Poor, College Thanksgiving

I waited a little too long to book a flight home this year and they got a little too expensive. So I opted to stay in Boston, seeing as how I'll be home for good next month anyway. I also have a decent amount of work to do, but I will likely designate a few days to do absolutely nothing. See below, my plans for today: leftover Bon Chon, play Skyrim, catch up on non-school reading, and I just downloaded 50/50 and Warrior. I am also going to do my laundry. Tomorrow, while everyone is shopping, I think I will go see The Muppets and/or Hugo.



I'm thankful for whatever it is in me that hopes beyond hope that someday I might do something of worth for the good of the world. As contradictory as my life is, it's been a subtle, but galvanizing and self-correcting force in my life and I don't think I'd like where I'd be without it. Friends and family too, probably.

Four more weeks of school and I'm done forever.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

October Frost

I spent the majority of this past weekend at the library writing a paper. Saturday evening, I took a break to grab a slice of pizza across the street with a friend. It was a warm evening, unseasonably so for this time of year, and the air smelled sweetly of decaying leaves. It was dark as we were walking back to the library and our work. On the way, there was a small group huddled around a dark mound wedged in between the curb and a car. As we got closer, we noticed a concerned, elderly woman standing just outside the group with her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest. Her husband had fallen into the small space at the base of the curb and a number of passers-by were attempting to help him out and up.

Our pace slowed, watching to see if we could offer our assistance. After some doing, the gentleman was on his feet, so we continued back across Comm. Ave. to the library. Comm. Ave. is a large, busy two way road divided by the T tracks. When we got to the median, I looked back to see that the elderly couple were beginning to cross. We waited for them to reach the median safely and continued ahead by a few steps, just in case. Once they were across safely, the woman approached us to ask if we knew where a particular conference hall was, where an Amnesty International event was being held. We did and we escorted them to the building in question, which was just a couple of blocks down. While walking, we learned that they had been married for over 50 years. The wife was born October Callum, but goes by Toby. Her husband is Wesley Frost. That makes her October Frost and that is just the prettiest name.

She told us about the time she drove from Boston to Alaska and how she'd like, one day, to drive across America and write about the names of places. I told her about my cross-country trips and we shared stories from the road. Before too long, we saw them back to their car and we parted ways as they effused thank-yous. My friend and I made our way back to the library and I sunk my evening in one of my last assignments ever, hopefully. It was a pleasant diversion and I imagined what it would be like not only to have lived such a long life as happily as they have, but to have gone the majority of it with someone you love.

Winter In A Hurry

It seemed like we only had a couple of weeks of pleasant Fall weather. Winter showed up mighty early this year. I had to unwrap my peacoat from the plastic, baby suffocating garment bag today, but any excuse to break out The Hill-side gear is fine with me.

School Year End & Sunrise

My first year of graduate school ended on Monday. It went by very fast, as these things usually do. There have been the standard festivities involving food and drink, but this morning some of my classmates and I went out to the Mass. Ave bridge to watch the sunrise over the Charles River. After a week of unseasonable cold and rain, it was warm and summery today and walking there at 4:30 am was quiet and relaxing. It was a great way to unwind.



We headed back around 6 and were pretty tired and hungry, but Andre wanted a picture of himself jumping over a bench.



I'm now on my first summer break since 2006. My plans aren't finalized yet, but hopefully I'll be able to do something productive and/or fun. I hope everyone else does as well.

Eye Of The Storm

I mentioned in the previous post that I'm done with my finals, but still have a comprehensive exam (a test that covers all the core econ material for the year and is a requirement for graduation) left. That's over a week away, so I'm doing my best not to think about it for a few days. A classmate had a big BBQ today at his gigantic house, dubbed "The Manor," a little out from BU. It's an old, stately looking house that creaks and has bats living in the walls, but the backyard is perfect for BBQs. The weather wasn't the best, but it was still a nice way to take our minds off of things.



My classmate and his roommates prepared the general BBQ fare (burgers, brats, ribs, and steak), but also somehow managed to ship 60 lbs. of live crawfish overnight from New Orleans. The afternoon became a swarm of people hovering over a table piled high with steaming crawfish, sucking the innards out of the diminutive crustaceans while their remains littered the floor around our feet.



It was a relaxing day. It'll be a few days yet before I venture back to the library, so until then I'll be catching up on sleep and doing absolutely nothing, while trying not to compulsively check for grades online.

Sail Away, Sail Away

A list of some of the words and names I'd like never to hear again: autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, polynomial distributed lag, Dickey Fuller, Breusch Godfrey.

I had my last regulation final this morning. I still have a take-home test due tomorrow and a comprehensive exam on the 23rd, but I have a bit of a reprieve now. A little after the test a couple of friends and I went sailing on the Charles River. One of my classmates had taken the sailing class this semester and is allowed to check out sailboats. So we spent a little while hanging out on the river. It was a nice way to unwind after a hectic week. It was a small boat so too much maneuvering wasn't really an option, but I took as many shots as I could without capsizing us. This was also the first time I've ever worn boat shoes on an actual boat.



The semester's not quite over yet, but it's close. Summer's around the corner and I'm not really sure what I'll be doing, but I'm looking forward to a break.

Spring On Comm. Ave.

It took me a while, but I finally got around to taking some shots of the campus. The trees finally started to bloom here last week so it was a good time for it. BU's campus is long and narrow, running alongside Commonwealth Avenue. It's not much to look at, but the center of it has a nice quad area and courtyard adjacent to Marsh Chapel. The quad here is called "the BU beach," so named because, if you lie on the grass and close your eyes, the traffic on the road sounds like the ocean. Yeah, it's lame. The shadowy dungeon on the bottom left is the Economics building. Dismal Science, indeed.



Only a week of class left before a month of exams. Crazy.

Shotgun* Wedding

Today a classmate of mine from Taiwan got married. It was not planned. His girlfriend, also from Taiwan, has been in town for a few weeks and they decided to get hitched before she flies back tomorrow. So a group of us rented a car and drove to Hartford, CT where there is no waiting period for a marriage license. So, I played impromptu wedding photographer.



After getting their license and fashioning their makeshift rings, the ceremony was held in an adjacent room and presided over by an elderly woman who could not for the life of her pronounce Chinese names (or stop talking about her grandkids).



It was an interesting day. Also, it may come as no surprise to those who know me, but I would be a terrible professional wedding photographer. I am not very good at corralling people into looking sentimental and sincere. So, if you're in the market for a demanding, impatient photographer for your engagement shoot, you know who to call.

* - I was just informed that the actual meaning of a shotgun wedding is a wedding forced due to an unplanned pregnancy, which makes the title of this post a misnomer. No one was pregnant in this instance - just an impulse wedding.

Spring At Last

At long last, it's starting to warm up in Boston. I wasn't able to make it back down to DC for the cherry blossoms this year, but in the spirit of spring I thought I'd a share a few shots from previous years. Everyone else is doing it.



Hard to believe it's April already. Just a few weeks of classes, finals, and a comprehensive exam (blerg) left and it'll be summer. Whether or not I actually have something to do over the summer remains to be seen, but it will be a welcome break. Less than a year back in school and I'm already pining for vacation!

On another note, in the past month, under various circumstances, I've helped shoot several conferences at Harvard. While not the most artistically compelling work, there were some interesting images. I may share some soon.

Winter Madness

I saw somewhere that this winter is approaching the top ten snowiest winters in history for Boston. I've gotten to the point where I just don't really want to go outside anymore. My energy levels are low and I have little motivation to do school work or socialize. Instead, I've spent quite a bit of time sitting in my room spacing out while thinking about Spring and open fields. I've also been alternating between spending hours at the gym and then eating entire pizzas. I guess they balance out?

I really just want to get out of here for a while. Wanderlust. I've always liked that word.

Snow Day

Like everyone that's no longer in K-12, my enjoyment of snow is somewhat diminished. It just adds some extra hassle to going about your day, but it's nice on days where I have nowhere to go. I just hope it doesn't interfere with my flight to San Francisco tomorrow.
I went up on my roof to get a few shots. I was kind of afraid that I'd step on some snow too close to the edge and find that there was no roof there, but I managed to survive.

Semester End & Sunset

Had my last final yesterday. Semester one of graduate school is over. I've had enough of the library for quite a while. The past 4 months really flew by. Definitely an interesting experience. New city, new challenges, new friends.

The first real snow of the season started while we were taking our test. Some of my classmates from California had never seen a substantial snowfall before. There are some easy metaphors of the cleansing renewal of the soft blanket of white powder over the campus in there, but I'll leave them alone. We headed out to Sunset Grill & Tap in Allston afterward to celebrate. Like all hip places, the lighting was pretty dim so the shots are fairly grainy.



I'm heading home for a couple of weeks tomorrow. Having a winter break will be nice. I haven't had this much time off since before I started working 2.5 years ago. The holidays should be nice.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Emerald Necklace

So I've finished my first set of midterms. It's been a busy few weeks. Certainly an interesting experience to be reliving this part of student life again.

I made it out to the Arboretum today. Walked down the Emerald Necklace, which is a series of parks that starts from the Boston Commons and makes a 5-6 mile loop to the south. While it was very nice, I think I'm a little foliaged out.



On another note: there are a lot of things that I've been enjoying about grad school so far. I feel like it's been challenging and I'm learning valuable things. I've also been more social than I've been in the past. Boston's a nice town. But from time to time, the thought occurs to me that this is a very big gamble. There's no guarantee that this will pay off financially in the end. Not that that's the most important thing to me, but it is something to consider. Being in the Development Economics program, conversations about future careers with others aware of what development entails usually involve the preclusion of financial success as a motivator. So, the real question is whether or not this particular degree will pay off in the sense that I'll be able to make a positive impact in the world afterward. I think in college, the prospect of doing substantive work was never real to me because I always knew in the back of my mind that I'd probably be going back to school. Now that I'm here, I find myself having to contend with the fact that this is where I've cast my lot and will soon have to deal with the fruits of my labor, or lack thereof. It's a bit daunting, but not something I'm entirely unprepared for.

Corey Hill

I was going to go to the Arnold Arboretum today, but the forecast was calling for rain. As it turned out, today was a sunny and pleasant, albeit windy, Autumn day. Having already resigned to spending the day indoors doing homework and maybe studying for my midterms, I instead took a break and walked to Corey Hill Park. Corey Hill is a park at the top of a large hill about a mile from my apartment. You have to walk up Summit Avenue to get to the top of the hill and it's a bit of a hike. I don't envy the people that have to make that trip everyday.



It's a charming little park. The views weren't as spectacular as I was led to believe, but it was nice. There was a lot of nice light filtering through the changing leaves.

On another note, the past week has seen several late homework filled nights. With a couple more assignments coming up and midterms next week, I have, and will continue to, consumed an exorbitant amount of snack food (Trader Joe's Cats Cookies are crack). It's a little interesting to note how foreign doing homework felt at first and how quickly and naturally I fell back into a pattern of procrastination. It's not been too bad though and hopefully my first tests since May 2007 won't be either. YAY, SCHOOL.

(Definitely went a little bokeh crazy here.)

Scenes From Boston (ii)

This past weekend was the last in a long string of weekend visits from people back home. While I appreciate seeing familiar faces, it's been admittedly a little tiring and I'll be glad of some time to catch up on work and sleep. That said, these weekends have been good opportunities to go out and see a lot of different things in Boston (and a lot of the same things over and over again, haha).



There was an Oktoberfest at Harvard Square on Sunday and a parade. I have no idea what the purpose of the parade was, but these alien/monster guys definitely accosted me. Also, Freedom Trail and Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market again. I did get to check out the South End and the ICA, which was pretty cool. I will have to go back and explore the South End some more.

A good weekend, but a busy couple of weeks filled with homework and midterms coming up. Yay, school.

Mount Monadnock

I went hiking here yesterday with a friend that had invited me to join his group. Mt. Monadnock is a hike in New Hampshire a couple hours outside of Boston that, according to Wikipedia, is one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world. Thankfully, the weather was gorgeous and the leaves have started to change. It was beautiful, although I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked while I was busy trying not to fall off of rocks or lag too far behind the group.



Boston is actually visible from the top 70-80 miles away. I wasn't really able to get anything more than pixel-y blobs on the horizon though.

I'm going to try and make it out to the Arnold Arboretum near here next weekend. I should be able to take in a lot more foliage then.

Boston Public Garden

After a week of heat, humidity, and rain it was really nice to have cool, early Autumn weather today. I stopped by the Public Garden. Saw a few wedding parties, a Quidditch game, and an old homeless man with squirrels crawling all over him.

Scenes From Boston (i)

A lot of walking around this weekend. Went by the Museum of Fine Arts (courtesy of the Smithsonian "Free Museum Day"), the Sam Adams Brewery, the North End a couple of times, and an evening walk on the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge.

The leaves are beginning to change color. I'll hopefully be able to catch some nice New England foliage soon.

Fenway

I went to Fenway tonight to catch the Red Sox/Orioles game. It was interesting to see the difference in energy levels among the fans here as compared to Nationals Stadium. Boston fans cheer wildly for singles and jeer scathingly at errors. I guess people are more involved when you're not consistently in last place.



I also caught "The Town" last night. It was cool to recognize all of the places around Boston that appeared in the movie. It makes me want to go watch "The Departed" and "Gone Baby Gone" again.

Oh, and the Orioles won 9-1. Suck on that, Boston. Way to go, Maryland.

Harvard Square & Homework

Went by Harvard Square with a visiting friend today. The afternoon and early evening were fairly overcast, but I caught a little light through the cloud cover before dark.



In other news, I am now pretty bad at doing homework (or at least equally as bad as I ever was), which can be evidenced by the fact that I'm doing this while my books lie open in front of me. Also, relearning calculus is like riding a bike after a long time. A really crappy, uncomfortable bike with a chain your shoelaces keep getting stuck in.



That said, it's a little surprising how my memory of undergraduate economics is colored by the couple of weeks of graduate economics I've had so far. In my microeconomics class we've been going over identical concepts to the ones covered in my freshman microeconomics class, except the level of analytical rigor is so much greater. Instead of simply drawing supply and demand functions and understanding their mechanics graphically, we're now asked to derive these behavioral theories mathematically. I keep thinking about this particular xkcd comic: