Movers and Shakers

I'd just like to point out that "Ma Vie à Paris" (My Life in Paris), like so many other phrases in French, rhymes. What an excellent language.

Well, I'm pretty much packed and organized. I must give a big shout-out here: to "space bags" (sold for a surprisingly reasonable price at the Container Store). They may be the closest thing to a miracle that I've ever experienced, though it is a little strange to see your clothing compressed like astronaut food. Packing didn't take that long, with me pulling the contents of my room out onto the living room floor, mom getting down and dirty rolling clothes, and dad preparing coffee before taking his post on the couch, paper in hand, to offer tidbits of encouragement when mom and I arrived at a standstill (dad was pretty excited about the space bags, though).

I had allotted about 50 hours to packing, and since it only took about 5, I'm currently making up for that time by super-organizing: making lists, walking around the house straightening table centerpieces, aligning appliances in the kitchen, and rearranging the stack of books on my desk from largest to smallest. I ran into some problems with that last one -- if I ruled the world, or at least the publishing companies, all books would be the same proportions (lxw).

I really do enjoy the process of packing, though. It's an excuse to weed out all of your less-than-spectacular possessions without having to actually donate/throw anything away. And you have to admit, packing for a year deserves some thought. I'm actually bringing a lot of toiletries, since I hear they are more expensive in France, but mainly since I'm too set in my hygeine pattern to deal with a bunch of new products.

I remember when I moved into my house at Carnegie Mellon; despite going through several days/stages of packing for my first college experience, I still found about $400 worth of stuff for my parents to purchase at Target. I must have needed some shampoo or something. On the day of move-in, we were directed to Roselawn, where several Residential Assistants and Orientation Counselors lined up next to our rental car to quickly transport everything into the house (it was actually a pretty ingenious system). I was fine - thrilled, actually - to see a bunch of gangly upperclassmen (hey, this was CMU) carrying my baggage up the stairs, but I was terrified of what they would think when the trunk opened to reveal about 27 Target bags. The conspicuous consumption! The spoiled-rottenness of me! The environmental and ethical implications, to say the least!

No big, though. Looking back at some of my fellow "Tartans", I'm pretty sure they'd seen worse.

I'm not so sure I'll have 5 or 6 French guys carrying my bags all over the city, as I move from temporary housing to (I hope) a permanent one a couple weeks later. At least this time, my shampoo is in my suitcase.