I counted myself lucky last year when the college housing office let me live in their graduate housing for another year--but that kind of renewal is a semi-random thing. After your second year, they want you out of there to make room for the new first year students. This would have been fine if they had told me (and every other second year) this far in advance and not two months before we have to move out. I suppose they take a sort of sadistic glee in trapping students in a rock and a hard place right at the time when they don't need any more stress. But of course, now that I know, this is a good time to warn incoming Dartmouth graduate students googling for Dartmouth graduate housing: DON'T EXPECT TO GET ON-CAMPUS HOUSING AFTER YOUR SECOND YEAR. I'm 99.99% sure of that.
Today I can officially say that I'm not going to live in a cardboard box or hide out in the library (like what one house-less student did in a news article I read a while back) for the next year. Getting a place in Hanover was definitely out of the question--rents average to about a thousand per month. So that meant looking at the surrounding towns. It amused me that I now had the option of living in one state and going to school in another but for various reasons I didn't pick any available place in Vermont. So yeah, I'm still in New Hampshire.
I found a place in the historic district of this town-next-door-to-Hanover. The rent isn't so much--it's less than one of those college-owned and cramped studio apartments--I have a bedroom, a living space, a small dining nook, a bathroom, and a kitchen. In my mind, I've named it The Hole-in-the-Wall even though it's not a hole in the wall because it's pretty much invisible to the passerby unless you're really looking for it. But more importantly, I'm going to be living there on my own. This isn't because I hate housemates--in fact, I've had incredibly good housemates since I've moved up here--but because I'm primarily a loner, not a socializer.
Anyway, if you've been to the historic part of any town, they're always neat and tidy and quaint and cute. Definitely cute. Maybe too cute, but I think some other things make up for it. For one thing, the local library is just a few steps away. (One realizes how geeky you've gotten when you've started calculating when is the earliest day to apply for a library card.) The very center of town is dominated by what the locals call "The Green" which is basically the park where fairs and sales are held on the weekends when the weather is nice. Another cool thing nearby is--get this--an opera house. Why there is an opera house in the middle of the boondocks, I don't know, but at least now I have someplace to go for entertainment. Sort of like this graduate student I know who said he twiddled his thumbs and stared at the blank walls of his apartment before he got cable TV.
And there is a shuttle stop. I can basically use public transportation and save on gas provided that I've planned for a weekday in lab when I'm using normal people hours. Yet another graduate student couldn't understand why I would even consider using the bus when I now have a car. "But have you seen the gas prices lately?" I said. She was still skeptical--I guess she's one of those people who prize convenience over money.
