stand up, your father's passing

Help, I am currently suffering clutter angst and it is turning me into a neat-freak. There are snapped and broken 30 cm rulers that I will never use for graphs ever again, my sister's failed and forgotten design and technology projects, a tangle of wires—some of which, I discovered, leads to relatively obsolete equipment, and used, crumpled plastic bags strewn randomly around that are officially the bane of my existence. Clutter Angst has hit me right smack in the face again after the initial discontent felt when looking at Apartment Therapy with the annoyingly perfect slightly-messy feel of decorative clutter done "just right" and Martha Stewart-esque home organisation ideas that I will never consider because (i) few know the claustrophobic feeling of living in a small space with two guitars, (ii) I live with people still stuck in the 1940s and (iii) there are regular dust storms in my house. I could go on enumerating, but I'll have to condense my grievances into a parenthetical aside for now.

Earlier, I went to see Ruimin off at the airport. She's going to HK to study dance, and there were throngs of friends/adoring fans who went to say goodbye. I only knew about the latest flight plans yesterday while at the southern ridges walk (in the pouring rain) and it was all very sudden. I spent the night doing up a stationary set for her while half-conscious! Anyway, I'm really proud of her! I guess it's really scary to leave one's family and friends behind and be alone in a foreign land, not knowing quite sure how to speak their language fluently. But still I'm sure it's going to be a great experience and opportunity for her.

And I'm trying to save up to get an iPod nano (because the current hard drive-based iPod that I have to share with esther can't go running with me and I've been dependent on the flimsy affairs that Sony Ericsson calls handphone headsets), but financial black holes keep syphoning off my funds! Hence I will NOT condescend to buy romance novels from secondhand bookstores for Zizhao because this goes against the entire notion of my dignity, and there are better things out there to read if one wants to maintain their level of English. Ha.