On January 24, I closed the door of my Boston apartment and returned the keys to my neighbors, Manuela and Simon, who had become my local family over the course of the fellowship. As we drove to the airport, I watched the city, feeling indecently sentimental and wondering if and when I will see it again.

Saying goodbye to Boston was much harder that I had anticipated. I’m a traveller after all, I should be used to change. I cannot count how many temporary homes I said goodbye to, when I worked as a freelance foreign reporter in South Asia and South America. But this time felt different. Somehow I put down roots in Boston, and change is not easy when it means the end of something this good.

Boston took me through one of the most tumultuous, challenging and beautiful periods of my life. I couldn’t ask for better companions on this journey than my colleagues at MIT and The Boston Globe who had been incredibly kind, generous and supportive. I must admit – the last week, when I was saying my goodbyes and every meeting was “the last one”, was quite a tearjerker for me.

Luckily the future was no less dreamy than the past. I knew that in a few days, I would be landing in New York and beginning my stint at The New York Times. (Someone pinch me please)

Just before I left, I sat down with Michelle English, my friend and supervisor at MIT, who asked me a few questions about my work and the fellowship. You can read the outcome of our conversation in the MIT’s Précis magazine.

At the Boston Globe office