For the Love of Words

I did a spring cleaning at my mom's today.

It's actually because mom had to do an emergency renovation to one of the bedroom - the tiles on the floor cracked. And since Chinese New Year is just around the corner, she panicked and asked the repair man to do a quick job for her. In order to re-do all the tiles, we had to remove all the furniture. The bad news for us is that this is the room that my older sister and I still store our stuff. yeah, the married girls leave their childhood memories and mementos in their Mum's house. Literally!

So I had to cart back 4 bundles of files and 3 bags of all sorts of odds and ends. The odds and ends include an old pencil case with some stationery inside, a box with some odd trinkets, a pressed flower, and school badges and name tags. There were bunches of stickers and all sorts of bookmarks and cards from friends in school. There were old photos, a couple of cups, some things you'd put up for decorations, but are now too dusty or have faded through time. (If you know of "The Great Expectation", I think these would have looked great as props in Ms Havisham's house.)


The thing That caught me by surprised, actually I should have known better, was the big stack of letter writing materials. I had loved corresponding and hence I was always drawn towards letter-writing sets. There were really nice and fancy ones and there were cute cuddly nears and kitties, and some even had matching stickers as seals. It's a whole box that my mom stacked up and most I had thought were lost. Now I just wonder where to put them and if I'll ever find the time to use them up...or shall I keep them for my daughters (if we have any)...

The Files were the ones I had a hard time sorting out. They were all my undergrad as well as my MA stuff. I did literature, so you can imagine how much text and notes plus assignments there were that involved lots and lots of words. They were a passion, a pleasure. I kept everything because I really enjoyed them and also I had thought I would find materials within my hand's reach for when I teach. Well, I never got around to teaching beyond my tutoring days (for now anyway) and so I had to make a critical decision for my future. I picked out a few pieces of my favourites and the rest were sent for recycling - extra copies of the same stuff, lecture notes, tutorial notes, my graded assignments, notes from the library, notes from friends, my former students' uncollected assignments, exam papers. I had actually kept everything.

After sorting out most of the stuff, I ended up with 4 bags of letter-writing materials, plus color papers and greeting cards, and ONE arch file of my literature stuff (pat myself on the back).

The problem is I still don't know how to store them here in my already chaotic house.
Sigh...