Varangian

Barcelona is a beautiful city. It can be expensive, more expensive than almost anywhere else in Spain. I would recommend staying in a hostel until you find appropriate accommodation. Paying a week at a time for a bed in a hostel while you do your program/search for a place is the best way to search for rooms. I would suggest idealista.com. segundamando is also a great resource, and loquo.es is also good. Be very careful with your personal belongings - your wallet in particular. Spain and Barcelona in particular has a very high rate of pickpocket theft. Almost everyone I know there has been pickpocketed at least once, so watch your handbag, if you're a girl, always carry your purse in front, don't put anything valuable in front pockets and if you're a guy, keep your wallet in your side pockets not the back.

I've lived with gay guys, straight guys and straight women. (I'm a female.) It's really going to depend on your personalities. Make some ground rules when you move in so that both parties know what they're responsible for. Be respectful. Try not to leave a messy kitchen messy for long and things should work themselves out.

I like this one http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f1ed/ as it additionally combines a fandom.

I am looking to live either downtown or in West Haven. I was accepted to UNH's PhD program and their campus is in West Haven. It's to bad the Hill neighborhood is so bad (I've heard). But yes, downtown or West Haven. West Haven has some nice areas and cheaper rent. I plan to go up there in July to apartment hunt.

Have you been up there yet to get a feel for the area/where you want to live?

I think it comes down to how much do you want to put up with another person's bullshit. I am at a time/age where I just don't want to deal with roommates anymore. I want to feel like the space that I am inhabiting is really mine - that I'm not just moving into a room. I don't want to deal with the potential of someone who is messy/disorganized/doesn't clean or has a significant other over all the time. I don't want to worry about disturbing someone if they are trying to sleep or being disturbed by them. But that comes with the trade off of paying more for rent and utilities. Which one you are willing to consider more is going to depend on where you're going. If it's somewhere like New York, unless you want to live 1 hour or more away from your campus, you will likely need a roommate just to cover basic expenses because the stipend won't be enough. If it's somewhere like the Midwest, you are more likely to be able to afford your own space.

Is anyone else moving up to New Haven/West Haven area in the fall to start grad or PhD studies?

Your best bet would be to arrive in July, stay somewhere cheap and apartment hunt then. Apartments and real estate move very quickly here and the only ones that last are either the really terrible or the supremely expensive.

Your ability to patronize is really limitless, isn't it? I've made a total of two posts in this thread. This will be the third. A number far fewer than your own. But I do like how you proclaim my "preachiness" as a way to de-emphasize the validity of my argument. Whereas your contributions are full of such wisdom. You've never said an unkind word to a fat person? Why, congratulations. Did you want a medal? You also don't seem to understand what concern trolling means.

I'm not sure if you're a transplant or not but like I mentioned, I've lived in Brooklyn my whole life (minus some traveling time) and I used to go to school with lots of kids from Bushwick, Bed Sty, Sunset and Flatbush. These neighborhoods were THE ghetto. Some still are. Up until the late 90s, I would say, no one wanted to live in these areas because they were full of crime, drugs and (shock! black people and hispanics). It wasn't until the end of crazy Guiliani's term and big business Bloomberg that lots of Manhattan started changing. Manhattan grew exponentially more expensive at an alarming rate, pushing all your young white students and young professionals out and over the bridges. With more and more white people moving into these areas and landlords upping the rents, it's pushing a lot of people in poverty out. Williamsburg was also a big ghetto. But now it's "trendy" - doesn't change the fact that the rent is crazy there, subway transportation is lacking, and that one only has to walk a few blocks to get to the worse off streets. The best bits about Williamsburg used to be the availability of big and cheap loft space. Now...not so cheap. Though now because of that wide amount of space and the influx of young whites, there's now big bars, big restaurants and art spaces. And the landlords get to charge crazy prices for those spaces, which all get past down to the people their in the exorbitant cost of restaurant food and rent. The same is going forward in Sunset and Crown Heights (the other side of the park) and parts of Bushwick. But one only needs to scratch the surface to get underneath all that gentrification and into the poverty and crime. Bushwick is basically a slum. But if you want to live there, no one's going to stop you. Looking at the crime map - yes midtown has a lot of crime - mostly theft related. Not surprising considering all the tourists.

That is the most convoluted interpretation of an argument I've seen in quite some time. Poverty and health are inversely correlated. This has been proven in study after study. It's not just my argument, it has been scientifically validated. Your athlete example is so ridiculous because not only are you stereotyping where all athletes are coming from and who they are, but assuming a lot of factors that you know absolutely nothing about. There is more to athletes than just football or basketball (which is what I imagine you're thinking of when you think athletes). Even your use of the word "hood" tells me a little more about your stereotypes. But to answer your most ridiculous example question, I'll propose another one on the same level of ridiculousness. Why, if there are so many criminals and drug dealers in "the hood", isn't everyone in "the hood" a criminal or drug dealer? When you extrapolate ridiculous and invalidated claims, you can expect such in return. Please note that I in no way "correlate" the Fat Acceptance Movement with Feminism. What I do say is that like Feminism, the Fat Acceptance Movement is this radical notion that fat people are....people, just like women are...people. Deserving of equal rights and opportunities just like anyone else. "It is the belief that a fat person should not have to be okay with discrimination in the job market, bullying, harassment, or threats." You have no idea, individual to individual what makes a person fat, obese, or morbidly obese. You don't know what their lifestyle choices are. You don't know what medical conditions they may or may not have, or what medications they are on, or if they've had a physical injury that has kept them from being mobile. You don't know what their mental state of being is. You say relating it to feminism is a blanket dismissal of the issue but then proceed to make a blanket dismissal of the causes of obesity assuming that all factors in obesity are factors that can be managed when you have no variables, no facts and no information on the lives of those individuals. I won't deny that that yes, for many people, diet and exercise will be the answer, but making the blanket statement that is is the only thing needed, or they are obese ONLY because they've let go of factors that can be managed is an ill informed mindset. You make too many presumptions. The OP may well have read through some of the initial posts on this topic, found it not to her liking and moved on. I'm not really sure why people presume why if someone makes a handful of forum posts and disappears, the person was fake. This happens on forums all the time. People sign up, post a few times and disappear for a wide variety of reasons. Where to start? That type of condescension is only going to get you so far in America once the newness of you being European wears off on your campus. I used to live in Spain, and I love my Spaniard friends - none of them were academics but I never once heard a single statement of condescension from them. Actually the only time I did was from an academic studying my program originally from Barcelona. Not really sure where I'm going with that anecdote and I'm probably stereotyping a little bit about my favorite people but really , your posts are very ill informed. Europe is great, and yes people are thinner over there but Europeans also have completely different lifestyle from Americans. The cities are much more compact, the reliance on cars is vastly diminished, the public transportation is far superior, the freshness of the food is very different, the treatment of the food itself is also very different. You'll see for yourself when you come here. And you will gain weight here even eating the same exact way you do there. I say this from experience and from every single one of my American and European friends who travel back and fourth between Europe and America. All the Americans lose weight after being in Europe and all the Europeans gain weight when they come to America. Your anecdote is kind of pointless. The person talking obviously knows what the root cause of their weight problem is. Someone who does, says it and is fine with that is one matter. They might be content with that - in which case, so? If they want to lose that weight, then they already know what they have to do and just haven't done it yet. You can chalk that up to whatever is going on with that person - maybe their lazy, maybe their busy, maybe they're just content don't really care so much. Point is, you don't really know - and someone like that won't change unless they want to. Much like Mr. Gnome up there. His functional alcoholism doesn't prevent him from continuing his work and as a result, hasn't stopped drinking. The second point is - that you can't assume this is true for every overweight person. You have absolutely no idea what other variables are at work. OP's original issue of health and disability is a concern - but she in fact asked about fat-friendly campuses. Not to be concern trolled about getting healthy. It is simply not anyone's business but hers to choose how/when/if she wants/can/is able to get healthy and/or reduce her size.

Generally, vegan is a complete dietary choice that doesn't include any animal products. Her diet does, which is why I ask. How can you both "eat vegan" and "eat lean meat"? I'm seriously curious.