Happy new year! After passing all of my classes from the fall semester, it looks like I will really graduate in May 2013. With this in mind, I have officially started looking for full time jobs. It seems like the options are endless and we could go just about anywhere, although we both have priorities and places we would prefer to live.
To help narrow my focus and give us a little bit of compromise, Aaron and I did an activity to figure out what we both want in a potential city. We made our own lists, ranking what we had liked in each of the places we had lived or what we wished those places had (the opposite of what we disliked about them!). Then we combined the top five from each of our lists to make our top ten as a couple. You can probably tell who put which things down.
Now the goal is to share it with everyone and see if they know of a place that has all of these ten things! It might be difficult, but I do happen to know Spain had (small) mountains and palm trees very close together. If we can't get the top ten, the top six would be great, or at least a majority of them.
1. Jobs for both of us
2. Lots of things to do (outdoors and indoors)
3. Walkable (especially to restaurants)
4. Good public transportation
5. Not a huge city...
6... but a bigger city
7. Close to the country/ mountains
8. Good weather/ palm trees
9. A happy city!*
10. Intelligent and advanced culture
*this refers to the total change in attitude we noticed when we moved to Madison. Of course it is not true of everyone or all of the time, but compared to Michigan, people here seem happy and are enjoying their lives. It is a good vibe to be around and is definitely connected to numbers 1 and 2 (the recession wasn't as bad here and there are lots of things to do).
Don't feel offended family members, being close to you was on both of our lists, but just missed getting into the top ten. Also number one pretty much rules Michigan out, sorry.
If you can think of some good suggestions, please share! So far I am focusing my search in Chicago, Madison, New York City, and Denver, but not all of those meet the list requirements and we are open to a lot more places.
Nashville!!
ReplyDeleteBaltimore. Walkable enough, better weather than many cities, A bigger city, intelligent people (at least we are haha), 2 famous medical hospital/universities, close to D.C. By train or 50 miles away, 3 hours to the ocean, 3-4 hours to the mountains. And we're here and we won't be old people bossy aunt and uncle. Or at least visit.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna put my thinking cap on. I'm so glad for your adventurous thinking and planning! You both ROCK, sweetie.
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