Temporary Lodging

As I mentioned before, my school doesn't really have a system in place for accommodating students whose programs extend into the fall, so I had to find temporary lodging on my own. I took the first place I looked at because it seemed like a good situation and I just wanted to get it dealt with and concentrate on my dissertation.

The room was in a detached house on a very quiet road about two and a half miles from the downtown area. I was living with the landlady, who is in her sixties and not working much anymore. She used to be a substitute teacher, but I think was laid off (made redundant) due to budget cuts, and now her only income seems to be a laughably small pension, the rent she gets from a steady stream of tenants, and payment for shiatsu services that she provides for people in her home and at a clinic. She's one of those people who does qigong in the morning for two hours and had like "food energy" charts in the kitchen. But anyway, she was nice and she wasn't always getting up in my shiznat, so it worked out okay.

Here is a four-corner series of the room I stayed in.

Here's the dining area. I really have no idea why she would want a beanbag chair in her dining room.

 This is the kitchen. You get kind of a hint of what a Collector she is, but you can't truly appreciate all the junk she has unless you go into this place and see. She had like twelve sets of dinner plates in there, and like three sets of espresso cups, for example, but no teaspoons (in ENGLAND), and only like five bowls.

The kitchen opens up onto a patio with a lot of vegetation. First there's this lower level, with a bunch of stuff.

And then the stairs go up to the main patio area, which is typically small.

 

There are quite a few spiders hanging around.

One of the best things about the neighborhood is that it has tons and tons of cats, and hardly any dogs. This cat's collar says Rocket, and he was the only cat that came around the patio who let me pet him.

He was like the best cat ever. He came to me the first time I called him, and then after that I could go out on the patio and even if I didn't see him, I would just call out "kitty, kitty" and make kissy noises and he would come if he was outside. He liked to be petted so much that every time it was me who had to leave and go do something else, while he stayed and poked around in the plants and stuff. It's usually the cat who gets tired of me first.

Here is the front of the house. Looks pretty much like every other house in Brighton.

And this is a picture of the neighborhood from the end of the road. I didn't bother to take a picture of the other houses on my street, because it's just more of the same.

Of course I'm out of the house now and am staying in Boston for a minute, but I'll continue to update the blog with my last few weeks of activities and with a final report card once my dissertation gets an official grade.