This will be my sixth blog and counting. When I was a lovesick pre-teen, I had a Diaryland diary, and when an angsty teenager, I ferociously kept up a Livejournal. In college, I moved on to more specific blogs like my Campus Word study abroad blog about Dublin. I think Planworld still has one ridiculously disgusting entry about my horrific first leg of an adventure to Bristol. Finally, this charming venue, AmhPub, has hosted my AAS Senate blog. My goal here is simply to document the adventures of living in a new city as a scum-of-the-East-Coast summer intern.

So friends, what exactly am I doing? I’m working at a non-profit consulting firm in Boston. More specifically, I’m working on one of their initiatives that does research on the non-profit sector. We look at ways to measure the social impact of non-profits. Working on this initiative is my wonderful boss and… me. Sometimes, another research associate does some work for us, but mainly it’s us. Because it’s such a new initiative, flexibility and responsibility has been our fortune and curse. Although I’m only two weeks in, I’ve been chastised, confused, late, asleep in meetings, and suffered long delays on the T (don’t worry, a lot of good things have happened too). The train wreck of my internship so far was foreshadowed by my nightmarish adventure just trying to get from Amherst to Boston. Let’s tell that story first:

During reunion weekend, as a class assistant, I bartended until Sunday morning (the same day I was to move to Boston). I didn’t sleep much Saturday night because someone left a cell phone in his backpack in my room while he was out sleeping in Narnia. The cell phone graciously decided to vibrate all night long at 10 minute intervals for 30 seconds each time. Between that and then another cell phone that kept beeping to remind me of its low battery, I got little sleep anticipating the syncopation between these two entities in opposite corners of my room. I made breakfast plans with Jake Maguire so finally at 7, I got out of bed. Breakfast despite my sluggishness was great. We discussed our lives from our two very different viewpoints – one year out (him) and one year left (me). Things ain’t easy on either side of the fence, we soon found out. The anxiety of graduating is rewarded only by the anxiety of being graduated. After walking slowly around a bit (apparently you don’t walk slowly in New York according to Jake), we went back to Amherst so I could finish my class assisting duties.

While packing my new friends Jim Bean, Dewers, and Amstel Light in order to return them to Dining Services, I realized that I hadn’t packed my own things even though I was leaving for Boston in a few hours. Back in the Zu, I absentmindedly threw my shit together (I still can’t find most things) and loaded my tv and 4 bags of stuff into Rachel’s already completely packed van. Finally after a trip to Amherst Coffee and a visit with some other young alums, Rachel and I finally pulled ourselves out of the time trap that is Amherst College. Still in a daze, neither of us really paid attention to the mess of back roads we decided to take to the Pike. Our casual and almost regretful feelings about leaving the college were punished by: 1. In Palmer, the police are super active and pulled us over for driving 33 in a 30 waylaying us for half an hour. 2. Confused by the podunk roads, somehow we missed the Masspike and accidentally passed a “Welcome to Connecticut!” sign. 3. After finally making our way North again so close to the Pike (3 miles away! I mean, we could actually see the road leading to the Beantown), Rachel’s prickly van decided it had had enough and broke down. Just died. That was fun. We rolled into a large driveway and slunk around until the creepy owner of the house came to greet us. He was nice enough and said we could lounge around his property. Rachel and I put out a blanket, pillows, and our cell phones to figure out what we would do. Rachel did some research. She found that: towing without Triple A is expensive and Sunday is a magical day where no one expects cars to die. On this miraculous day, all garages and rental car places are closed. Our last resort solution was to call her dad in Philadelphia who does have Triple A and Steve in Boston to pick me up. In the interim, my allergies decided to go nuts and I could hardly breathe or stop coughing and our host generously gave me some Benadryl and a cup of water. I was talking to my mom about my allergies as the guy came up and gave me the Benadryl and a cup of water and I swear he could hear her scream, “DON’T DRINK THAT WATER OR TAKE ANY PILLS. POISON.” Steve graciously drove from Boston practically to Amherst to pick me up. So after dinner and that Benadryl, I easily passed out at 10:00 pm.