Four ways to give your old school supplies new life

By Jill Girgulis, April 27 2017 —

Now that the Winter semester is finally over, there’s no better time to start that spring cleaning you’ve been putting off. The first step in this annual purge is dealing with the massive pile of school stuff you’ve accumulated over the year. We’ve created a list of options to help you get started.

Sell it all:

Tap into your inner business-person and arrange your school supplies to appear on Kijiji three minutes after your last final. Negotiate prices so you can break even on the number of coffees you had to buy in order to actually read through those book chapters — but maybe hold off telling potential buyers up front that your economics book is gonna cost them the equivalent of 487 Americanos.

Stage a marriage proposal:

Depending on how much time you spend on the sappy side of YouTube, you may have seen those elaborate marriage proposals where one partner spends hours painstakingly writing out Shakespearean sonnets on Post-it notes and arranging them to spell out the words, “will you marry me?” Even if you’re not at this point in your relationship, suck it up because this is a perfect way to make use of all your leftover Post-its from the year. If you’re still feeling a little burnt out from finals, just write out your thesis on the notes instead. Someone, somewhere will appreciate it.

Build a rabbit fort:

In the summer when most of the University of Calgary’s inhabitants vanish into thin air, there are still a few creatures who have no choice but to stick around campus all year long. No, not undergrad researchers — I’m talking about U of C’s resident rabbits. These rabbits don’t get to escape to a far-off destination like you do — Red Deer counts, right? — so from May to August, the least you can do is use your old textbooks to provide the rabbits with a little protection from the elements. I’m told they prefer new textbooks with the plastic wrapping still intact to create a watertight seal.

Keep it all:

Hoarding is perfectly normal, if you ask me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with never discarding a single note, practice test, lab report or syllabus that you’ve accumulated over the course of eight semesters. Sure, your apartment is getting a little crowded and you recently had to sell your kitchen table to make room for yet another filing cabinet to store your Winter 2017 notes, but you’ve totally mastered the art of balancing a bowl of ramen on your knee by this point, so it’s all good. Everything’s fine.

This article is part of our humour section.