Through the Pile

So as I’ve been stuck at home for about a week with nothing to do but play video games and clean my room, I thought it an opportune time to go through my bookshelf and see what I could throw away. Believe me, I’ve had a lot of stuff collecting over the years, especially almost everything from high school. So as I wandered through the piles of papers I thought to myself, which of these things do I actually still need? Which things am I still proud of? Which things are here purely for sentimental reasons?

A short list of the things I’m (finally) throwing away:

1. My 9^th grade Geometry notes and homework (Take that, Mr. Roberts!)

2. Most of my Nintendo Power magazines. They had a whole issue dedicated to the Virtual Boy.

3. All of my DBQ’s. Evil, evil DBQ’s from AP US History.

4. My 10^th grade Chem lab notebook. I kept the cover, though, ‘cause it has this really cool face I drew on it.

5. All of my report cards and progress reports.

A short list of the things I’m keeping:

1. The list of everybody at our high school graduation ceremony, full names and everything. I read through it, remembering people and what their middle names were.

2. My better essays and writings from high school. Including:

- my Shakespearian radio play, freshman year

- my essay from the two weeks I was on the Academic Decathlon team

- my AP US History essay on our fictitious Aaron Burr trial, “Milk, or TREASON?”

- most of my Senior year English writing exercises

3. Loose leaf paper and notebooks

4. My graduation cap and tassel

5. My photocopy of all the proofs from the back of my Geometry book. Wow, I was such a nerd. Heck, I still am. I just went to a summer Math Research program, for goodness sakes!

I still have piles of things that I refuse to touch, but I call this progress.