A Little Closer Each Day

     It’s confession time:

     When I first came into the Dirty Room, I thought for sure that I wouldn’t be able to finish going through all the boxes by the time Co-Op ended. Now at the end of the 8^th week of the term, I’m proud to announce that I was wrong. I estimate I have between 40 and 50 boxes left to go through. I won’t make any promises, but it’s possible that I will be able to finish up this upcoming week. (We’ll see how I feel about it, though, when the time comes.)

     Anyway, this week has taught me a rather valuable lesson about task management and priorities. Specifically, my tendency to veto boxes I find to be “boring” or too time-consuming has come back to haunt me. Now that I’m nearing the end, I’m coming across box after box of things I previously skipped over and at this point I have to do them.

     You win, Dirty Room. You win.

     It’s not all bad, though. In the past I’ve been unnecessarily uninterested in fans, and now I feel a little bad because they can be so much more interesting than I assumed. While boxes of fans do indeed take a long time (you can fit 30 in a box easily), I’ve been able to see some very cool designs. Fans can be stereotypically associated with Asian cultures - so of course I’ve found fans from countries like Japan and China. What I find cool, however, is that I’ve also come across fans from Spain and France. Seeing everything side-by-side creates a really interesting cultural contrast (especially considering many of these fans are from the same time period). Here are some of my favorites!

(Note the small sheer section of the last fan: How do you check out the cute guy across the room without being indecent? Through that, of course!)

     On another note, you may remember seeing a picture of a rather colorful and boldly printed mid-1800s dress that I posted in January. Yesterday, we found what may as well be her scalloped, sunnier sister. It makes you wonder if these gowns were (possibly) owned by the same person, as they are pretty darn crazy. Or maybe these kinds of roller-print patterns were popular? I’m not sure, but I love it!