Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Defeated

I'm sorry, but I just need to complain for a minute. I feel beaten down, defeated. Maybe by this place. I'm just exhausted by everything right now - the difficulty of finding a place to live here, the fact that everything revolves around money, the fact that I have lost faith in my chosen field (Computer Science), the fact that I don't have close people around me. I'm tried of fighting everything - tired of searching, tired of chores, tired of not relaxing, tiring of going ALL THE TIME. I need a break - please let me crawl into a hole and not be bothered for awhile. I don't want to think about work, or about subletting my Austin apartment again, or about getting my stupid perscriptions from Austin in the future, or laundry, or money, or fitting in everything I want to do in New York (there's more in this list, but I won't go on). I think part of this is definitely pressure on myself - and I am tired. I need a break from being me for a bit...

P.S. Yeah it doesn't help that I can't extend my left arm all the way. I worked biceps on Monday for the first time in awhile and biked yesterday and I think it just kinked the ligaments in my elbow :-(.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Life: Lucky, Lovely, and Lost

[UPDATED!] Hi all. I very much want to blog, but it's just been crazy lately and I'm not going to be able to finish the post right now. But I'll start and check back later for more.

So, so much has happened! I was very stressed last week, and I'm still stressed - mostly for finding a place to live here the rest of the fall! It's a tortuous process. But sometimes it's fun to visit different apartments up here and see the possibilities. But boy do things go fast and people are flakes! Ugh. Anyway.

Thursday last week was fun - got a ride in with Mohammed (softball guy). We decided to grab dinner downtown (ish) when we drove back to the city at the end of the day. We walked through SoHo to find a random place to eat - found a cute French place! Ate a fabulous goat cheese salad (wish there was more salad). And the sea bass with mushroom risoto was so tasty too! I think I was craving rich food. And had fun going through the conversation about life crisis with Mohammed - the "I'm almost done with school, I don't really know what I want to do or what makes me happy, and I have no clue where I'll be in a year" thing. I've been doing that a lot lately. But it's interesting - it's definitely where I'm at too. Scary and exciting. So good night. Feel bad about Mohammed being so nice to me - taking me to events, paying for things, driving me back home though he is going away from where he lives. But it's nice too.

So then Thursday night I got ready to go to Boston Friday and visit Emina! Was so excited :-). I was slightly anxious about traveling - odd to think I hadn't traveled at all for almost 3 months - unheard of for me, right? So had to pack a bag and all that. Had a nice chat with Naveen before I left too. Boy is he making a lot of effort to change. But still.

So Friday I got up early enough to go for a beautiful (nice temperature too - dropped lower this weekend) run around the reservoir in Central Park. It was a challenge but fun. Love the views. Then stopped at the beautiful Farmers Market outside my door on the way back. Love fresh vegies! Makes me happy :-). Then got ready and took off for my Boston weekend adventure! I took the Chinatown bus - it's awesome. And hey, I'm still a student. $15 for the 4 hour bus ride to Boston, and it goes from Chinatown to Chinatown :-). Still pretty comfy, and same amount of time as the train, but $80 less! I was impressed. I basically read the whole way - papers for work, and dozed a bit :-). That's what I miss about traveling - the naps while on the plane! So I made it successfully to Boston and just took the subway to MIT where I met Emina and Aled!

[Adventures in Cambridge and Boston here. Also NYC and Boston comparisons.]
So I made it to MIT. Met Emina and saw her very weird clown Computer Science building. It really is a circus with crazy colors, angles. We met some of her groupmates, then headed off to dinner at Legal Seafood with Aled. He was nice enough to pay for our dinner! I got (the authentic) clam chowder there, plus a combo crab cake platter - with shrimp and scallops too which was so good. It's so nice to talk to Emina and Aled, too - they are cute. They are in love and engaged, and Aled is so good to her (she's pretty demanding :-)). Plus I can bond with them over where we are in our lives. Had more of the "life crisis" chats of course. Emina is wonderful to me too :-). Good friend. So after dinner we went back to their "flat" and they rolled out a futon mattress for me in the living room. Their place was very cute! And they welcomed me fondly :-). Nice to have people who are that good to you.

Next morning we woke up leisurely. Over coffee and biscotti (love their life style!) while still in pjs (Aled had left for rugby), Emina and I chatted for hours about boys, and life. She's very encouraging. Then we finally showered, and headed out to Harvard area to grab a nice Middle Eastern lunch - a hummus plate with chicken and red and green peppers, and zucchini. We shared and got some good tea too. Then we walked around Harvard square. So I have to pause here and say (maybe because we were mostly in Cambridge) - Boston is full of young, intelligent people! And it's way cleaner than NYC - especially the subways. It was a brisk weekend (it's getting to be fall - NOOOO!), but it was nice to walk around and feel people like me around. And cute shops and bookstores, etc. Love the big college town feel! I can see why so many people love that city. So Emina talked me into buying fabulous boots at The Tannery. I won't say how much they were - but they are beautiful and will be a good staple in my wardrobe. I like it how Emina teaches me fashion - I would love to take her shopping with me all the time! Altho it can be costly :-). Then she knows I like earrings, so we went into a fun shop with tons of earrings. Got a beautiful pair of dangly, slightly fancy turquoise earrings made of the apatite stone. Very fun. Then of course we grabbed ice cream at the fabulous Herrell's. Funny I had been there before on my last trip. Actually a lot of the place looked familiar - I like the smaller town feel. So we came home to drop off shopping and met Aled back from rugby. Altho we were going to head into town for more shopping, we got caught up relaxing at home and watching some recorded UK World Cup rugby matches instead :-). And of course snacking on some lovely snacks from Whole Foods - rosemary flatbread, wasabi peas, and wonderful little mapley thin waffles. We finally roused ourselves to go out to dinner - we walked Newbury Street which is famous there for all the designer shops. It was fun to walk around - I tried out my new boots. But we did a lot of walking that day.... Boston restaurants are crowded on a Sat night, but we ended up at a pretty tasty Indian restaurant. I got a lamb curry - reminded me of Naveen of course. But the food roused me - for some reason I was really hungry and tired before meals this weekend (low blood sugar from all the walking), but food always perked me right up!

So Sunday was another nice lazy day. I swear they slept around 11 or 12 hours! But that was alright with me, although I don't know if it was being in a different place - I wasn't able to sleep in much. And of course I went to bed a bit later than them because I like late nights. But anyway - had our traditional lazy morning - with coffee. Didn't get out of the house until after noon, but they took me to a neat Bosnian restaurant for lunch! Was happy to eat food from Emina's homeland. Altho to hear her talk about it is chilling... Just don't introduce her to any Serbians - yikes. Anyway - I got the traditional Burek - a flaky bun like thing stuffed with beef. It was good, but I almost liked Emina's cheese one better. She said her Grandma made a spinach one that was awesome - would've been my favorite! Aled was still hungry, so we got 2 desserts (the portions were small). Traditional crepes filled with chocolate ganache and hazelnuts - yum. And an apple, pear, and something else strudel with some vanilla gelato and caramel on top. So tasty! Love the finer things in life - living with your taste buds! Sad to say we left (cute waiter), and went to actual Boston - around the Commons and walked around Fannuel Hall and Government Center and the Harbor. It was a nice day, and really fun to just hang out and walk. Finally took some pictures that day - not much to take pictures of while just hanging out and shopping :-). But that's what it was about - just hanging out. No expectations, no agenda. Good time with good friends. And I needed it. And I thoroughly loved it. Although loving this city that I didn't even live in and Emina telling me I should move there didn't help. Felt slightly lonely as I stayed with lovebirds. And as I feel lost...

I had a wonderful (lovely) weekend with them. It is nice to have good friends who are also awesome people. :-). But I have to saw during the weekend I felt a bit lost - drifting. Not sure where I belong or am supposed to be. I fit everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Maybe that's an artifact of going on a mini-vacation from my temporary living situation in NYC, but it's weird. An in general, the nomadic existence makes this problem hard anyway. But in general I consider home to be where the people very closest to me are; so that in itself changes. Home is people, not a place. But when in a city 2 levels of indirection from home (Austin->NYC->Boston), visiting friends I love but have only known for 3 months, I felt like I lost my sense of balance. And the people I am close to are now fewer, and they are spread out. Where am I and where do I fit? What will become of me - especially after grad school? I'm lost. I know I'll find my way, but it's weird. In some sense I was very happy to come home - to recognize NY neighborhoods and subway lines, and climb back into my familiar bed in the Upper West Side. But it was a sad, slightly lonely coming home, too. This is not my HOME either - it's just temporary.

I'll have to explain "lucky" later - it has to do with a phone call to my current landlady, but now I have to go work out and get ready to visit 5 different potential places to live tonight! Check back later for details!

Ok to so finish up the post (I know I write a lot): Really quickly while at Emina's I called my current landlady, even though I didn't want to. I needed to give her notice which I really didn't want to do because I'm leaving 2 weeks early from this place - of course because of Naveen. And I was terrified, but when I told her, she paused, and said "You know, if it was anyone but you, I'd protest and say you had to pay anyway. But it's ok.". Which, besides showing me that I am very lucky, renews my faith in people. It really is true that people are awesome - and if you look them in the eye, and smile at them, and generally have good will and friendliness, they respond to it! And they recognize good people too. So I am a good person, and I'm glad this worked out! I feel like maybe some people - even people on the street - can see the beautiful happy me shining out from within. When I let her shine that is ;-). And then the world is a closer place somehow.

So quick update from all my STRESS about finding a place to live. Maybe I can tell you later about all my visits to apartments (and those that flaked on me), and the various levels of crazy and sane and situations. It's exhausting - let me just tell you that. But I finally found a place! Just today - and I had to leave work midday to come into the city to do it. Sheesh. But I made it and I'm just glad it's over with! I really do need a weekend to do nothing - I just feel like I haven't had a moment's peace in a very long time. So tired. But anyway - found a place - right in Union Square basically which is a perfect location. Close to Whole Foods! Now let me just tell you that in general NYC is so frustrating, and it's a seller's market and places go in about an hour after they become available. So the place I got - I'm excited about it, but I'm paying too much for the space I actually get. You know - limited space, limited privacy for anything affordable in NY. But I'm excited. It's all tradeoffs, and hopefully I made a good one. I'll be living with 3 other people in a loft - a lady photographer, a male musician/filmmaker (who was "discovered" by Norah Jones while Karaoke-ing), and a French lady who works in finance who I haven't met. Part of the reason I agreed to pay what I did (don't ask - it was in my price range) was for the fun roommates - I can totally see myself hanging out with these guys. And the wonderful location - I can walk to where my carpool takes off from too. So happy day! And hopefully I can not be stressed now :-). Yeah - hehe.

One other quick tidbit - I finished Harry Potter 6 and today bought the final book! I'm scared and part of me doesn't want to finish the series because then there won't be more to read! But I have to - I'll let you know how it goes :-). And btw, I went on a fabulous 10-11 mile bikeride down the Hudson today - very nice, but it's getting colder, and darker earlier.

So tomorrow is a new day - hope it's well for you all.