Nyu @ MindSay

Reimbursment.

Especially when you are reimbursed with cash and get to feel rich instantly (it wasn't for a huge amount, 2-figure number, but for my wallet that contained 4 dollars, it was like winning the jackpot!).


Other things that make me giddy today:

- my interview with Bree went well; I didn't cry (I got a little warbly, but didn't cry!), and she seems to believe I'm NOT an idiot
- Katie and I ran into Mr. Keshner on the street today near school, and he apparently won't be at school tomorrow (:(), so he gave me a big hug, and it was awesome.
- I talked to Joe in his office for...I'd say close to an hour.  Him and Yannery, who I proceeded to see three more times today!
- Picking up my cap & gown...and running into Banga (my roommate for the fall of Junior year)!!!!
- Seeing Melody, Allison, David, Cate, and others on  Bleeker as I walked home from seeing Banga.
- There being a 'secret myspace concert'...FEATURING NEIL DIAMOND
- Trying on my cap and gown, which appears to be long-sleeved, and OH YEAH...the sleeves are sewn shut.  Hilarious.  I think the 2 holes on the underside might be the actual arm holes, and the fish-arms would therefore be s trange decorations, but it's more fun my way, and I'll probably wear it my way come this time next week (I mean, I'm always cold; I can appreciate sleeves...)
- The fact that regardless of my fish-sleeves/not fish-sleeves, the 'hood' that grads get to wear?  Oh, mine is apparently gold-trimmed, and everyone else's are white-trimmed, so I get to go stand on that sweeeeet line again tomorrow.  BUT, I'll be there with Mike, so...

all in all, good day.  I got William out of crisis at the end of the day by dancing like an idiot and singing 'Bingo' with the child.  Never be afraid to try ANYTHING with a child.  Seriously; William's one of the 'cool' kids, not easily impressed/easily 'bored', but he was having a truly good time with this, and I wasn't embarrassed in the least to be doing it with him.  MAN am I going to miss that kid...

So, here at NYU, the graduate halls are not near each other, but we are linked via the RAs and this thing called GPI.  Through GPI, I have had many positive experiences, and fun trips.  Two of the best were part of a series called "Discover Brooklyn", where we...Discover Brooklyn.  Both the trips, Coney Island and the Fulton Ferry Landing were great, and the 2 RAs who took us, Marcus and Zach, are two of my favorites. 

Anyway, a third Discover Brooklyn trip was planned and announced on the gradhall blog.  I didn't check it, because I was silly and chose to use the hour of my day that wasn't full of teaching or class or homework to eat dinner and try to relax.  Thankfully, my wonderful RA, Jess, sent an email telling us to sign up for this month's trip, to Williamsburg for a tour and bowling, so I decided to just that - email Zach, let him know that I wanted to join.

But then I talked to my friend Melissa that Tuesday, and she said Zach had already emailed her back, confirming her spot.  She'd heard back from him Monday, the day I emailed.  Eventually, Zach wrote back to me that unfortuately, I was on the waitlist...and pretty low down it, at that.  As you can imagine, I was pretty sad about that.  I wanted to go so badly, and I wasn't going.  It wasn't THAT BIG a deal, however.  I wrote him back that he was no longer in my top 10 RAs (there are only 12, btw, and I don't realy know 3 of them so...), but that there'd be other trips and I'd try to go on those.  I also asked if I could go on a trip on Sunday to Washington Heights, and he said yes.

Well, I just got an email about an hour ago from Zach saying "I had a cancellation and we'd (Marcus and I) love to have you there".  Um...perfect.  I really am excited I get to go bowling tomorrow!  And I'm really excited Mindsay came up with the tag 'zachity zach zach'  because it is HILARIOUS. 

And now, back to do a  lot of work so I can enjoy my newly full weekend:
- Temple Tonight
- All University Gospe Choir concert tonight
- Williamsburg Trip
- Frank's 60th birthday party
- Movie with Lisa
- Mike's housewarming visit
- GPI meeting at 11am Sunday
- Washington Heights trip at 12
- Ballet at 5:30 ...

wowowoowowoww must work now!

conversation with Amanda, re: my being done with grad school in oh, 5 months:

I don't feel that Masterful.

Wow - that was EASILY the worst meeting I have ever sat through.  Apparently, NYU undergrads have become a bunch of sniveling, whiny, incapable idiots in the three months since I graduated from there and became a grad student.  Tonight, we had a forum where top people from all areas of NYU, ie emergency planning, security, transportation, building, sustainability, residential education, etc., came to talk to us/be an open area to voice your concerns in these general areas/ask questions.  Sounds pretty cool, right?  Many props to Ben for organizing it.

Here are some of the VERY IMPORTANT issues some people spoke on the mic about:

- "My dorm (located ABOUT 5 blocks above the library, IF that) should be put on one of the bus routes.  It's so far.  It's getting cold out, and when I leave the library, I'm afraid to walk home, and the campus night van takes so long to get there"
- "How come I as a CAS (arts and sciences) student can't swipe myself through and have access to a study lounge labeled STERN (business school) GRADUATE STUDENTS ONLY?"
- "Doing laundry at my dorm is $1.75 a load, and a $1.75 to dry, so I take my laundry to this building because it's 25 cents cheaper.  And like, the dryer is an extra 15 minutes.  Can you guys fix that?  I mean, especially when I was my towels... if I dry them they don't dry all the way, and then they get moldy and I have to throw them out and get new towels.  And then if I put them on for a second cycle, they become like, overheated.  Plus like, it's getting cold out, so I won't want to carry my laundry bag all that way (these buildings are about half a block apart)..."
- "Can you show me a graph of your busiest call times to campus transportation?"

On the flip side, a few good points WERE raised.  Like, maybe getting a change machine put into the dorm that ONLY accepts quarters in the laundry machines, but it's 2 dollars per thing, so to do 2 loads of laundry and dry them = 32 quarters, which most of us don't just have lying around... that was fair.
And the girl requesting that there be a mandatory 'the bus MUST wait at the curb for 3 minutes before driving away thing' for people who are on the busy elevator but otherwise would have made it, that was fine.

But otherwise...holy shit.  Just...I'm still laughing at the towel girl.  I can't help it.



On a completely unrelated note, I was just thinking about how when we are growing up, they teach you about a/an. And how the rule is ' you use 'an' if you're putting it in front of a word that starts with a vowel'.  But then you can say 'a unique thing about NYU undergrads is that they've all lost their brains'...and its A and Unique... so there goes a sacred convention of English. 

Whew.

Friday totally made up for Thursday.  I don't regret posting about it, though.  Sometimes it's nice to just get stuff out.

It's also nice when the stuff just dissipates and goes away.

Work was good on Friday, the gym was good until I got a headache and just let myself go home, and then at the last minute, I dragged myself to services and I'm very glad I went.  The service was huge, we had a women's dinner on the 2nd floor which was really nice, and then MASS TRANSIT, NYU's premiere a capella group, sang to us for about 45 minutes.  And let me tell you; they were fantastic.  wow.  Some of 'em were cute, too ;).

And I talked to 'Josh', who is the senior in the group, because I wanted to know if anyone had invited them to sing at Relay yet, and they're already coming.  And as he felt like announcing to me, 'all single' (at least the 12 who were there that night), which means the boy who looked like an angel when he sang...damn :).  Probably a college sophomore, but I guess I could pretend :).

Basically, I'm better.  I'm trying to let things go and breathe and just remember that even if things suck temporarily, I have it pretty damn good.

*Strange moment of yesterday:  Opening my copy of AMNY (A.M. New York, for all you country bumpkins :p) waiting for the train, and seeing them interview three people about how they think the racial tension in New York is.  Do you know who the first person they interviewed was?  MASDEU.  Do you know who Masdeu is?  Oh, he's an NYU security guard who works in the building I used to live in.  How ridiculous is that?  Masdeu.  The guy I started calling MasDON'T after he was a jerk one night.  Ha ha.  How lame am I? But I looove Masdeu.  And there he was, in the paper.

And now...READING!!!!


**also of importance to note:  Zevu is home, and safe.  He was missing for over a week, and they thought a bear had gotten him, but he showed up, thin and scared, last night or Thursday night.  Thank G-d.