Let Yourself Go, Let Myself Go

During the summer, it is not impossible to lose track of the days and the weeks. When I went to Greece back in 2002, I had to ask someone every few days what the date was. This goes to show when people (maybe just me?) are out of their "native habitat" shall we say, we just tend to let everything go. Even the day of the week - unless you wear a watch that tells the date. I do not wear a watch - like most people my age, I rely on my cell phone to tell the time. However, I would like to get a watch soon. I am tired of relying on my cell phone, sometimes I just want to throw it out a window. But I can't. The world these days wants everyone tied to a tether of some sort or another and most of the time that leash is invisible.

Sometimes, a cell can be useful, especially when you are down in the Bowery and you need someone to be a backup for a concert when the person your with doesn't have proper ID even with a student ID. I called about 5 people before I found someone(s) to be a backup. Needless to say, my friend was able to get in and the someones as well. The security guard was actually nice.
Nonetheless, I really do wish that I did not have to rely on it so much.

I had recently established a pattern for the week:

Count for 4.5 days and that is I when I do not go to work. Count for 2.5 and that is when I do.

Given that I am only on some sort of schedule for half of the week, and that my mother is not on vacation yet so she can remind me to clean my room and tell me what day of the week it is, I have been quite out of character for the past few weeks. Even to the point of being slovenly. Granted, me being slovenly only amounts to not making my bed in the morning and having a few random things strewn across my desk because I like to switch my bag in accordance with my outfit or my mood and hence, I have to empty the previous bag and leave a few things out if the bag isn't big enough. (I cannot carry my iPod, cell phone, wallet, various little miscellany that a girl always carries, a book to read AND my humongous planner in my green bag).

In short, I like bags. I like to carry stuff in my bags. I like to feel that I have what I need (band-aids, gum, bottle of water, tylenol, etc. etc.) in case I come across an ailment as I pound the pavement in my inter-borough travels. My pencilcase is a microcosm of my theory of bags: highlighters, colored pens, pencils, mini-stapler, you name it I have it. In high school, my nickname was "Staples" for very good reason.

So me being a mess. In London, my room was pristine with a very big P. My flatmates and friends were aghast at the organization. My textbooks were in order according to size and category. I do the same thing with my closet - organize by type, then style, color, and fabric. It helps keep my sweaters in order.

But recently?

My desk has been an utter disaster. Seriously. More so than usual; during finals time my room does lapse, especially my desk. Sometimes I will just stack my papers and journal articles neatly and just deal with it after finals. Every semester, when my mom starts to look in my room - she usually doesn't, as she knows that my room is a mess only when I don't have time to clean it due to schoolwork - I have to remind her of the deal we made back in freshman year: Leave me and my room alone during the second week of December and the second week of May and there will be no harm done to either party and I will tidy and reorganize in the third week of December and May when the madness is done. That is all I ask for.

As you can probably surmise, my mother is a neat freak. It has rubbed off on me (ALOT, I can be really anal-retentive when it comes to ordering my textbooks in size order. My 3rd-grade teacher told my mother at Parent-Teacher Conference that I had the neatest desk in the class because of my ordering the textbooks on one side, workbooks and notebooks on the other in accordance to size and category). But my dad is an utter slob so I have a bit of that too.

However, being really organized does pay off, given the profession that I want to go into. I like tidy offices. I also like tidy offices that look really nice and have character. My favorite professor's office was my Global Inequalities professor back in Fall '05 - not only did she have everything organized - even binders in accordance with the class she was teaching to keep materials in check - but she even had a side table with a cute little lamp next to the chair that students sit next to. And she even had a bulletin board! Those rock. I'm going to try and get myself one of those (or even the bits of cork) in my room in Kyoto.

But back to my disaster of a desk. Little papers and receipts strewn over the desk, 600-page novels stacked upon my laptop (obviously not a good idea, but this is the laptop that I am ready to chuck and the novels are in paperback so it's not an issue). iPod and cell phone chargers, cell phone headset and other miscellaneous wires for my digital camera, Mel's dad's digital photo printer, etc. I should take a photo of my desk and put it on Flickr with notes, just like how people take photos of what's in their bag and post it on Flickr. Everything tells a story, so long as you have a narrator to tell it.

I feel like I have just woken out of a reverie - or maybe a mental vacation? - and I finally tidied up my desk before I went to the Cat Empire concert on Tuesday down at the Bowery.

So I have been working on getting my act together. I am an "adult" now, so I have to keep track of the days - both the date and the day of the week.

That means I have to put the twenty-odd textbooks that are totally irrelevant on Half.com for sale.

And empty out my desk.

Those "little things" certainly do pile up.