An ode to my bike

I am amazed at all I have done in the past two days: bought souvenirs (Ba, Deepa, Aaita?, Rebecca, Julia, Darren, Fuji, Jonathan, Arden, oh my!), packed four boxes, shipped four boxes, packed one suitcase and one rolling carry-on, takkyuubin-ed suitcase and carry-on (to be delivered to my parents' hotel tomorrow), wrote a "student life report" for the ITO Foundation, edited research report for the Foundation, wrote an abstract for said research report, emailed all three to the ITO Foundation, wrote a thank you letter to mail to the Foundation, ordered two transcripts (for Columbia and ITO), rented two movies, watched one movie (the original Japanese "Shall We Dance?" - *very* cute), did my last load of laundry, dusted and swept the bedroom, crushed at least a dozen plastic bottles, washed and cut up about a dozen paper juice cartons, taken out at least half a dozen bags of "rubbish" (as the Brits say)...

If you know me, you know how impressive it is that I packed and shipped stuff so promptly. And to that I owe my dear, hard-working bike シルヴィエー. I got really lucky with her. She was cheaper than each of Chris, Phil, and Tad's bikes, and though she has the dorky-looking "praying mantis" handlebars, she has the rack on the back - which means, not only is carrying two people by bike easier, but apparently getting 14kg boxes to the post office down the street is also much easier. I thought I would have to walk there and back multiple times... and I know from experience in Princeton that the nearest post office is much farther away when you're carrying a box. I expected to spend the entire day carrying and mailing boxes, but I was done before noon, in only three trips. I strapped the box on the back rack, rode most of the way to the post office, then walked the bike across the street and to the post office, then rode blithely home. :-) I need to remember to take a picture of the bike before I drop it off at ICU. (I decided it's just not worth my trouble to try to find a buyer at this point. I just hope whoever gets her takes care of her.)

Speaking of shipping boxes... moving sucks. It's so expensive and time-consuming! I just hope I get most of my deposit back when I leave... but as I haven't cleaned *that* regularly (even if I clean tomorrow morning, which is the plan), I'm sure Horie-san will be taking some money out of the deposit for cleaning.

And now to bed... so I can wake up early and tackle the bathroom and kitchen. (I also have to return Phil's rice cooker to J-Mart for him.) I'll update again tomorrow after my parents arrive.