Blog 11: Week of 01/23/22

Oh hey. How are you doing? Good? That’s good, I’m happy to hear that. Me? Yeah, I’m good. A bit sore, but all good. Why am I sore? Yeah, I worked out this week. First time since I broke my tailbone. Also, I’m now done talking like that so if you didn’t like it then don’t worry. If you did like it, sorry, next time. But yes, I did work out. I really needed to and it’s easier than ever to do it with a free gym right downstairs. But we did not come here to read about how Peyton is sore, we came here to get an update on the…

FIRST WEEK IN THE CITY

So last time we spoke I had just completed the first full day in New York. I claimed I needed to go to bed so I could wake up early. Well, Tuesday I woke up early and as a class we went and signed up for a service called WeWork. It is a service where they have office space set up for people who work from home. You pay a subscription fee and have access to all WeWork stations across the city. They have amenities like free coffee and perhaps some snacks. On the days that I have remote work I will probably head there for at least part of the day. Afterwards we had a “Subway training” which was rather pointless. We went onto the subway, rode the same car for 15 minutes, then got off at this big book store. It was nice, but I am in no hurry to buy a new book as I currently have three books that I need to read. As a group we all went into Burlington to take a picture. They had a window up high that overlooked a garden, so we took a lovely photo. We were hungry, so we went in search of food. In a city like New York it can be very hard to find such place. We passed some local places before the group decided on… on… McDonalds. Like what? It was a strange choice. I did not vote for it. But I ate McDonalds. Andy, Hunter, and I split off from the group and went on our own journey at that point. Heading first to the Empire State Building. We went there because it’s tall. When we got there we realized you have to pay $40+ to go to the top so we left. Tall building was not worth it. We then walked to Macy’s “the largest store in the world.” more like the store with the hardest bathroom to find in the world. For how many buildings are in NY there sure aren’t a lot of bathrooms. In Waco one building has like 5 bathrooms minimum. the 10 story block sized Macy’s had two, allegedly. I don’t trust it. Anyway we finally found it then headed to time square. We were trying to do a bunch of things so that we could say we did them. It was cool to see all the stuff or whatever, but it wasn’t why I came to NY. I felt like a tourist, or like how it feels to be at a party where you don’t know anyone. Awkward. We then went home. Home is nice.

The apartment is really nice. Andy and I both have our own rooms, we have two couches in the living room, a balcony, a lot of counter space, and a tiny dumb TV. I was spoiled by the TV we had in Waco. Speaking of TV, we watched a couple movies this week. As already mentioned we watched Licorice Pizza, but then later we also watched The Seventh Seal, Phantom Thread, The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, and Frances Ha. The best out of the group was definitely Frances Ha. Oh, I loved it. The dialogue felt real and pulled me in entirely. The characters were people I would love to be friends with, and the message was solid especially with where I am in my life. I gave it a rare 5 stars on Letterboxd. Lots of good movies this week.

Wednesday, I do not remember Wednesday. I think this was the day that I worked out and watched two movies. good day. We had class that night, this I know for sure. It was our first class with Kylee. It was good, we talked about and defined culture. I stayed up late that night. Thursday I slept in until finally waking up and working out. Oh, I remember! I went into the city to fin my office space. When I say “into the city” that means Manhattan, like the main part people think about. I am in Queens, more specifically Long Island City. Anyway, off I went to the address that Google told me. About a 30 minute train ride. It was on the same street as the New York Stock Exchange, like on Wall Street. Beautiful building, crazy location, just cool. But google was wrong. The actual location is like 20 blocks north. 20 blocks in NY is the difference in Harlem and Carnegie Hall. The new street is scary, spooky, and scary. I will be fine, I’m going there tomorrow morning so I guess we’ll know for sure in next week’s blog. It was also an extra 20 minutes on the subway before taking a 30 minute subway back home. Lots of travel time on Thursday. That night we had a meeting to talk about a show called Pretend it’s a City. Pretty fun show by Scorsese about the life of Fran Lebowitz and her opinions on NY. Oh, real quick. I cooked dinner for myself and Andy every night of the week as he was pretty stressed looking for an internship. That night Andy and I completed a puzzle. It was a 500 piece puzzle of New York and it’s Subway System. Truly taught us a lot about the map of NY.

Friday was a pretty good day, I don’t remember all of what we did but it all led to the night where after a quick workout we all went to chinatown to get food. We went to a place called Noodle Village, it was great. I had dumplings and shrimp spring rolls. We then traversed back home in order to have game night. Game night #1 was not a great success. Only two other people showed up and Andy had to leave early. We played Scattergories and had a good laugh when Braden misunderstood the game resulting in trying to write a column of Things that go well with Chocolate all starting in K. After game night I went to the other guys room and played video games and watched The Strange Thing About the Johnsons. That leads us to Saturday.

The day started early with a class field trip. We went and walked around Central Park. We found a cave and had a good time just talking and being together. I feel like we are a pretty fun group. Excited to see how we all grow together. Afterwards we went to the New York History Museum. Pretty lame museum TBH. Mayborn is WAY better. This one didn’t even have a bubble room. It did have an exhibit that mainly centered on art work done by homeless people around NY. We then went and ate all together at Patsy’s Pizzaria. I got a margarita pizza. For the rest of the day I watched football, wrote and essay over the homeless exhibit, and played Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. I did the same basic thing today. I’m now watching the last 2 minutes of the Bills Chiefs game. When it’s over I need to go to bed. I’m tired and I have a long long day tomorrow.

I can’t think of too much else to write so I guess this is it. Wish me luck at work tomorrow. I hope I get there on time and figure out what it is that I’m actually doing. I still don’t really know what it is I will be doing. Hold up, Josh Allen just had an insane drive ending in a TD and 2-pt conv. Back to saying goodbye, Goodbye!