il est finis

Not sure if that title is spelled right....I started drinking just after noon and it's midnight now...

Finished the Bar Exam today. I have no clue if I passed or not. I'm trying to not think about it. Nothing I can do about it at this point. As my classmate said, whether I spend the next 3 months pretending I passed or assuming I failed, if I did in fact fail I'm going to feel just as shitty either way when I get the results in October. So in the mean time I'll just assume I did great and start living my life. If it turns out I failed then I'll feel shitty for a little while then start studying again and try again later. Whatever. Life happens. Shit happens. And sometimes people fail stuff. Instead of feeling like shit every time we fail at something difficult we should just keep trying at it if it really means something to us and then celebrate when we succeed.

Today I succeeded in completing a very difficult, very long 3-day exam. I took an 8 week class and studied my ass off then sat for the scariest test of my life. I lived through it. I answered every question and finished every essay. How many people can say they've taken the Alaska Bar Exam? Not many, in the big scheme of things, so that's something.

So I completed it and then a group of us started to celebrate right away. We had lunch and Bear Tooth, with drinks. Then I went on a walk with a classmate in a cute neighborhood. After that we met up with about 5 people again later for a happy hour at Humpy's, which turned into a full on law geek party with appetizers and drinks. After a few hours those of us wanting to keep the party going wound up at a seedy karaoke bar called the Wood Shed. Now it's about midnight and I've been going hard since 6am, testing then eating and drinking....what a day.

Tomorrow I plan to sleep as long as my body will allow. Then I'll start piecing my life back together and figure out what to do next. Seattle on Sunday...... In the mean time, I'm exhausted and need to sleep.

Peace out.

Bar Exam: Day 2

I'm exhausted so I'll keep it short. I took the MBE today. It was 6 hours of filling in scantron bubbles. The morning session kicked my ass but the afternoon went pretty smoothly. I have hope, but do not feel that I am in the clear.

My landlord's family treated me to a nice dinner tonight. Lots of comfort food. Now I have about 2 hours to study the remaining Alaska topics we're being tested on tomorrow morning. I have 6 short essays in 3 hours. Fun times.

Anyway, time's awasting and I am going to pass out here pretty soon.

Bar Exam: Day 1

Alright folks, I am officially 2 days away from not blogging about the Bar Exam anymore. If I happen to have any readers I know for a fact that you all are sick and tired of me writing about studying, not having a life, being broke, feeling sick/sad, and just wanting this thing to be over with.....

....but I have two more days of testing so you have two more days of reading, so HA!

Today we started typing at 8:30 am or so.

Wait, I should back up. Today I woke up at 6am, after getting up at 2am because my body seems to have decided I only need 6 hours of sleep on any given day. I laid awake from 2 until about 4, then snoozed until my alarm went off at 6am. I was in the shower by 6:05 when Leigh called me to make sure I hadn't overslept. Sweet Leigh, always looking out for me.

I was at the testing site by 7:30, about an hour before we got started. It was nice to set up my computer and pace around the church a little bit (yes, we're testing at a church. no, I don't know why) to calm my nerves. It helped a little. By 8:15 I was jumping out of my skin and willing the minutes to pass so I could get started and be put out of my misery. Once the test started I began to feel a little better. Some expected things were in the exam today and a few unexpected. I can't talk about the actual questions or answers, but I can say that on one of the questions I had practiced pretty much the same fact set last week and can say if I don't get full credit for that one there is no justice in the world, none at all! I got pretty stumped on another question and semi-stumped on the other essay. We only had 3 essays this morning because they were "long" essays. In the afternoon I wrote 2 MPTs. You can google that if you really care what it's all about.

I can honestly say I didn't bomb it today, but other that that I have no clue how I did. The MBE is tomorrow and I never have any clue how I'm doing with those questions until they're graded. Sometimes I'll be so sure I'm correct and come to find there is a weird nuance to the law I had never heard of. Sometimes I'm sure I'm taking a wild guess and it just happens to be correct. So I have zero expectation of coming out of this three day testing extravaganza with any true sense of my overall performance. I guess I'll just have to wait patiently until end of October to find out...patience, right, because that's my most prevalent personality trait.

At any rate, I took Day 1 of the Bar Exam and lived to tell about it. No tears were shed, my heart didn't stop beating in mid-sentence, and I didn't run out of time (thank God). On the way back from the test the family I'm staying with bought me dinner. It was really nice of them to make sure I got something hot to eat after such a long day. Otherwise I was looking at my 125th bowl of cheerios.

I'm pretty wiped out tonight and my brain is done processing complex concepts for the time being, so I think I'll find something to veg out to via internet TV streaming and then hit the hay early again.

6am again tomorrow......

Final Weekend

I feel a bit as though I'm marching to my death. It's so silly, because it's just a test and it's given twice yearly, but I feel like if I get an email at the end of October saying "Hey Emily, the State of Alaska has determined that you suck!" that my heart might just stop beating right then and there.

This summer has been one long study hall. I've literally studied 4-8 hours per day, every day since June 1 (minus July 3 because I took a break and went up to Matanuska). When I sit down to practice with essays I either nail it or come pretty close or I come across a nuance that wasn't in the lectures and learn something new. All signs point to success, or at least something close to it.

However, be it a lack of confidence or general nervousness, I can't help but shake the fear that I'll sit down in the exam room and get a question to which I draw a blank. I cannot understand what the question is asking or I know what area of law is being tested but the elements just won't come to mind. Last night I tried visualizing success and it did help a bit, but this looming fear just will not go away....

So today, tomorrow and Monday I will use this fear in a last ditch effort to learn everything possible to do well on this exam. My confidence is building, but I will still feel like a gambler sitting down at the card table on Tuesday morning. In all I have had a good couple of days studying hard with small reminders of the outside world and the support system that has slowly grown around me. Leigh has outright said that we will proceed as planned regardless of my test results and I can try again next summer if needed. My step-mom brought tears to my eyes by sending me an impromptu care package of snack food and lounge clothes (which I'm wearing right now and loving!). My grandmother and uncle have sent me sweet emails saying that they can't wait to see me next week and that they're thinking about me all the time. Also, today I got a small package from Leigh with multivitamins (for energy), candy (for happiness), a necklace her mom bought me in Italy, and two Prince CDs (because it's time I get my education in the wonder that is The Artist Formerly Known as Prince).

Now I just need to keep my head down and get through until the end of next week and then my life can start. I have to keep reminding myself of all the opportunities I have coming up and how, generally speaking, I can start living my life in a tangible way very, very soon.

Final Stretch, No Enthusiasm

The bar exam is on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week. Tomorrow I have my final day of scheduled intensive study followed by the weekend of general study of all topics. Then first thing Tuesday morning I have to face the beast.

The past few days I've been waking up in a particularly deep "funk." I just can't seem to shake it. I think part of it is that every day I'm doing this really intensive study of subjects that I've been desperately trying to learn for two months, only to find that there is still so much that I do not know! It's so depressing! Then I start to get freaked out thinking, "what if I get this kind of essay question for this topic and don't know the answer? Then I'll get minimal points and it will bring down my whole average! Then I'd fail!!!" (seriously, that's what goes through my head). My heart starts pounding and I just keep working hoping I can learn everything or hoping (even harder) that I won't be asked that kind of a question.

The thing is that I really don't have the time or the energy to feel like this. I need to focus. I need to use these last few days to the best of my ability so that I'm as prepared and confident as possible. Confidence- another thing that goes out the window when you get really depressed like this.

I'm also not eating very well. Everything upsets my stomach and I often feel nauseous but I have to eat enough so I can keep studying. When I do eat it's usually something quick, convenient, cheap or all of the above. So not a lot of energy or "feel good" food.

I don't know what to do at this point except keep looking over my notes and flashcards and hope enough of this information sticks to get me through the test.

Well, back to work...

Sleep Issues

OK, today is the day I admit to myself that I have a serious sleeping problem and something has to be done about it.

The past 2-3 weeks I have had a really hard time being out of bed before 9am. Now the past week or so it's more like 10:30-11am. Now, first off I have some sleep guilt issues left over from childhood. In summers my dad would always get angry with my brother and I for sleeping past 9am because "this is the only June 15, 1994 you're ever going to have!" or whatever the date was that day. Plus it's just a bad habit to not be able to function before 10am and not get your day started until late.

Then I have to consider the bar exam. Testing starts between 8:30 and 9am for three of the most important days of my life. If my brain can't function at those hours I'm screwed!

The reason I sleep late isn't laziness. I think it's a two part issue: 1) I'm bored out of my mind. Every day is the same and it's getting depressing. 2) I'm never tired enough at the time I need to go to bed in order to get up at a reasonable hour. This is probably because I slept late that morning, didn't do ANYTHING physical during the day, and I have restlessness issues leading to slight insomnia.

The only solution I can think of at this point is to start experimenting with sleep aids. I think I'll buy some Tylenol PM and try taking a half dose around 10pm and see what happens. Hopefully it'll be out of my system by early morning so I can get a real jump start to the day. Even more hopefully, by next Monday night I won't need it anymore and will be genuinely tired so I can get a good night's sleep before my test on Tuesday!

*sigh* OK, well once again my day didn't start until 10:30 this morning so I need to get a move on- shower, eat, and get my sorry ass to the library.

Disappointments

It's kind of amazing how little pieces of bad or disappointing news can completely suck any remaining joy from my heart these days. Normally I take bad news like any Type A personality- I have the initial "impact moment" where I feel upset and disappointed and then spend the next few hours doing research on how to fix the problem. These days I get bad news and any ounce of hope for my future seeps out through my skin so I spend the next X number of hours just being angry and hopeless without being willing to do anything about the problem.

A few days ago I was feeling pretty good about studying and thinking I just might pass this test. Then yesterday I got my results from my simulated practice exam from two weeks ago. Let's just say it wasn't good. I already knew how many questions I had missed, but my percentile ranking was far worse than I am used to doing on standardized tests (and I don't even do that well usually). Add this to the fact that earlier that day I had taken a half day practice test and had missed the correct questions goal by about 9 questions (out of 200), and you have yourself a very unhappy Emily.

So what do I do to solve this problem? Well, first I eat sub-par pizza (lots of it) and then I watch TV on my computer the rest of the evening. Yep, I'm a real problem solver.

Today it's taking all my self-motivation to not just surrender to failure and go back to bed this morning (it's not even early- it's nearly 9am!). I keep telling myself that the simulated exam was 2 weeks ago, which is a LIFETIME in Bar Bri terms, and I've learned a lot since then. Then I tell myself that Bar Bri designs the simulated exam to be maddeningly difficult so we will do poorly on purpose. I also know that I still have 8 days until the exam and plenty of material to review during that time, plus the actual exam is likely to be better written/clearer than the ones I'm taking now. My final bit of consolation is that I know that Leigh is committed to moving up here with me next summer to start our lives, bar passage or not. She's even looking into attending UAA for nursing and keeping her eyes open for available jobs.

I still don't want to fail though. I've never failed at anything meaningful before, so this would be a first...and what a first it would be! I've only spent the past 7 years preparing for this exam in one way or another and the past 3 planning my classes and summers around jobs I may or may not be eligible for depending on the outcome of the exam. *sigh* OK, now I'm getting sad again.....

I should really think about taking a shower and heading to the library.....maybe some coffee would cheer me up?

Surprisingly Fun

Today was surprisingly fun. I did my usual "I don't wanna get up" thing this morning where I keep rolling over and drifting off. It's not fatigue or laziness, no, it's the mere fact that I know once I get my day started it'll be more studying complete with achy shoulders hunched over my books and feeling at least mildly inadequate. Today I bummed around until about 11:30. Then I realized I really had to get started.

I had my first real meal in about a week or so by going to New Sagaya's for a lunch of Chinese food. It's really good stuff and not too pricey so that was a nice way to start out. Then I headed over to the UAA Consortium Library to study where I found new Bar study friends Leslie and Leif. We chatted for a few minutes before I let them get back to work and started my own homework. It was nice to have a conversation and see how other Bar prep folks were getting along. Needless to say it's consoling to find out I'm not the only one who just wants to be put out of my misery.

My Evidence assignments went pretty quickly so I let myself have a break around 4:30 by seeing a movie. All that was playing before 6pm was Bruno. It was funny but not great. It wasn't as funny or as disgusting as Borat but I honestly believe there is an underlying political/social message about discrimination against LGBT people. By the end of the movie I got the sense that it was trying to depict that homophobia is a trait of "lesser mortals" by showing that the only people with true knee-jerk reactions of fear and hatred are not, shall we say, high-minded nor quality individuals. It even showed how, when faced with "gay" situations, these folks don't even stop to think about what they're doing but just start cursing, gasping, become violent and even cry (yes, there was a big, gross redneck guy at a wrestling match CRYING because he saw something "gay"). If this message was even there it was buried deep under crass, little boy humor, but it was there nonetheless.

Anyway, by this time it was 7pm and I figured I'd delay my 105th meal of chicken fingers and baked french fries by hitting up KFC for some carbs and grilled chicken. It was just OK, but I was mostly glad it wasn't fingers and fries again.

In all I really needed a bit of fun today. Tomorrow I think I'll go back to the Consortium Library so I'll have a quiet, clean, well-lit and distraction-free space to take my 3 hour practice test. After that I should probably study some old material I've been putting off but I might just do something fun like go for a walk downtown or something else that involves fresh air and not sitting down.

I also started planning my trip to Seward. I've decided to drive down early on the morning of July 31 and come back the evening of August 1. My plans include staying at the Moby Dick Hostle ($20), visiting Exit Glacier and hiking the trail up to the glacier, visiting the Alaska Sea Life Center (where my best friend from childhood worked last summer but I sadly was not able to visit her then), and possibly taking a ranger-lead hike through Harding Icefield before heading back to Anchorage. I also understand that there are a few great coffeehouses in Seward with bookstores and artist exhibits attached plus some great restaurants with lots of seafood and beer selections. Based on the pictures online, Seward looks really adorable with weathered buildings and raised planked sidewalks near the water. Sounds like my kind of place.

I'm very excited to celebrate the bar exam being over by taking this little trip by myself and getting some time outdoors. My flight to Seattle leaves in the middle of the night on August 2 (1am on August 3, actually), so I'll likely spend the 2nd packing and cleaning and generally tying up loose ends around town.

Well, I should probably get to sleep so I don't waste all of tomorrow being groggy. I'm just about in the homestretch. Here's hoping the rest of my time here goes smoothly and I can put all of this mess behind me!

Antibes

Yesterday I FINALLY got more information about my job in France. I'll be working at a lycee in Sophia Antipolis, which is essentially a technology/business campus in a suburb of Antibes. I won't be living there because, well, it's a technology campus and one does not usually live in a place like that! Instead I can easily live in Antibes and take a free shuttle to the campus to work.

This is very exciting! Antibes seems really lovely with great French Riveira weather, lots of yachts in the ports, outdoor markets, etc. Plus Picasso lived in the area for a time, so there's a strong art influence, and lots of other English speaking ex-pats wind up in Antibes at some point so there are English and Australian bars in case I need to hear my own language (sort of).

Right now I'm just gathering paperwork for my visa appointment in DC on Sept 3 and doing housing research. It looks like my best bets for finding housing will be either through an online agency (which charges one month's rent as a finder's fee) or through an individual real estate agent another teaching assistant sent me the information for. I've already heard back from the real estate agent, who is very nice and patient with me, saying she has a studio available when I need it. Hopefully her rates aren't as high as the online agency's because I think I would prefer to work with her than an automated system.

I'm going to try to get my own place in Antibes, even though it will be very small, because I'm pretty sure I've outgrown the whole "roommate" thing. I could probably handle sharing a large apartment with one or two other people during this time, but if I CAN get my own place I will. my max rent I could possibly pay would be 500 euro per month, which is going to be difficult to find but I'm up for the challenge. Also, Leigh is contemplating coming to France for an extended period of time, so we would want our own place rather than having roommates. Not only have we been spoiled by living just the two of us for over 4 years now, but I think my hypothetical roommates would be pretty pissed off if my spouse was just chilling in our apartment for 2 or 3 months. Anyway, I'm hoping as time passes a few affordable places will pop up that I can take once I get there and see them in person.

The bar exam is 11 days away! I'm equally horrified and excited. Horrified, obviously, because I'm not sure that I'm ready. Excited because I'm ready to start living again rather than just sitting in my room or the library pouring over books. I'm ready to visit my family in Washington, earn some money, and look forward to my future rather than dreading it. I keep telling myself that it's not the end of the world if I don't pass the first time, but that will be a difficult sentiment to remember if Oct 29 comes around and my name isn't listed on the website.

Yesterday I went to the public library to study and had my own table in the study area and NOBODY was around for about an hour. Then people started to file in, which is OK as long as they are quiet. One young guy was wearing too much cheap cologne, which was annoying, but he was quiet so I dealt with it. Then a little girl came and sat at my table. She was quiet too, until her sister came up to her and started rattling off the new Spanish phrases she had learned that day. I finally had to scold an 8 year old saying (sternly), "could you please be quiet?" She apologized and both girls ran off to find their parents. I tried to be polite but felt guilty immediately. When I was her age if someone scolded me like that I probably would have started crying because I was really sensitive to being reprimanded. I hope I didn't make her feel too badly.

Anyway, yesterday I studied Alaska Property and it went so-so. I still don't know A LOT of nuances of that subject, BUT when I took the multistate property practice quiz I got 22 correct when we only had to get 16 correct, so that was a nice way to end a long day of frustrating studying. Today it's the same deal with a different subject and will continue to be like this until the end. I'm about at my wit's end with this whole process, I just hope I can stay sane and mentally organized until July 30!

Lessons from today

1) read slowly....

2) learn contracts!

I took a practice exam (again) today and finally scored better than the "goal score" listed in the front of the book! The goal was for 22 correct and I got 27 correct. This may seem like a small feat, but I (and most of my Bar Bri class) have consistently fallen just short of the goals on practice exams and it gets demoralizing.

Today, however, I tried something new. I stopped caring about how long the questions took and read very slowly, allowing myself to reread if needed. It made a HUGE difference. It's OK that I take extra time, too, because yesterday I finished my 100 question quiz about 20 minutes before my timer went off, so I figure I have the time to spare.

Wow, that was a really in-depth discussion of my study techniques. My apologies. I'm just excited to have finally broken through the glass ceiling. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the wheel-spinning version of studying I have been suffering from the past few days. *sigh*

When is the test again?

Actually, a better question seems to be "why the hell did I go to law school?!"

Self-study and self-motivation

The last two weeks before the bar exam are self-study weeks. Bar Bri gives us homework to keep us moving, but there are no more lectures or classes and it's mostly review. This is a good thing overall, since there's only so much new stuff a person can shove into his/her head in a 6-8 week period of time. It also gets a little frustrating when you start missing questions you actually know the answer to but didn't recognize on the practice test. Yesterday I took a practice test and on no less than 10 of the questions I missed did I actually know the applicable law, knew it applied in that case, and yet did not recognize the correct answer as conforming with that law. I hope this is a fault of Bar Bri's writing that will not be as much of an issue on the actual exam. I'll keep practicing, but time's a-wastin'.

What is also frustrating me is my inability to get out of bed before 9am. I set my alarm for 7am daily because I really need my body to be prepared for early mornings and long days for those three days of testing. I'm usually in bed around midnight, which would normally give me about as much sleep as I had gotten used to in law school. I'm just not sleeping well at all so when the alarm goes off I cannot IMAGINE getting up and starting to study. My intentions are completely noble, but this is just not happening. I think my lack of quality sleep is a combination of stress, a not-so-comfortable bed, and the fact that it was actually daylight here at 11pm last night and the sun was once again high in the sky by 6am. I have good curtains, but not that good. Oh, and my neighbors are really loud and are taking full advantage of the midnight sun. I'm afraid I might be grinding my teeth too, which I don't think I've done since childhood, because my mouth hurts in the mornings and I get headaches pretty often.

Perhaps I should resort to pharmaceuticals (the hards stuff- tylenol pm)? : )

Anyway, I'm up but groggy and a headache is forming already. I have to camp out at University Center for a few hours this morning to pass out graded essays that UPS managed to lose last week. I also have a pretty long study "to do" list which includes both Bar Bri homework and self-inflicted homework. I'm supposed to get a practice massage from a massage student later today but haven't heard back about the time/place. This may be yet another flake out that is or so pervasive when dealing with Craigslist. We'll see.

In other news, Harry Potter opens in Anchorage on Wednesday! I was getting a little worried that it wouldn't get here till next week because that happens sometimes (in Juneau, anyway) but it's almost here! I'm definitely going to see a late show on Wednesday. That way I can get all my studying done and still see it without feeling guilty.

*sigh* better start my day. I need a shower and breakfast before I go face the world in about 45 minutes.

Class is over!

Yesterday was our final class meeting. Most of the class celebrated afterwards at the Peanut Farm over a few pitchers of Alaskan Beer. The early evening weather was fantastic for sitting on a porch unwinding with friends. It feels really good to not have anywhere to be anymore. I can make my own study schedule, sleep in, run errands, etc at my leisure. I still have a ton of stuff to do every day, but at least now my time is much more flexible.

The Bar Exam is 18 days away. Wow, that's going to come up much sooner than I want it to. The good news is that I have a game plan, and plan of attack, and hope that I might just pass this thing.

Today I ran some last minute errands to tie up loose ends for my Bar Bri job. This included driving to a sketchy end of town to the UPS warehouse to pick up a packet of graded essays. My students had better love me after that....

I also found an ad on Craigslist where some local massage students are looking for "clients" to practice on for class credit. Between their course credit needs and my tight muscles, we may just have a beautiful symbiotic relationship in the making. Come to think of it, I know 19 other people who are stressed beyond belief who may be equally willing to offer up their bodies for the sake of education. I have an appointment for Monday evening. Hopefully the sketch factor will be minimal and I can relax a little bit.

After my errands I took the afternoon off from being productive (even though my calendar has me scheduled to write 5 essays). I watched 2 CSI episodes on Netflix, read the first part of my book about Van Gogh, and talked to Leigh on the phone for a while. Now I'm wading through my notes from the past two days of intensive lectures and will eventually mold them into an outline. Tomorrow is a day of Evidence review and essays as well as some Family Law, then I'll be back on track starting Sunday.

My travel plans for the next few months are finally starting to come together. This evening I bought a one way ticket from Seattle to Washington, DC. I leave for Seattle on August 3 at 1am and will be there, working, until September 2. I have an appointment with the French consulate in DC for my visa on September 3. Then Leigh and I are going to visit my parents in Ferrum the following week before camping in Maryland for a few days, just for fun. All I have to do now is wait for my teaching contract to come in the mail so I can prepare my visa documents and book my flight to France for the end of September.

My goals starting Sunday are to 1) keep up with my daily assignments 2) review my MBE "problem areas" every day 3) attend church on Sunday and 4) go on a hike, even if it's just a couple of miles and only gets me outdoors for an hour.

Well, I should hit the books again so I can get to bed at a decent hour tonight.

Things I Miss About:

New York City:

• Having countless places to go when I need to study, spread out, find quiet, etc
• WALKING to where I need to go. God, having a car and living in a flat city is making me fat and weak and generally unhappy
• Bagels (& schmere, for that matter)
• Halal food
• Endless possibilities of things to do when I need a break from work/life
• Note: there are many, many things I DO NOT miss about NYC, but that's another post

Buffalo:

• Leigh
• Juneau the cat
• Leigh's apartment
• Leigh's cooking
• Cheap eats and stuff to do
• $3.50 movies that I actually want to see
• Friends, law school and otherwise
• My comfort level

Virginia:

• My dad, step-mom and their puppy dog
• Roanoke
• Kayaking at the lake
• the sound of crickets and the sight of lightning bugs
• Riding motorcycles
• Sweet tea and southern food in general
• Extreme relaxation

Juneau:

• Steep hills, tight mountains and green everywhere
• Great hiking
• Boy Scout Beach and Perseverance Trail
• Chilled out people (i.e. "liberal" Alaskans)
• Friends from a past life and a few from a life not yet lived
• Quirky shops
• Ferries

This is not to say that Anchorage isn't a fine place to live, but my only experience of this area so far is studying, feeling cooped up and being generally very confined. Plus I'm just missing certain people and comforts at the moment.

Practice MBE is tomorrow, bright and early! I'm in the home stretch of this prep course, then I just have to keep working really hard to get ready for the big day.

Holiday Weekend

As of yesterday, I really needed a day off from the monotony of sleep-study-class at UAA-sleep routine. My eye was starting to do this weird twitchy thing from always feeling stressed and inadequate in my results from this class. I know I'm only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way there, but I feel like I should be scoring 10-20% higher than I am considering how much I study and how hard I try. Ok, finished whining.

At any rate, the whole experience was getting tedious, I was beginning to resent my presence here and my lot in life. Luckily we had the day off from class because we took a simulated essay exam on Thursday (which I felt OK about at the time, but upon checking the answers found like I more or less BOMBED, oh well).

So I decided to get out of Anchorage for a few hours. I had several choices for day trips including heading south to Seward/Kenai area or heading north toward Denali. The southern route was guaranteed to be crowded with folks on their way to Seward for the July 4 festivities, so I decided to drive up to the Matanuska glacier about 40 miles past Wassilla. The drive was FABULOUS. After about 45 minutes of sunny skies, fresh air, and great scenery my eye had stopped twitching and I found myself really enjoying the wide open spaces and listening to mediocre Top 40 on the radio.

This was taken about an hour from the glacier. At about this point in the trip, where I pulled over to eat my lunch and enjoy the view, I heard on the radio that Sarah Palin is quitting her job. What a wonderful day, eh?

According to my UB in NYC classmate/the only geophysicist I know, Matanuska is the largest glacier on Earth that is accessible to people. This picture was taken a few miles from the state park area and it's already pretty impressive.

The ubiquitous self-portrait. (Do you like my haircut? I got it at the new Great Clips near Target for $5.99 and it's still 100% better than the $20 haircut I got at the Aveda hair school in SoHo.)

Once I got to the state park area I headed out for a short hike with a few places to stop and see the glacier and mountains. It was only a 1 mile hike, but after weeks of sitting still to study and being indoors or in vehicles it was so nice to be outside and moving around. The only drawback were the mosquitos, which I did not anticipate being a problem so didn't bring bug spray. They made a feast out of my arms and shoulders, which made taking pictures difficult. I pretty much hauled ass back to the car after a certain point because the bugs were getting to me.

I took the rest of the day off as well to chill at home, watch a movie, and make myself a good dinner. So today I'm trying to make up for lost time by doing extra MBE practice questions in preparation for my simulated MBE on Tuesday. Tonight there's fireworks downtown and I think I might treat myself to a movie beforehand. In all not a bad weekend and just trying to make the most of the great weather without completely abandoning my studies.