... back to Beijing! How fast five weeks fly by. I noticed while I was packing tonight that, sometime somehow, I have become a much-gadgeted girl.

Packed in my bags are:

1) Laptop. (I realize this technically isn't packed yet because if it was, I wouldn't be typing this right now. But the point is that it WILL be packed in due course.)
2) Digital camera
3) Cell phone
4) Ipod

and my latest acquisition

5) Palm Pilot.

All this for a girl who, 5 years ago, swore up and down that she wouldn't get a cell phone! I caved into getting a phone my junior year when all my friends moved out of res while I was stuck mothering freshmen in dorms on the opposite side of campus, rending telecommunication the only way to retain a social life.

Anyway, I eBay-ed the Palm about 2 weeks ago. Not to organize my life into neatly scheduled segments mind you but so I could get a kick ass Chinese-English dictionary. Sad to realize I bought a gadget for the software. Actually what really convinced me to get the Palm was noticing that the program had a flashcard function... and seeing the stack of 857 flashcards I made last semester. Something that eliminates toting fragments of cardboard around? Sold!

Back to packing. While I've long resigned myself to the inevitability of carting electronic bits and bobs from place to place, what's really annoying is the need to pack cables, chargers, and other devices necessary to keep everything singing and dancing. Throw in a couple of converters and adapters too if you're travelling to a country with different voltage and sockets... like China.

From the amount of space devoted to packing gizmos and their accessories, I conclude that I'm way too wired. And not in the happy, caffeinated way.