I know it has been a while since last I wrote and it has been a while since I updated regularly. You would think that since I wasn't working it would be quite the opposite but alas. Anyways, with the new year comes new opportunities...at least for me :). I start my new job on Monday as a web developer at a cool startup! Besides looking forward to getting out of the house, I am pretty excited to start working. Plus, it will be my first real full-time salaried job.
Since I got back from France I have been getting rid of junk (old crap) in my room and my junk in general to mark the new phase in my life. I have spent countless hours on this task as I, like everyone else in my family, am a pack rat. I had loads of stuff that my family brought over from Jamaica and that I brought from college in the States....5 big boxes that really had not been opened since I placed them in my closet 5 years ago when my family moved to where we live now. Add this to all the junk I accumulated since those 5 years we have been living here and oh the things I have been finding.
The amount of paper I already shredded is garbage bags upon garbage bags worth...bank statements, monthly bills, receipts, once important documents and basically anything with my name on it. And then all the recycled paper in the form of old newspapers, notebooks, scrap paper, useless paper, etc. With all the paper I find I get more annoyed. Of all the places I have lived, no set of people waste more paper than those in North America. About a month into the cleaning, I got rid of almost all junk paper in my room. However, I kept getting bank/credit card/bill statements and worst of all countless junk letters reminding me to service my car, give money to some charity, enter a lottery this year, buy this product, try some other product or service, give money to my alma maters or some other crap. It just never ends. I am so going to sign up for paperless bank/credit card/bill statements. And I don't care if there are recycling programs in place. If people didn't send out those darn solicitation letters then my and my family's junk paper, i.e. paper recycling pile, would be reduced by at least 75%. As an example, I think at least 50% of the the weekend Toronto Star is filled with inserts. When we lived in Jamaica there were barely inserts in the paper. Of course, this is probably because a great part of the population could not afford much more beyond basic necessities or because Jamaica is not/does not have the means to be as capitalist as North America. But I digress...
In addition to finding lots of paper during my cleaning, there are all the times I find things that make me nostalgic (happens about once every 1/2hr) like high school yearbooks from grade 9 onwards, prep school and high school report cards and exam results (oh how I long for the days when I was smart!), cards received from my friends while at college in the States, emails I saved from my family when I was in college in the States, papers/exams/assignments from university courses, flight tickets and entrance tickets from trips I went on and the list goes on. I even found a list done in my last year of high school in a personal development class which had the top 10 things I expected to be most important in my life in the future. These trips down memory lane have no doubt contributed to the length of time it is taking me to clean up. The further down in the boxes I got, the further back in history my mind traveled. Thankfully, I am about 80% done with the cleaning now and my room is now starting to look less cluttered. I look forward to being done.
Anyways, I get especially grateful every new year to be given the opportunity to live to see another year. I am grateful to God for everything he did for me this past year and all that he is doing and, come what may, what he will continue to do for me. I wish for everyone, especially my friends and loved ones a year filled with lots of laughter, much loving, prosperity and all things good.
