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.

The World

With any luck this map will look very different in a year's time.

visited 6 states (2.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World or another interesting project

States I've Visited (in red)

visited 49 states (98%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: The Next President

Graduation

May 23 was graduation day. My dad and step-mom drove up to Buffalo from Virginia to attend my ceremony along with Leigh. After sitting through 3 hours of very long speeches I got my hood and my "diploma" (the real one is being mailed later) and then we went out to eat. We kept it simple and everything went very well, which is a nice change from my other two graduations (i.e. when I ended up in the emergency room when graduating from high school). 

Anyway, here are some pictures from the big day!

The faculty on stage

Being "hooded" by Professors Ewing and Joyce.

Dad and I after the ceremony

Leigh and I. Is it just me, or does my oversized robe make me look like a mushroom?

Leigh's birthday was the same weekend so I used the strawberries we got while driving through the south to bake her a strawberry pie instead of a cake. I am happy to report that it was a big hit!

Southern States Road Trip!

Leigh and I left on our Southern States Road Trip on May 12. 

A view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from I-81. Really beautiful. I've seen some amazing sights in my 24 years, including the dramatic mountains of Alaska, but there is a very special place in my heart for the Blue Ridge. 

Leigh and I taking in the sights and taking some silly self-portraits.

After a quick stop off at parents' houses in Virginia for supplies and errands, we drove to Charlotesville, VA to camp out and visit Monticello.

Monticello from the front lawn

The gardens at Monticello overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The grounds at Monticello were simply fantastic. It was the best that Virginia has to offer with mountain views, lush foliage, walking paths and old tress. As Leigh said, "Yep, I could live here."

The most perfect tree I have ever seen.

After Monticello we started driving south. First we stopped off in Myrtle Beach where my dad and step-mom were participating in Bike Week. They were staying in a nice beach front condo and offered us a place to sleep during our long trip. After a restful night and morning, Leigh and I drove Hwy 17 south to 95 South to Jacksonville, Florida. My brother and his family live in Jax near the beach, so this was our primary target for our trip.

My brother's two kids, Isaiah and Abigail. They're such cuties and really good kids. We had such a good time visiting with them and taking it easy. We hoped to visit the Kingsley Plantation nearby and lay on the beach for a few days, but the weather simply wouldn't allow this. We got one good afternoon at the beach. 

Leigh getting a tan, or at least trying to! The beach we visited is a state park where you can drive onto the sand and set up for the day. It was really crowded and very redneck, but still a lot of fun.

Me getting a tan, and a little bit burned too. 

My car Betsy chillin' on the sand! She looks so cool like this! Of course, it took us a few hours to get all the sand out of the interior.

There are no height restrictions for cars in Florida. This truck was one of the lower ones we saw that day.

The Maass Kids Visit Tarrytown

My last weekend in NYC was spent hanging out with my cousin Paul. Per my odd request, Paul and I drove upstate a bit to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, NY to see the Old Dutch Church and its burial grounds where our Revolutionary War patriots are buried and where a monument to all Revolutionary War Veterans from Tarrytown is displayed. 

It was nearly impossible to get a good picture of the church itself, so a shot of the sign will have to suffice.

This is a picture from inside of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which is adjacent to the Old Dutch Church Cemetery. The grounds were really beautiful and starting to bloom. 

Across from the church is the Headless Horseman Bridge from the Washington Irving story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Washington Irving is from Tarrytown and in one of the stories he wrote about the area mentioned one of my ancestors by the name of Gabriel Requa. Gabriel was captain of a supplies boat that went up and down the Hudson River to get supplies between New York City and Tarrytown. 

Paul and my grandmother's maiden name is Requa. She is directly descended from Lieut. Joseph Requa, who fought along side George Washington in the Battle of White Plains. Joseph is listed on a monument in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery along with several other Requa veterans, many more than I had expected to find listed there.

Paul and I sitting in front of the monument. 

While prowling around the grounds near the church, Paul and I met the caretaker who knew a great deal about our family history. The caretaker was also kind enough to show us his ledger with all of the names of our family members buried in the cemetery. I wrote down the names on a scrap of paper for later on. I also discovered that our family is related to the Mead family by marriage and a relative of the Mead who married into the Requa family was called Emily. It was nice to learn that I can now claim my name is from a distant relative rather than having been named after Bob Newhart's television wife, Emily. 

The Daughters of the American Revolution Tarrytown Chapter placed these medals in front of the graves of Revolutionary War Veterans throughout both cemeteries. Other local groups also place small American flags, which are replaced as they fade or are lost. 

Graduation, moving and such

My road trip with Leigh is coming to a close tomorrow. We drove from Buffalo to Florida and back again with several stops in between. I'll post more about the trip with pictures later, but basically it was a lot of driving for very little reward. We're choosing to look at the bright side that we got to do a few fun things and spend some time together. 

Graduation is Saturday afternoon. My dad and step-mom are stopping by on their drive from Virginia to Maine to visit my grandparents. I have a sneaking suspicion the entire experience will be anti-climactic, if not generally disappointing. For some reason my graduations tend to have less than peppy themes. I am preparing for a shitty day complete with a very long speech from the prime minister of Kenya. 

I changed my flight to Anchorage from May 25 to June 1. I have several reasons for this: first, my class does not start in person until June 1. Prior to that we will have web lectures, which I can do from Buffalo. This will allow me much needed time to organize my things for the move and relax a little. Plus it gives me more time in Buffalo, which I was hoping for (ironically, this is the first time I have ever hoped for more time in Buffalo since moving there in 2006). 

Leigh and I spent today in Grundy, VA relaxing and playing with cats at Leigh's mother's house. It was really nice to take a day off after driving close to 18 hours (with stops) in one day. Leigh's grandmother cooked us dinner and we went to see Star Trek (two adult tickets, popcorn and a soda for $15, can you beat that? I didn't think so!). For the record, the movie was fantastic. I'm not a huge Star Trek fan but I do enjoy space-based sci-fi movies and this one really delivered. Good writing, funny moments, lots of explosions and at least four or five climactic scenes. My inner dork was very pleased (um, now that I think about it I might just be a dork overall, forget the "inner" aspect). 

Leigh's birthday is tomorrow so it was nice for her to get to see her grandparents and father this time of year since she usually has the most work to do in the early summer months. We're going to try to hit the road by noon tomorrow to be back in Buffalo between 8 and 10 pm. After the madness of this weekend I'm hoping we can just do some fun, relaxing stuff all of next week, but I can't forget that I have to start my bar study course on Monday! Ah! Where did the time go?!

More on the road trip later....

Moments in Buffalo

Classes ended Thursday afternoon with final presentations followed by much drinking. Most of the class went to a bar called 1-2-3 for a while to take advantage of $2 shots and $3 beer on tap. That was a nice way to start things out. Once we were all thoroughly lubricated we took taxis from 10th ave to 3rd ave to Tonic to keep the party going. I think I preferred the cheap (i.e. trashy) place we started at because the atmosphere was very unassuming and the girls wore booty shorts, but I was mostly interested in finishing out the semester with my friends. Tonic was OK, the alcohol from 1-2-3 kept sinking in slowly and I was completely lit. This led to some good conversation and overall enjoyment and ended with me hitting up Tasti-D-Lite one more time with Steph and then rushing home to meet my cousin Paul to move out of my room. Moving out while drunk is a little confusing, but we got it done.

Paul drove me to Queens, we hung out for a while then I passed out. On Friday I ran errands then on Saturday we drove up to Tarrytown to see our ancestor's gravesites from the Revolutionary War. I took some pictures, enjoyed being out of the city and had a great conversation with the cemetery caretaker who knew more about our family history that Paul or I did. 

After an interim weekend in Queens staying with my cousin, I flew to Buffalo to see Leigh, Juneau and our friends and prepare for a road trip to the southern states. It was great to see Leigh, I was so excited to be out of New York and in a more normal place (sorry NYC, you're just missing a certain something). Leigh and I went straight from the airport to our friend's house to hang out and catch up. We had a few drinks, talked and laughed until 4am and then went home to pass out. The next few days were spent running errands and preparing for Leigh's and my trip which starts today. 

The plans are as follows:

I am leaving today to take my car to my dad's house so he had try to sell it for me. Leigh leaves tonight after her class to go to her mom's to drop off Juneau for the week. We'll meet up at my dad's house in Roanoke, VA then drive to Charlottesville, VA to see Monticello and camp. Then we're driving to Jacksonville, FL to see my brother and his family for a few days, go to the beach, and relax. We'll then drive up to Savannah for a quick stop off to see the old part of town and eat at Paula Deen's Restaurant (don't judge!). We'll camp in Charlestown, SC that night. The next day we'll go back to Leigh's mother's house in Grundy, VA to get Juneau and then back to Buffalo in time to prepare for my father's visit for my graduation. I also need to prepare for my summer out west and I wanted a little more time with our friends here before leaving for God knows how long.

This trip is going to be a lot of fun but, honestly, I'm a little apprehensive. I am basically penniless after my semester in NYC and completely unprepared for my flight to Anchorage. It's highly illogical to spend the next week driving around and having fun. Then I realize that, though Buffalo is where I visit people that I love, it is a pretty dull place and I'd likely spend more money just hanging out here (food, shopping, bars) than I would if I were spending my days driving from place to place and camping out. I think of how long it's been since I've seen my brother and how long it will be before I see him again. I think of how much Leigh and I need this compacted, quality time together before I go away. 

As for going away, it is my time to do this. I decided to study for the bar in Alaska because I knew I didn't want to be in New York anymore and Alaska was the place I've felt most at home ever. I still want to take the bar exam in Alaska and eventually practice law there (even if only for a few years), but I'm just not ready to be completely on my own again. After 3 months away and taking the time apart from Leigh to sort some things out we're doing really well now and I'd love to take advantage of this time now that it's come. Instead I have to run off again and keep doing crazy shit for my career, for myself. I promised myself I'd spend some time focusing on my own needs and working toward becoming the person I want to be, but I just wish I could slow things down and take a little breather before doing this. 

It's just not in the cards, so we're going on a road trip to get the most out of this time we have together. When I get back I will graduate and say my goodbyes to my friends here then go off to battle the final aspect of my legal education. I hope one day all this hard work will turn into my having more choices and being brave enough to follow my heart above all else.

Final Days

My final paper and presentations are due on Thursday. That's three days from now. I can't believe it. I fly back to Buffalo on May 9, that's five days from now. I'm really ready to leave, to see Leigh and Juneau and our friends. I'm ready to be done with school, possibly for good. 

I always thought of myself as the student type. I always assumed I would go back for an LLM, Master's or PhD program eventually. At this moment I just dont' see it happening. 

For one thing, I'm completely burnt out. Completely. This is my second higher ed experience and both times the final year has been almost complete hell. Very emotionally draining and any final project I have always ends up being very stressful and I always feel like my professors give me the run around. I can't even imagine dealing with that bullshit at the PhD level. 

Plus I'm about $88k in the hole with two bachelor's degrees and a JD to show for it. Honestly that's not too bad considering that I had a private school experience for undergrad and now have a law degree. Many JDs have well over $100k or more in debt, so in all I'm doing OK. But thinking about that number makes my tummy hurt sometimes. Unless I got a full ride or whatever degree I chose was sponsored by my employer, I just can't see myself wanting to pay for more education. I have a great education and, as an attorney, I will continue to educate myself through CLEs, work, and future publications. I just don't see school in my future right now. 

The past two weeks have been so incredibly stressful (see above-mentioned run around from professors). I'm not sure that things could have been much worse, unless the professors decided to fail us. That hasn't happened, not even close, but my team was certainly being regarded as the weak link, the "waste of time" (that's a direct quote). In the end everything was fine, but I can't believe the way these "educators" have been behaving by willing and hard working students. It's been a very disappointing aspect of this program. 

The good news is that we are in the home stretch. Tomorrow we do a dry run for the professor who thinks we're a waste of time, which will likely lead to rewrites. We also have a presentation due to this guy who thinks he can just invite himself back to our classes anytime he likes. Please note that we were prepared to give this presentation four weeks ago but this guy couldn't stop talking long enough to fit five, 10 minute presentations into two days of class. Yeah, you read that right. So my team is going tomorrow. This is the same guy who blamed our professor for a communication issue regarding said assignment, then turned around and blamed us to our professor as though we were being insubordinate by not doing the assignment the way he wanted us to. Yeah, 22 people universally decided to fuck up an assignment because we're all losers like that. Asshole.

Then Wednesday is a day to fix any problems that arise tomorrow. Thursday is the big day. We're all going down to a law firm in mid-town to do our presentations in full suits. 45 minutes per team followed by lunch and we're free! I suspect this final presentation will be followed with much drinking of alcohol. 

I'm crashing at my cousin's house in Queens for Thursday and Friday nights before flying out Saturday. He's a great guy. He's even said we could drive up to Tarrytown, NY to see where our ancestors are buried (the ones who fought in the Revolutionary War). This was my idea and when I was suggesting it to him I was almost sure he'd saying something like "that's a really weird idea, let's don't and say we did." But Paul's cool like that, so he found the time and said we could go. I'm so excited!

Anyway, I should probably get ready for the two presentations tomorrow. Hopefully the rest of this week will go smoothly so I can just look forward to being done. Completely done. Finished. A JD. WOOHOO!