Packing list for Southeast Asia

I'm headed to Southeast Asia for one month (30 days). For the first two weeks I'll be with a student travel group, for the third week I'll be beachside with my old roommate and good friend Tianna, and for the final week I'll be in a remote area of northern Thailand volunteering at an elephant sanctuary. 

Of course I can pack however many bags I feel like packing, but I've decided the smartest move is packing one backpack and one cross-body satchel purse (big enough to be able to carry my camera, a water bottle, etc while gallivanting Asia). 

It turns out packing for 30 days abroad in said space is more difficult said than done, but I'm hoping it's easier than lugging multiple large bags around three countries would be.

I read multiple blogs and guides, asked around, etc. to figure out what I need and what would be best to pack. This is what I settled on taking (although a few things pictured didn't make the cut, and once I got it all packed I really didn't want to unpack just to re-photograph):

The official, final list of everything I'm bringing:

Clothing:

3 tank tops / 5 t-shirts

2 bras

3 sports bras

24 pairs of underwear

1 scarf/shawl

2 maxi skirts

1 maxi dress

1 middi dress

1 pair khaki shorts

1 pair running shorts

1 bathing suit

1 pair Chacos sandals 

1 pair Toms canvas shoes

1 rain jacket

I am only bringing what liquid toiletries fit into this airplane-approved plastic bag. 

Toiletries:

2 mini aerosol bug sprays

1 Anti-itch cream 

2 sunscreens*

2 face washes (one scrub, one cleanser)

1 daily facial lotion - SPF 15

1 toothpaste (the second one pictured was cut)

2 Dr. Bronner's Castile Liquid Soaps - apparently, these soaps can be used as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, soap to wash clothes, etc. And, they're vegan, organic and ethically-sourced soaps, if that kind of thing matters to you.

1 conditioner (the shampoo pictured didn't make the cut) 

Makeup: 2 BB creams*, mascara*, a tiny perfume*, and face powder

*asterisk indicates that I got the product as a sample from either Birchbox or Sephora. I will forever love samples for traveling's sake!   

Misc items: 

q-tips

bandaids

razor

medications

tissues

hairties

comb

headbands

sunglasses

headphones

eye mask

tissues

book

journal

Nikon camera + extra lens + charger

iPhone + charger

 What I'm wearing for the 30+ hours I'll be en route

And it all fits! I'll report back next month with what worked and what didn't. After a nightmarish time getting a new passport/visas after USPS lost my original, having trouble checking in, and barely getting everything finished on time... I'm all set. I couldn't have gone through the process of getting a new passport without my loving mother! 

The alarm is set for 5 hours and 30 minutes from now... 

A new adventure awaits. 

What I learned in college

Well, I'm a college graduate.

So what did I learn in the last four years? Journalism, Spanish, Italian, blah blah blah. What else, you ask?

1. I learned to listen to my body. If something feels wrong, it probably is. I was inexplicably exhausted, went to the doctor and it turned out I had an extreme iron deficiency that took months to restore. I went through IV treatments, long days at Emory, etc. Listen to what your body has to tell you.

2. Asking for help is not bad and doesn’t make you weak. I visited the counseling center at Georgia State and went through nine months of weekly to bi-weekly counseling to work through all kinds of things. I think therapy is just having a tough conversation with yourself, and the therapist is the moderator for that conversation. It’s a journey, but it made me happier than I have ever been in my life. I can't wait to start going back once I get a real job and some money. There's such a stigma behind therapy, but I wholeheartedly believe in it. Mental health is just as important as physical health.

3. People (friends, family, teachers, strangers) will have opinions ranging from current events to what you should do with your life. These opinions will be both solicited and unsolicited. Just because people give their opinions doesn’t mean you have to agree. Consider them, entertain the opinions, and then make an informed decision for yourself. 

4. The first three months of your new relationship doesn't really count. Everyone puts their best foot forward at the beginning of a relationship, and true colors don't always shine through at first. Keep that in mind.

5. Take things day at a time... Okay. This sounds obvious. But I was so much more zen when I realized things can look overwhelming when laid out on a calendar, but all you can do is take it one day at a time. 

6. On a related note, try not to go crazy with the planning. I like to know EVERYTHING I’m doing. In high school, I planned out a blueprint for how I wanted college to go, which included a summer of interning at Vogue in NYC. Obviously dreaming is good, but love your life. LIVE your life. Be a little spontaneous. Accept finding a passion you didn’t plan or expect to find, and embrace it. You can’t plan every inch. Leave some things up to chance…and be excited about it.

7. Try different things. I bounced around so many friend groups between the newspaper, my sorority, going through different musical taste phases, and working at restaurants. You don’t have to like one specific thing or be one specific thing. 

8. Remember that friendships take work. If you're always saying, "We'll do something next week," you'll find that people stop asking you to do things. Reciprocate. 

9. On the flip side, remember the relationship you have with yourself is hands down the most important relationship you’ll ever have. It sets the tone for every other relationship. So, if you’re too tired or just don't feel like going out Friday night, pop open that bag of chips and Netflix it. No shame. Look out for #1 because no one else will. 

10. Oh...and study hard. Or whatever. ;) Of course an education is invaluable for all of the obvious reasons, but I have this theory that some of the most important things you learn in college could never be taught on a white board. 

I’ll miss this chapter of my life dearly and hold the lessons and people I met close to my heart forever. I'm excited to be moving on to even bigger and better things. Thank you, Georgia State, for making me who I am today. No other school, city, or friends could have influenced me in the same way. I’m proud of who I am right now and fully believe in the person I would like to become. I’m a work in progress, but that’s the beauty of it –– I always will be.

I'm out, y'all!

2014 in review

Better late than never, right? 

NYC, concerts, Grandma's, military ball, Colorado, selling my photography as wall decor, beach, tailgates, internships...

the end of a chapter

The last couple years of my life scattered all over the floor

I've learned so much from being an editor at The Signal. 

I've been hired, fired and re-hired. I've learned what it means to have an editorial board--and a University of 30,000 people--depending on me to get my work done. I've learned responsibility and commitment, as well as how to contribute to/care about something so much bigger and better than myself. Not to mention, it's taught me a thing or two about journalism. ;) 

As I enter my senior year, my time as an editor has come to an end, but the paper will always hold the defining memories of my undergraduate career. Thank you to my family there, past and present, for every moment. 

xo

adv. media writing final

The capstone project for my Advanced Media Writing class was a two-part news feature story which included a print portion and multimedia portion. I interviewed Georgia State student Manoa Daniel about her experience getting sexually harassed on her way to campus, as well as her experience with a GSU police officer afterwards. Here is the article and virtual tour (video) of her walk: 

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When senior public policy major Manoa Daniel was walking over the Decatur St. bridge to get to class, a person not affiliated with the University exposed himself to her and tried to engage in conversation on Feb. 24. Daniel attempted to report the incident to an officer on campus, but she was instructed to just go to class. She never got the name of the officer.

“The way [the stranger] was positioned towards me, I thought he had a gun to me. I told myself to keep looking up, and if I pretended not to notice, he wouldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run because I was wearing these huge rain boots,” Daniel said.

Daniel recalled the strange man continuing to ask her questions and attempting to get him to look at her. Once she noticed what he was doing, she yelled for him to leave her alone and then clunked off heavily and quickly in her oversized rain boots.

When Daniel ran into the Petit Science Center, security called Georgia State University Police (GSUPD). An officer arrived and asked Daniel what the man looked like, but all she could give him was a ballpark height and a vague description.

“I tried not to look at the guy. I said he was 5-foot-6, 5-foot-7, and he had a navy jacket. He was black with a medium skin tone. But we’re downtown. Black or white, a 5-foot-7-inch guy with a navy jacket? That could be anyone,” she said.

The officer asked Daniel if she wanted to press charges, but she said that if they were to apprehend someone, she wasn’t sure that she would have been able to identify them. She declined.

Officer Willie Johnson, Supervisor of the Crime Suppression Unit at Georgia State, said that protocol was not followed for Daniel’s case. He said that the officer helping Daniel should have gotten all the information he could from her and then contacted other on-duty officers to inform them of the situation. At that point, there would have been at least 10 officers looking for the individual, according to Johnson.

            Unless police officers know for sure that someone is the guilty party, Georgia law doesn’t permit taking an individual from their destination.

“We’d get [Daniel] in the car nonchalantly, pass by the man and say, ‘Hey is that our guy?’ and if she says, ‘Yeah, that’s him,’ we’d radio the officers standing by the perpetrator and say, ‘Hold onto him, she gave a positive ID’,” Johnson said.

They would then get a statement from Daniel and arrest the perpetrator for public indecency and disorderly conduct, according to Johnson—both misdemeanor charges.

            Still inside the Petit Science Center, Daniel looked at the officer and asked, “Well, what do you want me to do? I have an exam, should I just go to class?”

He said, ‘if you wanna go to class, go to class.’

So she walked herself to class and never heard anything about it again.

Daniel said that the officer didn’t recommend that she file a report. GSUPD has jurisdiction of the Georgia State campus as well as a 500-foot circumference around it, which includes the location in which the incident occurred.

“We could have reacted to that,” Johnson said. “Its not [a student’s] responsibility to ask to file a police report. Their responsibility is to report it to the police department.”

Daniel said she wants to see more spread out police presence in areas that are heavily populated by students, even if they are not technically on Georgia State property. She also wants GSUPD to be more concerned about student safety.

“I’d like to see more of a reaction to reports. I don’t want to feel uncomfortable… That officer made me feel guilty for saying anything,” she said.

For a case like Daniel’s, the minimum protocol is to write a police report and title it “Information for other officers.”

“I would have liked for him to report that. I wish he got her name, her ID. That’s not how we do things here. That officer did not do his job,” Johnson said. 

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