Packing is mind boggling

Packing - one of the most difficult thing to do. It requires a lot of effort and a lot of thinking, especially for women. The easiest way to pack is to know your travel itineary.

I am a person who would start packing days or sometimes a week before I leave. That's because I know myself too well - a procrastinator, a forgetful freak and the indecisive fool.

I would somehow start packing a few days before and then decide that I'm tired (packing is something stressful to me) and stop for a couple of days. Since I am also very fogetful, I need to write in a piece of paper all the things that I need to bring. For sure, I would still forget a thing or two but it's not as bad as forgetting more than 25% of the things that you've wanted to bring. I once forgot my hairband. Most people would think that it's not important at all but for me, I am hopeless at washing my face without this thing that pushes my hair away from my face, thus resorting to washing my face only when I wash my hair! The other important object that always slips my mind is the tootbrush. I am also one who could never sleep without brushing my teeth - darn, I sometimes wish I wasn't trained as a kid to brush my teeth every night before I go to sleep. Normally my list would be two pages long as I need to write every single thing, e.g., rubberbands for hair, earrings, tweezers, pen, underwear, cell phone, a piece of granola bar - laugh all you want but these are the important things that I always forget.

Packing, to me, requires a lot of thinking and being the indecisive person, it takes lots of time just to decide what I should bring - should I bring two t-shirts instead of two blouses? Should I bring a skirt just in case there's a dinner to attend? Should I bring slippers or sandals? The comb or a brush? Being a woman ain't easy. I despise the people who created different kinds of clothes for women to fit the different occassions. I sometimes wish I could just wear t-shirt and jeans to a dinner in a posh restaurant. I always take time to get out of this dilemma as I usually put everything that I think I might need into the bag and then remove half of those. Thank goodness my travel bags are usually backpacks - no space to carry too many things or I'd be carrying the whole cupboard instead! Now even deciding which backpack to use is something that takes time!

The worst packing nightmare for me is to have everything you need and as you arrive at the airport, you realize you haven't got your passport or your air ticket. I've never tried this before but if I really did forget these, things that I'd do in the airport would be beyond my imagination.

So here I am, 3 days before leaving for Myanmar and I've only managed to finish packing my underwear, two t-shirts and shorts before I decided to stop packing to write this blog. Plus it's not like you can get anything in Myanmar! Holy cow!