(hi, Karen...)
Phew! Glad to get that off my chest.
The longer story, I work full-time at the law school and am a part-time evening student. I basically am stuck in the same, windowless building for 12-14 hours a day. Not the most fun way to spend 4 years. It keeps me busy, but it makes travel a bit difficult. I've generally had to let other people plan my trips for me since I've started, and certainly haven't been able to take any crazy trips. Most of them have been long weekend trips, excepting a week-long visit to my friends in California, and an upcoming trip to Florida with some law school friends (which will be partially spent working on my paper for my class. Blech.). The other thing that stinks is that there are SO many places I wish I could visit (or visit again, in some cases), and I have been having a hard time deciding where to go next.
After one graduates law school, such a person gets to look forward to two more months of studying and eventually living through 2-3 horrible days and taking the Bar Exam, in order to be admitted to the bar in the state they plan to practice in. Wow. What fun. I think this Courtoon explains it perfectly:
This may explain why so many law graduates go on a Bar Trip. This is a 1 week to 1 month vacation in August before the new-lawyer starts their full-time job, celebrating that they are FINALLY DONE.*
So, of course, these are the stuff of daydreams during Professional Responsibility. I've already planned about 6 trips for that period of time. From going on a month-long Ignatian retreat to returning to Ojai, CA to take a class or two at the Ojai Culinary Institute, to going back to Costa Rica and visiting some new places there, to going to Australia, to hiking Mt. Olympus... Surely, there is no way I will be able to decide this on my own. Which leads into...
One of the ways I've been able to get through this hell is to pick up hobbies that are not quite as time-restrictive as being on a dodgeball team, or being in a 150-member choir. One of the newest ones for me is geocaching. My family has been into it for a while, but I'm just beginning to explore the geocaching world.
What, pray tell, is geocaching? In a nutshell, it's a worldwide GPS treasure hunt. There are close to a million different caches hidden throughout the world. Going onto geocaching.com, you can find out the locations (usually given as latitude and longitude coordinates, with some clues as to what to look for to find the hiding place) and visit them. Usually the cache consists of a logbook and a few trinkets. You'll take a trinket, and leave another one, and then log your find on the site.
You can also geotag your items. In which case, when someone takes it, they will log in where they found it, and where they'll leave it, and you can watch as that Strawberry Shortcake figurine travels around the country and the world.
I know, you're thinking, where the heck are you going with this, Karen? Only one more non-sequitur before I swing back around...
Before law school, I had obtained Roscoe. Who is/what is Roscoe, and what does he have to do with this story? Good question, class. Roscoe is a small plastic alligator. Roscoe was my reward for being MVP on my dodgeball team for one game. (I earned that title by being the only girl to show up on time- necessary for the co-ed game) He came as a sidekick to a very powerful drink at Brother Jimmy's a BBQ place in Manhattan. Somehow, he was named Roscoe, and somehow, he became my travel companion. When I would go on car trips, he'd come along for the ride, and protect my rental cars by being menacing on the dashboard.
Since law school started, Roscoe also hasn't been going on many trips, and he's feeling kinda cooped up in my apartment. So, I decided to send him on a mission. Today, I ordered him some geotags, and I'm going to send him out into the world all on his own. I will bring him when I go searching for my first cache, and I will leave him there. Then he'll be able to travel the world without me, carried by other geocachers. His movements will be recorded on the site, and I'll know where he's headed.
And here's where the fun part comes in. Wherever he is as of May 22, 2011 (my graduation day) is going to be where I go for my bar trip. I'll leave instructions with him, and on the site saying to leave him where he is as of May 22, 2011, and that I'm coming to pick him up. It'll give me just over 2 months to plan the trip, and I won't have to worry about picking the place- it'll already be chosen for me by fate!
"But Karen, what if it's Tibet? How will you get there?" I assume fly. Yes, it'll be expensive, but after 4 years of law school? I deserve it. It'll just mean eating Ramen noodles for a while. Rephrased. It'll just mean eating Ramen noodles for longer.
"But Karen, what if it's Iowa?" Well, then I'm going to Iowa. I'm kind-of hoping for somewhere international, but hey- if Roscoe wants to go to Iowa, so do I. Potentially as a part of a bigger road trip?
"But Karen, what if it's Staten Island?" Then I'll take the ferry over, rescue him, and never put him through that again. In fact, I'll just do that May 23rd and call this idea a fail.
So this is my latest plan, and I think it's a fun one. I was excitedly babbling about it to my friend Mike today who suggested blogging about Roscoe's adventures, which I think is an astounding idea. Once I get the dog tags, I'll let you know what the next step is! Exciting!
Have a good night!
* Assuming they passed the bar and don't have to take it again in February.
