Bar Trip

It is a time honored tradition for recent law grads to take a trip in celebration of completing the bar exam.  With the state of the economy, I wonder how many of my friends will actually take this trip.  I haven't heard much talk of it.  This probably has something to do with the fact that we all just graduated.  A few of my friends are taking a delayed honeymoon, having gotten married during the semester or bar review.  But this isn't the same as a "bar trip".  It feels a lot like multi-tasking, which is both efficient and economical.  I fully support this. :)

In the past, I had thought about going to Ireland/ Scotland to take a trip down memory lane and revisit people that I haven't seen in 13 years.  Now, with my law school debt and supporting 2 households looming over my head, it seems a bit . . . ummm . . . frivolous?  Indulgent?  I was playing with some financial spreadsheets and now have a (very very ambitious) plan to be debt-free in 5 years.  This plan does not include pay raises but does include contributing a portion of every bonus to debt.  This plan involves also not getting into any more debt, which may be difficult to do considering that I won't have a steady income until mid-October.

That being said, E and I had a great time on our honeymoon (which I still haven't blogged about... sigh).  It was our first vacation in 6.5 years.  We paid for most things in cash (thank you family and friends for being so very generous!!) and it was nice to have the whole shebang paid for and no unpleasant cc bills when we got home.  Now, the wine club memberships are another story . . .  I think that Erik and I will also "multi-task" our "bar trip" by having me tag along to his speaking engagement in Grenada.  It will still be an expense, but it will give us a nice vacation before we embark on our adventures in living long distance—for at least 2 years if not more.


BUT E and I are not big vacation people.  At least not as a couple.  He likes his snowboarding trips.  I'm not a huge vaca person.  This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I've lived overseas and have experienced living in other cultures and now am just in a "settling in"/"homesteading" phase.  I've had two vacations in the last 5 years, I think.  I don't consider visiting family as a vacation (still love you though).  I took a graduation-from-undergrad trip with my cousin K to Rome and my honeymoon.  This blogpost is very similar to how I approach my daily life.  I feel that I don't really vacation (or crave a vacation) because I'm living the life I want.  There's nothing more that I would rather do.  I mean, the bar study is supremely horrible and stressful, and I would much rather be doing anything else, but it's also a means to an end—my legal career.  That I wouldn't trade for anything.