MILES to GO || before I sleep

Since I have to return my Yahoo! BB modem tomorrow, this will probably be my last entry from Japan. *emo!tear*

I suppose I could wax about how the experience has been for me, but to be honest, I think that's best saved for when I'm finally back at home and re-adjusting to "my real life," or at least "my other life," back "home" in the States. Besides, I've been doing entries here rather regularly, so I think people that keep up with my LJ have at least a general idea of what it's been like for me, or what I've been thinking/feeling, for the most part.

But, as some of my parting thoughts on all things random:
-I need some sort of app. for iTunes to better manage all my songs. My biggest irk with iTunes is that when I delete a playlist off my iPod, it doesn't delete the associated songs, so I have to FIND the associated songs and delete them manually in order to save space. I wouldn't need to do this if I knew exactly what was on my iPod (seriously, what is that "other" stuff?), or if the Sync Manager told me when I selected playlists that wouldn't fit on my iPod. I *ONLY* put Playlists on my iPod (that is to say, not random songs that are NOT somewhere on a playlist), so this irritates me. Does anyone know of an option?

I started reading 51 Days of PGSM over at AFSM, and I found a link to Ryuusei's fansubs of the PGSM Oshiokiyo! DVD extras... I downloaded them all, and they were pretty funny. And the episode recaps had me thinking of something I could do for WAFF Day. I know I said something like that before (because I have that idea that would work well for TAFF Day, or WAFF vs. TAFF day, or just a SM fic in general), but maybe if I worked on it a little, that would be good. I know I've said that I want to stay in Yu-Gi-Oh until I finish WDKY, but maybe the reason why 25 is so hard for me to finish isn't just because of the difficukt subject matter, but because the story as a whole seems tiresome by now. If I work on something else for a little while, think about other characters and situations, when I go back to 25, it'll be refreshing (I hope), and then I can finally work on the arc that made me excited about WDKY to begin with-- 26-28! The thing is, the SM fic idea (not the TAFF one) is a First Season romance of sorts, but with an idea distinctly borrowed from the drama-verse. But the anime, manga, and drama are pretty different from each other in their own distinct ways, so if anything, I'd probably have to write it as an anime-verse fic borrowing some ideas from the drama.

I'm hoping I'll manage to cram everything into my suitcase-- it's pretty much full at this point, with everything except my pajamas and tomorrow's outfit in there. I'm thinking I'll just have to give Daniel my leftover Cream of Wheat, but I can get rid of the juice, cookies/macaroons, oatmeal, and hot cocoa tomorrow or Tuesday. And since they're small packets, I might be able to cram them into my backpack, even though it's already so heavy... but at least with Holly's help, we seriously reduced the weight of the package I'm going to send back to the States. Because of the snowman figurine I got for Xmas, I still can't fit things into a shoebox or a smaller box than the one I have, but hopefully the weight will be the primary thing that lessens the cost. Plus the things in there now are things I can live without for a month, so I can still survive off Surface Mail (boat).

I'm still worried that the airport will call me on my suitcases being heavy (plus the extra bag... I can't afford two charges, I really can't, so I hope that all my bags are under 70 lbs. each-- they should be!), or that they'll rail on me for the blanket/Toro-kun bag. Holly doesn't think they will, and I hope she's right. I ended up leaving more things for my roommates than I originally intended, but I hope they put them to good use and don't think I'm just unloading stuff on them to make my life easier (though that is part of it). I wish I could take my nice wooden hangers with me, or my Dove body soap, but I guess those are things I can get in the States, so I shouldn't think about it so much. Same goes for the hand sanitizer... I'm totally an abuser of that stuff, but in all the time since Mom sent it to me, I only used the 2 mini-bottles and about half of one of the larger 8 oz. bottles. I still have an unsealed one left, and I packed that one, but the other one I guess I'll leave here to save room... for my sneakers, or my razor, or something more important. :P After that, it's just my purse, my daily meds, and my mousepad... actually I think I'll probably take that off now.

I should go to bed soon anyway-- even if there's no formal meeting or anything tomorrow, I want to wake up in order to enjoy breakfast, meet my tutors and share my cookies, and maybe go out to lunch with Holly at the meat place near school before I go to the post office and possibly the bank to exchange my money.

Wish me luck!

First, I updated WDKY on Dragonfayth to the latest chapter. I guess because some chapters were longer than others and contained those 'ye old alphanumeric character codes' I had to c&p the HTML from Dreamweaver into the story text box (with the TinyMCE checkbox turned off). I know at least some of the slow, "unresponsive" script errors were because of the world "curl" in my stories, but I wonder if the script mangling the alphanumeric codes is something fixable...

I'm also considering including my logs and things up at Dragonfayth too, making it a fully-fledged series with notes and such. If not Dragonfayth, then definitely at Epiphany. But I think the Review Replies will stay here on LJ, just to make things easier (that's subject to change...) Speaking of RRs, I still have to post them for Chapters 23-24 of WDKY, so look for those soon-ish.

I say "ish" because I DID pack two of my bags today, leaving only one left, but I still have to cram a lot of clothes (the rest until Tuesday) and some other random things in there. I'm honestly hoping that crappy United will let me get away with my carry-on (backpack), my personal item (purse) and a shopping bag with just my blanket and Toro-kun (the stuffed cat). And yes, crappy United. Would you believe that for my ONE extra bag, it's $167 USD!? Because of that wholly unexpected amount (which is about 75% of my paycheck), I had to ask Mom for money *AGAIN*. I felt rotten doing it, but she was quick and okay with it. And as it turns out, I owe her less than I thought-- I found a copy of my super-expensive T-Mobile bill (luckily I printed it out; apparently T-Mobile only keeps your last 2 bill statements online) and calculated out what she paid and what I'd paid, and what I owe her for that is less than I thought. So that plus another $400... it's still a lot of money, but I have to do it.

What's left to pack:
-toiletries (stuff I use in the bathroom, though I might decide to leave the Dove Body Soap behind, much as I love the stuff... plus lotion, anti-bacterial, meds, brush)
-clothes
-some papers
-cat mug, cat plate, yellow bowl, striped glass (?), deco plate, forks, chopsticks, knife, spoon
-leftover oatmeal, cream of wheat, cocoa (make cookies with everything else)

? - Wish I could take my plastic cat trash can, but I don't know if it would fit... 'sides, it's smaller than my Purple one back in the states, so maybe I should just give it to my roommates? I'm doing that with many hangers and such. Should I even bother trying to take my lighter? I bought it for my incense, but my incense is almost gone... and short of the common kitchen downstairs, no one has a gas range here, which is the only thing I can think of using it for (since no one else is an incense queen like I am. Holly said it smelled like hippies in my room!). But I don't want everything in my bag catching on fire, either!

Scott was telling me that parents still want to feel needed and help out whenever they can, but I feel selfish for asking so much of my mom. This trip -for me, at least- was supposed to prove how I could survive being independent and on my own, even for just a little while (and still with perks-- a well-paying job and no rent, basically). It's not that I'm not going to pay my mom back in full, but I guess I shouldn't feel so guilty over it (and I do, to an extreme degree. I don't even wanna talk about it anymore).

But in the end, I can't go to the sleepover/party thing tomorrow, anyway. And I guess I don't really care, because that'll save me more money for mailing things back home, doing my hair (possibly) on Saturday at the Access Moon salon in Akatsuka, going food shopping, etc. And on Friday I'm supposed to go bowling with my tutors, so I want to save up a bit for that, too. I want to finish packing bit by bit though, as each day goes by, so I don't feel stressed the day before I leave. I still feel like I have so much stuff to pack, even though earlier today I was relieved that I'd have the money for my 3rd suitcase-- the biggest one, too. Now it feels like I'm back to not being able to decide what to keep and what to ditch, or how to pack, because it seems almost full and I still have so much to pack IMHO. But my backpack and purse still aren't so filled up yet, so maybe that'll help ease it up somewhat.

I'm still confused about where I put some of my CDs/DVDs though, if I put them anywhere... I thought I had NANA anime eps. 20-25 (that would be 2 CDs), but I couldn't find them amongst the box I intended to send (too expensive, so I crammed them into my 2nd suitcase), and they weren't in my CD case. I wonder if I deleted all those files to save HD space? I'd hate it if I did, but unless they're in the box that I've already taped up, I have no idea if I even burned them to CD. In any case, they're not on my HD anymore... though I do have the latest episode (33) and Yu-Gi-Oh! (Toei), eps 16-18. Yay for TV-Nihon getting down to the grind on that!

I should go to bed soon... we don't have class, really (well, I do for 3rd and 5th), but we do have a feedback session during 2nd period, from 10:30 to 11:30, and I have to wake up early enough to call the SF Office of JTB travel to get them to add my United Mileage Plus number to my account... and maybe then I can officially switch my seat on the plane. Kekekeke.