I Collect Stuff Too

After ranting about M and his stupid DVDs, I feel like to write a post about the stuff that I collect. Yeah, I collect things too but I do it with a difference.

Most of the things I collect are for work or for testing them out at work and for our dream classroom. I have a bookcase full of picture books that I use for work that can also be used in our dream classroom one day. I also have a small pile of other classroom resource books and another bookcase of Montessori books and manuals. There is also half a bookcase of games, puzzles and other classroom materials that I had tested out at work and they are kept for the dream classroom. A few of these materials are not store bought; they are handmade by me. Why, one may ask that I buy these now? Well, here in Australia, there is an abundance of good quality classroom materials I can invest in that are simply not available where the dream classroom will be located in the not so distant future. A lot of things will cost me just as much to order them over there and had them shipped out from here as if there are bought here and then shipped over there when we move. At least I can physically test these materials before deciding if they are worth keeping and have them shipped out by buying them over here now. What if the dream project falls through? Well, if the dream project falls through and we are still together, then they can all be very useful in our wish to homeschool. Oh dear, I think I just let the cat out of the bag about our (mostly my but increasingly his as well) wish to homeschool! There are multiple reasons as to why we have chosen this path even before the birth of any children but I think I will go into that in the future. Let’s just say that some (our biological children are likely to fit into the category) children really do benefit from and therefore need homeschooling.

M collects things for pure entertainment. To some people, this statement may be a little unfair since cultivating my dream classroom/project happens to be one of my ultimate forms of entertainment. LOL. But the reason I said it is because along with my education, the things I mentioned above are collected as an investment in a project that is likely to generate a nice enough steady income in the not so distant future. On the other hand, M may feel entertained every time he procures an item; the truth is that most of his collectibles depreciate in value as soon as he paid for them at the counter. In years to come, M may have a few pieces in his collection that may fetch a handsome price tag but I doubt that will be enough to give us a tidy nest egg, to pay boarding school fees or university fees. I hate to sound like a fun police but I was brought up by parents without receiving any form of funding from the government. Where I came from, ‘milk money’ was virtually non-existent. For my parents, every cent counted to give my brother and I the opportunity to gain tertiary education. That doesn’t mean that I was completely deprived of fun and toys. We just had less than the average child in the Western World.

I have to confess that I do collect for pure entertainment like M. I collect sewing patterns. There is a box of them under my desk. About 40% are used. The rest just sit there because I haven’t gotten around to them yet. To avoid overspending, I usually buy them when there is a deal similar to the other day when each pattern is reduced to just $5 or when there is a “Buy 1 and get 2 Free” deal. I also periodically trim the number of unused patterns in the box by off-loading them on Ebay. Because the patterns were mostly bought when they were heavily reduced, I usually recoup the money I spent on them when I do sell them on Ebay. Unlike M, I moderate my hobby so it doesn’t get out of hand. Hopefully he has genuinely come around to better moderate his hobbies. It is not fun to live with someone who needs to squander hard earn cash to feel ‘good’.

After ranting about M in the previous post, I feel a little bad for doing it. It’s not something I wish to talk to my mum about because she is already under a lot of stress caring for my Dad who was readmitted to the hospital last week. M is mostly a wonderful person. No one is perfect. It’s just that there are a few things about him that I do not like and they are likely to be the result of flawed parent-child and sibling interactions that have remained unresolved all these years. His issues (minor to some) not only don’t sit well with me, they are just not ‘sustainable’ in the kind of life we wish to live on the long run. I think he is slowly coming around to tackling these minor issues. It’s important for me that he has them sorted out before the arrival of any children. I too need to sort out my own issues. LOL.