LegalMBAyhem's Guide to [Getting Settled and Keeping Yourself Alive in] Charlottesville

One year ago at this moment (as I start to write this during my lunch break on Monday...probably not when it finally gets posted), I was sitting in the Pantops DMV for the second time in three hours.  Little did I know that it would take two more trips to finally get my license, title, and registration squared away...but that is another story for another time.  The point is, the first few days of August mark the time during which most Darden and UVa Law graduate students move to Charlottesville.  Their next two weeks are filled with unpacking, buying furniture, getting VA drivers' licenses, acclimating to new roommates, and preparing for Orientation.  Then school starts and your life is sucked away from you consumed by academic pursuits and school-related social events.   MissMBA recently offered some great advice for incoming b-school students, and I can't profess to be any sort of expert on the law school experience yet, but since I have lived in Charlottesville full-time for the last 12 months, I can claim some personal expertise on getting settled and keeping yourself alive in the Cville area.  I can also offer some personal tips and tricks for things that took me (in many cases) a disturbingly long time to realize/learn after I got here. 

Getting settled
I'll leave the actual moving logistics up to each individual person.  That totally depends on how much stuff you have, whence you are coming, and where you are living in town.  But, once you've gotten to Cville and picked up your keys, here are some tips for other things:
1.) If you haven't moved in yet (as of reading this), make sure you do things like set up an appt. to get your cable set up, putting electricity in your name, etc. BEFORE you get here.  Obviously, who your service providers are will vary by location (e.g., you have no choice in cable if you live in Ivy Gardens), but since everyone and their mother is moving to Cville in August, you'll want to try to get a jumpstart on getting on the schedule as soon as you can.  Note that if you have not previously had utilities in your name, the local utility companies may require a deposit from you.  It can be difficult to talk your way out of this if you can't get some sort of reference letter from a prior utility provider, so be sure to plan ahead. 
Useful links:
Comcast
Dominion Virginia Power
Century Link (formerly Embarq)
2.) I highly recommend taking a good bit of time before you move to set up a forwarding order from your old address with the post office, to change all of your address information with your credit card companies/banks, etc.  When you set up a forwarding order with the USPS, they will send you a confirmation of your mailing address change - to both the new and old address.  KEEP THIS DOCUMENT.  It will make your life so much easier when you go to the DMV as you won't have to bring your lease (which may or may not have an actual street address on it, as I learned the hard way) or wait to get a bank statement to show residency. 
Useful links:
USPS Change of Address
3.) Don't forget to get renter's insurance (or change the insured property with your existing insurer)!  The student budget at UVa includes renter's insurance, many leases require you to have it, and it's just plain smart to have it, in my opinion.  Since money will be tight, take some time to shop around if you haven't in a while.  Make sure you ask about things like multi-policy discounts, alumni association discounts, professional network discounts, good student discounts, etc.  It's up to you whether you choose to do all of this online or with a live agent in town, but don't forget to do it! 
4.) If you have a car, make sure you get any necessary parking stickers from your landlord, management company, or the city (if necessary).  The last think you want is to get towed (and it does happen every year)!  Also, there is generally a parking waiver at Darden (and they claim at the law school) for most of August, but the lines at the Parking & Transportation Office toward the end of the month/waiver period can get to be truly ridiculous.  Decide if it's worth it to you to pay for a little bit more of the month (while the waiver is in effect) in exchange for your sanity, and just go before Orientation starts. 
5.) The DMV in most states is pretty horrific, but VA takes the cake in my opinion.  Double and triple-check the list of documents you need to bring, and plan to spend several hours there.  If it takes less time, you'll be thrilled, and if it takes as long as it usually does, at least you planned appropriately.  Also, I recommend going and getting a VA inspection (you can do it at many gas/service stations on 29 or 250) BEFORE you go to the DMV.  Then that's done.  I love the folks at the Goodyear on 29 (by Starbucks and Jiffy Lube, just south of Rio Rd and across from the Fashion Square Mall). 
Useful links:
Virginia DMV

Keeping yourself alive
1.) Try to get any and all possible doctor's appointments out of the way before Orientation starts.  You'll thank me later.  Despite all your efforts to be organized, I promise you that you will have something else pressing to do if you think you can schedule an eye exam for, say, 2 pm on October 5.  Because UVa has a medical school and teaching hospital, there are some really good doctors around.  Check out the DocFind for Aetna if you are on the UVa student plan, or check with your independent insurance company to see who accepts your plan locally.  Health Services is OK for things like sinus infections and flu shots, but I haven't had a great experience trying to get routine care from them, and if you need a specialist, you'll have to do that on your own anyway.  Plus, you can't get into Elson until school starts anyway if you haven't paid the summer fee.  Also, transfer your prescriptions from your old pharmacy NOW.  CVS is the most convenient to school, but Kroger, Walmart, Sam's Club, and Target all have generic programs that can significantly reduce your co-pays (and the line at CVS - even if you've pre-ordered a refill online - is frequently a 20+ minute ordeal).
2.)  Take an hour to drive (or walk) around and pick up take-out menus from places near school or your apartment.  You'll want to have these later (yes, many of them are online, but it really is easier to have a folder at home).  I'll be publishing LegalMBAyhem's Guide to Charlottesville Dining later this week, but figure out what is on your way home from school if you drive, and you'll be a much happier camper. 
3.)  If you want to avoid frequent take-out and think Lean Cuisines start tasting like rubber after the first or second one you eat a week, spend an afternoon preparing some of your favorite dishes.  Make 4-6 servings and then portion them out into single-serving containers to freeze.  This way, you can throw one serving in the microwave and you're only 5-6 minutes away from home-made deliciousness any crazy day.  I've found that pasta dishes (lasagna, penne with vodka sauce, etc.), saucy stir-fry dishes with rice, and many curry dishes with rice actually freeze pretty well.  The key is to make things that have enough moisture in them to help re-hydrate your starches when you microwave them, so think about adding some extra sauce relative to what you would usually make.  Red meat (beyond ground beef) can be the most tricky ingredient because it doesn't always re-heat terribly well. 
4.) Similarly to above, take some time to go to the grocery store and stock up on pantry items and other things you can prepare quickly.  I'm not saying you should live on ramen noodles (the amount of sodium in those seasoning packets is far too high!), but you'll want to have some things on-hand.   At Darden at least, there's also a lot of free food in September - first coffee, briefings, cocktails, etc.  - that can make menu-planning a challenge.  If you throw some chicken in the freezer and invest in some frozen veggies (they even freeze diced onion and peppers these days), you can whip up something homemade pretty easily without a special trip to the store if you find you have the time to do so....and you won't end up throwing out a bunch of fresh stuff you bought and then never had time to cook.
5.) Familiarize yourself with the locations of the nearest dry cleaner, ATM for your bank, the cheapest gas (I think Kroger off of Hydraulic and Sam's Club are the consistently the cheapest by far), FedEx (Barracks), the UPS Store (on 29 by Hydraulic), and the post office (Barracks and the main branch on 29 - note that the main branch accepts overnight mailings until much later in the afternoon than the Barracks branch).   Generally scope out the area and learn the lay of the land before you need something last minute and don't know where it is.
6.) If you need a new interview suit, a dress for a wedding in October, etc., go find those things now, while you have (maybe) some extra cash and some free time.  There are some nice stores (Banana Republic, White House Black Market, etc.) and boutiques in Charlottesville but not a ton, and the mall leaves a little bit to be desired at times.  However, the Leesburg and Williamsburg outlets are each about 2 hours away.  Go now!  If you're a Darden student, make sure you have a pretty solid business casual wardrobe, and if you're female, you'll want a couple good 100% cotton sundresses (that silky dress lining stuff that seems to be on virtually every nice sundress I owned before getting here is MISERABLE during August, September, and most of October) and a nice cocktail dress for Darden prom. 
7.) Do a little bit of sight-seeing.  Hit up Monticello or Ash Lawn-Highland!  Explore Richmond or DC if you aren't from this area!  Visit a winery!  Check out my posts here (at the bottom) and here to see what I've done with guests recently.  Put together a list of things you want to do (with information and websites and whatnot) that you can consult without spending a lot of time if you have friends or family visiting from out of town.
8.) Take some time to make sure all of your personal paperwork and information is organized and neatly filed before you start school.  I'm talking bank statements (if you still get paper copies), old paystubs, copies of last year's taxes, any medical records you may have, insurance documents, financial aid materials, copies of written recommendations from prior employers, etc.  Basically anything you may need to consult at some point in the next 9 months and don't want to waste precious time scrambling around finding.  It may seem silly now, but it could be super-helpful later.  If you did this before you moved, good for you.  If you just threw everything in a box that you plan to stash in a corner of your new apartment, go back and read the last three sentences again. 
9.) Try to get in the habit of going to the gym as soon as North Grounds will let you in (or start taking a regular run/bike).  If you don't make this a part of your routine very early, it becomes much, much more easy to justify never doing it.  I think I went to North Grounds a total of 5 times all year.  Not good, folks, not good. 
10.) Get sleep.  I know you'll want to go out and meet people and check out the local bars at the Corner, but don't start the school year sleep deprived.  Honestly.  Just don't.

Naturally, you don't have to take my advice on the above, and I'm sure other folks have different advice entirely.  However, I learned a lot of this the hard way, and if I can keep anyone else from making the same mistake(s) I did, I'll consider it my good deed of the day.  UVa also has a Graduate Guide that can be helpful (but I find it kind of hit or miss).  If you have specific questions or concerns, don't hesitate to email me at legalmbayhem@gmail.com.  Good luck!

Retrospective: Moving, My Favorite Activity....EVER

As I’ve mentioned before, I hate moving. Absolutely HATE it. I think I would rather have my teeth ripped out one by one than move. OK, that’s probably an exaggeration, but only a little one.

When I was in college, I used to start packing up my dorm room by the middle of April. Moving stressed me out, and I tried to minimize that stress by starting early on the packing, which, to some degree, made me feel more in control of the situation. When I moved to Boston, I was able to do so piecemeal, since I still had an apartment in Providence for 2 months after my Boston lease started. This made the situation slightly less miserable, but it still wasn’t fun. Once I had moved everything to Boston, I vowed that I was never moving again until I was out of graduate school and could afford professional movers (I actually intentionally chose an apartment that was walking distance to Boston College, on a bus route to Boston University, and a short walk and then a bus ride to Harvard). The best laid plans….

When it became clear that I was going to move to Virginia, I almost instantly started freaking out about the move. I have a lot of stuff. I have heavy furniture. I hate moving. This was not going to be good. I also had no earthly idea how exactly I was going to get everything from Boston to Virginia (about 600 miles). Clearly, it was too far to make numerous trips as I'd done when I moved from Providence, and I had waaaaay too much stuff to cram into the family minivan as I'd done through college. So, I knew I was going to have to rent a moving truck. I also realized that there was no way in hell that my parents and I were going to be able to move all my furniture by ourselves without at least two hernias and probably a nervous breakdown or two or three. So, I was going to have to hire movers.

I really think that most moving companies are a huge racket. To hire a full-service moving company would have cost me upwards of $4500 (still assuming that I did my own packing), which is simply ridiculous, and goodness only knows when and if my stuff would have shown up in Charlottesville. Renting a Penske truck (with a AAA discount and my mother driving, since I’m under 25) and hiring movers to load in Boston and other movers to unload in Charlottesville, and including two stops in CT (one to pick up more stuff that I had in storage, and one to acquire a car from my grandparents) and one in DE (to sleep and pick up yet more stuff at my parents’ house), I was able to do the whole thing in about 18 hours and for around $2k. It was still expensive, but I was generally able to retain my sanity, nothing was broken, and nobody got a hernia. Therefore, I consider the expense well worth it, and I definitely recommend hiring professionals, unless you have a whole posse of able-bodied individuals around to move all your stuff.

Also, if you’re looking for movers in Boston, Intelligent Labor in Cambridge is amazing. Truly amazing. They were literally running between my apartment and the truck. 5 stars.

Retrospective: Quitting My Job, Or, What Not to Do When You Quit Yours

I’d like to offer some helpful do’s and don’t’s for those of you who are planning to quit your job to return to graduate school. These may not all be applicable to everyone’s situation, but here’s my perspective.

1.) DON’T underestimate the amount of time that training your replacement will take.

At the Consulting Firm That Shall Not Be Named, I was the only person in my position, and, while I certainly never considered myself irreplaceable, I performed many tasks that none of the attorneys with whom I worked would ever in their right minds want to do (thinking cataloguing and filing electronic copies of contracts and filing annual reports with various states), as well as some that I’m perfectly sure they could do but which would not be a productive use of their time (think running relatively routine daily compliance/conflicts checks, answering tons of questions regarding the Firm’s ethics/professional standards policies, or sitting in on numerous meetings where some other administrative group or another needed a “legal perspective” but also wanted to cover plenty of information that really doesn’t matter from a “legal perspective”). So, despite a hiring freeze, my position was considered sufficiently “essential” to merit hiring a replacement. Apparently, I’m so essential that the Firm was willing to have my replacement, M, start 6 weeks before I left (July 31). Now, when I heard that I’d have 6 weeks to train my replacement, I thought, “This will be great! I’ll have plenty of time to finish some projects, train M, write a manual about how to do the job, say my good-byes, etc.” Wrong. M is extremely bright, but there are a ton of nuances to conflicts/compliance/ethics work, and I had apparently forgotten just how long it had taken me to get up to speed on everything, plus my job had gradually evolved into what it was by the time I left. M got stuck with everything all at once. By my last day, I was still scrambling to finish up projects, transition things to M, and salvage my personal effects from my computer. Word of advice: plan on “transition” taking much longer than you expect.

2.) DO start documenting your job responsibilities or compiling a how-to guide NOW.

I guess this may only apply if you are in a “new” role or a role for which your company does not already have a “manual” documenting your responsibilities. If you are going to compile such a guide, do not do what I did and wait until your last few weeks at the company. You will invariably forget things that you do and how exactly you do them. Someone new walking into your job will not necessarily have the institutional knowledge that you have and will benefit from a detailed how-to guide. I had originally planned to do this early on, but I was busy, so I kept putting it off. Then, I was scrambling to try to remember everything. If you start now, you’ll be able to capture 9-10 months of work activities. I recommend looking at time sheets, emails, etc. every couple weeks, identifying major responsibilities or projects, and writing down how you did them, names of essential contacts, etc. This documentation may also be helpful to you when it comes to be review/feedback time.

3.) DON’T, under any circumstances, work up until the day before you plan to move.

You will be stressed about moving, you’ll want to see friends before you leave town, and you will benefit from at least a few days “off” before dealing with the hassles of moving, getting settled in a new place, and orientation. I worked until 14 hours before the movers were supposed to show up. Bad, bad idea.

4.) DO network at least a little before you depart.

I wish I’d had more time to do this, but (if you haven’t sensed a theme from this post yet) this is another area in which I feel like time snuck up on me. Ostensibly, if you’ve been at a company for some period of time, you’ll have formed connections with at least some of your co-workers. Take the time to go out to lunch, grab drinks, etc. before you leave. Thank your mentors. If they were particularly influential, you may want to keep in touch with them later, and this will be much easier if you’ve cultivated the relationship before your departure. Also, you may want to return to the company after school, and I would imagine this is easier if you do some work before you leave.

Things I will NOT miss about Boston

First (and right now only) item on the list of things I'm excited to leave behind: The crappy, crappy weather we've had for the last month or so. Don't believe me? This is a reflection of the horrible month of June in Boston. Miserable graphic, but I think it says a lot.

I survived a year with something like 2 feet more snow than the average (which is already pretty close to 4 feet a year) in Boston, and other than the fact that all the shovelling made me slightly grumpy, it really wasn't THAT bad. Now, it's July, I haven't seen the sunlight in so long that I actually have a vitamin D deficiency (normal range is 30-100 ng/mL; my level is 25 ng/mL), and I'm pretty sure I'm on my way to a Seasonal Affective Disorder diagnosis.

Every time I log in to iGoogle and see the comparative weather between Boston and Charlottesville (e.g., 58 degrees and pouring vs. 80 degrees and sunny skies, respectively, for July 1, 2009), I can't wait until I move...

EDIT: Today (7/2) boston.com actually posted instructions on how to build an ark. You have got to be kidding

In which our heroine very nearly becomes overwhelmed by business school before she even gets to Charlottesville...

***Warning: the below is a rant. If that's going to bother you, stop reading now.***

As I mentioned yesterday, part of my blog delinquency has been due to the heinously ridiculous amount of stuff I need to do before I move to Charlottesville* on August 1. "What heinously ridiculous stuff?" you may ask. Well, aren't you going to be sorry you asked...

1.) Moving. Moving may be my single least favorite activity/event EVER. Do I hate moving more than I hate, say, eating brussels sprouts? YES. Do I hate it more than scrubbing bathroom toilets? YES. Go ahead and pick any other activity, and I promise you that I hate moving more. Now, why exactly do I hate moving so much? Well, for starters, I have a lot of crap, and moving it is a pain in the derriere. Secondly, moving offends my sense of order and reason. In the process of packing things up, you find yourself unable to find critical things that you need before you move, AND you can't walk around your apartment because of the bazillions of packing boxes in various states of being filled. When I was in college, I used to start packing for the end of the spring semester by Spring Break, and back then I had a lot less stuff. On the bright side, my friend Sam from work did just give me a whole bunch of boxes (Sam just moved) yesterday, so he has definitely saved me $$ and mucho time/effort. But back on the dark side, now I actually have to start packing, which is a process rendered far more frustrating by the fact that my sister is currently living with me (THAT is a story for another day and a less public forum), and my poor little one bedroom simply cannot hold, her, me, my stuff, her stuff AND boxes. Just ain't no way. Le sigh.

2.) Logistics. This topic sort of falls under the "Moving" heading, but I really think that logistics are their own separate problem. By logistics I mean finding movers, renting a moving truck, figuring out how I'm going to park a 26-foot moving truck in front of my apartment in Brighton(read: I need to figure out a.) how to get Boston street permits without paying a fortune to bond myself/my mother/our rented Penske truck and b.) how to ensure that nobody actually parks in the spots for which I've obtained the aforementioned permits on the day that I have the permitted right to reserve them), getting out of my Boston lease early (my landlord actually rented the apartment out from under me yesterday - I can't tell you how many times I said, "I am moving out August 1; you can rent the apartment any time starting August 2," but apparently, he didn't catch the fact that I WILL BE LIVING IN MY CURRENT APARTMENT ON AUGUST 1 UNTIL I GET MY STUFF OUT OF IT), getting utilities set up in Charlottesville (um...is there a reason Charlottesville, VA has no cable competition and Comcast thinks it's OK to charge a 25% premium over their rates anywhere else in the country?), etc., etc., etc. Maybe what this has taught me is that I do not have a calling to work in Operations.

3.) Healthcare. By healthcare I mean getting required immunizations, seeing every doctor possible before I lose my sweet, sweet health insurance coverage through the consulting-firm-that-shall-not-be-named, and finding new health insurance that will not result in me paying a bloody fortune to see an endocrinologist and keep my insulin pump (but chronic diseases are also another story for another day). Right now, I can't lift my left arm (seriously, John McCain-style) thanks to the tetanus (TDaP, actually, because nobody wants diptheria or pertussis, either) shot I got yesterday, and apparently, a simple tuberculosis test (that's the one where they inject stuff that stings like hell into your forearm, and it sits there in this gross-looking blob under your skin for while, and than you have to go back in two days for them to confirm that no, you don't have tuberculosis) now requires no less than four - count 'em, FOUR - trips to the doctor's office, because the FDA or somebody decided that one test isn't good enough so you have to do the whole thing twice to confirm that you're healthy. Again, le sigh. I don't even have the energy to discuss the insurance issues in any further detail.

4.) Money. It is no surprise that business school (or any pre-professional school, really) is expensive. I think everyone is fairly cognizant going into it that business school=debt, unless you are independently wealthy, or you worked on Wall Street and horded your money, or you live in South Dakota and just won Powerball. I am not independently wealthy, I am a paralegal, and Massachusetts is the only state in the country that doesn't have Powerball. So, like most other people, I plan to take out a bazillion dollars in loans to pay for my JD/MBA. However, loan checks don't get disbursed out to students until mid-September or something like that, and before orientation even starts, I need to buy a car, car insurance, parking (these transportation-related things are things I've been saving for and which would not be covered by loan funds in any event, but I'm listing them here anyway), a new computer, health insurance, renter's insurance, books (Darden charges a fee for all of your cases for the whole year, but you have to pay by August 15 apparently), etc. Not quite sure where all the money for that stuff is going to come from. In case the powers that be missed this fact, students need LOANS to pay for school-related stuff, so it's a wee bit challenging to pay for this stuff BEFORE we get our LOAN MONEY. Grumble.

5.) Actual academic preparation for classes. In the form of pre-enrollment modules and recommended reading. Frankly, the thought of this just exhausts me so much that I'm going to have to talk about this topic on another day. Same goes for the topic of wrapping up my current job (and remind me also to discuss the ridiculous expectation that entering MBA students can just take the whole summer off to prepare for school....riiiight. Again, not independently wealthy here. And in need of health insurance. Thanks for the consideration.). And I also need to write a post in response to Julie's comment on my earlier post about acceptances as to why I chose Darden. I promise I'll do that eventually, too....

*Note: None of my aggravation here is really specifically connected to Darden; I know I'd be equally frustrated right about now if I were going to school anywhere else, too. Just a disclaimer.