Reading poker books and online strategies and doing are very different, but it's a good start and shows a willingness to learn and improve which should translate onto the table if you are prepared to take the game remotely seriously.
I've never bothered with making journals but I always add notes to players at the table that provide obvious tells, such as betting patterns, hands they are willing to overplay, do they like to trap. If I get enough information I'll rate their ability and add a strategy hint on how to extract the most equity from them.
Journals can be useful, or another thing to do is record the hand history of particular hands, normally losing ones where you put too much in the pot (or your stack) and try and learn from the errors. Winning hands are easy to play, recognizing losing hands is much harder to understand.
I've found that learning from mistakes is the best way to improve. Something basic like you re-raise a preflop raise with pocket Queens, it's folded around to the initial raiser who goes all-in with a big stack. Do you call or fold. Generally I expect any poor player to just call it and hope for the best.
This kind of situation will come up very often, either with you in the pot or a couple of other players going for it. There is no absolute answer to this, with several layers of questions to be answered first; stacks sizes, tournament or cash, the player you are up against, and so on. You will only know the best play in this situation once you've seen it play out many, many times and are able to pin down the answers instinctively.
Another good training tip is to study the hands you are not in, and attempt to work out who has the best hand, who's still drawing, and even what cards they maybe playing. It will help you play against the table when you are active in a hand and increase your overall skill at the same time.
By using the above technique I now have a good read on people holding sets/trips (pocket pair and the third on the table). A set versus top pair/or over pocket pair to the board are common and costly situations, and likely to the most costly or lucrative hands to get involved with. These hands play out virtually the same way every time, making them easier to spot than you'd expect.
Anyhow, you've lots to learn and it can be frustrating, but when things finally click into place you'll really start to enjoy the game. I could just be a slow learner, but it has taken me around 18 months to really feel confident with my overall game at the levels I play, yet I've remained profitable through this period.
Things may take a faster route for you, but don't expect a quick learning curve.
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3rd Pitbull league June 2007
2nd Pitbull league July 2007 | 
(ouch big mistake for me).
