Well friends, I thought that by moving to a new place where I know not so many people and starting school again, I'd be motivated to write like I did senior year of college. You know, when I attempted to updated this blog daily. Remember those days?
There has been so much to write about these last few weeks. First, the anxiety of moving. Prior to my move, I was simultaneously excited and scared. I was more than ready to get "on to the next one;" yet, I was terrified of casting away my security blanket. Though in the past I've had no problem slandering Rockford, it is my birthplace and will always hold a special place in my heart. Besides those four years in Champaign, that summer in Chicago, and a few odd months in India, it's all I've ever known.
Until now. I'm in Boston, baby. It's everything I thought it would be and many things I didn't anticipate. There are things about it I already love and things about this city/state that just mystify me. I've wandered around town for the last two weeks confused and disoriented. I've acquired new roommates and made some acquaintances who I hope will become friends soon. I've had one week of class so far and one day of assistantship training. It's all so new and overwhelming, I've had little time to reflect. Certainly you will hear more about these things in the future.
For the time being, I am still in a homesickness phase. Though I didn't cry at the airport or on the plane (I really shocked myself there), I can't help but compare my experience here to my life in Rockford or my time in Chi. So much about Illinois is in disaster mode right now, but there is much to love.
In a non-particular order, these are a few of my favorite - and some begrudgingly missed - things:
1. My amazing friends who are in some ways extended family. Indeed as much or as infrequently as I see these people, some of them whom I have known nearly all my life and some who I have befriended in the last few years, I often refer to these people as my “sisters” or my “condo crew.” They have made the last two years of living at home and working for minimum wage (and less) bearable.
2. Ridiculous work situations that have inspired me to write. Behind the Teller Line coming to a bookstore near you!
3. Beef-A-Roo – a true Rockford original indeed. Is there some way I can have cheese fries shipped out to Boston? I don’t know what sort of crack they slipped into their seasoned salt, but damn I could eat it on everything.
4. Our sense of pride in our little claims to fame. Ie: the invention of the Sock Monkey, the Symbol, Cheap Trick and Michelle Williams (not the actress, the third member of Destiny’s Child.) Nothing of Ben and Matt or Harvard-level fame, that's for sure.
6. I will always be grateful for the mixed high school I attended, the experience of which led me to seek out a UN crew of friends everywhere I go. Though I've only hung around BU for a week, I am desperately craving a rainbow coalition to align myself with.
7. Coworkers who behave like a dysfunctional family. I don't know any other kind.
8. Public transportation that runs into the wee hours of the night. Oh L, as dirty as you are, you were always there for me.
9. My proximity to the city of Chi. How I love thee.
10. Fast food that stays open after bar-closing time.
11. Chain retail stores - there's no Wal-Mart for miles and it takes two modes of transportation (bus and train) to get to Target. I miss cheap one-stop shopping.
12. Mid-westernisms : Saying pop and pellow (though I don't say that) and dipping everything in ranch/nacho cheese sauce
13. Since the flow of fashion to the Midwest was slow, I never had to care if my clothes were "on trend." Everyone here appears to be cut from the same Urban Outfitters/American Apparel cloth.
14. I even miss cornfields. I don't think Trader Joes sells corn on the cob!
15. Last but not least, my fam. They drive me crazy, but I’ve got to love them.
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