Friday, June 19, 2009

Our Eastward turn...


Today was my last day of work at TAMU. I thought this was a pretty last scene to remeber it by (compared to my cubicle).


It's meant to be.
I don't know how else to say it: We are supposed to be in Philadelphia.
The way everything has panned out leaves me smiling:) I somewhat guessed that our path would lead us on a great adventure after John graduated, but I never anticipated everything would fall into place so easily.

The second John accepted the offer (okay, I admit. I was jumping the gun WAY before he officially accepted) I was on Craigslist.com searching for our new nest. Neither one of us know the area, we know NO ONE in Philly, and we are poor poor POOR...but rich in love. So when we started house-hunting we were shocked at the following: a) finding a rent under $1900/mnth is almost unheard of. b) the distinction between "good neighborhood" and "Ghetto" is not crystal clear. I'd call it more of a murky grey. c) there are NO yards--not even teeny plots of grass for a pup to poop on. d) if you do find an affordable rent, the place is most likely in a bad neighborhood or it's a 250 square foot studio apartment with an igloo cooler posing as a fridge.
With that said, when I found an ad that said "$1200 3bdrm in a safe neighborhood" I was immediately wondering what the catch was. The pics in the ad looked clean and cute with hardwood floors and an updated kitchen, plus there's a basement! What's wrong with this place?? I called the guy, and it turns out that the reason why it's so cheap is because the owner (a funky schoolteacher named Matt) is going to gradschool and is being super selective about who he rents to because he wants his place taken care of.

We really like Matt, and even though we haven't seen the place yet, we have a feeling that we stumbled onto a gem. It's a block from a huge park, it's central location is close to the subway station for John's work route, and it's in an old historic part of the city. Oh, and he knocked off $100.00 per month.

Here's the cool part: Dr. Saslow from our department is from Philly. He sent one of his friends to check out our block, and they came back with thumbs up saying it was in a cool part of the Italian Market neighborhood, safe, clean, and quiet. SCORE!

Also, I applied for a Teaching Artist position teaching dance in under resourced school districts through a program called PAEP. They selected me for the month of July, and I'm really excited to meet other artists (networking opportunity) and teach in a different environment.

So far so good. Philly, here we come.

In the meantime, the love shack has been transformed into a war zone as we pack up. See pics.


Shaking things up,
Jess

2 comments:

  1. Good luck on your new adventure! I know you will both be a huge asset to Philadelphia!

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  2. I'm excited for your new adventure but we'll miss you dearly, love.
    Shannon and Ro.

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