Tuesday, September 30, 2008

yummo

We ran in to old friends at church the other day. They moved from Chicago a year ago and said among other things they especially missed the food we have in Chicago. Jarrett and I have spent the last week or so enjoying Chicago dining so I'll tell you a bit about our finds. We did Argentine and Tango Sur last week and had AMAZING steaks (lousy service but the guy did look like johnny depp!). Jarrett and I went to UrbanBelly on the recommendation of Josh and Mallory. Swanky noodle place that was very reasonable for the deliciousness of the meal. The dumplings were great and the noodle dishes were better than any noodle dish I've had before. And last night we went out to Noon-O-Kabab up in Albany Park for Persian food. We went with my parents and Mallory and all ordered different kababs and passed around plates. The hummus and tabouli were amazing as well.

still no word on the job front but as I'm typing I have granola in the oven, a whole chicken boiling making some broth, two pieces of furniture we bought at SalArm we're going to paint and resell, and yarn/crochet needles for my latest hobby. I'm enjoying these days :)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

job update from catherine

I had an interview this morning. I guess it went fine. I usually go to interviews hoping I get offered the job before I leave. I know it sounds ridiculous but it worked a few times during my teaching career. I got to Highland Park after over an hour car ride (I'm not sure I can handle this commute) and was greeted by Lou who asked if I was ready for my test. "Huh?" OH, he forgot to tell me I would be taking an EXCEL test. He sat me at a computer with the past 3 years worth of money from donations and then all of the expenses and told me to balance it all... total the columns and then the rows, blah, blah, blah. Oh! and I only had 12 minutes. I actually like excel and do our budget in it so it wasn't foreign to me but having never seen the document before it was a bit of a challenge. Oh well, we'll see how I did. I didn't get offered the job :( but he did ask for references and told me he'd be in touch. I'll let you all know! In the meantime I'm back to being a stay-at-home... ummm, yeah, what do I do?

If anyone wants to check out the rest of Costa Rica pics just go here but just to warn you, there's a lot.

Bar Exam

Other things have happened this summer. For one, I took the bar exam. After about two months of studying, on July 29 and 30, I sat for the bar. I took a bar prep class, Barbri, which nearly every other recent law school graduate takes to aid in studying. Barbri more or less “reteaches” law school in about ten weeks. The bar exam tests students on about 20 different areas of law, including constitutional law, criminal law, wills, secured transactions, and commercial paper. Many of those subjects, I’d never studied in school, so while some days of Barbri were review, many were my first exposure to the substantive area of law.

So, I took bar prep classes everyday from 9 until 12:30 or so (some Saturdays, some full days), then studied outside of classes for 6 hours a day for the first 6 weeks, about 8 the next two weeks, and 10 – 12 for the last two weeks building up to the bar exam. It was incredibly mentally exhausting, but I was in good company. Several thousand other students across the country were readying themselves for the same two-day (in some jurisdictions, three-day) exam.

The night before the exam, I knocked off early, and Catherine and I headed downtown to her sister’s apartment to crash for the next two days. She lived about 5 blocks west of my testing site, so instead of depending on a bus and a train to take me back and forth everyday, we decided to swap apartments for the nights of the bar exam. It worked out great, because we also got hour-long breaks for lunch, and I was able to come “home” to get away from the hordes of freaked out test takers.

I won’t comment on the actual test – we don’t find out our passage results for another 4 weeks or so now. Only, it was pretty much everything they prepare you for, both on paper and emotionally/psychologically. Hopefully, I only have to do that once.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

It’s been a very, very long time since we last blogged. And it’s not because we haven’t been busy. I guess we’ve just been adjusting back to life as normal. The biggest thing that happened, for sure, was our trip to Costa Rica. These are my top 5 of the trip:

1. Venado Caverns. Hands down, the BEST thing we did in Costa Rica. At our second destination of the trip, La Fortuna, it rained torrentially for a couple of days. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, because we were mostly doing some hiking there in the national parks, and there was enough tree cover that it didn’t slow us down. But there’s only so much hiking you can do (sort of). So, one day, we planned a rainy day activity – Venado Caverns. We had to drive about 17 km to a small town outside Fortuna, and we would get a guided tour of these caves there. We started on our trip only to find the road to Venado was much more treacherous than we expected, and a 17 km trip turned into an hour and a half drive. So, we got to Venado just as the tour guides were shutting down shop. But, luckily, our guide was willing to hang around a bit longer and take us into the cave. Amazing! The cave had not a single modern amenity (like many of the cave tours in the states I’m used to). There was a river flowing through it, tons of bats, cave spiders, crabs, and even fossilized coral reefs inside. We waded, army crawled, climbed and descended for about an hour and a half. It was thrilling for me!

(Road to Venado)
(Venado Caverns)

(Petrified Coral Reef in Cave)
2. Selvatura Park. This is a close second, because this day was a blast. You see these canopy tours all around Costa Rica – basically a zip-line/walking bridge tour through the rain forest. I have to believe, though, that Selvatura was the best. Our guide books recommended it, and the park was stunning. We first did a suspension bridge tour over the rain forest, then did a 15-platform zip line tour. That was an absolute blast. It culminated in a tarzan swing, which is basically a free fall off a 30-foot platform over the rainforest valley.



3. Manuel Antonio. This was toward the end of our trip, and a much different feel than the rest of our stay in Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio is a small national park on the Pacific side of the country. It has beautiful beaches, where we spent much of the day relaxing. We also saw more wildlife in the smallest amount of time here than we did the rest of the trip: LOTS of monkeys, sloths, lizards, raccoons, and even deer!



(Sangria at Ronny's outside Manuel Antonio - mmm!)

4. Arenal National Park. This was a beautiful National Park built around an active volcano. We went hiking here one day and stayed at a lodge where our room faced the volcano. At night, the sky around the top of the volcano glowed red because of the lava. It was a really beautiful location, and we did some of the best hiking here. Everywhere throughout the park, though, were signs warning you not to wander off the trail because of the high risk of volcanic activity.





5. Food! We had some amazing food on our trip. Most mornings, we had a big breakfast, consisting of fried plaintains, eggs, cheese, fresh fruits, banana pancakes, local coffee, and a whole lot more. We ate most of our meals at roadside "sodas," which are kind of local restaurants serving typical food. A lot of rice and beans, for sure, but they were great, and a little different tasting everywhere we went. A lot of the restaurants also had some of the most beautiful views we saw on the entire trip.


(...and very good beer)