Excellent list, I hope OP see’s it!

Also, I should have added a caveat to that last bullet: learn how to make friends without becoming an alcoholic. Meetup.com is usually the answer for finding readily available like minded people interested in the same physical activity as you, but meeting a whole bunch of new people at once can be overwhelming.

Good luck man!

As someone that left the US a decade and a half ago, here’s some things to go ahead and start getting answers to so you don’t have to figure it out when the time comes:

• Figure out how to get a bank account (hopefully you’ve already worked this one out before arriving)
• Where to buy toiletries and medicine. Specifically deodorant. The UK is mostly spray deodorant where as I’m a stick deodorant person. At one point I was just bringing 4 sticks of deodorant back with me after every trip home. I’m not sure which way NZ leans but it was definitely something I hadn’t considered before
• Where to buy socks and underwear you’re comfortable with
• Figure out how the health service/insurance works. Go ahead and book dentist and doctors appointments 6 months in advance if possible so you get in the habit.
• Figure out how paying taxes works
• If you’re a US citizen, remember you’re still required to file taxes with the IRS every year.
• Learn how to make friends. I still haven’t figured this one out. Let me know if you do.

Yeah, walking away from every person you’ve ever known and every support system you’ve ever had in hopes of a better future with no real promises to fall back on if it doesn’t work out isn’t courageous at all.

At least 2…

I actually stopped using mine a long time ago, and every time I get a new laptop, I remove it. Not because I hate it, but because I like it. Even after modifying the acceleration settings to where I like them though, the repeated stress of pushing on the nub eventually start to develop dendonitis in my finger.

After I’ve trained myself to only use the trackpad I put the nub back on. Partly because it’s so iconic it just looks wrong without it, and partly because I want to avoid conversations with guest about my growing clit graveyard (although I guess I could just not leave them in a cup on the coffee table where everyone can see)