Fast Break

Just a few notes I would like to make before I leave for NYC this weekend....

• "Happily N'Ever After": Watch this movie ONLY if you have very young children. Otherwise, you might feel like God is punishing you for something you've done in the past.


• "My Boys": My life. In a nutshell. Basically, that's me in, say, 7 years from now, or so...


• "Dreamgirls "Soundtrack: I've been howling to that CD for roughly a week now.


• This job: Needs to end soon...


• Preparing for France: I have to translate my birth certificate into french. Feel free to laugh along with me.


• The Beach: I thoroughly enjoyed the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio has started to go crazy (from lack of human contact) and imagines himself in a video game. It might very well be one of my ultime favorite scenes in any movie. I have felt like that before, too...


• This weekend: Is FREAKING me out because I have it booked by the hour. Literally.


• The cold: Is slowing my metabolism down, and making me sluggish, and thus making me pack on some hibernation pounds. WHICH I'M NOT OK WITH!


• Crèpes: Are a lot harder to make than you'd think. The batter kind of lumps together in places on the pan. Instead of being a super smooth, flat piece, it is more pancakey and, well, ugly.


• Phone calls: EVERYONE calls me on the same days. It's like there's some kind of subconscious message being emitted from my mind and reaching all of my friends to call me within a very small time frame.


• At home: Everyone else is at school, or in school, and I'm getting rather lonely. Or, as Kim Jung Il might say, "I'm so ronery...."

Cleaning Up Shop

So, I should probably fill people in on what current events befell me over the past few days. As briefly as possible.

We had our Chamber Choir concert last Friday. And the parents stayed in the city to see it.
It went really well! We sang a handful of chamber music, and some not-so-chamber music (i.e. The Beach Boys). I had to conduct the Jabberwocky song because Noah was playing the piano for us all. But we had a pretty good show up, and we sang well. We recorded it, and Darrell's making us all CDs (to be sold online sometime?) of the show. It's all very exciting.
I am so glad I'm in chamber singers right now. This semester has been wonderful, and with our newer members, we have a really powerful connection between all of us. The very first practice this semester proved that not only were we good singers, but we had some really strong bond/love for each other. I love them all.

Saturday, Mom&Dad brought Aaron, Neil, and I out to dinner at this really nice place called Pietro's. I got the swordfish, and the boys got steaks. It was a good time, and my parents approve of my choice in friends. The boys seemed to enjoy the time, too. And we ate too much. We slowly walked back to the subway.
I got home 10 minutes before I started hosting my Chambers after-party. Darrell came over early to help me get ready for it. Unfortunately, only half of us were over, but we still had a blast of a time together. As always. Twister, Photobooth, politics, and SINGING! Lots of singing. My lord......we made a bit of a mess, so Darrell stayed over to help me clean up in the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday, the parents offed back home, while I went to work on homework with my class groups. And, though I had had 2 hours of sleep, I went with Dad's assistant Robin to a concert of the "U2 of Pakistan/India", Ali Azmat. We enjoyed it, he was REALLY GOOD! But we both were so tired that we agreed to go home early.

Tuesday, I had 2 final tests, 1 final paper, and a final presentation. It was a long day. I aced French, did either alright or failed Business Law (I doubt the latter), and my paper/presentation group did really well (above average) on both the paper and powerpoints. Good job, us!
Danie came over for dinner, where we feasted on pasta with Tequilla/lime-sauce. It was delicious.

Wednesday was crazy. I ran uptown to do a focus group with this start-up SoSauce. It is a really cool group of NYU-grads who are making a new blogging site (sorry, Blogger). I think they've got some good ideas, and the guy that I talked with was really great. We had a good conversation for about an hour.
I then grabbed tea with Emily from Chambers. We talked about boys, and England, pre-biz minors, and other assorted joys. Good times, I'll miss her a lot.
Then, I quickly ran up to meet Liz from french class for tea at Think. We also talked about boys, and school, and we just chatted. She's a darling girl.
THEN, I ran into Dan right before going home. We ended up getting coffee, too. And we talked about stuff. He called me a player, and I resented it. It was a busy day.

Thursday we had a Chambers E-board meeting. There's a lot of things we have to do before I leave for Paris. Oie vay.
I then studied my brains out with Jean-Claude and Mariam (at different times) for global econ. Long, long day. Mariam and I ended up at her apartment, eating Chocolate Sorbet, talking about what we need to do when I come back. She gave me a holiday gift, and I love her for it. I have come to realize I know wonderful people.

Friday was my global econ final. It was a decent final. I think I did my best on it. My phone rang off the hook (vibrate, ahem) during the whole final. The last call was my friend Rob who was sitting next to me during the final but left early. He was just calling to make me more embarassed during the test. Nice guy.
I grabbed dinner with Neil and Dan. They always have an interesting debate with each other, but this time I just wasn't into it, so I just enjoyed their company while spacing out.
Darrell came over afterwards and we made mac 'n cheese. It was REALLY GOOD, but way too rich. Heart-attack quality. Oie, my arteries. Emily kept on calling me for fashion help during our cooking, so really Darrell cooked it all. Good job to him, he's got me impressed. The rest of the night we talked about it all. It was a good night, and morning.

The Yesterday, Aaron and I ended up in Brooklyn at Grand Army Plaza, and walked around the park, relishing in the green open space. We headed back after a while and went to Lemongrass for dinner. I made him go see 2 movies later; The Holiday, and The Departed (which I'd already seen). The first one was the perfect chick flick for me right then and there, and the latter? Well, it's still good.

Today (Sunday), I walked around for a while. I talked on the phone with some people. I grabbed coffee with Matt Dell, and it was great to see him and hear what he's up to right now. He's got quite the interesting life, I must say.
Craig and Alex H. came over for dinner, to help me finish the mac 'n cheese. They joked around with me, Craig left early, and Alex & I watched Y Tu Maman Tambien. Once again, a good movie. He just left after a raher large talk, and I'm tired and ready to go to bed. NIGHT!

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.

Midterms Almost Done!

Yesterday a bunch of us from last fall's music theory class, and a bunch of my Chamber Choir, went uptown to see my favorite teacher ever's composition be played in a concert. For the record, I love Sophocles Papavasilopoulos. And I love Sophocle's music.
But the other pieces were very...interpretive. I think I liked maybe 2 songs (including Sophocles') out of the whole concert, 6 songs. They were so atonal and experimental...and dissonant. Don't get me wrong; I love my Stravinsky, and Ives is sometimes a nice thing to crunch on...but there's something very different about what I heard yesterday and those composers.
For instance, Stravinsky is dissonant. And dissonant can be very good. But when I listen to Stravinsky, though there's a lot of stuff going on that doesn't necessarily make sense, I still feel like dear old Igor is holding me in a safety net while I am swimming in mild confusion. I feel like I can still grasp the intent; the theme, and direction, is recognizable. But what I heard yesterday...I didn't feel safe. I felt confused. I felt like there was no real direction. I felt like it was just upsetting chaos that really has no rhyme, reason, purpose. I feel like those composers are trying too hard to be deep, that they're taking music and sound to frivolousness. And frivolousness can be good, too. But this "music"? It seemed to me to be purely masturbatory.
The last song had no conductor (to our horror), and the ensemble stood and played random notes, and walked around....and started babbling! My group and I, unfortunately, couldn't contain our giggles very well. People scoffed.
Sophocles had a great song, though. Beautiful. Conceptual. Reasonable.

Tonight Stern paid for me (and about 30 other Stenies) to go eat at this très ritzy place in the Village, Jane Restaurant, so we could listen to a drunken (no joke) alumn talk about his successes and early retirement and advise us about how to become as successful as him in 20 years time. It was an interesting night where I held my tongue about my ambitions towards diplomacy and the Peace Corp (gasp!) and accidentally got in a debate with some Republican about capitalism.
Luckily, I sat next to my friend Mariam and we oggled the food most of the night. Stern overfeeds us on their tab. We had a magnificent 5-course meal: Shrimp pizza, bread, calamari w/ chutney, gnocchi, scottish salmon with brussel sprouts, and a banana brulée that made me believe I had never lived before (not to mention the free pomegranite lemonade). Mariam and I hobbled all the way home, moaning about how much we overate and felt sick to the core. I'm still nursing a bulging gullet.

On an upside, I am officially passing all of my classes (or at least 60% of them...I don't know about 2 of my grades). I got a high mark on my marketing case study, an average B on my global economics midterm, and a slightly-above-average mark on my accounting midterm! French I'm assuming I did alright on my midterm.
I took the Business Law midterm today. 123 points. 100 questions. NOT CONCEPTUAL AT ALL! Basically, the test was seeing whether or not you had done the homework and gone to classes...each question was something along the lines of, "based on a class case we worked on about a dance studio, true or false blah blah?" Listen, professors: I am not paying you to see if I go to your classes. I am. TEST ME ON WHAT I STUDIED! Not on what I did! JESUS!

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...

Chaos

Before I left NA, I watched "Big Fish" with Mucks. It made me weepy, somehow.
And Jeff (have I mentioned he had 6 wisdom teeth pulled?), Dom and I went for a carride to Newburyport to eat at Not Your Average Joe's. You know, considering I used to work there, I'm impressed that I still want to go back. We also walked the harbor/boardwalk. But the best part of that day was when Dom purchased a "Celtic Pure Chill" CD and made us play it while we cruised with the windows down. It was the kind of CD where the makers obviously dubbed out the original singers of the song (think Bryan Adams, Mamas & Papas, Elton John, etc.), and replaced it with celtic flutes. Hilarious.

I'm back in NYC. Watched the "DaVinci Code". My move-in experience was wretched. Note to future locals: if you live on Wall Street, DO NOT move in during weekday lunchtime. WORST IDEA EVER! My mom was attempting to drive in circles, since you can't park on the sides of the narrow streets down there, but kept getting stuck, lost, etc. It was humid, I didn't have my name on the tenant list, yet...and most importantly, the girl that I was replacing in the apartment hadn't moved out, yet. Her double-sized bed, along with ALL of her stuff, was still in the room. We had to attempt to make my twin bed fit somewhere in the mess. What a mess.
Craig was a dear and helped us bring stuff back from Bed Bath & Beyond. I had to buy everything, sans desk.
I saw my girls, Danie the Trini & Cassie from NJ. We ate Thai food and acted girly. And I saw former roommate Lauren all day yesterday. We ate Indian food and walked around. I mutilated my feet in my heeled flip flops. It has been raining rather consistently, and not the soft British kind, either.
Since returning here, I've been honked at, asked directions, interrogated by a friendly old man who was either speaking Hebrew or something Slavic. And I've been asked if I want some cocaine (et cetera). I love being back in NYC.

Music & Garlic

When I was younger, I was certain that the ONLY music artists ever were Elton John, Michael & Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Bette Midler, The Beatles, and Prince. The rest of the songs were made by normal people like me (ok, I'm a bad example) who performed only that 1 song on the radio.
When I got a little older and understood that was not the case, I became overinfatuated with music (if that is actually possible). I loved anything and everything that was music. Only, Nine Inch Nails and other more "hard" rock (and rap/hip-hop) frightened me. I thought it was some kind of cult music.
Now? I play "Name that Tune" and "Name that Artist" with my friends all of the time. I love music, yes, but I am a little pickier about what I listen to and what albums/artists I pick up. I have a Nine Inch Nails album, and I go to hip-hop clubs.
I still listen to the original 7 artists, though.

Yesterday, my mom, Aimee, and I went to Vinny T's for dinner before we picked up Dad.
I ate a whole garlic. As in, they roasted a whole garlic, and I ripped it to shreds.
I love garlic. A lot.
I'm gonna smell like garlic all weekend.

Uneventful

I worked out Friday night extra long and met up with my parents at The Loft for lobsters.

I went shopping with Mom on Saturday for new gym clothes that fit and cute flip flops.
I felt extra cute, so I wore a skirt, for once!
I barbequed some chicken kebabs for the family.
I went to Craig's house, where I made him brownies, he recorded me some music, and we watched "V for Vendetta". The film was alright, I feel that the directors could have done a lot more with the idea of the film, but it was still enjoyable.

Sunday was a long day. Went to the gym, cleaned the kitchen, and my room. Started studying french. Read some. Grocery shopped. Made catfish for dinner with pesto from scratch (highlight of day). I wore sweats all day.
I reminisced some about pre-middle school years.

I really hope Ido doesn't move to Israel now....

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.