Mi Espanol

It has come to my attention that I may need to brush up on my Spanish if I plan on continuing to live in the city much longer. Yesterday I was pretty embarrassed that I couldn't ask a simple question to a landlady about her apartment we were looking at.

I wanted to ask if we could move in on May 1st. So I tried something like, "Pueden se mueveren primero del Mayo?" Which is terrible, and even worse with my accent. Later I tried to think of how I should've said it, something like "Quieren movarse a este apartimiento en el primero del Mayo, okay?" (Because OK is universal). Trying to conjugate verbs on the spot like that was way too stressful. And she only sort of understood... she kept saying, before May is ok, so we were like, does that mean the lease starts April 15th? And all to no avail because we wanted to shop around some more.

I seem to recall another time when knowing Spanish better would have been helpful. And according to our Big Onion tour guide, the greatest number of immigrants to the city right now is Dominican people. It's pretty sad that four years of high school Spanish gets me no where in the real world. Although part of the reason it's so hard is because my brain keeps interjecting Chinese words, since that's the other language I'm used to thinking in. Like, Women yao... movarse... zhege fangjian... And so on until I pretty much resort to English. Failure!

How people can speak more than one language fluently is a great mystery to me, especially if they learned the second language as an adult. But I know it's possible (for instance, our broker speaks English, Japanese, Arabic, and Hebrew) so I'm trying not to give up hope. My brain just needs to compartmentalize things better, or something.

I like maps: Where I've eaten

I hope this works. This is what I do with my time when I don't want to do anything related to school work.
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*drool*

Oh my god, I want all of these dresses. Except the ones that were worn at the Oscars.

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/collections/S2008CTR/complete/thumb/VERSACE

my favorite is the last one:
ok now I'm going to watch Project Runway. Can't they just show us the Bryant Park collections already??

random

Has anyone else besides me seen the cover of the most recent New Yorker? If not I will attempt to show you:

This is the life of a book. Actually, I feel like they are trying to tell me that this is soon to be the story of my life. Me, specifically, of course. (In case you can't tell what the last pic is, there are two hobos burning the book for warmth. Yah.)

Not that I've written anything of note lately. But I could become any of those people on the top row: writer, agent, or editor. And for what? The book's just going to end up in a trash can somewhere.

Unless..... unless something can be done about this whole, I don't read thing. Did you know that only 57% of adults in this country say they read a book in the past year (just one book!). That's ridiculous! (Says the girl who just spent several hours on Facebook updating iRead to include 70 something books and is right now restraining herself from adding more).

Anyway, in light of all this I found this article extremely interesting: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983 and I know it's long but it's so intriguing! And possibly the reason for the New Yorker's cover, or at least having something to do with the death of the book.

Because that's what we're coming to, people. No more paper, no more moldy pages. Oh my God, what will this mean in terms of having to buy textbooks for school?? Needless to say, just because the first version of the Kindle is doing so well, that doesn't mean we'll be loosing the need for books anytime soon. But in the not so distant future, I think books will be a relic akin to vinyl records, and instead of the transitional medium of CDs, we'll have some magic device that contains all our books, magazines, music, Internet, and God knows what else in one handy dandy contraption. I personally can't wait.

just a normal thursday

Or so I kept trying to tell myself yesterday. I got up for my 9:30 recitation somehow, and then when I came back to try and nap those plans were foiled. Alas, I ate lunch and headed off to the Museum of Natural History instead.

I had to wait forever for the C train to come, and there were all these groups (gangs, really, but not) of teenagers standing around on the platform too, being loud and carrying balloons, stuffed animals, flowers, you name it. Thanks guys. That made me feel special.

But the museum was really cool. I kept thinking of Stephen Colbert being an astrophysicist the whole time I was doing my Cosmic Walk thing. But the best part was when I came home and and Sam said he would take Rachel's extra ticket to the Rufus Wainwright concert so that meant I could go too! (Cuz I didn't want to go by myself).

Anyway, then after my siesta I had something to look forward to. We trooped up to Radio City Music Hall and the concert was pretty frickin fantastic. Didn't quite take my mind off the holiday, but it was certainly better than sitting at my computer being angry and sad and not getting any work done. Plus Rufus and Sean Lennon did a Beatles tribute, Across the Universe, and that was sweet.

I think I'm still gloomy with leftover holiday blues though. That, or I have a lot of work to do this weekend and that thought in itself is just depressing. But I have to say, the city itself it good right now. Museums, concerts, and tonight hanging out at friends' apartments, going to a club. Not bad for February. If only I didn't have such a long TO DO list.

And you
said
watch my head
about it
...oh no oh no no kidding

one of life's great questions

So how come when I don't have a blog, I'm like "Man I wish I had a blog so I could write about this somewhere," and then when I DO have a blog I'm like "Man I haven't updated in forever... this whole blog this is becoming a pain. What should I write about?"

Which isn't to say I have nothing to write about. I'm just lazy, basically. And most of the time have nothing interesting to say... except: Why the blog paradox? Why??

CuRaaaazy Weekend

So, if you are not my mom, or do not happen to know what my mom and I did this past weekend, I will recap for you. FIRST! we visited the chocolate show! And since we had to pay full price for the tickets, we were determined to get our money's worth... meaning we went back for several samples. And I, having been advised brilliantly by Amy, kept slipping samples into my handy ziploc bag in my purse. Now I have a bagful of delicious chocolate morsels on my desk.

We went to John's for dinner because I had to introduce her to the best pizza in New York. Or so some claim. Did she think it was the best? Well, she wasn't raving away, but I think she enjoyed it. Then it was SATURDAY and we headed out early to get discount tickets at Seaport for a show that night. Only we got there to discover there were no Broadway tickets available. Strange, we thought, but we had other things to do. So we headed to the American Museum of Natural History to view the Mythical Creatures exhibit. It was good, but I actually found the huge collection of dinosaur bones more fascinating, I mean, considering that those animals ACTUALLY EXISTED at one point in time.

Anyway, we cut out museum visit a little short because we wanted to try the Times Square (aka the blocks of death) TKTS booth to see if they had tickets for a show. So we hike all the way over there only to find.... BROADWAY ON STRIKE! (how are you feeling about the excessive capitalization, btw? too much?). Yup, and then we turn around and see all these picketers outside the theaters that we somehow missed on our mad dash to get tickets. So no show for us.

Plan B? We saw a comedy show after a delicious dinner at Nomad. Free beer at the comedy show! And the acts weren't bad either.

Sunday we got up more leisurely and went on a quest to Whole Foods so that I would no longer be the only person without food in our fridge. And we made chili! With jalepenos! I almost died! But it was good. And then we went shopping. And then we saw the Blue Man Group and OMG DAVID BOWIE WAS THERE!!! But of course I didn't see him, because I was facing the wrong way in the lobby at the exact moment he passed by. I'm cursed! David Bowie! Five feet away and I had no idea until two seconds too late! Woe is me.

We ended the eventful weekend with dinner at Calcutta and spending the night at the Hilton Times Square. (yes, I went there twice in one weekend. No, I didn't not enjoy it... except the view was nice from the hotel). Then I had to go to class this morning and return to normalcy, as Hoover would say.

Only a few more days until Thanksgiving! I can't wait! Mmmmm turkey. And pumpkin pie. Although as usual, I wish I could just teleport myself home and not have to navigate the hell that is the airport.

ANYWHO. Today begins Amy's birthday festivities, meaning I need to get myself off to Bruno's soon to have some Italian pastries. I don't want to go out in the cold coldness, but this is what I do for friends with birthdays. I go out and I eat delicious cookies with them.