Purge Update: Day 7

I have not gotten much movement in the past few days, but I have been throwing out a lot.
I have decided on getting rid of my other old computer table as well. Since I am going for a fresh start, I might as well toss everything old out. My bed is fully dismantled and discarded so that is complete, most of the work now is getting all my old junk in storage bins out or stored in proper places.

I have good fortune doing this while my sister and her family is here. I threw out a lot of backpacks and most of them have been gifted and well appreciated by my nephew and niece. I gave a Monkey backpack to Elle, and a shoe "bag" (the bag itself is in the shape and design of a shoe) for Eisner. I also tossed in a Cathay Pacific backpack for Elle since it's her birthday today.
The nicest prize I gave up was probably a "My First Sony" CFM-2000. It is a bright red radio that looks like it was made for the 80s. (Google it, it looks pretty cool!).

Going through the self-help table at Chapters today, I saw a book called Clutter Busting: Letting Go Of What's Holding You Back . The irony was, I want to clean up my clutter, and I could not justify buying this book because it would only end up in my clutter. Haha.

Purge Day 4: Interesting Relics and Discoveries

1) A still wrapped Christmas present of a lego toy. I think I would have been ecstatic if I had actually seen it 12 years ago when I received it.
2) A Captain Planet ring. (For those of you who know what they are, I got the one with the Earth symbol)
3) Brochures from my trip to Europe. I forgot I visited Arromanches in Normandy, France. The museum described how the operations of D-Day took place.
4) My tickets from taking the lift at the Eiffel Tower, or as they say, les ascenseurs.
5) Reading some of my old book reports. My writing was more erratic back then, but I also wrote a lot bigger. (Graphology reverse profiling/engineering is also being considered).
6) Realizing how many notebooks I've actually started using but never finished. The count is pretty high, it's probably over 20. I'm considering how to combine them or whether to toss them out.
7) Bag of lightbulbs in my closet. ???
8) A lot of kid backpacks (I'm giving them to my nephew and niece as gifts--boy, do I have a lot of gifts for them)
9) Street hockey equipment I have never used. (I really wanted to play hockey when I was young, my parents ruined that dream for me)
10) An inspirational poem in my old poetry collections:

Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

An auto-socioengineering project

I've been quite unhappy for the past few years. I'm not known to be a cheerful person, but I am optimistic. I look at my room and do a profile of myself based on my surroundings. I have mostly empty walls. There's not much color in the room. I do not have that many pictures. What there is, is a lot of plastic storage boxes. There's a lot of books shelved away and also lying around in the bins, and there's a lot of electronics/technology magazines. There are lots of documents and papers in random areas. There are also a lot of notebooks in many places. Hanging on the wall is a piano certification but it is pretty low level. In the other corner by the door, there's a simple moonscape painting. The room is mostly defined by the clutter and the small bed. There is no personality to the room, no intention, no memory.

I have done a couple of re-arrangements to my room, but nothing major since at least over 5 years ago, probably when I was still in high school. I am planning to do a reverse profile. You can see the personality of a person based on their room, so I am going to try and do the opposite. Modifying my environment to influence my personality. This is not that simple considering how much I have in my room, and how I personally have a tendency to leave things half done.
This change towards my health, lifestyle, and personality has probably been headed in the right direction only since last year. I have started exercising more by playing badminton. I have lost about 20lbs(10% of my weight) since I started last May and am hoping I can keep going. I have tried to break out of my social shell, but I still find myself shy and short of words some time, still having issues expressing myself. Trying to be more outward and friendly has truly been the hardest thing for me, but it has immensely helped me feel more confident.
The major barrier I have now is fear of what direction I'm headed in. My room still resounds like a bad nightmare and I have decided to take that as my first priority to change. I have started the purge since the 25th of May, a day before my birthday. I needed to start it before because I need to achieve change before the next year of my life is already passing by.

Today is purge day 3, and I am still moving forward.

My list of dream jobs

These are the jobs, though maybe not as careers, that I conceive of as MY dream job, or A dream job I would at least like to experience. Some of these are ridiculous, some may not be too far to achieve, but all of them intrigue me.

1) Cup/Mug/Drinkware Designer for Starbucks
2) Drive the Google Maps Street View Truck
3) Work on Mythbusters
4) Be a food critic/host on FoodTV (and travel around the world doing it!)

A crisis of conscience

I've pondered the question many times. If someone were in trouble, and if I was in a position to help, would I do it? After many hypotheticals and deep contemplation, I always ended up tabling a response. Too many factors come into play. The situation is generic, but many different micro-situations surrounding it are unpredictable.
Questions come up like, if I helped the person, would I put more people at risk? What is the risk to me? What is the possibility that my help actually does any good, after all, to quote George Bernard Shaw, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Well, today was the first time I was tested on whether or not what choice I would make.
I was driving down Buswell Street today in Richmond heading north towards Saba Road. There was an old person opening his car on the other side of the street. There was a younger person beside/behind him no more than 30 years old. Suddenly, the younger guy swung a white plastic bag at the older man. The bag broke and cans and other things spewed onto the pavement.
At this point, I was just passing them. I looked into my side view mirrors and then I saw the younger guy looking down and punching him from above.

I contemplated about pulling over and coming out to help. I was driving the car with my mom and my nephew in the back, and decided against it.
I feel bad because I could have gone down to help him. I saw him take the first blow and I was literally only a couple feet away when it happened.
I always thought I was the kind of person who would stop to help, but my mind decided that on the factors at hand, I shouldn't.