end-of-july recap

i can barely believe it, but this summer is winding down. i only have two more weeks of my internship and things are definitely starting to come to a lull there. here is a brief summary of what’s been going on lately:

work: between catering, babysitting and working in the southwest boston cdc office between 30 and 60 hours a week, work seems to consume my life sometimes— and that’s how i like it. i can’t imagine my life (here or anywhere) without work. my office is a parent organization for the hyde park arts initiative, a partnership of local artists, and my co-intern mandy almost single-handedly planned the entire artscene festival 2007. the event on july 14 featured 40 local visual artists, four musical acts, two dance groups and an appearance by boston’s mayor, thomas “mumbles” menino. it was quite a success, but the days leading up to it were more than stressful around the office. other than that, my time has been spent mostly working on writing grants, compiling requisitions, and making revisions to the budget. my favorite activities have been designing the brochure and annual report. tomorrow i am going to do some grant research at the fancy downtown library and then go to the meeting i've been working on for a few weeks. i have been going door-to-door, making phone calls and emailing residents in one neighborhood located particularly close to a freight yard in hopes of them attending tomorrow’s community meeting. we’ll see how this goes…

travels: one of the most valuable parts of this summer has been seeing the rest of massachusetts, new england and the east coast. tati’s mom graciously let me drive her brand-new car to visit our friend casey in medfield, a cute town about 25 minutes away. my buddy timmy has been so nice to show me other massachusetts locales, including lowell (famous for its mills), mount wachusett (a gorgeous mountain in mass. that would be a hill in washington), and the city of worcester. we are heading to western maine this weekend for a few days of serenity. last weekend tati and i trekked to new york city and had a whirlwind tour of the big apple. we saw some outrageous sights in central park— rollerblade dancers, john lennon’s monument strawberry fields, an awesome cello quartet— and walked for what seemed like hours. although we were both pretty disgusted by the neon capitalism that so defines times square, our moods were lightened as we saw the wonderful frank stella exhibit at the metropolitan museum of art. the next day we took the staten island ferry past the statue of liberty and met my friend (since elementary school!) zach in the ultrahip neighborhood of williamsburg, brooklyn. tati and i were blown away by its hipness and were just happy not be kicked out for looking too touristy (our huge backpacks and my omnipresent camera gave us away, unfortunately). after spending a good amount of time in the most amazing art bookstore i’ve even seen, we ran into two goucher acquaintances and had a nice chat. torrential downpour didn’t stop us from continuing on our way in manhattan; we walked canal street bordering chinatown, tribeca and greenwich village. when we finally got back on the greyhound on sunday night, the entire contents of our backpacks were soaked through. it was well worth the trip!

boston: of course, exploring the city has been amazing as well. free wednesday nights at the museum of fine arts are tati and i's new favorite activity. we also visited the absurd glory that is the garment district. the garment district in cambridge is a two-story warehouse whose floor is literally piled a few feet high with thousands of articles of used clothing; the second story is reserved for clothes on hangers that are usually overpriced for all their worn-in charm. it was wonderful. i am quite looking forward to my parents visiting beantown in a few weeks, although this city is so full of history and culture that it will be difficult to squeeze in a proper look at it in only a few days. it will be both comforting and exciting to have them around, because it will be me doing the showing for once.