Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Your mom goes to college!

I just moved into the dorms in the Manhattan campus (I don't know why it's called a campus when it's just one building) and I must say, it's definitely better than living in Queens.

While in Queens I had: my own room, my own spacious closet, my own tv and cable, my own fridge, and 2 private bathrooms and a living room to share with my suitemates. But in Manhattan I have: a triple room, a tiny closet, public bathrooms for the entire floor, a tv for the entire floor because the rooms don't have cable connection (#$%^!!). Based on that alone, I pretty much traded down.

BUT. When I woke up this morning to go to work, I didn't have to stand around Union Turnpike to wait for the bus to take the subway. I just walked 2 blocks to the subway. (Well first I walked to McDonalds for breakfast because the dining hall wasn't open yet...) People were already out, walking to school, work, wherever. There was actual LIFE. And there's Battery Park and the Hudson River footsteps away.

AAAND... Queens is just shitty. Really.

If only I actually set up my schedules better last year so that I could have transferred campuses my junior year instead of senior year, gotten my single room....

Ahh I can't wait to have my own apartment! It probably won't be in TriBeCa, and it probably won't happen until a few years from now (crap, why couldn't I have taken a more practical major that will actually earn money), but aah!

I will miss dorming though. And I will miss college. But I'm looking forward to what's coming next. (That was trite, but whatever.)

Thursday, August 9, 2007

I Love New York, I Hate the MTA (or, "Interns Can't Afford to Take Cabs to Work, Dammit")

So I woke up this morning at 5:40 (for the past week I've been waking up earlier than my alarm, that RARELY happened before. I can sleep like a baby) to thunder and rain against the airconditioner right by my head. Rainboots it is, I thought and went on with my normal morning routine.

By the time I was done showering, getting dressed, having breakfast, and catching up with the news (Okay, so there was no 2/3 service from this street to that street...blah blah I should be fine), it was HOT and sunny. No more rainboots. And thank god for that because if I had to wait at that train station with an extra inch of anything covering my skin, I would have just given up and gone home.

After a 30-minute, sweat-is-dripping-down-places-they-should-not-be-dripping wait in the train station, an hour-long train ride to Fulton St. which would normally take less than 30 minutes, and a 20-minute, $20 taxi ride from the Financial District to Rockefeller Center, I was at work, where surprisingly, people were already there, doing work. Where they came from and how they got there, I don't know.

Okay, so I understand there was a tornado in Bay Ridge. Flooding. But are you freaking telling me that bad weather is enough to stop the entire NYC transportation system? Really, MTA? Forget the Second Avenue line, how about repairing the entire system? How about doing your damn jobs better? It's not the most coveted job, but it's YOUR job.

As I was sitting in the cab, though, watching people walk or wait for buses/taxis, I finally understood why top execs and EICs had their own cars. It feels damn good not having to worry about your transportation. So you're using up gas and polluting the enivornment. At least you're not squished against strangers on a sloooow train that wouldn't even take you to Midtown.