NEAT: brief, clear and pointed, cleverly phrased, epigrammatic, deft, dexterous, cleverly done, tidy, methodical.

According to http://www.urbandictionary.com

NEAT: Wonderful, terrific, cool, clean, orderly, tidy , serving a spirit straight without ice or mixer.

I wrote my first diary in 1974.  It was a small 5cm by 8.5cm  brown Holiday and Travel Book, given to me by Mum.  I was a 16-year-old New Zealander, off on a school geography trip to the Fiji Islands. The travel book was to record my trip.

The A to Z challenge prompted me to read this diary again in search for ideas for the challenge. Several things jumped out at me.

• I have lost contact with all but I person I write about on the trip.
• My hand writing was incredibly tidy (NEAT)
• My group of friends were quite naughty for 70’s standards.
• We could never replicate this trip today, Health and Safety regulations would  deem the trip to dangerous.

Two words I used frequently in this  diary  are NEAT and GEE, which  were common slang words used in the 1970’s.  Neat – this is cool and Gee Wiz –oh wow!  So I was using pretty CooL (another 70’s favourite)  words. Here are some more 1970’s slang words/phrases:    GroovY,  SToked,  Nifty,  TotalLy AwEsoMe and MaY the ForCe be wiTh You.

In my diary, everything I enjoyed doing  was “really neat”.  A bus driver was really neat, I met some really neat people. We had neat fun. The fish were neat.  Then there was GEE. Gee I felt sorry,  Gee I had fun.

The ultimate entry was – “GEE the market was NEAT!”  

I can’t say this diary was the most exciting read, however it was factual and reading it transported me back to my penultimate  year at high school, and the fantastic opportunity our Geography class had going to Fiji.   It also  reminded me of people I once knew and left me wondering what happened to them.