the random oracle

So my mom just moved to a new apartment in Cambridge and I’ve been hanging out here since the beginning of the week.  The location is great, right near the Lechmere T station, and within (somewhat long-ish) walking distance of MIT.  I was able to walk to the Stata Center for RANDOM+APPROX 2008 in about 20 minutes, not bad.  It’s funny because I remember when I was in college and the walk from the Quad to the Yard seemed like an eternity, and now a 30 minute walk seems feasible.

What’s even nicer is that the people here are so different from New York.  OK, fair enough Cambridge is a big bunch of nerds.  The people here are not as pretty to look at and we’re definitely closer to being in America (there are some scary waistlines here), but it’s the nerdy America.  Everywhere you turn here there are research institutes discovering the next treatment for cancer or building a better mouse trap.  And not every other person on the street has an iPhone, wears D&G, or dresses business-formal.  I miss that; I don’t meet enough nerdy people in New York and even though I appreciate it when people dress nice and walk fast, it’d be nice if they could also talk about how their work is helping to save lives or further science.  Of course you get that in Princeton, but there’s a much smaller community there and, let’s face it, living in Princeton sucks.  Living here, on the other hand, actually seems nice.

TNS had her doubts about living in Boston because of the lack of diversity.  But just walking around today I don’t think that’s a problem at all.  True the popular image of Boston is that of a very Irish-American, white-dominated city, but I think that’s very misleading.  Sure, South Boston is still very white and Irish, but the Back Bay, downtown, Brighton, Brookline, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, all these areas are very mixed.  A lot of it has to do with the large student population, and the universities here attract the best and brightest from all across the world.

And, to venture out on a limb and say something blatantly elitist and snobby, I think people like me benefit from the diversity in Boston more than they do from the diversity in New York.  Let’s face it, even though there are Hispanic, Greek, African, Chinese, Jewish, Russian, etc. neighborhoods in New York, how often do we interact with them except to go to their restaurants?  When was the last time I met a random Senegalese person outside the context of patronizing their store, even though I live in a neighborhood filled with Senegalese people?  Part of it’s my fault, that’s for sure, because I don’t go out looking to meet them; but part of it is also that we have basically nothing in common besides sharing the same neighborhood.

In contrast, I feel like the diversity in Boston is more accessible because we would share more things in common.  Maybe we do research in the same area, or they’re studying here and want to learn more about American culture, or they work in the same building as me in the next office over.  And I guess that’s my point: just there existing diversity isn’t enough, the diversity should somehow also actively influence my life, rather than just being background noise.