Pages Turn, Chapters End.™

As of today — tech­ni­cally yes­ter­day — I offi­cially have a new apart­ment. The lease has been signed, the deposit paid, and the keys are in my possession.

I’ll be mak­ing the move to #104, Pueblo Pleasar, on Mon­day. I’m sur­pris­ingly look­ing for­ward to mov­ing into Hol­ly­wood. I had orig­i­nally hoped to stay in the Down­town area, notably Lit­tle Tokyo, but the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of that area lim­ited my options dramatically.

Pueblo Pleasar puts me within a short walk­ing dis­tance to a Metro sta­tion and a Ralphs, both very wel­come changes bring­ing increased mobil­ity and acces­si­ble gro­ceries. There are also quite a few other land­marks I intend to fre­quent on a semi-​regular basis. This also puts me into close prox­im­ity to The Rad Pad, the place where The Rad Dudes record our podcast.

Acqui­si­tion of the apart­ment went over quite smoothly, but that’s not to say I didn’t have wor­ries or doubts.

Dur­ing my senior year of high school, while select­ing poten­tial uni­ver­si­ties to attend, I blindly made up my mind to move to San Fran­cisco. A native to The Greater Los Ange­les Area, I applied to local uni­ver­si­ties with the excep­tion being the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco.

I had never been to San Fran­cisco, let alone The Bay Area, before mak­ing this decision.

After receiv­ing my accep­tance let­ter, I fig­ured I should at least visit the city I’d be mov­ing to. Luck­ily my sis­ter Clau­dine had a friend who lived close to USF and was will­ing to let me sleep on her couch dur­ing my spring break while vis­it­ing San Fran­cisco for the first time. This would afford me an oppor­tu­nity to actu­ally tour the cam­pus and explore the city at my leisure.

It would have made sense to do both of those things prior to apply­ing, but there’d always been a part of me that hadn’t liked Los Ange­les. I don’t do well with the heat nor the vast major­ity of peo­ple in this city. San Fran­cisco offered a bet­ter cli­mate along with brand new oppor­tu­ni­ties. At face value, it was an entic­ing choice.

While dri­ving up to the city dur­ing rush hour traf­fic, Jamiroquai’s “Space Cow­boy” play­ing on my radio, I fell in love. The week spent there left me con­fi­dent in my deci­sion and I returned that Fall to attend USF.

Attempt­ing to look for hous­ing while in the mid­dle of pack­ing proved itself to be incred­i­bly stress­ful. A strict bud­get, a firm time­line, and two cats lim­ited my options. My search results on craigslist were, more often than not, dis­heart­en­ing. There was, how­ever, one exception.

#104 was the only apart­ment I looked at in-​person dur­ing my search.

I made my appoint­ment with Justin on the 5^th and my dad and I took a break from pack­ing on the 7^th to check it out. I was shown two apart­ments in the com­plex. The first was recently ren­o­vated, com­plete with new appli­ances and fix­tures. The sec­ond, while with­out the lux­ury of new appli­ances and fix­tures, pro­vided ample stor­age space and a smaller price point.

I fell in love.

I made up my mind.

There’s a lot to be said for hav­ing a solid back-​up, a plan B. Just as much can be said, how­ever, about deter­mi­na­tion and not set­tling. Risks are a part of life. Some may be cal­cu­lated while oth­ers are the byprod­uct of chance. In the end, they need to be dealt with accord­ingly. Whether met by des­per­ate times or by adven­ture for its own sake, uncer­tainty will deal its hand and we’re all left to make our decisions.

My deci­sion regard­ing #104 was imme­di­ate and solid. Through intent and per­se­ver­ance, I was for­tu­nate enough to see it come to fruition. I eagerly antic­i­pate what both Pueblo Pleasar and Hol­ly­wood have in store.