Working Girl

Here's my bedroom! My bed is the one with the cow reclining on the brown cover. Artie and I were able to find the same cuddly blankets that Matthew and Emily have! They're wonderful :)


Here's a bit of Times Square on the way to my building. I decided not to stop to take one and just took this quick out-of-purse one, because tourists who block the sidewalk and take pictures are really annoying to Times Square business people. You can't imagine how many tourists block entire pathways just to get a "good view" of the M&M jumbo screen...


Oh look! It's my desk!


Lots of papers and sticky notes- must be a busy day! By the way, most of the rooms in our office have nicknames given by Roman (one of the employees). I've been trying to convince him that the front desk should be called The Bridge, since so much information goes through me. I'm campaigning by making sure my desktop and screen saver are Star Trek related.



The lobby area- all of the offices branch off of here. I really like the shades of purple and all the comfy couches.


Lunchtime! That means a trip to my favorite street-meat cart on 45th. Only $4 for salad, rice, meat, and steamed veggies. Yum!


It's Ayan! My favorite (and only) fellow intern. He's sad because he has no work to do . Oh well, he can pretend he's Jim, flirting with Pam on his breaks :)


And last but not least, my plant which keeps me company through the hours spent at Teatown. I think he deserves a name...any ideas?

If only I were Catholic...

...I probably would have worked myself out of a few years of purgatory yesterday ;) Just kidding. Yesterday I served bagels and cream cheese to the Pope's maestro. He's the first person to be knighted by a pope since Mozart- pretty cool! I think he thinks so too.
I told Artie about this, and he claims that in one swoop I worked my way up to a golden scooter with a Jesus bumper sticker in heaven. Heck yes.

Let's see, it's been a busy week. Work has started picking up a bit, but I'm feeling a little bit better about my competence. There's still a lot to remember and get used to, but it's slowly clicking.

Our class pitched our ideas to Animal Planet yesterday, and it went quite well! The Creative Direct was so gracious. She listened to all of our ideas, gave us all feedback, said our pitches were just as good as professional ones, and that she'd be in contact if they wanted to use any. Then she pulled out awesome super-soft t-shirts for everybody :)

I bought my plane tickets for Texas this week and am getting quite excited about going home for a weekend! Megan's wedding is going to be a blast, and I'm looking forward to seeing some theatre friends and old work friends.

I'm taking my camera to work today, so hopefully I'll get a few pictures of my work and Times Square for ya'll!

"The world is round. Get over it!" -- Violet Weston (August: O'Sage County)

I saw August: O'Sage County last night with Meredith. It won the Tony award last year for Best New Play, and it completely deserved it! It's probably the best thing I've ever seen. It's an extremely dark comedy about a family that literally has you laughing and crying at the same time. So good.

Shows I need to see:
The Seagull
Hedda Gabbler
Equus(?)
A Man for All Seasons

It's awesome- Broadway is reviving all these old plays I studied the past couple years in school!

Huzzah!

The opthamologist turned out to be excellent! He thinks my persistant redness is an allergic reaction to the medicated drops I was taking for conjunctivitis as well as possible seasonal allergies. He gave me new drops to soothe my eyes, and I should be fine in 2 weeks at most. Yay! I'm relieved :)

Dr. Terror

Tomorrow is the big appointment with the opthamologist...

on the bright side, I'll finally find out why my eyes have been red for almost a month...on the dark side, what if I have a serious eye condition??...on the bright side I will probably be offered a solution to said condition...on the dark side, what if it involves surgery??

I honestly shouldn't be worried. My vision is fine, my eyes clear up for a few hours when I put drops in, and they're not even gross and gunky...still...

Just a small taste of what is running in my overly-dramatic mind right now. Sigh. It stinks going to a new doctor in a new city in a new state by yourself for the first time. I just have to remind myself that I'm an adult now. I can do this.

So please say a prayer for my hypocondriactic self (however it's spelled)!

Whoops! Apparently my blog wasn't allowing non-bloggers to post. Hopefully, I just fixed that problem :)

Anyway, the past few days have been fantastic!

Yesterday, I went to church at Redeemer and thoroughly enjoyed the pastor's talk on the Benediction. The people seemed quite friendly and there were many my age.
I spent most of the day reading and running errands. There's a kick-butt used bookstore across the street from a Starbucks not three blocks from me! I picked up a Paula Vogel play and some Chekov for only $4! For both!

Later in the evening, Artie and I were both bored but couldn't think of anything to do before bed. So, we ended up knocking on Chris's door and running away. After our second attempt at annoying him, he came out after us. We ended up talking in the hall for a bit with some other Baylor peeps when somehow yodeling came up. Chris entranced us all with a short display of said talent, complete with jumping and leg slapping. See, Chris is Austrian and it seems he has many odd and random talents including cow tipping, he informs us. We've been joking that Chris is a bad "father" to us because he's not at the dorm with us very often. To make up for this, Chris plunged into his room saying that "daddy was going to reward his kids" and came out moments later singing and dancing and playing an accordion! He serenaded us for 20 minutes or so while heads kept popping out of doors all the way down the hallway to see what the commotion was about. That was definitely the funniest moment yet on the trip!

Today was a normal, busy day at work. I learned about certified mail and return receipts and spent a good deal of time calling Verizon to come fix our phone lines. After work though, Meredith gave me a call because she was temping just down the street! We met up and went back to Brooklyn where I showed her my apartment, went to an awesome burger place, and then went and chatted at the promenade. I love that girl- it's helped so much having her and Artie around. Just plain good friends I feel completely comfortable around :)

Alrighty, time for homework and bed.

Weekend Adventure

Today was exactly what I needed!

I woke up around 10 this morning to sunlight pouring over my bed. I actually got up before my alarm, which is always nice because it's just so much more peaceful.

Anyway, we had a class-required field trip at PS1 (an extension of the Museum of Modern Art in Queens)from 12-3. It turned out to be pretty fun! The exhibits are a bit beyond post-modern art, and may be the next artistic phase that they haven't come up with a name for yet. It's very experiential.

My favorites were called "Beauty" and "Take Your Time". When you enter "Beauty" it looks like you're entering a pitch-black room. However, after turning a corner, you're struck with a gorgeous rainbow across the center of the room. Misters are set up in the ceiling with a light flowing through it. It makes a rolling, flame-like rainbow. You can walk in it, blow on it, etc. Very cool. "Take Your Time" is a large empty room with a wooden floor and a glass ceiling. You can lie down and look up to see yourself, but then realize that the mirror is actually rotating. Once you get used to it, you start noticing that the edges are slightly warped and it looks like there are ripples in the world. It's probably the closest you'll get to an out-of-body experience, but is surprisingly peaceful!

After PS1, a bunch of us walked down to the East River with Joe to see the junk ships. These are a handful of boats a few artists built from recycled materials and have been sailing around Manhattan. They're pretty hilarious looking, though some are actually livable! One in particular seemed like a floating tree house.

I was exhausted by the time we got back from the museum and lunch, so I took a nice long 2 hour nap. When I woke up, Caroline and I went to my favorite cupcake place which I was introduced to back in June. I ended up buying half a dozen and bringing them back to the St. George in order to create new addicts in the group ;) My favorite is called Ooey-Gooey and is dark chocolate with almond frosting. Yummy!

Now I am off to bed! I borrowed a few plays from my RA Chris so I'm going to indulge myself with one for a bit. Goodnight!

Oh, and Lauren- I'll buy some batteries for my camera tomorrow and try and post a few pictures.

7th Anniversary

I got on the 2-3 this morning wondering what to expect from today. There were a lot less people on the subway- pretty much everyone had a seat, which never happens 7-9 on a week day. When I got off at Times Square though, things were just as boisterous as usual. Tourists walking into the middle of the street to take pictures of the huge M&M characters while angry taxi drivers cussed a blue streak at them.

Work was typical- I mailed a lot of things, ran some errands, and started looking over a company proposal.

After work though, I struck out on my own and decided to take the R close to the WTC. When I got out, the sun was beginning to set and I could already hear bagpipes. Almost everyone in the street was heading the same direction. Soon we reached the surrounding buildings where flags were draped everywhere and it was extremely quiet. I reached a side street and looked down to see perhaps a hundred men in pure Highland garb warming up their bagpipes. Dozens of firemen in uniform were milling around while others took pictures and some just stood and watched. I shouldered my way through and found the street strung with huge banners with all the names of the people who died, places to write messages, flowers, and flags with badges pinned to them. The pipers began and people cheered while they marched down the narrow path. The street went up to one of the gates leading into ground zero before veering down another side street. They paraded up and down and then stood still to play"America" and "Amazing Grace."

After the moment of silence, I walked on and around most of the area. People were lined up everywhere to look at the site, and almost all were utterly silent. Again, flowers and pictures were threaded through the gates. By this time, the sun had set and the beacon lights had been lit. They're actually a block or two down the street from the WTC, but I walked down as close as I could. It's extremely impressive- perhaps 30 lights are arranged in each of two circles on the top of a large parking garage. The beams shoot incredibly far up and are a gorgeous pure blue. I meandered around for a while and then came back home.

Joe said we should try and take part today, because it's like nothing else--he was right.

The dread pirate ship "Fedex"

This morning I had the strange experience of walking to work through Times Square (my office is just off of 46th and 6 Ave) and seeing Good Morning America live on one of the ginormous tvs, before looking over to my right and seeing Good Morning America filming a few feet away. Only in New York?

Today I took my few first stumbling steps into the shipping world. Believe it or not, I've never had to mail anything besides a letter before. I normally order things on line and automatically ship it to where I want to go. Today however, I learned the difference between a letter, large envelope, parcel, and large parcel according to USPS. I also learned how to print out FedEx labels online and how to call for a bike messenger in NYC. It's been a big day. :)

Feeling adventurous at lunch after my battle with the USPS website, I tried my first meal of street meat. I've eaten the odd hot dog and pretzel, but have never had the courage to buy a full-on mess of who-knows-what. The Times Square area is full of these tiny tin carts, billowing out meaty smoke, with bright signs bosting the best gyro this side of Broadway. Despite my qualms, the meal I was served was absolutley delicious! Yellow rice, jalapeños, chicken meat, gyro meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and white sauce mixed together made the best and cheapest ($4!) meal I've had thus far. Yum.

The Creative Director of Animal Planet spoke to us during class today, and it was incredible! Alexis spoke at length about how she got where she is today- a Christian and a highly successful artist. It was encouraging to hear how God drew out gifts she had no idea she posessed and took her to the most random places and jobs. She said that everytime she thought she was making a huge mistake, she found that it turned out to be the best choice. For instance- right out of graduate school, she decided to move to Russia for a few months. She ended up staying there for 8 years and working in film (which she had no background in). I mentally realize that God is directing me and has a plan. However, it's comforting to hear from someone who has experience that it can seem like the plan is crazy and failing, but God still has it in control. Thank goodness, because I certainly don't! :) Anyway, our class is working on a project with Alexis and Animal Planet that has to do with some of their new shows. Exciting!

Italians, Internships, and Infections of the eye

Welcome to my blog everyone! I decided since all my siblings are now in different states or different countries, I should keep up a blog in order to share my happenings. So, I'll do a quick update on the past 3 weeks and then hopefully will update regularly :)

I finally got to New York on August 25, after a slightly stressful day. I was supposed to leave earlier that morning, but had been struggling with an eye infection and woke up to discover it had traveled to the other eye. However, another bottle of medicine was ordered, I was able to move my flight back a few hours, and safely arrived late that evening.

I stayed the week with Meredith, one of my great friends from theatre. The second night, we saw [title of show], an extremely witty musical about two guys writing a musical. The two writers do in fact play the two main characters. It's terrific!

My internship at Teatown started on the 27th, and has been going pretty well so far. I'm basically the receptionist and do most of the duties done by Pam in The Office. However, my company is also working on a few screenplays, so I've gotten to read and help edit/give creative input. There's one more intern named Ayan and he and I get along great. He also watches The Office, Arrested Development, and Project Runway! :)

The next weekend, I moved back to Brooklyn Heights (where I lived in June) and helped Chris (my RA from the summer) get things ready for the other students. All 17 arrived the next day including my awesome roommate Lauren and Artie (a very good friend from Baylor).

Monday was Labor Day, so Artie and I went exploring. First, we went to the West African America Day Parade. There were people everywhere, with guys selling Jamaican flags and whistles, a few homemade floats, cooks selling chicken and rice, loud music, etc. We ate lunch there and then went on to find Artie's office in Manhattan. It turned out to be extremely close to the Empire State Building, so we went ahead and bought tickets to the top. It was amazing! I didn't do it the last time I was here because the tickets are kinda expensive, but it was well worth it. The day was extremely clear, so we could see quite far.

The next week was the first week of class in addition to my internship. We meet Tuesday and Wednesday nights from 7-10, so those days are a bit of a marathon. The classes are quite interesting though: Communication and Culture, and Art and Mass Media. Joe (my professor) has also included a lot of field trips and guest speakers to keep things lively.

This weekend, the entire Baylor group decided to go to a karaoke bar in Little Italy. That place had no idea what was coming...it was completely empty when we got there, and by the time we left, having spent an hour singing country songs in dedication to our beloved state, it was packed full. Artie and I had a pretty sweet rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. The bartender seemed eager to have us back again :)

I met up with Meredith the next day and went to the Museum of Natural History. We only went through about half of the exhibits before we glazed over a bit from all the information and displays, but it was fantastic. The dinosaur exhibit, in particular, was quite enjoyable. Afterward, we shopped around Union Square and then had dinner at a cute diner Mer really likes.

Yesterday I was back at work, and today I'm stuck at home with a recurrence of the lame eye infection. I'm a bit worried since I'm away from home with this, so prayers would be much appreciated!

More to come!