destabee | trying to reduce the panic by putting it all down in words (Reply)

I have reached panic stage with regard to the trip. I have so much stuff to do and that is just the stuff I know I need to do. I am so afraid that there are things that I should do but having never traveled internationally don't know to do. I just discovered one of those things by accident -- a travel guide recommended checking with your bank to verify that an ATM card would work outside the country so I did. Turns out that for it to work they need to have a notation on my record that I am traveling so that they don't block the transactions. They also told me how to make my PIN number work if the machines in Queensland want 5 digit pin numbers. This upped my worry that I have missed some crucial point and don't know it.

I am feeling very much like a country bumpkin who is way out of my element. I can't even manage to get to people to ask questions. I spent many frustrating minutes stuck in American Airlines automated phone system trying to find out whether to follow domestic or international procedures when I get to Chicago (I have a domestic flight from O'Hare to LAX and then an international flight from LAX to Brisbane).

The country bumpkin feeling is getting in the way of being able to do things as basic as figure out what to take to wear for the conference. It is a new association for me and I don't know formal they are.

The house is a mess, there is much teaching stuff to be done, the presentations needs work, I need to pack and nothing is going smoothly this morning.

Then there is the question of what do I do about the house. I don't have central heating and air; what I do have is a window unit that is either on or off and very bad about freezing up. This makes me reluctant to leave it running even on low. At the same time I am not sure it is wise to leave things closed completely up with temps forecast to reach the mid 90s. The best strategy I can figure out is to leave a couple of windows cracked a couple of inches to allow for some circulation.

Then of course I am worried about leaving my car at the hotel parking lot in Michigan City for 10 days. The bus service pickup point is there. If J and D were home, I would ask to leave my car at their place and have them give me a lift to the hotel.

I clearly need to either travel more so that I am better at these things or not at all. On a lighter note can you imagine how uptight I would be if I were going some place where the language wasn't English or to some place more exotic and remote than an upscale beach resort.

So the 5 minutes spewing all that did help get me to a point where at least I am laughing at myself about my state of mind which in turn helped reduce the panic slightly. That was all I need to move out of the immobilized with anxiety zone. Now I can get back to doing stuff that is necessary. It makes sense that the first bites out of my elephant of preparations need to be: (1) get dressed, (2) go to Valpo to the affiliated credit union for traveler's checks which will give me a back up plan if there are problems with my Visa card, (3) go to campus and finish setting up the midterms for my classes, (4) while on campus leave my travel details with T the dept. secretary (5) go beg the ITS folks to install SPSS on my laptop so that I can continue crunching numbers on the flight if necessary

After those are complete then I can choose my next bites.