You are not your possessions, but they say a lot about you.
Choose something you own and explain how it reflects your personality.
assignment 5
The tendency to keep junk runs in my family. As far back as I can remember, my father had an old metal building in the backyard storing old tires, car parts, and even the old TV into which I poured milk when, at 5 years old, I wanted to feed the bear on the TV.
It's not fair to blame my father, considering how much more of a mess his parents had. Having two or three freezers full of food in a shed is bad enough, but using a discarded toilet as a planter seems weird to me. (The toilet planter stayed outside.) For several years, they had a wooden travel trailer slowly decaying in their pasture. It was a great spot to sit and feed the ducks, though.
My mother's father had similar tendencies, though they focus more on him being very frugal from growing up during the Depression, not necessarily a packrat. One story claims that he painted the family car with a paintbrush. When my father and uncles went to clean out his house after his death, they found a broken fan belt from an old car he no longer owned. I suppose he always intended to find another use for it.
He pales in comparison to his brother, Armond. I vaguely remember visiting his house when I was seven or eight. He'd died recently, leaving several discarded cars on his property. Even to move throughout his house, people had to arrange what seemed like waist-high stacks of newspapers to make paths.
Regardless of the quirks of my family, neither side gave me the genetic chance to avoid keeping more stuff than necessary.
Still, I do have some possessions that I appreciate.
The top bookshelf in my office holds four copies of my first book and two copies of my second. (I have two more of the second somewhere.) What's most interesting about the second book is that I have two copies of the Polish translation. During the year it took to write, I had no idea that anyone in Poland would ever read it, let alone find it financially feasable to translate, print, and sell the book in Polish!
I also have a flattened and framed version of the cover from the first printing of my second book all set to hang on the office wall. It's a nice reminder of the process, especially now that it's all over besides cashing an occasional royalty check.
It seems strange to mark the milestone of having a book go to print while not celebrating my undergraduate degree, but I don't have my diploma hanging up anywhere. I'm not even sure where it is. The last time I saw it was during packing to move into the new house. It's nice to know I have it, though.
I do know where my guitars are. During my senior year of high school, I borroed some money from my parents to buy a cutaway acoustic-electric guitar. "Cutaway" means that it has a concave curve cut out of the top right of the body to make it easier to play high notes on the fretboard. "Acoustic-electric" means that it is an acoustic guitar with a hollow body as well as a pickup on the inside of the guitar, an equalizer to shape the frequencies produced, and a jack on the outside to plug into an amplifier or sound system. This guitar saw me through several incarnations of a band, one studio recording session that produced a song that aired on the radio, twice, several studio sessions that didn't, several live performances, and the completion of my music degree.
I usually play along to my favorite CDs now. I still intend to build my own small recording studio one day and release my own full-length CD.
The number of technical books in my office is fairly impressive, especially considering the small amount of money I invested to build that library. In my second professional job after college (the rent came due before being a rock star even started to pay off), I sweet-talked my way into being a volunteer book reviewer for a popular web site.
Being 21 and having approximately no money with student loans coming due soon, I had no budget to buy expensive books. During a trip to Portland with my family, I picked up a new book at Powell's Technical on a whim. After writing my review, I submitted it to the editor and instantly became one of his right-hand men. He'd send two or three new books, free of charge, every month. In return, I'd review one or two of them.
After demonstrating fairness, speed, and a decent sense of review, a couple of publishers started sending me books directly. One of those publishers contacted me to write first one book and then another and, sometime in between, actually hired me for my current job.
Though I no longer review technical books in a desire to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, I still receive books from a few (affiliated) publishers and authors, as well as through my work. In a way, the library symbolizes my development as a writer and technologist and a mark of how far I've come in five years.
My house also has a lot of camel and penguin references. For example, my computer desk has two ceramic penguins in scarves and hats, one red and one black. There's a small clock sculpture with tiny penguins climbing an ice flow. Inside, a penguin rides an ice floe tied the back of a turtle as the second hand on a clock. Two other floe-riding penguins live inside a paperweight. Atop my bed right now is a comfy fleece blanket with penguin designs. The master bathroom has a penguin-shaped soap dispenser. That doesn't even count all of the stuffed penguins people have given me as gifts.
The camels stay downstairs. On a trip to Israel in 2000, I picked up a metallic camel sculpture in a tiny shop in Bethlehem. Most of the tourists go to the big shop with olivewood and leather sculptures. I went across the street with two other travellers and found the beautiful camel. That was also the trip where I rode, or didn't quite fall off of, a camel in the Sahara desert. After that, my parents gave me a larger leather camel for Christmas. Finally, this year, I bought a small blue felt camel from Geneva Wall after seeing how much time and effort she put into it.
The penguin is the mascot of Linux. The camel is the mascot of Perl. I identify with both projects strongly, hoping that they'll have a positive effect on the world. Given that I use both daily to do my work and to make the rest of my life easier, I think that's appropriate.