Moving... again

I have already moved once since coming to Philly. The first place was a beautiful room in an old Victorian house, with tall ceilings and slender windows overlooking a street lined with trees. It was pre-furnished with gorgeous antiques: armoirs made with real wood, desks with carvings on the drawers, mirrors decorated by intricately carved frames. I stayed there for less than 3 months before I fled. Reason: I almost had a nervous breakdown thanks to the obsessive compulsive tendencies of housemate #1. The hour long conversation about "how to throw garbage" and her belief that bathrooms needed to be cleaned every two days because "we're from different cultures and I don't want our germs to mix" are just a few of the tamer examples of what I had to go back to everyday. I actually didn't mind her excentricities. After all, we're all "weird" in our own little ways. It was when she started to impose her lifestyle on me that it became intolerable. Waking up everyday to some sort of "note" reminding me to clean things immediately after use, to wipe the microwave and the fridge handle after touching them because "that's where most bacterial contaminations can happen", and oh... the 3 page long "note" on how I should clean the floor (from the type of detergent allowed, to water temperature and something about 98% oil for the hardwood floor?) was a nightmare. Since her parents owned the place that I was renting, I broke the lease and fled for my life, for my sanity.

After a rather enervating house-hunting experience, I found a pretty nice place far far away from housemate #1 (and work unfortunately) in what you could say a "sketchy neighborhood" called Fishtown. Several people advised me not to move there since Fishtown was rather infamous in Philly, appearing in the radar when several local teenagers planned and executed the murder of one of their peers. Stubbornly (or stupidly... you choose), I moved there thinking 1) "hey, I grew up in Guatemala, have been assaulted at gunpoint, how bad can Fishtown be!?" (I can sometimes be SOOOO naive) and 2) "I don't really care about the location, I just want a nice housemate." (see? very naive...) Well, after three cases of domestic violence erupting into a mini-riot outside of our house, after seeing police cars racing one after another towards the direction of a chopper's limelight shinning on something just a few blocks away, and after losing count of the many disgusting things that were said to me by the guys on the streets and the subway, I kind of lost that "I'm so tough" mentality.

Then, an unexpected surprise. A room located within 10 minutes walk from work, and 2 minute walk from church (as opposed to the usual 45-60min commute from Fishtown) practically appeared out of nowhere and fell on my lap. Xueyuan (my lab manager and one of my closest friends/older sister/mentor in Philly) literally took me out of work one day and took me to see this apartment. There, we met up with two other friends whose persuasive powers led me from "I'm not too sure if I should do this", to signing the lease, and having all the logistics of the move worked out (ie they volunteered their husbands and cars to help me move!).

So... I moved this Saturday! It was quite a busy and exciting day since it was also Ruth's bridal shower. After a fun afternoon of showering Ruth with gifts, of good fellowship, great food, and plenty of "girl talk," my army of movers (7 able bodies and 5 cars) got busy. Everyone was soooooo nice and incredibly helpful. They didn't even get upset at me for "forgetting" to mention that I was moving from a third floor bedroom to a second floor apartment with no elevators in either place. I was very touched and extremely thankful for the kindness that all these amazing friends showed me. I guess God is watching over me after all!

I do miss my housemate #2 and #2.5 (Joy and her little son Luke) since they are wonderful and we had a great time living together (btw, the guilt mentioned in my last entry had to do with what I did to them... but thankfully, everything worked out well in the end). I specially will miss the very insightful conversations that Luke and I used to have. He thought "moms are pregnant for FIVE years befor having a baby" but he still wanted his mom to "grow him a little sister."

I'll end with some pictures that we took earlier this year when Min-ching came to visit Philly :)

And for the records, the 7 months that I lived with Joy and Luke has been the longest I've stayed in any one place since Sept 2003! Hmmm... I guess I'm rather nomadic after all.



This is my most favorite picture with Luke. It was taken right after we had a huge dinner at a Mexican Restaurant :) Probably not the best time to be upside down, but it was still fun! And thankfully, his food didn't come back out.







Luke took this picture of me with Min-ching, my housemate from Kingston and Joy, my 2nd housemate in Philly (ie, his mom).






And here's Luke the cutie. We were playing with the camera while Joy was driving.