From Baytown to Boston!

Well, it’s my first Saturday in my new place and I grow to love the neighborhood more and more EVERY DAY. Right now I am sitting on my patio drinking a glass of Shiraz and blogging. Crys requested regular blogging, so I’m gonna try to at least blog weekly. NO PROMISES!! Anyway, today I unpacked, washed, cleaned, and grocery shopped (what I countrily call making groceries). I am all set for next week and its just 5:45 on Saturday, so I have the whole weekend in front of me. I see a lazy Sunday in my near future. The game is about to start in 15 minutes. I call Memphis vs North Carolina in the FinalFour finals and Memphis to win it all. I don’t know I just like that team, maybe because they all look like thugs. *lol* You know I have a weakness for a little hood in my men. Nothing is more exciting than a soldier (I’m mean like DC Soldier ) in a tie! *lol*

I love my neighborhood (That’s my building in the picture)…
it is great. The thing that is great about living in the South End is I am walking distance to anything I need. It has it all the shopping, eating, people watching opportunities, and city strolling an OG could want. Today, I rented my first zipcar (http://www.zipcar.com/). I needed to go get groceries so I logged into zip car last night, reserved my a Mazda 3 for this afternoon, and I was ready to go for Saturday errands. Around noon on Saturday after cleaning and washing, I walked a few blocks from my spot and jumped in my zipcar went to Stop and Shop and got some food and stuff. I managed to pick up all the essentials for living and dining at home (I can’t eat out all the time it’s a total money waste.) I’d have to say my first two weeks in Boston when I was staying in the hotel across the street from my job were nice. HOWEVER, the day I moved into my new home away from home, I FELL IN LOVE with Boston. My morning commute consists of walking a few blocks to catch a bus that drops me off right in front of my job, how cool is that. It takes me about 30minutes door to door, which is really nice, really, really nice. I am finally using my iPod Nano enough to say it is worth what I paid. I love walking to the bus stop or T-stop (Boston’s Subway). Did you know Boston has the oldest subway? Yep, Park Street station which is directly under Boston Commons. I learned that this week when picking up my zipcard from zipcar. There’s a big sign that says so on the entrance.

Work is shaping up
I like work for the most part. Most stuff I’m doing is pretty familiar, but this job expects me to be more technical and I am enjoying straddling the line between an analyst and engineer. This is one of those jobs that makes me realize the value of technical BA’s. Enough shop talk. The people are all nice! Way nicer than I expected. I love my Product Manager and my Project Manager is super experienced and knowledgeable. My co-workers are smart, funny, and we get along for the most part. Of course there are a few growing pains. There will always be some roadblocks as you learn what the personality type of your co-workers is and figure out if you have ever had to work with anyone remotely like them. You know to help you get along peaceably. I would give my experience a B+ so far. I expect it will continue to improve. I foresee a lot of long hours and hard work ahead of me, but I also see a lot of learning and growing with that and THAT EXCITES ME!! I hope I pass this latest life challenge.

Me
Most of my life I have never been very self aware, but in these later years of my life I have started to be more aware of me. For a naturally externally focused person, paying attention to yourself is extremely awkward. I have also become more spiritually connected with Jehovah God than normally. Since, I accepted this position it has seen like He has been obviously ordering my steps. I believe in favor, blessings and most importantly, grace. His grace is the most humbling, as I sit and reflect of where he brought this little country azz girl from Baytown, despite all my shortcomings.

What is happening to me right now, both personally and professionally, is beyond anything I ever daydreamed about on Ohio Street. I never could imagined this life, and believe me, I did my fare share of dreaming what my life would be like when I was growing up. BACK TO THE LORD GOD OUR SOVEREGN KING, I just feel like I have felt his hand in everything I have done here in Boston. I got my hotel at a great rate and then on my first full day here I looked at this apartment and fell in love with it, rented it was ready to begin my life in Da Bean, as I like to call it, with out a skip to the beat. My first day of work everyone was nice and helpful. The next two weeks were great, well I got sick the first weekend here but hey new germs new city sometimes that happens. However my time was still nice. Then I moved in to the South End, on Sunday afternoon. This place seems like it was made from me. I was instantly at home here in my apartment and my neighborhood. It’s just so cute. I lay awake at night thinking of just how totally blessed and loved I am and it overwhelms me.


The fam is holding down the home front
My mom and brother have been holding down the home front. I had some yard work done while I was away and my mom coordinated all of that. There was a mix-up that sent my first paycheck home as a live paycheck and not direct deposit. My mom deposited it for me. My brother is enjoying holding down my home front. I do miss my family and friends. Thank God for technology. I still talk and text with everyone as if I am only a short car ride or walk down the street, but alas they are not. I like it here and really other than one person that I can’t be in physical touch with, we write letters, I’d say I have a healthy dose of homesickness for a girl who has such a great support system back home in the H.

Jay, Bey, and MLK… crazy huh?
So the rumor has it Jay and Bey got married yesterday. I totally hope they did. Despite my romantic status and being perfectly happy as a party of one, I am totally FOR LOVE. I had to say something (for those who don’t know my love for Beyonce flirts with borderline standom). I wonder if they planned the wedding on a day that the world would be readily focused on a much more important event on purpose? I doubt it. However, I secretly hope they planned to be married yesterday knowing that the major media outlets would be dedicated to covering the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s slaying. Like I said, I doubt it but its nice to think they would go through that to ensure there wasn’t a media circus hovering in helicopters above them. The gossip outlets say its because four is a special number to them, which is also sweet. Married on 4/4 because 4 is your couple thing.

Well, I will believe four being special has something to do with MLK, I mean after all if he had not been, THEY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN and I COULD HAVE NOT HAVE BEEN and YOU COULD NOT HAVE BEEN. And I mean all of YOU, not just the black yous. I would say the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King didn’t just change a race or a country, or even a continent, IT CHANGED THE WORLD. I sure hope that one day Carla’s (buschick) lil’ bit (busbaby) will be blogging about Barack Obama in the same way, well with out a tragic end. I really hope he wins. I still have this sneaking feeling that politics will lift his UGLY head! The Clintons have become very powerful in politics and I will be weary of them pulling strings and collecting favors, until he accepts the Democratic nomination. I am also going to get that new book by Dyson about King is sounds really interesting.


I am so glad Dr. King shared his dream with the world. The struggle of my people is something that drives me to be the best every day. I mean people died for me to have something that was mine to begin with, freedom and equality. I appreciate that, I more than appreciate that, I get it. I get it every time I am faced with a choice to advance myself. I feel with each step I carry my ancestors on my back. I feel that I am blessed to be a blessing. That through me provision for others come. That exposure to life happens.

Exposure, I think that is the single most important thing for us as humans. In a healthy human I think exposure causes growth and forward progression. My exposure to things outside of Baytown came mostly from my LA cousins. They were my mothers first cousins, so as a child I just witnessed their difference and attitude. They were just so different from everything I knew and they were exciting to me as a child and teenager.

I knew where they lived was completely different than my mom and her siblings. I could see it in everything they did even how they handled themselves. That tiny bit of exposure to them, let me know that my dreams were possible that there was a BIG WORLD beyond Baytown and I wanted to see it, be a part of it, LIVE IN IT. I believe in dreaming big, maybe it’s because in my life the bigger I dream the bigger my reality has become. Who knows? My next dream is to go to business school, being here in Boston has really got me to seriously thinking about Harvard. I will have to study SUPER HARD for the GMAT, but if I could get in I would go in a heartbeat. Rice and UT are still viable options for me, but Harvard that’s the DREAM.

My other dream is to get to a position where I can retire my mom. She is a few years away from retirement, but I really would like to be able for her to do something she loves with out worrying if it paid enough for her to live her life. As I grow I take my mom with me each step of the way, I mean what else am I supposed to do. She did it for me. I plan on working on that and coming up with a plan with my financial planner to make that a real goal for our future, when I get back to Houston to live. Well, its time to wrap this up B. Keep dreaming big and as always

Be EZ,
OG