One of my attributes is nil, but it shouldn't be

This is driving me crazy. When I create a new object in console, the
attribute is not nil. When I create a new object in my unit test, the
attribute is nil. What gives?

baggio:~/work/mesafire pergesu$ ./script/console
Loading development environment.

e = Event.new
=> #<Event:0x234a514 @attributes={“name”=>nil, “timexstring”=>"",
“description”=>nil}, @new_record=true>

e.timexstring.nil?
=> false

def test_append_timex
e = Event.new
assert !e.timexstring.nil?
end

  1. Failure:
    test_append_timex(EventTest) [test/unit/event_test.rb:39]:
    is not true.