They’re Baaaaack!

Here it is, the last day of August. It’s the unofficial end of summer in Boston. U-Haul trucks are everywhere (three on my block today!), and the students are back. I love it.

Boston is a college town. It’s got the oldest university in the country, and a few dozen newer ones, too. (Perhaps only an East Coast resident would call a 144 year-old university “newer.”) We’ve got MIT, too, which I believe has the coolest university website on earth.

Here’s one of the things I love about Boston: it’s fresh, exciting, and brimming with students. Every September they return en masse, and as much as those of us who live here year-round may gripe about it, there’s something cool about being around the excitement, the giddiness… it reminds me of some amazing times of my own in this town.

I can’t really tell if I feel older or younger around all these kids who could – mathematically, anyway – be my offspring. Probably younger, except for the vast difference in computer literacy between my generation and theirs. In my day, the footnotes for a paper or even a thesis were on 3x5 cards. Today there are programs for that.

Oh, and everyone has a cell phone in hand these days. I remember when my youngest sister marveled at how I could get through college without one. “So,” she asked, “when you met your friends, how did you know where to meet, and when, without a cell phone?”

OK, maybe I do feel a tiny bit older.

And students: if you’re still shopping for a new laptop, check out Circuit City’s deals this week.

Until next time,

Conna