Monday, March 23, 2009

Sell everything you own.

Seriously.  Before you consider the big move across one of the oceans (or Mexico) please look at the solid objects you own.  Trust me when I say you don't need 90% of them.  Near the beginning of this blog I wrote about "things to do before you leave."  The list talked about banks and other "on paper," things to consider.  I think this is more important, but not as easy to do.  Sell everything... and then when you feel comfortable with how much stuff  you have, sell more.   I certainly didn't follow my own advice and brought WAY TOO MUCH with me.  I'm eyeballing my three pieces of luggage that are overfull with stuff:  Clothing, wires and books.  
It's important to note that I love books, and I read often... my library is unnecessarily large and full of books I want to read.  I knew I couldn't carry three book shelves worth of stuff with me overseas so I put a bunch in cold storage, promising the books I wouldn't abandon them and that someone would read them soon.  I sold a huge portion of the library and sold my entire childhood collection of video games.  This step was very necessary for me to feel the "cleanse" bug and soon after I felt good trashing everything I had.  Not only was this a pretty good source of bonus cash, but it helped me rationalize leaving things behind.  It started the process of mentally preparing myself to change my day to day existence into something new.  I still ended up with a bunch of books that were on the top of my mental "list to read."  The library was a starting point and it extended to a lot of the stuff I had avoided trashing for years.    
I began a process of examining things that I thought I needed at all times.  I brought about 18 paperback books with me and 3 DVDs.  I brought a gameboy, two external hard drives, cameras (digital & slr) and a cache of charging/converting devices, daily clothing & "nice" clothing and some bedding.  One of the pieces of advice I read in a book suggested taking a list of books / movies you want to consume and just rebuy them in the new place when you need them.  This makes a lot of sense as I haven't gotten through nearly as many of the books as I'd like.  But now, when I finish the books I donate them or sell them.  Once I've finished a novel there is no reason to keep it.  If it is non-fiction and something I'd like to reference I plan on scanning the important parts and backing them up.  If I need to reference it in the future, I can probably find the same book in a library.  I've also realized I was a little over-ambitious with the "nice" clothing.  I think I packed about 90% more than I will ever use, and I could have saved myself a few pounds on the trip over.
I'm writing about all this as I begin to look for a new apartment and contemplating moving the same three pieces of luggage again.  All I want to do is sell or donate enough to bring myself down to one large bag and a backpack.
Ok, well today I did about an hour on Rosetta Stone learning a bit about plurals and conjugation.  Its pretty useful to help picking up on the sounds of plurals since its a bit more subtle than I'm used to.  I've also been looking at details the past few days in French, and hopefully soon I'll be able to tell a contractor what materials he should use... but not be able to say "Hi, how's it going?"  Also, this past Friday I went to Pecha Kucha night (a Japanese presentation style for designers).  This was a fun event because there were English, French and Dutch presentations.  Among the francophone presenters there was one Canadian, one French and one Belgian; I was very able to notice the difference between each of the regional variations on French and it was fun to hear them so close to one another.  I also realized that I can get the general idea of a presentation in French, but in Dutch... whoa, I have NO idea what's going on.

1 comment:

  1. be you should sell everything you own...and buy a waffle maker.

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