I finished my finals last Thursday, and the past five days have been a blur of packing. I have flashbacks of my things strewn everywhere, until they got folded and then pressed into a cube of cardboard, ready to be stored in a friend’s apartment.
It’s amazing what college can do to sabotage your cleaning habits.
If you’re a prospective student reading this, or just someone who thinks they may one day be in my position, late stay is your best friend and your worst enemy. Late stay is essentially the university giving you permission to stay in the dorms for a few days after the official end of the quarter. It’s your BFF because you don’t have to sleep on someone’s couch and figure out what you’re going to do about all of your stuff, nor do you have to stay up all night putting said stuff into boxes so your’e not charged a $100 late move out fee. But it’s your worst enemy because once everyone moves out, the dorms morph into a post-apocalyptic horror movie in which, you, (yes, you, congrats) are the main character trying to not get freaked out when doors creak in the night.
Not today, Satan.
In addition to your existential fear that death is lurking behind the door of the dorm room your neighbor just vacated, the cleaning crew that Northwestern hires (who do their jobs extremely well and definitely don’t get paid enough for putting up with the messes we leave behind) are in the buildings the very next couple of mornings at 8am, doing what they gotta do. Meanwhile, I was trying to recover from two weeks of finals-driven sleep deprivation because I’m careening towards 24+ hours of travel time across three continents. But it’s fine…I’m not bitter.
You couldn’t have scheduled these crews for a little later in the week, Northwestern?
Pro Tip: I had to clean some new ear piercings while writing this, and because I am living out of two suitcases now that all of my belongings are in storage, I was reminded of this amazing invention I wish I had owned 0275760285 years ago:
Packing Cubes.
I know, I know, I know.
Packing cubes?
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(what the hell kinda hash is this girl smoking?)
Hear me out.
I realized that I was gonna be living somewhere completely new for 8 weeks. I had to up my packing game. I did some research, read some articles, and I decided packing cubes were gonna be the way.
And they’re so much better than I even expected them to be.
I am an over packer by nature, so I make spreadsheets to theorize what the bare minimum is. Packing cubes laugh at my idea of bare minimum. They give me so much space. Everything fits neatly. I can bring twice as many shirts as I thought I could. Maybe it’s a mental trick, and I would’ve crammed the same amount of things into my bag anyway, but it was so worth it. Even if I’d crammed everything in, it would’ve been a mess. At least now I know what cube has my shirts, my shoes, my hair bottles, etc.. Buy yourself the packing cubes that are the best rated on Amazon and go. to. town. They’re like little luggages that you put inside your bigger luggage. Except they’re flexible and they fit neatly next to one another. It makes you Mary Poppins.
Who knows? Maybe Narnia is going in my bag next. (Do you think I could put a portal to Chicago Pride in here?)
Nothing can stop me! It’s Tetris, but better.
ANYWAY: I got sidetracked, and no, this blog post is not sponsored by Amazon.
It’s T-2 Days before I fly halfway around the world.
Can someone help me figure out how international SIM cards work? XD
Toodleoo.