Big Developments

For those who haven’t yet heard, early this month I got a phone call from the law firm I will be working for after graduation. The point of the call was to let me know that my first day of work will be January 4, 2010. This wasn’t surprising since 80% of the big US law firms are postponing start dates for new associates, and Paul and I had been anticipating the call ever since Paul received a similar call from his firm. The good thing is that the firm is providing a pretty nice living stipend to make up for some of the lost income for not starting until about 2 ½ months past the time I had originally thought I would be starting (mid-October). So as much as we were originally hoping to be in California by September, we probably won’t make the big move until December.

This brings me to the point of this post: What are we going to do with ourselves for five months (August through December)?! I’ll be honest, it is actually kind of a pleasant thought that we will have five months off with no responsibilities after taking the bar in July. But on the other hand, five months is a long time to just sit around relaxing!

Here are some of the ideas that are floating around in my mind:

• Finally put pen to paper and hammer out the novel that has been marinating in my brain for two years now (I actually have about 20,000 words written already, but they need some serious work to actually go from stream of consciousness to a real book)
• Take a creative writing class from a community college – this could maybe help with the first idea
• Train for and run another marathon
• Volunteer at a food bank
• Read, read, read
• Head to Vegas and try to double or triple that living stipend. I would have to learn to play poker first though …
• Learn Spanish
• Go skydiving
• Get SCUBA certified
• Blog EVERY DAY – yeah right, I wouldn’t wanna do it and you wouldn’t wanna read it
• Start my own cupcake business – I am ADDICTED to the cupcakes at this amazing little sweetshop that just opened in Provo
• Travel – this is where things get tricky. For how long? Three weeks? Four? More? I would LOVE to head to Europe, South America or Southeast Asia and live out of a backpack for two months, but is that really something we should do? I don’t think it is realistic for us to backpack for the full five months, so what do we do with the rest of our time? Does anybody have specific suggestions for places to go? Here is my short-list of hotspot dream destinations for ‘09: Greece, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Italy (even though we have already been there), Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, New Zealand, Australia, Peru. When do we go (aug-sep? sep-oct? oct-nov?)? Maybe we could try to see the rest of the states that we haven’t been to yet – mostly the South, the Great Lakes region, and Alaska. We are DEFINITELY doing a trip, but we just haven’t decided how big to go with this thing because we don’t want to head out to CA at the end of December with an empty bank account.
• Look for random jobs for the five month period? (Somehow I don’t relish the idea of having a law degree and working at Borders or J. Crew for 5 months just to get a discount. Although if I worked for an airline that could help defer travel costs …)

There are a couple more possibilities floating around out there, but right now they aren’t really in our control so I won’t go into them.

At least we have some time to make decisions. For now, the timeline is as follows: April/May – Graduate; May – Mexico trip & Bar Exam Study; June – Still studying for the bar & Paul’s birthday; July – Study, study, study, then take the bar the last week of July.

After that, who knows what we will be doing?! Do we do the responsible thing and stay home to save money? Or do we do the fun thing and travel the whole time? Any advice?