P: Boston, Permanently?

So I don't hear back from the Fulbright people until January 31--that is, that's when they tell me whether I've made it to Round 1 or not. Between mid-March and late June is when they let people know for sure, but my friend Adam tells me when he applied (and ultimately got rejected), people weren't alerted until July/August. There was one girl who was initially rejected, and she got a call sometime over the summer to say, "Yeah, we know we rejected you, but...psych! You want the Fulbright or what?"

All this has been making me think I need to have a contingency plan, and not just one where I buy a $2,000 open plane ticket to Seoul and figure it out when I get there. My roommate fwd'd me an English lit teaching position at a private school in Chestnut Hill (I ran by the beautiful reservoir there once), and I'm thinking about applying. In fact, I'm thinking more and more about whether I'd like to stay in Boston indefinitely (or at least, for another year). I'm making friends, I have a great apt in a central location and a great roommate, I've got a routine, and I'm actually succeeding in WRITING. I don't know whether my little honeymoon with the city is exactly that--something that will soon burst/pop in a matter of months. Perhaps the novelty will wear off, especially if I have to take the T or drive in this city of Massholes (as they're affectionately called, for their lack of driving etiquette or skills). Just because the people in my running group are nice, and people in the bars are nice, and people on the T are nice, doesn't mean it's where I should end up living.

But what would I do? I could stay in grad school--my program is affiliated with the grad teaching program, and I would get a half-scholarship for that, and I would be guaranteed a private school teaching job on graduating (if I did this second program, that would be in summer 2010). But that kind of seems like a waste. I could just bum around, live off my savings, maybe bartend or bag groceries, and write, with the hope that the advance I would hopefully get from hopefully selling the novel would off-set my living expenses. I could become a freelance publicist, but that's really scary to me because I've lost touch with so many of my media contacts, and the thought of dealing with authors and money directly sends creepy shivers down my spine. Also, it'd be more work having to be my own cheerleader and self-salesman, going about and peddling my goods.

I need to keep writing. At least, that's the plan until I hit 30. So truth be told, I'm faced with this crossroads, and I'm a little at a loss as to what to do.

I'm coming from a biased place--one day I'm lonely, the next I have a fun, random, unplanned night out. Take, for instance, last night. My friend Adam (he's a poet in the program) and I were just going to grab a chill drink, as I had to run the next morning with my running club and my roommate's friend Amy, who (I think) I've successfully convinced to start running with the group. So Adam and I went to Beacon St Tavern down my block, sat at this long communal table, and ended up talking to 3 separate factions of groups.


We met these girls who work for google, and then I met this grad student of medieval history who lived in Rome for 6yrs and we randomly started busting out in Italian, for like a good half-hour (a language I hadn't spoken in 7 years, God help me), and then one moment Adam was complimenting the sweater of a guy at our table, and the next minute he's making out with him, and the computer engineer to my left was trying to talk to the google girls, who were initially trying to hit on Adam, and one of the google girls (a sweet girl from Indiana who was kind of wasted) kept telling medieval studies guy that she wanted to set him up with her friend who lives in NH and has a 4yo daughter...to which he physically balked. Anyway, this was the first time I think I've done this ever, but certainly in Boston--we closed the bar down. At 2am they turned the lights on, and everyone had to finish their beers and leave.

After making myself a hummus, alfalfa, red cabbage and zucchini wrap, I watched Gossip Girl on cwtv.com before passing out, only to wake up, then fall back asleep in fits and spurts until Amy picked me up at 10:15 this morning. The stairs to the bridges and even the path along the Charles on the Cambridge side were pretty icy, so it made for an interesting 5 mile run. Then breakfast at Dave's apt (again, 30? 40? ppl crammed into a tight space), and one of the kids in my group mentioned something about salsa dancing tonight? so that might be on the agenda.

All I mean to say by this is that surely the novelty of having fun in Boston WILL wear off? So I shouldn't compromise my life plans (going to Korea so I can come to terms with the motherland and then knock that off my list) for a little hedonism with 20 somethings in a college town.

And what happened to eventually buying a condo in downtown Brooklyn???

Well, I'm in the law library now, so I should probably actually try to get some work done for once. Back to reworking my novel(la) outline for Xuefei...!