Lists

Things that are really difficult to do without contacts:

• Your hair. Unless I'm standing with my face pressed against the mirror, all I see is a blur, but a blur in the Monet sense, and I think it looks good. Then I put my glasses on and get a fright. But try doing your hair with glasses on - not happening. And so, for the last week and a half, I've looked like a hot mess and have just stopped caring.
• Your makeup. Bitch, please. If I can't see my hair, I definately can't see my face. And besides, the glasses cover up any attempt at eye makeup, so it doesn't matter. Or, maybe they don't, but I've become such a frump behind these glasses that I've stopped caring about covering up the dark circles.
• Driving in summer. You know what would be nice? Not having to squint through the sun. I would love to wear my glasses but I can't due to the whole not-being-able-to-see thing. Some people are really particular about that.
• Falling asleep watching TV. When I was a little kid, one of the neighbourhood kids was at my place (that stupid mole from down the road, Alicia, who was the only person in the entire world that has ever made a racist comment to me in my entire life and wasn't joking. Stupid bitch) and left a metal wind-up toy on my bed, which I didn't notice when I went to bed. I was about 5 at the time. I woke up screaming and had cut the corner of my eye on the toy. So I cannot even think about sleep if my glasses are on. These puppies are both metal and glass - imagine what would happen if I rolled over onto my stomach or something!
• Seeing. The prescription on these is from when I was in year 12. I've been practically blind wearing these.

And the stupid optometrist is driving me insane because they have to order me trial contacts. That takes a week.

Also, I've been reading a lot of travel guides lately and even though the stupid uni won't do anything about the exchange until uni starts up again, I've been trying to start organising myself for the trip, because it is in only six months' time! And so...

Things that I WON'T be packing when I go overseas:

• 10 pairs of shoes. Yeah, that wasn't my smartest move when I went to the US. I barely wore half of them, and they took up so much space! So this time I'll just bring: one pair of havaianas, a pair of black flats, a pair of walking shoes (maybe some mary-jane style Colorados), some dress shoes? and maybe my tan flats from Marshalls with the open toes. Oh, and my tan boots...So that's not a lot less. I could maybe cut out the heels, and just buy something cheap if I really need to, or just wear the black flats.... hmmm.... I need to think about this more...
• 3 different photo albums. Really wasn't necessary, although two were gifts from my friends and were great to look through when I was homesick. But really added a lot of bulk. I won't need any photo albums. I have photos on the internet, my laptop and on my ipod. That's enough.
• 2 towels. Did I really need the beach towel? How many beaches did I go to in the US? And my host family obviously already owned towels. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
• The clothes that I never wore at home but suddenly thought I'd wear overseas. I didn't.
• More than 1 book. I took so many books overseas and only read about 2 of the books I brought. I ended up buying a bunch of books and then having to lug everything home. And I ended up leaving a couple of books in the States, like that 2nd hand copy of Wuthering Heights from Martha's Vineyard that was so cute!
• 2 suitcases. I want to be able to travel on those cheap-as economy flights. They barely let you bring one 15kg suitcase, let alone the two 30kg suitcases I had. I may need to purchase a backpack. Yuck.
• A guidebook. I only brought one big one when I went to the US, but I only used it once, and it was crap. So no guidebooks for me.
• So much jewelery. I brought so much to the US, many things I'd never worn before, and ended up buying so much more that there's no point. Plus, I don't really accessorise very much anyway.