January 20, 2006

Do ants do spring cleaning?

For the most of this week, I've been dutifully inducing spring to my room by cleaning away the dust that has settled on my boxes and shelves of storage space. As well as my mess of a desk that is tranforming to reclaim its status as a desk again.

Truthfully, I enjoy such acts of transforming my mess of a room and re-arranging my possessions (in order to mould them for another mess that is bound to take place in the duration of the next 12 months). If you like, it feels like starting anew. You know, throwing out oh-so-sweet (but useless and dusty) remnants from the last love affair and last attempt at a committed love relationship.

I've managed to throw out a paper rose from the V-day of a long-ago relationship that I've sentimentally kept for 6 years in a Daffy Duck cup (I scrubbed the cup clean and placed it in the kitchen now). The person who gave me this expired paper flower is supposed to pass me, within the next week, a tin of hazelnut cookies that I ordered from his mum for CNY. He still has yet to return me my 'Catcher in the rye' book. Maybe I can exchange the dust that would have undoubtedly collected on my book for a discount on the cookies.

I still didn't throw out the (useless and dusty) many cards from a past relationship, unlike the other remnants that have long suffered the incinerator treatment months and years ago. I have a soft spot for cards, really. In fact, a soft spot for things that has any penmanship, save for the birthday and x'mas cards sent by insurance agents whom I've never met personally.

It was through a half hour browse through all these cards that I remembered I used to have a pen-pal by the name of Jenny Chan, her birthday (I recall now, off the top of myhead) is 24th August.

I flipped the 3R-size photo albums too. And I saw faces that jolted open some archives of my memory, pouring out names to match those faces. Edward from Victoria School, schoolmate of pri sch classmate Jefferey, whom I got to know from a visit to SPCA. Super fair skinned guy, crappy for his age then, and well, pretty cute then. Zhiwei, whose birthday falls on 25th Sept, whom I got to know at the tuition centre, whom Anna and me had a crush on. Single-eyelid, no good in studies but witty and sharp-tongued for his age then. Christin, Indonesian, my classmate in lower sec who got transferred out, whom I kept in touch with for 4 or 5 years before her name and face slipped into the crevice of my memory. Ms Chng, a teacher-in-training who was posted to my pri school to teach my class for a few months. We did a lot for her, as students who found it difficult to accept such a pretty and young teacher leaving us at her end of term with us. She made us all a name-chop by carving our names out in a small piece of Pelican eraser. My name-chop is still on my shelf.

It's pretty cool, don't you think? To spring clean and in the process, do some defragmentation of the hard disk that forms our memory.

Jas (CL) told me yesterday over msn, that ants do spring cleaning too. It's when you see an army of them carrying something and busying around to what seemed like their home. I asked if she knows how long do ants take to do spring cleaning. She didn't answer me. Do ants also do ancestor worship once every year? Their ancestors who were killed in daily disasters of being stepped on by my size 5 shoes.

Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 14:09