The Creativity Exchange is asking for people to tell their stories of how they chose where they live...I've move around a lot, so I'll log several stories here. First: Boston.

I chose Boston twice. First, when I graduated high school from Isle of Wight Academy in Smithfield, VA, I went to Boston to attend MIT. Smithfield is "The Ham Capital of the World." Boston is "The Hub of the Solar System."

Practically speaking, I chose MIT (or rather, they let me in, after wait-listing me) and lived mostly in Cambridge. But it was my dream to move to a big exciting city where I could find greater acceptance and opportunity. When I was still a high school senior, before I actually was admitted, I flew up to Boston, rented a car (mistake), and went over to MIT to check things out.

It was a cold, almost rainy May day, and it was quite an adventure for me to go there all alone driving a rental car in Boston! But I knew it was a place I belonged almost immediately. I attended a couple classes, but you can't really tell much from that--what really struck me, what I remember 21 years later, are the gritty little details of driving through the Sumner Tunnel, getting a bit lost in the North End, desperately finding a parking spot near campus, and walking around the city/campus. Then later, driving across the Harvard Bridge and getting lost again and finally deciding I should just get back to the airport!

It is a very urban campus; it's no UVA or William and Mary (my other choices). Those visits had been warm spring days with beautiful weather. Charlottesville is a bucolic setting in the Blue Ridge Mountains and both are steeped in history and tradition. MIT was a cold (literally), somewhat dirty, mess of concrete and asphalt in the middle of a city. It appealed to my sense of challenge and adventure; not only because of the MIT education, but because I would get to live in such a fascinating place that I knew about primarily from Cheers.

I remember thinking how the weather and reception (at MIT, I basically just walked around the campus, whereas at UVA and W&M, they recruited me.) served as a real test of whether or not this is what I wanted...no illusions...it was not one of those beautiful crisp days I have come to love--it was gray and cold and threatening to snow. But I was hooked and I returned home hoping against hope that I would eventually be accepted in off the wait list so I could move to Boston.

I lived in Cambridge and Boston from 1985-1990, leaving to go to law school. I returned in 2002...