rested and reflecting
Have been home with the family this weekend. Finally feeling caught up on sleep for the first time since August. Feels good. Strange. But good.
Has also been good to catch up with high school friends here. Was thinking a lot about what life was like in high school and what, at that time, I pictured my life being like in the future. Certainly I don’t think I imagined myself in the spot I am today. But, more than that, I was thinking about the people - my friends - that made high school so great. Similarly, later, I could peg the experience of college to the people. I could peg my work experience to the people. Every time I’ve enjoyed something, it’s usually been because of the people.
Then I got to thinking - how life really is like a series of flash mobs. In the same way that people organize randomly for stunts, gathering instantaneously, performing some gag, and then dispersing. Life is filled with convergences of people. That convergence creates a context or an environment. It is in that environment that experience happens. And then people scatter. And the environment becomes a memory.
All this, I suppose, is a way of reconciling the fact that you can’t really go back to what was. Coming home is great, I love reconnecting with people, I love being at home. But there’s just something different. Age, people, circumstance. Different. Not bad, just different.
autumn, trash, and turkeys in cambridge
This post will wander around a bit…
Funny thing about the City of Cambridge. They have a very fickle trash collection policy. It is not very clearly articulated on their website, and every week, after trash collection, it is always fun to come home and play roulette: “which container will still be sitting there full on the curb today?”
Tonight it was the cardboard. No explanation why. Perhaps pizza boxes don’t recycle? One of my housemates suggested that it might be nice if they left handwritten notes explaining why they didn’t take it. I chuckle imagining that note.
It is turning to autumn here. Autumn is always a sentimental season for me. Usually I am in New York now, where I want to equate the smells of fall with the starting of something new, like school. This year, I actually am doing something new, like school. And as a bonus, the leaves here actually change colors. They haven’t peaked yet, but there are a few trees here and there on the walk to campus that have turned brilliantly.
This morning, going into our class building, I was attacked by the campus turkey. It’s been written about by the Boston Globe, and it has an attitude now. It chased me across the lawn as half the MBA class was crossing the lawn from Spangler to Aldrich and then tried to follow me into Aldrich. That was great. At least my blood was pumping for the first case this morning.
Walking over the river to make dinner tonight I started complaining to myself (as usual) about how tired I am and how the schedule here is kicking my ass, etc etc. Somewhere on the bridge I had one of those minor epiphanies that happens every now and again. If this were meant to be easy, it probably wouldn’t be that hard to get in here. This is supposed to be hard - that’s why I came here. So my adrenaline started pumping again and I feel like I did when I first got here. (Plus, finally the RC Plague is entirely out of my body).
So here’s to turning a new leaf on the year… a bright red leaf…
taking a break
Yesterday I completed the HBS finance tutorial. And I passed. Glad to have that out of the way. There were a few concepts on it, like levered and unlevered betas, which I found complicated. I thought maybe I was not made for finance, and then my friend from New York arrived last night and told me he had to do levered and unlevered betas on the CFA level 3 in June. I thought my module was supposed to be introductory. The CFA3 is pretty complicated. Oh well.
I’m spending the next two nights in downtown Chicago with the buddy from NYC. Looking forward to a break from suburbanity. Next week a friend from DC visits on Monday, and then I head out of town on Tuesday. Will be racing the clock to finish the QA tutorial for school, but I’m less worried about that than the finance one.
Summer vacation is great.
Sidebar - why is it that people always “can’t wait til summer,” “can’t believe summer’s halfway over,” “can’t believe summer’s going so fast,” etc.? I guess it’s the weather, but I know a lot of people who love cold/winter, and I never hear them say these things about winter. Just a thought.
move. check.
So, I’m done moving to Cambridge. Everything went smoothly (although I do believe I have more stuff than I should… definitely still a packrat, despite having thrown away about 12 bags of stuff). The Penske truck was completely pain-free and actually had a iPod jack… who knew?
I got all my stuff into the house up there, unpacked a few essentials and booked it back to nyc yesterday for one last night in the Big Apple. Now I’m sitting at LaGuardia waiting to fly to Chicago for a few weeks. (And hopefully acquiring an iPhone later today).
Two lessons I learned while moving:
1. Girls have lots of stuff too. But their boxes are labeled with things like “Shoes 1″ and “Shoes 2″ and “Shoes 3″ and “Purses.” Weird.
2. Mt Kisco, New York is not a good place to stop for food while driving between New York and Boston. While attempting to make a rare appearance at Burger King (because who eats Burger King in nyc? do they even have Burger King’s in nyc?), we followed a road sign that said there was a Burger King at the Mt Kisco exit. Well…. literally 3 country roads, 18 minutes, several miles, and a pass thru DOWNTOWN MT KISCO (which is, in fact, nowhere near the interstate), we found the Burger King. It was so far away from the highway that we took a different route back to the highway than we took getting off the highway.
Anyway. Lessons learned.
Looking forward to spending the next few weeks at home. Looking less forward to finishing the Finance and Quantitative Analysis modules for HBS in the next few days, but that’s not so negotiable.
packing
I got back late last night from a great weekend upstate with friends. I’ve spent most of today packing boxes of my stuff in my apartment. It’s beginning to get a little crowded with boxes in here. Friday is the big moving day, so I feel pretty well on top of things, I’ve probably got another 6 or 7 boxes + clothes to go… Penske called today to confirm Friday’s truck rental. Fingers crossed for that…
penske FTW. so far, anyway.
After posting yesterday about choosing to rent a Penske truck over a u-haul for my move next week, I was happy to see that I had a visitor to the site from a penske domain today. I hope that means somebody in their company is actually engaged in proactive customer service on the web (or at least has a google alert set up for Penske). It’s like companies that have a CSR on Twitter. You have to like that. Nobody visited my site from u-haul, even though I’ve mentioned them a few times in the last few weeks. Already I’m feeling better about my decision. Hopefully Penske comes through next week.
the great u-haul question
I’m trucking my household from New York City to Cambridge, Massachusetts next week. (I should add that I do have the help of friends, and for that I’m grateful.) I started looking for places to book trucks online and started with the big obvious one: u-haul.
When I started sifting through their website, I was actually impressed. I guess I have a somewhat dilapadated mental image of u-haul, so when they had a simple, well-designed user-interface for renting trucks, purchasing boxes, and getting loader/unloader help, I was surprised.
Then I started walking through the process of booking a truck.
Toward the middle the process I noticed some language that stipulated that the truck couldn’t be guaranteed, and that if the truck was not available I would receive $50 from u-haul. So I took a spin over to consumerist.com and found this. Cue alarm bells and visions of showing up to u-haul in midtown only to be told “NO TRUCK FOR YOU!!”
So, now with my deadline bearing down on me, I finally decided to screw u-haul and pull the trigger on a Penske truck. It worked out to be only slightly more expensive, but I just trust the product a little more. So, here’s to a smooth move… let the packing begin!
moving and the joys of purging
No, not that kind of purging.
As I’m getting closer to the actual day of relocation from New York City to Cambridge, I’m starting to look forward to the sort and toss that will inevitably take me 3 sentimental days. You know? Going through stacks of pictures, cards, and miscellaneous crap that I’ve collected over the course of 3 years in this apartment and countless trips for work and fun. There’s something daunting about it, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to getting rid of the stuff I thought I would want to keep when I received it. Looking through the lens of hindsight and realizing things aren’t needed any more can be a good thing. It’s also generally a good time loading up trash bags full of heavy junk and lunging them into the seven story trash chute, waiting for that great thud at the bottom.
I’ve relegated most of the little tasks associated with moving (ie closing my account with con-ed, damn energy prices) to an elaborate scheme of to-do lists and sticky notes. Hoping that I’ve accounted for everything - because I’m really looking forward to enjoying a mostly stress-free (though packing-filled) final few weeks in New York City.
in memoriam
I was in Ohio the last two days attending the funeral of my grandfather (mom’s dad) in Cincinnati. He died Saturday at the age of 84. This morning we had a small, private burial service, and at the service there was a military honor guard and a bugler. He played Taps. My grandfather served in World War II. I was not old enough while he was in his more talkative years to ask about his service in any great detail, I just know that he was in the Army and served in the Pacific Theater.
This morning, standing in the sun in Cincinnati, Ohio, staring at his flag-draped casket and listening to Taps, I couldn’t help but wonder to myself about the remarkable service the men and women who fought in that war provided. I’m not just talking about service to the United States, but service to the greater good. That was an epic global war that threatened to overturn life as many knew it. Such a conflict has not occured on such a scale since. One may never occur again. And this man, to whom I’m related - served. I’m nearing the age where I doubt I’d be drafted even if there was another World War. I don’t know that I’d volunteer, because I haven’t spent much time thinking about it. But one can’t stand there, gazing upon that flag, and not wonder…
Would I? Could I? Should I?
Will there ever be an opportunity for ordinary men to have such a profound impact on the course of the world?
starting over
I’m starting over on a lot of things these days. Today I went to the doctor for the first time in a while. When you tend to be prone to anxiety or over-analysis in the way I am, you tend to put off things like going to the doctor for fear of finding out something bad. I’m happy to say that after several years of being apart, my initial reunion with the medical profession was positive. (Hopefully we can say the same when I finally go back to the dentist.)
