Cheap and Chic in the City

Everyone I know is on a bit of a shoestring budget. And if they're not, they probably should be, myself included.

Living in the city and scrimping is a pain though: there's so much to do, and see, and eat, and wear.

My suggestion? The Hershey's Kisses solution to dieting, applied to city life. Instead of holding off on any and all junk food/spending, you find a small solution that satisfies your stomach or lifestyle urges. It keeps you from eventually binging on an entire chocolate cake or $500 purchase, and curbs the desire to spend or eat improperly.

Danielle (Being a Beginner/The Novice Palate) and I, along with a group of other financially challenged college kids/young professionals, are maintaining a public Google Calendar (see bottom of this blog) at Super Fun Things to Do In Boston. [note: yes, the title needs some polishing...]. We've been adding free or cheap things to check out when we've got free time or a few bucks.

Options include:

• wine tastings (Federal downtown, Best Cellars on Boylston, etc)
• Radical Movie Nights at Lucy Parsons Community Bookstore in the South End
• live jazz every night of the week at Wally's Cafe on Mass Ave
• 10 or 20 cent wing nights all over the city --Whiskey's, Red Hat
• Trivia nights--the most original being Sex and Drugs Trivia at The Savant Project on Sunday nights
  
• I'm currently posting some of the best options from this Boston Globe article on recession deals at some amazing restaurants all over the city
• [suggestion from Delia Cheap Ways to Enjoy the Arts in Boston
  
• Free movies at the Mugar Omni Theater at the Museum of Science

Some of my favorite cheap things lately: the Museum of Fine Arts, free with NU ID, Wally's on a Monday night, 50 cent tapas at Masa in the South End, and checking out free concerts at Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory.

Check out the calendar, go to a few events, and comment if you'd like to be added as an editor so you can add free and cheap events you've found!

MBTA, Up the Ante, Please.

Topic of current (okay, constant) obsession: public transportation. Much more to come on this.

This is a week or two old off of Gizmodo, but still interesting: GoogleMaps adds Transit Layer



I wish Boston was on the list of cities they were doing the transit map for.[Sidenote: Warsaw, but not Boston? And not New York??] Especially if it would map the bus routes. I'm slowly but surely learning how to use certain bus lines to get places that aren't T accessible, but I'm still not very good at it. If I easily could see on a map where a bus would be able to drop me, I think I would be more adventurous about it.

Also: the MBTA needs to take a hint from NYC. If it doesn't run past last call at bars, it's not serving its true purpose. The cab companies would probably throw a tantrum, but the significant college/young professional/bar-going population in the city would potentially jump on the public transportation bandwagon, and maybe even be more loyal day-time customers. I realize the budget issues plaguing the MBTA, and recognize that expansion of services, when there's a slew of other tasks at hand, doesn't seem like the logical answer. However, increasing the connection the local population has to the service could potentially boost overall ridership and popularity, and bring the MBTA the city support it needs.

Other details the MBTA should look into include notification systems alerting you to the wait for the next train, a la London and DC, phone service in the underground stops so you can let the poor people waiting for you know you're STILL waiting for an E train, and stand-alone public bathrooms like the ones popping up all over major cities. Interesting: searching for MBTA on Twitter, yields a Twitter account, encouraging people to join the movement for an extension of the Green Line to Somerville. Social Media + Transportation seems like a natural, swift duo to me.
One more note: I miss London Black Cabs. If one more Boston cab asks ME how to get to the address I provide to him, instead of, oh I dont know, calling his dispatcher, using a GPS, or maybe even knowing the layout of the city, I will scream. I will remain in his cab because it will be cold, but I will not be tipping that person.

A Change of Mental Scenery

I always end up at the same local coffee shop to do work: Espresso Royale. Sometimes, it's a little counter-productive because so many people I know head there too, or stop in simply because they know I'll be camped out there. I don't concentrate as well in my apartment because I always have the temptation to reorganize, curl up on the foof and watch tv with the roommates, or crawl into my bed to sleep.

However, lately I've had difficulty focusing anywhere. Danielle (www.beingabeginner.blogspot.com), suggested setting concrete blocks of time for specific tasks, and not veering into tryng to multi-task or do multiple other things in a short span of time. [Like right now, I should be writing my philosophy paper on civil disobedience. But I'm blogging. Because that's semi-productive, too, right? Ugh].

Sometimes the library works. Sometimes setting goals, like announcing to myself that I can't read the new Wired until I've written xxxx number of words for a paper, or can't go to sleep until I've replied to all my actually important emails, is the solution. But sometimes, its like there's no getting anything real done. And it's frustrating.

Part of it is that my mind has been all over the place lately. Part of it is that I can't seem to prioritize my to-do lists in any way, shape, or form. What comes first? Getting in shape? Keeping in touch? Finding a job? Apartment? Schoolwork? Stuff for my dad? Sleeping? Freaking out about the future? Usually, the last one takes priority in some combination with one or two of the others as background.

Reading has been helping settle me, however. The Witch of Portobello and Eat Pray Love both have passages that caught my frenetic little mind and clarified a few things. The Witch of Portobello, by Paulo Coelho, talks about learning to be ok with the blank spaces in your life. I have a very hard time actually doing nothing, so instead I fill my time trying to do multiple things at once. Extremely unproductive. So. My current theory is to learn to love the blank spaces--meaning, when I have time to breathe, time to think, time to be, I won't try to multi-task. And maybe, in time, it will help streamline the rest of my productive time.

Ramble, complete.

In other news: Some Reasons to Blog. I think I'm going to try to ramp up my efforts here. We will see how it goes.

Every Day for a Year: Can You Commit?

Leif (check him out at www.lljn.org) mentioned an idea today that I think I want to run with. The idea of a 365 day project--doing something, consistently, every day for a year, and documenting the process. I've been doing some research on the concept, to see what other people have done. The majority of the first links that pop up are 365 day photo projects, an idea I love.

Example: Project 365, Take a Photo a Day

I've been meaning to get back into more photography, and not just the drunk, at a party, let's capture the same moment as we always do, photography. Boston's a beautiful city, and I love so many of the moments and details I come across on a daily basis.

Other ideas we tossed around:

• learning new words (10 new Italian words, for example, every day)
• blogging every day--this I am all about. I need to get back into the practice of not just speaking my mind, but writing my mind, in a more cohesive manner
• going somewhere new every day (this would get old, and a little more complicated to document)
• meeting someone new every day--issue being, how to document? Get their autograph? Get their life story? Take a photo with them? Put them in your pocket? Also, the idea of how you want to remember them, their faces, their names, and if that's even the point.
• could also do something physical daily--whether that's building up a number of repetitions, or building up to running a marathon, and incorporating daily activities to reach this goal.

I think I might give serious thought to both photographing and blogging daily. Any other ideas for a cool 365 project? Should it be a journey or a production? Want to get on board?

Teaching and Learning

In my last semester of college. I've taken 4 classes every semester I've been in college, and had dozens of teachers in high school. Out of the over 50 teachers I have had the (dis)pleasure of sitting in a classroom with, only a handful have truly seemed to teach, rather than lecture.

My psychology of language class has potential--speech and communication are huge, and I've always been interested in the differences between different speakers of language and why it all matters. However: my professor is not actually teaching me anything at all. She is reading from her slides, talking, but not teaching. The information on her slides is only applicable to me if I understand why it's important--what about my body of knowledge will change as a result of this class? It's the same reason I didn't care about calculus until engineering friends in college helped me see the relationship to real-life issues, and not just problem sets.

Don't get me wrong: I love learning. But that's just it. I love learning, not listening to lectures. I can read lectures for myself. What I want is a teacher who interacts and reacts with the class, helps to illuminate some part of the world in a manner that I can't for myself. Whether that's the ability to veer off of the curriculum if the opportunity presents, using relevant examples from the world at large or personal experience, or truly engaging with students so that we feel enabled to ask three-dimensional questions that help us take anything beyond fact away from the class experience.

I've had a few professors and teachers whose passion, flexibility, and connection to students have really opened up topics and ideas to me, or enabled me to delve further into a subject beyond taking down lecture notes. Urban politics, political communications, AP US History: all things I maintain a solid interest in. The professors in these classes took the actual students into consideration, asked for our participation, input, and questions, and took it upon themselves to go into details, use anecdotes, relate concepts to real life, and make subjects realistic.

Teaching is like being a good employer in many respects: you can get more out of those "beneath" you if you treat them like a valuable component of the system/process, rather than tossing words and orders into empty space without any regard to comprehension.

Skipping to a conclusion--I think these are many of the reasons I would consider teaching, as well as one day being a good employer. Learning and working aren't just means to the end--they are inherent parts of life and experience, and deserve to be treated as such. I don't want to be force-fed information like an goose whose liver will be used for pate. I want to taste my meal, savor it. Maybe even come back for more next time.

Things I Am Excited About (all deserving of capital letters)

• www.conjectured.com and www.workatjelly.com

The idea of a more organized coffee shop/idea swap experience is hugely attractive to me...I like surrounding myself with friends (usually studying or working on different topics than me) and feeding off the range of energy and ideas. Tempted to check out a Boston Jelly, especially if I get into...

• Consulting for my dad

His custom-design jewelry business could use overhaul in a few areas: PR, marketing, demographics, events, engaging the public, new media, rhetoric/message/branding, etc. We talked for a long time tonight about various ideas I have for the Pittsburgh audience, as well as branching out in various different directions. Nothing he adds to his business will hurt--it will only help or serve as a testing mechanism for future attempts. Plus, most of my ideas would be pretty low-cost--he could pay me or a young person with a similar background to do a lot of the groundwork for minimal money and with minimal supplies beyond a cellphone and a computer. Goal is to convince him to hire me (and actually pay me, something he is horrific at following through on) for the spring...

• Job hunting

Both petrifying and really exciting. Need to make lots of lists of fields/companies/inspirations/interests to research. Boston Best Businesses, using Danielle's connection to a career consultant, calling up all my old bosses, gathering together any actual skills and useful knowledge I've garnered from college, revamping my LinkedIn, blog, Twitter, happylist blog, etc to be useful demonstrations of my skills, and continuing to be excited about the things I'm passionate about.

• Getting my act together

This sounds like my New Year's resolution list, but that's fine. Grocery shopping, gymming, redoing my Google Reader to encompass everything I need (and actually reading it), meditation, keeping in touch (writing actual letters, too) with people near and far, learning how to manage my money in any way shape or form, planning the travel I need for 2009, finding an apartment with Bonnie, paying off any bills, getting a Blackberry-type object, and remembering to take time for me and for the seemingly less consequential things in my life (beyond school and activities and to-do lists). Typing things out makes them seem real: if I have to reread this when I go back through this blog, maybe it will make me uncomfortable enough to follow through.

• To Be Continued :)

Check out www.itsthehappylist.blogspot.com for more exciting things in my life and in other lives!

I have cried more times in the past month than I may have cried the rest of 2008. I'm not sure if this is me letting myself go more often, or more weird things in my life, or hormones, or what. I suppose it's cathartic on some level, but the control freak in me is really upset (maybe I'll cry about it...).

8 days until Thanksgiving. So excited for my family and girls at home and my dog.
3.5 weeks until the last day of the semester.

Some of the good in the past week:

• phonecall from my cousin living in Boston
• shabu shabu with the girls and toomey for Danielle's birthday
• a nice relaxing night at Punter's on Saturday
• giving my 2nd to last presentation in PolComm today
• randomly warm days in November when I could wear flipflops
• the people I see constantly (i.e, almost every day) on campus--the routine makes me smile.
  

I reread all the entries in my old livejournal just now.

So many entries still ring true. And part of me was a lot more honest and open freshman year. Hard to believe this is my fifth year of college. I think I need some of the introspection I allowed myself back then. Now, I think, and then put those thoughts on the backburner to focus on something more "pressing". Introspection is pressing though. And necessary.

My roommate Lori, to me at the bar tonight: "you're that girl that everyone tells their shit to."

When I'm stressed, I hold my breath.

Bizarre, no?

The trickledown effects of it are even sillier. By holding my breath, I cut off oxygen to my brain and probably make it more difficult to use my braincells for the time being. Holding my breath forces me to tense all the muscles in my body, especially my back, causing muscle pain that stresses me out more.

But, I think I know why I hold my breath: in the face of stress and uncontrollable outside forces, only I can control my breathing, and when and how I do it. It's akin, in many ways, to people who use food as a control mechanism (not in an extreme way, but I do that too--I'll tell myself I can eat when I've finished certain tasks or timespans of doing something).

Control is a big deal in my life. I'm learning how to share power and responsibility this semester, and to try to lessen my burdens, and it's tricky business for my personality and my lifestyle. Because I lack control over so much at the moment, it's harder to maintain control, mentally, over the things I actually can maintain oversight on--making me more stressed in the process.

I surround myself with other high-octane control freaks, which by proxy makes me feel like my levels of insanity are normal, when in fact we're all crazy. At least there's comfort in company...? This semester is not what I planned on in any way shape or form, and I'll be a changed person afterwards for many reasons. I guess the lesson is to take away everything I can from the stresses and the control lessons and the things and topics I'm engrossed in, rather than try to maximize the current experience as much as I've been stressing about.