Here’s a CNN i-report from the recent typhoon that hit Taiwan. The woman seen was in my TEFL certification class and in fact turned me on to the IRC as a teacher’s experience builder. Golly, maybe I’ll soon get the chance to do the same thing during an earthquake! Can’t you just picture me standing there a-jigglin’?

Moving around a lot, I end up making these “stash piles” where I keep things with a friend for a time: clothing, some non digital music, art. And then will occasionally move these to where I keep the “big stash pile”, which must at times be whittled down and sorted. As I might soon be off to China for a year, I’m in one of these “times of whittling”. It’s nuts to look through these possessions, things assembled with no home in which to display them, many things forgotten but re-cherished upon discovery.

I don’t really have that many things for a person my age, and had I a house in which to arrange them, they wouldn’t seem like much at all. But damn if it doesn’t still seem like so much stuff. Am I a clothes horse? No, and yet all of these T and button down shirts I can’t seem to part with. A look through the books one more time for what can be traded in and what must be present when The Library is eventually assembled. Yes, record jackets are kick ass, and vinyl is it’s own thing, but hauling around piles of it sucks! What business does a nomad have collecting art, even these small pieces? Tools which are useful and should be kept but are seldom used. Other hobby gear along these lines. What stands out the most are little “stocking stuffer” type gifts given out of some sense of “balance” or just more packages to open, that get tucked away into closets and boxes, never opened, never really wanted.

And god knows a year from now I’ll have another pile of stuff on the other side of the Pacific trying to figure out what needs to be shipped back over here…