I got my official acceptance letter from the school on Friday followed by a binder of welcome information on Saturday. Definitely the most information that I've received from any of the schools. I did appreciate the t-shirt from DePaul though. I looked through the paperwork and noticed that I have until July 6th to have my deposit received. Given that the earliest that I could mail it is Monday that is completely impossible. Mail to Alaska, as evidenced by when I received my acceptance letter, takes at least 7-9 days from whenever it is mailed in the states. Same goes the other way. I think I'll call them and ask for an extension, because that is just impossible. I don't want to mail my acceptance until after I've already tried to negotiate my financial aid. That means there is no time for a letter of negotiation. Perhaps an e-mail plea or a phone call so that I can get an immediate sense of whether I will get any aid. I'm sure they won't give me any more aid after I have sent in a deposit.
I also need to decide whether I want to go down early enough that if I want to establish residency for 2L and 3L years I will qualify with enough time in the state. As an Alaskan resident I could probably get a clerkship if I maintain my Alaskan residency until after graduation, but I'd have to pay a bunch more in tuition if I don't become a local resident. Would a clerkship be worth 20k in extra tuition for years 2 and 3?
Hubby waivers between hating the idea of moving and resignedly accepting it. He knows it would be better for me to be busy and being near his family will be better for me than being by myself or in Anchorage with my family. He probably won't be there for too much of school anyway. He is thinking his deployment will be fiscal year '08, which starts in October. But if he doesn't leave until say December, he won't get back until the following December to March time frame in which case I'll be 1/2 way done with school and only have another 1.5 years to go. This makes him feel better about it. It just makes me freak out. He's been my best friend since freshman year of college, even before we were dating. I don't know how I'll handle the stress of law school without him.
Move or no move, either way, we've decided to take advantage of being in Alaska while we can. Even if I'm not in school, this will probably be our last summer together here for awhile if he's off playing Army. For our 3rd wedding anniversary we're taking an early trip. It always turns out that we have holiday leave from work over July 4th weekend so we do something early for our anniversary and save our personal leave for later. So we're going to drive to Valdez, take a cruise to see the whales, glaciers, puffins and other wildlife, go on a hike to see the Bridal Veil Falls and spend a night camping on the Denali highway. It should be a fun trip. Valdez is one of my favorite places in Alaska and it's somewhere that we've never been together. I will enjoy sharing it with him. We'll still go out to dinner together on the actual day of our Anniversary, but this trip will be the main celebration. Enjoying a combination of outdoors, nature, wildlife and a balance of camping and hotels so as to not stress us out too much will be good. It will be an intro to camping as a couple which should be interesting. One night can't hurt too much even if I'm not very outdoorsy.
In preparation for the trip we tried to buy a tent today. We spent an hour and a half in the store today. One of the nice things about going to a local gear shop rather than a big retailer like Outdoorman's Warehouse is the personalized service that you get. We learned more than I ever wanted to know about tents and fabrics and we set up two different models in the store to see wether we liked them. They won't let you leave the store without having set it up. One of the tests of a good tent match is apparently whether it is intuitive enough to be set up correctly without reference to the directions. Hubby being a naturally outdoorsy Eagle Scout took the lead while I dumbly looked on. I helped when I could, but listening to him talk to the salesperson was like listening to a foreign language. I had no idea what they were talking about for the most part and in the end hubby left with a tent on hold to go home and sleep on it. I just think that the blue one with the metallic red poles looks better than the yellow and beige one with the silvery poles, but I'll be glad if he's happy. I don't really care about the tent.
