Year One

I am less than a month away from completing my first full year in Boston. I flew out here on August 28, 2012, with my mom and youngest brother. So much has happened in the past 11+ months that I really can't believe that it's only been one year. Here is a blog post I wrote for the BU ComGrad Blog, talking a bit about what it has been like living here this first year, and what it's like living here in the summer.

http://blogs.bu.edu/comgrad/

One thing I didn't do well this year was keep this blog updated. I was having a lot of fun keeping it up through my first couple months, but then some things happened that I didn't know how/want to talk about on a blog where I tend to make jokes and keep it light. While this year has brought me an amazing variety of positive life "Firsts", there have been some first time occurrences that were not so great. The thing that really stopped me in my tracks, which happened just a few weeks after the last time I updated the blog, was the death of classmate and friend. Even now, this very second, as I type I am uncomfortable talking about this. I feel like a sentence, or a paragraph in a blog is total disservice to the person that we lost last December. He was a student, just like me, in his first semester at BU following his dream of being a professional journalist. And he was talented. And engaging. And he had an infectious personality that made you just want to be around him. And the fact that he's gone is completely unfair.

The thing that I took away from this however, was the strength of many of the people that I am here with in Boston. His family, while they had to be beyond devastated, showed such poise and grace in the weeks following the accident. They have since dedicated a scholarship in their son's name, to be given to an outstanding BU photojournalist each year. The administration at the school was just as poised, from our Dean to the Professors. And my classmates blew me away as well. It's hard to find a lot of positives in such a tragic situation, but one thing I can say is that I have been blessed to be surrounded by some incredible people thus far in Boston. Sadly, one of them passed away last December. I will do my best to "provoke thought and wonderment" with whatever I do professionally.

We also had the Marathon Bombings. Another event that shook my foundation. I feel bad not writing anything on this page for nearly 9 months, and then coming back with these topics, but these topics are the reasons that I haven't written. Again, I feel uncomfortable as I type, knowing that my account of that day does nothing to capture the tragedy the city witnessed. So I won't do that. What I will do is post the show we did the next day. The amount of work and emotion that went into this show was incredible for any group, let alone a group of students, many of whom were doing their first live broadcast. I hope that hard work is visible in the product.



While we are talking about bad stuff that happened, I suppose I should mention that my phone got stolen off of my desk at work and my apartment was robbed. I really do hope that whoever broke into my place enjoys that Jason Vargas autographed baseball as much as I did.

Enough about the bad. The fact is that I want to get back into the swing of things with this blog, and relaying to you some of the hard parts of year 1 in Boston should help me do just that. I didn't, and honestly still don't, know how to write about things like this. I feel like I am asking whoever is reading this to take pity on poor old me, which I certainly don't deserve or want. I think the lesson that I have taken away from the first year here in Boston is that you have to surround yourself with quality people. People that challenge you, and inspire you, and celebrate the good times with you. But even more importantly, you need these people to hold you up when things get tough. I've always had that in my family back home. But I can honestly say, that after nearly a year in Boston, I also have that in my new family out here.

So that's that. I'll try to be less mushy next time. Also, I will try to not to wait so long to write again if something bad happens. And I don't want to give a false impression. This year has been amazing. Probably the best year of my life. Thanks to everyone who played a role.