ramble through the bronx

yes, this here is ramble through the bronx, the continuing musings of a graduate student* who should be writing her dissertation, but honestly, living in new york city there's really so much else to do...

* and her commenting friends. And guest blogger.
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The How and Tao of Folk Music [>] Patrick Costello's podcasts & banjo & folk guitar instruction
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Kensington Market [>] (Toronto)
College Street [>] (Toronto)
Perfection Satisfaction Promise [>] (Ottawa - formerly the Painted Potato)
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Thanks to Haloscan for blog-comment-ability

Monday, July 29, 2002

So, after that enticing opening post, which hopefully has one wondering "what other country?"; "why must they break up?"; "who is this chick?"; I will now resume, a week to the day later. I am currently living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada -- yes, for anyone who attended World (Catholic) Youth Day (Week), that same Toronto. And yes I saw you with your little red backpacks. I will be moving to a strange and foreign country, with pretensions to democracy and a questionable foreign policy record. I won't bother to name its name, as it will become patently obvious in the next paragraph.

My roommate in my new apartment (to which I will be moving in approximately one week) is entering the second year of a master's in social work at Columbia; I love her dearly and we've been wanting to live together for quite some time -- it just never worked out while we were both living in Toronto. But now that we have signed a lease for our fabulous new home in the Bronx, plans are being generated left right and centre (well, mostly left) for plants, herb gardens, cooking, decorating, bookshelves, dinner parties, and all of that kind of wonderfulness.

The Bronx has a certain mystique for me, a white girl from a lower-middle-class Canadian background. I grew up in Ottawa, a town populated mostly with descendents of Scots, Irish, and French Canadians; there are a lot of pubs, generally playing folk music. The Bronx, meanwhile, is not overwhelmingly white (though we're moving to the Italian area), has mangoes on a stick instead of beaver tails (mmm, beaver tails), and hip hop instead of Stan Rogers. Being a hockey fan (go Leafs!), I'm a bit leery of this "baseball" thing (some team called the Yankees?), but one of the kids from my new school has promised to take me to Yankee Stadium for a ball game. I hope they're slightly more exciting than the Jays!

Alright, so I'm excited about moving to New York. All the same, I've had a wonderful time the last four years in Toronto, and of all the luck, am quite rather in love more or less. I had no trouble not being in love when I had years to spend in Toronto. It was hard applying to grad schools in December, having been together with Dan for three or four months at that point. It meant I already had to think about what we would do when I left. At that point, however, it was entirely a hypothetical question. Who knew if we'd still be together by the time I moved away? And yet December turned into January, and February -- and in February I started getting my acceptances back. By the time March and April came, and my heart was set on moving to the Bronx and going to Fordham University to start my doctorate in Philosophy, the question of what Dan and I would do when I left the country started to poke its head up wonderingly yet relentlessly.

To make matters worse, a good friend of mine (who became involved with her partner at roughly the same time I became involved with mine) applied to a program here in Toronto, got in, received a pretty good graduate assistantship, and is looking forward to the program (she's already got her thesis planned out). Meanwhile, her boyfriend, who also lives in Toronto, is moving into an apartment about 5 minutes' walk from hers, and above a coffee shop. So they're quite happy and set up quite nicely. I keep thinking that, had I decided to stay at the University of Toronto or York University, I wouldn't be going through the emotional nonsense that I am now.

But if I did, I wouldn't be the same person that I am now; and Dan loves the person that I am. So I guess that's how it goes. I still can't believe we have to break up.


jane 10:59 PM [+]

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