Living Situation

When you decide to attend any school, you basically have three choices for your living situation: dorm, family member, or apartment. Since I do not have any family in the Boston area, I only have two choices. If you were to ask me a month ago whether or not I was considering living in a dorm, I would have said "no," but time has a way of changing things.

In order to understand my initial reaction, you have to understand that I have not lived in university housing for three years. I lived in off-campus housing my senior year of college, and I currently live in an apartment in Chicago. Over the years, I have gotten used to doing my laundry in my own apartment, cooking my own food, and cleaning my own living space. And, I like it a lot.

At the same time, I have also gotten used to paying bills and damn, there are a lot of them. Seeing my bank account bulk up only to trim down every month is never fun, but I guess that is the price you pay for having all of life's necessities in 700 sq. feet.

My cost sensitivity has only gotten worse since I started working. Currently, more than half of my monthly income goes to my bills, which include rent, utilities, and college loans. Although I can go out on the occasional nice dinner, it is difficult to save up for big things like weekend trips. If I were to do it over again, I would have probably gotten a cheaper place. And that is why I am not so sure I want to live on my own in Boston.

It is not cheap to live in Chicago, but Boston is 20% more expensive in virtually every category, whether it be housing, food, or entertainment. This is a tough nut to swallow considering Tufts Dental School is one of the more expensive dental schools in the country. Even worse, TUSDM is in the heart of downtown Boston, which means everything is more expensive. By comparison, I live about 30 blocks North of Chicago's downtown area. I can tell you that you definitely get more for the money where I am currently at.

This is where the dorm option comes into play. For about $200 less a month than its apartment counterpart, I can live in TUSDM's dorm, which contains both dental and medical school students. The dorm is also right on campus, meaning my daily "commute" to class is a few minutes at the most. I will not have the same amount of living space, but the dorms are in far better shape then what I had in college, and I will not have monthly utilities bills. The convenience factor and no additional costs make dorm living an attractive option.

There is no guarantee that I will have a spot in the dorm, but you can bet I will be sending a certified check reserving my spot as soon as the dorm application becomes available. I will still look for apartments in mid-April just in case I do not get a spot. Who knows, may be it will turn out to be an even better option than I can imagine.

Blogging During Dental School

I have a friend in medical school who began blogging during college. For years, he and another one of our friends blogged back and forth about medicine and law - each a topic of interest to the other. And, for those years they had a great thing going on. I was often times struck by their insight and witt about the world, and their powers of observation were something to be desired.

But, in time, the med school examinations and the law school memos got the best of their time. Soon, I found myself visiting infrequently until one day the blogs just stopped. I was disappointed.

It seems that in life we begin so many things only to see the excitement and enthusiasm we once had for them wane, until one day they just stop.

I am not sure if I will be able to keep this blog going in dental school, but I am happy that I have the time now to record my thoughts and memories, so I can reflect on them one day.

Maybe that is why we get so excited about doing things like blogging in the first place - we hope to capture those fleeting moments and thoughts that get tucked away in our undependable memories. Or maybe it is because we believe we have something to say.

In any event, I hope to keep building these memories and record my now young life. And, I hope my desire to keep these memories never just stops.

Housing

Yeah, I realize that today's post title is about something you should not even consider until the Summer, especially since I will be starting dental school in September. But, the fact is that Boston is an uber-college town. There are nearly 60 universities (never corroborated) in the city alone, which means a ton of people will be looking for apartments just like me come summer. You can guarantee that I will start looking now, and if I find a place, I will plop the money down sight unseen.

Of course, I have my own limits on how far I want to be from school and how much it will cost. I would like to be within 10 minutes of TUSDM and close to South Station. The latter is especially important because my girlfriend will be attending Brown. I would like her to have a short walk to my apartment, especially if she brings her new cat with her. I mean, she will be looking for a place as close to the train for me, so it is only fair.

My time frame is the end of April, which gives me a few months to get my finances in order. That may be harder than it sounds because my company, like so many others, are in dire straights; things at work are so bad that there is a good chance I will be unemployed come late April.

For now, however, I am going to focus on getting packed for my LA trip. I originally planned to be out there for a USC dental school interview, but declined it once I got accepted to Tufts. I am confident I made the right decision.