AHHHHHHHHH

The past 24 hours have been frustrating. I came home from work to find that I could not get into the apartment. I'll do my best to explain the door situation. When you walk down to our door the first one is metal and it opens up into a small alcove thing. Then the actual door to the apartment is there. Both doors have a lock and then two deadbolts. When I got home, the outside door was unlocked, but the deadbolts were in. How does this happen you may ask, let me tell you.

The first option is that Steph was home and had for some reason locked the deadbolts. Well, the lights were all out and when I rang the doorbell multiple times nothing happened. You would think that the next step would be to call my roommate and make sure that she wasn't a sleep in the apartment and just didn't hear the doorbell. But oh, wait, this is of course the only time I have ever forgotten my cell phone since coming to New York so my phone is locked in the apartment.

The other option is that workers who have a key to the first door so that they can lift up a grate to get to the basement to work on the foundation did it. They must have locked the deadbolts to keep anyone from walking in and falling down the open grate and then stupidly left through the normal entrance to the apartment building, leaving the deadbolts in place. Yep, that's what happened although it hasn't been completely confirmed.

How to get in the apartment? Well, shouldn't I be able to go through the apartment building and go in the normal door instead of our special entrance. No. I don't have a key to get into the actual building and even if I did, we keep that door deadbolted and chain-locked at all times. Not helpful. So I was locked out of the apartment with no phone. Not fun at all!!!!

I found a pay phone near by and had to call my Dad to call Steph because I don't know her number by heart. My Dad had to call Steph's Dad who called Trisha (the owner) who had to come to the apartment building to call the building maintenance boss to come with a worker. That worker had to go through the apartment building down to the basement and then lift the very heavy grate so that he could climb into the alcove to undo the deadbolts. AHHHHH, so complicated! It was nuts.

Then I found out that my allergy serum was delivered to an office on Friday but they didn't check their mail until Monday so the serum is ruined because it needs to be refrigerated. The clinic here says it's not their fault because somehow the other office should have made sure that it was delivered in the middle of the week, not on a Friday and that the serum should have been sent with a cold pack. I will give them that a cold pack would have been smart, but I don't think it would have lasted all weekend anyway. So I have been dealing with that clinic today since I don't have the money for new serum (it's over $400 and insurance won't cover new serum this quickly). AHHHH! Annoying people who won't take responsibility for their actions.

Well that is now off of my chest and I feel a little better. Sorry to rant to everyone, hopefully I will have happy news soon since I'm moving to the other apartment on Friday.

Avenue Q!

Yes, I have seen Avenue Q, I know all of you are very jealous. Steph's mom is here to visit Steph and go to a family member's bridal shower and she is amazing and took us both out to dinner and a show Thursday night. It was really fun. There actually isn't much more to the story than what you get from the soundtrack, but to see the actors working with the puppets was cool. The ones who are the puppets wear black so that they fade a little, but their facial expressions added so much to what they were doing with the puppets.

It really was a whole lot of fun and our seats were really nice. We were in the third row on the right side, really, really close which was cool. The only downside is that during "Fantasies Come True" the fog came down in the audience and it had a strange smell.

Last night (Friday) Steph's mom took us and two of Steph's friends out to dinner and then to a movie. The restaurant was called Ninja, a teamed place. It was pretty cool, the tables were each in their own little nook. Some in bamboo lined rooms and other (like ours) in almost a cave. All of the staff were in ninja outfits and the food was Japanese. Thankfully there was more than just sushi and the meal I ended up getting was really good. Before the bill came one of the staff came and did a lot of slight of hand magic tricks that were really well done.

Then we went and say The DaVinci Code and this theatre with 4 floors and 25 theatres. Kinda nuts but really nice. My verdict on the movie is that it is a good movie but of course not as good as the book. I think they did a pretty good job of translating everything that in the book goes on in the characters head's into dialogue for the movie. I don't understand why they changed what they ended up changing though. I don't think that it cut down time to make Sophie's brother die in the crash or make whatever that guy's name was not her real grandfather. I don't think those kind of things needed to be changed.

Today was a rainy day so unfortunately I couldn't continue my tradition of reading in Central Park :( Instead I hung out in the apartment reading, watching tv, and taking a nap. The nap had to happen because I was woken up by people working on the apartment building in the basement which is on the other side of the wall of my bedroom. Hopefully they don't work on Sundays. So that's it right now. Life is good, I'm enjoying work and being in New York, so far so good.

Trying the picture thing again

So here is the apartment for anyone who is interested. The first two are of the downstairs bedroom, the rest are of the upstairs kitchen/living/dining room.



Here is the tiny kitchen, which doesn't have a microwave. It's been interesting learning how to reheat leftovers without burning/over cooking them.

Pictures of the apartment

My Day Out

Yesterday was a good and bad day. I got some bad news yesterday, a neighbor of ours, Deb Chamberlin was on vacation with her family in Yellowstone when she stepped over a retaining wall to take a picture and she fell and died. It hasn't really hit me yet that she is gone, I mean it is such a freak thing to happen. I don't know when it will sink in since I won't be home for the funeral. It's really hitting my mom hard. They were pretty good friends and on school board together.

The rest of my day was actually really nice. The person I'm renting from needed the apartment for a few hours to show it to her boyfriend's parents, so I went to Central Park. I read for a while like last week and then went to a different area of the park and saw King Lear performed by the Boomerang Theatre Company. It was really well done, especially for being outside with no real set except for the hill they were on. It was nice to sit outside surrounded by green.

After dinner I went to a concert that was part of the Celebrate Brooklyn series that goes on in the summer. The opening act was a group called Chirgilchin. They are a throat singing group from Western Mongolia. Throat singing is really cool, I don't know exactly how it works, but they can sing overtones. It's really cool, you'd have to hear it to really know what it is.

The main act was Laurie Anderson (that's who is in the picture above). She's an artist that has been around for a while. I actually studied her in a music history course at school because she was/is very innovative. The concert was really cool. Think Maureen's performance piece from Rent only better because the pieces had more melody and harmony. She tended to start out with a little talking/poetry over some music and then it would morph into a song. There were two musicians playing with her, one on bass and the other on keyboards. It was a little strange, but very good.

So that was the latest I've been out completely on my own (my roommate was with college friends for the weekend) and as dorky as it is I feel proud of myself. I went to a concert a good hour subway ride away by myself and got home a little before midnight in one piece. It was really fun.

Random thoughts

So some random thoughts and observations about my time in New York. I keep wondering if I look like a tourist or a New Yorker. For the most part I don't think it's too obvious that I don't actually live here. I don't walk around with a map or a large camera or a fanny-pack. I don't make remarks about how big everything is or how many people there are. There are only a couple of things that make me definitely not a New Yorker.

One is that I don't know which way to go when I get out of a subway station. Even when the sign tells you that you are exiting at the NE corner of 60th and Lexington Ave. You would think that I would then know which way to go to get to 61st. Nope, definitely don't. I first went to 59th and had to turn around, embarrassing since of course all true New Yorkers can tell that I went the wrong way (because they all care and noticed). Then I somehow forgot that I was traveling north instead of south like yesterday when I was heading to the allergies (I used a different subway line) and turned the wrong way on 61st. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I usually have a very good sense of direction.

The other is that I don't cross the street in heavy traffic. New Yorkers either have a death wish or are all just arrogant enough to think that there is no way anyone is going to hit them. Now I have no problem checking one-way streets and crossing if I don't see anyone coming, but I do not walk out into the middle of a four lane street because one direction of traffic was clear and stand there waiting for the other direction to clear while taxis and delivery trucks pass by with inches to spare. Nope, can't do it. I really would rather stand on the corner revealing that I am not a true New Yorker than risk death by car.

So I went to the comedy club again on Monday and this comic made some observations that have stuck with me. He was black and was making comments about things white people do. One may not translate well on a blog, but I'll try. He said that white people have this half smile thing where they don't show their teeth and press their lips together. It's this really pompous condescending smile and I know all of you would recognize it if you saw it. The other is what he called the "walk to run" and he was completely dead on. It's where a person jogs a few steps and then walks again. People tend to do it if they think they won't make it to their destination in time, like when you're crossing the street and the signal is about to change to don't walk.

I totally did it today. And the comic was right. It's not like those three jogging steps I took really made any difference in my making it across the street. Keep it in the back of your mind, you'll do it too in the next couple of days. I've noticed plenty of people so far. I'm not sure the comic was right that only white people do it, but I think I'll pay attention and try to figure it out.

That's about it, I'll post more later.

Update

Not much new, I have survived a full week out here in New York. Today most of the interns went to the Foundation Center to take two free classes on using their database and the first steps to develop a grant proposal. Yes I know, sounds thrilling, but most of it was actually pretty interesting. These people have gathered information on pretty much every foundation/organization/corporation that has donated money to nonprofits in the past however many years. This includes people who will give money to individual students. There is actually a free (yeah!) class that is called "Finding Foundation Support for Your Education". Sounds good to me, I'm definitely going and finding out how to convince someone they want to send me to grad school while I learn how to fix the world.

Anyway, if anyone has some summer reading suggestions let me know. I have some books, mostly John Shelby Spong, but I'll get through them pretty quick if my time in Central Park was any indication on Saturday. Heavy stuff like Spong is fine, but fun stuff is good too.

Hopefully I'll have interesting stuff soon but for now know that I am still alive and safe and doing just fine.

Central Park

I went to Central Park today and went out on Sheep Meadow and sat in the sun. Sheep Meadow is a large open grassy area where lots of families and individuals layout on blankets or fly kites or throw balls. It was wonderful. I sat for a good 3 hours and read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. By the way, I found that book in the suitcase I packed for New York. I feel really bad, but it was wrapped and I'm pretty sure it was a birthday present that I forgot I put in my suitcase. I'm not sure who it was from, but thank you to who it was. If you read this please tell me so that I can thank you. It's a really good book.

So Sheep Meadow is really beautiful. Very green and the part next to the road has a practical wall of trees so you are surrounded by green. The coolest part is that behind the trees is the city so you see green and then tall buildings and then this amazing blue sky with white clouds. It was gorgeous. I didn't have my camera so I'll probably be hoping the rest of the summer to have another picture perfect day, but I plan on having it with me from now on.

By the way John, if you read this, I found where your IMAGINE picture came from (the one on your live journal home page). You may already know this, but it is inlaid in the pathway in the Strawberry Fields part of Central Park near W 72nd St.

One more thing and then I'm done for this post. I forgot to mention in the last one that I went to a comedy club Tuesday night called Stand Up Comedy Club with my roommate. The guy she is sort of dating and his friend has performed earlier and got free tickets for the later group of sets. The cool part is that Al Fraken did a set. Yes, the actual Al Franken. He didn't stay very long, three routines with another guy, something George. One about "what do you when you're drunk and have to drive", "An human echo", and comedy about the nuclear talks with Iran.

That's it for now,

Anne

I'm in New York!

Hello everyone,

So I'm here in New York interning at Religions for Peace-USA which is located on the United Nations Plaza across the street from the actual United Nations. Because I'm overly nervous about putting my address out into the world wide web, I'll just tell you that I'm living on the upper west side in a really nice area. The apartment is nice, one bedroom downstairs and a livingroom/kitchen/office with a bathroom upstairs. I'll put pictures up if anyone wants to see what it looks like.

The internship is going fine so far, I've only been working two days. The atmosphere is pretty relaxed, no one is going to make sure you're in by 9 and there until 5, in fact if you work from home every so often that's fine too. Right now my project is to develop a student interfaith organization directory. This means that I need to check out every college/university in the United States and see if it has an interfaith organization on campus. Some of it (like now as I find out how many schools are in each state) is not going to be very exciting, but in the end I think it will be really helpful thing to have. It will also be helpful for me to see what is around at the universities I'm looking at for grad school. -I'll make sure I get those done first :)

Well that's about it for now, I'll try to make sure that this is at least semi-interesting and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

-Anne