Soup dumplings and studying; the blessing that is food in NYC; also, Pokemon emulators

After my long and arduous week of tests and papers that was Midterms Week, not to mention my unfortunately long Friday schedule (10 AM to 6:15 PM), I was exhausted. I particularly hate in-class exams/essays because I feel put on the spot and I blank and I end up churning out some atrociously written piece of work that I get back 2 weeks later and gawk at how terribly the sentences are formed and how I could have expressed that concept so much more clearly. I'm lucky these professors gave me practice review sheets for the exams. I actually just got back my Logic test and I got a 100! Even though it's only Intro to Symbolic Logic, I work really hard in that class and it's paying off. I'm the type of person that has never been particularly gifted in math, except for the "I'm good at memorizing how to do things" gift. I have not once read the textbook for this class, because it actually confuses me more than just seeing examples. Hypothetical math is not my deal, so I need to compact it and make it easy for my brain to digest.

Talking about ways of learning things, here's a Side Tangent: one time my friend and I studied for our Greek Mythology final by reenacting all of the myths as though they were a soap opera. Dramatic, but just funny enough to be memorable.

Anyway, I'm getting back to the point of this post: food. So my long and difficult week, blah. I had finally submitted my paper for my 60's class on Friday evening, comparing JFK and Obama, when I was invited out for soup dumplings in Chinatown with a group of friends. My introduction to these glorious creations came last semester when my friend Danielle and I gorged ourselves on so much Chinese food (a whole plate of bok choy, veggie dumplings, soup dumplings, some delicious rice thing...) I didn't eat the soup dumplings then because I'm not a huge fan of pork and there's really no vegetarian substitute. Little did I know what I was missing out on.

Our group went out to Joe's Shanghai. This restaurant is super famous. Tons of celebrities have been here, and their pictures with the owner line the walls. Having a group of seven people, we needed to wait a bit to get in. So worth it though. The minute we sat down, the waiter came over and asked us how many orders of soup dumplings we got. Obviously, they took it for granted that we came here for the dumplings, since it is their specialty. We got three orders (8 to an order) for the table of the pork and crab meat soup dumplings. Now if you're wondering, soup dumplings are an interesting food. They're not dumplings in soup. I once explained this to my dad and he told me I was making things up. They are actually dumplings with soup inside of them. There's a really specific way to eat them, too, so you don't burn your tongue and regret ordering them for the rest of your life because you can't taste anything for 3 days. I have provided this graphic (which they had at every table in Joe's) for your future soup dumpling enjoyment:


(Credit to Google Images)

So I did the nibble and slurp method to ensure the safety of my tongue and it was glorious. (I still burnt my tongue a bit because the soup was super hot, but it was, again, worth it.) I followed up with some classic chicken lo mein, which was appropriately greasy and good. It was a good meal to reward myself with for the trials of midterms I had endured. Here's some pictures for you to drool over.

 Pork and crab meet soup dumpling

 Chicken lo mein

Anyway, the rest of the weekend went by quickly. Sunday came along and I spent most of it out of the dorms at the LES Pickle Festival (yes, there is literally a festival for everything in this city). Who can say no to free pickles? Not me. For dinner, my boyfriend and I decided to revisit Pommes Frites, this shop that only makes french fries and specialty sauces. We had gone there over the summer, but had only gotten the free sauces. We got a Large, but they upgraded us to a Double for no apparent reason (not complaining, more fries). These fries are delicious. They're fresh-cut Belgian fries, served with any of their over 30 specialty sauces. (If you don't know what to pick, there's a website that tasted and reviewed all the sauces here.) We got ketchup (that's free) and then tried sweet chili sauce ($1.50 for a container). We sat at a table in the back that was open, rare for this hole-in-the-wall with like four seats. The tables have little holes to put your fries cone in. Cute. Expensive, but so delicious and so bad for you. Just the treat I needed after a long week.

Fries with ketchup and sweet chili sauce.

Besides my main topic of food, I wanted to explore the other great things in life. That is, online Pokemon emulators. I'm not a huge fan of video games. However, I, like many other college students, grew up in the world of Pokemon and maybe still hum the different theme songs of the towns to ourselves. A friend of mine found an emulator online to play all the games up to Crystal. I have not stopped playing Pokemon for a week. Consequently, I fall asleep to the songs and then dream about Pokemon. It's kind of an addiction. I've played Silver and Gold to death, so I'm trying out the remake Crystal. Only now when I tried out Pokemon Yellow did I see how old the technology and image are. But it's a remnant of my childhood that I'm not ready to let go of. Plus, I get really into the game and it's a good way to relieve some stress.

Erica

Wins and Losses

Hi, everyone.

Here I am at the end of another week filled with ups and downs.

My week started off pretty awesome because I won the "Macaulay Monday FactFinder" raffle last week, and I had to pick up my prize this week. Macaulay started this raffle a couple of weeks ago in order to encourage students to read "Macaulay Monday", which is a weekly newsletter sent out to Macaulay students about various events and opportunities. At the bottom of the last three Macaulay Mondays, there was a question about something featured in the email for that week. If you answer the featured question correctly, you'll be entered to win the prize for that week. More info can be found here: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/community/now/2013/10/play-macaulay-monday-october-factfinder/

Last Friday, I got an email saying that I won so on Monday, I went to the Macaulay building to pick up my Macaulay shirt and $10 Starbucks gift card. I ended up walking across Central Park instead of taking the bus. It was actually really beautiful in the park. 

After I picked up my prize, I decided to hang around in the area for awhile. There are all these cool cultural institutions in the area. There's an awesome water display/fountain right in front of the Metropolitan Opera House. I sat right by the fountain and ate my lunch while reading a newspaper. The roar of the water display behind me blocked out all of the other sounds so it was relaxing to just sit there for awhile. Then I made my way over to some benches in front of Lincoln Center, and I read for Religion class. I love the feeling of studying/doing hw outside. I feel like I can breathe, you know? And it feels a lot less lonely. So I had a really nice Monday.

The next three days were tough because I had to study for a bio quiz and a physics test. Yuck. I took the bio quiz last night. It was a ridiculously hard quiz, and everybody left the lecture just dejected. I was upset about it  too, but I knew I had to gather myself because I had to take a physics test at 8 AM the next day. I was still feeling pretty depressed about that quiz and about some other things this morning. But then I saw an email from my professor that said that he would not be counting the quiz! Instead he would assign it as extra credit HW, and we'll just get two quizzes next week instead of one. I was sitting in the Student Resource Center when I read the email, and I seriously had to hold back tears so that the people around me wouldn't think that I was a crazy girl who cried while reading her emails. haha. It just made me feel so much better about things. 

Later in the day, I spent four hours in bio lab working with E. coli. We actually have interesting labs. I'm just always exhausted afterwards because they're so long. There's also a great group of people in the class so it makes things easygoing and just a lot more fun.

So after starting off on a good note and having a bit of a hard time in the middle, I ended the week nicely! And the best part is that Grimm is back tonight!

S.

Quote of the Week

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

~ George Eliot

Lady Things and Guacamole

Yesterday my friend and I made the lovely trek (no sarcasm, it’s actually a nice walk) from Hunter to the Macaulay building for one of the several author events that they hold. Last night they hosted the founder of Jezebel (the website) and other writers and producers for the website, which my friend and I happen to be HUGE fans of, so we decided to go and listen in. What can be bad about lady things and other aspects of life that apply to you in a humorous fashion. My friend and I have been going to a lot of talks recently to hear how successful people get their starts and where they come from and etc etc. And also for the occasional dessert.

After the event we sprinted from the building to Starbucks because it was freezing last night and neither of us were prepared. We were starving, and having almost no knowledge of the area’s eating establishments, we decided to go back to a Mexican restaurant right across from Lincoln Center that we had gone to for restaurant week last winter. The place is decently pricey, but here’s the catch, we only spent $13 each. Tax and tip included! And it was a good tip.

We split their signature guacamole, but it’s not just any guacamole. They prepare it fresh right in front of your table. The avocados, tomatoes, jalapeños, cilantro, onions, it is literally bliss in a stone bowl. You get a side of red sauce and green sauce, both spicy of course, which was fantastic for my sinuses. The guac comes with homemade tortilla chips, as well as warm tortillas, so you can create whatever odd concoction your heart desires. Yes, I made a taco loaded with hot sauce, guac and chips, and it was fantastic.  With all this, we also ordered a side of sweet plantains and ice-cold tap water, which we sipped slowly to help fill us up. Our stomachs hung over our pants as we walked out the door, but our wallets still had money left in them. Can’t get better than that.

The Rain, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, an old post I forgot to publish

Hello all,

It is 3:12 AM on October 14th, 2013 and I have just eaten a very cute pouch (ok..packet is the better word, but pouch of food seems very...My Father's Dragon-y) of gluten free cookies. This week, or past few, my life activities have not been enough to really warrant a blog post. Or maybe they were but I just didn't feel the blog writing spirit you know?
But anyway, about them past few weeks:  I made 10 pages worth of sharpie marker-colored notes on different medicines and memorized the shiz (the shizAM!) out of them. I sang Jesus Take The Wheel when I needed to let go of ...my studying (which I imagine would translate to my version of Carrie's wheel). I became better friends with people in my program, and stole paper from the library and then got caught. I usually am excellent with handling embarrassing situations as I put myself in them often, but this one was quite bad. The life of crime is not for me. I got caught in the rain with my laptop, bags upon bags of groceries, newly acquired clothing and of course no hat or umbrella. See short story down below for details. I watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine (awesome show!) and now am the proud owner of an expo-board on my door which is totally filled with writing from my real live friends. I thought my professor hated me, and plotted revenge only to confront her and find out that she did not hate me at all and I was being extremely sensitive. I sang "As Time Goes By" with my elderly patient and he said I was a riot! Which is my favorite compliment ever!

Other than that, my days have been exceedingly average. I bought a couple of YA fiction books on amazon, and some old ladies at the book sale rang me up for 10 books for 10 bucks! It was great. Also, it is beautiful outside. No, it's actually so gorgeous out. I am really not able with the colors and blue blue sky blinding me every time I'm outside.

College related things: do the macaulay factfinder for free stuff! Don't hand in your post-study abroad evaluations late! Be on time to nursing school!

Have a great week!


Watery Trek of Doom, by Amirah Yasin

Was umbrella-less in the downpour today, and of course decided that was the best time to trek uptown with my bags upon bags of groceries, laptop and clothing. It was not enough that I also took the wrong train uptown. (Interestingly enough, to get downtown, you must not take the uptown train. Who would have thought? Also, once you've secured your train, you must realize that to get to prince street, you should not wait for there to be a "Prince Street" stop on the 6 train and forget that you're supposed to get off at Spring Street). I also failed in the cab experience, ended up walking to my destination and then got it in my head that walking back from spring street to 23rd was a brilliant idea right as it began to pour. On the way, as the streets emptied and I passed cleverer new yorkers that were hopping into taxis left and right, or taking shelter under store banners/in cafes, a saleslady from a nifty DVD store (I was lured in with promises of DVDs galore for only $5.99!) chortling-ly offered me a napkin, so wet was I. However, the wet have dignity under their soaked exterior, and I unwisely refused her napkin only to continue viewing the world through unseemly rain spattered spectacles of doom. After what seemed like an endless amount of time, I passed West 3rd street and shrieked joyfully at the sight of numbered streets, finally! The gaggle of NYU students snickering behind me did not faze me, for they were quite warm under their umbrellas and did not have to worry about journeying back to the Land of Numbered Streets as I did. After more weary trudging on my part and a few pep talks to myself to keep going (at this point, I reasoned that if people were staring it was because of how well I pull off the "trekking through rain sopping wet with 5 bags and muttering/alternately singing "Counting Stars" to self), I decided that if I were to die, it would be here, sad and alone, on the streets of soho, caught in the downpour. I would be undiscovered for days, hidden under layers of clothing too unfashionable to be noticed by anyone nearby. Evil pigeons would eventually find me under cups of trader joe mango yogurt, and the police would later conclude that my last meal was a pitiful piece of banana.

A Quick Foodie's Guide to Chinatown! Part 1

So, one of the things that I have probably talked about in excess is my numerous trips to Chinatown! I love Chinatown! It's part of childhood, it lets me dip my feet into parts of a culture that I love, and it's just a really cheap place to get a GOOD bite to eat. So, here are a few of my favourite places to go to in Chinatown, just in case you were wondering where to go or where to take visitors!

Picture found on Yelp.com

First up is this tiny little hole in the wall dumpling shop called Fried Dumpling! It is located on Mosco Street (right off of Mott Street, by the children's playground/basketball park = Columbus Park); the street itself is basically just a hill and you really can't miss it if you walk down or up the hill. The photo doesn't show it, but in the entrance are these strips of plastic that are usually held back and you just walk straight in - the plastic kind of reminds of me of those long strips that clean your car in the automatic car washers'. Back to the restaurant! It's barely even that, there are like four bar stools, but it's much better to get your order to go and sit in the park, or wander around Chinatown to your next location. Fried Dumpling sells the bare minimum: pork dumplings, pork buns, hot and sour soup, and maybe a drink or two (but I'm not sure on that one cause I really just go there for the dumplings!) They're $1 for 5 dumplings, or $1 for 4 pork buns. You cannot beat that! I've been looking through yelp, and some people have been complaining about the quality, but I've never had a bad dumpling - they are simply delicious!

You can also buy them frozen, $5 for 30 dumplings. I did that last time I went, and I am really happy! They're not pre-cooked, so you do have to make sure you cook them all the way through (because pork and getting sick), but for me that's not issue. They're so cheap, so delicious, and so quick to cook anyway that it's a much better deal (for me) than buying them pre-cooked and packaged. As you can see from the picture above, I've already eaten the majority of mine..

Picture found on Yelp.com

Next up is a little Shanghainese place that my friend and I actually stumbled upon last year on a quest for soup dumplings. Since then, my friends and I have frequented place a lot. This is usually where I come for lunch before grocery shopping. There menu is quite a bit more extensive than Fried Dumpling, as is expected, but pretty much everything that we've tried has been great (and again, cheap). What my friends and I usually order is: 1 order of pork soup dumplings, 1 order of (pork) rice balls in soup, 1 order of baby bok choy with garlic, and 1 order of sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaf. The soup dumplings, for those of you who have never had the fortunate to taste them, are amazing - you do have to be careful because they will burn you if you don't eat them properly, which means either waiting quite a bit or biting/tearing a small hole, tipping the soup out into your spoon and eating the soup and skin/pork filling separately. The rice balls are a bit harder to explain, they're a strange gelatin-like consistency with a ball of pork filling in the middle, and the whole rice ball (there are 4 in total) is floating in a plain broth. We like to rip up the rice ball, eat it, and then have a go at the pork filling. The bok choy is a green vegetable, I suppose it's a bit like Chinese broccoli (I think some restaurants may call it that, though choy sum is also sometimes called Chinese broccoli). It's really healthy for you and easy to cook if you ever decide to buy some of your own. The sticky rice is officially called zongzi, and is a traditional dragon boat festival food, but is now eaten a little more often than that. Basically, the rice (with a pork filling, usually) is steamed wrapped up in a bamboo leaf, and then you open the leaf and eat the inside. We have ventured outside of these four things, trying different noodle dishes, but these are 4 we almost always order. And when I go by myself, I'll usually just order soup dumplings and that will fill me up quite nicely.

This is getting a bit longer than I thought it was going to be, so I will stop this here and have another few places to try out later! If you're feeling really cheeky, you could always grab some $1 dumplings and then head over to the Shanghai Cafe for an actual meal, but only do that if you're quite hungry as the Fried Dumpling dumplings are actually quite filling!

Peace and quiet in a crazy student world

So at some point in your time living in New York, you're going to have to go to Central Park. It might be a nice stroll across town to the Macaulay building, a picnic with friends, or just a small break between classes at Hunter. It is only a couple blocks away, after all. I've been here many times with friends, to sit and relax near the duck pond or to have a picnic on sheep's meadow. However, living downtown, I have only taken advantage of about half the park (up to about 70th street). The BioBlitz pushed me further up to 97th street, but I had never broken the barrier of the 100's. This Saturday changed that.

I was sitting innocently in Seminar 3 on Friday, when my professor announced my group was going to Central Park the next morning. At 10 AM. And entering from the west side of the park. At 100th street. Now, besides the horrific thoughts I had about waking up at 8 AM and using the subway system on the weekend (always horrible, nothing works) and trying somehow to get from the lower east side to the upper west side (which is also a nightmare), I got slightly excited. I had forgotten about this trip. In my seminar, the class is divided into four groups, each writing a separate paper. My group's paper focus is Central Park and the groups that help to maintain and conserve it. I got the best part of the paper (for me, since I'm an English major and horrible at interviewing or talking to or interacting with humans), the history of Central Park! Besides my obvious dread of interviews with people, I was super excited to learn more about the greatest park in the country, its history, and the values that went into making it.

After many failed attempts to take the subway on the weekend (as expected), I arrived 10 AM Saturday with Starbucks, sneakers, and a comfy coat at the west entrance of the park. I had never been up this far in Manhattan. There were actual parking lots. For cars. I joked with my boyfriend about how amazing that might seem to downtown New Yorkers. We met my group, my teacher and his friend, who works with the Central Park Conservancy. He undertook the gargantuan task of recording every species of tree in the park on an actual map. It's sold in the park, but it's also an app, apparently. Can't imagine the work and dedication that must have taken. 

He led us through the park, pointing out migratory birds, different plants and tree species, and orating a brief history of the park, much of which I already knew. It was kind of cloudy, but it warmed up a little as we walked through the Lock, the Pool, and the North Woods. I recommend going up to the North Woods if you're ever stressed out about something. The landscape designer of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmstead, modeled the North Woods after the Adirondack forests. It follows directly in his vision of the park as a place for anyone and everyone to escape the craziness of the city and relax the mind. In his day this "hustle and bustle" was just the clopping of horses and carriages. You can imagine how much more important this area is today. It's one of the few places in the city where you can't see any buildings whatsoever. In fact, you basically forget you're in the city at all. I forgot about all my stress for a couple of hours as I studied trees and ducks. (I'm actually a huge environmental science nerd, ever since I took IB Environmental Systems and Societies in high school. I was also part of the Earthkeepers program when I was in grade school.) Anyway, it's so beautiful up there.

 The Pool at 100th Street and Central Park West

Waterfall in the North Woods

After our walking tour, my boyfriend and I walked around a bit looking for a place to eat lunch. We ended up at this cute little Thai restaurant called Tum & Yum on 105th street and Columbus Avenue. They had a lunch special and we were starving, so we made a date of it. Apparently this restaurant had only been in business for 3 months; for newbies, they really had it all together. I had a Thai Spring Roll and Pad Cashew Nut. My boyfriend had Veggie Dumplings and Pad Se-Ew. 

Pad Cashew Nut

Unfortunately, this restaurant is too far from the dorms (unless you live at 97th or 92nd street) to order delivery (I checked) but if you're ever up in Manhattan Valley, I highly recommend this place. Fast service and delicious food at a reasonable price!

Anyway, we continued our adventure in Chelsea, since we hadn't been in forever. Chelsea is directly across town from the dorms, between 23rd and 26th street and 10th-11th avenues. We walked around a bit, going into galleries and picking up cards to decorate my wall with. But the most exciting part was when we ran into the pop-up weekend Banksy exhibit! There was a huge crowd of people and police tape, as well as four guards instructing the crowd how long they could look at the painting. Typical Banksy.

The art was hanging from the High Line. There were graffitied cones with velvet ropes. Art. It felt ridiculous to me, but still cool enough to wait behind the police tape for my turn to gawk. After our tour of Chelsea, we went home to make dinner and watch Breaking Bad. I'm currently halfway through the fifth season, and I'm not sure I can hold on. I can't take it, it's just so good and so bad and so frustrating and sad and. Feelings. TV. OK.

So now, I'm going to spend my Sunday writing a paper for my 60's class comparing Obama and JFK. Such joy. Maybe I can sneak out to MoMA later.

Erica

Decisions and Questions

I wake up shivering. Or sweating. Perhaps I’m sick, but it seems to me we’ve been having somewhat erratic weather. I like fall, it has all those cliché perks so many people love, like pumpkin flavored everything. But there’s something difficult about always questioning my choice to wear or not wear a jacket. Maybe this difficulty choosing what to wear is a reflection of my difficulty deciding where exactly to go forward with my studies, where to study abroad, and all my other indecisions. Or maybe I’m just bad at dressing.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about a lot of random questions lately. For instance, I was waiting for an elevator at Hunter the other day, along with a number of people. As we were waiting, another person joined us and pressed the already pressed button to call the elevator. While I see this behavior quite often, I began to question what makes a person feel the need to press that button even though its been pressed already? Is there a thought-process in that person’s head that deems other people’s button presses invalid, inferior, or something like that? Does that person believe their press will be more effective? Or that the person needs to personally press the button because they are personally riding the elevator? I don’t know why this interested me so much, I’m probably crazy or sleep-deprived, but I’m curious what other people think. So I encourage you to comment if you’re interested!

Words are Friends!

As I’ve written earlier, I’m taking a course on the Greek and Latin roots of English, which involves learning a lot of etymology, something I love.

I recently examined the word myriad and found it noteworthy. As you may know, myriad is commonly known to mean a great number of things. However, I’ve always found it weird that myriad can be either a noun or an adjective. I just learned that it comes from the Greek word myrias, meaning ten thousand. Through this, I realized that technically, the English noun myriad still means ten thousand while the English adjective myriad has the more modern definition meaning a number of things. So while we use the adjective and noun interchangeably, we should really be using it as an adjective if don’t want it to mean ten thousand. Exciting, right?

Bonus word! The word of the day on October 11th was snollygoster. It refers to a “clever, unscrupulous person.” I challenge you to use it in a sentence one day.

Just do it.

Hey, everyone!

Even though we had a 4-day week, I'm still feeling exhausted. Sigh. Probably because I had a bio lab report due this week and a physics quiz and I'm worried about stats and bio and physics and because Buddhism says the truth of life is suffering (we went over Buddhism in Rel 251 this week) and omg, this sentence is way too long. But you know what? All of that is ok. You know why? Because I went to Madison Avenue yesterday and admired all of the beautiful clothes and then I bought some awesome tights at H&M and also because my friends are awesome and make me laugh and because The Big Bang Theory makes it cool to be a nerd and because it feels good to really understand stuff in bio and physics and because we're in NY and people are stressed out but still manage to look awesome and say awesome things and do awesome things.

Ok. There were way too many conjunctions in that paragraphs and too many thoughts. But I think it made some sense. Stream of consciousness feels liberating.

But I'll go back to "normal" writing so that people can understand me. haha.

I don't know how many people know about Humans of New York (HONY), but if you don't, you need to get on Google right now, and search for it. Seriously, stop reading this blog post, and go look for it. (But please come back to reading this later :p) I'll make it easier for you.

Here is the website: http://www.humansofnewyork.com.
It's also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

In 2010, former Chicago bond trader and now full-time photographer, Brandon Stanton created HONY. He started taking photos as a way of creating a photographic census of New York. But as he met more and more of these amazing humans of New York, things changed. He writes, "I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs." Instead of just a census, these photographs became a series of captions and short stories that say so much about the people in them and that are incredibly inspirational. Stanton released a book of some of his photographs this past Tuesday and held a book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square that night. I was supposed to go, but I had a physics quiz at 8 AM the next morning. Sigh.

But back to talking about the awesomeness of HONY. I don't think I can even do it justice. But I'll try. New Yorkers are notoriously characterized as always in a hurry, rude, and cold. But Stanton's photographs show that New Yorkers have a beautiful, introspective side to them that HONY captures so perfectly. Along with the photographs, his online posts feature snippets of conversations that he has with the people he's photographed. He asks everyone the same questions, and it's incredible how many different responses he gets. It's truly amazing how people are willing to tell some really personal things to a complete stranger with a camera. Everyone wants to be heard, and everyone wants to feel like their story matters, and HONY does that in the simplest of ways.

For the people who read these posts, these photographs and stories touch them because of their sincerity and simplicity. I know that this is true for me. Whatever I may be feeling at a particular moment, if I look at these photographs and read these stories, I connect with the individual's happiness, frustration, confusion, or inspiration. These complete strangers reaffirm my hope for a better existence for all of us.

Stanton took a chance when he moved to New York to start photographing strangers. It developed into something that no one could have imagined. There's a great lesson to be learned here. Don't wait for the right time. It's never the right time. Whatever you want to do, just start, and work out the kinks as you go along. There is nothing easy about anything, but if people allowed the fear of difficulty and failure to stop them, they would never get anywhere. As Nike says, "Just do it."

S.

Quote of the Week

“We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”

~ Bob Ross

My Typical Not That Interesting School Day

After a three-day weekend of marathoning movies from the comfort of my fleece blanket cocoon, as well as avoiding any homework, today was just another anti-climactic day during the year. It was a Monday schedule, aka my late day, so I left the dorm around 10:30ish for my 11:10am class. I fell asleep in both computer science and economics today, but compsci was more of a catnap. In economics, let me tell you, I was getting some good REM sleep in, so thank god I have a good friend who takes kick-butt notes in class with me.

I usually have Chinese tutoring in between my two classes, (in flagship you need three mandatory hours of tutoring each week) but my tutor couldn’t make it to school today, so I had two hours to completely waste that I used to meander around Bryant Park, don’t ask me why, it was totally impulse. For some reason I absolutely cannot get work done at Hunter, so I try to schedule my classes with as short amount of time in between each. As for lunch, I usually just stuff a granola bar or apple into my face as I sprint from class to class, but I prefer that to hour-plus breaks.

After econ my friend and I got some dinner and went shopping for a bit, and now I’m back at the dorm praying my homework and applications for everything ever get done somehow, which isn’t really that effective. I always somehow end up looking at pictures of dogs on the internet.

Every Tuesday I usually to go yoga at 9pm to let off some steam, but my hip has been acting up, so I gotta take a break, which is a shame because I’m really starting to love yoga. Everything you do during class truly benefits yourself, but before and after is a good time to bond with friends, as I try to go with whoever is around brookdale and isn’t too swamped with work.

On a side note, one of my best friends on the planet sent me a ‘midterms care package’ last week filled with goodies from her recent trip to Peru and other snacks LOADED with caffeine, but I guess Hunter has midterms really late? Mine are all next week and the week after, I think, possibly. I didn’t tell her that, I just had all the chocolate and cookies for dinner several days straight. Oops. Taking lazy to the next level is something you learn about very quickly once you move into brookdale.

My Exciting Saturday Adventure!

Alright, so it's not that exciting, but I went on a mini adventure on Saturday! Anyone who knows me, knows that I can be quite lazy (one time, one of my friends and I took about 3 buses home from Hunter just to minimize any walking that we would have otherwise had to do), however sometimes I enjoy having a nice walk around the city... Even if it's unplanned.

On Saturday afternoon, I headed out to do a bit of grocery shopping in Chinatown. I was all set to take the downtown 6 to Canal St, but when I got there I discovered that there was planned work going on. All of the green line trains were running express, which meant that the 6 didn't stop at 23rd Street. Instead of going and taking the M15 downtown, I actually ended up walking over to 14th Street. It was quite warm, really sunny, and I was early enough that the Union Square Farmer's Market was still busy! It's actually not that great when it's extremely crowded, it's a bit of a mess, but since I wasn't going to buy anything there (though I definitely recommend shopping there sometimes), it was nice to stroll through a bit, take a few pictures, and then go down into the subway.

Because the subway was only making express stops downtown, I couldn't get off at Canal Street as planned, and had to get off the stop after at Brooklyn Bridge. That was OK, really, cause you can walk pretty quickly into Chinatown from there, so that's what I did (instead of waiting for the 6 to come back and head uptown like most of the people were doing). Doing this walk is always a little nostalgic for me, because this was how my mother and I used to walk to my Chinese school on Saturdays when I was a kid. I walked passed the dollar dumpling store that I love so much (and will talk more about in a separate post), and decided spur of the moment to go to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for a pre-lunch milkshake. Whenever I go grocery shopping in Chinatown, I always eat somewhere in Chinatown first because shopping on an empty stomach is bad. However, I think I may have overdone it a bit this time because after the milkshake, I still went and got soup dumplings (oops..). Now, I was going to talk a bit more about the milkshake and the soup dumplings, but that will all be included in a future post! So, here's another picture from Union Square:

So, after grocery shopping, which went way quicker and cheaper than usual (probably because I had just gone to Trader Joe's the day before and I was so stuffed that the idea of food was a bit odd), I walked to the M15 on Allen Street and took that back up to the dorms. So, yeah, that was my day out! It was really nice and warm, and walking around the city a bit was really relaxing. And now I've got some vegetables to cook with this week, and I'm all set! Yay!

The Voice in the Clutter

Three-day weekend!! woo hoo!!
So much excitement, but then I think about the homework I have to do and the textbooks I have to read and the quizzes I have to study for. Sigh. But it's ok. I'll make time for myself. Even if it just consists of me dancing in my room to an EDM track. :p

This week's post is going to be relatively short since I got home late today, and I'm semi-exhausted.

I've been wanting to write about this for awhile. I'm now in my third year, and I feel like I'm slowly but surely cultivating a "voice" for myself. I feel like in high school, kids care too much about what their friends think is cool and what the media thinks is cool. They often lose themselves in all the madness. As I've grown older and watched my friends get older, I've seen how many of us have more or less stopped caring what others think. Also, we're not as desperate to be a part of some group. We're ok with being on our own. Being alone does't mean you're lonely. But let's go back to the process of finding your inner voice, which I'm still very much in the middle of. I think it takes many years to learn how to let your surroundings impact you so that you can be a better person, but at the same time keep a set of moral values and some kind of core identity. We're supposed to let our interactions with other people influence our ideas because that's how we grow. But that also requires knowing how to distinguish your hopes, dreams, and desires from the ones that you think you should have. Are you pre-med just because your parents want you to be or are you doing lab research just because your advisor told you too or are you with a guy/girl because someone else said that you look good together? What about what you want? What's your inner voice saying? Ironically, the more you interact with others, the better you learn about how to"hear" your own voice.

A really cool thing happened this past Monday. A friend of mine who moved to Staten Island at the beginning of 8th grade reconnected with me through Facebook. It's been 7 years since we've spoken so it's been cool to catch up on things. Facebook is good for this kind of stuff, but I still like face to face communication the best. I like hearing a person's laugh rather than just seeing an "lol" on a screen.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

S.

Quote of the Week

“Out of clutter, find simplicity.”
― Albert Einstein

Perk of living in the city #34245

ANDREA GIBSON. She is perk # 34245.

On October 15th I am attending one of her performances in Manhattan.

For those of you who don't know who Andrea Gibson is, she's an amazing poet who focuses on LGBTQ Rights, classism, mental illness, and has a beautiful take on anti-war issues. (I can't find a performance of her poem Class, but it's on the album Flower Boy if you want to give it a shot.)

Her poems have a vaguely scattered quality, and she bounces between images so you have to race to keep up. But once the poem ends, it all makes sense and you're left standing at the finish line, with tears in your eyes, and no idea how you got there.

My friend and I are going to this concert, and beforehand I'm going to an event at the Roosevelt House, which is Hunter's Public Policy headquarters. The Roosevelt House runs a lot of really excellent events, ranging on discussions of the Israel.Palestine conflict, to the role of the media in elections, and anything that sis vaguely related to government. I'm attending a panel discussion about Women in Legislature, and how important a bipartisan agenda is to creating a critical mass of women within our government. We make up 50% of the world, but in American government, only 18% are women.

The saddest part? Earlier this year, there was celebration - 18% is the highest representation of women to exist to date.

And, since we have a Monday Schedule, I only have one class that morning, my Eastern Religions class. In which, we are learning about Buddhism.

So my day reads as:
Get Up
Go to class on Eastern Religions
Get lunch
Get dressed all fancy (Who am I kidding, I'm wearing jeans and a button down like I always do)
Go to presentation on Women in Legislature
Go to a poetry recitation about classism and war and equality and gender and sexuality
Come back to my little room in the dorms and fall asleep an incredibly happy person.

OH! I almost left out the coolest part! My friend gave me a gift certificate for a car calling service that he got as a promotional gift, so I don't have to take the subway home! Someone will come pick me up, from the concert, and drive me back to Brookdale. Hell yeah.

Halloween

It is officially a week into October, which has always been my qualification for the start of Halloween season. Last year, we really didn't have a Halloween, since Hurricane Sandy hit only two days before. Halloween was spent eating candy and watching movies at my friend Stacey's house, which while it was fun, wasn't exactly what we all had wanted.

This year though, my friends and I are going all in to make up for it. There is a massive Halloween parade in the village, and although everyone says its a crazy tourist trap thats so busy you can barely stand it, I really want to go. I also want to figure out how you trick-or-treat in a city, when everything is apartment buildings with locked entries.

 One of my friends (Stacey, she's on the blog too) is going as Plankton, another friend is going as Him from the Powerpuff Girls, and I'm... I'm..... I'm really bad at coming up with costumes.

My current best plan is going either as Mandy, from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, or as Boomer, the blue Rowdyruff Boy. I don't like putting a lot of effort into my costumes, which is likely why they'll be pretty awful. Part of me just wants to combine as many ostentatious patterns as possible, buy a pair of glasses, and go as a hipster. But I'm scared someone will compliment me on a great outfit.

Maybe I can buy a tan shirt and a pair of khakis and go as a Jedi Padawan. I have a brown cape back home from a couple of years ago, and I'm sure my little brother still has a toy lightsaber somewhere. I can pick up a little braid extension from a dollar store or my baby cousin. (I say "little brother" and "baby cousin", but they're 15 and 13, respectively. They'll just always be munchkins to me.)

I went as a Shadowhunter from The Mortal Instruments a couple years ago, but maybe I can do that again and people will actually realize what I am, other than a girl in leather with weird tattoos.

If you've got any advice, or an opinion on costumes, I'd be happy to have a stranger's outlook on things.

Be a Diamond

Hi, everyone.

There are way too many ups and downs during the course of a week. Things can go from totally hopeless to fantastic in the course of a few hours. I'm still perfecting the skill of not letting my emotions go up and down along with my circumstances. This idea ties in with what we've been talking about in my Asian Religions this week. We've been discussing the The Yoga Sutras, which address the ways of reaching "the highest state" through yoga. The text compares the ideal yogi to a crystal (such as a diamond). A diamond has the ability to reflect light and remain perfectly colorless. This is analogous to a human being who does not let his surroundings affect him, but simply observes. No matter what is going on, he is at peace. Not all of us can be yogis, but we can adopt this principle to our lives. If you stop and think about it, our consciousness is constantly bombarded by external stimuli and our own confusing thoughts. If you respond to every stimulus, whether positive or negative, it eventually takes a toll on you. I'm not saying to sit through life stone-faced, but keep things in perspective. Maybe don't freak out about those 2 points that you missed on a quiz or about that boy who's indifferent to your attempts to flirt with him or that professor who you swear is out to get you. For a moment, just take yourself out of the situation, and don't let it control your emotional state. I tend to react to everything in a big way. If I'm pissed off, then I get really vocal about it or if I'm happy, then I'm all super smiley and peppy. I'm trying to learn to maintain a somewhat constant emotional state even if things are going crazy around me.

Speaking of ups and downs, every Thursday, I have a quiz in Bio 203. There are no midterms or final. Just one homework and one quiz every week. Sounds good, right? Well, not so much. I like that I'm not going to stress for midterms or finals, but instead of that I'm stressing every week about the quiz.  My professor's quizzes are based on material that he gives in class, so the textbook is not too helpful. The key is taking good notes, paying attention to what he says, and connecting the dots between different concepts. It's definitely been tough, but so far I'm managing it. I'm grateful to my friend because he started a study group. It's just three of us reviewing for about an hour every Thursday. I find that talking about the topics helps me feel more comfortable with them. But when the quiz comes, I still get nervous and feel like I don't have a full understanding of things. Sigh. The questions are not always clearly worded so I'm always doubting myself. He also expects us to make certain connections on our own so when I'm answering a particular question, I might not always see the connection. But I'm trying to just have a clear head during the exam and not panic. The key is to just pull through and not give up. Science classes are definitely not a breeze at Hunter. My stomach still sinks when I think of my struggles with Orgo last year.

I want to end on some kind of fun note. Hmmm...

For me, creating some kind of art calms me down and makes me feel better about just about anything. Poetry is a major artistic release for me. I remember writing my first poem when I was in second grade. I've never been good at drawing or playing instruments or acting, but I've always had a affinity to poems. Sometimes I go back to read my poems from years ago, and I laugh at the cliches and strange themes, but I love them having them. They are a reflection of what I was feeling at the moment no matter how corny or silly or weird.  I still write whenever I get inspiration, and I like to think that my poetry has gotten better as I've had more life experiences, and as I've learned how to use language more effectively. So why am I telling you guys this? It's important to have some kind of artistic release because there is great freedom in creating some kind of art. You don't have to be Picasso or Shakespeare or Frost. Just create something that is true to you and true to what you feel at a particular moment. It's incredibly exhilarating to channel your energy whether happy, frustrated, angry, or sad into some kind of art.

Most of us don't think of ourselves as artists. But what does an artist do? Create. We create things all the time in all of kinds of ways. A beautiful essay, a thoughtful conversation, a smashing outfit, doodles in class notes, the humming of favorite songs, etc. I find it beautiful to think of humans as works of art who create other works of art.

S.

Poem of the Week

Be with those who help your being.
Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.

A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don't try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it's too late for all you could become.

Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?

~ Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Be With Those Who Help Your Being

Good People.

This is a swift post to just let you know that the people here at Hunter are good people.

Lately, I've been having a lot of rude encounters. Nasty people on the street. Inconsiderate individuals on the subway. Jerks in department stores. This is New York City, and though we're not a rude as most people claim New Yorkers are, we can be cold.

But Hunter has a very different feel to it. Everyone is friendly, everyone is kind. A lot of the time between classes is spent chatting with your classmates amenably. I was worried, when I came here, that going to a commuter school meant that it would be hard to find people who were around in between classes. But since so many people commute, they actually spend the day here. (Why come here for a two hour class, then go back for three hours, and then back for another class? At the distance so many students are traveling, that doesn't make sense.)

This post is actually just a shout out to a young man who was on the seventh floor a few minutes ago.
 My wallet had broken open in my backpack, and when I opened it, money spilled everywhere. I didn't notice when that happened, until this guy tapped me on the shoulder and says "Hey, that's yours!"

He could have picked it up himself. He didn't have to try and get my attention and help me.

But he did, and obviously, I am grateful.

Good people. Good people.

Shoutout to ratemyprofessors.com

As you may know, there are good professors and there are bad professors out there, and at Hunter, this is no exception. Freshman fall, I have no idea how I picked my classes, I forget if it was my advisor? Or just because the times looked nice? I don’t remember, but I really wish I had found out about ratemyprofessors.com a few weeks earlier than I did. Or at least talk to some people.

Since my parents and brothers said I should take economics because job blah opportunities blah good with Chinese, whatever, so I signed up for macroecon, but the class was horrible. The professor read right off the slides, which he posted online, that is if you could hear him, and if you could hear him, then understand what he was saying. I fell asleep in every class, if I actually went. It was so boring I never wanted to take economics again.

Everyone I talked to said give econ one more chance, so this semester I decided to take microecon to see if it was any better than macro. I used ratemyprofessors.com and I’m so glad I made my decision off of that. My econ professor this semester is funny, entertaining, passionate and all that other good stuff. He may ramble on sometimes, but the whole class usually seems interested and the conversations can get pretty intense. Only about one month into the semester, and I already want to continue on with economics.

This professor also warned our entire class about which professors and classes you chose in your academic career. He emphasized that teachers can really make or break classes, and that you should do your research before choosing. Also if you want advice, regarding whatever you are interested in, he recommends to come talk to the actual professors more than anyone else. My friend and I are planning on going to one of our prof's office hours and just chat it up to get to know him a little more. 

Okay back to choosing professors. Starting from freshman spring, I have done research on all my professors and so far I’m relatively pleased with who I choose. But sometimes when you register the professor will be listed as “Staff” and you just have to get lucky, as I did with my into to computer science class. The professor is really sweet and goes over everything thoroughly.

Because I like both microecon and into to compsci so much, I'm planning on majoring in one or the other. I already have my Chinese major declared, but for the flagship program you need one more non-language major, so hopefully I will end up liking one or the other.