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.