In My Mind I'm Going to Carolina

On Monday morning, I put the last of my things in my car, gave my key to my roommate, and said a tearful good-bye to the city that's been my home for the previous three years.  

When I first moved to Charleston, I didn't think I'd be in South Carolina long.  And I didn't think I'd become so attached to the Holy City.  But I was wrong on both counts and am having a hard time imagining my life away from the idyllic streets and cityscapes.  

For me, Charleston will always be the city where I found myself (or at the very least, started on that journey).  I know a lot of my feelings about Charleston relate back to the years of my life that I spent there.  I was 23 when I first moved to Charleston, I had no responsibilities and no commitments and was enrolled in a program where I met a lot of wonderful people who were a lot like me in some important ways.  

Strangely enough, I think I had the "college experience" in law school.  Even though the past three years were some of the most difficult and trying of my entire life academically, they were also some of the best years for personal growth and for my social well-being.  I made lifelong friends, found a passion, and started on what I hope will be a great career.

I could wax poetical about Charleston, but it is late at night and I'm afraid such ramblings will bring me to tears (again) so I'll keep it short.  August 2010, I quit my job, packed up everything I own, moved 400 miles away to a city where I knew exactly four people - my aunt, my uncle, and my two cousins - and had the best, most amazing, incredible, freaking time of my life.  And even though it was hard (it was so hard) I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Have a great night y'all.

Indian Summer

The title of this post is a word New Yorkers use when there is an unusually warm spell in the middle of fall.  But I think South Carolinians just call it November.


People who have spent time with me over the past few weeks may have heard my running commentary on the weather recently in Charleston.  For lack of a better word, its been hot.  I don't really do hot very well, especially when December is three days away.


It's been too hot for me to wear jeans and I'm tired of all of my summer clothes (I mean I've only been wearing them since May).  It's been too hot for me to sleep, and I'm tired of being tired.  And hot.  And sweaty.  And grumpy/irritable due to lack of sleep and wardrobe and copious amounts of sweat.  


The bright side?  It is supposed to drastically cool off tonight.  Instead of highs near 80 today, the rest of the 10 day forecast has highs in the upper 50's to low 60's.  So here's to grinning and bearing it for 24 more hours, but I'm sure ready to cool off.

Unexpected Side Effects Include

We all know (because I've pretty well documented) my relatively new-found love/obsession with running.  I like to think that someone will stumble upon my little blog and I'll inspire someone to lace up their sneaks and pound the pavement.  I've blogged about it before, and I'm sure I'll blog about it again.  This post is kind of the opposite sort of post - its about the unintended consequences of becoming a running devotee....


The great thing about running (just bear with me, because its the equally awful thing about running) is that your body becomes dependent on it.  The runner's high, the stress buster, the physical exhaustion after a good, long run.  Like milk, it does a body good.  


The bad thing about running is that your body becomes dependent on it.  So when life, say in the form of finals, interrupts your life and all of its regularly scheduled programming, things get a little crazy.  Like me for example.


Its been a while since I've been able to get a run in.  Like a week.  A week is too long for me to go without running.  Around day 4 I notice my irritability heightens.  Little things drive me nuts.  Loud sneezes, having to empty the dishwasher, communicating with unsuspecting and innocent bystanders.  


Day 5 my muscles start to ache.  I know its ALL mental, but its like they're screaming at me "USE ME!!!!  USE ME!!!!"  I can usually stave it off if I can make it to the gym or do a set or two of squats.  But if left to my own devices and unable to exercise....I wind up with a wicked case of the jimmy legs a la Kosmo Kramer.  


By the time a full week has rolled around, my ability to process information and focus has completely left me.  At this point my brain is running faster than a five year old on a sugar high while my legs are jittery and twitching left, right and center.  


So what does this mean?  Well for starters it means I'm a human equivalent of a dog that gets daily exercise.  Without it, I go crazy and tear up the house (except I usually focus my extra energy into cleaning UP the house, which actually is a positive benefit to this whole thing).  It also means that I need to make my daily run a priority.  Especially right now when I need to be able to focus my brain on solving the world's contractual issues instead of obsessing over the relative cleanliness of my apartment.  


So watch out world (or at least the greater Charleston area)!  Tomorrow morning, a mad woman with enough pent up energy to rival that of an unexercised border collie is hitting the streets, and its not going to be pretty.

A Princess on Princess Street

I unofficially kicked off my half marathon training today.  I know, I know, I was supposed to start it on Sunday.  Well it POURED for three and a half days.  STRAIGHT.  I don't even know how much rain we got, but I do know that my parents got 12 inches from the same storm.  


It was worth the wait. 


Today was 75 and beautiful.  No heat to speak of.  No humidity.  I even saw some Charlestonians wearing jackets today, it made me laugh because it was absolutely perfect weather. 


Anyway, I ran my favorite run aka the only one I really have and know that I won't get lost somewhere in the middle.  From my school, if I run straight on King St. until I hit the Battery at the very southern tip of the peninsula and head back, its a 5k.  I did just a little bit more than that today: 3.34.  


I don't have a time to give you guys because I stopped my watch at one of the traffic lights and forgot to restart it when I started running again, so my time was way faster than I know I was running.  


Running has quickly become my favorite pastime in Downtown Charleston.  Partially because its free, partially because I find it relaxing, and partially because I've never really been a "city runner" before.  


I could never run in Charlottesville, home of my alma mater, and Chesapeake is significantly not a city, so I'm enjoying the new challenges and sights that running in Charleston gives me.   There is so much more going on all around me in Charleston than in Chesapeake.  


I like the distraction.  After a long day at school and hours in the library I like to put my feet to pavement and work out my frustrations.  I don't think about Property or my Legal Memo.  Instead I window shop as I run by all the trendy stores.  I dodge around all of the people.  I look at the beautiful homes and try to imagine what it would be like to live in one of those very expensive, very historic buildings. 


Its really helping me learn the city.  Every time I go for a run I discover something new.  Like today, for the first time, I noticed that there is indeed a Princess Street in Charleston.  It also appropriately runs right next to Saks Fifth Avenue.  


I think its kind of cool that on my first run for the Princess Half Marathon I noticed Princess Street.  It also kind of made me want to live on Princess Street.  I would definitely order return address labels with tiaras on them!

New Pics

I took these on Isle of Palms on Friday.  The restaurant we were happy hour-ing at looked out over the water so I got a rare East Coast sunset over the water opportunity.

Get Ready

because I actually think I might have some time this weekend to actually blog a little bit!!!!


Just as a preview - law school is awesome.  I never thought I'd say that about something that has me studying for about 12 hours a day, but I am.  More on it later!

Since I have a couple of minutes....

I am going to take advantage of what I know will be a very infrequent moment of free time and dedicate it to you my dear readers.  


Today was my first day of law school.  And I can honestly say, that I really think this is where I'm supposed to be.  There's something about it that I kind of love even though I'm only two classes in.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but its seriously awesome.


I even have a new favorite word already: tortfeasor!  Its the person who commits a tort.  The definition isn't totally cool, but tortfeasor sounds pretty sweet.  


I'm slowly getting to know Charleston and my classmates.  Except I did have my first run in with a palmetto bug (read: COCKROACH) at the laundry room in my apartment complex the other night.  


I've also made kind of an important decision about a completely non-law school related aspect of my life.  I think I'm going to cancel my Weight Watchers membership and use that money to pay for a nicer gym membership.  I don't have the time to go to a meeting and in all honesty I haven't been tracking (or not with any serious commitment anyways).  The gym at my complex works in a pinch but doesn't offer any classes which were my favorite thing about my gym at home.  I'm still trying to weigh my options with this one, but I think that is probably what I'll wind up doing.  


Anyways I thought I'd have a lot of time to write, but I made the stupid decision of sitting in my bed while writing this, which means that I am struggling to keep my eyes open at all.  


More as soon as I can.  This law school thing is pretty time consuming, so please forgive me for just jotting down a few lines when I can!

Welcome to Chucktown!

Last weekend my mom and I went down to Charleston, SC to check out the Charleston School of Law where I might be living for the next few years (as in living at the library).
My aunt lives just outside Charleston so we stayed with her, my uncle, and cousin.  I hadn't seen them in almost 2 years, so it was nice to get to hang out with everyone, especially my cousin Ellen.  Of all of my cousins she's the baby, so I couldn't believe it when I found out that she's driving!!!!   

And honestly, she's a good driver.  She drove us to dinner one night and I never felt like I was going to die while she was driving - not like  I have with some other, new drivers - *cough, Matthew, cough, cough*


But I'm getting ahead of myself.  


My mom and I headed out of Chesapeake on Thursday.  One bad thing about Charleston is that it is one long, boring drive away.  I had my camera out for most of the trip so I could do another Traffic Cam post, but didn't see much besides trees, fields, and cars from Quebec (I think Quebecians must migrate south mid-April).


Since its practically family tradition, we stopped at South of the Border on the way down.  That place is so old and decrepit - I wonder if it ever made any money.  (I think that  in-car DVD players were the final nail in the coffin of that tourist trap because they take kids attention away from the billion signs counting down to Pedro's.)  I don't think this place has been renovated/updated since about 1976 - they didn't even have a computerized cash register!  Paper and pencil all the way (I may or may not have bought my dad a key chain that is a bottle opener/corkscrew for only $2 - what a bargain!)!


When we finally got my aunt's I found out that my uncle and cousin love, love, love The Office.  They even had the British version on DVD, which is so funny!  The Jim character (Tim) is not nearly as cute as John Krasinsky, but the Dwight character (Gareth Kennan) is just as funny and weird as Dwight K. Shrute!  


Friday was my appointment with the school.  I sat in on a class and took a tour.  Its relatively new, small, and right in the heart of the city.  Even though its why we took the trip, I don't want to get bogged down in the logistics of choosing a law school here - that would be no fun - especially when there's lots of good shopping to talk about!  

Like I mentioned, the school is on King Street, which my tour guide informed me is the heart of the city - good bars/restaurants to the north, good shopping to the south.   After the tour my mom and I walked around downtown Charleston.  I was surprised at how much of a city it is.  I guess I was expecting it to be kind of like the "city" of Chesapeake, or at least comparable to Norfolk, but its more built up than either one. 


I was surprised by how much Charleston reminded me of Charlottesville (I actually kept calling it Charlottesville, whoops!), but its more like Charlottesville on steroids.  Like Charlottesville, Charleston is historic and walker friendly but its so much bigger than the home of my alma mater.  I actually think Charleston's a little trendier than Charlottesville, but I also think the population is more diverse so it can support all of that trendiness.  And honestly, its beautiful.  The homes are gorgeous, old and historic.  And its right on the water.

It looks like just about everyone down there is rolling in money, like they have so much money that they having nothing else to do with it other than spend it in every way possible - maintaining lavish homes and lifestyles, owning a boat, opening trendy restaurants/shops, and embracing the yuppie lifestyle.  I liked it.  I know I won't have much money when I'm down there, but I think you could do a lot worse than hanging around with a bunch of  yuppies.  


Friday night my aunt took us to this restaurant on Sullivan's Island (a barrier island of Charleston).  This is the island where Hootie, aka Darius Rucker, of Hootie and the Blowfish fame lives.  Unfortunately we did not see Hootie, which is probably a good thing since music-wise, I'm stuck in 1995 and cannot get enough of these guys.


Anyway, the restaurant we went to was really cool.  It was called Poe's Tavern.  And get this - the whole restaurant is Edgar Allen Poe themed.  There are posters of him and movie posters for the film adaptations of his work hanging everywhere.  Poe's specializes in specialty burgers and chicken sandwiches.  I had a chicken sandwich topped with buffalo shrimp and bleu cheese sauce, so yummy!  Even the menu was Poe themed!  All of the dishes were named things like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pendulum.  

I know this is going to sound weird, but the best part was the bathroom.  They had taken pages from his stories and plastered them all over the walls in lieu of wall paper.  It was chaotic but thought out, just like Poe's work (what a coincidence...). The whole experience was enough to make this geeky English major's heart go pitter-patter.  


Saturday we headed back to the city with my aunt and cousin.  It was fun.  Lots of shopping and walking around.  We had $3 margaritas (yummy), played with the iPad, and scouted out cute guys (oh Ellen, when you're 21 we'll have such fun drinking together!).  My aunt showed us more of the city.  It really is a beautiful town.


I have some pictures from our trip, but haven't loaded them onto my computer yet.  So I'll save those for another post!  






ps.  This has literally taken me four five days to write.  What can I say?  Pride and Prejudice kind of trumps blogging right now, Mr. Darcy is making my heart go pitter-patter all over again....

I'm back!

I'm back from my weekend adventures in Charleston, SC.

I have a lot to blog about and a lot of work to catch up on.

I'll try to get blogging this evening but here's a little peek of the Southern city: