Clean sweep

My desk is sparkly clean while my office trash can is stuffed to the brim, so it looks as if I just tilted my desk and slid everything into the trash. That's not quite what happened, but it's close. Yesterday I cleaned and sorted and filed all kinds of academic stuff that's been accumulating on my desk for at least the past year. It's not always easy to know what to keep and what to toss: do I really need to hold on to last year's Faculty Council ballots? How about leftover handouts for a class I probably won't be teaching again? If a student hasn't picked up a final exam he took three years ago, why do I need to keep it?

The process was grueling but the result is great: a clean office with plenty of space on the desktop for stacking new piles of stuff. A similar sorting-and-deleting process neatened up my computer desktop. My house could use a good spring cleaning, but the office chaos is now under control.

Since we returned from Texas I've been focusing on cleaning to get my mind off the CT scans and blood tests I took last week. The scan left a lasting impression--a nasty bruise where the phlebotomist had trouble accessing my port--but the results are now in: no sign of cancer whatsoever. Two years after my diagnosis, I've been given a clean slate (for now). I'll go back for the next round of tests in six months, but meanwhile, I'm enjoying feeling all sparkly clean--inside and out.