I'm in a New Local

I have finally moved into my apartment in Somerville which has surpassed my wildest expectations of how I would be surviving given my "livable wage". There are marble counter tops, wooden floors, a refrigerator and dishwasher, and it's spacious! My roommates and I (thanks to my aunt) have equipped the house with nice kitchenware and electronics. We have WiFi. The list of attributes goes on and on, but despite all of this my favorite part of the house is the relatively plain porch that is off my bedroom. Despite few outstanding merits, I keep being drawn out there to read or write this blog. Possibly sitting in a lawn chair exposed to the neighborhood that does not reflect the interior of this apartment feels the way living should considering my circumstances. There is definitely an appeal to having to "suffer": using ragged mouse-infested couches, shoving a wooden spoon in the microwave to make it shut, applying duct tape to everything that should stay in tact, and securing 5 locks at the end of the day because 1 is not sufficient. However, I must say in spite of myself that I am happy not to be contending with mice. I am very fortunate to be living in this apartment and for those of you who want me to experience life with less than perfect circumstances, have no fear.

I have been crunching the numbers and my weekly grocery bill has to be less than what I have already spent in my forth day in Boston- that is if I want to have any "fun" money. I will keep you updated as to how I maximize my income, because getting the greatest benefit for the least amount of money is a challenge that really engages me. In fact, after the completion of this blog I am planning on biking to the grocery store to examine which dairy products are the cheapest for the amount of protein, calcium and vitamin D they contain.

In order to to give myself a little more financial flexibility, I have decided to find a weekend job. I have spent the past couple of days biking around Somerville and Cambridge hunting for one. This process was not as easy as I thought it would be. I started out looking in Harvard Square (1.5 miles from my lodging and good tips). I was caught off guard by how many people were there; mid morning wrought preoccupied Harvard profs and students, massive crowds of families taking Harvard tours, smaller groups of families speaking foreign tongues and taking pictures. Taken aback, my mind would not permit my body to disturb the likely busy, and therefore ruthless potential employers. I was slightly disgusted by this rare flair of timidity, but I continued to wander around glancing at places thinking "they could be hiring...they could be hiring, etc." and I would float on.

Finally, I had enough of the nonsense and chose a cafe (which tend to house safe, friendly people) to try my luck. Success! Wow, who knew it could be that simple- I left application in hand. Barrier demolished, I hit a lot of cafes yesterday and by early afternoon I braved a restaurant. Turns out restaurant people are open and friendly too.

City Year training starts early Monday morning and extends throughout the month of September. We had registration day for the out of state corps members and people seemed really nice and although I tend to be reserved and reluctant when meeting new people, I am looking forward to getting to know the City Year Corps. The atmosphere there really puts me at ease. Corps members tend to be the type of people that willingly strike up a conversation with people they don't know, whether they have the skill to do this or not. I am confident I will be learning a lot this year.

I am also confident that I am forgetting to inform you of things that I made a mental note to write about, but I plan on updating this blog at least once a week, so if these observations stick, they will appear in later issues.

P.S. My roommates and I communicate in Spanish! Yahoo! That is except for David, but he responds in Portuguese, which awesomely enough, I can understand.

Until Later Next Week,

From Boston: Nora