International Emmy Awards: Brief

The Int'l Emmies was very, very busy.
I got to the Hilton around 11am to set up. I was on the operations volunteering group, so I had to put together the gala ballroom, and get 1200 gift bags organized and stacked.
Lunch was fully catered for us workers. It was delicious.
The downside of the Hilton was that all of the cheerleaders from the Macy's Day Parade had just been checked into the hotel, and were clogging the elevators and hallways. Damn cheerleaders with their tacky-colored windbreakers.
I met a lot of new people. During lunch, I befriended 2 girls who were cousins, 1 woman & man from the Ivory Coast, and an assorted amount of other NYU students working the gala.
After lunch, I befriended this guy (I want to say his name was Iten, or Eat-on, or something?) while dressing the dining tables. He was a 25 year-old student from Manhattanville College (finance major), who is from Tel Aviv. He reminded me of someone, yet I couldn't quite pin down who...do you hear the sarcasm seeping out of the sentence?
After we finished up our jobs, we got dressed for the gala. I wore my black cocktail dress, crystal necklace, and open-toed heels. I won't lie...I looked really cute. And I felt it, too.
For the gala, my job (with the rest of my crew) was to greet the guests, give them their tickets, answer questions, and be pretty. We were complimented on how attractive we all were by countless amounts of foreign celebrities. It was utterly wonderful.
We ate in the press room with the rest of the workers.
I was freezing cold for 4 hours straight.
My friend Jean-Claude was working the gala, too...only he was with the group of kids who performed as escorts for the celebrities. They got to hang out on the red carpet, and meet the celebrities, and chill out during the gala with the famous people, and have an all-around better time. I am insanely jealous of all of them. He brought me over to his group of people during the end of the gala (where we feasted on fabulous, succulent desserts) and I met this wonderful person named Navide (?), who was half-Japanese-half-Iranian, working on his 3rd masters, and spoke more than enough languages.
Did I mention that I spoke french a lot of the night?
After getting our gift-bags and checks, we all sally-forthed to the after party at The Grand. Let me tell ya; dancing to club music at a hip club with a bunch of drunken old middle-aged men (and women) from around the world IS REALLY WEIRD. When you notice that there's a 40-something German man dancing to Kanye West's "Golddigger" right next to you...that's when you know something's not quite right.
I stayed at the after party for about an hour. I gave my email to a few of the kids I worked with, and went home by 2am...exhausted, and not ready for class in 6 hours.

That was the brief version.

Romantic Autumn Adventure

by peter_madera

Yesterday was a wonderful day out; just cool enough to feel alive, crisp enough to feel awake, and the perfect amount of sunlight to provoke nostalgia.
So, I went for a walk around my favorite parts of New York: Chelsea and the West Village. It was one of my best romantic adventures.
I walked around 12th & Hudson and stumbled upon some magnificent architecture. The stores were very posh, but the feeling of the overall area was something straight out of an old movie. The buildings looked slightly worn by age, but not run down at all.
I found myself walking into a building housing the Chelsea Marketplace. I fell in love. It's this simple 1-story marketplace full of food shops and delis; bakeries and patisseries; restaurants and live Dixieland Jazz. Though I felt somewhat guilty for being there because it was obvious that only wealthy affluent people could go there casually and shop (and there were a lot of people like that there), I felt like I had discovered the best private romantic spot to frequent...someday.
How marvelous!
And I continued walking through the Village to find my favorite shops lit up ever so....just enough to make me feel complete love for the area and miss it a lot. It's one of the places I miss when I'm abroad.
Since I was so satisfied with my walk through, I decided to continue on downtown back to my apartment over at the tip of Manhattan. Yes, it was quite the long walk, and my shin splints cried out a bit, but it was still great.

I put on my heels and met up with Aaron to eat Indian and go see "Outing Wittgenstein" over in Midtown. It was an interesting (and short) play ultimately about identity and the role of social constructs (i.e. gay, color, gender...). We discussed it a lot afterwards before we went to go see "The Prestige". That movie went slow enough to be thorough, and had entertaining qualities, but I was a little perplexed and somewhat disappointed about it for some reason...
Beforehand, we also went out to get more food at some Thai restaurant. I always forget how much men can eat.

The subway ride home was hilarious. I befriended some other woman in painful heels (like me), and was sitting in the train with a completely wasted boy from Fordham, or some other non-Manhattan college. There was a group of us younger people on the train where I was, and we were in stitches from this drunk guy's comments. Not much of it made sense, but I recall him hazing some girl about drinking Hawaiian Punch: That HI-C guy is just ballin' it on that can, just drinking that sugary goodness...you listen to your Radiohead, HI-C guy.
Who knoooows what he was trying to say???

Idiosyncratic

I saw Producers on Broadway yesterday (tickets provided FREE through Stern...god bless). It was a good show, I was entertained the whole time. Too bad the tickets were in the VERY BACK row of the balcony...hello, vertigo! But it's ok, because I hung out with a girl, Katherin, from a class. This girl's life story is amazing! A few months ago, she had cancer surgery in her throat. And now, her mom has ovarian cancer. Next weekend, she's going to San Francisco to run a 27-mile marathon for cancer research......and she's going to Barcelona when I'm in Paris. Amazing!
We made friends with some guys from Univ. South Carolina. They were hilarious because during the show, whenever there was a homosexual joke made, they looked oh-so-shocked. I giggled oh-so-hard.

I had to fight my midterm grade for Managerical Accounting to be boosted up by about 2 letter-grades because my TA was beastly and didn't give me partial credit for anything...and marked me wrong for a correct answer!

I ate lunch with Bhinish today. I worry about that boy.

As a personal happy note...I can run 6.2 miles an hour! Not a great feat, I know...but it's something!

And I talked to Felix (in Frankfurt, Germany) on the phone for an hour today. I love talking to that boy. And his English is always patchy at first, which makes me giddy. We had a great catch-up conversation. And we plan on hanging out more next semester when I'm in Europe. Viva friendship!

OH! I have a Parisian flat! Be excited! And it's wicked nice!

I went on a date tonight. Ate at Dojo's, and saw "A Guid to Recognizing Your Saints" (not a date movie, just to warn you). The night was enjoyable. I have no idea what the verdict is on the date, though....quite a quiet guy (which is odd for me). Whatever.

It's Been A While

I've been very, very busy.
In a nutshell for the past week or so, I have (not in chronological order):
~Seen Jersey Boys the Musical because Stern provided me with a free dinner and $10 ticket. It was pretty good. I like the Four Seasons.
~Had my first midterm in Managerial Accounting. I either did pretty well on it, or failed.
~Saw NYU Steinhardt's production of Urinetown the Musical, mostly because Craig is the drummer. It was alright. Funny show, the acting was great. The script, though? Meh...
~Met up with my girl Celina one night. We had a few laughs, and some great dumplings. Her friends were nice, too.
~Pulled an all nighter against my will. Which led me to complete exhaustion and me napping on Aaron's bed while he did homework before we went out to watch "Science of Sleep". Seeing as I was half asleep while watching the movie, and I have been struggling lately beause I think part in english & french, it wasn't until about 30 minutes into the movie that I realized they actually were talking BOTH english & french. It was a really peculiar movie, but I'm pretty sure I liked it quite a bit.
~Went to see a Yankees Game, but got there at the 7th inning. Aaron and I have issues finding out the times that things start. We keep getting to things too early or too late. Luckily, we both didn't mind TOO much...it was a funny story, I think. We walked around the Bronx highways a bit, but quickly realized that such areas aren't great places to walk around.
~Had coffee with old suitemate, Jen. We talked about Paris. I apparently will be helping her learn french, too....that is, if I can help myself...
~Watched "An Inconvenient Truth", with a guest speaker from the UN. Needless to say, I am not really worried about the world, Al Gore is my favorite person ever, and I want to lower my carbn dioxide emissions. While at the screening, I ran into about 4 people I haven't seen in a year, which was nice. We all agreed to hang out sometime soon, which makes me really happy.
~Ate dinner with Dad at a nice little place on Cornelia Sreet, Po. We both agreed it was excellent food. And we had a nice talk. He helped encourage my interest in diplomacy...let's see where this goes.
~Went to a Study Abroad alumn reception. Free food and drinks, and gift bags. That's about it. Cassie and I didn't really know anyone...but then JT from London came over, and we talked for a while. He is a ridiculously amazing person. And then Manny from London swung over, and we talked about his former position at the UN and what he's done with foreign policy and such. We plan on getting together sometime to discuss it more, which makes me excited.

On a more personal level, I have had a few thoughts in the past week that I need to put out there:
1) I think I'm getting dumber. I don't know why, but I just feel like I'm not as intelligent and well-knowledged as I was, say, a year ago. I feel like I don't know much of anything right now. I don't really know how to remedy this, but it makes me feel awfully melancholy about my brain's capacity.
2) Why do I feel like, when it comes to men, when it rains it pours? I kind of feel like I'm getting too much attention right now, like I'm being some kind of saucy vixen without even knowing it!
3) I really miss London. I didn't think that I would miss it so much, but there it is. It's surprising, really...
4) I'm a bit emotionally defunked right now. Don't ask me what that means, or what's not 100% right...it just is so. It's like my hormones have just decided to build a theme park inside me and ride on the rollercoaster over and over again. I'm happy, yeah, but just a little more girly when it comes to feelings.

Today I'm meeing up with Aaron to go to the UN, so I should get going...

A Memo

Dear Men,
Please don't think that by ordering females around you will either attract them OR get your way. We are not obedient pups waiting for our next command. Yes, we admire a guy with some good, healthy confidence and initiative. However, when it comes to telling us what to do and then scolding us for not concurring...that is unacceptable. You might as well pour a cup of slightly-hotter-than-scolding staining coffee on yourself. Thanks, but no thanks. We can handle our lives just as well as you think you can.
Two more comments:
1) Know our individual names
2) Don't EVER start the conversation with the words "whore", "hoe", or "bitch".
Love,
Kim, a Female

On that note, Aimee and I just had a great day. Not only did we go to the Bodies Exhibit, but we also ate lunch in Little Italy at the San Gennero Festival. And we ate chocolate at Max Brenner's chocolate shop, and watched the hilarious show Hairspray. An A+ day.

I LOVE Macbooks

I received my new laptop yesterday. It's wonderful. I feel like the good karma came all around full circle, at last.

Last night, I went with Aaron to a debate with surprisingly skinny Thomas Friedman (NY Times journalist) and "ho ho ho" Joe Stiglitz (former WorldBank big guy) called, "Making Globalization Work". Overall, I was moderately disappointed. You would think that Stiglitz would be more of a public speaker, seeing as he is a professor at both Columbia and Amherst. But he paused a lot, stuttered a bit, and he talked far too much. He ranted for about 45 minutes to summarize his new book. Friedman was obviously more used to giving public speeches, and he related with the audience a lot more. Though, he was almost flamboyant...theatrical? Their points were well made for the most part, and good points at that, but sometimes they would get off topic to (it seemed) attempt to validate themselves. But, I stayed the 2 hours, and I am glad I did, in the end.

Dance class moderately whooped my ass on Sunday. It made running on Monday a bit rough. But, while dancing, I was horrified to see how much I unintentionally buffed up my shoulders. Girls' shoulders should not look like this, unless they're into the more masculine sports. I guess I'll have to cut back on the weight training, eh?

Danie, Cassie & I were all wearing the same tremendously bright color of pink today. The girls decided to create our own 3-girl sorority. I passively went along with the idea. Delta Kappa Chi? Because of our first-name initials? It exists somewhere...but not at NYU. Therefore, we're being original. And, to make it more silly, we're the Omega chapter. For those of you who aren't Greek buffs, Omega is the last letter of the greek alphabet. So, we're the last chapter. Get it? Eh, eh, eh?

I've signed up to do some (paying) experiments at the school's Psychology department. Let's see where this takes me!

Late Night Laundry

I'm currently doing my laundry, so I have some time before I go to bed to quickly make some key remarks about life as of late.

I just finished Lonely Planet's short-story book called "The Kindness of Strangers". I highly recommend it to all people who love to travel, and would like a rekindled faith in humankind.

Aaron and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday. It was pouring outside. I had a movie moment before we entered the museum; a truck drove by me and covered me in water from a street puddle. I walked into the museum, in other words, completely soaked (as if I had just escaped from a lake). It was a nice day there. We hung out with the Egyptians for a while, flirted with Chinese Buddha, admired a pianist playing an antique Concert-B Steinway, and glanced at some post-plague (aka dismal) artwork.

I went to a Graduate school fair on Thursday, and became rejuvinated about my potential career paths. I am thinking about getting a Masters in International Affairs/Policy/Relations, and perhaps concentrate on Public Policy or something of that general persuasion. The one Graduate school at the fair that really struck my fancy was University of Melbourne. And it's number 19 in the world! Of what, I'm not sure, but it's still impressive. The only question is: what are my parents' points of view on that?
Nevertheless, I accumulated 13 pounds (I'm serious, I weighed it!) of paper from grad schools that I am going to look over sometime soon. Some of it's Aaron's, so it won't be that bad, but still....

Chamber Choir auditions have been going on this week. In other words, I get to listen to a bunch of college kids sing, and then I get to judge them. We're not a large group....and I think there's a reason for that. Most of the kids are not that great. I mean, don't get me wrong, most of them have an ear...they're not bad (actually fairly good). But a lot of them play on as if classical singing is their forte, when in reality they are more meant for Rogers & Hammerstein. Nothing wrong with that, just not for a chamber choir.

I have concluded that I hate chick flicks. They make me depressed and resentful.

For the last two nights I have hung out with Danielle in her apartment. We do homework, or chit chat about assorted musings. I event turned down hanging out with people tonight because I was going over to her place to do some Law homework! Then again, they wanted to play beer pong. I, being the non-drunken type, excused myself with the lamest reason of all: my acid reflux disease. I scapegoated out of it, but I'm almost sure I offended a few people with my silly reasoning.

I have concluded that I need to start investing more of my life into some more social clubs or meaningful groups/organizations. I feel like my life is ticking away right now, and me just sitting here blogging about it is counterproductive. We're only young once, right? So why am I not acting more youthfully? This is a predicament that I will chew on for a few days until I come to a conclusion.

Quick Update

I'm fine.
I've been very, very busy lately.

If I haven't announced already...Fred, my laptop, has died. He was a good laptop. Struck with a terrible cancer that kept him bedridden for weeks. I'll miss you, little buddy.
I am eagerly awaiting a new MacBook (thanks to James' advise). Oh, frabscious day!

I have been trying to fight a $300 additional fee to my speeding ticket in NY State. Those Oneonta court employees are a terrible people, and are making my life hard.

Aaron and I went to the Museum of Natural History on Friday. Though he claims to be mostly vegan (or low-impact, whatever), he ate a full plate of pulled pork at the museum, before our tour of all 4 floors. He should have known that he would feel sick the rest of the time. Nonetheless, we had a joyous day. Lots of sights to be seen in that museum. I dragged him to an astronomy show called "Cosmic Collisions", narrated by Robert Redford. It was well done, and once again I am questioning why I didn't major in astrophysics.
We walked through Central Park to get to the Guggenheim, where we saw a bunch of architecture from Zaha Hadid. I'm not much of a buliding buff, and we strolled through the museum quickly. And he moaned and groaned the entire way down. I had a good chuckle at that.
That night, I went out with some girlfriends for my friend Azadeh's birthday. We ate at a very chic restaurant (Mercer Kitchen). We were all decked out in makeup and heels. It was a good night. We walked over after dinner to watch the Woody Allen movie "Scoop", which I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would. Scarlet Johannson is a gem. And Hugh Jackman is............marvelous. The movie ended around 2:30, so I got home late.

On Saturday I exposed Denysha to sushi, which she hestitantly explored. It took a lot of cajoling that the eel really wasn't that frightening. It was wonderful sushi. The last person I took to that restaurant was Ido, and that was a while ago, so it was nice to revisit it.
Afterwards, we went back to my place so she could see it. We finished off pints of ice cream/frozen yogurt, and we watched a chick flick. We also ran into a post-college frat-like party on my roof! I wanted to show her my view, and we get on the elevator with a bunch of men in their late 20s/early 30s, sipping beers or cradling hard liquor. They made a few passing smartass comments, and to our horror the number of them multiplied by 10 or so. And the music was, well, a conversation starter.

Sunday I went to school and studied and started watching "Clockword Orange" in the Avery Fischer Center.

Oh, I have become a jogger/runner (which I fully blame James' influence on). The ellipticals are not sufficing my need for sweaty shirts, so I have started to utilize the treadmills at Coles. It makes me sad and I miss going backwards.

Otherwise, uneventful.

Shake-a-speare

Yesterday was wonderful weather. The kinds where you just want to squeal about how nice it is outside.

Last night, Laura B. (just returned from Bungoma, Kenya) and I went into Boston with my mom and one of her friends.
To see Shakespeare in the Park.
It was "Taming the Shrew": North End style. They made everything like the North End, 1940s/1950s. And they all had wicked thick Revere/Boston accents. I enjoyed it.
And we knew a guy in the performance. He was a drama kid at our high school. Paul Melendy. He still has his uber skinny-ness and caterpillar eyebrows. Funny guy.

We paid far too much for dinner salads at a place called Panificio. If you find that place on Charles Street by the Common, re-evaluate your financial investments.

A New Poem, for enjoyment

Homecoming

Look out on the front lawn.

Shrunken with accelerating time…
turned foreign by distance…
a familiarity for so many years.

Lush greens and tall shade,
r o y g b i v dotted steeps hill.

The sun drops below forested trees.
Enter twilight.

Gel the bright to a murky haze,
fading sight brings older visions.

Return to childhood;
gleeful tumbles on grass,
plucking weeds under scorching,
at dusk, accompanied by private musings.

Watch bats twirl above,
and fireflies spark beside.

Look out on the front lawn, now.
(In twilight.)

See the cobwebbed memories
growing transparent on a greened abyss.

Montreal Jazz Festival

Friday after work, I picked up Craig & Jesse, and we started driving north. Got through New Hampshire and found ourselves in Vermont. I never realized how beautiful Vermont landscape really is. I was having trouble driving on the highway because I was so taken back by the scenery that we were going through. Hours of awe.
I felt like I could love this place.
We got off of the highway somewhere in upstate Vermont to a small town in the middle of nowhere called Jericho. We were picking up Aaron, a friend of James from NYU that I had yet to meet. His town was adorable small, and his house was delightful. Aaron is an amazing guy, so I was glad we got to pick him up for the trip. We continued north.
Crossing the border for Canada was interesting (and disturbing) because I didn't quite understand just how french the province Quebec really is. It's french. Very french. Think, the signs are all in french, and people only speak in french. That was a shocker. I was so glad I can understand french.
Aaron guided us into an interesting driving around and into Montreal. After confusedly breaking several quebecois driving laws, we finally found the hostel and a parking place on the road.
The hostel was pretty dumpy. Basically, it provided us bunk beds, and 2 mostly working bathrooms, that we shared with roughly 2o other guests. Not the cleanest place I've ever stayed at, but whatever, it wasn't a homeless shelter, so I can't complain. It wasn't terrible, and it was cheap. And the location was great.
This was my first time in Montreal, and overall I have to say I enjoy that city. It's very clean, and reminds me of Boston in atmosphere and cleanliness. I like that it's an island, and that it has several assorted cultural quarters.
We set our stuff in the hostel and went for a walk to check out what was happening at the Jazz Festival. We found ourselves in a crowd watching a band playing some swing, which was fun to listen to, but I was more compelled to go for a walk. Aaron and I walked around the Jazz Festival to see what was going on, and so I could get my barings.
The Jazz Festival overall was not what I was expecting. I thought I would find myself in club after club, listening to some smokey blues or a jazz club band, with slow crooners and cocktail dresses. However, none of the sort. It was indeed a festival, and most of the music we heard was funk, be-bop, and kind of mainstream jazz. They were obviously catering to a more mass mentality, and they had LOTS of overpriced merchandise to sell in big corporate tents. I did enjoy myself, though.
The four of us started walking more around the Latin Quarter and around some busy strips...I guess we were sight-seeing. Ended up in some trippy goth/metal bar for about 10 minutes, and quickly made a getaway out. We ended up at the water front in the Old Montreal quarter, which was breath taking. The boardwalk was lightly lighted in blues and greens, and there was a park in the middle of the water. Jesse & Craig went back to sleep, while Aaron and I just walked around the waterfront and talked. It was a lovely night, and I was with good company. A great beginning to a weekend trip, as well as a friendship.
Finding ourselves exhausted, we hobbled back to the hostel and crashed, with 10 other strangers.
After a restless night, I got up to find out that there were only 2 bathrooms for all 20+ of us in the hostel area, which was entertaining, to say the least. After a slow morning, we headed out to the festival under the bright hot sun. Needless to say, I acquired a sunburn.
Dixie jazz is fun only for some time, so Aaron and I opted to go walk around some more of the city and to visit McGill University. Closed campuses are odd to me now, being at NYU, so it was odd. Lots of green. Small campus. I liked it a lot, but I was not in love with it. I could see myself going to school there, though. Walked around and grabbed some lunch at Tim Hortons, which is an experience all unto itself.
We walked back to the festival and crashed under some shade for a while before we went to go see a jazz film.
Let me explain this film that us kids went to go see. The schedule said "Ain't Misbehaving ", which I was sure was an old film or documentary, and I knew was a show....we find out that they only wanted to show about a 5 minute 1930's clip of the song, which led into a movie called "Novecento". The film was with a home camera, 1.5 hours long, and all in french. To top it off, it consisted of 1 poor actor who talked to the camera the entire time on an obviously fake boat set, with a fake jazz band "playing" in the background. I understood bits and pieces of the storyline, but most of the time I was confused. The rest of the guys hadn't a clue what was going on. The only sentence I could fully understand was, "La terre est un grand bateau. C'est trop grand pour moi." Translation: The earth is one big boat/ship. It's too big for me. Needless to say, it was hilarious, and I fully enjoyed myself.
Grabbed a french dinner with salmon and esgargot. Went to go watch some more sets, Namori & the Electro Deluxe. They were good, long, but enjoyable. Between the shows, we stopped to watch a modern-ish interprettive-ish dance group put on some french scifi/fantastical goth show about fire, sacrifice, and other assorted splendids. It was very fun to watch, and the dance moves were often impressive.
During the Electric Shox set, Aaron and I walked again. We walked into a crowd for another set for a Mexican band, Sr.Mandril. It was a fun, clubbing-beat band. And fireworks starting lighting up the eastern sky. It was great!
We called it an early night, so we headed back to the dorms.
I felt like relaxing on a bench outside the hostel. A Japanese girl came out from the door and started talking to me. At first, I wasn't really willing to talk, but we got into a great conversation about travel and music. She was a fun person to talk to. We got approached by 2 sets of guys, both of whom tried to speak french at first, then attempted english, and failed. By 2:30, though, I had hit my dimensia mode, and headed to sleep. I was woken up by a few drunk guys from Toronto who were rooming with us. Really cool guys, we had some fun times talking to them (especially when waiting for toilets), but they drank like fish.
The next day was lowkey. We checked out of the hostel, and walked over to one of the McGill strips of shops & whatnots. We ended up shopping a bit, and found ourselves at a bistro/pub called Mars Venus. We stayed there to watch the World Cup Final (Italy vs. France). France played very well, personally I think much better than Italy. It was such a good game! After being tied from the beginning to sudden death, though (and after 2 of France's best were taken off field; Henry for tiredness, Zidane for headbutting an Italian & getting kicked out?), Italy won in penalty kicks. Montreal blew up. Half of the people were walking the streets depressed from a loss, half of the people were rioting on the street in celebration for Italy. I mean rioting. Some guy was waving an Italian flag in the middle of an intersection, intentionally hitting cars with it.
It was a quiet, tired, drive home. But a good time was had by all, methinks.

Another Trip to NYC, Plus New Jersey?

I think I've come to the conclusion that my weekends will revolve in either people coming to see me from afar, or me going to see other people afar...My months are being booked as we speak!

So, I drove in on my own to NYC for Sat&Sun. It took longer than it should to drive in because drivers are idiots. And it rained.

I would just like to note that I was going to be in Connecticut for the night, but someone bailed last minute, so I called the next person I had in mind, who happens to live about an hour into New Jersey. Ah, how life leads us...

I got into the city, parked my car in a garage near school, and went downtown to see the apartment that I viewed last time. Well, I was going to meet my potential roommate. And all I have to say about that is....no thanks. The girl was not my type of person...and when she said, "I smoke lots of pot," the red stop sign hit my face. Hard. So, I am thinking that it's all for the best, though it's a shame. That place was beautiful!

I had a few hours to kill, so went to Starbucks and called up Paul to hang out with me. Paul, for those of you cocking your heads in flusteration, is my classmates from Stern who joked with me all fall about us stalking each other. All in good fun.
Anyways, he came down, and we walked around the seaport for a few hours. Talked a lot. It was nice. Good to see a friendly face. He came along with me to view the newer apartment potential on Wall Street. The girl's from NYU Gallatin, my age, oringated from Boston, wicked nice, we got along very well, her boyfriend was sweet, and the apartment was beautiful. I would like to live there. We're going to stay in touch and see how things go.

Paul went home to Long Island, and I went to campus to walk around. I called up Neil (who told me he was in the city then, too), and I met him at Amy's Bread Bakery over in the West Village while he happily ate. It was a brief visit.

Bhinish met up with me at Washington Square, and told me to take the NJ Transit to his station where he'd pick me up late. And he jetted off to pick up his grandmothers. So off I went to Risotteria (only one of my favorite eateries around school) to buy some gluten-free cookies. And that was my dinner.

It was sweltering in NYC the whole weekend, so I was a nice glob of liquid the whole time there.

The trainride took about an hour. I waited at the station for a while, and read some more, until Bhinish came over, grandmothers and all. So silly.
We went to his house, where we talked until late. It's funny how classically Indian families are so conservative...his grandmothers wouldn't go to bed until he left the guest room I was sleeping in! They must have known I'm a vixon. Well, they also kept insisting that I ate, and that they would make something for me. But I was just not hungry this weekend. They weren't very happy about that.
Keep in mind, I didn't actually personally talk to them, they only speak Gujarati, and I...do not. Bhinish translated everything, and I had deja vu from visiting Felix's family in Germany.
Went to bed. Slept. Woke up, woke up Bhinish. That boy does not wake up quickly! About 3 hours after we had woken up (which was full of, "no thank you, i'm not hungry"), we left the house. And he eats A LOT of sugar.
Knowing my affinity for Indian culture, he brought me to this little India-town nearby. I was in my element. Went to some music/dvd shops, listened to some music, sari shopped, and hung out at some Indian food joint, where I agreed to consume a mango lassi. We talked some more, lots of talking, and then hit the train station where I would go back to the city and drive home. He bought me some papri chaat for my travels. What a sweet boy. Literally.

Art and Cops

Yesterday was very busy.
1) Jeff came over for breakfast. I made omellettes. We talked for a while. He said goodbye for 2 months, because he'll be in Ecuador teaching English. Damn Harvardians.
2) Garrett and I met for hot cocoa. We went on a little carride, and settled at Panera. 2 huge cups of hot chocolate, 1 massive cookie for me, 1 loaf of bread for him. He paid, that gentleman. Now I owe him on our next outing. We had a splendid time.
2.5) Scott called me and we had a good catch-up chat.
3) I ran over to Andover for Jen's Singing Recital. Being the good alumn I am, I agreed to turn pages for her while she played the piano for 3 hours. The concert was very good, and it was really really nice to see my young friends that I haven't seen in a year. Becky's voice was phenomenal, Steve's voice was perfect, etc. Jen and I agreed to have coffee sometime soon, and a bunch of the kids and I concluded to see each other this summer sometime. I joked around with the Sanders brothers after the show, and then I headed out to make myself dinner.
4) Dinner was couscous with spicy chicken. Ok, the chicken cleared my nasal cavity. Next time, I'm not putting so much red chilli sauce on them.
5) I went to Beverly for a little birthday party for a high school friend I haven't seen in years, Brad. He messaged me about his shin dig at his apartment, and I thought, "hell, why not. i haven't seen these kids in a while. i might as well make an appearance for a bit." Little did I know that Google's directions to his house took about 30+ minutes more than his place truly is from my house. Not knowing Beverly AT ALL, I got lost trying to find his apartment for about 10 minutes in the car, and 20 minutes on his street. Finally discovering that his place is HIDDEN, I got to the party, only to find that I knew him and one other girl. The other slew of people were strange strangers. All art students at Montserrat, which means mullets, dreads, go-go boots, leg warmers, and assorted scary fashion statements wandered around in excess.
I sat with some cran-grape juice and gawked at the creatures dancing, when another person I remembered from high school came by. We got in a conversation, and then 2 other old friends swung in. Somehow I found myself in Brad's room writing down things to do while in London for one of the girls, talking to an NYU dropout, and another guy that just happens to know more than half of my local theatre friends.
While talking to one of my old friends, and the rest of the mass is dancing and doing other silly party things, we are informed that the cops have come to break up the party. Being completely and utterly the only sober person within the building, I start giggling to myself about how silly it would be for me to get in trouble with the cops then for doing nothing illegal but writing down trip advice. Please note that this was my first party ever to be broken up by cops.
Thus, I stand up, look at the cops, and walk out the back door.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to say goodbye to most of my old friends, so I left them messages on assorted networking sites.
I then got lost driving home, forcing myself to call a friend for help. The sleep following was delicious.