Spring Has Sprung

I'm now 2 weeks post-Hawai'i and still feeling much better about the state of my life, Anchorage, and the like. I'm much more tolerant of daily annoyances, my job, and people who frustrate me. For example, this morning I got to work to a voicemail from the secretary. She had to take her son to the airport late last night (2am departures are common in Alaska), so she's too tired to come to work on time this morning. A few weeks ago this would have royally pissed me off. Today I'm happy to have a quiet morning alone in the office. But, if I'm being honest, I'd feel very differently if the phones were ringing nonstop like they sometimes do when she leaves me stranded...

Anyway, we have a few things going on in our lives right now. First: the weather. Oh my gosh it's been so nice! We still have a good foot of snow covering our back yard and the bike trails are still a pretty slippery, but the sun shines daily and refuses to set before 10 PM. It's as if the city is slowly waking up after a long hibernation. Soon enough the ground will be clear (if not muddy from all the melt off) and biking/hiking weather will be in full swing. It's pretty great.

Second, is job stuff. After almost 2 years of networking and months of submitting applications there's finally some movement in this area. I have an interview set up for next Monday and another interview tentatively set for the end of May. Both are very much preliminary, as in the positions I might be asked to fill don't really exist yet. I get the sense that both employers want to get to know me a little better in the event that they can fund a new associate position. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to speak with these employers at this point in the year. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and I'll have some interesting options this summer.

Third, other job stuff. I still have an interest in joining the Foreign Service. But of course this is not the time to do that. It takes 18 months or so to get started as an FSO, and that's assuming that a candidate makes it through every step of the evaluation process on the first try. I'm not going to assume that I will be so successful. So instead I"m just going to take the written exam in June to see what it's like. Then I'll plan to take the exam and go as far as I can in this process each year until I'm picked up from the final register and asked to A-100 school. It's all about patience and perseverance. In the mean time I'll enjoy practicing law and gaining skills that can help me get into the FS and succeed once I'm there.

Fourth, house stuff. We placed an order to have the carpet replaced upstairs (the only carpeted areas are the two bedrooms) and then have a long list of projects in those rooms including installing a home office in a closet, furnishing the second bedroom, organizing the boxes of books still packed from our move last year, and finishing decorating our bedroom. At this point it's mostly just frustrating because we have to wait for the carpet to do anything else, but the end result should be really nice. Photos to come...