Chilling in NYC

I miss the simplicity of the things we used to do, me and my friends, to just “hang out.” We went to each other’s houses, played cards, watched movies, played sports. Here in NYC, you have to “go out” to be social. Buy drinks. Get ice cream. Go for coffee. Shop. In short, you have to spend money to be social. Sure, you can talk with the people in your company while you are doing these things (or, rather, shout mostly—at least in bars), but you have to be somewhere. You can’t just chill. You can’t do what would be qualified as “nothing.”

I took what would be considered pretty much a “nothing” day yesterday and spent it by myself. I spent my early morning catching up on email (using my suitemate Lindsay’s computer, which she let me borrow) and then took some paper outside and sat on the Columbia Library steps to write several letters that have been long overdue. After that, I went running in Riverside and Central Parks. (I recently discovered that Riverside Park actually provides a nice “path” down to Central Park so that I don’t have to use all of the main streets to get there and only have to go over a few blocks to enter at 96th Street.) Then, I took the most recent issues of EW, Time, and People (all of which we receive for free as soon as they come out!), my phone, and a water bottle, and sat in Riverside Park until it started to thunderstorm—at which point I hurried back to my dorm. (All the while—I must add—talking on the phone to my old Rochester friend Matt. Much to my chagrin, I am becoming rather accustomed to this cell phone device!)

The most “social” part of my day came when I returned to the dorm and discovered that my suitemate Ebony was making a trip to the Target in Harlem. She invited me to come along, and I agreed to accompany her in order to buy groceries. Thus, once again it has been a money-spending excursion that has brought me together with real people here in NYC.

Deja vu

I have moments here where I feel transported back to Brighton England. For instance, when I am grocery shopping. NYC is so crammed together, there is no space for a big, sprawling, suburban supermarket. As a result, everyone here buys from small, local vendors, from little shops selling little portions. Bags of chips come in single servings…if you can find them. Here in the “heart of America,” fresh fruits and vegetables are more prevalent than junk food—can you believe it? You walk down a street, and yes, there are flashing neon lights blinking at you and scantily clad men and women giants staring down at you from jumbo-sized billboards, but then you try to find a half-gallon of Ben & Jerry’s to make yourself feel better at the end of the day, and you’ll be lucky to find a convenience store selling a pint. Chances are, you’ll end up settling for a vendor selling blended ice.

Or maybe that’s just the part of town I live in. And the part of town I work in. And the part of town I’ve traveled to. (Upper West Side, Midtown, and SoHo, respectively.)

But then there’s the gym. Columbia’s gym absolutely transports me back to my experience in England, and not in a good way, either. This is not to say that people in NYC do not care about working out; on the contrary, they most certainly do. You will not see a more fit group of people than the runners in Central Park. If anyone ever tries to tell you that a body type is “unrealistic” or “impossible,” they should spend one afternoon walking amongst the Central Park joggers.

No, what I am referring to is Columbia University’s gym. Tuition to attend Columbia is a good $20,000, with student life fees amounting to around $1,000. For all of this money, I would expect a decently-equipped gym, and certainly one that does not make me feel depressed the moment I step inside the door. But here is the defining descriptor of Columbia University’s gymnasium: it is underground.

Now, I understand that I should not complain. After all, Time is housing me for free, and more than that, giving me free gym access for two months in New York City, the most expensive place to live (I am assuming) in the U.S. However, if you are going to build a gym underground, you had better give it amazing ventilation. Columbia’s gym has no air-flow. None. The air in that place is stagnant. And it is dark. And dingy. I am very interested to know when it was built. (I guess all of this researching for This Old House is starting to rub off a bit.)

In any case, Columbia’s gym reminds me a great deal of gyms in England. And it makes me miss that country.

New York’s Not Really So Big After All

Here’s why:

Yesterday, I decided to venture out of my “safety” containment area of Columbia University, the 1 line, and 50th street Midtown (where the Time Inc. buildings are located) and attend a second-hand Open Air Book Fair that a fellow intern at work had mentioned earlier in the week. I invited my cousin Kim along, and—after some confusion—she agreed to meet me at the site. The fair was located in SoHo which, conveniently enough, I had been to the night before with two of my suitemates. Therefore, I was fairly confident I knew how to get there, especially since the subway stop I needed for the fair was the exact same one we had used the previous night in order to go to the bar.

To make a long story short, I got lost. Very lost. First I got off at the wrong subway stop for my transfer, then the subway ran past my transfer stop (apparently because on weekends, all trains run express to Times Square, which I did not know), and then I wandered around Midtown for goodness knows how long looking for a subway entrance that would access the B line. When I finally got off at my final destination, it was over an hour after I had left, and who did I see getting off two cars in front of me? My cousin! Talk about bad fortune turning into good fortune.

Here is another story that shows what a small world the humungous city of New York can be. As I already mentioned, two of my suitemates and I went to a bar in SoHo on Friday night. Aileen (one of my suitemates, who is from Texas) knew a boy who knew a girl who knew a girl who knew a girl, so there were six of us in total when we initially entered the bar. As it turned out, the boy had just moved to NYC in order to start a job…with Random House! He was a book cover designer and would be starting work Monday. What’s even crazier is that one of the other girls was also going to be working for Random House—in the Alfred P. Knopf division!

So basically, I want to be her.

I asked a lot of questions and was really enthusiastic on her behalf. Maybe she will be able to help me get a job, maybe not. Either way, she will be a great source of information about a company that I am interested in working for. Therefore, I asked for her email address.

Who knew a bar night could turn into a networking night?

Internet Dependency

Everyone knows, subconsciously, that we, particularly Americans, are becoming more and more dependent upon technology. You hear people say “Oh, I couldn’t live without my cell phone,” and most people wouldn’t know what to do if they couldn’t hop in their car and drive five minutes to the grocery store to pick up a pack of batteries for their electric razor or a 75 watt light bulb for their kitchen light.

I have personally prided myself on not becoming a slave to technology, or at least as much of a slave as my peers. When the iTouch came out, I didn’t run out and buy it. In fact, I downgraded from an iPod to a simple 2G Sony mp3 player when my iPod kept breaking because I was so fed up with “technology.” I am certainly not a slave to my cell phone, considering I have owned one for such a short time, I haven’t even paid the bill on it yet, I just purchased my first digital alarm clock this year (and it has no features fancier than a snooze button), and my watch dates back to 1998. On top of all of this, I am actually excited to be using public transportation here in New York City, have never owned my own car, and actually prefer walking places than biking to them (that’s a bit extreme, but I just don’t like biking very much).

However.

Recently, I have discovered just how dependent I am on one particular facet of technology: the internet. I am 100% addicted to the internet. I simply use it for so much! I use it for every means of communication, from e-mail to Facebook; for banking transactions and statement monitoring; and for research research research! Every time I need to know something, my first reaction is “Google it!”

I say all of this in light of the fact that, currently, I have no internet in my dorm room at Columbia University. This is not to say that there is no internet access in the room; my computer just does not accept it. I seem to have the worst luck with internet and computers—this same thing happened at Rochester last semester. Part of me just wants to buy a new computer, but I feel that that would make me the ultimate slave to technology and the “American way.” We are such wasteful, lazy people. Really, if I were a decent conservationist and stuck to my morals, I would put in the time and find a way to fix the problem. The problem is that I don’t want to put in the time; I just want the issue resolved NOW. I want internet. Now!

Sometimes, I am so darned American.

This NEW House

Since I’ve arrived in NYC
Columbia University Housing
The suite itself is amazing. It is far nicer than anything I have ever stayed in at Rochester. My bedroom is twice the size of any room I ever had at Rochester, and it is air-conditioned. Also, the kitchen not only comes equipped with a full sized refrigerator, a microwave, and ample cabinet space, it even has a dishwasher!

All of this notwithstanding, there are/were a few problems. To begin with, after waiting literally an hour to receive my Columbia University ID (which allows me access to my own dorm building), I went to enter the building and was told that my ID was not activated. It had just been printed minutes before, in front of my face, and no one had told me a thing about needing to have the card activated. This was certainly an annoyance, but what is even more frustrating is that we have received absolutely zero information about these living accommodations. I still have no mailing address, no idea how to work my room phone (thank goodness for foresight and my purchase of a cell phone), my internet is broken (although this could be due to my own computer, who knows), I don’t know if I have gym or library access, and I don’t know where any of the campus services are located (assuming any exist) or how to contact them. On top of all of this, I have no city map. (Brilliant planning, I know.)

To try and rectify a few of these situations, I took time after work today to go running. I ran around the campus to try and orient myself as well as possible. This was rather difficult, since Columbia University is comprised of mostly bridges and stairways and windy brick pathways between buildings all smashed together in the smallest space possible. However, I did manage to find the gym and to receive a sheet designating the hours of operation. Whether the swimming pool is actually in this same building and whether my Columbia University ID will give me access to these amenities, I have yet to discover. One step at a time, I suppose. Then, I ran around the local area, trying to find Central Park. Once again, Google Maps proved fruitless in terms of directions. It turns out that all I really had to do was run a little bit south and a little bit east (I think—I had to run downtown so that the numbers got smaller, and I had to turn left off of Broadway), and I ran right into it. Coming back, though, I got a little lost, since it turns out that Morningside Drive splits into two separate streets straddling the not-so-safe Morningside Park. I of course ended up on the wrong Morningside Drive and had to backtrack a good ten blocks to get back to campus. But on the brighter side, I found a few places to go grocery shopping tomorrow.

As for my first day of work, well, I will start by saying that Time was less impressive than I expected it to be. The orientation session was considerably less efficient than it could have been, and it began with a video that was riddled with technical problems. For a publishing and media company, I was a bit taken aback by this. I would write more about this particular day, but since I am stuck posting this at work, I will have to cut this post short, finish writing it in my dorm, where my internet does not work, and bring the rest tomorrow.