House 2.0

She sounds great, too! What do you guys think?

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Hi Amit,
Thanks for getting back to me. I completely understand, I’m back in
Toronto and I’m not attached by an umbilical cord to my email anymore.
I’m all in favour of sharing food in a veggie house - I eat huge
quantities of cheap things like lentils and beans and veggies, so
sharing will be fine. I’ve lived in a communal situation where my
friends weren’t veggie, and I couldn’t figure out why the meat stuff
was so much more expensive.

Anyway, about me, I’m from Toronto Canada, but I finished my high
school in the United World College in Hong Kong with 250 students from
70 other countries. I speak English, French, and some Spanish, and I
learned Chinese during the two years in China. Then I came to Penn
because I thought I was an engineer, but as no one told me I would
have to do three dimensional calculus I dropped out of that after a
year. I studied political science and business, spent six months at
the University of Delhi learning Hindi, English and Political Science
from a feminist-Marxist perspective, and beating my own record of
continuous days on crowded trains. Despite all advice I ate street
food, but I had an incredible time.

In New York I’ll be working as a consultant until I figure out what’s
next. It is still a big surprise to everyone that I’m doing business
and finance-ish things, so I completely understand the need to
apologize or explain, or the blank looks I see from my NGO and
political friends. I’m a sucker for practical philosophy, cultural
studies, and anything related to travel and languages. I love cities,
and I’m a hardened urban explorer. West Philadelphia was a perfect
place, because of all the free public concerts, Amish farmers markets,
spontaneous tackle football games in snowstorms, and Halloween drag
racing down hills until the cops broke it up. I hope to find the same
sort of community in New York, if possible. I have all sorts of
friends their working (or hoping to work) all sorts of jobs in NY, and
I’d love to have a place to bring it all together.

Communal living is really important to me, not just because of my
socialist Canadian bent, but because I love sharing the best parts of
home with people. I’ve lived with 60 people in a house, 3 people in
an apartment, and lots of things in between. I love coming home at
whatever hour and having people to share a funny story, or hear a
rant, or make a cup of coffee, or just chill out and listen to the
radio. I’m super respectful of privacy, and I know how to strike a
balance between shared space (mental and physical) and having your own
time. I also cook well with not much, and I have my own cappuccino
machine for lattes for my housemates (a indulgence after working at a
coffee shop one summer). For fun I love bike rides, free or cheap
music, dancing, food from all parts of the world, doing things with
friends when they know more than me, like going to an art museum with
an art major, or visiting a huge sailing ship with a professional
sailor, and anything that happens in a park or on a roof. I can
attest to glowing recommendations from my last housemates. We’re
still best friends, and they tell me they don’t want to live farther
away from me than a hallway. We learned tons from each other, from
global justice and corporate responsibility, to AIDS prevention in
heroin addicts, to indigenous Peruvian education.

As for the details, I’m financially secure, looking to move in Aug 1,
in NY for two years, non-smoker, and pet friendly. At one communal
house our house cat slept on my bed, and he had a purr like a rocket
engine.

I hope this sounds about right! I’d love to meet all you guys if this
sounds like what you’re looking for in a co-op mate. I’d love a place
in the places you mentioned, especially LES/East Village. Maybe we
could talk about the place? I’m at (416) [removed because of public nature of this blog], but I can call you
because it’s long distance and no one needs huge cell phone bills.

I’m really excited! It sounds like a great bunch of people!

Until then,
Aileen