Trying to get tickets

So I was hoping to report that I've seen Rent, but unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. I've been to the lottery 5 times now and it's getting a little ridiculous that I haven't gotten I ticket yet, but that's the way it goes. I'm going to try MTW next week and if it doesn't work then once I get back from the weddings I'll just buy a discount ticket instead of trying for the $20 ones.

The lottery system is pretty uncomplicated. 2 and 1/2 hours before the show you can put your name and how many tickets you want (1 or 2) on an index card and it goes with all the other index cards in a big bucket. Then, you wait around until 2 hours before the show when they draw out the lucky winners.

There's a homeless man named Rob who was made friends with the people who work at the theatre. Every lottery for the night shows he's there with newspapers to sell (there's a newspaper called Street News that is sold to the homeless who then sell it for a profit). He's got a little speach that he does every time and sometimes one of the lottery workers joins in with him. He does a jazz square while singing "I should tell you, I should tell you, I should tell you, I should tell you, Would you buy my paper?" (for those of you who don't know those are lyrics from the show).

I finally bought one of his papers yesterday. I figure $2 is not too much for me to spend to support something as cool as Street News. I haven't read all of it, but it looks like it's a monthly issue. I don't know how "official" the news stories are, but it's a good sized paper, and covers politics and sports and has lots of articles geared toward awareness of homeless issues.

That's it for now. I'll be home next weekend and I hope I'll be able to see most of you.

Cool Day

So I got to do some exciting things today at work. A couple that has been in Iran for the past 3 years came in today and I got to interview them. They've been going around for the past couple of weeks since they got back talking to people and telling what they think people should know about Iran and Iranians. They were there on an exchange program through the Mennonite community to study Shi'a Islam.

They talked about their experiences as Americans and Christians in Iran. Mostly they wanted to stress that Americans need to realize that Muslims are not homogeneous. They also mentioned that many of the Iranians that they met were eager for more exchanges between the US and Iran, artistic and cultural. It was cool to talk with them. The interview was recorded and will eventually be on the Religions for Peace-USA website.

Then, Bud had a retreat for the rest of the day, so he asked Kat and I to listen in on a conference call that he couldn't be in on. It was a bunch of religious leaders planning a Season of Prayer for Peace in the Middle East as an interfaith effort. I don't remember exactly who was on the call, but I know that there were two Jewish leaders, a Sikh leader, two Muslims, and a couple of Christians. They were working an a baseline for the prayers and it was interesting the types of issue that came up.

Most people started off saying that we should pray for an immediate end to the violence. One of the Jewish leaders pointed out a tension with calling for a ceasefire. He said that although Jews would agree that they want the fighting to stop, they are worried about the political aspects of a ceasefire. While no one wants more people to die, they don't want a ceasefire that doesn't lead to just, lasting, and secure peace. The final wording isn't completely set, but pretty much the central prayer will be for an urgent end to the violence to save lives and to lead to a just, lasting, and secure peace.

In the next day or two it will be finalized and the baseline and prayers from many traditions will be put in a website encouraging people of all faith to take time to pray for peace. I'll put a link up here once it's done.

Enter Anne in the role of drowned rat

It's raining, which is a good thing because it's been incredibly hot for the past few days. Yesterday the heat index was 99 and today was hotter. So the rain is a good thing except for the fact that I got caught in it. I was on my way back from Central Park and when I got out of the subway station it was really coming down. In about 15 seconds I was soaked.

Actually only the front of me was soaked. The rain was coming down at a pretty good slant (of course a slant that had me facing into the rain most of my walk home) so my back only got half wet. My front was as wet as it could get. I'm not joking, it could not have been wetter if I had jumped in a lake.

I was in Central Park for an outdoor concert of the New York Philharmonic. They played The Chairman Dances by John Adams, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No 1 and Beethoven's 5th. It was good, I mean of course the orchestra was wonderful, but the atmosphere was an interesting mix of concert and outdoor party. The Great Lawn was packed and people had food and everything with them. They miked the orchestra, but there was always lots of people talking over the music. I got used to it but for the first two pieces I was a little annoyed, I mean, you can have a pick-nick in Central Park anytime so why would you come to the concert if you weren't going to listen to it? But I was used to it by the time they played Beethoven and the piece is amazing so I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, I have to work in the morning so I'm heading to bed. I wonder if my clothes will have dried out by morning.

It is so HOT!!

It's incredibly hot here right now. The high today was 96 and tomorrow it's 95. The whole weekend was really hot and most of last week was muggy and gross. I do have airconditioning in the apartment but the trip to and from work and to the grocery is so uncomfortable. It's really bad down in the subway. The trains are almost all airconditioned, but the stations are sweltering. Thank goodness it's going to be in the 80's after tomorrow.

Saturday was another nice day in the park. I was smarter than last week and bought some sunscreen so I didn't come back to the apartment looking like lobster this time. Central Park is really nice. It's huge and there are so many different areas, some to play baseball, some playgrounds, some open fields, and some more wooded areas, too. I've explored some of it (including a turtle pond which was really cool) but I tend to go to the same place to read each Saturday. SheepMeadow is really big and green and lots of families and sunbathers. It feels really good to be spending time outdoors.

Sunday I decided that I was going to go see Rent. I went to the Discount Tickets Booth but they didn't have any available for the matinee so I went back to the apartment and thought I would try again for the night show. Online I found out that they have a lottery for the first two rows every show for $20 a ticket. So I went to put my name in the lottery. Only one problem, I missed the part that said there are no shows on Sundays during July and August. Woops. Oh well, I'll try next Saturday if my excitement doesn't make me try sometime during the week.

So I realized that I skipped over the time when my parents were here at the beginning of June. The whole family went to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It's a musical (of course, what else would the Hillman's go see as a family), and it's really funny. A bunch of adults acting like middle-schoolers at a spelling bee. They also bring a few audience members on for two rounds of words. They give the audience members an easy one first and for the second word a really hard one so that they can get them off the stage and continue with the story line. Only one of them guessed correctly. It was hilarious. The actors were passing looks among themselves like "great, what do we do with him". So he got called back up immediately and was given another really hard word. He asked the standard question Can I have the definition please? and was told No.

The rest of the show was really funny and good. I recommend it to anyone. It's good for families except for one song (My Unfortunate Erection) so either bring kids way to young to get it or the ones old enough that you are embarrassed that they know what the song is about. Renee and Eve are fortunately young enough. I wouldn't mind seeing it again especially since little things will change with different audience members.

More random thoughts

So I've been riding the subway a lot which I'm sure is not surprising, but I've made some observations. People always seem to be falling asleep as they ride. They ride along with their eyes closed, usually listening to their ipod, and don't look up at the stations that the train arrives at. I keep thinking that they are going to miss their stop, but I guess they've been taking that route long enough that they know how many times the train will stop and so don't need to pay attention.

But I was wondering why so many people ride with their eyes closed. I mean, the ride of the train isn't all that soothing. A few days ago I figured it out because I did it myself. It's so you don't have to stare at the other passengers. If your riding for longer than two stops you run out of ads to read. They only way to keep from staring at random people is to close your eyes and pretend to nap.

I've also been thinking about the homeless or just job-less people. I don't know what to do when I pass them. I don't like to give money to people who aren't doing something for it whether it's singing, playing an instrument, or pretending to be a statue that only moves when you deposit money in their hat. The problem is I don't like opening up my purse and wallet on the street. I need to start putting my change in an outside pocket of my purse so that I don't have to open the whole thing to grab a donation. Now if only I could figure out how much I should give.

I also don't know what to do about the people who are just begging. There's no way to know if they've exhausted all job searches and are really desperate and need the money. There's also no way to know if they have given up looking for a job but could find one if they tried. I don't know if I should give them something (although it is illegal for them to panhandle) or not. I haven't but wonder if I should.

Sometimes there's a man outside of Grand Central who has a large container and he announces that he is collecting for the homeless. He makes comments about how we can afford to put in something, even a penny, but I never donate. He isn't wearing a shirt of a particular organization. There's no way to know if he's really collecting for an organization that helps the homeless or if he is homeless and the money is for him, or if he's just looking for easy money. I feel bad just walking by, but since I can't know for sure where the money would be going I don't feel comfortable donating anything.

I guess that's enough rambling. I'll update again later.

What is with the pictures?

I don't know why the pictures didn't work before, so here they are for real. The first two are of my room.
This one is of the hallway from the living room to the two bedrooms. The door at the end of the hall goes to the bedroom Steph is using,
This is the the incredibly small bathroom, just room to stand.
This is the living room.
These are pictures of the kitchen/dining room.

This is the front door to the apartment building.

Pictures of the new apartment

Stupid Internet

I completely meant to update this weekend and put some pictures up, but the internet died at my apartment. Well actually it's a longer story than that, but it's not interesting at all. Anyway, I have internet access now and there is no reason it shouldn't stay that way.

I did have an adventure this weekend. On Friday I went to a Staten Island Yankees v the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game with two other interns, my boss, his family, and two family friends. It was a double header and we were going to the second game that was supposed to start at 7:10. Well, the first game started late so the second game didn't start until 9:00pm. Kane, Kat, and I hurried out to catch the 11:30 ferry back to Manhattan. That's when the real fun started.

We were planning on taking the 1 train which was right at the ferry station. Nope, can't do that. It's closed from South Ferry to 14th St. (By the way, South Ferry is at the southern tip of Manhattan and I live up in midtown around 50th St.) So we walked two blocks to the 4 and 5 trains. Nope, can't do that either. We waited 15 minutes to hear an announcement that the 4/5 trains would not be running any more that night due to construction. Great, we are very far from where we need to be and we don't know the area at all.

So we followed another man who had to leave the 4/5 station and started walking up Broadway. We past two other 4/5 stations until we finally found a station with a couple of different lines that could get us Uptown. We got on the A line....the wrong way. We went to Brooklyn. Woops. We got out and finally got on the A heading in the correct direction. Then I got to walk back by myself at 1:30am to get to my apartment. By the way, there were still quite a few people out, this city really doesn't sleep.

So that's my adventure. I got back about 1:45 and went right to bed. Then I got up and went to Central Park and got sunburned. I didn't bring any sunscreen with me to New York and I dozed off out in the sun. Not smart. Oh well.

This is really long so I'll end it and post some pictures. Bye!

Moving and the 4th

It's been a while since I posted last so I'll try to recap a little. On Friday Steph and I moved to our new apartment. It's in a slightly less-nice neighborhood, really close to the theatre district. It's a nice apartment, two bedrooms a good size kitchen (except for counter space) and a small living room. The bathroom is incredibly small. As strange as it is to take a picture of the bathroom I'm going to have to so that you can see how small it is. I'll probably take pictures in the next day or two and then Ill post them.

Saturday I did my normal thing of reading in Central Park for a couple of hours. It is so nice to sit out in the sun and be in some green for a while. I read some more of Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die. I know the title sounds really shocking, but it is actually a well thought out book that is really making sense to me. It's all about how to still be a Christian when your rational mind tells you that many of the doctrines of the Church don't make sense. I also read some of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which is a really good book.

Sunday I went and walked for a while down Broadway checking out the stores and theatres. I stopped in the Toys R Us store just for fun. It was crazy with tons of people and some really cool toys. Times Square is of course full of people and right now construction. The Ticket Booth has been moved because they are working right where is normally is. I partly went to find where it moved to since I'm planning on seeing Rent in a couple of weekends. I actually found the other location on Tuesday without meaning to.

Monday I just lazed around and pretty much vegged all day. Yeah for summer. Yesterday for the 4th I went down to Water St where they had a small festival. Kind of an art fair combined with the food part of Grand Rapids Festival. It was really nice. Then later I went to the fireworks. They block off about 60 blocks or so of FDR Dr and everyone goes and brings chairs and spreads out blankets and waits for the fireworks. I went online and found a website that said the best place to be was on the FDR at 34th St and that's where I ended up which is lucky since the police only let people fill in certain sections at a time so there's no guarantee that you can sit where you want. I had to get there about 2 hours before the fireworks started.

I read a book and listened to my ipod until it got too dark. We did have some entertainment before the fireworks started. There was a man who came through the crowd singing patriotic songs alternating with "Amazing Grace" every so often. I though it was amazing how many people he got to sing along with him. Then the fireworks started and the website was right. 34th St is the best place. There were three barges with fireworks on them and the middle one was almost directly in front of me. They were really good. I can't tell you how long they lasted because I forgot to check the time, but they lasted a long time. There were smilely faces and cube fireworks that I have never seen before. They were really good.

Well I'm sure this is plenty long enough so I'll stop here. I'll put some picture up and some random thoughts I've been having pretty soon.