Operating at 50%

Today I concluded that I have, unwittingly and unintentionally, been on a mental vacation for about the past week. I have been allowing myself to sleep until 9am almost daily, ignoring my BarBri homework in lieu of my own "assignments" to myself (which are obviously less rigorous than the BarBri homework), and taking "study breaks" to do things like plan my year abroad.

This is clearly not the best and highest use of myself or my bar study summer. Rather than keeping my nose to the grindstone and making sure I only have to do this once, I've been goofing off and making excuses for myself. I even had the nerve to ask Leigh if she would come back up here with me next summer if I had to study for and retake the exam. I am a little ashamed of myself.

I came to this conclusion today when I realized that I most consistently operate at about 50% accuracy in practice questions. Sometimes I'll really nail it by getting 14/18 questions correct or by writing an essay that hits all the high points and several "bonus" points too. More often than not, however, I do just well enough to not feel like an idiot and not quite well enough to feel like I have a strong certainty of passing this test.

So starting tomorrow I'm getting back in the saddle. I need to keep up with my BarBri assignments and try to make up for lost time by really focusing on multi-state practice questions (from what I can understand of the grading process, the MBE alone can make a major difference in having a passing scaled score). Wish me luck!

thoroughly sucky day

Today was spent wrestling with the installation of Windows XP on my Macbook. I know, I know this is completely unnatural and I am possibly endangering my mortal soul. Alas, the bar exam requires it to run the exam software to type my essays, thus it is essential. The whole program has been fighting with me all day long and I still haven't figured it out (I started working on this about 5 hours ago). 

I'm getting a migraine. A real one, and I never get migraines. I also wasted a beautiful day indoors, and I didn't even spend that time studying. Just wrestling with my computer. What a waste. I don't know what to do about this now because I have exhausted my abilities at this point. 

Also, I've noticed in the past several weeks that I am being called "Ma'am" by approximately 90% of the strangers I interact with. This is a little disturbing to me. 

I procrastinate by planning trips several months in advance

After doing a little research and listening to Leigh say things like "you do realize how expensive Europe is, right?" I have made some revisions to my side trip travel plans.

Toussaints: I think I am going to center this holiday around attending Taize Worship near Tours for a long weekend, maybe even a week. It's simple living, usually in tents, and the days are filled with workshops and singing in different languages. The whole experience costs about 7 euros per day, which is really just a donation to the monastery, and it includes most meals. Since my train trip will take me through Paris in both directions I think I will stop off for a day to take a free/cheap walking tour of the major sights in Paris with a new volunteer based tourism organization. I'll get a small dose of culture and a big dose of spirituality within my budget.

Christmas: Leigh and I have hashed out the basic details of this already and have decided to start in Amsterdam, make a side trip to Maastricht, then hit Brussels and Paris before spending the majority of the trip relaxing in Nice. While in BeNeLux and Paris we'll either couchsurf or rent apartments from Craigslist and will take free walking tours available in those cities. We also want to see the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris (if it's not closed due to strike).

L'hivre (February):

Tunisia is still a possibility for February, but depending on my secondary income may not be an option. Plus, traveling to northern Africa would be a pretty big undertaking.

So I've come up with a few possible "Plan B" trips that are certain to be just as fun and might fit the bill a little better. One idea would be to go to Toulous and Carcassonne to visit a really cool woman I met in Costa Rica who has recently relocated to the area. Carcassonne is a "fortified" city, meaning it's basically surrounded like a fortress by medieval castle structures. Then I realized that Carcassonne is only 2 hours from Barcelona by car, so that could turn out to be a really fun trip all around and it doesn't require a flight to Africa. Another option would be to visit Prague, which is a very affordable part of Europe from what I understand.

Spring break: I will take my Italy tour or die trying!

I also did a little more research on Monaco and found out I could probably see most of it in a day or a few evening trips. It's basically casinos, fancy hotels, and night clubs. A lot like Vegas (but I've never been to Vegas either). I have a slightly perverse fantasy about taking the bus to Monaco for the evening, hitting the clubs, then cabbing it back to the Nice area. I'm so not a party girl, but it does sound fun, right?

For now I should probably study more and plan trips less. I mean, it would really suck to be having a great time in France only to have it ruined because I find out I failed the bar exam!

OK, class is about to start.

Potential/Semi-planned European Side Trips

I'm not doing this to brag, I'm doing it because studying for the bar exam and wasting a beautiful Alaskan summer PLUS being away from the people/cats that I love makes me really sad. So I'm choosing to spend my free time getting excited about all the cool stuff I'm going to see/do while working in France.

First I should preface this by describing my job in France. I will be a teaching assistant to a variety of English teachers in French public schools. I do not yet know precisely which town/city or which age group I have been assigned (though it is probably either high school kids or college kids). I will likely work between 10 and 15 hours per week, not including traveling between schools (if necessary) or days when the transportation workers go on strike 'cause that's pretty much a "snow day" in American terms. The French school system has about 7 weeks off from classes between September and June. I will be working from October till about mid-April (I think) so I get all of the breaks the kids get.

My holidays are as follows (Zone B):

Vacances de la Toussaint	samedi 25 octobre 2008	jeudi 6 novembre 2008
Vacances de Noël	samedi 20 décembre 2008	lundi 5 janvier 2009
Vacances d'hiver	samedi 21 février 2009	lundi 9 mars 2009
Vacances de printemps	samedi 18 avril 2009	lundi 4 mai 2009
Vacances d'été	jeudi 2 juillet 2009	mercredi 2 septembre 2009

That's A LOT of time off and I get paid the same, moderate sum no matter how many days off the kids get. This leaves me with the great opportunity to see a lot of Europe so I've compiled a list, naturally, of places/groups of places I would like to go on my various vacations. As per usual, if any world travelers out there have any tips or ideas aside from what I have here I am all ears:

Toussaints (all saints, end of October):

This is a really long break by American standards and only a few weeks after I start my job, so I'll definitely use this time to get settled but I also want to go on a short trip, maybe 4 days or so. I initially thought I should go to Germany (Berlin and Nuremburg) and Prague during this time because it won't be too cold. Then I realized I don't really want to go to Germany, though I'm sure Prague is amazing. Now I'm thinking I'll spend a long weekend in Paris, then attend Taize Worship near Tours, and maybe even take the train to Bordeaux and go cycling through wine country. I'm a little concerned about cost though because Paris and Bordeaux are both quite expensive, so this one is still in the "maybe" category.

Christmas:

Leigh is planning to fly to Nice for Christmas and spend my two week vacation with me. We definitely want to just chill out near Nice for part of her trip, but I'm also planning for us to brave the cold weather and visit the BeNeLux countries, specifically Amsterdam, Maastritch (my family was named for this city), Brussels, and Luxembourg and then Paris for sure.

L'hivre (February):

I guess the French think that being in school for a month and a half following Christmas is just too taxing, so they take a nice long break from it. I have two different ideas for this break. The first is to stay in Nice mostly and take short trips to the Alpine region (Grenoble, Switzerland) to enjoy the snow and maybe even go skiing (assuming I can afford to??). Another idea, which would likely be a similar cost, is to visit Tunisia for about 7 days. Tunisia is a small country in Northeast Africa bordering Algeria. It is extremely safe and English and French is widely spoken. Theoretically, I could fly from Nice to Tunis, visit Carthage and a mediterranean beach town complete with tours and meals for about $550 for the whole thing. This idea is squarely in the "maybe" category and depends on a lot of factors, but I'm glad I heard about the idea because it sounds like it would be a once in a lifetime kind of trip.

Spring break:

This is the trip I absolutely must take. I'm planning to tour Italy by train. I'll either get a rail pass and do a loop going north to south on one side of the country then back to Nice on the other or save a little time and fly one way to a southern point and take the train back up. I'm not certain of my route yet, but I am thinking something like Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Milan. I have a long break here and would like to leisurely (and hopefully inexpensively) make my way through Italy.

In addition to these long trips, Nice is ideally located for weekend trips to Grenoble, Paris and Toulouse (3-5 hours each by train) as well as day trips to Cannes and Monaco (each about 20 mins from Nice).

This is a lot of traveling on a very small stipend. How will I afford it, you ask? For the most part I am not sure that I can because when you travel there are many unforeseen expenses. The visa I am getting will allow me to work a second job, so that might help, and I can always offer private tutoring. There are also some great resources for traveling when you are under 26 in France and under 25 in the rest of Europe. For one I can get a Carte 12-25 and get crazy discounts on transportation and I'm planning to see about the couch surfing phenomenon. Of course, eating is always optional as long as there is wine!

Day off...sort of.

The last two Saturdays I've had class, due to a clerical error at BarBri. This is fine, I guess because we got both of our Saturday classes out of the way, but I was 100% burnt out by noon yesterday. My calendar had me doing A LOT of essays and MPT practices yesterday and today, but my heart just was not in it. I kept taking naps and stuff and essentially did nothing. Then this evening I made myself sit down and organize all the crap I had to do. It's A LOT OF CRAP TO DO but it made me feel better to have it all stacked up in front of me and tabbed in the books. So I spent most of today watching CSI Season 9 (until Grissom's last episode, then what's the point after that?) and did a single assignment- the practice MPT.

So tomorrow I have no less than 3 hours worth of timed essays to complete in addition to quite a bit of reading to prepare for my Monday night class. I hate falling behind like this, but after 14 days of consecutively working really hard I just could not get my brain in gear. I think I'll do a little reading tonight to unburden myself somewhat for tomorrow, but it's still a lot of catching up. Plus I keep feeling like I should be re-studying the first few subjects we went over because I'm scared that information has fallen out of my head or been replaced with all this new information.

I really hate what I'm doing right now. I've started to think of it as eating a massive bowl of cooked spinach- I'm told that it is good for me and I'm sure I will be better off for it, but about halfway through I start to get really nauseous and think about quitting.

Every time I talk to Leigh I wonder if I could have studied effectively from home. I would have saved rent money, been in more comfortable living situations, had someone to help me with the little things like running errands and cooking, and I would have been able to spend my down time with Leigh and Juneau. Then I remind myself that I came all the way out here so I can be completely focused and that only thing I can do now is do my very best to make sure this time is not spent in vain.

So today was my day off (sort of, since I still did a few schoolish things) and tomorrow it's back in the saddle. I don't think there's any question that I'm working really hard at this task (6-8 hours per day in the library plus 3+ hours of lectures every evening) so I only hope that when I sit down to take the bar exam I feel that the questions are within my grasp. I just hope that I'm spending my study time wisely, retaining as much as possible. Mostly I hope that in the end I will pass the first time around and be able to move on with my life, calling this time period a useful, albeit painful and unpleasant, few months.

Feeling Really Down, Then A Little Better

The title of this post really sums up the past few days. My stress levels were increasing steadily but I was in denial about it. Then I started to notice that everybody, yes everybody, was starting to piss me off.

It became an internal dialogue much like this:

"Why doesn't anybody understand how difficult this process is for me?"

"Are people really so oblivious that they cannot comprehend the magnitude of the next few weeks?"

"Seriously, it's time for everyone to just leave me alone and respect my need for space, quiet, and focus."

"I am now starting to see how lawyers become so elitist. You do something really hard like going to law school and passing the bar exam and, along the way, you find that the only other people who properly understand and respect the difficulty of your undertakings are other lawyers and professionals. No wonder we think we are Gods and no wonder we tend to only befriend other stuck up professionals."

OK, I'm really not proud of the last one, but that is the point at which I started to realize that taking action to relieve my stress would be far more beneficial to, well, everyone than continuing to be pissed off in my head. For the record, I do realize that all of those angry, mean thoughts were extremely self-centered and were doing absolutely nothing to help me achieve success in my current struggle/task.

So right after reaching a certain tipping point today at which I was unbelievably pissed off and feeling defeated, I decided to use some unwanted free time (the UAA shuttle decided not to run for a full hour during midday when I needed it most) I ran an errand in the car that later helped me to focus on my studies. This means I went back to the house and packed my lunch...haha!

I honestly believe this was a turning point for my attitude. By getting something small done in what would otherwise have been lost study time, I then had the necessary propulsion to get a LOT of work/errands done today including:

1) running an errand resulting in an $80

2) completing my homework for class tonight

3) reviewing notes from last week and outlining notes from last night

4) successfully requesting a local BarBri teacher to agree to review some additional practice essays following my not-so-great "graded" essay last week (2 out of 5, with 3 being passing; it was difficult moment in my life).

5) I also made the unambiguous decision that my days will simply have to get started earlier due to transit issues. When I wake up at my leisure I usually don't start studying until nearly noon. Then if I have errands I lose another hour or so of study time. If I get up around 7am I'll be at the library with my nose in the books by 10am at latest, which leaves tons of time for more practice questions (which I am told are the holy grail to passing the Bar Exam).

Enough exam talk, on to more fun notes:

I've decided it's time to pick a day for Denali so I have something to look forward to. This will be an entire day of fun without any studying. I'm thinking one of the days immediately following the class ending. I'll drive up in the early morning, do some hiking/touring/etc and come back late at night. The next day I'll hit the books again.

Another fun thing I just learned about tonight from a classmate is that a local woman teaches fly fishing by appointment. Not sure how much her lessons cost, but this might be a really fun way to spend a day relaxing and learning something new. Besides, I need to learn to fish if I'm going to move up here, right? That makes it a valuable skill, perhaps even a business networking skill ; )

New MacBook

Got my new MacBook Pro in the mail today : )

It's all shiny and new and the graphics are pretty great. I watched True Blood on it tonight and was very impressed. I swear, quadrupling your harddrive size really does the trick!

Anyway, signed up with the Alaska Bar Assoc to take my exam on my laptop today, saw "Up" which was awesome, and studied and went to class of course. If today's class is any indication this is going to be a really painful week. Not only do we have another Saturday class this weekend, but this week our lectures are 3.5 to 4 hours long each. That means I don't get out of class until 10pm and have to deal with 20 very unhappy students. Plus it screws up my schedule so today I had lunch at noon and by the time I got home from class at 10:30pm I thought I might have to eat my hand.

So yeah, that's my post for today. Not much going on except that I treated myself to a movie and got new toys in the mail. One of these days I'll block off a whole day for fun stuff and drive to Denali or Seward and I'll have pictures and stories to post....well, I can dream, right?

Saturday Lectures and Thinking of the Future

Today was the first of two Saturday morning lectures for the bar prep course. Honestly, it was pretty painful. It was four hours long and the subject was contracts, which I barely managed to sit through as a 1L. Following the lecture, which about half my students left after 3 hours of (I guess they just couldn't take it anymore- can't really blame them) I was STARVING because I had not anticipated the additional hour of school this morning, so I treated myself to Chinese food at a lunch place. It wasn't great, but it was nice to eat something hot and not American, or I guess I should just say it was nice to not have to eat my own cooking, which is not good. 

That was pretty much it for today minus studying, which I'm currently taking a break from. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow because I don't have anywhere to be all day. I think I might camp out at the library and catch up on some review and maybe even go to the gym if I have time. There is a cookout downtown associated with the Pride festivities at 4pm, so I'll probably go to that too (can you say "free food"?).

This summer has been my first Anchorage experience and so far it's going pretty well. The people seem friendly and laid back, the terrain is easy to navigate by car once you get a handle on the whole downtown = North concept and the fact that the numbered streets get smaller as you go North, unlike East coast cities like NYC where the numbers increase to the North or even Seattle where the smallest numbered streets border the water to the West. Anyway, I'm getting a feel for it. Otherwise it's pretty nice in terms of quality of life too. There are a lot of recognizable businesses and brands available plus some regional and local favorites. The touristy part of downtown is fairly compact so that locals can enjoy their daily lives without much encumbrance. 

After about a week of reporting my discoveries to Leigh I think she is finally sold on the idea of moving to Alaska, especially if it's Anchorage. For some reason the idea of Anchorage is less scary to her than Juneau or anywhere in Southeast even though she has visited most of Southeast. Anyway, I'm just glad that she's on board with the idea more now than before and is willing to let me find work wherever it may be when the time comes. It looks like I will be moving up to Alaska permanently in late August or so of 2010 after my stint abroad. If I get a job offer prior to that I will obviously go wherever that is, but if not I'll most likely start in Juneau to look for work and fly to Anchorage/other parts of the state as needed for interviews. The former option is clearly better, even if it's only a year-long position like a clerkship, because I always prefer to have a plan. 

As part of Leigh's "getting onboard" process she started looking at houses and neighborhoods in the Anchorage area and found the cutest, most perfect house I have ever seen. It's a large A-frame south of the city (about 30 mins from downtown) on a road called Honey Bear Lane. Too cute, right?

Here's a picture:

This is the view from one side of the porch. The other side of the porch points more directly toward the inlet. Gorgeous, right?

Here is the interior in the common area. This part looks just amazing and one whole side is large windows, which is not great for heating in the winter but very aesthetically pleasing. There's a large loft space at the top (I think the ad said it had 3 levels altogether including the loft space) and a gorgeous kitchen and it was constructed in 2004, so everything works and is up to date. : ) 

The only down-side to this house in particular is that it's a little bit too big, even for a family of 4. It's has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, which would be a beast to keep warm in the winter and a pain in the ass to keep clean. Not that it really matters because this house will not be on the market when we're looking to buy, but it was really exciting to see a house in the most perfect style you can imagine for yourself when you're thinking of moving someplace new. 

Oh, did I mention this house is listed for $490,000? Yeah, not sure it will ever be an option for us and especially not for the first 3-5 years because we'll both be just starting with our new careers. Maybe a smaller one will pop up in about 3 years for sale and we can snatch it up then???

Enough for now. I still need to finish 18 questions of MBE practice and 3 practice essays for the state test. You know, I like not being distracted by such mundane things as television and a social life, but right now I would really love to veg out and flip through the channels for about an hour (to reset my brain or whatever it is about TV that gives you a much-needed break).

Impulse Buys

Today I bought a new Mac on impulse. Tomorrow I am being admitted to a psychiatric ward.

My current computer was purchased as an older model in 2006. It has 512 mb hard drive and freezes up on a regular basis these days. During class earlier this week I began having serious second thoughts about choosing to hand write my bar exam as opposed to using ExamSoft software and typing my essays. 

My reasoning is this:

1) I have really bad handwriting

2) My thumb goes number after about 20 minutes of writing anything by hand. I have to stretch it to get circulation back and my handwriting suffers even more

3) the essay time limits are the same whether you're typing or writing

4) I'm scared to death about taking this test, so I think I should get every edge I can

5) one day in the very near future I will be handed 6 short substantive questions to be answered in only 3 hours. Then I will be handed 3 long substantive questions to be answered in another 3 hours. Yikes...

So I decided to type my exam and was even willing to do some serious modification to my computer to make sure it would make it through the exam. Then I find out that ExamSoft requires Mac OS Leopard, which I don't have and which would cost me $100. So logically I decided to spend $1,099 on a new computer that I need anyway and would almost guarantee to get me through the test unscathed.  

Can I afford this? Not really, but I have plenty of room on my credit card and I get air miles for my purchase (do you note the tone of rationalization?) and I can pay it off slowly in small payments even while I'm in France. I can sell my old Mac for a small sum and I also got a free Ipod and printer out of the deal because it's that time of year, so in all I think I made a good choice.

In other news, my class is trucking along at a nice click. We've covered real property, Alaska property, Alaska family law, criminal law and criminal procedure and Alaska crimes. Tomorrow we start contracts. I'm feeling like I'm falling behind a little bit, so I think I might camp out in the library on Sunday and try to play catch up a little bit. In the mean time I have a Saturday morning lesson tomorrow and should probably start thinking about getting some sleep.

Stutter Starts

Yesterday was a crazy busy/accomplished day. I was out of bed and doing stuff by 9am, which was the first time I was alert at that hour since flying up here. As an aside, this is a bit odd because Alaska is 4 hours BEHIND the east coast, which means you would think I'd be an "early to bed, early to rise" kinda girl in the first few weeks. That's how it was last summer. I would wake up naturally at 5:30 am and start my day then totally crash by about 9pm. Anyway, for some reason my body is just not having any of that this summer...

OK, so up by 9am and doing stuff. By 11 I had already put a small dent in my studying and was at UAA for the 11:30 lap swim. I swam a mile total (with many, many breaks), which I thought was a good starting point for completing the 1 mile Emerald City swim in Seattle in August. After my swim I took the UAA shuttle to University Center to finish studying and prep for my class that night (as course administrator I have to do some basic prepping and I get keys to the room, so it's a nice place to study alone sometimes). 

I finish ALL of my work for my class except for 2 or 3 multiple choice questions that I just couldn't quite fit into the afternoon before my 6pm class. At this point I was DYING for some coffee but didn't know where to get any without getting back into the car and hunting down an espresso stand. So I toughed it out, even through the essay writing workshop we had last night. By the time I got home I was literally collapsing and slept in this morning.

Today I let myself sleep until a little after 10am. My body was so tired from my first swim in 6 months and my brain was tired from writing essays and breaking down property rights on practice MBEs. I did the bare minimum amount of work to prep for class tonight, did NOT swim this afternoon, and then attended class. Now I'm home and feeling guilty for 1) failing, once again, to make flashcards for Alaska Family law, 2) failing to go to the pool on Day 2 of swimming and 3) eating two really yummy cookies I bought at Costco this week (since it's Costco I had to buy A LOT of cookies and they are GOOD. I tell myself I have to eat a few every day so they don't get stale and my purchase was not done in vain- nice rationalization, eh?).  The good news is that I feel much more rested today than yesterday and I discovered a coffee place that is walking distance from my class, and the coffee is pretty cheap too! 

So yeah, hopefully tomorrow I will get back into the pool and do ALL of my homework. Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to do something genuinely fun to give my mind a rest and remind myself that I am, in fact, in Alaska during this incredibly beautiful summer. Hopefully I will find time and energy to learn all of this material and pass this fucking test the first time so that I never, ever have to do this again.

On that note, I have some property review waiting for me and perhaps some criminal law as well, though I'm sure my bed will beckon me before getting to all of it.

An Horse and An Unproductive Day

First, An Horse:

Newish band from Australia I heard of from Tegan and Sara (because I know them, we're old buddies... if reading their blog counts as being buddies. OK, OK T & S talked about the band on their website and I totally did as I was told and bought the album..whatever!). 

I digress- so I heard a few snippets of the album recently released by An Horse and thought it was cool and catchy so I bought it. The album was only $7.99 on itunes so I was suspicious that it might mildly suck, but it is AMAZING! Every song on this album is catchy, good, well-written, complex, etc. The lead singer's voice is interesting and the instrumental sections are each really interesting and, like I said above, pretty complex. If you like Tegan and Sara but like something a little harder I think you'll like An Horse. They also remind me a bit of Bloc Party but with a little less of an electronic sound, a little more indie. 

So I've been playing the An Horse album on a loop for a few days now. 

Unproductive Day:

Today is the second Monday of my BarBri class. I had every intention of achieving the following goals today:

1) go swimming at UAA (1,500 yards)

2) do all homework for today's class

3) review notes from last week that I'm not sure about

4) go to class

I only achieved #4, and I only did that because I'm the course administrator and if I don't go to class nobody can get into the classroom! When I woke up I realized exactly how much homework and studying I had assigned myself that day, that I didn't have any food in the fridge that could be packed into a sack lunch for the library, and that lap swim would take up about 2 hours of what would otherwise be study time.

So I accomplished these tasks today:

1) checked my email

2) read for class tonight

3) went to Costco and bought a few things I needed and a few things I wanted

4) went to Fred Meyer for office supplies (flash cards, anyone?)

5) spent $50 (see above)

6) finished 98% of my homework for class tonight

7) attended class

While I did more different things today than I had hoped for, few of those things were on my original list. What's more I REALLY wanted to go swimming today (*she whined*)! So now that I have the office supplies I need to study, food for packing my lunch for the library, and a better understanding of the passage of time I believe that tomorrow will be better.

Speaking of tomorrow, I'm going to try to unwind and get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. With that I leave you with this from An Horse:

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Missing Person

A guy I went to high school with has recently announced on Facebook that his little sister has been missing for over a week. It think she's about 20 years old or so. She drove away from her family's home in idyllic Abingdon, VA 9 days ago and hasn't been heard from since. Everyone in the community and friends of the family (even those as distant as myself) are really freaked out about it, not only because it's really scary and sad for their family but also because it brings these kinds of events really close to home. This wasn't a kidnapping or disappearance in a major city. It's a complete mystery right now because Abingdon is a tiny, nearly crime-free community in southwest Virginia and all of the surrounding cities are extremely safe too. 

Anyway, this has been on my mind for a few days since I heard about it and just felt like sharing. It's so sad and scary. I really feel for the family and hope this results in a happy ending. 

Edit: This was posted today:

"A[xxx] finally got in touch with us today. She is fine. Apparently she got a new job that involves some traveling and didn't want to tell us until she knew it was a sure thing. As you can imagine I am as angry as I am relieved. I am sorry to have made such a big deal out of it but when someone you love goes missing for 8 days you have to do anything in your power to figure out why. Thanks again for your kind words and prayers!"

Girdwood and Family Law

Today was my first Saturday in Southcentral Alaska and my first day off from classes! My study schedule says I'm supposed to review Real Property and write 3 short essays and 1 long essay on Alaska Family Law.

Instead, I drove south as far as Girdwood and then took a nap when I got home. Girdwood, you'll recall, is home to Ted Stevens who was in the press a lot last summer while I was working in Juneau with a rather vocal group who did not care much for Senator Stevens...but that's another post. One of my coworkers at SEACC used to live in Girdwood too. 

Anyway, my initial plan was to just go downtown and check out the farmer's market (i.e. Quaint Tourist Trap) and wander around downtown. I drove downtown, found a great parking space and window shopped at the farmer's market for nearly an hour. After I'd seen everything and realized I couldn't afford any of it, I walked around the downtown area itself. I bought postcards at a tourist shop, ate a reindeer hot dog (yum!), and went into the Federal Building for maps and stuff. 

After a quick stop back at the house I decided to just drive south and get out of the city. Anchorage itself just doesn't feel like Alaska the way Juneau does. I think it's because the mountains are just far enough away that they are not a constant presence in your sights, so I wanted to get away from the buildings a bit and see what the mountains are like on the road system. 

The drive was really nice. I stopped at a few overlooks and took pictures, saw a waterfall, etc. 

I passed small communities called Bird and Indian, respectively, and then went on to Girdwood to see what this place was like. I was imagining a hippy enclave and pretty much found a wide spot in the road with essence of hippyness everywhere, plus some really nice ski lodges. I grabbed a cup of coffee at the Grind & Girdwood Bookstore (one tiny room for the town's only bookstore and only coffee shop), wandered around downtown and drove up to the big hotel for a look. On my way out I stopped at the Great Alaska Tourist Trap store, which had some cool stuff that I couldn't afford. 

Here's my route:

View Larger Map

Now that I have sufficiently wasted my entire day, I'm going to hit the books. I have subjects to review and essays to write...that is why I'm up here, isn't it???

PS: Here's my new tattoo (Leigh got the same one on her arm 'cause we're cool like that):

Zero Motivation

BarBri Day 3- Real Property reading and review. I can't seem to get motivated. I'm blaming jetlag at the moment but it might just be laziness, who knows? 

I've "read" the necessary pages for today. I use "" because my eyes moved over the words but I'm not so sure I actually digested any of the information. Now I have about 2 hours to review the 30 pages of worksheets we did in class yesterday. It's not as daunting as it sounds because there's not a lot of info on each page, but it's still a lot to learn. I was supposed to make an outline of that info today but just couldn't get my shit together. 

I hope I can get really motivated by the end of the week or I'm toast for Property on the Bar Exam.

In other news, it's kind of hot here! My Mac tells me it's 55 degrees but it feels more like 65. I'm thinking I'm used to Buffalo where there's no direct sunlight so temperatures feel cooler. It's been pretty clear here and pretty. Once you drive far enough to any edge of the city the mountains are beautiful. Hopefully I will have the time and freedom to do a little exploring in the coming weeks. In the meantime I'm just trying really hard to not fall behind and make the most of my time in this class and this city. 

The Anchorage Pride festival starts next Saturday. I hope to attend a few events in spite of my evening classes and study schedule. Based on the events posted online I'm going to venture to say that Anchorage does a better job of Pride than Buffalo (two words: mud wrestling), which seems strange to me. I'll give a full report after the festivities. 

OK, enough is enough. I MUST crack down and get through my notes from last night...or maybe I'll make a phone call to pass the time....

Arrived in Anchorage

My flight got into Anchorage at 2pm yesterday, about 30 minutes late. Apparently Canadians are even really nice when it comes to waiting for late passengers to board the plane, so we waited for some people coming in from Toronto on another flight (the later one I almost booked) so they could catch the only flight to Anchorage yesterday. Anyway, we were a smidge behind schedule.

Class went off without a hitch yesterday. I gobbled down some food on the way to the campus, got the classroom key and went to town setting up the room for everyone. The people at BarBri had me scared that all sorts of things would go wrong and that it would be a really tough job. Seriously? I just unpacked boxes and checked people off a list. No big deal. 

Anyway, after yesterday hauling around 85 lbs of luggage and then a stack of boxes taller than me I'm pretty sore now. I got home at about 8pm AST and was completely asleep by 9pm AST (1am EST). All told I had a 21 hour day yesterday, complete with physical exertion and having to concentrate on a class. Crazy! I slept until 9am AST, or about 1pm today, which sounds about right for the kind of day I had yesterday.

Now I actually have a lot of things to do today: set up my living space here in Anchorage, go to Costco for some basic stuff, and I should set aside about 8 hours to study for class tonight (this might be overkill in the early stages of the class, but I'm a little paranoid about passing the bar the first time). 

By the way, for all of you nay sayers out there- A study was conducted a few years ago that found that the Alaska Bar Exam ranked approximately second hardest in the nation. Not New York, Alaska! The reason for this is that, prior to 1983, the Alaska bar did not write its own test but instead required attorneys to take and pass the California bar exam at California standards. Today the Alaska Bar writes its own test, but follows similar principals in the writing process (they test over 2 1/2 days, not just two days, etc). Luckily Alaska has gone to extra lengths to ensure that the grading is as fair as possible, but also doesn't budge if you are half a point away from passing, etc. Anyway, I'm a little nervous and have decided to study my ass off for the next two months.

But first I should go to Costco because I'm hungry. 

Buffalo-Toronto-Vancouver-Anchorage

Yesterday morning Leigh and I left Buffalo for Toronto so I could catch my 6:30am flight this morning to Anchorage. We got a dirt cheap, but nice, hotel room near the airport and had plans to run into Toronto to walk around and enjoy the nice weather before going to bed early. 

Leigh and I have driven across the border many, many times in the past 3 years, but yesterday was a special day. Yesterday Leigh was cranky and hungry and I was impatient while driving. As we approached Peace Bridge some idiot stopped in the right turn only lane toward Peace Bridge with no intention on going right. So I did what any reasonable Buffalo driver would do: I created a lane on the shoulder of the road and drove over the curb a little bit to get around him. This didn't save me any time, but whatever, I was right and he was wrong! Leigh yelled at me for going around him I told her to shut up because she was being a brat, etc.

About 5 minutes later we're in line for the border and other drivers start telling us we have a flat tire. Fantastic. So we have just enough air to get through the border then pull over. Since it was my fault I had to hoof it across the four-lane highway and find a very, very nice border worker to help me get to Canadian Tire and replace the thing. Grand total of $130CAD just because I was impatient. Grr...

Anyway, that was pretty exhausting so we nixed the going into Toronto idea. Instead we just hung out at the hotel near the airport and went to a restaurant called Arizona or something. We didn't know this beforehand, but it's basically a Hooters with really mediocre food. The waitresses obviously work there during the afternoons and then walk 3 doors down to a strip club called The Landing Strip to finish out the night (I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried).

This morning we woke up at 4:30 am and I was in line at the airport by 5:15 or so. I must say this: I love Canada and generally think that Canadians do most things better than Americans. However, Canadian airports are really disorganized and confusing. This morning I was hauling around about 85 lbs of luggage and every time I got into a line I'd be sent to another line. Seriously?! Can't I just get into ONE line, drop off my stuff and go on with my life? 

Anyway, the flight to Vancouver was uneventful and long. I slept for about 2 hours of it, maybe longer. Then I made my way through US customs (in Vancouver, weird) and bought a bagel at Tim Hortons (oddly enough, the bagels are not the same!). My flight to Anchorage seems to be on schedule in spite of reports I've received the past few weeks of volcanic activity causing visibility issues. With any luck I'll be in Alaska by 1:30pm AST and may even have time to fit in a short nap before going to my first BarBri lecture/first day of work as course administrator at 4pm AST. 

More later.