Girl Meets Boston

Summer To-Do List

2010-05-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Learn to make cheese. The plan is to start with mozzarella and ricotta, which are supposed to be fairly easy. If I can get that down, then I'll advance to hard cheeses.
Keep trying to make bagels. Maybe I'll have a successful batch by August.
Prepare to destroy the GRE when I retake it in the fall.
Exercise. This includes walking at the pond, Pilates, and anything that will make my arms look like they did when I was a freshman at Huntingdon.
Visit the Arboretum. Why I haven't done so already, I couldn't say.
Finally stop by the "visitors' table" at Trinity. After a year of attending, it's probably time for me to meet some people.
Join the group of people at Trinity who cook meals for congregants in need.
Start reading through some of my old textbooks. Retain enough information to be able to talk like I have a BA.
Cut back on coffee (which should be easy when it's 80 degrees indoors).
See B.B. King at House of Blues. Lurk around in hopes of shaking his hand afterward? Maybe?
Nurture my back porch garden. If I get one fruit from each plant, I'll be ecstatic.
Socialize.
Post to my blog... if I have time. :)

Things I Love About Jamaica Plain

2010-04-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

1) Head in one direction, and it's Little Mexico. Go the other way, and it's Yuppie Hippie Heaven.
2) The original JP Licks, open from breakfast until midnight!
3) Almost all the restaurants are family-owned affairs; no chains, no franchises.
4) I don't care what everyone says--one of the best things about our JP apartment is that I can see the Prudential tower from one of my windows if I stand in the right corner of the kitchen.
5) The Goodwill store has a Vera Wang gown in the window display. What??
6) Jamaica Pond. Just look at it. I can't find a picture of the adjoining park, but there are fabulous hills for sledding in the winter.
7) City Feed and Supply, a grocery store that manages to be hip. Local fruit. Fresh baked goods. Delicious sandwiches, delectable soups. Fair Trade coffee. Local arts and crafts for sale.
8) Hi-Lo, the grocery store where it helps if you speak Spanish. Find Yerba Mate by the pound, Mexican cheeses, the most affordable spices anywhere (a good 2 oz. of oregano for $1.50), and every Goya product ever made. Just don't go there if you need yeast-- they won't even know what you're talking about.
9) June Bug Cafe. It has weird, erratic hours, half of the menu is bound to be unavailable at any given time, and the owner tends to yell at her customers (except for Alex, whom she loves-- what is it about that boy??). But, she makes fantastic paninis, delicious muffins, and hers was the first bubble tea I ever tasted. Even if it does usually take half an hour for her to make it. Wait, is this a pro or a con of JP?
10) The block next to Jackson Station smells like fried chicken, 24 hours a day.
11) Rizzo's pizza, the first food we ate in our new apartment, delivered to us by bicycle. But if you call in your order, be prepared to order in Spanish.
12) It's worth pointing out that JP has the Samuel Adams brewery. (If you drink Sam Adams, there's a good chance it was brewed in my neighborhood.)
13) One of our down-the-street neighbors has an old dog that looks just like a wolf. They go for walks together, and although Wolf Dog is never on a leash, he stays right by his master the whole time. When I'm walking home alone, I always feel safe when I walk by Wolf Dog's apartment. (Confession: I have never officially met Wolf Dog's owner. I only know where they live because the apartment has a glass door, and I saw Wolf Dog lying down inside.)
14) The Alchemist lounge. They have a rotating seasonal menu, it's a perfect nice-dinner atmosphere, and it's right down the street.
15) The MSPCA. Need a pick-me-up? Just go look at the dogs and cats, and your problem is solved.

Happy Spring, y'all!

The Not-So-Highly Anticipated Comeback

2010-03-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

"Well, if I've done anything with this blog so far, it has been to demonstrate how quickly I fall off the bandwagon. But such are the perks of having next to no readers; I can come and go as I please! Here I am again, at least for a little while; I predict that I will churn out a couple more posts in the next few weeks, then settle into another semester-long lull. But who knows. Anything can happen. On with the post!

In a nutshell, to catch up from where I left off in September: I'm still in Boston. Haven't left since the day I arrived (unless you count a quick trip to Gloucester, but I don't-- if you can get there by Boston public transit, I say you haven't left Boston). I have completed one semester of graduate school-- and miraculously, I'm still alive. I found a job, quit it, and got a new one in the span of three months. I bought a sled and broke it in the span of one hour. I've seen a little bit of snow, but not too much. I saw my parents once, but not for long enough. And I have discovered the best lunch spot in Chinatown, where you can buy a spicy pork bahn mi for $3, and tack on the most delectable avocado bubble tea you'll ever experience for $2.50 more. (New Saigon Sandwich, for anyone in the area who might be reading this.) There's much more to it than that, of course, but that at least get us all up to speed."

Well, you might have noticed that those two paragraphs contained some inaccurate information. "But Jesi, you just said on Facebook that you were in Dothan. Why are you telling me now that you still haven't left Boston?" I'll tell you why: I wrote those two paragraphs in January, stuck them in my drafts folder, and let 'em sit for nearly three months. My blogging laziness clearly knows no bounds. But rather than start from scratch, I decided to go ahead and post January's feeble attempt at an update and add on from there. So here goes the real update.

I am nearing the end of my first year of graduate school, and like many things in life, it has not gone entirely according to my expectations. (I'm beginning to see a recurring theme in all these blog posts...) Naturally, I'm learning a lot of useful information. I'm working hard, and making decent grades. But unfortunately, I find myself once again wrestling with the perpetual and annoying question: "What do I really want to do with my life?" My answer hasn't changed much; I still want to do something involving food and/or the Earth, and something that will benefit the world (or at least some of its people). There are probably a few thousand ways of pursuing that goal, but as I listen to class discussions, read papers, and write briefs all centering on food policy, I keep hearing a nagging voice in the back of my head saying, "Sorry, but this just ain't it."

Not that I'm surprised; after all, I am the girl who tried out three college majors before settling on one, and then applied to grad school in a completely different field. Picking a direction and sticking with it is not exactly my style. And it's not that I'm indecisive or flighty, it's just that I'm interested in everything and want to give it all a shot. Still, it's hard not to feel a little sheepish about my constant state of academic limbo. Most people I know have at least some idea of what they want to do long-term; why can't I seem to get with the program? Maybe I have a version of ADD that targets the life-decision-making portion of my brain...

I have a couple of options floating around in my head concerning where to go from here. To save myself the embarrassment of later saying, "Well, I decided not to do that, either," I won't write any of the details. But maybe I'll be writing a post about one of them within the next half-year or so.

In the meantime, spring is poking its head through the clouds in Boston; maybe the advent of warm weather and sunshine will inspire me to write more frequent and less mysterious updates. But given my track record, I won't hold my breath.

Back on the Blogging Bandwagon!

2009-09-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

As you may have suspected, the trials and tribulations involved in a cross-country move do not end once you have secured an apartment in your destination city. I still have plenty of blog-worthy material to spin into yarns, but before I do, I'd like to take a brief moment to talk about the present.

I got a lot of interesting responses when I told people that I was moving to Boston, my favorite of which was when my hair stylist asked, "On purpose??" The two most common remarks, though, were the following: "Boston? Whooooo, is it COLD up there!" and "Ahhh... those Yankees are a different kind of people. You be careful." There is definitely truth to each of those statements; although I have yet to experience it, there's no denying that winter will be bitterly cold, and I have also encountered my fair share of grouchy Bostonians (usually on the bus). But my first two months here have reinforced the knowledge that things aren't always as you expect them to be.

For one thing, no one told me about the Boston summer heat. Everyone seems to think that people from the South have a genetic resistance to high temperatures, and I suppose I thought so too, for a little while. However, after moving into non-air-conditioned living quarters for the first time in my life, I have discovered gaping holes in that logic. Southerners (at least from my generation) aren't better at tolerating the heat. Just the opposite-- we refuse to tolerate it! We stick central air into every possible enclosed space! We don't mind so much that it's 102 degrees outside, because it takes a considerable amount of time after leaving the house just to thaw out! Come to think of it, though, I think I've figured out what keeps the majority of the Northeast running on window fans: if the horror stories about winter are true, then I assume people here just use the duration of summer to thaw out before the snow returns. I guess I can test my hypothesis and report the results in one year's time.

Also, although I have witnessed some rudeness among my new Yankee neighbors (as discussed in the "pet peeve" section of my last entry), I have actually been pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of most people I encounter. One particularly good example of this friendliness occurred on a day when Alex and I went to retrieve a desk that I had found for sale online. (See? Good things do come from internet searches!) The seller had agreed to disassemble the desk before the pickup, since we had no car and would be forced to get the whole contraption home on public transit. We came armed with bags of assorted shapes and sizes, including one on wheels for the heavier pieces, but it was a fairly complex piece of furniture, and we could see right away that getting that thing home would not be a cake walk. We finally ended up dividing the bags between the two of us, and each of us carried one end of the tabletop. I also had the legs, which resembled rectangular metal hula hoops, slung over one shoulder like purse straps. We looked ridiculous, but we headed through the crowded street toward the bus stop nonetheless. Everything was going fairly well until Alex, who was walking ahead of me, stopped abruptly. I slammed into the tabletop, which slammed into the desk legs, which toppled off my shoulder and landed squarely on my wrist. With all four of our hands full, we stopped to discuss how to pick up the pieces and proceed, but before we could get very far, two ladies rushed up to us, hung the desk legs back on my shoulder, and helped us make sure we hadn't dropped anything else. Were it not for their help, we might still be standing on the sidewalk with a jumbled-up desk. My heart was also warmed--and my face saved--when I tripped on a crooked brick in the sidewalk last month. As I lurched forward, Mollie grabbed one of my arms, and a total stranger grabbed the other, and I went on my way unharmed. There is still kindness in the world.

So, although New England is in many ways a different world than my Southern home, it is still a fantastic place to be. It is particularly pleasant right now, as we move into autumn and the nights and mornings take on a sharp chill. I may end up whining about blizzards in a matter of months, but for now, I'll simply raise a mug of steaming chai tea in honor of new life in the Northeast.

Escapade: the Final Chapter

2009-08-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

This is probably a record for me: two posts in a little over a week. I'll confess that the reason I'm so on-top-of-it is because I saw Julie and Julia this weekend, and it made me wonder if I, too, could someday attain some level of fame and influence through my blog. (It also made me consider going to culinary school, but that's old news.) I don't have particularly high hopes, but effort always counts.

Before I get to the meat of today's post, I'd like to share one small tidbit about city life. Living in a metropolitan area has presented me with one of my biggest pet peeves to date: people who take the time to park their car in an intersection (and sometimes step out of it) to yell at someone who has cut them off, stepped into the crosswalk without checking traffic, braked abruptly, and so on. I've witnessed it a few times and it never ceases to amaze and irritate. These people accomplish nothing except to further clog traffic and convince every nearby pedestrian (and at any given street corner, that's probably at least 30 people) that they're complete jerks. Of course, given the number of said pedestrians who stop and gawk, maybe it's considered a form of street entertainment in these parts. Who can tell. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what grinds my gears. Ok-- moving ahead.

When Alex, Mollie, and I were sure we were going to live together in Boston, we did what any college grad would do in our situation: we went straight to craigslist.com. For some reason, searching for anything important on the internet always sounds like risky business, but speaking as someone who once snagged a prom date through the web (it's not as creepy as it sounds), I'm always willing to give it a shot. We still experienced a little sticker shock when we saw the prices, but we found a few that fit our criteria and sent emails to inquire about them. I guess I assumed that I'd get a speedy response saying, "Why, yes, this apartment is indeed on the market, and it's all yours now! Attached you will find the lease; sign and date it, fax it back, and we'll be on our way!" Of course that isn't what happened. In fact, practically no one responded at all, except for the one who delivered the very sad news that our first choice place had been leased the day before. So I stepped up my game a little: I started calling the realtors associated with the listings. When I could get anyone on the phone, I gave them a brief overview of our situation (we live in Alabama, and we're trying to find an apartment at the opposite end of the East Coast). They usually responded with something like, "Ah, I see... well, let me email you some pictures and get back with you in a day or two..." and I'd never hear from them again. One exception was the guy about my age who basically said, "What you're trying to do is crazy. You'll never get anything done that way."

After seeing several apartments slip through our fingers, I spotted one last possibility on craigslist and decided to fight to the death to make it ours. I wrote down the names and numbers of every realtor on the listing, and began calling them one by one. Answering machine. Voice mail. Voice mail. I was getting ready to throw in the towel. When I reached the last number on the list, I very seriously considered throwing it out. What good would it do to leave one more voice mail, anyway? But I picked up the phone, dialed, and a few rings later, I heard a real person answer my call. It was Heidi, the one realtor in Boston who was willing to help me.

At Heidi's suggestion, and because we'd seen that very little could be accomplished by phone and email over 800 miles, my mother and I bought plane tickets to Boston. I wasn't the designated roommate in charge of housing; I had just kind of taken the project hostage. I am normally not so bossy, but the prospect of homelessness led to drastic measures on my part, so off we went. My naïveté apparently knows no bounds, because I assumed, once again, that now it would be easy. Again, not so. From noon until 7 PM on Saturday, we did not slow down (not even to grab lunch), and we were in and out of no less than 14 apartments all over the city, and everything was a near blur by the end of the day, despite detailed notes. We collapsed into Heidi's office, finally with food in our systems, to choose the new home-- no small feat when you're choosing from so many. However, I narrowed it down to four, and we promptly called the landlord of my first choice.

He wouldn't have us. He wanted to know a little bit about us, and as soon as he heard the words "music major," his mind was made up. I talked to him. Heidi talked to him. Heidi's boss talked to him. He would not budge. (Apparently it isn't considered discrimination because field of study is not technically a demographic category.) We all took a few minutes to collect ourselves after the shock, decided we were better off without a crazy landlord, and moved to option two. We couldn't get up with the landlord. It was getting close to 9 PM at this point, so there wasn't much else we could do. We were certain we'd have better luck with this apartment (how could it be any worse than last time?), so I went ahead and filled out stacks of forms and papers. Before we said goodnight, I had to write a check for first month's rent, last month's rent, and realtor fee-- a sum that exceeded my bank account balance. Heidi assured me this wasn't a problem; the checks wouldn't be deposited until the beginning of the lease, so I'd have plenty of time to get the rest of the money from my roommates. So after a very long day, my mom and I headed back to the hotel to rest up for the journey home.

The next morning, our first plane touched down in the airport, and while we waited for our connecting flight, we sat down with drinks and a light snack. I checked my phone for news from Heidi, who was going to call the second landlord back that morning. I had a message from her, all right, but it wasn't the one I'd hoped for-- this apartment had been leased the day before I arrived in Boston, and it had not yet been removed from the listings. I held my head in my hands for a minute or two, focused on my breathing, and called Heidi. On to option three.

Option three, unfortunately, was more expensive than the last two, and the lease began a month earlier, so all the forms would have to be redone. I spent all of the drive home from Tallahassee to Dothan on the phone, explaining what had happened to Alex and Mollie, calling Heidi to find out how to proceed. It was a royal pain, but we got everything done, and I waited again to hear the verdict from landlord 3.

She wouldn't have us. No real reason; something about the fact that all the other units in the building were owned, not rented, and they wanted to be very selective about the tenants in this unit. Whatever that means. So I guess we were just meant to have our fourth choice, after all. That one came together relatively smoothly, except for the endless faxes and the overnight FedEx-ing of additional checks worth more money than I had. But after all that, the landlord accepted our offer and agreed to take us on as tenants. Heidi assured me that we'd be extremely happy with our apartment and our landlord. At this point, it felt like all our troubles were over. I actually had a couple of nights when I didn't lose sleep over real estate issues. Like one Friday night, where my sleep was so satisfying that it continued to 9AM on Saturday, which is late for me. I woke up feeling refreshed and ready, and headed to the kitchen, where my mother greeted me with a funny look.

I don't remember exactly what she said; the trauma of it must have caused me to repress the conversation. But the short of it is that while checking bank accounts online, Mom noticed that those checks had been deposited well before I thought they would be, and my bank account was overdrafted. As it turns out, because this lease started sooner than the others, the money was due sooner, and Heidi had forgotten to specify that. I had kept my cool throughout all the dramas of the past weeks, but this was too much. I immediately began to bawl into my cereal. I went to the bathroom to collect myself, came back to face my breakfast, and began to bawl again. Somewhere in all of that, I called Alex and sobbed/screamed out what had happened, and he sprang into action. He rushed a check for his portion to FedEx, and agreed to call Mollie so she could hear the news in a slightly less stressful fashion. It all worked out in the end--Mom was even able to get my overdraft fee refunded--and after that one final fiasco, everything was pretty much smooth sailing. We now live in our apartment, which is actually better than most of the places I'd looked at, and just like Heidi said, our landlord is fantastic. He stopped by during the first week to check on us and bring us two bottles of wine as a housewarming gift, and in the weeks since then, he has been more than happy to help us out with any problems we've encountered.

It was probably the most frustrating thing I've ever attempted to do, but I managed it. If it were written up in a newspaper (and I think it deserves to be), the headline would read, "Fresh College Graduate Secures Apartment in Boston's Cutthroat Real Estate Market--and Only Cries Once!"

The Great Housing Escapade, Part 2

2009-07-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

I'm two entries into my blog, and I've already let a month slip by without so much as a "hello." Of course, it's because I've been busy. But no one wants to hear that. Everyone's been busy. However, I hope you'll still forgive me, because I haven't just been busy-- I've been busy having fun. I have been living in Boston for a little over a month (well, technically one of its suburbs, but since I I'm only a 15-20 minute bus ride away from the city, I'll call myself a city resident). I'm actually quite anxious to share stories about life in the metropolis, but my borderline-OCD inclination to tell this thing chronologically wins, so more current news will have to wait. On my honor, I will try to ensure that it doesn't wait another month.

To pick up where I left off: my decision to reject a job that offered room and board obviously led to a flood of other problems and decisions, and the most pressing was the matter of where to live, and with whom. The knowledge had been living for quite some time in the back of my mind that two of my college friends were moving to Boston for grad school, too: Mollie Adams, a Huntingdon music major, and Alex Nishibun, another HC music major-- and also my boyfriend of three years. No, no coincidence there-- we each applied to three grad schools in the same three cities, and it turned out that the only city that wanted us both was Boston. (Guess Bloomington and Tallahassee just weren't big enough for the both of us.) For a while, Mollie and I had been throwing around the idea of living together, and when I turned down the job, we settled on it. Then we turned to the other idea that had been floating around undiscussed-- the idea of taking on a third, male, apartment-mate. Guess who!

In order to make it work, the idea had to be approved by a handful of parents. Now, I know what most people my age would think of that: "Hey, didn't you just graduate from college? You're on your own now! You're paying to go to grad school--do what you want! Live with whomever you want!" But it doesn't quite work that way. Here's the thing: while my parents are required to love me whatever I do, they are not required to offer me any kind of financial support. I don't suffer from the delusion that a bachelor's degree equals sudden capability of conquering the world in style. Sure, I have enough money to live, for now at least, but I'm pretty sure a day will come when I need a little help. At that point, the "I-do-what-I-want" mentality will just be embarrassing.

Our brilliant plan came together a lot more easily than I expected. There were plenty of good reasons for the three of us to live together (to name a few: living with people you know beats taking your chances with roommates you found on craigslist; living with people you know eliminates the possibility of ending up on the subway at midnight because you visited at their place longer than you intended; living with people you know eases a drastic transition from far-South to far-North); and everyone agreed on them. I really didn't have to defend my case to my parents--they agreed to the plan pretty much as soon as I presented. So I guess the moral of the story is that not everything in life is unreasonably difficult. Sometimes things actually do come together just the way you'd like them to, no freaking out required.

But not usually. I have the roommates, but now we need an apartment...

The Great Housing Escapade, Chapter 1

2009-06-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

I visited Boston for the first time in March, during the last few days of spring break. In the envelope with my acceptance letter, there had been an invitation to Tufts' open house and graduate research conference, which I gladly attended; I wanted to see firsthand what this school was all about before I committed two years and countless dollars. Clearly, I liked what I saw.

My host for the weekend was a good friend from Huntingdon who is now attending Boston College. He works at a boarding school of sorts, where young people from all over the world come to learn English. The job description is very similar to that of a college RA, but the language and cultural differences result in some difficulties, as evidenced by the... intimidating stories I heard over the course of the weekend. However, the main perk of the job is a free (small) room and free board in the old, but charming, facility. After I returned from my visit and mulled it over for a few weeks (and after checking into the cost of living in the Boston area), I decided to apply for the job. I didn't really want to work there, but I figured I should at least give it a shot and see what happened. Besides, I had already botched a phone interview for a res life position at Tufts' main campus, so I figured nothing would really come of this opportunity, either.

I was wrong. My interview with the boarding school went surprisingly well, given that it took place over the phone. They didn't come right out and say it, of course, but I hung up the phone with a pretty good feeling that the job was mine if I wanted it. They had even asked me to check my schedule and see if I could start at the beginning of June, and then continue on into the year. I spent the next weeks frantically trying to decide if I should take the job or not; my conversations with myself usually went something like this:

"I really don't want this job." "Are you kidding?? You'll be living for free! You'd really rather pay hundreds of dollars for rent every month?" "But all those stories I heard..." "It can't be that bad. And even if it is, surely you can endure it for a year." "Yeah, or I could crack under the pressure and wind up flunking out of grad school! Wouldn't that be nice?"... and so on.

What made the decision so tough was that there were very convincing (and obvious) reasons why I should take the job, but a substantial amount of evidence also pointed to the fact that I was simply not cut out for that kind of work. This blog might lead you to believe otherwise, but I am not an outgoing person by any means. I was average-at-best in the interpersonal aspects of my previous RA job, in which all of my residents spoke my language and understood my culture. I couldn't reasonably expect to do any better with people coming from halfway across the globe. And although quiet, laid-back conflict resolution tactics served me well at Huntingdon, I doubted they would do much good in situations like those recounted in the horror stories I'd heard. But the free housing... the freedom from all that extra debt...

Then, one day, while I was sitting in an armchair in the living room, quietly fretting over my dilemma, my mom just came right out and said, "Well, if you don't want the job, don't take the job!" as if it were just that easy. But maybe it was that easy. Clearly, taking the job was the best decision, financially speaking. However, the immediate and overwhelming relief at the mere thought that there could be another way, convinced me that turning down the job was the right thing to do. And so I did. The next day, I emailed the director of the program to inform her of my decision, and her response was, "Thank you for letting me know. This is unfortunate, as I was planning to call you today and offer you the position."

I knew I had made the right decision, but that didn't stop the knot from forming in the pit of my stomach, and staying there for hours. What was wrong with me, turning down free living arrangements in one of America's most expensive cities, especially with the economy in such a state of disarray? Just where did I think I was going to get the money to make other arrangements? What made me think it was a good idea to dig myself several thousand dollars deeper in school-related debt? And since I clearly couldn't afford to rent a place by myself, who would I find to share an apartment with me?

In just a few weeks, I had my answer-- a possibility that I had considered, but never would have expected to work out...

It All Started When...

2009-06-15T14:23:00.000-07:00

The problem with this blog is that I've been thinking about it for far too long. A few days ago, when I told two of my best friends that I'd written an essay about strawberries, just for kicks, they said, "Hey, that's just what blogs are for! You should start a new one!" And by that point, this blog was already in full swing; I had added a shiny new blog to my account, chosen a template, picked a URL and a blog title-- the works. I had neglected only one small detail: I hadn't written anything yet. But today is the day to correct that problem.

I started this blog for two main reasons. One is to get in the swing of writing again; it's one of my favorite things to do, but I forget how much I enjoy it when I get out of the habit. But more importantly, I want to keep everyone updated who wants to know about the latest phase of my life-- working toward my master's degree at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. Even though my first classes are still months away, enough has happened since the beginning of the year to fill a handful of posts. If I had been more on-the-ball, I would have gotten this blog up and running back in March, and then we'd be on our way, but alas, it is mid-June, and I'll just have to go back a ways to catch everyone (myself included) up to speed.

Originally, I thought I'd take a moment here to discuss exactly what it is that I'm doing in grad school. I've tried to explain it about a thousand times in the past few months, and the typical reaction that I get is either bug-eyed bewilderment or, "Ohhhh, ok," which is code for, "I have absolutely no idea what that means." However, I've discovered that there is no brief explanation, and a long discourse on the events that led me to choose this path of study would bore even me. So, to cut to the chase, I'll just say that my major is entitled "Agriculture, Food, and the Environment," which bundles up three of my favorite things in one convenient package. If you're still confused, I would suggest reading the summaries of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. And, if you are so inclined, I'd recommend that you go ahead and read through the books, too. Each one is excellent.

I'll also spare most of the details about how I ended up deciding to attend this school that most people I've met have never even heard of, except to say that I had never heard of it either, until I ran a google search for "graduate school agriculture," and Tufts popped up. Their front page feature was an article on sustainable farming and hunger in third-world countries. "Wow, that school looks amazing," I thought to myself. "What are the chances that it's somewhere near any of the schools Alex is considering?" And as it turns out, their school of nutrition, under which my major falls, is in Boston, two subway stops from the New England Conservatory, where Alex had applied to study vocal performance. Tufts eventually came to be the only school that accepted my application, which bewilders me to this day-- not that other schools would reject me, but that out of all the schools I chose, Tufts would be the one that said yes. For whatever reason, though, I was in; NEC took Alex; we were on our way.

Well, in theory, we were on our way. You would think that getting accepted is the tough part, and that everything after that is cake. Absolutely not the case. When you decide that you are, in fact, moving across the country to one of the nation's most exciting cities, the challenges really start rolling in. The obvious one, of course, is this: where are you going to live? The attempt to answer this question has turned into a weeks-long saga that began in early May and is not even fully resolved today. Tune in next time to hear how the drama continues to unfold...