I didn’t really move to Cambridge on a lark. I was living in Los Angeles and working on my startup when my boyfriend accepted a job at MIT. We moved in August 2017.

It’s not my first rodeo on Eastern Time. I have also lived in Detroit, New Hampshire, Washington D.C., Toulouse, Berlin, New York, and San Francisco.

But I often felt anonymous in the place where I lived, and I didn’t relish that feeling. So now that I’m here – however long that may be – I’m trying to participate in the community in a way that I haven’t done before, to be an active stakeholder rather than a passerby.

This journal is part of that effort. Basically, I have two hopes for it. First, I hope that by recording my experiences I can process and appreciate them more fully. Second, I hope that readers who stumble upon Cambridge on a Lark will find it informative, interesting, or at least enjoyable.

Priscilla Nguyen
October 2017