Loss

Woke up this morning feeling rather dandy, until I discovered to my horror, I had lost my pencil case. I was horrified, and very kan cheong, cos I was going for data collection (or to be more exact, rushing to go), and had very little time to look. I turned my entire room upside down and inside out, and still couldn't find it. Came home just now and looked all over the place in the house again--still no pencil case. I've confirmed that it's missing and have just filed a 'lost and found' report with the SBS. I think I misplaced it on either the NEL MRT or the LRT when I was on my way home yesterday. Ironic that I should be watching the 12 mn drama "Without a Trace" yesterday night when I was missing something so vital to my academic career. Sigh....

My pencil case wasn't valuable in itself, but it still hurt to lose it. Wonder if they have a theory of attachment to personal belongings, cos I sure have a sense of attachment to anything I've used. My pencil case had a 128 MB thumbdrive that was worth at least 30 bucks, and my two very new Shakers, loads of new stationery (including pens, rulers, eraser, etc.), and my stapler. All in all, it was probably worth about $50, its value inflated cos of the thumbdrive (which had my thesis documents!!!), and because the case itself was worth about 10 bucks. I think I'm most upset cos I also lost the keychain that Guanz gave me for my 22nd birthday. It was attached to the case. I still remember opening my birthday package and finding the keychain inside. It may not be a very expensive present, but it sure was very meaningful. That's why I got so kan cheong the other time when I thought I had lost one of the frog figurines on it. I later found the figurine again. Hope that I'll be able to recover my pencil case, just like I recovered the figurine.

I remember William James wrote that the material self was one of the components of self, and that it referred to a sense of self derived from one's material possessions and personal belongings. Sigh... it sure sucks to know that some piece of me is lying out there somewhere. =(