haibarasan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} haibarasan) wrote,@ 2006-07-03 21:24:00 |
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| Current mood: |  restless |
| Current music: | Golden silence. |
| Entry tags: | preparation h |
The List
My gosh, it's been nearly three months since my first, lonely post. I continue to wait for deliverance about my housing and school schedule for my designated city, Kure-shi, Hiroshima-ken. But what to do... I know! I'll post one of my packing lists up for perusal. Most of the initial items are my personal things to pack, but towards the bottom of the list I just copy-pasted from various posts on JET sites and BigDaikon forum posts.
Toiletries
- Couple of rolls of toilet paper to tide you over
- Toothpaste
- Face wash
- Makeup
- Lotion
- Tampons/pads
- Stomach medicine
- Lots of cold medicine
- Robitussin
- Pepto-Bismol
- Nasal spray (for post-nasal drip)
- Melatonin - helpful for getting a good night's sleep
- Sunscreen
- Towel to dry with the first week or so
- Thermometer
- Shampoo/Conditioner
- OFF! Skintastic (2)
- Wet Ones/Hand sanitizer
Clothing
- Slippers (2-3 pairs)
- Birkenstocks
- Long johns
- Dress shoes
- Flats
- Boots
- Hiking boots
- Raincoat(s)
- Collapsible umbrella for backpack
- Wool socks
Food
- Favorite boxed foods
- Granola bars
- Favorite cookies
- Cereal
Miscellaneous
- Voltage adaptor
- Electric blanket (?)
- Coin purse
- Collapsible umbrella for backpack
- Electronic dictionary
- Stickers and rubber stamps
- Board games
- UNO
- Videogames and PS2
- Books, books, books
- Music
- Passport-size photos—-just in case
- George Foreman grill
- BlueTac/Sticky Tac
School Stuff: Random snippets of otherworldly advice
- Wall map of your country
- Photographs or postcards of your home country, country’s capital city, famous landmarks
- Picture book of country’s famous landmarks/landscape
- Picture book or photos of your country’s food
- One outfit of your country’s national dress
- Photos of your house, kitchen, refrigerator (opened and closed), bedroom (show that we don’t use futons!), front and back yards
[If possible, a video tape of all this is good…the Japanese VCRs are same as American] - One CD with children’s songs on it (hokey pokey, head shoulders knees toes, etc)
- One book of nursery rhymes, preferably with big letters and pictures kids can color
- Stickers with English words on them (well done, good job!)
- Board games like Clue or Risk are always fun
- Holiday stuff: Halloween masks/costumes, Christmas cards for the kids to send, Menorah (if Jewish), and other religious stuff
If American:
- High school yearbook
- Photos of anything to do with school (regular clothes not uniforms, yellow school buses, lunch room/cafeteria, classrooms, kids driving cars to school, etc.)
- 4th of July decorations
- Thanksgiving decorations/dinner photos
- Something showing the U.S. presidents, government
- After school jobs (photos of students working at McDs, the mall, etc)
- Photos of cars (the size of them) and the roads (most roads are one lane each side, and the cars are tiny here)
Um, yeah. I don't really want to spend out all this money for omiyage and class items and such. I'm still jobless at the moment. Can't really keep draining my savings account for much longer. I'll be taking out a cash advance from my credit card company shortly before I leave. At least that'll be on my August bill instead of the July bill. I'm even waiting to pay for an eBay item or two with credit until after July 7 when my billing cycle ends. Though I'm nowhere near as in debt as I could be, it's still painful to think about all that's been charged and will be charged on this account...I can only hope that the first check will be worth it. I've got to pay this stuff off. And pay my loans, and help my mom with funds, and be a respectable citizen...Maybe that last one can wait. I've got a little time yet.
As I was formatting the lists above, I thought about the Rocky Horror Picture Show and how I was in awe the first year I saw it in Murray, yet the following year (when I better understood the inner workings of university), I was like, "This sucks. It's not freeing or exhilirating. It's just an excuse to dress terribly and cross-dress badly and wear fishnets." I was disillusioned with the Rocky Horror Picture Show and couldn't really understand why it had such a big following. It wasn't as if it were, say, Detective Conan for goodness' sake. But I have since learned. There are fans, and then there are F.A.N.S. (I'll make up words for that acronym later). I'm proud to be a lowercase fan of many different things.
