From Russia, with uncertainty...

Going to type this out in an email, given the lack of ability to log into blogger from away...  and the confusion of the cyrillic alphabet doing nothing to help the understanding.  At least I figured out how to switch the keyboard over.  Just arrived and already settled in after only 24 hours or so, a clean and calm place where everyone assumes you can speak the language and does not really look twice at you.  Quite good timing, arriving for the Military Tattoo in Red Square, the monks and the Rock around the Clock and the South Korean Psy impersonation getting the crowd going.  Best of all the changing lights on St. Basil (Vasily) - truly a work of art, inspired enough to become a symbol of the country.  Will take another look tomorrow as the Kremlin and the tomb of Lenin get crossed off the list.

Lots of thoughts this trip about 2014 and the career and such.  Lying in bed sleepless tonight, mind returning to the Professor option as an outlet.  It really might serve as a way out, you know, a way to distance from the firm even if it does not turn out to suit you long term.  The July 1 start date hovers out there, leaving you in a position where the dreams of the sailing and WC could be completed without incident.  And then a return to a new start in Halifax post-Salvador?  

It appeals.  It offers the Southern Cross in July-October, and at least another year or two before making a(nother) final decision about Halifax, the opportunity to write, and an escape from the mundanity of the solicitor-client whirligig.  At least it is an option to throw out there, and one that should be explored I think.  No need for major decisions until January, and so, as the saying always goes, por que no?

Because I have a hard time seeing the alternative yet - what will come if you do drop everything in April for another extended foray out on the road.  The skills you have are narrow at this point.  Perhaps a head-hunter can line something up, but there can be no sense of that for awhile.  Which means dropping in the resume to preserve the chances.  

7 months or thereabouts left as a full-time lawyer at MC, then, in either case?  It would seem so.  Whether it was the continued inability to care about business development initiatives or the failed arbitration arguments or the simple inability to cope with filing (ha!) - a change feels as though it has always been coming.  So embrace it.  And think on avenues that might be next while there is world enough and time.

...Just a postcript to add...  will the spatula-sculpted doors make it through customs, or will they be declared too artistically or culturally significant?  We shall find out in a few hours I guess.  2 hours until 4:30AM, and a taxi up to Belorusskaya.  Should be entertaining either way... and the memory will last as long if it is taken hopefully.