I finished my paper on The Tempest and emailed it off. I did not proofread it or bother to go back and properly italicize. I've been finished with that class for nearly two months and just don't care at all now.

So that bit of drudgery finally done, I'm almost clear for takeoff...

What's left to do? Burn the 24 mixed cds I'm allowing myself to take with me. Write down some simple recipes, though I suspect I'll be eating primarily dry cereal and green pepper slices. Get four more passport pictures taken. Mail out my last few ebay sales. Buy some snacks for the plane, and a crossword puzzle book to occupy me in between Austen and Firestone.

But I'm all packed. And bringing a ridiculous amount of stuff. Four pairs of shoes. Five pairs of pants, two long skirts. Every shirt in my wardrobe I even passingly like. I am so not attached to possessions, especially clothes, but somehow I can't bring myself to whittle it down to ten outfits and one dressy thing. Just can't do it.

And my books, I must have my books. Three Jane Austen novels, The Dialectic of Sex, The Female Eunuch, Of Woman Born, The Second Sex, Lady Chatterley's Lover, To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, A Passage to India. I think I limited myself to that. It's not like I'll have access to libraries or anything.

Pictures and posters (Desiderata and The Little Prince) to make it look homey.

A blanket, an extra pillow and a robe just to take up space.

And more film than I've ever used in my life. Which is really saying something.

So maybe I will try to reduce my load over the next two days, but I am pretty much packed. Right down to the carry-on.

Two days left at home. Okay, I'm starting to feel something now, finally. A little nervous. A little excited. Completely overwhelmed. I hope I can hide it, but I'm not afraid to tell you, I'm either going to prove something to myself or I'm going to learn that I can't do anything. I'm a little terrified, but then again, shut up, I'm not at all. I have no idea. But I think I can deal with it.

My mom is driving me crazy a little, over-dramaticizing the whole thing. If I were at Marietta, I'd see her maybe three times over the next five months. This is no huge or unprecedented separation. I'm afraid I won't cry and she'll think I'm completely heartless. But I don't want to cry about this. This is anything but sad.

We're still watching KH films at a clip of one or more per night. I will miss that.

And... I don't know what else to say. It's just this thing I've been doing. This thing, which seems so monumental, and I've been planning it for over a year now, but now that it's happening... Well, it's just this thing I'm doing. Not much to say now.

Well. I'll be back once more. This is inadequate.