Following suit.

Well the time has come for me to head off to college as well. Shocking news, right? Today was packing day.

Most of you have already gone through the whole packing procedure and all, so I figure you won't have much interest in what I have to say about it.

...Too bad.

Once I'm at college, I too will have lost interest on this insignificant topic and will probably forget about it.

In short, packing was a bewildering experience. Today was the day that the reality of it all began to sink in. I am moving out of my home practically for good, sparing the occasional visit here and there.

I had moved plenty of times in the past, but that was all during early childhood and don't remember them at all well. From Jurong, Jiangsu Province, China to Albuquerque, New Mexico to Greenville, South Carolina to Fairfax City, Virginia. Then finally our family settled down on the old Kinross Circle in the Chantilly Highlands, where we have lived for the past 10+ years. Very soon, I will lose this familiarity gained over the years. The huge oak tree right outside the front door whose lowest branches I used in the past to measure how high I could jump; the vegetable garden in the back yard that probably provides for over half the food we eat; the living room that ended up not existing for decorous purposes but for practicing violin (hey I need the space >_>); the various stuffed animals I own scattered about the house.....hmmm.....ok, these aren't the best of examples, so I'm just going to stop here.

But it's not like I'm new to this living alone away from home lifestyle. Various summer programs have led me to living without parental supervision well before high school, but those were on the scale of weeks, not months. Today, I realized just from packing that my experiences there are no way comparable to living full-time student.

Before today, I thought packing would be straightforward, like how packing would go for any typical vacation. Several large suitcases full of living/working essentials. No biggie...except when I found out just how different vacation packing is from moving packing. It's not just the living/working essentials that needs to be packed. If there is any chance that I'll use something in the coming months, it needs to be packed. This ranged from nail clippers to reference books to letter holders to badminton rackets to rosin remover to.....too many things. I really lost track of how many times I went up and down the stairs, fetching things, searching for things, and cleaning. And another glaring difference: I wasn't packing stuff into suitcases. No, I was told to break out the old cardboard boxes and plastic tub-like containers in order to conserve space after moving in. And at the end of the day, 9 boxes, 3 bags, 1 violin case, and 1 refrigerator lie at the front door waiting to be moved.

I'm really moving out tomorrow. How should I feel?


On a rather irrelevant note, this past week brought about a lot of firsts:

1. I got my first credit card.
Witty comment unavailable

2. I got my first wallet.
Uhhh.....yeah.....all those times before I just carried my money in my pockets. Problem with that now is I have several cards I need to carry too. Also due to some bad planning on my part (not gathering all the cash I have on hand before going to the bank), I current have over $1000 on hand with no safe place to put all that money @_@. Got to get that into my checking account. >_>;

3. I got my first cellphone.
Ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not. I JUST got my first cellphone ever (phone #'s please :D). This might seem obscenely late for some of you, but one of the reasons for this is because I didn't think the convenience of having one is that great (for me at least) in the past. Let me explain:

• My parents don't really care about where I happen to be or what I'm doing (as long as I'm home before them on the weekdays).
• If I really need to call someone, I'll borrow someone else's cell since everyone seems to have one >:D. (really...I don't steal that many minutes, right? Right?)
  
• Also, when I need to find someone, I prefer wandering around searching than calling them (possible in a single building). The problem arises when in a large area with know way to know where they are. But I seem to have a knack for serendipity when in these situations without a cell. Case in point: during my visit to UVA for the Echols and Rodman Scholars orientation, my dad and I split up for the separate student & parent itinerary without establishing a meeting place at the end of the day. I only realized this after the orientation program was over and a very familiar someone had already left. So there I was, having walked across a decent chunk of the campus with no way of knowing where my dad was or contacting him. I decided to simply retrace the steps I took during the morning back to where the dean gave a speech in the morning on the Lawn. You may ask why in the world I thought doing that would get me closer to finding my dad. I don't know, but in reality I didn't find my dad there. Darn. But surprisingly, after exiting the lawn, making a fortuitous left turn, and walking a bit further, I ran into my dad. In the end, I only looked for about 20 minutes. 20 minutes for a potential college-wide search...not too bad at all.
  
• But the greatest factor of all: simply put, I'm not very fond of talking over the phone. In fact, I'm terrible with phones. I seem to have a problem with the fact I'm listening to an electronically generated voice and I can't see the person I'm talking too. As a result, I'm often incoherent over phones, unable to string together thoughts, stuttering, mumbling, and what not. And I can't leave a voice message to save my life. I often lose my train of thought many times over, say the wrong thing, get cut off because I wasn't speaking loudly enough...the failings go on and on. Case in point: I couldn't reach Dwang one night to confirm the time he wanted to visit TJ, so I tried leaving a message. It took me like SEVEN tries, and during those agonizing minutes I spent trying to get a minimally coherent message down, I missed two calls from him trying to get back to me. GAHHH.

But I realized that not having a cellphone on a college campus would be a pretty big inconvenience compared to in the past. I don't think I can purely rely on serendipity anymore.