"There's Always the Mariana Islands."

Earlier this year I was looking through some of the job openings for PAs at potential government -reimbursed clinics. There was an abbreviation that I didn't know, and looking it up (yay Google!) found out that it was the Northern Mariana Islands. "Where are the Northern Mariana Islands?" you ask. I was thinking the same thing so I wikied it (Wikipedia) to learn more. It's in the Pacific just north of Guam, and eyeballing it on a globe, looks like it's halfway between Hawaii and China. There are about 84,000 people there and the languages spoken include Chamorro, Carolinian, and English. Only about 2% of the Islanders are Caucasian, so I would probably stand out. It does have the highest female:male ratio in the world of 100 females to every 77 males, so that would be a disadvantage for the Island dating scene for me. My mother and I were discussing future job locations and I told her, "There's always the Mariana Islands." She replied with, "You're making Alaska look better and better."

I haven't 100% settled on a location. I do have a job offer in southern California but I'm not sure if I'll take it yet. There's still more job searching, particularly out-of-state job searching, that I haven't done yet. Earlier this year I was pretty open to going wherever there was a job, but then I figured it would be nice to stay in SoCal if possible... But who knows... There's a lot of things to consider: commuting, cost of living, weather (this 105 degree weather is making Alaska look better and better), population - rural vs. city, family med vs. pediatrics, salary, etc... I'm going to start a poll and if any of you want to leave a comment with a recommendation of where I should work, it would be welcomed and pondered upon. By the way, the Northern Mariana Islands job is no longer listd.

I still want a kayak...