My clerkship ends in September. That means no more job. That means I have to look for something now in hopes of getting an offer in March or April (ideally) or at least over the summer (if my resume just isn't that attractive). So far I have applied for posted positions at two very different firms and I sent a resume to a head hunter for a spot on their government contract team (that's a complicated story that I'll only tell if I get interviewed/hired). This week I'm focusing on preparing an application packet for the State of Alaska in their civil division. All of these sound really exciting and will pay my bills for the foreseeable future.
At this point my only true fear is a) being unemployed or b) that my next job won't pay me significantly more than I earn now (not that I'm money-hungry, but I could make more money than I do now without the expense of a law degree, so it's a cashing in on my educational investment issue rather than a greediness issue).
My other obsession is travel. I love to travel. I love travel more than I love eating, shopping, being lazy, or pretty much anything else decadent you can think of. Until last week I was 99% sure I was going to Europe this spring just for the hell of it. I was so excited. Then reality struck: I'd be taking more than 2 weeks off from work; I would spend my entire tax return and then some; we need to make some minor repairs to the house; we have some medical bills we should pay; I might be out of work for some months next year and we could really use every extra penny; I might get offered a job interview during the weeks I'm away and therefore lose a job opportunity. So I'm postponing my trip, possibly indefinitely. Best case scenario: I take 3 weeks off between my clerkship and my next job to go on a trip. Worst case scenario: I don't get to travel at all for a long time.
Mostly I love that some people have figured out a way to combine travel and multiculturalism with their careers. On one end of the spectrum you have vagabonds, or people who work seasonally then quit and travel till their money runs out. This is less than ideal for me because I have massive student debt and I went to law school so I could do something meaningful with my life. On the other end of the spectrum you have hot shots, or people whose companies fly them around for work stuff. Hot shots sometimes only get to see the airport, their hotel and a series of conference rooms. That sounds lame.
Anyway, my dream job would strike a balance and pay me a livable wage. At this moment in time I'm not really in a position to take on a travel job: Leigh loves her job here in Anchorage and needs more time to settle into her company before trying to go mobile. I'm too new of an attorney to get a hot shot job and unwilling to live a life of poverty as a vagabond. So I need a few years to marinate in my lawyer-ness before making the big change. Rest assured, I have a few tricks up my sleeve so that I will hopefully, one day, have the option to travel for a living and still do something with my education.
So these two topics have been taking over my mind lately. Leigh and I are having a string of "well if this happens then we should..." conversations. It's fun to fantasize, but mostly just frustrating. I hate not knowing what I'll be doing next. I hate not knowing where my next paycheck is coming from. I really hate not being able to make plans for the next 6 months because we have to save money in case I'm out of work for a while.
So that's what's on my mind and what I've been up to the past few weeks. Nothing really exciting. I mostly feel like I've been sitting in an uncomfortable waiting room for a really, really long time....
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