Killer Cars

I mention about giving you updates on the site and then I ignore you again completely. Funny how time flies when you work just as much as everybody else. Well instead of giving you bit by bit, here is the last 6 months of my life in the most concise way possible. This is mainly for those who have lost me after the whole Cape Verde/ Cambodia thing. Also for any visitors who am wondering what I’m doing, post Peace Corps life. As many of you know, I have relocated and settled into the great American city of Boston. These paragraphs below show you how.

After giving up on moving to New York, I decided to take a stab at getting a job in Boston. I was having some good luck on from several recruiters and job fairs in very short amount of time however the job I would finally take would be an operations rep role in a custody bank in Boston’s Back Bay. I was referred from one of my childhood friends from Providence and soon that is me, finally going to work in the 15th floor of the tallest building in New England, the John Hancock tower (what a huge step from working at some fishing town in Cape Verde).

My job, without going into great detail, is credit operations for custody and trust accounts. My day consists of seizing control of assets for the bank’s clients in order to insure we can offer them credit for real estate purchase or even purchases of more assets or god knows what rich folks are doing with their money. The majority of the day has me reviewing portfolios of clients, most of them 2 million dollars or more, and picking the best stocks, funds, and bonds to hold as collateral. The other reminding tasks will be approving withdrawal requests and accepting payments on their credit bills. Real exciting stuff right? Yeah, don’t hold your breath.

Working in Boston, but living in Rhode Island, proved to be challenging. I was paying around $300 alone in commuting costs, plus spending 3 hours everyday in traffic. I knew I could only handle the commute for so long, so I moved to Allston, a neighborhood west of Boston after 3 weeks of intensive apartment searching (an hour or 2 of apartment searching directly after work). The big deal here was not necessarily the move to a city, but the signifying that I was finally away from the womb of parents or the Peace Corps, and for the 3rd time in my life, living without a car.

Moving to Allston reminded me of how little stuff I can live with, but moving in with a 32 inch flatscreen tv, a beirut table, my own fridge and double bed wasn’t convincing anybody. I was fortunate to live in a very spacious room with an office attached in a 6 bedroom apartment. My office was useful for about 4 days, before I convinced myself that it was big enough to fit my bed, and I could do my living in the other big room (since I called it my closet from now on, Phil exclaims that every morning, I come out of the closet). Since the house was chock full of students, it was cool to have my own (air conditioned!) space. However the TV wouldn’t get every channel I wanted it to.

I chose Allston because of the heavy student/20 something population and the cheap rents for a reasonable location. Mostly everybody is here for school (numerous colleges in Boston) and everybody else makes up the immigrants and racial diversity of the city. You can find markets and restaurants from all corners of the world, and I have yet to not find some international cuisine that isn’t represented here yet. Besides the ethnic businesses flourishing, I got to meet and live with many different people since moving here in Allston.

In my first apartment, I lived with a half French, half Nigerian who also speaks Spanish, 3 different Irish exchange students, a Polish immigrant from the Bronx NY, along with 2 other Americans from the Midwest. I would not have had the same living situation had I moved within Rhode Island or back up to New Hampshire. Fast forward to today, and now I am living with 2 Indians who are here for work. So far, the diversity of people I have lived with and met is very fascinating and my open eyes wants to experience more of this melting pot of a country.

Not surprisingly, living in Boston without a car helped me improvise on every situation that required a car. Going home or up to New Hampshire required an Amtrak ride (they serve beer on the train!), shopping consists of keeping it local or close to work, and a coffee run actually meant a run. I seriously did not mind living without a car, and there is no other way to see Boston besides walking or cycling. Many will agree Boston is not the best for cars or drivers, and I’d rather live without the headaches. Instead, I invested in a Boston guidebook that had about 25 up close maps of the city, and it has helped me when I am out getting lost in the city, on foot, in running shoes, or on a bicycle.

One of the best things of living in a city (or maybe just Boston) is the easier access to outdoor recreation (and indoor recreation is closer if you want to think that way). I still remember that feeling, right when I first moved into town, of tightening those laces on the running shoes, excited to go run in a city that was alive and moving (rather than running in the woods). It was such a great rush to be disoriented and lost, excited to be independent finally, and running through a place that was still new but running back to a place that was called home. In addition to running, riding on a bicycle opens up the city to farther distances, and the bike still sees great use for those days when I’m feeling like a speed freak.

My last entry mentioned that I just recently ran in a half marathon, my first competitive race ever. I spent basically most of the summer, training for that race, which was enjoyable considering the weather. In addition, the running helped keep me healthy in a summer that became almost like a reintroduction to drinking. Going out to bars, throwing keg parties, and going away every weekend made for a great summer that I don’t think other summers matched (and all this without a car). After spending time abroad, these acts of drinking, partying and seeing friends was exactly what I needed to come home to. Moving to Boston has become a blessing in more ways than one. I am healthier than I have ever been, yet still have a drive to party and live it up with my friends from New England like nothing has changed. In many ways, I didn’t imagine moving to Boston would be enjoyable at first, but the city and my friends have made it so.

And now the situation today. I moved out of my first apartment to get more for my money and to be closer to the B subway train that I take to go to work. Living with a bunch of students proved to be an ongoing headache, and with having too much room came a less is more mentality. I started to look for smaller and more featured apartments with a closer commute and settled on the first one that fit me well. And now that students are back in town and not in my house, Boston has become even more enjoyable and liveable.

I now live on Quint Avenue, close to the Harvard ave T stop, with 2 Indians living abroad previously mentioned above, Sridhar and Sunni (very nice guys offering a cultural lesson or two), and my other new roommate Scott from Seattle. My first 2 months I have been out of touch mainly because the summer is over, and I have been getting to know these 3 guys more than anybody I knew back at my first apartment. The apartment feels like a better collective unit and having less roommates feels much more personal.

And that is my move to Boston in a nutshell. This story is still young and we’ll see how this story plays out. I’m expecting to be here for another few years if I stay with the company I am with right now. I do know that every time I visit home, I get sickened into forcing myself into the car culture and the lack of diversity/things to do even when I have a vehicle. Suffice to say, I will never move anywhere that is less diverse or less exciting that having a car is a social necessity. Livable communities is seriously where its at. But apart from that, I still have a desire to move to New York, or travel some more. Of course, the money and debt situation is not having me do either, but so far so good in this part of New England.

Update 11-9-06 : As was pointed out by a friend Danielle, my feelings towards Boston as written in this entry are rather positive, and not negative as usual. I was aiming to be non influential and keep my bragging for another time. Well, it is going to take a lot of entries to voice the displeasures I encounter to help sway the balance back to the negative, but it seems like bitching about Boston is the chic thing to do (just visit Universal Hub). While I have spent enough time to enjoy the city the way I want to, I am far from in love and I seriously hope I don’t spend too much time here.

On a side note, I would also like to thank Danielle for the numerous occasions as the keg picker upper for this summer’s parties. It was such a huge favor from one Bostonian to another, and something I needed to adjust to living in this huge melting pot.

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