It’s that time of year again. As you read this, I am unpacking my overabundance of things into my too-tiny room. And, because I plan so well, I started packing last night around midnight. And, actually, this means that I did my laundry by that point, so I’m probably ahead of some of you reading this. Ha! Take that. Anyway, throughout this tiring process, I realized a couple of problems that I faced while trying to move back to school. Hopefully some of you will learn from my mistakes.

1. Wanting to bring what I’m wearing but unwilling to wash it

To wash or not to wash, that is the question. Honestly, though, when you’re packing up all of your clothes for school you have to decide whether you’re just going to leave the clothes that you’re wearing at home or whether you’re going to wash them before you go. Between you and me, sometimes I employ the sniff test. If it smells fine, it’s ok to pack. If not, I leave it/I wash it. Don’t lie; you do it too.

2. Not having any boxes

When it comes time to put everything inside boxes, I can never seem to find any. Like, how did I get all of this stuff home? But, now that I’m thinking about it, I probably just put everything in trash bags. Classy.

3. Packing too many clothes

I like to imagine that I am being conservative when I decide what clothes I am bringing with me. But I’m not. I like to imagine that I’m going to break my habit of wearing just workout clothes. But I won’t. Oh well!

4. Fitting everything into your small car

Packing up the car is like playing tetris in real life. Only not as fun and somehow more frustrating.

5. The many trips to the car

Despite my best efforts, I usually have to make several trips to the car to grab my things. This is frustrating for several reasons, including but not limited to: getting sweaty and tired, wishing you hadn’t packed so much stuff, and realizing that you should probably work out more.

6. The unpacking process

The whole unpacking process is problematic. By the time you start unpacking, you are probably exhausted and frustrated due to the reasons described above. You also realize when you are unpacking that you don’t have enough room for all of your stuff so you start prioritizing which things go where. But all of this is stressing you out so you just decide to make your bed and deal with everything else tomorrow.