Why Being a Graduate Student Sucks, The Travel Edition

At first, I thought Northwest Airlines was kidding me when I saw that the weight limit was 50lbs. It was always 75! Seriously!

Then Colleen told me in her email that they lowered the weight limit, then she had to pay at the airport.

Oh, $%*#.

I have PAPER. And BOOKS. And RESEARCH. For example, I don't need the conference proceedings from the conference back in December. My FIRST publication. I know I will never read those articles because I don't need to at the moment, but there is a lot of sentimental value - those two books have ISBNs. That means it pretty much like a real book. However, together, those two books are a total of over 1200 A4 size pages - they easily weigh at least 5lbs together, maybe 10? Paper weighs alot.

This is why being a graduate student sucks - you gather all the research that you need in the target country only to realize its a royal pain in the ass to send it through mail and utter hell if you go over the weight limit in the airport because obviously, no foundation or government will give you a first class ticket. Everyone goes through the same thing - tourists buy too many souveneirs for example, Greeks from Astoria pack everything but the kitchen sink to go to the mother country for the two to four month vacation (ah, the memories of Olympic Airways and JFK, seeing people unpack and repack at the ticket counter) - but damn, paper is heavy!!!

Ahh...soooo annoying. You get all this research and you need to bring it home and the only recourse to action is to mail it. But I think at this point, after looking more carefully on NWA's policy for overweight luggage and printing out with me, I might as well just keep some of the books and either toss them (Japanese textbooks) or put them through the mail. And what sucks even more is that USPS changed their policies regarding low-cost freight out of Japan, which is a problem amongst many academics both in and out of Japan - I got the petition to restore the service via the H-Japan list serv email. And the Japan postal system isn't cheap either.

I already took out two Japanese textbooks (but frankly I don't need them, I might just chuck them in the garbage, but for now they stay in the bookcase) - I don't need my paper dictionary or my paper kanji dictionary anymore since I have the electronic dictionary for my Nintendo. I MIGHT take out the regular paper dictionary (since its like 5lbs) and chuck it when I leave Japan for good, because by that time I will have my real hard-core denshi jisho. But for now, the kanji dictionary goes home.

And then there are the clothes! I have a winter coat and a jacket to bring back...bah. So frustrating, but its the books that make things so darn heavy. Need to REPACK. Blah. However, everything else regarding prep (printing boarding pass, checking in online, returning rest of library books, etc. etc. is done)

Now, I am REALLY hoping Mel comes in March with the two empty suitcases (he travels light, I plan to use his weight allowance and he wants to come to Japan) to help me move back. I just checked with JAL (which will be the way I go home in March because the Japanese government pays for it and the weight limit is still at 70lbs thank god!)

UPDATE: Finished packing. Since I got rid of like 10 books and took out one Kate Spade bag (figured I should keep a nice bag here, though I am returning with my green KS bag), I had to repack AGAIN into my medium sized suitcase. But thats ok - when I went to Korea, I used said medium suitcase and the weight was 18 kilos. So I *think* the weight will be fine.

I hope.