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).
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