Sayonara, Lovely Hartford

• Fuller Movement Center: This absolutely beautiful, hardwood floored, red brick walled, charming yoga studio brought tranquility, companionship, and a good stretch to my sometimes tightly wound self. Justine Fuller, the super good-vibed owner of the studio knows everyone by name, teaches a killer power session, and has developed the next big thing in yoga: the round mat, which I am convinced will make her famous one day. My favorite: the Saturday Fuller Yoga classes.

• Plan B: The absolute best burgers and comfort foods. I mean, seriously a good, solid burger – not so complicated that it falls apart at the mere sight of it, but also not your plain-jane double cheese. I absolutely love the mushroom burger and the meatloaf. Also, try the Glastonbury location – I heard it has better ambiance.

• Tizane’s: A town favorite. Pretty much famous in Hartford. I’m sad to say I only visited on my LAST week in Hartford, but it took only one visit to top my list. Super cool, contemporary (yet kinda granola) tea and liquor bar. The menu was a little too all over the place for me, and not very impressive, but the atmosphere and tea selection is fantastic. They have poetry slams, concerts, readings, etc., for the artsy soul.

• Trumbull Kitchen: I know this is so not original, and it’s part of a conglomerate of restaurants that have made one person/family very rich, but I love it all the same. Great atmosphere – mixed review on the service.

• Barca: Looks like a lot money went into this Spanish tapas restaurant, but the owner is not likely to see the returns if he keeps up his lax attitude towards service. He said himself that he likes to “take it easy” with his staff, but if I’m going to be paying those prices for not-so-great food, I will at least expect great service. Instead, at Barca you consistently get untrained, young wait staff lacking the service rigors of a high-priced restaurant.

My New Life

Two weeks at Harvard have seemed like two months.

Every day when I wake up I feel immensely happy and grateful to be here. I am, however, starting to feel a little lonely and miss the familiarity of family, friends, co-workers, straight roads, and non-stop sunshine!

SOCIAL LIFE:

Has been GREAT. The Kennedy School (KSG) has proven to be quite the social emporium. Everybody’s relatively young (mid-late twenties), energetic, and ready for long nights of mingling, clubbing, and bar-hopping. Never mind the stereotype of east-coast snottyness. We are, after all, the black sheep of Harvard—unassuming, socially adept, public-service oriented, and ready to disrupt the status quo…or NOT. (More on this controversial topic later.)

Anyway, I’ve met amazing people and have clicked very well with a set of three women who have inevitably become my partying cohorts. We click well socially and personality-wise—well, I mean they don’t cringe whenever I do or say something ridiculous…

MY FUNNEST NIGHT HERE:

So… the girls and I were out last Friday at some bars by Faneuil Hall in Boston. We danced and sang merrily to a cheesy (but great) cover band named the “Lisa Love Experience” and my friends literally had to peel me away from the lovely Lisa Love as I shamelessly stalked her to tell her how amazing she was. Whatever, a girl needs some recognition once in a while! Oh, and p.s. she kept encouraging me to “chug, chug, chug,” and I was like, “no more, no more, no more.” But alas, when duty calls, duty calls. Lisa then asked me to go onstage to sing backup, a request, you all can assume, I could NOT turn down! The cute guitarist made sure I got a spot next to his microphone…uh huh.

Btw, I inadvertently got some drunken, slightly obnoxious man kicked out. I don’t wanna go into the details, but I swear, (insert name of said drunken man), if you are reading this: I didn’t mean to!

The night ended when Sam, our fellow KSG’er and built-in-Marine-escort, shooed us into a cab. Poor guy. About five minutes later—and too far into Cambridge—we realized that the entire crew of squawking, giggling women had ALL forgotten to close our tabs…OOPS.

Somehow we came to the conclusion that we were like The Mean Girls, but nicer...though maybe not smarter.

BUT CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, I AM NOT TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

In fact, I have been more disciplined than ever before. Keeping busy also keeps homesickness at bay. It’s a win-win.

Oops, I have to go to school now. Oh yeah, 8am-8pm days rock. Stay tuned for the REAL blog on Harvidian cut-throatness, mud-slinging and bad fashion.

Harvard Begins

INTRODUCTION

This is it everyone.

With this blog I begin my journey to fulfill unabashedly my knack for voyeurism and self-indulgence.  But more than anything, I hope to keep you all connected through periodic updates on what will certainly become two amazing, crazy, happy years of fanciness, novelty, and Hahvahdness. You can, of course, expect my blogs to be painted by ridicule and fun and exuberance and circus-like activities, behaviors and events—nothing short of the usual Shadiah experience. But I also hope you stick around for the more serious stuff and send me an occasional email or phone call cheering me on through the long midterm sessions, attacks of the crazy professors, nasty finals weeks, and yes…the seemingly obligatory “opposite-sex” messes I get myself into.   

OK, NOW STRAIGHT TO THE GOOD STUFF:

After a six-day drive across the country, I have arrived at HARVARD!! My mom and I put up quite a fight through the winding Rocky Mountains and struggled to stay awake through the long stretches of pastures and…nothingness of the Mid-West. As professional Californians we managed to make it through on an average 85mph and only ONE speeding ticket!

My mom and I are a deadly combination. We managed to receive free or discounted EVERYTHING everywhere we went. My favorites were the French-Algerian waiter at Bertucci’s who gave us free wine and salads—I know, salads, fancy—and the guy at Mattress Discounters who gave me a free box-spring, bed-frame and shipping in exchange for a chance to impress me with stories of his rich uncle and his flashy Coach wallet and keychain. Right…

All in all, the trip was LONG but OK. I drove most of the 3,200 miles while my mom downloaded and played games on her phone (the ONLY feature she knows how to use on her god-forsaken phone). Sometimes we would engage in healthy bonding-games, such as trying to make inappropriate word combinations out of words like Coochuate Ave., and competing about who could say the most disparaging things about the rude woman at the New York toll booth. We also had a blast bashing on Indiana when we were forced to backtrack 40 miles cause we couldn’t make a u-turn on the stupid-ass highway. Good, healthy fun.

I live on the first floor of house built in 1901 with three fabulous roommates—all who are (fairly) working-class people of color and first-years at the Kennedy School. Suba was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Australia, moved to Singapore, then on to England for the London School of Economics, and finally worked in Sri Lanka for a non-profit dealing with the aftermath of the tsunami. I know…! She is 25 and warm and down to earth and everything I need a woman roommate to be. Josh is a 29 year old Puerto Rican-Cuban-American from New Haven who grew up with 8 siblings. He has quite the tough-New-Yorker accent (I'm sure he'll scoff at this description) which I find quite endearing, and he is very sweet, helpful and focused. He recently graduated from Southern Connecticut SU after many attempts to stay focused on school and “not get into trouble.” That's quite the understatement since he's actually been accepted to Duke Law but hopes to do a joint degree at Harvard Law. Roshan is 26 and is from Bangalore, India. He went to Davidson and worked for Ashoka for two years on youth empowerment issues. He's also comissioned by a magazine in Delhi, India to write articles about his travels through Asia. He’s a very unassuming and fabulous roommate.

I know, I feel like the house is just gonna explode with all our fabulousness!

I start class on the 13th and almost wish I could skip this orientation stuff and get on with it! I’m just so excited to begin this incredible journey. I am contemplating applying to HBS or MIT Sloan -- it's kind of a big topic around here, even before the semester has started. Also, my bff Kaneisha has inspired me to see business in a whole different light. If you never hear about it again, it’ll probably be because the semester was too hectic and I just couldn’t get my stuff together. Which will be fine because I want to do really well in my first semester here.