9 more days!

Well, I only have 9 more days before I depart for Philadelphia for Peace Corps staging. Then it's off to Moldova 2 days later. As I get closer to my departure date, I am getting more and more serious about this whole packing situation (in addition to making sure all financial ties over here are severed).

Packing is going okay. My goal is to get everything I need for 27 months into 1 large suitcase, 1 hiking backpack and my regular backpack. I keep doing these sort of "mock packs" to help estimate how much room I'll have before packing for real next week. Each time, something else gets the cut. I've already pared down the number of socks I'm taking, in addition to cutting a sweatshirt and a couple pairs of slacks out of the picture. One main concern I have is making sure I have gifts for my host family when I get to Moldova. The Peace Corps recommends postcards or books with images of America. I totally get that, but books weigh a lot and my packing space is already really limited! Any ideas?

In addition to packing, I've been slowly getting rid of things too. My apartment is finally rented by another tenant. I've cancelled Netflix, my gym membership, cable, energy bill, among other things. I still have to cancel my car insurance and cell phone. I also have to secure all the right paperwork regarding deferring my student loans (yet again) and paying my credit card debt while abroad. My car is turning out to be a nightmare too. I've learned one thing from my whole car situation - never lease again.

It's pretty incredible how attached (literally) you become to your life without actually realizing it. If it weren't for me leaving the country, I would have never known for instance that my cable company would try to get $200 out of me for getting out of my contract early; or that if it weren't for Verizon allowing me to put my number on hold for 2 years because I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, they would have made me pay hundreds of dollars to get out of that too. No wonder so many people go bankrupt. The minute you try to sever all ties for whatever reason, you're slammed with early termination fees, many of which are completely unjustified. I can't even imagine the nightmare I'd be going through right now if I owned a house.

In other news that is totally unrelated, I've seen 3 movies in the past few weeks with my family. The first one I saw was 'Ironman,' which I thought was pretty fantastic. Then we saw the new 'Narnia' movie, 'Prince Caspian.' It was good, but I liked the first one better. Last weekend we saw the new 'Indiana Jones' movie. I thought it was pretty awful. I just feel that the bar for action movies has been raised so much higher since the whole Indy franchise ('Bourne' movies, anyone?) that now this kind of movie is just kind of ludicrous. I will say, however, Cate Blanchett is probably the best actress of our time - I am convinced that she can do anything.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Write soon. Leave comments! :)