Life After Grad School

Tonight I tripped over a squirrel, which was definitely a first for me. It takes a pretty absent-minded human, a dark corner and a dare-devil squirrel totally overestimating its ability to race past said human for that to happen. Not that squirrels are known for accurately estimating the speed of oncoming objects, as evidenced in the sheer number of them ending up as roadkill. Instead they’re just really good at squirreling stuff away. Like my chocolate covered turkish delight.

Last summer I was working on my masters thesis when a strange noise from the kitchen offered a welcome excuse for a break. I wasn’t really expecting the picture I saw: a squirrel sitting on the kitchen table with a wrapped piece of turkish delight hanging from its teeth looking at me defiantly. After a brief staring contest (the squirrel: “damn”, I: “drop the candy, or else”, the squirrel: “no way, try and catch me”), the candy thief leaped off the table, raced out the door onto the balcony and jumped into the tree. I, of course, two steps behind, except for the jumping into the tree. Never saw the candy again.

If anybody is wondering why I had chocolate covered turkish delight sitting in my kitchen, that’s a valid question. Let’s just say it came from the land of fried Mars bars.

Why are all my fellow Bostonians wearing their winter coats in the middle of October? It’s freaking me out! Last week it was in the high 60s and I, along with everyone else, was wearing sandals, sleeveless shirts and a skirt. This week it’s 10 degrees colder and rainy and EVERYBODY is wearing a winter coat. Quit it. It’s bad enough that winter (and by that I mean snow and temps below freezing) will inevitably last till May. Do we really have to be reminded of that now?

The death toll following the earthquake in South Asia has reached 25,000 and providing relief efforts for the hundreds of thousand left homeless is incredibly time critical as winter is approaching in the region. It’s perhaps not surprising that people are donating less than they did for the tsunami victims last December given the recent domestic needs, but I get the sense that there has been a lot less press coverage as well. I can live very well without the heart-wrenching accounts of tourists escaping the disaster that we saw last year, but it is possible that exactly those stories managed to bring the suffering closer to home and spurred an outpour of donations and support.

Here a list of agencies accepting donations for Pakistan earthquake relief.