Recently I’ve been preparing my desk for my new computer, which has been quite the task because the computer is going to take up space and I’ve already consumed much of the general space of the bedroom and so didn’t want to take over too much more. To compromise, I’ve been practising ‘letting go’ with all of the notebooks under and on my desk, the ones that have three pages, the ones that are now in one collection, the ones that started as something and then had the pages ripped out and now are just empty, all of my uni notebooks. Those kinds of notebooks. So I have gone through and culled them. I have a new writing system and so I got rid of all of the blank notebooks, either palming them off or recycling them if they couldn’t really be saved. I tossed my uni notebooks (not like there was really anything in them anyway) and cleared out all of the folders of unit outlines and assessment task sheets. I moved novels to their rightful place (on the floor in front of the lounge room bookshelf because it’s the only space available right now) and resorted my desk shelving to make it more conducive to the way I currently work. I threw out more manuscripts than I thought I had (some of them four different versions of the same story, gathering the courage to finally drop them into the yellow bin, hoping that they’re swiftly disposed of. I’ve used the cardboard boxes I’ve been saving from various things to make free order on my desk. Now it just looks like I own a tonne of glasses from Specsavers.

I’m not 100% happy with it but I think that’s how I’m going to be until the day I have a room that’s just completely my workspace and I’m allowed to screw things into the wall. But for now, I’m liking the changes. I’m not yet finished because the rest of the computer parts haven’t arrived and so the setup isn’t complete, meaning I can’t figure out if I need to change it but I am excited as heck for it. I think it will take some time to try and get used to doing all of my work up here in a shared room but I am more confident about myself than I was before and so less stressed about the possibility of people seeing what I’m doing. I need to be able to work in most environments, or I’m never going to get any work done when out of my comfort zone.

On top of cleaning/organising my desk, I’m also trying to cull my belongings around the room to make it less cluttered and free up space. It’s quite crowded at the moment. It’s time to start whittling my possessions down so it’s 20% junk I can’t let go of and 80% important to me. I’m quite doing a Marie Kondo but I’m pretty close.

I completed my class registration yesterday and, though it’s not favourable for hobbies in my personal life, the timetable is nice and compact (for now – there’s one class where they haven’t actually allowed us to pick a class and so I’m just waiting for more information on that). I’m back to four units this semester because my internship will only count as one unit’s worth of credit points, unlike the project.

• Indigenous Knowledge: Research Ethics and Protocols
• Work Integrated Learning
• Writing Project 2
• Foundation Psychology

Those are my units for the final semester.

I say goodbye to the paper stacks of the old me and am gearing up for the final bout of university (for this degree). Sometimes you have to clear your palette and just make a new one… but changing the way my desk is organised is likely just 90% procrastination. Cheers to the new semester!