This blog ate my homework

Right now I should be crafting these words into a 1500 word essay on the effect of the Age of Enlightenment on art in the 18th century. But I would hardly expect that to interest you in this, my maiden post, so I'll try and keep things a little less high school art theory and a little more high school musical. Although, should you ever find yourself stuck in a pretentious art conversation, you could always say the effect was big, and then ask if anyone has been to a really good tapas restaurant lately (cos let's face it, everybody has).

I apologise if this blog in anyway resembles the pretentious shit I am imagining it to be. Right now I am using it as a tool to share the potentially hilarious escapades due to take place on the Star Princess as of next Monday, but I have to admit that I am hoping eventually it will lead to fame, book deals and of course, my oft described dream of a place on dancing with the stars.

So, I'm about 3 and a half days from leaving on the big South America trip. Which means 3 and half days to create a mathematical principle that will allow me to fill my suitcase with double the amount that is currently possible to get in. I don't understand. The last time a I travelled was with a backpack and a military style packing principle of one pair of jeans, one jumper, one pair of havaianas (a decision that felt at the time much like Sophie's Choice). So this should be easy. I am taking the suitcase I trekked around the US with during my summer camp adventure. It once housed a sleeping bag, a parka, clothes suitable for three months of camping and a pair of authentic Butler High Dance Team Pom Poms. So why is it now having so much trouble with a few evening dresses and a pair or two of heels? Ok, so the shoes now number nine. Ten including my sneakers (which really don't count because I only plan to wear them at the gym). Eleven including the boots I'll be wearing on the plane. That one's not my fault. In the middle of my idyllic summer holiday i will be spending a couple of days on land so cold that only the English will live there. But I guess nine pairs of shoes are still a bit excessive. It's just that because of the backpacking rationing, I am dying to be able to dress up on this holiday. And the cruise has formal evenings, giving me a chance to wear the dresses usually reserved for weddings and races. The gold dress which, after a drunken debutante, needs a glamourous comeback. The blue and white maxi dress that I swore would be the stable of my summer wardrobe and only made it to two Christmas parties. The truth is, I don't lead a particularly glamourous life, something I tend to forget when choosing formal wear. So if I have a chance to wear my floor length metallic gold dress, I have to take it. Even if it is formal night on a geriatric cruise.

And then there's the clothes that I have labelled 'summer outfits that as a thirty-one year old woman I may never be able to get away with wearing again'. Like, when are you too old to wear a hippie patchwork backless halterneck? It was the pride of my 20's, my favourite top to dance away Sydney summer nights to the sounds of Dimitri from Paris, live at the Playboy Mansion. I would consider myself too old to get away with most things Playboy Mansion themed, so chances are I've missed the cut off on this top, but like the ubiquitous hen boding farewell to her batchelorette days, i feel like I need to send these clothes off in a manner deserving of their memory. Not sure that hanging at a marine themed discotheque with aforementioned Geriatric Americans is exactly the send of they deserve, but I'll give it a go.

Oh, and the white jeans that I've been too scared to ever wear because of a) covering them in a condiment of some variety, or b) looking the exact opposite of how Elizabeth Hurley looks in white jeans. The poor things have been lying perennially at the bottom of my draw for a year, waiting for those days when I feel an undeniable give in the elastic of my trackies, and decide to try them on again, inevitably to be disappointed and shunned back to the bottom of the draw. It's not you dear white jeans, it's me! These pants deserve to fulfil their destiny, and what self respecting white jean does not dream of one day being part of a cruise collection?

I am also taking seven books, which also sounds excessive, but I am sure will provide good amour from nosey Americans by the pool. Film for a polaroid style instant camera so I can be sure of having some developed photos from my trip (my poor rolls from Europe still weep in a bag in the corner of my room). The homework that I should be finishing now but am putting off to right this (so I'll blame you). And a few basic toiletries. So how does a full suitcase this make?

And where will I put all the havaianas that I bring home to apologise for making my friends sit through a blog about packing my suitcase?