I Still Suck At Going Through Stuff

Box number 6 is done.

Yesterday, Karen had a baby shower to attend to for our friends (Cass and Ellen). So while she was out, I took care of our baby daughter Briana. And by taking care of Briana, I mean I strapped her into an infant carrier and started cleaning up the house.

It's amazing how long it takes to vacuum a two story house with a baby strapped to you. Of course, it's also amazing how quickly the house falls back into disarray after being vacuumed. It's like a matter of minutes before the house is dirty again. That is very frustrating.

Cleaning the house with a baby is like working out: it takes forever to get the desired results, and it takes simply no time to fall back to square one. Add the fact that it seems like a vicious cycle... and there you go.

Anyway, following my hours of vacuuming, I decided to go through yet another box of stuff that my mother brought over after cleaning her attic. Now, I still suck at going through stuff. I believe this is the sixth box. The contents of the box were yet more junk from high school.

And junk there was. In addition to class notes, which were mostly in French, there were the usual things like report cards and homework assignments. I sometimes wonder if I ever went to class as well because there were a vast amount of signed passes in the box. The passes were signed by various teachers allowing me to go certain places. One of the passes was signed by my French teacher to go to her car to retrieve supplies. I thought that was funny.

There were also many of my old writing assignments which I had totally forgotten about. Apparently, my English class wrote poetry one year because I have a collection of poems from my classmates. It was that same English class where I also started my foray into screenwriting as one of the assignments in the class was to keep a daily journal... much like this blog. Of course, this was back in the day when we had to actually write our journal ideas in a book. Nevertheless, my daily entries into my journal included skits that I would write involving the day. And as usual, the skits would include my friends and people I knew.

Also in the box that made me chuckle were my designs for the yearbook. Being on the yearbook committee, my sole responsibility was to come up with a few designs for the yearbook. I apparently came up with four designs. Sadly, none of my designs were selected for the front cover. Instead, that honor went to my friend (Ngoc). One of my designs, however, did actually make the cut for the back cover.

It's too bad none of my designs were selected for the front cover. (Or conversely, it's probably a good thing that none of my designs were selected for the front cover because our yearbook was absolutely atrocious.) My favorite design that did not get selected involved a stick figure representation of our school mascot. I thought that design was pretty cute. Sadly, no one will ever know what it looked like (except for Karen whom I showed later).

I definitely kept a lot of junk from high school. If I didn't know any better, I could be a candidate for that show, "Hoarders". After all, I also had a collection of silverware in the box. The flatware was pilfered from various eating establishments while I was in high school. Why I thought I would need them? I have no idea. Crazy teenager...

Anyway, I had a good time looking through the stuff and reflecting on my days growing up. After all, those learning experiences whether good or bad have shaped me into who I am today. And perhaps maybe it is because the holidays are coming up, but it was nice to see that I have so many good friends to be thankful for.