Good times and Friends

8/5/2006
Location: Boston, Mass.
General update

The past couple of days I’ve had the privilege of visiting several new places and getting to catch up with several people.

On Thursday I ventured for a day trip to New Haven, Connecticut to visit Yale University to check out the law and divinity schools. I’ve always said gothic architecture and I don’t really agree very much, I couldn’t go to Princeton or Duke, for instance. However, I’ve found Yale to be quite beautiful. There’s something about its location in the middle of New Haven that’s really appealing to me as well. Its interesting how what you think you want changes over time. The law school was abandoned and I could only pick up a brochure. The divinity school on the other hand, threw out the red carpet for me, complete with an admissions counselor to talk to, a nice woman to give me a walking tour, meeting several students and a ride to the train station. I don’t know what I think about the concept of divinity school however, as far as what the purpose of the whole thing is. I can understand seminary as you need it to work in some churches, but the whole M-div thing seems a bit over-intellectualized for me at this point in my life.

Friday I came into Boston and met up with Greg’s friend Katie P. Sometimes Greg jokes (I think) that he doesn’t like us to get together because we gang up on him. She’s a great girl, tons of fun and a really relaxed kind of person. Sometimes I wish Greg’s friends were my group of friends too. They, at least when I’m around, give this great air of being all fun all the time, hanging out formally and informally, all different kinds of personalities. Makes me want to move up closer to here to hang out with all of them more. Katie and I went to this Oyster place for lunch, very touristy, the place where both JFK and John Kerry awaited their election results in this restaurant. I had raw oysters, definitely a little weird. Now I’ve had sushi before, but oysters…..ummm, let’s just say I’m doing fried the next time around.

Friday evening I got together with Nicole Bucheri, a good friend from high school in Southlake who now goes to Boston College. Its amazing to me to see how much sometimes we can be like our friends and not even know it—Nicole and I both hold this overachiever, activist spirit inside of us. She’s informed and cares a lot about fair trade and ethical eating, its really refreshing to spend time with her and realize we’re interested in reading the same books for instance like The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs. Nicole is very brave though and seemingly not attached or overly sentimental like I can be—she’s taking off a year of college (she’s a year younger than me) and going to volunteer in Argentina and probably work for another NGO. It was great to see her in her environment at school as well.

Saturday Nate Nichols came and picked me up from BC. We spent the afternoon in Boston wandering around some more. It was great to do more of the sweeping tour, getting a great last day in the city—over time Boston and I continue to get along more and more. We saw the public library (beautiful!), the water front, a hip-hop performance, a festival for a saint in the North End and lots of general historic sites. It was great to wander around and spend some time with Nate, he always has either such a diplomatic or well-thought out ideas on most of life. Its interesting and helpful to hear his perspective, funny when I can tell he’s drawing my opinions out of me as well though (its that Soul Talk thing at work).