I am decluttering- new verb I learned from apartmentherapy.com, minimalist.com and several other websites with names along the lines of "live-a-simple-life-and-be-happy" or more blatantly, "change-your-slothful-ways-NOW-you-slob!".

I found this collection of online sites from the sidebar on Cyn's blog. Cyn is a huge advocate of the minimalist concept and has astonished me on more than one occasion with enlightening realizations such as "wouldn't it be great if your ENTIRE -the capping is by me, not her- I repeat, ENTIRE life could be packed into a suitcase?" I hang my head in shame next to an enlightened being like her- I still have my first "English Composition" book stashed somewhere. This prized collection begins with a story about a monkey who was "a s t o n i s h e d" (I printed each letter with painstaking concentration). Unfortunately, treasures such as this cannot be uncovered unless I "declutter" my room, i.e. throw out my possessions.

Each year, I do a bout of spring-cleaning, usually during the year-end holidays or before chinese new year. However, what I do is just rearrange everything and put them in a more orderly manner- I don't throw things out.

My choir songbook from standard two? (attempts to sing) Keep.

My Maths notebooks from Forms One to Three? (flips through pages of squiggly writing, geometric shapes and endless formulae involving anons X and Y) Might be useful someday, keep.

The annual prefect magazines? (Flips through and laughs at geeky hairstyles) Keep.

The envelopes of little slips of love notes? (Alright, not love notes, friendship notes, more accurately) Charming. Keep.

Old diaries, old letters- some received, some unsent- a lot of innocence, hope, light-heartedness; a lot of heartache, helplessness, anguish and regret.

But the minimalist concept preaches... minimalism. So this time it will be slightly different. My stacks of Cleo and Female magazines will be going to the recycling centre (stares at Female's "naked dish of the month"-featured yummylicious male for the last time). And frugality shall be compromised too- out go the stack of single-side printed A4 paper. And the cupboard bursting with clothes but none presentable (the irony of it) shall be relieved of its contents.

I shall end with a resolution to not buy anything with the potential to become trash later on. As the minimalist preaches, "quality, not quantity is what matters". Off to bed.