The Green Pastures in Harvard that Was Actually a Cemetery, Finding a Property There

Translated…

I’d gotten the okay for my application to interview the students going to Harvard Law, and I was ready to take my family with me to the U.S. for a year’s time.  As I’d told the news to my two daughters, my youngest was so happy, because to her, it means, “having fun for a year out of the country”; my eldest who is going into the sixth grade only stayed happy for about ten seconds, then, like she got reminded of something, asked me, “Dad, then, can I still go on my graduation trip?”

I was stunned for a short bit, told her, “I’m afraid not.”

Then, my eldest started begging, if it would be possible, for us, to go abroad a year from now?  I’d started rationally, analyzing to her why we couldn’t, but she was totally not accepting to the facts.

My wife started talking, “Don’t you want to experience snow days?  The winters in Boston, the entire city would be covered in snow, it’s so romantic, and you get to see it this winter.”

After that, my daughter drifted back into her happy mode again, and, my wife managed, to resolve this crisis in communication for me.

This was, a hard-to-come-by opportunity, but, it’s no small matter, that I’m taking my whole family with me, it truly is no easy task, to prepare for it.  First and foremost, finding a residence.  Although, with the convenience of the internet, finding a property is surely, easier from before, but, for this, my wife and I searched, for a place for two, three weeks, until our eyes were about to fall out.

Once, there was, a house with great interiors, but, the website only gave me the area it was located, didn’t have the address attached, so I couldn’t know what was around it.  I’d used the spirits of Sherlock Holmes, used the entire night, from the scenes outside the windows, through using Google map, matched it, bit by bit, street, by street, and finally, I’d found the exact location.

The very next morn, I’d shown my wife my progress.  She’d smiled and said, “Although it was impressive, I do believe you got too much time on your hands, used so much time, to compare!”

Thinking about it, it WAS, time-consuming, but the process is really fun, like solving a puzzle.  The mindset to which we select a property is like the “girl picking up the rocks”, couldn’t made up our minds, and are often in doubts about “would the next property be better?”, but, with the time progressing, the pressures started to grow too.

As we looked, we’d found a house, facing a lake, with the back toward green pastures, seemingly pretty, in a good neighborhood, and, it was, “cheap” too.  We feared that in the moments of doubts, it might get taken off the markets, the very next day, we’d used our credit cards, and paid for the fees, seemingly, this matter of “finding a property” is settled.

But, not long thereafter, my wife came to me in a panic, told me, “It’s awful, that the house we’d booked, the green pasture behind it is not green pasture, but a cemetery!”

After we’d put the down payments in, my wife returned to the website to review the surrounding areas of the house, she was having doubts on why are there so many white dots on the green pastures?  She’d enlarged the maps, and found, that there were, rows of cemeteries.  Although the Americans seemingly not to mind about living next to a cemetery, but, this opportunity for us to live in the U.S. for a year is once-in-a-lifetime chance, and yet, we’d chosen a house by a cemetery, we’d felt burdened now.

Gladly, the landlord was very kind, after we’d told him our concerns, he told us it was okay, that he was going to return the money we’d already paid, so our mistakes didn’t cost us any loss.

This matter of finding a rental home, was actually a fun experience, thinking back!

So, this just shows you, how you should NOT go by your first impressions, because the family was eager to get things settled, and that, was why they were haste, in making the decision to find a rental home, and, because of their hurriedness, they weren’t considering things carefully enough, and, ended up choosing a house, with the backyard, facing a cemetery, but gladly, the owner of the property was willing to cancel the contracts, that still just shows, that you MUST look carefully, BEFORE you take that leap, in anything you’re doing.