Take a stroll down memory lane .... by cleaning out your room!!!
Stayed up all night yesterday to clean out my room + closet, I finally had the determination to throw out useless junk and old clothes accumulated throughout these past 14 years living in this house .... If I am determined to move back to Van after I graduate next year then I want to start out fresh to a new room!! I even found junk from my childhood in Taiwan prior to moving to Canada ... which shows you the extent of my inability to move on from the past 
Some notible findings while cleaning out my room:
- gr. 8 mock math exam booklet (damn I just realized how easy gr. 8 math was .. why didn't I ever get perfect??) - highschool basketball binder (with all the plays + written personal/team season goals and the sheet of "who do you think is..." .... too hilarious! gotta scan and post these one day!) - gr. 11 diary .. hell I totally forgot that I kept a roadtrip dairy for vball + ultimate (WCBlitz) incorporated with all plane tickets/tournament pamphlets that I saved from away tournaments ... hella good times  - Barbie&Ken colouring book ... with one page coloured  .. I think I remember forcing my mom to buy me this in grade 4 haha - my stickers collection starting from grade 2 (mainly of Sailor moon&Co.) - my mini hookah that I bought in grade 12 ... broke the water bowl within 3 months of usage T_T - all my GoCards from gr. 7 - gr. 11 and my cafe card too! (where the heck is my gr. 12 GoCard!?!?) - my 2 digimon tamagotchi!!! They used to die so often due to my neglectance and forgetting to clean their poop which lead to their sickness haha - letters/cards from friends throughout high school (so happy that I kept these, definitely cheesy and hilarious when I read them now but so heartwarming at the same time) - my self-made first-aid kit ... ewww I totally forgot that I made one .. with tylenol allergy pills expired in '04, claritin and sunscreen expired in '06, and some nasty looking gauze pads .. - my first film camera that I made my mom buy for me back in 2003 which was $300 back then ... only to be used for a brief period of time before digital cameras became popular the next year... wow I was a terrible daughter - random earning statements from various years - my cards collection of hotel keys, playdium money cards, starbucks cards, to my parents' expired credit cards dating all the way back to 1998 ... wtf - miscellaneous pictures from grade 4 and on ... damn these are so money!!! and too embarrassing to share haha! - a half full bottle of Jose Cuervo from grade 11, back when I had to hide liquor in the house all the time and I guess I just ended up forgetting about this one haha ... dang is it still drinkable? The process of cleaning out my entire room (including ALL drawers and closet) took approximately 20 hours with a lot of time wasted on deciding which clothes/items should go in the storage room and which should be thrown out cold heartedly. Quite a bit of time was also used on reminiscing about the past, the people I met through all these years, special memories about certain items, and looking through my old yearbooks. There were the happy memories that I dug up .. and then there were the regrets. I realized that I made very many impusive purchases without any second thoughts (they weren't even my own money) .. the concept of money was very ambiguous to me back then .. I was definitely spoiled and ungrateful for my parents, I even found clothes that were never worn and items that were still in their clear wrappings! I was cleaning my room at a rate of several 'why's per minute. There were just too many things that I cannot justify for their existence in my possession, let alone never being used.... and then there were things that should be considered as junk yet I am still not ready to toss them out haha ... so down in the storage room they go! Sometimes I feel like I may have a mild case of compulsive hoarding ... I have so much junk piled up inside my drawers from years of failure to use or discard them that I decided to never open those drawers again till now. There were unused stationary everywhere from my compulsive collection of notepads, pens, and pencils from back in the day ... hotels were definitely a good source of FREE stationary haha!
Moving on to a slightly less-regretful note ... I found my letters of acceptance from all the universities I applied to .. wow totally forgot that I kept these! Upon further reading I realized that I was awarded scholarship to York .. WTF didn't I go there?!?!? Did I have a reading disability back in grade 12 or what? How did I miss the opening sentence of "York University is pleased to offer you admission and a scholarship! Congratulations on this important achievement in your life!" OMG definitely can't tell my parents about this now haha ... but I wonder what life would be like now if I had gone there, would I still be as involved in volleyball or would I be more involved in Ontario ultimate? How different would those friends be from these peeps that I met at Western over the past 4.5 years? Would I have a more enjoyable first year instead of almost giving up on school? I also wonder why I didn't go to U of T as well (totally forgot that I got accepted) especially since my parents have only heard of UT out of all the Eastern Canada schools I applied to ... or maybe I should have just stayed in BC??
This cleaning project made me realize that I can never fail to amaze myself. But it also made me realize that I am at the episode of my life where I need to move on and stop living in the past. There are some memories that we should hold on to forever and then there are those that we need to learn from and be a better person for the future. I wish I had done this earlier, but I guess I was just too scared to see what I had accumulated over all these years. Now that my room feels like brand new I can finally look forward to a fresh start just in time for the new year and enjoy the rest of my holidays!
No regrets. 2011 WILL be a good year.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! | 