Cleaning

There are any number of reflections, spiced with various levels of humor, on the amount of stuff in our lives.  (This assumes "we" are those lucky enough to afford possessions and have a dwelling in which to house them.)  Just look up a clip of George Carlin's stand-up bit about stuff for a good example.  I have no interest in covering that ground in detail yet again, but the fact is that I have been confronted by my stuff collection on a number of fronts recently, so it's on my mind.

Now, first, I'm not going to self-flaggelate much.  I don't think the amount of things I have makes me a bad person, especially since much of it was gifts or books bought for school or t-shirts that went along with activities I did.  I'm not drowning in my diamonds, in other words.  But I have become increasingly aware that I have stuff that fills a room in Cambridge, a closet and dresser at my parents' house (plus some storage rooms), and a room, kitchen, and store room at my apartment in Palo Alto.  Many of these items have made it through dozens of previous cleaning projects, but I'm pleased to report that eventually a time comes when I realize that I'm more sick of seeing a certain item than I feel sentimental about it.  When that happens, I can say, "Honestly, I'm never going to use this.  It can go away."  But there are challenges, of course.  My big stumbling blocks are:

• Books.  Most are college books I've read and either want to display out of pride or think I might one day want to look something up in.  One shelf is yet-to-read.  One bookcase is childhood books that are sentimental and/or classics that it would be wrong to get rid of (all the Little House books, for example).
• Magazines.  Why do I feel the need to read them cover to cover?  Because you learn unexpected and interesting things that way.  I'm just now eliminating a stack of magazines that dated as far back as 2008.  Three to go!
• Clothes.  I'm not a stereotypical clotheshorse.  I don't yearn to go shopping, and I don't really like spending money on clothes, because it always seems like a lot for a single item.  However, I suffer from the "it's still good, it would be wasteful to throw it away" syndrome, combined with sentimentality when it comes to t-shirts.  While I think this is the ethical position to take, it also means you end up with, say, a number of oversized, faded (unflattering!) t-shirts from various Girl Scout events, or from national parks you visited with your family when you were about 12.

In short, it's always a matter of trying to assess how realistic it is that you might one day wish you still had that thing you got rid of.  I'm getting better at this, but one must persistently chip away.  With one week to go before I return to England, the pressure is on.

Living the good life

I can't believe I let a whole month go by, but it was a fantastic -- and fantastically tiring -- one.  I chose that word carefully, because the end of the year at Cambridge is more like a fantasy than reality.  To start things off, I had a positively glowing second-year review with my supervisor and another professor who also reviewed me last year.  We strategized about what I should do next and what I should expand, but they found my piece really interesting and somewhat novel.  Whee!  This is what helped assuage my guilt for not doing any work the following two weeks.  We won't dwell on the fact that my supervisor has said several times now (from the safety of now-I'm-on-track), "I was quite worried about you last year."  Yeesh!

Then there was the run-up to May Bumps.  I was in the second boat -- disappointing when I first found out, but it was a fun and talented group.  In fact, we came together such that, in pretty short order, we became the most balanced boat I think I've been in.  (Translation for non-rowers: we weren't tipping side to side all the time, which is both annoying and slows you down as your oars drag on the water.  Balance is hard to achieve, even with good rowers.)

We started off as the "sandwich boat" between divisions, just where my crew left it last year.  The first day we rowed over head of one division but didn't bump our way into the next one up.  The second day, we nearly managed to row over head again but got caught in the last stretch of the Reach (long straight part of the course).  So close, and yet so far.  The next two days, Cambridge's infamously gusty winds were our undoing, because while we were technically pretty rowers, we were also lightweights and were being chased by...substantial women.  But here we are, working hard:

You see me there sitting at seat 7, part of stroke pair.  This was a strange new experience for me; usually, because I'm so light and relatively unpowerful, I sit in at the bow end (front end, far right in this picture).  So I'm accustomed to seeing everyone in front of me and following along.  Sitting at 7 meant that people were following me, and I had to take it on faith that everyone else was back there behind me.  It was kind of flattering to be a semi-leader, though.  I'll need that next year, because I'll be the women's captain!!  I resisted running for weeks, because I was concerned about the time and stress it will involve, but eventually I realized (with much peer pressure...) that if I didn't do it, I would be sad for the lost opportunity.  So I will soon have embellishments for my new boat club blazer (see photo).  Fun fact: did you know that the word "blazer" was coined in Cambridge?

My black-tie partying actually started during Bumps (shhhh....), and it was an intense week-plus.  First there was the chapel choir's annual dinner, at which the tradition of "fining" ran wonderfully rampant.  Fining consists of mild-to-moderate embarrassment in the form of a central figure standing and announcing "I would like to fine the person who _____."  The person or people who fit the description then stand and take a sip of their drinks to acknowledge whatever trait or past behavior has just been named.  In a group that fundamentally likes and trusts each other, it's all fair in loving war to air the dirty laundry.

The following days included the MCR's farewell dinner, the termly Boat Club Dinner to celebrate the end of Bumps, Clare College May Ball, Trinity Hall June Event, and somehow throwing together the Gilbert & Sullivan Society's May Week show of "The Sorcerer," in which I had a small part.  After one of the worst springs on record, the weather was relatively good for Bumps and May Week, until the day of the show.  We stared down the prospect of performing in the rain in our garden theatre, until a miracle got us the ADC Theatre, one of the prime locations in Cambridge.  A good-sized audience turned up, and all came together for no good reason except perhaps good karma.

Then my body collapsed into a cold after 10 days of not enough sleep, I packed my room into storage, enjoyed the MCR garden party, and flew home.  Sunshine at last.