Since starting undergrad in 2006, I've moved ten times. Far too much. Into dorms, into subleased houses, into apartments, into a co-op with seventeen roommates, and most recently, back to my parents' house while I'm working to figure out Minneapolis plans. I've had awesome roommates, crappy roommates (thankfully not too many), a seemingly-absent roommate (who still managed to leave crumbs strewn throughout the apartment on a regular basis), and no roommates. I'm pretty adaptable to my surroundings.
Moving up to Minneapolis is an entirely different creature, though. I'm fairly unfamiliar with the city (driving around for four days has only helped a little), and I'm just a little terrified about what the winters might entail. I had initially planned on choosing a place online through an apartment-finding website, but I was pretty wary about leasing a place sight unseen. That was really the impetus for the trip: find a non-scary, nice-ish place to live that I can get to the law school from.
This is harder than you would expect.
I had actually found a nice-looking apartment in a good location off of Craigslist and met up with my potential roommate on the night I arrived at the city. After seeing the one place, I was ready to sign a lease, but she had set up appointments for people to see the apartment through the next ten days. I came away from it second-guessing myself, as if I were a job applicant not really sure how I did at my interview. How did I compare to other applicants? Should I have dressed better? Was my answer to the tough "what sort of animal would you be?" question the right one? (I said I'd be a red panda). After that, I lined up a bunch of 1 bedroom and studio apartments, and most of those were just a tad sketchy and very much overpriced for what they were. I looked some apartments right across from the law school, but the location was really the only good thing about them.
After lots of gross apartments, I did find a really nice place a little further away from the law school but on an express bus route that drops off right outside it. I'm going to have roommates who seem like they'll be awesome to live with, plus it's a lot less expensive and much nicer than anywhere else I saw. And a big plus: garage parking! The neighborhood is pretty quiet, but it has some awesome stuff (bakery, coffee shop, a couple of restaurants, and an indoor tennis center) and is close to the trendy Uptown area. My compulsive Craigslist-scouring totally paid off.
One thing I wonder about it the mental separation from the law school. Right now, I like the idea of leaving law school stuff at law school, and not bringing a lot of work home. But from everything I've heard, I'm not sure that's going to be feasible. In my head, I could go to class and do work there from 8am to 5 or 6 at night, and then come home and relax. I think it would be good for my mental health, but I am probably being overly optimistic about the workload.
One really great thing about living at my parents' place now is that I essentially have free, long-term storage. I won't bring furniture (hurrah for the omnipresent Ikea) and can really pare down the stuff that I do choose to bring without having to go through the process of throwing away things I don't really need but don't want to get rid of for sentimental reasons.
Still, the excitement I feel about getting to start over, stuff-wise, is mitigated by knowing I'm going to be dealing with my helicopter mom, who thinks because she's helping me out with living expenses, she has a vested interest in the style of bed frame that I buy. She said this, almost word-for-word. I am not exaggerating at all. I know I'm incredibly lucky to come from a family giving me so much support, but seriously?
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