Could have been a bit longer

[altariel]

In a major act of psychological reshuffling, I am in the middle of throwing out most of my undergraduate notes. "Good god, woman - you still have your undergraduate notes?! What kind of a freak are you!?" I hear you cry. Well, leaving aside the latter question, yes, I do, actually - and also, so it transpires, all my coursework from my GCSEs and A-levels. It came to me in a big box from my mother's a decade ago, whereupon I shoved it under the stairs. My M.Sc. notes followed shortly after (and hit the bin yesterday).

Given that I've already pitched most of the stuff related to my Ph.D. (apart from the bound beast itself may-its-chains-never-be-loosened) you'd think I'd have got shot of this stuff ages ago. And yet still it lingers, gathering dust and yellowing, vainly waiting for the day when I might want to look something up from a dimly-remembered lecture. I blame the Internet. Or fandom. Or something.

Today notes and essays produced in the summer of 1991 are about to hit the bin: this was a seven week course on American history (from the ratification of the Constitution to the end of the Cold of the War - in, truly, seven weeks). I was nineteen, had no exams that year, and the supervisor was a riot. Happy days. Flipping through what he wrote at the end of some of my efforts, it's funny to see the most frequent comment: "could have been a bit longer", "pithy, provocative, could be longer", "short for a supervision essay, where would you put all the detail" - variations on which theme have followed me around since the age of about thirteen (see the A-level essays I pitched yesterday). Really, at some point I should have twigged that - since I didn't give a rat's arse about writing down all the detail, it was there in the damn book if I needed to check - I was going to make a really awful academic. (Interesting to note the comments of both GCSE and A-level English teachers, which amount to: "Write More Fiction".)

Having said all that, I'm keeping the essays I wrote for my history of political thought papers (Before 1750 - eight weeks; after 1750 - eight weeks.) That course was all about reading a big old text and saying what you thought of it, based on a vague and hand-wavy but sufficient-for-purpose notion of the context in which it was written. Much more my kind of thing, and consequently they are really rather good.

ETA: emeraldsedai talks about how things get "fossilized", and it's interesting to note how the farther back I've gone, the harder it's been to chuck stuff. Ph.D. notes went out within months. M.Sc. went yesterday. Not all my undergraduate notes are going. All my primary school books are staying.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I suspect my notes are somewhere in the drawers under my bed. I haven't dared go and look for several years.

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

I keep attempting to do that, but there are some papers that I just can't bear to part with - even though I know I will NEVER use them again.

I need to go through it again with the old, "Would I just die if I lost this in a fire?" question, and pitch everything for which the answer is not a resounding, "OMGYES!" into the recycling bin.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

My mum also sent down all my primary school exercise books, and they're too funny to throw away.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It was going away for most of last year that brought home how little I needed to keep this stuff. I had been away for a large chunk of year, and all it had done was sit there and fester.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Yes, those would probably be much more entertaining, but I don't think we kept those. Going through old papers we did once find a letter from my father, aged six, to Queen Alexandra on the death of Edward VII, which concluded with the wise advice "Do not cry and be sensible about it."

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-) Words to live by.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

My policy is whether or not I've referenced it recently. All of this stuff has sat under the stairs for the best part of ten years. It was interesting to look through them again the past day or so, but I doubt I'll look at them again for another decade. And I want the space to put toys and games in, as more and more of our friends bring kids with them when they're visiting.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Ah, stratigraphic filing. We're familiar with that one. (The older it is, the more stuff there is on top of it)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Also the psychological thing: something older is more deeply embedded as part of your identity, and harder to let go.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Well done you for sorting.

All my academic stuff got chucked before we moved here, and not by me. I sometimes regret some of it, and I definitely miss my Home Economics folder - it had useful stuff in it. However, I lived without it so far. I have lots of old work stuff some of which I ought to chuck. Some of it was refreshing to read, to realise just how much I was capable of when not stifled by a toxic work environment, so I think it's worth holding on to for those purposes.

We weren't allowed to keep our primary school books.

I hope it feels good to have got rid of some of this stuff!

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall various times over the years when I've gone through school/uni stuff. There seems to come a point when I no longer care any more, and wonder why I didn't throw something out the last time. I believe I still have quite a few lecture scrawls, mainly because I won't throw them out without reviewing them first (you know, just in case there's a new proof of Fermat's Last Theorem or something) but I rarely make the time to go though the proto-recycling.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much it: I didn't care any more. It was fun to reread bits of them, but they'd only languish under the stairs for another decade if I put them back.

No proofs on my relentlessly humanities-orientated schoolwork, alas, only the occasional nifty turn of phrase.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry you didn't get a chance to decide what you wanted to keep :-( I think you're dead right to hold onto the work stuff if it's giving you confidence and reminding you of your authentic self.

It feels great pitching out all this stuff. I had a minor panic mid-afternoon that perhaps I should have kept my essays and just pitched the lecture notes, but decided against going out and retrieving them from the bin! I won't miss them tomorrow, and certainly not by the time the bin is due to be collected.

I'm pleased about what I've chosen to keep as well. That whole area under the stairs is almost empty now, and I'm down to three little boxes that should fit neatly in the space I'd cleared for them in a cupboard upstairs.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I think some of my creative writing notebooks from primary school may still be stacked at home somewhere. Have you also got a few of these left? The "How I spent my holidays..." and "A frightening nightmare I once had" sort of essays, I mean.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Goodness! I am the woman who is _hoping_ that the last sixteen green crates contain ExMemSec's A-level Biology project, because Papersky wants to know what literature on Dutch Elm Disease would be available to a sixth-former in 1980!

I'm assuming (knowing Papersky almost as long as I've known Exmemsec) that this knowledge is not easily available via the internet (if it is, please enlighten us, and I will stop worrying!).

I gave up collecting comments on my spelling after: "Your presentation of the current literature on Linea A and B were very thorough, your references to the futhork while unexpected, were relevant, and your understanding of the nuances of early Greek orthography are masterful: how come can't you spell in English?" (this was before dyslexia was a well known learning disability).

Chucking our own stuff, or not, are both fine actions.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have those! One of them contains a really long story about an apocalyptic battle between Dark and Light in which an eleven-year-old girl plays a very significant part. I wrote shortly after watching Terminus, Mawdryn Undead and Enlightenment :-)

[kathyh]

There must be something in the air encouraging us as I've been doing that too. Mine go back rather further than yours and have been sitting in my parents' attic for 30 years. I can't quite bring myself to chuck the essays but all the notes are heading towards the bin. What I really can't get over now is how neat I was and how well organised they are. Sadly those days are long gone!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely share your sentiments about neatness and organization! Where did that all go to?! I bet it's something to do with the switch from longhand writing to PC writing. I didn't like to cross out words so I'd take extra care when I wrote.

If I'd thought about it before chucking, I might have saved the essays. But they weren't that brilliant, and I've kept the ones I really do use sometimes. I've got another few days before the bin gets emptied :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hah! I hadn't thought of them having historical value in themselves! And just as I'm listening to audios of destroyed episodes of Doctor Who! I hope the project turns up in one of the boxes.

I seem to recall there being a lot of information about Dutch Elm Disease on Blue Peter: I wonder if someone has compiled a list of episode summaries somewhere? Perhaps the BFI might help?

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

I think i still have an old English workbook from my Middle School; the rest got thrown out years ago. My later schooldays offer me no affectionate memories, I only kept the books for the spare paper!

Still have lots of GCSE (2000 - 2001) and A-Level (2001 - 2004) papers, essays, class notes etc, my photography workbooks and loads of degree paperwork. That's not to mention the monochrome prints in silly coloured mounts!

Much of the computer stuff I still have.

And of course my two dissertations. One has a signed cyanotype print, and so must be kept for *ever*.

My re-education is recent, and I still have some affection for it (memories of sitting in a class of 17 yr olds and loving it) and still assign it some value to the written work. Sentimental fool I am! In a few years I'll probably ditch the lot.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, your photography stuff you would have to keep, it's tracing your development as a photographer. That's why I've kept my English written work.

I found my - limited amount - of computer stuff from my early days trying to program my Spectrum!

The notes that haunt forever

[(Anonymous)]

You have the elementary-college collection, too?

I had to dump at least portions of each scholastic stage's relics when I moved out here, but thanks to the fact that my parents remain in the house we were raised in, I have a convenient storage place for anything I couldn't make myself pitch or manage to cram into the car to take with me. This just means that when/if they ever move, it will be Judgment Day...

It is amazing how prophetic those comments on your essays were, though!

As to your video problem, I suggest rounding up friends with the lure of some kind of delectable desert if they'll divide up the labor with you of seeing what is on the tapes and if it's salvageable. Then just refuse to take anything back once it's out of your house and into theirs. They'll either keep it, in which case you can always invite them over for dinner and a movie, or they'll chuck it, and you'll never be the wiser! ;-)

Dwim

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

This sounds as though it hadn't been inspired only by Doctor Who, but by Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising as well.

And let me guess -- you were eleven as you wrote it? :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yes, I think I might have been reading those.

How did you guess?! ;-)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

My amazing powers of deduction?

Re: The notes that haunt forever

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I kept everything: lecture notes, book notes, essays, essay plans... Fortunately I had tiny handwriting and used narrow-lined paper, so it took up less space than it might have done. All handwritten of course! The only people I knew with PCs were studying computer science.

A few years back my mother spent some months in Australia (her sister was there at the time), and she rented out the house. A lot of my stuff came down to me then. I think that's when it all got shoved under the stairs.

Do you still have all your early creative writing too? That's been the most interesting thing to look back on (I made a locked post about that - GET LJ, WOMAN! *eg*)

I've had a bit of a panic about all the essays I threw out, but it's too hot to go and fish them out of the bin and make extra sure that I really want to get rid of them. Inertia resolves a lot of life's conundrums.

I like your video suggestion and creative use of friends, LOL!! the_wild_iris, who has a turntable, has inherited all of my vinyl which was lurking under the stairs.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that farther back in time I went through the archaeological layers of my stuff, the more I imagined I was getting to some fundamental source of myself.

Of course, I wasn't. Not really. However, unearthing some of those older layers, exposing them to the light, living with them a bit--it seemed to refresh them, make them newer again, and, paradoxically, easier to get rid of in the next go-round.

Your papers do sound fascinating and revealing.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, that how I felt as well. Interestingly, I had a terrible nightmare the night after I posted that - I wonder if I might have thrown a few things too quickly, without looking back through them closely enough. I'm thinking of having a root through the bin and going through them quickly, but it's rained in the intervening period...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I caved and went out to the bin. What you wrote about exposing older layers to the light really clarified that I'd made a mistake. I'd thrown them away unexamined and that's as bad as leaving them untouched (worse, probably, since it precludes any chance of ever going back). No wonder I had such a nightmare. Thank you as ever for your wisdom.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I've had that terrible, hollow feeling myself a time or two--the inverse of buyer's remorse. "Declutterer's remorse," I guess. It's different in in intensity, but not in kind, from mourning.

Not surprising that a nightmare might ensue.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

That is so cool!

An unexamined life is not worth living, and apparently unexamined clutter isn't a good idea either--whether piled in a cupboard or prematurely jettisoned.

Valuable insight. Thank you.

One's past life carted round in a box...

[fawatson]

I'm still chortling over this! I too have been carting round 'stuff' of various sorts for YEARS. In my case some of it has crossed the Atlantic (and I'm told I still have some left in my Mother's basement in Canada that she is about to package up and send over).

Last summer I cleared a bit. I probably threw out about 5 boxes - leaving only another 10 or so to go through... It was hilarious looking through all the photocopies of articles I'd carefully collected for my undergraduate thesis... then my Masters... (haven't got to the pile for the doctorate yet). WHY did I spend all that money hauling them round the country all those years?

However, in my case, the real weight comes from the BOOKS. Do you know I live in a large house mainly to have room for them! And I have the smaller collection - my sister's is phenomenal. Some lucky library will get them all when she dies... and need to build another wing to house them.

Re: The notes that haunt forever

[(Anonymous)]

The only people I knew with PCs were studying computer science.

I had a whole collection of 3.5 inch hard disks that went the way of their kind while I was in Germany, I suppose - so much for high school and college papers! I do have copies of some of my college papers - the ones I liked enough to stuff into the van and drive out here.

Do you still have all your early creative writing too?

Not all of it. I have (or rather, my parents' house stores) a number of the things that I wrote in grade school and even a little earlier, thanks to my mom being a hoarder of that sort of material (I think she also has copies of every report card from preschool on up - funny thing, verbal scores were always excellent, and math was always some variation on 'satisfactory').

Almost anything not produced for public consumption went into the recycle bin when I came out to Chicago. A lot of it was, as one might expect, highly repetitive as I tried to figure out how to get the couple of characters to work out in different guises and settings. In any event, I couldn't take it all with me, and I decided I'd rather not have anyone reading it for any reason whatsoever.

I think the one I wish I'd kept, though, was a piece of fanfiction based loosely on the Steeleye Span version of the retelling of the "Tam Lin" story. Lots of Tam going slowly nuts and wanting to kill himself in that one but being unable to do so. Apparently at that point, I'd discovered the joy of conflicting desires.

Inertia resolves a lot of life's conundrums.

Three cheers for inertia! And for friends who can help facilitate its resolutionary benefits!

GET LJ, WOMAN!

It's finally reached the point of subtle bribery, has it? ;-)

Dwim

Re: One's past life carted round in a box...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed the post! :-)

Myself and mraltariel spent much of last year living in the US for his job, and coming back to the UK I realized how little I had missed most of my 'stuff', and how much I would prefer not having it around. One of my LJ friends has been posting some inspiring posts about decluttering, so I began this long slow project at the start of the year. It's been fantastic.

Haven't even thought about thinning out the books yet! That will be the real test of resolve.

Thank you for starting the Jane Duncan community. I've been reading all the posts with great interest and pleasure. I hope I get a chance to post something about My Friend Muriel at some point. It's been several years since I read the books (I was the friend that katlinel introduced to them), and it's great to have the excuse to read them again. And, I hope, the excuse to fill some of the gaps!

Re: The notes that haunt forever

[altariel.livejournal.com]

a whole collection of 3.5 inch hard disks [...] so much for high school and college papers!

Argh, yes, the benefits of having done all my school and undergraduate work by hand.

(I did go out to the bin and salvage some of my undergraduate notes: I realized I hadn't gone through them at all, and that I'd regret not processing them properly.)


a piece of fanfiction based loosely on the Steeleye Span version of the retelling of the "Tam Lin" story

Oh what a shame that went. Do you think you'd ever try recreating it, or was it one of those stories that arise from a certain point in one's life?

GET LJ, WOMAN!

It's finally reached the point of subtle bribery, has it? ;-)

Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't notice! ;-D

Re: One's past life carted round in a box...

[fawatson]

Well, actually, it was Inaforest who started the community, an act of bravery I would never have considered. Having found it doing very little over a year later, I then contacted her and we seem to spark ideas off one another really well, so it's finally getting going. I'm playing my part, but although she hasn't posted on the front page as much as I have recently, Inaforest is still very much involved. We are both looking forward to reading your comments.

As to thinning out books - take a tip from my sister (who will show up at some point but is currently still lurking at the JD LJ). She has a set of shelves in her study where she keeps 'current' books (set of shelves is really a misnomer as her study walls are covered in them). Every so often she culls those shelves and moves the 'extra' contents down to another set of shelves (again a misnomer) in the basement. I 'just' have the study walls covered.

Re: The notes that haunt forever

[(Anonymous)]

Argh, yes, the benefits of having done all my school and undergraduate work by hand.

There must be a benefit in there somewhere! ;-) In point of fact, I'm not really sorry to lose some of those, and I had gone through them several times as part of the semi-annual "go through the drawers" housecleaning that my mom tried to insist upon. Most of them survived for several years of such cleaning before finally getting tossed. Still, part of what had made some of them more easily tossable was the thought that I had the electronic back-ups if I ever really wanted them...

Do you think you'd ever try recreating it, or was it one of those stories that arise from a certain point in one's life?

Hard to say. It's nothing that makes me want to pick up a pen right now, and I've since read Pamela Dean's Tam Lin story, which was excellent in all regards.

I do think, based on memories of it, that that was training for writing Frodo in LDID...

Re: subtle bribery

Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't notice!

I'm told that they're training me to do that - notice subtle textual points and to ferret out their true significance... ;-)

Dwim