Photographic Evidence of a Mighty Battle
My friends, in the past few days I was charged with a holy task - to clean the room that has been building up crap since I was ten years old, once and for all. Truly a terrifying prospect. I decided, since cleaning is such a boring process, I would entertain myself by keeping a camera on hand and taking pictures of interesting things that turned up under all the layers of debris.
At least ten hours and five very heavy trash bags later, I have a photo blog for you all.
The before picture. Really, it's more than it looks like from this angle. The corners are all stuffed with god knows what, there are literally dolls and stuffed animals everywhere, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with any of it. Not to mention the piles of books that don't fit in all my bookshelves. (Later, I realized that "not knowing what to do with it" is actually "irrationally reluctant to throw it out," which is how I got through this whole damn process.)
Got my music, and I'm ready to go. Let's clean this bitch.
The angel collection, or at least some of it, resided on this windowsill. When I was a wee child, I decided and/or it was decided for me that I would collect angels, and get one or two new ones every Christmas. This has carried over into the years when I really don't want or need another stupid angel figurine. I figured out that there is a box in the basement of even more ridiculous angels, so away they went.
Don't be fooled by this innocuous pile of stuffed animals in the corner. Underneath lurked old art projects, old papers, game boxes that I got at various birthdays and never ever played, old Pokemon cards...aargh, I have way too much stuff.
This is where most of the dreaded Doll Collection hangs out, looking out over my room. Did I mention that I was obsessed with dolls as a kid? I do not know why. This is still where it is, by the way. I have not yet worked up the courage to get these in boxes, although it would certainly make my room look like it belongs to a girl twice as girly and twice as young as I. Alas, it is part of my past. I was a ridiculously girly person. I really don't know why that changed.
RUNAWAYS POSTER ~
IS SO PRETTY <3
The penguin erasers look out across their land, laid to waste by mountains of crap, and shed a single tear.
I started simple - folding clothes and putting them away. The least terrifying job of this whole ordeal.
My trusty foam sword waits in the random fake flower pot, ready for the day of reckoning.
Oh, my desk. Where do I even begin to clean that up? The problem is, it's by my bed, so it acts as a bedside table, and everything ends up there.
My Remus wand. My baby. <3 (It was under my bed. I am so sorry, Remus wand.)
A modest smattering of all the loose papers I found around my room. I had to find a folder to keep all my loose writing together. It's all stuff that got torn out of notebooks during school and folded up and written, for example, when I was thought to be doing math.
Bwahaha, I remember drawing this. Stick figure raptors. That's new.
Hee. <3 Impromptu facebook RP. Truly a glorious find, I had to reread it.
Aww, look! lyricalecho 's first panfandom host club fic! Of course I had to reread this, too, and it sort of reduced me to a giggling madwoman collapsed on the floor for a few minutes. Because seriously. SO CUTE.
...Do I have a superhero sock puppet lying around in my room? WHY YES I DO.
IS IT A BIRD? IS IT A PLANE? IS IT SOME GIRL'S WRIST? DOES ITS CAPE HAVE A BUNCH OF REALLY RANDOM BUTTONS SEWN ALL OVER IT?
YOU GUYS. I found a TON of change in my room. And when I counted it? 86 FREAKING DOLLARS. I swear to god, I need to use change, this is truly ridiculous. Bonus, though, I'm totally rich now compared to what I had in my personal funds before cleaning my room (which was nothing).
I need to post a picture of this because I LITERALLY DO NOT REMEMBER EVER PURCHASING THIS BOOK. It's kind of worrisome. I have the Amazon packaging it came in and everything, and it was sort of recently, but it does not look at all familiar to me. OH, THE TREASURE TROVE THAT IS MY ROOM.
YARN. D: I don't really know what to do with it all, and I don't feel like untangling it all, so I just sort of stuffed it into a plastic bag and I'll deal with it later. PROBLEM SOLVED! ~
HEY spinners_grove I COLORED IN YOUR ARTS :DDD
THIS IS TOTAL HORSE!
Aww! I don't remember drawing this but lyricalecho is a chibi! Aww!
Urgh. I had to pick through piles and piles of school papers, one by one, to make sure I wasn't tossing any old writing I wanted. Took FOREVER.
A sideview of one of the stacks I was searching through. I didn't even want 90% of it, but as they say, the remaining 10% is worth dying for. (That probably doesn't really apply in this situation.)
D'AWWWWW HUMAN 5 <3 (from the movie 9)
Hey, some old character designs for my '09 NaNo! Joss with her crazy half-spikes, and Hart with and without mohawk.
I think at some point I held this thing over my head and wailed "WHAT THE HELL DO I DO WITH A BRICK SHAPED LIKE A SNOWMAN?" (hint: throw it out)
Shoebox, part 1. I still very clearly remember the morning in school when lyricalecho and spinners_grove bounced up to me with this very stack of paper going OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS. Ah, the memories. <3 CHANGED MY LIFE.
My mask collection, plus a fan I got on the Italy trip. I'm thinking of putting together some sort of display on the wall behind my desk.
Jewelery. Urgh. I had to untangle it all and throw out all the trashy ten year old stuff, and I barely even wear the stuff that I kept.
Oh, this stupid thing. I think I put it up there in fifth grade or something. It says "All Hail the Mighty Princess." Or, at least, it used to say that. Now it's in a million shreds in a trash can. It took so long to get all that glue off the glass.
MORE FREE MONEY! :D I can't believe I had thirty dollars of music in my room for so long and didn't even know it. (I just blew twenty of it on Marian Call CDs, which was TOTALLY WORTH IT.)
Haha, someone tell me they remember that time everybody in school had one of these. Endless entertainment.
Proof of a summer in a Fiction class. Side view:
We workshopped each other's work, which means we exhausted the printers making copies of our stories for all fourteen class members, plus the teacher and TA. And then we'd get all the copies of our stories passed back, only covered in comments. After that, we got sort of obsessive about editing. We weren't allowed to have work in our dorms since the teachers weren't allowed to give us homework, but we literally could not stop, so we had to run to the dorms after class with huge stacks of paper stuffed under our sweatshirts. Then we'd all gather in one of the double rooms and bemoan our lamentable writing skills. It was so much fun.
Okay, are you ready for this gem? I can't believe I found this. Here we go:
What, you say? Lizzie McGuire manga? How bizarre! Let's take a look inside...
...Screencaps with speech bubbles. I AM SORRY, HILARY DUFF, BUT THIS IS NOT MANGA. Ahaha, it's kind of hilariously stupid, though. And useless, since it's just basically episode recaps.
Matchmaker results for Lupin, Remus? Hee! And it was compared to my whole school, and yet his top match was Hermione Granger. Which made me laugh. And one of his "suggested friends" was Light Yagami, which was, well, slightly terrifying (get Light away from my Remus, plz) but still funny. Oh, the memories.
AUGH OH GOD WHY. This thing literally fell out of a drawer and started squacking at me. I HATE FURBIES. I couldn't even bring myself to throw it away, because it might come back as a ghost and haunt me. So I took its batteries out and put it back in the drawer. Do you think I could get any money for this thing? Any crazy rich collectors of creepy toys from the '90s out there?
Old Pokemon cards, yay! If you notice, they're all the crappy yet adorable unevolved ones. I used to trade with my brother's friends and give away really good Pokemons for, like, another Ponyta or something. Ned got so mad at me. XD
Old toys/games. I guess I'll have to throw them out. A couple were never opened, so I can give them away. The real question is, why do I still have all this stuff in my room?
I was almost done, but I still had all these books, and my bookshelves were all full. It's ridiculous.
Improvised shelf space yay! XD All my random dressser space was cleared off and donated to the cause.
The OMFG I'M FINALLY DONE shot. Seriously. SO much better. I can't beleve how long this took.
Yes, Cosette, you were a huge help, crawling around under all my furniture, thank you.
And that's it! I'm kind of in shock right now, I almost had a heart attack after dinner when I walked into my room and it looked actually sort of nice. I mean, I still haven't fixed the whole thing where it looks like a ten year old lives here, but it's now an okay place to hang out, which is the important thing. Ah,cleaning. I'm exhausted. Time to rationalize reasons why I shouldn't work on mysummer reading!