(In all honesty, this post is really for me to organize my thoughts and prepare for the grueling packing experience that awaits me (my room looks like a Goodwill collection center (don’t get any ideas, Mom…)))

Packing. It is incredibly important. Without packing, your clothes would just be in the trunk of your car, intermingling with your binders and towels, and intermingling of those items is not OK. You would have to put your stuff directly into the carts that the Housing office provides for you. There would be no plastic in between your jammies and the side of the cart! Ah!

Wait, maybe packing is not that important because who cares if your stuff touches your other stuff, and all of it touches the cart? Alright, let me rephrase. Packing makes things slightly more convenient for you and everyone does it and when are you trying to fit in more, than the first day of college? Yeah, you could just throw your crap into the trunk and it would be fine but using plastic bags to separate your t-shirts from your lamp is kind of fun, and who knows where the sides of the Housing office’s cart has been.

So, here are some of my excellent, super great, bomb boo-yeah packing tips:

• Use bags. Seriously, boxes are not your friend. They do not fit into cars well and take up a ton of space. You can fit like five in your trunk, and the five you fit in there are usually only going to be like three-quarters full. Bags are great! They are comfy to carry and are like amorphous blobs. They mold to the shape of your trunk, your back seat, even to the back of your head (DIY travel pillow). Pack towels, blankets, pillows, spare body parts, even school supplies in bags. Be especially sure to pack all foldable clothes into bags.
• This brings me to nonfoldable clothes. I am talking about nice jackets, dresses, your Lady Gaga Halloween costume, basically anything on a hanger. Good news, y’all… you do not need to take any of those things off their hangers! Just take your hanging items off of the rack in your closet and pile them on top of your already full back seat, hangers and all. If you are afraid they will get ruined or are seriously nervous about your things touching the Housing office carts, you can always put either a plastic covering you get from the dry cleaners over everything OR a big trash bag over everything. This is great because when you get to your room, you just whip all your hangables off the top of your carts and boom, they go right into the closet. I maybe even recommend hanging more clothes than usual, just because this is way easier than refolding everything before it goes into drawers.