Packing
At the time of writing, I have begun to pack. It’s not a tedious thing at all, and I still have plenty of time with not much to fill it with, so I thought, why not?
Actually, in all honesty, I’ve been sitting around, restless with the thought of packing. I refuse to be like my mother and take… everything. It’s not like I have the space to store it all, anyway. I’ll be staying in a goshiwon (one-room rental), notorious for being cheap but also for being very bare-bones and tiny. I certainly can’t afford to hoard.
Therefore, I’ve had to look at seriously downscaling my wardrobe, and packing away pieces I am not going to use any time soon to send to a charity shop. I have too many t-shirts, and too many items I like and don’t love (a result of gifted clothes from family, mostly, and clothes brought before the hate of my legs crept in). The winter stuff I don’t need to wear right now is already in the suitcase, and the rest can be added later. I really overestimated the size of my suitcase, too.
I’m taking an awful lot of tech stuff with me. My laptop is a given, but so is my Nintendo Switch and my camera and all their peripherals. I still intend to stream games while in Korea as that is why I picked up the hobby. I have to carefully sort out what can go in checked and what has to be carried. My laptop is fairly large, so it has to be carried on in a suitcase.
Packing has also pushed me to rifle through my irrelevant papers and my beauty drawer and finally dispose of old containers and long-unused products that had likely gone off. I have offered books to my boyfriend, and notebooks for his sisters, and hand cream. Lots of hand cream. Man, why do I have so much hand cream??
Somehow, I still don’t think it’s enough. I still take up 80% of a [master] bedroom I share with my sister.
So there’s clearly a problem here.
It’s so tempting to just wait until I come back having lived minimally for a year and do a larger re-organisation then, but that’s not fair on my sister who’s going to have to deal with my mess! This has to be sorted NOW.
Mental Preparation
As I’ve mentioned previously, my mental health has made tremendous progress although the journey has been rocky. I do feel mostly equipped to go ahead with this trip, so any downsides will hopefully just present a minor challenge for me. I do expect to be homesick, but I need to remind myself that I’ve been so excited to have a taste of life by myself and need to make the most of this time, too!
One thing that has been bothering me though, is my own body image. Whilst, of course, there have been moments of low self-esteem, I had mostly been unbothered through my teenage years so it’s surprising to me that I find myself bothered now. At a time where I do actually go to the gym now (but with the aim just to keep moving, to aid my mental health and not to actually lose weight) this is super odd to me.
I impulse bought some appetite suppressants. I felt ashamed of it but it seems my siblings at least are actually interested in this, too so I am really relieved by that. Body confidence is important to me and I love my curves, but I know I could do more, if that makes sense? I know I eat too much for my level of activity, and while my snacking habits have improved I have my binging moments, and I suck at sticking to diets. I want to be able to make better lifestyle habits and I’ve already made a start! Going to the gym regularly has been huge for me! But there’s more I could do.
Now’s probably not the time to be worrying about this seeing as I will probably be enjoying a lot of good food whilst abroad…
The Summer
My part-time job has not given a lot of hours this summer, probably in anticipation of me leaving, so after my summer placement ended, remaining important things sorted and so on I was surprised to find myself with not much to do besides my almost-daily streaming. I love a holiday, and staying at home and in bed, but I found myself feeling really blank, and working on this blog post. I wanted to write a media edit before I realised I haven’t actually been consuming an awful lot of it compared to previous months.
I began a book-buying ban this year, but it’s saddening for me to say that… I still haven’t finished a book yet this year. I’m not quite sure what’s happened to me other than that I’m really struggling to get my reading done lately. I hope to provide some positive updates on that soon.
Twenty Swans 