August 19, 2024
I finished moving into my apartment earlier this evening, and now I'm settling in for my first night of graduate student life. At this transition point in my life, it seems like the perfect time to share how my move-in went and write some thoughts on maturity and youth.
Although I was initially resistant to having my parents help me move in (after all, I'm twenty-two, fully grown, don't need any help), they convinced me otherwise. I'm glad they didn't let me go alone, because we had such a fun time and they were incredibly helpful and efficient in getting everything set up. At various points during the move, we were remarking how difficult it must be for so many of the international students who were coming alone with several bags, no car, minimal support systems, and potentially a language barrier too. Minus the language barrier, it was a good exercise for envisioning what my grandparents and their generation must have experienced when they first came here from India over sixty years ago. My move here and my move to Zürich for the semester were both quite tame in comparison, especially given how much of family and friends we have in the northeast.
My parents and I flew up on Wednesday and reached Boston in the early evening. We held off on getting a car for the first few days of our trip and instead opted to walk around Cambridge. We had dinner at Veggie Galaxy, and afterwards we stopped at the Target on Mass Ave to buy some basic items.
On Thursday, I took possession of my apartment, and we began moving my clothes and other basic items into the unit. In the afternoon, we had lunch at Flour Cafe. My dad and I each had half of a cauliflower melt and a fresh mozzarella sandwich, and my mom had her own sandwich (I forgot which of the two she picked). Afterwards, we walked around the MIT campus, and I showed them the lab, office, and cleanroom spaces in which I'd be working.
My parents had spent much of their young adult years in Boston, and many of their longtime family friends live in the northeast. So the trip was filled with lots of visits with old friends and family. On Thursday afternoon, we met with one of my mom's old work friends and mentors and her husband. It was fascinating to hear everyone catch up after a few years, and I also enjoyed talking with both of them about a variety of topics.
On Friday, we continued to explore Cambridge. My mom's mavshi's sister-in-law and her husband live in Cambridge, so we took the T to their place and visited them for a bit. Afterwards, we stopped by some of the local grocery stores and bought more items. The grocery store landscape is quite different from the excellent HEB chain which is abundant in San Antonio and Austin, but I'm starting to get calibrated to the different options and pricing and variety. We then stopped by Honeycomb Creamery for ice cream before heading back to our place.
In the evening, we had dinner at Red Lentil with my parents' best friends from their time in Boston, as well as their kids. The family had been my parents' neighbors and had known my parents since before I was born. The wife spent a lot of time with my mom and me (before I moved to Texas at age one) and was my first aunt, and I continue to call her "mavshi." For them, it was exciting that I was now coming back to my place of birth, and for me it was exciting that I'll hopefully get to see much more of them in the coming years. All four adults were also in awe that I'm only a few years younger than they were when they all first met.
On Saturday, we drove to Lexington to attend a celebration of life ceremony for the parents of one of my dad's closest friends from middle and high school. It was a thoughtful ceremony, with my dad's friend and his siblings speaking about the legacy and impact their parents had on the rest of the family and the community. The family had compiled interviews with and about the two parents and bound them into books for the attendees to read. I enjoyed reading ninety-plus years of stories about the two parents. It was also fun to see and reconnect with so many of the people whom I've heard about and seen over the years.
After the ceremony, we continued driving north into New Hampshire. There, we stayed with the family of one of my mom's closest friends from her childhood. The friend's mother also lives in town and visited for dinner. My mom and the friend (and the friend's twin sister) had sometimes stayed at each other's houses while growing up, and my mom often talks about them and their parents and the memories she had of them. While my parents caught up with their friends, I played ping-pong in the basement with their high-school-aged twin boys.
The husband is an optical engineer and happened to have a first-edition hardcover copy of Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics on his bookshelf. He was more than happy to give it to me. I left all my textbooks in San Antonio for the time being, so this is officially the first book in my graduate book collection.
On Sunday morning, we woke up and had breakfast with them before wishing them goodbye. On the way back to Boston, we took a brief detour up to Hanover, New Hampshire to see Dartmouth. We had a late, post-noon brunch at Lou's, a classic diner right next to campus, and I had the pesto scramble. We then walked around campus and saw some historic spots. We continued back towards Boston, stopping at several home goods stores along the way to purchase some necessary items for my kitchen. After one last stop for dinner, we reached my apartment, unloaded all the bags we had accumulated, and said our goodbyes. As I began drafting this post on Sunday night from my apartment, my parents dropped off the rental car and headed back to their hotel for their flight tomorrow morning.
Thus concludes my incredibly packed five-day move-in experience. It was an adventure and a great chance to reconnect with some old friends who will now be right in my neighborhood.
Watching my parents interact with their old friends from over twenty years ago was quite an experience. My parents are big storytellers and often talk about their childhoods and the different places, people, and events they remember, and it was insightful to see how well they still get along with their old friends and how much they can all talk about. My parents are already quite youthful and energetic, but it was even more apparent over these meals. I felt like my parents (especially my mom) unlocked higher levels of laughter in the presence of their old friends. I think the first secret to stopping aging is to meet with your old friends and celebrate how much you've grown while reminiscing about and remembering the core memories that shaped you.
The friends with whom we had dinner on Friday night have a seven-year-old with whom I love interacting. At dinner, I sat across from her and next to her older sister, a college sophomore, who was at the end of the table. It was nice to catch up with the older sister after a few years. Afterwards, I began asking the seven-year-old questions about school, playing the piano, and similar topics. Afterwards, as a kind of joke, I responded, "Now do you have any questions for me?" and she solemnly responded, "Um, yes I do." She fired off with, "When will I learn about multiplication and division and photons?" I was shocked because I didn't think she had been paying attention during the earlier conversation, in which I was explaining my research area to the rest of the table and the word "photon" came up as I was describing what kinds of things the word "quantum" designates.
In that same conversation, she also asked me, "Why does the word practice mean practice?" I went on a somewhat scientific chain of explanations about how language develops and how it allows us to more effectively cooperate for activities such as hunting, so that we can survive. Each explanation of mine was followed by a further "Why?" from her, until we reached some basic explanation of natural selection and I just gave her a "That's just how it is" which largely satisfied her. I wrote a brief line in my notebook to check back in ten years to see if she understands evolution and remembers the conversation.
That night, I was thinking about why I enjoy conversing with small children. I think it's because kids are incredibly curious about a wide range of topics. They are unafraid to keep asking questions and uninhibited if they're not satisfied with the answer they've been given. Kids are also the perfect target to practice scientific communication: if they don't understand something, it's very obvious that you simply haven't explained it effectively enough. And once they do understand it, they will pursue a further line of questioning to better refine their understanding. So the second tip to stop aging is to cultivate a lifelong curiosity and desire to understand more about the world. I'm hoping that throughout my PhD and beyond, I'll be able to keep wondering and keep learning and keep searching for answers in a multitude of areas.