, such as the:

1. Same height & width. Makes them easy to throw in a purse or briefcase, yet they're big and solid enough not to get beat up by the other items you may be carrying in there.

2. Same great weekly layout. For us Scholar fans, I think the open format is the most important selling point, so I was stoked to find out it hadn't been touched. Not even the sexy, 90g acid-free paper has changed.

3. Same great tear-away corners. The easiest, cleanest way to keep track of the ever-pressing question: "What day is it?"

QV has fixed up the Scholar in all the right areas for 2011. I don't think I'll be able to wait until December of next year to see what they have come up with next. I'm officially one of those totally obnoxious, biased fans whose only life mission is to convert everyone to QVism.

What about y'all? Any QV Scholar lovers out there? Or QV fans, in general? Tell me about your own planner obsessions!