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Am behind on everythng - by months, when it comes to reading LiveJournal - and still not really able to catch up.
I'm in the process of switching antidepressants, and between Tuesday and Sunday I got a total of twelve hours' sleep - and even those twelve hours were riddled with nightmares and restlessness. Unsurprisingly, then, not crashing and burning on an emotional level has been a challenge.
Still, in amidst all this, I have been making plans and preparations for my departure for Britain, which is in THREE WEEKS. Certain new things have cropped up - for example, my iPod spontaneously bricked itself for no apparent reason last week, so I've got to get that sorted out (fortunately, it's under warranty - as is the power supply for my laptop, which is suddenly disintegrating, and while I'm at the laptop service centre I can bitch at them for the fact that my laptop's performance post-repair is significantly worse than it was pre-breakdown).
I bought a TomTom (IQ Routes) and maps for the United Kingdom and Western and Central Europe - hilariously, the thing doesn't quite have enough space to store the European maps AND the Australian maps - it's about 20MB short. The Australian maps are 100MB, the European ones are about 1.9GB.
Fortunately, I'm not likely to need both in quick succession. It has Europe loaded, because I've been using it to plot things for my trip - entering places I want to go and people I want to visit, and so on. I'll switch it to Australia when I return - and am done writing about my trip, since it records past destinations, etc, and will be a handy aide memoire.
I'm me, I write about things, I will write a lot about this trip. If I get around to it, I'll probably eventually write a full chronicle about it and put it on my website. (I'm also going to be aiming to post blog updates about it there, as a blog I can totally share with family and so on.)
Today's list:
- Call re: iPod
- Call Malaysian Consulate, find out if there's anyting I need to do to take prescription dexamphetamines through Kuala Lumpur airport without getting arrested
- Ditto British Consulate, s/Kuala Lumpur/Heathrow
- Call hairdresser's, book appointment for first haircut in about four years (my hair needs to be more managable than it is when I'm on holiday and don't have anyone around I can ask to brush and braid it for me)
I'm not too worried about Perth Airport, because Perth Airport a) will recognise Australian prescription bottles and so on and b) will be in the same country as my prescribing doctor.
- Get passport photos taken
- Go to Asus service centre
- Go to Licensing Centre and renew driver's licence (so that in near future I can then get an international driver's licence, for driving through Britain and parts of Western Europe and Scandinavia)
... and then come home, and chill with my guitar.
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So, this afternoon, I have achieved things!
I renewed my driver's licence, including changing the name on it, I'm currently at the Asus service centre resolving some issues regarding my computers (getting the power supply replaced under warranty because the rubber is disintegrating and I was going to buy a replacement until I realised, no, that's totally a warranty issue and they can give me a new one), and my bricked iPod is off for warranty replacement as well (with some assistance from Chas, there).
I also, on the way to the repair centre, stopped at the Army/Navy Disposal Store a few doors down and bought waterproof hiking boots - Hi-Tec Altitudes, which are also, I note, highly praised online, although apparently cheaper in America than they are here. (Though still a good price for solid waterproof boots.) I wanted some boots that would be warm and resilient under the influence of rain, wet ground, and mud, since... I'm going to Britain, yo. And there's a distinct possibility of encountering snow inherent in various of my plans, which also means I want waterproof boots.
I also got a couple of skivvies, because layering is where it's at for keeping warm. I know from experience that I can be comfortable in sub-zero temperatures (celsius) with a skivvy-shirt-jacket setup - after I've had a day or so to adjust to the cold. Since I plan to be spending not-insignificant amounts of time in the Scottish Highlands, preparing for cold conditions is kind of important. (Not to mention the part where my plans include crossing the Arctic Circle.)
I'm not one of those people who thinks the Highlands are the main part of Scotland - they're really not, of course, not at all. However, the Highlands are where my own ancestors come from, and my ancestral home, which is an important destination in my plans, is up there. Research and family lore alike confirm that it's cold around there. (My ancestral home is a farm in the Grampians that my family has definitely been on for almost all of the last thousand years, and has quite possibly been on for as long as human habitation has been there - the limit of definite is where the records fade out.)
Left to do is try and get passport photos taken tonight - which I can do at home, so that's definitely doable, and get them signed off by a guarantor so I can renew my passport tomorrow.
Which, you see, will leave the following items on my to-do list before I leave:
- Hand in some forms at uni
- Call Malaysian Airlines and confirm flights
- Also, with airline, make requests for gluten-free food, query snack situation for hypoglycaemia reasons
- Call Malaysian consulate about taking dexamphetamines through Kuala Lumpur airport without getting arrested
- Call British consulate about bringing dexamphetamines into Heathrow without getting arrested
- Continue looking up potential destinations and so on
- Get in touch with relatives and make firmer plans for visiting
- Go clothes shopping, mostly for trousers
- Get int'l driver's licence
All of which are less time-critical than the passport and such. (International driver's licences are fairly quick to sort out, from memory - I've had one before.)
It's like this trip is actually going to happen...
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