I continue my unpacking procedure today. It is kinda like the old computer puzzle game on pushing boxes. There is only one empty area in the living room. So everytime I want to organize my stuff, I have to shuffle the boxes to that empty space as the buffer zone. Finally all the big furniture are in their place, now I just have to open the boxes, shelf my stuff and put away useless stuffs in the storage. I went to Ikea to buy some compact shelfs today during lunch hour. The lunch menu in Ikea is actually quite good, better than the cafe at work.

The move is quite frustrating. The moving company shows up late, screwed up all my elevator booking schedule. I have too many stuff, the boxes almost filled up my new place. I have been slowly unpacking my stuff. First dig out the pillows and blanket so I can have a good night sleep. After I have cleared some area, I finally can reassembly my desk and hooked up my computer. Fortunately, both my computers are up and running in no time with working internet connection. I have opened all the boxes, but I havn’t organize my stuff yet, just open them in the corner they belong to. It is a long way to go to make my apartment a habitable place.

I have been packing all the evening for the moving tomorrow. I am surprised how much stuff I have culminated over the past 5 years. I have over 30 boxes of books, toys, clothes and misc. things. I can’t imagine how many stuff can actually fit into an one bedroom apartment. I found some things I haven’t touch and expoded some places havn’t seen lights for 5 years. The apartment is quite dirty, took me some effort to make it looks a bit more presentable. I guess it is beyond hope to get rid of all the dirt accumlated over the years. I have no choice but have the deposit deduct the cleaning fee. The most gross area is the refrigerator. I found long expired food and drinks. I almost wanted to puke after I discovered the chicken powder I have been using is expired in 2002. I have been eating it for the past 4 years! I throw away lots of things, but none of my clothes yet, since I don’t have to sort them. I won’t throw out any books or toys, so my library collection will keep growing. I guess I should control myself on buying less useless stuffs, especially food, which I tends to forget their existence and left perish in the shelf or in the refrigerator.

I am perparing for my move in tuesday over the weekend. I stayed home today packing all day despite the fresh snow in the mountain. When I pack my clothes, I found really have too many clothes. I can understand one want to have as many underwears and socks as possible, so he doesn’t have to do laundry too often. However, why do I need all those pants and sweaters? The cover clothes I have can allow to skip laundry for at least 2 months. Yet, I only wear a small subset of those clothes, usually the same one every week. Because I put them back on top after I did laundry and it’s more convinient to pick from the top of the pile every monring. I don’t like shopping for clothes and I rarely throw away clothes. My clothes usually mysterious appear in my closet after my Mom’s trip back to HK. Occasionaly, I was forced to buy clothes by Pat. I can tell some clothes has over 10 years of history. Since I am moving into a smaller apartment, I worry I may not have enough space for all the clothes. That got me thinking that how many clothes a person need realistically. I found most apartment come with a closet with mirror sliding door in the bedroom. From my experience the closet in every apartment are roughtly the same size. Did anyone research how much clothes a person need and then design the closet to fit the need of average people? Maybe I should donate all the extra clothes so that my clothes will fit in one closet space.

Today is the first time I joined the church choir. Pat have been bugged me to join her choir for a long time. Since she is now the choir director, I promised to show my support to her. Choir is not as bad as I thought. I have heard most of the hymn before. So it is the one hour practise make the difference. Since the transit time already factored in the mass time, an extra hour is effectively less than an hour.

Although I still question why God need people to praise him at all, I can’t deny music is what makes a mass great. Rituals are created for the man, not God. I have a deeper thought about the church during the mass today, since it is bad to fall asleep on the choir bench. Actually I like the church traditions, rituals, legends, stories, namely the culture of the church. I grew up in this environment and it has became part of my background. What I can’t agree with the church is the metaphsyical stuff that no lay church goers care about, so call the high theology. It seems all the good stuff of the church are glassroot addition to the tradition evolved over time, not the teaching imposed by the high up. In theory, we could swap out the core belief of the church and keeping every else the same. Since those core values are merely used as slogans, they really are mysteries has no epistemological value. I see no reason why people should hang on to them. The Protestant’s religious revolution took the wrong route. They ditched the important stuff but kept the useless stuff of the Catholic church. The 2nd religious revolution should take a step back, preserve the tools that give religious experience and make people feel spiritual. The underlaying belief can be replaced with a more up-to-date version that is compitable with the modern secular world.