The Maltese Falcon

Besides the word maltese, the title of this post is entirely irrelevant (The Maltese Falcon is a 1940's Humphrey Bogart noir/detective film). The week I moved to a place closer to work in June 2009, my mom bought a maltese puppy from a neighbor, ostensibly replacing me. She kept the name they had given him: Shimu. He's almost 2 years old now and still a spoiled little baby.

The door to my bedroom at home doesn't latch completely and can be pushed open. Shimu discovered this early on and every morning the first thing I hear is him sprinting down the hall from my mom's bedroom (where she keeps him at night) and my door being thrown open from the impact of a tiny, fluffy white cannonball. The first thing I see is his eager, impish face peering over the edge of my bed. It's a little annoying to be woken up so raucously every morning, but I admit it's pretty endearing.

When I'm home, he's the person/mammal I end up actually spending the most time with since he just hangs out in my room/bed/lap. Whenever I leave, he sits in my room alone for a couple of days before he realizes I'm not there.

Winter Break (i): Home

I basically spent the past two weeks at home sleeping, eating, and meeting friends (to eat with). It was a great time, but it went by in a blur. I can hardly believe I'm back in Boston already. The next two weeks of winter break will be over before I know it too. Blerg.



Home visits usually involve at least one jaunt across the National Mall. For New Year's Eve, I had fully intended to do absolutely nothing, but a friend and I decided to hang out in Baltimore at the last minute. It was fun and low-key. We got to catch the fireworks at the Inner Harbor.



My time at home was generally not that eventful, but it was restful and pleasant. I've been back less than a day and already can't stop thinking about school, getting a job so I can feed myself, summer internships, what to do about housing next fall... but it's OK! Two more weeks of freedom!

The precipitous drop off in the frequency of posts in the past couple of months was mostly due to the workload picking up, but I should have a bunch of stuff to put up here in the coming weeks.

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.

Young Me, Now Me

I haven't been very active here (or on Flickr) recently. A combination of the encroaching cold, midterms/homework, and having done the same things repeatedly with visitors has left me without a whole lot of new things to share. I'll have to be more creative in coming up with things to put up here.

The title of this post is a reference to the excellent blog/project, Young Me/Now Me, in which people recreate old baby/childhood pictures of themselves. Unfortunately, I have not done this. I do, however, have a bit of my past. On my way to Wyoming last July, I made a point of finding my old elementary school in Evanston, IL (just outside of Chicago).



I attended Willard Elementary from kindergarten through 2nd grade. I have some surprisingly lucid memories of this place. Recess in the snow, scraped knees, friends, bullies, Mrs. Bee (Bartholomew, really) and her bee themed room, and, of particular relevance here, where and how I hurt myself doing stupid things. The cement stairs pictured were where we lined up to enter the building. One morning I happened to be running up those stairs and slipped on ice which resulted in me cracking my chin on the corner of a cement step. I vividly recall making my way to the nurse's office trailing blood behind me. The swings at the bottom were where I attempted to imitate the older boys that were doing back-flips (sort of) off of the swing. I tried and, of course, failed. I landed on my chin, again, and somehow bit down into my tongue, immediately filling my mouth with blood. Once again, I made my way to the nurse spitting mouthfuls of blood everywhere. The yellow spiral slide is actually where my brother jumped off and broke his arm. I remember this because I thought it was great that I got to leave school early when my mom came to take him to the hospital.

As these things usually go, seeing this place again, I was struck by how small it all seemed. It's provided some interesting symmetry with some of what I've been thinking about lately. Being in graduate school, I'm constantly reminded of how vastly more intelligent or ambitious than me some people are. Not that this sends me into crippling self-loathing, but it recalibrates the expectations that I have for myself. Those swings were a major fixture in my life for a couple of years, but I outgrew them. Later on, as most teenagers tend to, I thought I was a lot cooler and smarter than I actually was. Now, it's both sobering and illuminating to be presented with another imposing obstacle. Maybe some years later I'll look back and marvel at how I could have been so daunted by it, but for now I'll just have to try and do a back-flip off of it.

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.