Need help on picklist

Need help on picklist

Hi

I am fairly new to jQuery and have been trying out some stuff and now I am stuck with an issue. I am using jQuery in Salesforce standard page which I cannot edit, but I can run jQuery on that page. The requirement is to convert a field which is of type input text to picklist. I am able to change the input text to picklist, but when I submit the page the selected value in the picklist is not getting stored in the input text field.  This is what I have now:

<script src="/resource/jQueryLatest" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
var j$ = jQuery.noConflict();
j$(document).ready(function(){
      j$("[name*=country]").val( function(){
            return j$(j$(this).replaceWith('<select id="justId"><option>India</option><option>US</option>                      </select>')).text();
      }).hide();
});
</script>

What ever selection I make in the picklist should be stored in the input text field. Any idea how to go about it?

Regards
Sameer