One of my writer friends posted a rather extensive list of favourite pens online, which she said that she spent quite a lot of time reading. That got me to thinking about the kind of writing instruments (aiya, it’s pens, lah) that I’ve had and the ones I’ve favoured. Over the years, I realise that I buy one type of pen and stick to it–I also buy refills because I don’t want to waste money.
In primary school, everyone was using the Pilo G2. It was a thing. I didn’t like it because the grip felt… hard? When I was writing something, it felt difficult, like there was a lot of resistance. I think it smudged also. Moreover, it was also expensive. I don’t remember having a regular pen to write with until I was in Primary 6. Anyway, here’s a picture of the Pilot G2:
I don’t remember liking any type of pen unless they came in unique colours — there was one rollerball one with all the colours of the rainbow inside and it was fun to write with because you could see the change in colours. I think I liked pens with ink better, but they kept smudging. Then I started using this:
They were cheap and one of the oldest types of pens in the world. The ink lasted really long, too, and I used them. When I got to secondary school, I finally discovered the type of pen that I really liked:
This glorious Japanese pen. You could choose how fine the tip was, and I loved writing with it. I was also a very pretentious young teenager who liked writing in this dark brown colour that was almost black, and part of me delighted in filling my exam script in very brown but close to black ink to torture my examiners. No one said anything, even though my essays were very clearly dark brown when you put them next to those that were clearly written in black or blue. Whatever it was, I loved writing with these pens and I would buy the refills as often as possible. Actually, I used these pens all the way until university and until I was working.
Now, as a teacher, I use this pen, the Pilot Techpoint pen to mark my students’ work.
I have eight pens like this and I also buy the refills. I don’t know why Popular isn’t really stocking the pens refills for this? I always buy ten at a counter and that immediately outs me as a teacher, although the staff don’t say much. At some point, during the intervening years when I was working, I stopped using pens as much because I was typing everything, even the book I had written. Now, I’m writing a bit more and making messy notes. Some of these notes are writing notes and may maybe grace this blog one day.
My colleagues have also recommended Juice and Sarasa pens, which you cannot go wrong with, and one of them gave me a Pilot Juice Up 0.4 pen on Teachers’ Day:
It’s got a fine tip, which I love, and is really smooth to write with. I use all of these pens — Sarasa, Juice, and the one above to write down my notes and fill in stuff in my calendar. They’re lovely to write with, even if the Juice ones are a bit thicker. But sometimes you need your reminders to be a bit bolder, you know?
Oh yeah — my friend let me use his fountain pen and now it’s in my container of pens. I am not very good at using it but when I use it, I pretend I am fancy. He filled enough ink to let me be fancy with it for a while. Haha.
I like finding pens that I can write with so for now, these are my favourite brands. Funny how some pens are still around and some have disappeared. I also realise that I’m a creature of habit because if something works for me, I will use it. In some way, these pens represented who I was throughout the years and they represent who I am now. Also, pen companies–you can sponsor me a lifetime full of pens. That’d be great.
Just kidding!
Image credits: I was too lazy to google properly so they all belong to their respective owners. I don’t know if the images found on these retail sites like RedMart are the original owners of the image. I don’t think so. They probably belong to the stationery companyitiself.