Erin Miller

It’s been awhile between posts. Try to be understanding though as life became a whirlwind. In the last month I have finished what may well be my last set of finals EVER, completed my job at Columbia Intramurals including helping to find my replacement graduate assistant, had one of my greatest friends and her husband out for a visit in NYC (during which my tour guide skills peaked. The first day, I took them to both Columbia campuses, boat basin, time square, and dropped them off at the Empire State building in time to catch the sunset from the top), became an official master of public health (an event Dan was kind enough to attend), attended my little sister’s high school graduation, and returned to NYC to trash and sell some of my things, clean all of my belongings free of bedbugs, pack 6 suitcases and 15 boxes, ship the boxes, and fly across the country with Dan, a carnivale mask from Italy and a bamboo plant among our carry-on items. I am now somewhat settled into to our new and short-term leased apartment in Boulder. Spot made the move to Boulder with me and is currently curled up on the other couch. Living with Dan is a nice change from being 1,800 miles away and Spot is loving all the cheezits that Dan slips her. Our one bedroom apartment that would have been spacious by any standards on Manhattan feels like a slightly tight fit with two people and a 55 pound dog, though the projector and the drum set for rockband actually don’t take up much space.

I am working on figuring out my next move and there are some exciting opportunities. I have a nice old desk from my mom where I work on putting my life into place. For now, I am in Colorado, I have my feet up, a glass of red wine in my hand, and I am working on preventing the rest of my hair from turning gray. (Dan found a few gray strands soon after I moved in. I am not sure what brought them on, but I am considering them a sign of the wisdom I gained from two years of graduate school in New York City.)

I miss certain things about the city. I miss the sense of community I had in the “little Dominican Republic” of Washington Heights. While the grocery clerks here smile and are polite, none of them call me “mami” grab my hand and tell me to consider them a friend, repeating it twice to make sure that I understand their Spanish. The overworked nephew of the man who owns the bodega on my corner got tears in his eyes and asked why I hadn’t told him sooner that I was leaving when I went in to get my last fistful of cash for my last cab out of NYC. He said he would have needed at least a day to plan a proper goodbye. I miss the bodegas. The other day I wanted a diet coke, but there was no way to walk to the corner and buy one. You can’t even buy a 6-pack at Safeway anymore, 12-pack or bust. Dan moved himself into a new apartment, attended my graduation, attended a friend’s wedding and helped move me across the country all in the span of 2 weeks, so Dan and I were missing a few basics, like a can opener, at the new apartment. When we got ready to make the tomato soup, there was no way to run to the 24-hour bodega and grab a can opener. I miss the coconut ice creams and the orange juice and condensed milk drinks (morir sonandos) available on every corner. I miss having thousands of restaurants available on urban spoon within .2 miles of wherever I am standing, though Boulder does alright for itself.

It has been a crazy end to a semester and an era. And I have learned a lot. For instance: The largest box USPS will ship is 25x25x30 and 70 pounds. Our box was 25x25x28. They measured it three times, but in the end and after talking to a manager, the women shipped the box and it arrived in a lightening-paced 5 days. USPS will ship large tupperware containers without the containers being in a box. I learned that the feet on couches are actually really important to how the couch feels when you sit on it. I finally learned how to sell things on both craigslist and amazon.com. I learned that some boxed wine isn’t bad. I learned how to submit a link on reddit, and drove 49 people to my blog over two days to read about vegetables in the WIC program. Lastly, a hammer and a screwdriver can be used to open a can.

THE NUMBERS
There has been a lot of debate about whether graduate school is worth the cost. See “The Impending Demise of the University,” and also “The End of the University as we Know it,” (the starting line of which I love, “GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning.”) I haven’t completely formed my opinions of graduate school and I think some of it will have to do with reflection, where I end up from here, and the real pain of making my substantial student loan repayments (despite having worked a job that covered about half my costs). Students should not have to borrow at 6.8%, and hopefully our current government will reform student loan policies. But I know that I have a much greater understanding of where policy comes from and how health policy works or fails to work. I sat spellbound listening to professors, genuine leaders in the field of health policy and prolifically published, who didn’t even draw on the blackboard but just talked out at a room full of students over their notes. My favorite power points contained only key words or interesting pictures, but I often preferred the professors who didn’t use them. What I also know is that, on the outset, it seems that my earning potential has doubled (which was actually a pleasant surprise.) As Dan points out, my earning potential would have increased if I had stayed in the workforce as well, but I remain doubtful that it would have doubled. Dan contends this is partly due to my worthless undergraduate degree, but history taught me where we came from and how we got here, and gives me insights into politics and policies. I think that one of the things that adds value to my particular graduate degree is that an education in health policy is not generally available at the undergraduate level.

Other numbers:
Amount made from selling belongings on amazon, craigslist and through friends: $150
Rough value of things thrown out or given away: $400
Total shipping costs: $679.81 including the baggage fees for checked luggage (admittedly, not all of the boxes have arrived yet, but most have.)
The next step: Priceless

I have officially passed the quarter-century mark.

I am feeling the pressure mentally as the end of my most likely years to create something genius approaches, and physically because I fell on the ice this week while hiking. I couldn’t help but think that in my younger years I either wouldn’t have stopped paying attention to what I was doing or I would have been able to shift my balance and prevent the fall.

Career options such as Olympic gymnast, Olympic volleyball player, heck, even Olympic soccer player are vanishing and little pieces of the world are slipping out of the palm of my hand.

My mom kindly came to NYC to reminisce of her day entering the hospital to give birth to her first kid and to help me over this particular hump. I was throwing my hands in the air and lamenting that my life was almost decidedly a quarter over (and that is if I am lucky and nothing goes wrong) and I hadn’t done anything yet. My mom looked at me and said, “You grew up. What else were you expecting to do?” It was reassuring to hear my mom say that those first 25 years may actually have been some of the more difficult years, that growing up really isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. I have the next 50 years to do “something.”