Paper Purge

It's oddly soothing to go through the stacks of paper that have grown on my bookshelf over the year. It's a different calm than I get after I've finally cleaned my apartment. You know the feeling you get when you've been eating nothing but grease and then finally you go to the gym and eat a salad, it's like that. I think I just enjoy getting to the point of throwing stuff away and laughing at myself for keeping that piece of looseleaf with the one note I took during class when I was awake.
All during the school year I start stacks of paper, that don't really have a place and because I don't have desk drawers to stash them in the stacks just get higher and wider. These stacks of paper sit and collect dust until that I'll deal with those later moment finally arrives. Obviously, I have a tendency to keep everything. When I'm in school I feel like I should keep everything I write down or am handed by a prof, because I might need it. The problem is, if a paper ends up in one of these stacks I may never find it again. All of those papers get thrown out. I also keep stupid paper, why on earth would I keep the readings package from my magazine class last year? A key to the annual paper purge is to throw away all the stuff I kept from last year for the stupid reason of I might need it next year, which I never do.
The paper purge also forces some re-organization of the paper I've decided to keep. During the ongoing job hunt my portfolio fell out of order, literally. I would prefer it to stay in it's nice chronological order with each story in it's happy plastic cover, but that doesn't happen. So finally, I have a big black binder full of my life's work that is getting me nowhere. At least it's organized again.
Tomorrow, maybe I'll go through my folder full of old phone bills. It's nowhere near as exciting.