Packing up and leaving…

Since the post I told about my sabbatical trip, I have been preparing. This is the longest stay abroad since my Ph.D. days and again the longest stay away from home since my mandatory military service. This process took more emotional labor than I thought. It is only 10-11 months but still, it looks like a long term. I am about to fly in two hours, and it did wear me down much more than I expected.

So some major preparations:

I sold my car to my elder sister. It was a good and not much-used car. I hope I can buy a new one when I come back. Car taxes are exorbitant!

I am giving my cat I am with for two years to one of my Ph.D. students. The Cat is lonely as I don’t and won’t be staying much with her and I strongly believe she will be happier with her new owner.

My brother is moving into my apartment temporarily. So I will not be thinking about finding an apartment when I come back.

Thinking of an apartment, finding an apartment in Irvine was the most stressful part of my preparations. I was paying $650 rent in 2004 in Houston. But times changed, I ended up finding a 6-month deal with an $1800 rent. Thanks to a former student who is doing his MBA in Irvine.

I will need to buy a car but it seems that is not too stressful to do at this point. and I will need to get California driving license. I guess I can handle that, too. 

I figured out that my insurance plan is not enough for the US trip. So I will have to buy one when I arrive.

I could not figure out what my SSN number is. I haven’t used it since 2004. I assume when I go to the SSN office, this will be fixed.

I have two pieces of luggage. One luggage is the one I used in 2001 when I was moving to the US for the first time. The other is a smaller one which is normally used as a cabin luggage. The funny thing is that the second luggage is literally full of baby stuff for a friend. His relatives asked me to carry all this stuff and I thought it would be just a little piece but it ended fulling my whole luggage. Thank god, I do not need much space at this point. I have put my basic clothing and that’s it.

Because there is the Cloud now. All documents/ books and other stuff is already in my cloud account; Google Drive and Yandex Disk.

In my backpack, I have the rest: A Kindle, a laptop, a set of printed documents needed for the trip, the passport and a credit card (and a little bit of cash I might need in the beginning). A few plug converters. 

The moment I am settled- hoping to do that in a week- I will resume my own maybe pathetic but still beloved daily patterns of study.