Finals Stress, Tearful Saturday (Revamped), and Coming Home

This past week has proven to be quite eventful.

1. I had my first ever experience with college finals. And let me tell you, it definitely caught me off-guard a bit. For one, my finals experience is vastly different than that of my peers. Since most of my classes are music-based, the majority of my finals were performances of some sort. I only had one or two written finals that I had to sit down in class and take. I had a musicianship final that I feel very confident on (more so than the midterm), and I had a vocal production final. I had a final performance in both English Diction and Speech and Diction, and then my choir class was done about two weeks ago when we performed in a joint choir concert. And of course, I had auditions, which were kind of like a mid-year jury, to see how I've progressed throughout the semester.

2. Tearful Saturday continues, though this time it was Tearful Saturday Night. An email was sent out to everyone in the program, with the cast lists for all of the spring Steinhardt shows, both program and NYU Players Club. I auditioned for four shows, and was not cast in any of them. While it sucks that I won't be performing at all next semester, I'm looking at this as an opportunity to audition for a capella, and to hopefully branch out into the rest of the NYU community to find something else to occupy my time.

3. I'M FLYING HOME TOMORROW!!!! It has been altogether too long since I've been home, and I'm so looking forward to seeing my family and my friends and eating In n Out and Maru Ichi and Le Boulanger and Jamba Juice's oatmeal. I swear, only half of my coming home excitement is food-based. The rest is people-based, I promise. Because I wasn't cast in any Steinhardt shows, this means I'll be able to stay home until shortly before spring term starts on my birthday, of all days. Not sure when I'm flying back yet, but I know I'll be home for over a month, at least. And I think this is a well-needed break. I'm definitely going to miss my NYU friends, especially my best friend Elle, but I'm glad to be going home.

SNOW!! And Auditions

This morning I woke up and went to the dance call portion of my audition for the Steinhardt spring shows. Came home, did some work, and around 4 my roommate came home and made a comment about it snowing outside. I looked out the window and sure enough, it was snowing!! I'm not ashamed to admit that I opened the window (well, as far open as it'll go) and sat by the window for a solid half hour watching the snow fall. And then I got cold so I closed the window, but I still sat by and watched the snowflakes. It was so cool to see the cars and trees (as many trees as there are in New York City) covered in snow. And then later when I left to get a sandwich for dinner, it smelled fresh and it felt kind of like I was walking around in Tahoe or something. Definitely had a dorky grin on my face. I know all my friends will probably make fun of me for being so excited about snow, of all things, but it's so exciting to live in a city where it actually snows! I don't have to drive four to six hours to see snow, it's right outside my building!

In other news, I'm done with three fourths of my auditions for the spring semester. My dance audition for Once on This Island went fairly well, the dance was not what I was expecting. It was set to "We Dance" and I guess I was expecting something more jazzy but it was more hip hop. The choreographer's name is Melissa, which is cool. When they called my name to go up, she was like "My name is Melissa too!". My singing audition went extremely well, I think. After I sang the director said I had a really pretty voice, and when he asked if I was studying musical theater or classical and I said I was musical theater, he said "Well good, we need more voices like yours". They canceled callbacks for OOTI and I don't find out anything until either Friday or Saturday. This morning was my dance call for Carousel, and it actually went surprisingly well. They split it up into girls first for an hour and a half, and then guys, and I was in the first big chunk of girls to go. I think I was one of two freshman in that entire group of at least 25 girls. It turns out that I already knew the combination the choreographer was teaching us because it's my ballet teacher, MK, and she taught the dance to us last week in ballet, saying it was just some combination she wanted to teach us. When we went to perform the combo, I was in the second to last group. After we were done, my friend Kaitlyn (she's a junior) said that I did a really good job and that I looked great out there, which was really nice of her to say. So now I've just got my audition on Wednesday at 7:05, and then if I get any callbacks those are Thursday and Friday I think, and then I found out either Friday or Saturday what I've been cast in, if anything. Fingers crossed!

Thanksgiving in Albany, and Audition Stress

This year, I had the great fortune to spend Thanksgiving in Albany with my best friend, Elle. We left Tuesday night and I got back Saturday, so it was definitely a full vacation (with waaaaay too much food). I spent a lot of time just hanging out with her family, who are all very nice and sweet. She has three older sisters, and I was "roommates" with her closest sister Brittany for the couple of days I spent there. Her grandmothers, aunt, and uncle were also there, so it was a very full house.

I have a theory that I've gotten used to a certain (very low) standard of dorm food in college, so when I had Thanksgiving dinner, I had the worst stomach ache ever because I wasn't used to having such rich, high quality food. I told myself I'd get a little bit of everything but because there was sooo much food my plate was overflowing! The food was absolutely amazing; I loved this acorn squash that they made with maple syrup, it was super sweet and yummy. And I actually really enjoyed the brussel sprouts that Elle's sister Meredith made, which is odd because I don't usually like brussel sprouts. 

When we weren't hanging out with Elle's family and her super adorable dog Bear, we hung out a lot with her friends from high school. It was neat to get to meet them all and to see how Elle interacted with her high school friends as opposed to her NYU friends. I have to say, Elle seemed to act the same way with them as with me, but our friend Sam (who went to high school with Elle and who lives on the second floor of our building) was a lot more outgoing and talkative with his high school friends. Funny how some people change.

I really liked meeting all of Elle's friends, and hearing some old stories about her from high school and whatnot. Like me, she had a few distinctive groups of friends, and I think I liked her musical theater friends a bit better, or at least I got along with them better because even though I didn't know them, we had a lot in common that we could talk about. It was kind of cool to compare musical experiences and to talk about shows we've all done. One girl Alisa talked about coming to the city and visiting us at some point soon, which would actually be really fun!

Auditions are coming up this week. I have a dance audition on Thursday and then on Friday is my vocal audition for Once on This Island, and callbacks are on Saturday. Sunday is dance call for the rest of the Steinhardt spring musicals, and my formal audition for Carousel and the other shows is on Wednesday. I only have to sing at most one full "legit" song and one 16-bar cut of a more contemporary song. It's not a very formal affair, nothing much to worry about from what I've heard, but it's my first NYU audition so of course I'm nervous. The cast lists for everything comes out on either Saturday or Sunday of next week, so either the 14th or the 15th. 

Coldest Day of the Year....?

According to someone famous, today was supposedly the coldest day of the year. I think I can pretty much agree with that person because it was so. Frigging. COLD!!!!! I wore a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a peacoat, a scarf, gloves, a beanie, tall boots, jeans, and I was still cold. I couldn't feel my face or my thighs. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure I had a face because it was so frozen. I wasn't out and about much today, just walked to and from lunch, a couple of senior recitals, and then dinner. The senior recitals were absolutely amazing. I saw my friends Rose and Stephen, who were absolutely phenomenal. I'd never been to any kind of senior recital before so this was a neat experience because I got to see how the format works and everything. Basically the first half is composed of three "sets", each with three or so songs (I say or so because you can sing a cut from the song, you don't have to sing the entire thing). You have to sing both classical and MT sets, but because both of my friends were MT, they sang one classical set and then two MT sets. Then the second half is a character study, which is actually really cool. Basically, you choose a character from a show and do a very abbreviated version of the show with a few other people. Rose did her character study on Nellie Forbush from South Pacific, and Stephen did Billy Crocker from Anything Goes. It's such a cool idea because you basically get to star in any show of your choosing for like twenty five minutes or so. It was also cool because other people get to be a part of it, other people from the program. I'm excited for the point where my older friend's are doing senior recitals and ask me to help them out.

New Student Cabaret

This past weekend was New Student Cabaret, which was such an amazing experience. Everyone in my program is so ridiculously talented and I'm so honored to know them all and to be able to perform with them. All three of our performances were packed, which was also super exciting. My voice teacher came on Friday night and sent me an email afterward that said I did a fantastic job and that he was very proud of me. Prof Heldman and Bill Wesbrooks were also there, which was just a little bit intimidating. Bill Wesbrooks is the program director so he's a pretty big deal. Caleb told me that after the show Bill couldn't stop raving about me and about how great he thought I was. Saturday all of my VP friends came to support us, because they're all also in another show right now. It was really nice of them to come and support our class. A bunch of upperclassman (and some random people who I don't know) came up to me and said how great of a job I did was I thought was really nice, because I didn't know half of the people who were there.

Overall this was a really exciting experience and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. I'm trying to upload the video of my performance but our internet is being extremely faulty so I'm sorry if I can't get the video to you as fast as you'd like it. I'm pretty sure one of my classmates' family recorded one of the performances in its entirety and once that's up I'll post a link to it. 

First Weekend of Rehearsals!

This past weekend was our first weekend of rehearsals for New Student Cab, and I'm beyond excited to open next weekend. Yesterday we got our two group numbers and they sound absolutely fabulous! The people in my program continue to amaze me with how talented everyone is. The opening number sounds so cool, it's very Rent-esque and it sounds kind of like rock-pop. My teacher described it as the musical theater piece, and our closing number is our classical piece, because the two songs are such opposites of each other. But it's cool because it shows versatility and that, in her words, we're effing awesome.

Today we ran through the show from top to bottom, except for the group numbers. We basically just ran everyone's solo pieces in order. There are four groups, and I'm in the last one. They alternate between Classical Voice and Music Theatre. For the most part the people in my group are good friends of mine; there's just one guy who I don't know very well. I like my group the best because everyone stays on stage throughout each other's songs, and the way that my teacher organized our group is that everyone's song pairs up with someone else's. My song is called "I Think I May Want to Remember Today" and it's about wanting to remember a particular day, a particular moment, and then the song that comes after me is my friend Dexter's, and his is about looking back and wishing he'd appreciated the little moments more because moments are fleeting and you don't realize what you had til it's gone. There are two other pairs of songs in my group, and then my friend Mitch sings "Something's Coming" at the end, which actually pairs pretty well with our closing song, "Hope".

This week we have rehearsal every night from 7-11 in preparation for Friday. I'm not too concerned about the short rehearsal process because I've had to put a show on in about two weeks before, and it's not like we have many super involved dance numbers or anything. There's some movement but this performance is more about showcasing our voices. Plus it helps that two of the four group numbers we're doing we learned in choir, so we already had some of the work done.

Weekend in Pennsylvania

   This weekend I had the opportunity to go home with my roommate Caroline to Pennsylvania. Even though it wasn't my home or my family, it was still really nice to be out of the city and out of the dorm, and to be in a non-college environment.

   We got on the train around 2 pm on Friday after my last class of the day and arrived in Lancaster at around 5. Caroline's mom Elaine picked us up from the train station and took us into downtown Lancaster to walk around their First Friday. Lancaster is a really pretty town, it's bigger than Los Altos I'd say with a more historical feel. Caroline's mom told me that Lancaster was the nation's capital for one day a long time ago before Philly got it. They have some cute little shops and we stopped in at this one really yummy ice cream shop. I got black raspberry oreo and it was delicious!
I think we got to First Friday before it really started because it wasn't super crowded but Caroline's mom mentioned how it was more crowded than she'd ever seen it before. Caroline got tired after a bit so we drove over to their house.

   They live in Litiz, which is a small town outside of Lancaster, and she literally lives in the suburbs. I thought Los Altos was bad, in terms of having to drive to get to most everything (e.g. malls, food, etc) but where Caroline lives they absolutely have to drive just to get to the heart of Litiz, and then to Lancaster. It's about a ten minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, if that says anything. They also have a lot of drive-through Starbucks', which is pretty cool in my opinion. There's only one drive-through Starbucks that I know of and it's over by Bellarmine. Caroline's backyard is HUGE!! There's a small stream behind their house and I guess their backyard is considered a flood zone, which is why their property is so large. It's all grassy and pretty because the leaves are turning color on the trees and it was so refreshing and nice to see green and to be able to breath in country air. They built their house in 2008 and it's by far one of the nicest houses I've seen. Think Los Altos Hills worthy, but slightly larger and more land in general. They have two stories and a basement, and in the basement is a really neat movie room, in which we watched Admission on Friday night. Caroline and her siblings' rooms are on the second floor, and I stayed in her brother's room. They all have their own bathrooms, and the entrance to their rooms are cool because they've got a set of glass doors in addition to the glass doors that lead into the rooms themselves. Caroline's room is really pretty because she has something similar to a four post bed, except all the posts are connected at the top, and she wound lights around the top so it looks really pretty. All of their beds are huge, and it was really nice to sleep in a bed other than an extra long twin.
   The kitchen area is also really nice, they have lots and lots of windows which look out over the backyard. Caroline had mentioned how everything is white, and that the only walls that are painted are the ones in her sister Olivia's room. Walking into their house I definitely noticed that; everything was white and clean and open. There was just a lot of open space in general, which was nice. I think what was really cool was that the way that most of the windows in their house faced, you saw the backyard. Not many of the windows faced the other houses in their court, which is nice because it feels a bit more private.

   When we got back to Caroline's house on Friday, I met her dad and sister again. We hung out for a bit in their living room, just talking about various things, and then Caroline drove us out to dinner at this restaurant called Fiorientino's. It was pretty good! I really liked that place because it's attached to the smallest airport I've ever seen. Caroline's dad used to fly out of there a lot and he says it never has many direct flights for what he needed so he always had to connect in Baltimore or somewhere. It was so cute though, the security area was maybe the size of my room at home, not even.

   After dinner we drove around Litiz so that I could see a bit of it (even though it was dark outside) and we stopped by a grocery store so that Caroline's mom could get some fruit and other food for us. She got us something called whoopie pies, which are supposedly a Pennsylvania thing. They're so yummy! They're like oreos, but the cream inside is more like whipped cream, and the cookie part is fluffier, kind of like cake. Then Caroline and I went downstairs to watch a movie. Her mom made me this mint white tea that I really liked. I should ask her what kind it was, I kind of want to get it for myself.

   The next morning I woke up and got a shower and then headed downstairs. There was a note at the bottom of the stairs that said "Melissa, be right back!" so I thought they'd all gone. But I walked into the kitchen and saw Caroline's mom sitting at the kitchen table. They'd gone to the drive-through Starbucks and brought me a dirty chai latte, which was so sweet of them. I was touched that Caroline remembered what I order at Starbucks. We were originally going to go to yoga, but the night before Caroline changed her mind, so we just went to Pita Pit instead. Oh my goodness. That place is so good. I need to find the one that's supposedly near us in California because it was absolutely delicious.

   After that we headed back to the house and got ready because Caroline's dad was picking up her sister and her sister's friend Olivia so that we could go to Hershey Park. First we went to Chocolate World and went on this ride similar to the Haunted Mansion ride that took us through the history of Hershey and showed us how Hershey chocolate was made. As we left the ride they handed out little packs of Rolos, which was awesome. Free chocolate! Then we walked over to Hershey Park. I told myself that since it was highly unlikely that I was ever going back to Hershey Park, I might as well go on all the rides they drag me to.
   My overall impression is that the rides on the East Coast are SIGNIFICANTLY more intense than any I'd riden on the West Coast. My favorite was one called Lightning Racers. I've never heard of a ride that does this. There are two tracks with two coasters than run side by side simultaneously. They race each other! Apparently the ride ops can decide to start one slightly later than the other, and they can speed them up to a certain extent throughout the ride, which is how one wins over the other. I rode on Thunder with Caroline's sister Olivia, and Caroline and other Olivia went on Lightning. Now, Caroline is extremely competitive, so when Olivia's and my side won, Caroline's reaction was the best part of the night by far. We went on again and switched sides, and Caroline's side won that time. We think they rigged Thunder to win because it won something like ten times total while we waited in line to get on both times. I also really liked this one ride, Comet. It was a pretty standard rollercoaster, but I thought it was pretty because they had Christmas lights all along it and it was dark outside so the track was lit up by the lights.            
   The ride I liked the least was Stormrunner. Ugh. This ride has a very large incline at the beginning, and then drops you almost straight down into the rest of the ride. Caroline had told me about another ride called Fahrenheit that does the same thing, where it takes you up at a ninety degree angle and then drops back down almost into itself, that's how extreme the angle is. I hadn't seen that ride yet so when we were on Stormrunner and I saw a really tall, extreme drop in the distance, I said to Caroline, "That isn't us, right?" and she looked at me and said "Yupp." I just about died. It was one of those rides that brought you around to the starting point and stopped for a few seconds before launching you, and those seconds were the longest, scariest seconds of my life. I was so scared. I kept saying "No no no I don't want to do this anymore" and Caroline laughed and said "Too late now!" The ride went backwards a little bit before shooting you forward and as soon as we went backward I started screaming my head off. I absolutely, one hundred percent, hated that ride, and I'm never going back on so long as I live. But hey, I did it! Sure, I might have been shaking really badly and had to hold back tears, but I survived.
   As I mentioned before, Caroline is super competitive, and she's also super good at skeeball. There was a little skeeball arcade attached to the food court we ate at, and Caroline went crazy! I've never seen that side of her before. She had this technique down pat where every game she played she won at least one ticket, and to win one ticket you needed to get 240 points. She won enough tickets to get one of the bigger stuffed animals on the wall.
    Before we left the park, we stopped in at a shop toward the entrance to the park and I got a Hershey sweatshirt and some chocolate. We also got some candy to bring back for the rest of our suite.

   The rest of that night was pretty mellow, we just hung out in their kitchen and had tea. SNL was on and Caroline loves that show so we watched. I've never really sat down and watched that show, but it's really funny. I think at some point in her life Caroline should try auditioning for their show or something, because she's hilarious.
                                                           
   This morning I woke up and went downstairs and had English muffins with Caroline. She's also obsessed with Keeping Up With the Kardashians so we watched that too. Her parents came in with Starbucks again and got me a caramel brulee latte. On the ride over to Hershey Park the day before I'd mentioned how I love those and wait the entire year for Starbucks to bring them back, and I even called Starbucks to see when they'd start selling them again. Turns out they were selling them that day! So this morning when Caroline's mom walked in with a caramel brulee latte I was so happy and so touched that they remembered! Caroline's mom made a funny comment, she said "Yeah I was talking to you and as soon as you took your first sip you had this look on your face like Ohhh I'm so happy right now!" and she wasn't at all wrong. The first caramel brulee latte of the season was absolutely amazing.

   After breakfast we hung out for a bit watching tv, then Caroline, Olivia, and their mom and I left to go get lunch. It took us soooo long to decided where to eat, because Caroline and Olivia fight like cats and dogs (not unlike Katherine and myself), but we finally ended up at Panera. After lunch we drove over to their mall and shopped around for a few hours. They've got some cool stores over in PA, they have something called Bon Ton, which is like crossover between JC Penney's and Macy's. I ended up getting my dress for New Student Cab there. Caroline took me to this one store she'd mentioned before called Francesca's. It's dress heaven. And accessory heaven. Oh my goodness they have sooo many dresses. And when I walked in the first thing I noticed was how much jewelry they have! They have necklaces and bracelets and earrings in every single color you could imagine. I really wish I'd found something there that I liked because I can guarantee there are no Francesca's near us. It's a little boutique-y place, kind of like something you'd find on Castro St in Mountain View.

   We left the mall around 5 and headed back to Caroline's house for a bit before we left for the train at around 7:10. It was a 7:40 train, but we left early so we could stop at Five Guys to pick up some food for the train. I felt bad taking a family of vegans and vegetarians to a burger place, but Caroline's mom made brussel sprouts (which were suprisingly amazing) and soup for Caroline to eat on the train. I kept trying to pay for things this weekend but they refused to let me pay, because I was their guest. I paid for the stuff I got at the mall though. This entire weekend Caroline's family was so sweet, and I kept thanking them profusely for letting me stay in their home and for taking me places. It was just so nice to be able to get away from the city for a bit, and to be in a family environment again, even if it wasn't my own. And I was also just constantly amazed by their house.

   So now Caroline and I are on the train on our way back to NYU. We've got about an hour left to go, which isn't bad. There's wifi on the train which is awesome, so I can surf the interwebs and whatnot.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

College Update.

The daily life of a college student is pretty boring, there's not much to report. I go to class every day, and do homework at night. Nothing extraordinary has happened this week.

Midterms are over, which I guess is a relief. I didn't really have any intense, normal people midterms because most of my classes are music related. I'm doing well though, across the board. All of my teachers are pretty happy with my work so far.

Tomorrow is Halloween, which I guess is a pretty big thing in the city. Apparently there's some big Halloween parade on 6th Ave but I was just planning on staying in and watching tv. I've never been a huge fan of Halloween.

This weekend I'm going home with my roommate Caroline, she lives just outside of Lancaster, PA. I'm pretty excited because on Friday we're leaving around 2 and then when we get off the train we're going to their town's First Friday, which should be pretty interesting to check out. Then on Saturday we're doing yoga and checking out something called Central Market, which is apparently one of the oldest markets in the US. And there's lots of Amish people there. Caroline's excited for me to see an Amish person for the first time. Also, her parents are treating us to a trip to Hershey Park which I'm soooo looking forward to. I'm not sure if we're going to the amusement park area of it but I know we're going to Chocolate World which sounds amazing. This weekend should be a lot of fun. I'm actually even looking forward to the train rides, because I love the train. We'll get back in late Sunday night around 11, so I'll be in PA all weekend.

Not this weekend but next weekend, we start rehearsals for New Student Cabaret. I think we're going to have rehearsal every night from 7-10, in addition to the hour we have on Wednesdays in New Student Seminar. I'm really looking forward to this, I've missed rehearsing for a show. And I'm also looking forward to finding out what group songs we're doing and to hear everyone sing. I don't think I've heard everyone sing yet, just some people here and there. In my English Diction class we've started performances, where everyone brings in an English art song and performs it in front of the class, and then we critique their diction based on what we've learned so far. We had our first day of performances today and I'm somewhat impressed by the talent level. Well, I'd say I'm neutral. We had one girl perform for whom English is her second language, so we spent a lot of time with her on her diction. I didn't realize until now how difficult some words are to pronounce properly.

Cinderella!

This past weekend a few friends and I decided to rush a Broadway show. We had just finished brunch and were sitting around trying to figure out what to do, when my friend Javi said, "Hey, let's go rush Big Fish!" It was just after 2 o'clock Sunday afternoon and Sunday matinees start at 3.

We basically bolted to the nearest subway station (which was a struggle for my short legs) and as our luck would have it, an R train pulled up right as we went through the turnstiles. We hopped on and as soon as we did, we realized it wasn't stopping at 49th due to maintenance, and we needed that stop because the theater was on 52nd. But as we pulled into the 42nd St stop, we noticed the N train pulling in as well. My friend Will was like, "why don't we get off here and get on the N, see if it stops at 49th?" We hemmed and hawed but when our train stopped Javi went "Oh what the heck, let's do it". So we got off and hopped onto the N, which, amazingly enough, did stop at 49th. Luck was on our side that day!

We booked it to Big Fish's theater, only to be harassed by some guy trying to sell two tickets and to learn that there were no more student rush tickets available. As annoying as that guy was, we weren't discouraged. We just walked over to the Broadway theater to see if there were any student rush tickets for Cinderella, and there were! We were all so excited, we were going to see a Broadway show! It was the first one I'd seen since moving out here. My friend Jack made a funny comment, saying that when he woke up this morning he didn't think he'd be seeing a Broadway show.

The show was absolutely magical, I'm so in love with it. It wasn't one of those shows that if I didn't see it I'd be devastated, but I'm so glad I did end up seeing it. The costumes were so so pretty, and Laura Osnes is beautiful. We actually just got her right before a vacation; that was her last show before taking a week off, so we just caught her. After the show we rushed out of the theater so that we could be the first ones at the stage door. We were such nerds. We got pictures with Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana, who played the Prince. It was so exciting and awe-inspiring to meet them and to get their autographs. I really hope that one day I'll be the one coming out of the stage door to a bunch of fans asking for pictures and autographs.

Fall break, short week, and roommate adventures

This past week was quite a busy one! It started out with fall break, which was lovely because I got to go home and visit my family and see my super talented sister Katherine in her best role to date, and I brought back warm clothes and fuzzy socks (always a plus). Classes started back up again on Wednesday, which meant we had a shortened week, woohoo! It felt weird though because classes that I normally have Mondays and Wednesdays I only had once this past week, so it was a little disorienting.

My friend Griffin came to visit two colleges in the area, and he stayed with a mutual friend of ours who lives on the fifth floor of my building. My roommates and I had a blast showing him around and hanging out with him in the dorm room, chatting about California and colleges and all that jazz. We all reminisced about how horrible the college application process was and how we're so glad to be done with all of that. We took Griffin to the High Line, which is this old elevated train track that the city of New York decided to turn into a park of sorts somewhere around the 1930's and was opened to the public in 2009. It's absolutely gorgeous, they put a lot of trees and greenery along the sides of it, and it's pretty neat to look out over the city. It makes for some good photos. Then we took him to the Grey Dog, which is a local cafe near NYU that my roommates and I love. The table we were sitting at had a mini map of the San Francisco area which Caroline and Dan-a thought was really cool, so we spent the next twenty minutes or so talking about the geography of the Bay Area and where everything was. They're convinced that the Bay is in central California, but Griffin and I are adamant that no, it's in northern California and everyone knows that. I think the people sitting at the table next to us had a very interesting conversation to listen to.

Then yesterday Caroline and I (literally) dragged Dan-a out of bed to go to Battery Park for an hour or two. I'm not kidding when I say that we had to drag her kicking and screaming out of bed to force her to leave the dorm at least once that day (if we hadn't, she probably would have spent the entire day studying indoors). Once we got there it was such a gorgeous day. It was chilly and a bit windy out, but the sky was clear and the air was crisp and fresh. I brought along some homework to try to get some work done but we just ended up taking silly pictures and people-watching. I got the work done later though, don't worry. Then we went to Palladium for dinner and more roommate bonding. It was pretty nice to get to spend some time as just 710-A, because I feel like so often we're all so busy with class and doing our own thing that we don't really get to spend much quality time with each other, so it was nice for all of us to hang out and enjoy each other's company.

Decorating! And some weird weather..

So after a month of living in my dorm, I finally started putting serious effort into decorating my side of the room. I had already put up these mirrored decal words that say "Sing, Dance, Love" on my headboard, but I needed more than that because I have a very bare, very plain white wall next to my bed. So I got some Christmas lights and put them up around my headboard and I absolutely love it. It adds a nice touch and it's nice soft lighting so I don't have to have the harsh overhead lights on all the time. I also ordered two wall prints from this website called Dormify.com that specializes in dorm room and apartment decorations. I got this really cool one that is an M and is purple, black, and cream and looks kind of mod. I think it'll go well with my color scheme.

The weather here has been pretty fickle, and confusing. It's officially fall, and we welcomed fall initially with typical fall weather: windy, pretty chilly, but sunny toward middle to late afternoon. And I love that weather, it makes me happy. Boot weather is the best weather! But the past few days it's been warm and muggy but at the same time chilly and muggy in the morning. For instance, I left my building this morning around noon to go to my coaching for New Student Cab, and by the time I got to the Ed building I was pretty warm. Then later when I left my building again around 1 to meet my friend Mitch to go get my Christmas lights, I was cold! I almost went back upstairs to grab a cardigan or something. I'm really looking forward to when it gets cooler again because I love fall in the city already.

Player's Club Date Auction

This past weekend NYU Steinhardt's Player's Club held their annual Date Auction, which was a night of Disney songs and fundraising for our winter musical, which they announced is going to be Once on this Island. Everyone who performed auctioned off a date with them, which ranged anywhere from picnics in the park to game nights. One guy even auctioned off dinner and tickets to a Broadway show of the bidders choice! My date wasn't quite so fancy; I auctioned off hair and makeup services. My friend Jen from my program won my date, and I went for I think $40. In total we raised almost $1400 which is amazing.

I sang "Home" from Beauty and the Beast which was absolutely nervewracking. It was my NYU singing debut and I was soooo nervous!! A lot of people were there from the program, including a bunch of seniors and even a few grad students. I was the first soloist to perform after the Player's Club officers did a little opening number, and I got a standing ovation. I was grinning so big, it was such a rush! Everyone was hooting and hollering and I was standing there thinking "Okay this is really exciting! But what do I do now?" because I was supposed to stay onstage so that they could auction off my date. I'm wondering if I might have gone for more money if I had gone later in the evening, because toward the end of the night the bidding got kind of crazy. I think the bidding bug hit people later on, and when I was auctioning off my date people hadn't gotten warmed up yet. But $40 is a very respectable number and I'm happy I was able to help raise money for the club. I bid on my friend Jordan's date; she's going to take me, Mitch, Javi, and Ben on a picnic dinner in I think Central Park. Not sure when that's happening, but I'm excited for it.

Tomorrow night is Javi's 20th birthday, and a big group of us are going to dinner to celebrate. I'm finally going to find a use for that bow-tie I got in Italy. I was talking to Javi randomly about formal attire one day and he mentioned how he only had one bow-tie which was hot pink. I had been trying to think of what to get him for his birthday and then it hit me. Bam! I'll give him the bow-tie I've been hanging on to! The only thing I'm not super excited about is that we're going out on a school night, but hey, it's college. And my first class on Friday isn't until 10 am so I get to sleep in somewhat, compared to the rest of the week.

Nuyorican Block Party

Yesterday I went with some people from my floor to this event called the Nuyorican Block Party. There's a cafe called Nuyorican Poetry Cafe on 3rd street that poetry slams and whatnot all the time, and apparently they have a poetry team that competes in poetry competitions. From what the lady announcing the poets was saying, their team usually does pretty well.

The event wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was really cool to watch. It was outdoors, they'd blocked off the entire block and we were just sitting outside listening to people present their poetry. It was interesting, because all of the poets were African American, and it was really neat to hear their poetry because it was all from their perspectives and was about the struggles they face in day to day life. One guy kept repeating "Excuse me" in his poem that talked about his interactions with various white and black people throughout his daily life. There was one poem I really enjoyed about how we're so dependent on technology. The poet said something like, "I have an iPhone and an iPod and an iPad and an iHome and an iLife and an iMouse that I use on my iComputer". He was basically poking fun at how attached we are to our phones and such but it was pretty entertaining.

The atmosphere of this event was pretty cool too, because it was obviously a lot of families coming out to support the poets. It felt like one of those places where everyone knows everyone and everyone's business. At the same  time, I didn't feel uncomfortable being there, because it was a really warm and welcoming environment. Plus they had free food and really yummy cotton candy, so I was happy about that.

I've also been spending a lot of time with some of the girls in the room next to me. Their names are Alexi, Emily, Caitlin, Natascha, and Jordan. This past weekend Caroline went home Thursday night, Dan-a went home mid-day Saturday, and Jasmine went to a friend's apartment in Jersey Saturday evening, which left me and Karen home alone. Karen went out with some of her friends, so I decided to hang out with the girls next door. We went out into the city and just walked around and explored, which was really fun. We walked past a lot of hole-in-the-wall type restaurants that we want to try out at some point.

Week Two, and Sweet Smell of Success

This week went better than last week, I think. I'm getting used to the swing of things, to my new routine. Its getting easier and easier to wake up for my 8 ams, and I don't feel as exhausted by the end of the day. I've been hanging out with two of my friends from my program a lot, Mitch and Gabriela. We'll meet up for dinner or coffee a couple times a week.

The homework load is bearable, I don't feel overwhelmed or anything yet. So far I've spent most of my Saturday working on homework and making sure I'm on top of everything. Not that I've been here long enough to fall behind, of course, but I don't want to let anything slide.

Two nights ago I went to go see Steinhardt's Vocal Performance's production of Sweet Smell of Success. It was absolutely incredible! Before the show started, they had a small ceremony/presentation to induct Marvin Hamlisch into NYU Steinhardt's musical hall of fame. A couple of people spoke, including Marvin's wife, Terri. It was so interesting to hear her speak about her husband and his work process. He was the kind of guy that you had to learn to speak quickly with and butt in, or not get in at all. I found that particular anecdote pretty funny. By the end of the half hour or so presentation, Gabriela and I were pretty impatient for the show to start. Once it did I was bouncing on the edge of my seat with excitement. I'm such a music geek; as soon as the orchestra started playing I was squealing and clapping because I love the orchestration of this show. It's so beautiful. The talent on that stage was mind blowing. The dancing was fantastic, of course (because MK choreographed it), and it goes without saying that the singing was phenomenal. Watching this show made me so proud to be a part of this program, and that this is the level of talent of my fellow peers. It also made me incredibly excited to start working on New Student Cab and to start performing again.

First Week of College Down!

I apologize for the late post.

My first week of college was fun. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, especially the 8 am classes. I think I just need to get into a schedule and I'll be fine. Maybe I should try going to bed slightly earlier as well...

I love my ballet class. Starting the day off with MK is so great, she makes getting up at 7 am completely worth it. She's so energetic and enthusiastic that it rubs off on my and makes me excited to dance at an ungodly hour. So far we haven't done any actual "ballet", we've just been moving around and getting our bodies used to movement again, but I appreciate that. It's been a while since I've danced seriously, with structured warm-ups and exercises.

My speech and diction class is going to be fun, I can already tell. My teacher is super relaxed and chill; he told us to call him Evan. He's so adorable, because on the first day he told us that he'd been married for exactly one year and two months, which of course all the girls aww-ed at. We played a name game to get to know everyone's names and I think I've got it down. It's similar to the summer program in that for most of our classes we're split into two roughly even groups and for the rest we're all together, but the groups aren't always the same from class to class.

English diction isn't going to be fun, I don't think. For one, it's the last class right before lunch, and we're all exhausted from being up so early. I think at that point the energy buzz from ballet/our Starbucks run in between dance and S&D wears off, so we're all kind of tired. It's also kind of a boring topic--I think I know how to speak English. But I understand the necessity of it, so it'll be a good learning experience.

I LOVE my choir class! I love the teacher, which is such a foreign concept to me. He's this fabulous gay man who's super bubbly and friendly. We've already started two songs, "Under the Willow Tree" and "Cindy", and they both sound amazing. He told the girls that we'll be singing soprano half the time, and alto half the time. So for "Under the Willow Tree", I sing alto 1, and for "Cindy" I sing soprano 2. Singing alto 1 is actually really enjoyable, because even though it's lower it's still harmony which I love singing. It's challenging but it sounds so good when we all sing together.

On Wednesdays we have New Student Seminar, also taught by MK. I'm not entirely sure what this class is yet, but I automatically love it because it's led by MK. I love that I get to start and end my days with her.

So Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are good days for me because they're all my musical theatre classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays are not so fun. I start out with 8 am basic musicianship during which I always have a hard time staying awake. My teacher's voice is pretty monotone and he's hard to hear, so sometimes I kind of just give up on trying to hear what he's saying and work on the homework for the next class. So far it's been fairly easy, just basic stuff, but it's all stuff I know I need to practice and work on. I actually really do appreciate my basic musicianship class because I've never gotten any specific training in music theory. I always felt that that was something I was missing out on, so I'm really glad that I have a class dedicated to just that.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are also the days where I have insanely long breaks. I have musicianship at 8 am and then my next class isn't until 11. So sometimes I take a nap, or I actually get ready for the day (if I decided that I was too tired to put effort into my appearance for musicianship). My 11 o'clock class is unfortunately my African Diaspora lecture, so if I'm tired (which I usually am), it's bad news. I have to fight to stay awake in that class if we're not taking a lot of notes. If the teacher decides to talk more and give us less notes then I really have to focus on staying awake. There's one girl in my lecture who lives in my building, and is actually someone I kind of knew through Bellarmine theater from back home, so I sat with her today. Now I have someone to go to if I miss a lecture or something.

On Tuesdays I have my voice lesson at 2 which I really enjoy. My teacher, Dan Lawler, is super friendly and doesn't care if I make a mistake. He's very encouraging. He gave me two new songs to sing, "I'll Know" from Guys and Dolls and "Out of My Dreams" from Oklahoma. I sight read "I'll Know" a lot better than I thought I would, which was pleasantly surprising. "Out of My Dreams" was a bit more iffy because I know the tune, but I kept thinking it was in a lower key than written, so that threw me off. But I'm excited to work on my music and get to know the pieces. Dan wants "I'll Know" memorized for next week so that's my big challenge for the week.

Finally I have my Writing the Essay (WTE) class. I actually really enjoy that one. It's a small class, maybe 16 or so people. I made friends with this girl Elle who lives on the 16th floor of Brittany, so I have someone to walk to and from class with. We've been getting dinner together after class too. She's super sweet, and she said I could use her printer whenever I need it. That'll be nice, for the times when it's kind of late and I can't walk over to Bobst to print something out. My teacher for WTE is pretty nice too. She's fairly young and very New York, is the best way to describe her. I don't feel nervous or intimidated to share my thoughts or opinions because whenever I say something she seems to really think about it and take the time to formulate a response to my statement. So far we've had a few homework assignments for the class, but it hasn't been anything super hard. We've done a few quick writes in class which I enjoy, because I like to write on a subject for five or so minutes to see what I come up with. I always look forward to that class.

Fridays are an entirely different story. I get to sleep in, for starters, which is super exciting. I don't start class til 10! And I begin my day with vocal production with Prof Heldman so that's a huge plus in my book. She's a great teacher, and I can't begin to describe how lucky I feel to be able to work with her again this semester. The subject matter should be interesting as well; it's all about how the voice works and how sound is produced and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage as singers.

After vocal production I have program seminar, which I was very shocked to discover meant everyone in the program, and I mean everyone. It wasn't just freshmen, it was sophomores and juniors and seniors too. From my impression, it kind of seems like just an hour where they can have us all in one room and make any important announcements or talk about whatever. There might be some performing going on at some point too, which could be cool. I like it because it means I get to see my upperclassmen/sophomore friends.

Most of my peers are done after program seminar but lucky me, I have my recitation at 2. It's not so bad I guess, it's in some dark-ish room in the lower level (code for basement) of the cultural center or whatever at NYU, and its about 18 people. However, we were missing some thing like 6 people last week, which I thought was kind of funny. My TA is a grad student in the history department and her specialization is African Diaspora, which is really convenient for us. She had us turn to the person next to us and interview them so that we could start getting to know each other. I met Will, who's a sophomore transfer student from some school in Indiana. Apparently, he used to be a professional ballet dancer for 10 years but he had to quit because he got injured, which I guess is why he also transferred over to NYU. Our TA tried to have a discussion with the class but she decided to let us out early because it was Friday and it was gorgeous outside. It was a really pretty fall day and she wanted us to be able to enjoy it, which was really nice of her.

Other than school, I've just been trying to figure out a good schedule for myself, a new routine to get the hang of. I need to figure out good practice times to work on my material for my voice lessons, and the whole printer situation. Buying my own printer is starting to sound reeeeal appealing right about now. It's just so convenient, especially since I'll be printing stuff for WTE all the time, not to mention endless amounts of sheet music.

I plan on seeing Sweet Smell of Success on Thursday, which I cannot wait for. It's being put on by the VP program, so a lot of my friends are in it. I'm excited to see what the people in our program are capable of!

Making Friends and Street Fairs

I can now officially say that I have two new friends at NYU who are not my roommates! Jen Sax, who is another Steinhardt VP major, lives in my building on the fifth floor. Sonja Haroldson I met at the second Steinhardt orientation, she's a studio arts major.

I went and got coffee with Sonja yesterday, which was a lot of fun. We just sat in Starbucks for about an hour and talked about ourselves, where we were from and what our interests were. She's such a nice girl, and we have a lot in common. She's from Washington, so we've got that West Coast connection going on, and she's extremely energetic and spunky like me. We also ran into her boyfriend's roommate Danny, who seemed really nice. After Starbucks we walked around this street fair that popped up on University and Broadway. I think it's there for the holiday weekend, though I'm not sure. It's pretty cool though, there are a lot of vendors selling really neat artwork and tapestries and such. Kind of like the art in the park thing back home. After walking around for a while we decided to head over to Weinstein for lunch, because we were both super hungry. I had a pretty good meal, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I'm not getting bored of dorm food yet! I'm just trying to figure out which cafeterias I like the best. Then after lunch we headed back to our separate dorms, but I think we're probably going to try to hang out soon. We're both pretty excited to have made a good friend already, because we both feel like we're trying to find a solid group of people that we could hang out with at any time. I think I'm getting there! She's going to introduce me to her boyfriend and his group of friends, so maybe that'll be my group, who knows?

This morning I met up with Jen, the girl who lives in my building, and her friend Raf for lunch. We were going to go to Weinstein but we passed by a Chipotle on the way and discovered that Raf had never been there before, so naturally we had to eat there. It turned out that there were a few VP upperclassmen in line before us, Raf's mentor included, who ended up inviting us to sit with them. It was kind of exciting but also a little bit nervewracking to sit with these guys because they kept asking us questions about freshman year and our classes and if we were excited and whatnot. They were super nice and it was cool that they were trying to get to know us, but I could tell that Jen and Raf and I were all super intimidated by them. One guy, Steven, is from the West Coast (he's from Oregon) so he decided I was his West Coast buddy. The upperclassmen left after a while because they had to go to rehearsal for Sweet Smell of Success (which I'm SUPER excited to see in a few weeks), so Jen and Raf and I decided to go check out the street fair a bit more, the one on Broadway. I had my first deep-fried Oreo which I'm proud to admit I loved, and I kind of want another one. Jen had a date tonight with a sophomore from our program, so I went down to her room to help her get ready. She didn't seem too enthusiastic though, because we've both heard some pretty sketchy stuff about him in terms of him being a player, so we'll see how that goes. Raf and I were joking that we should stalk them by going to whatever restaurant they were going to and sitting at a table nearby to keep an eye on them. We never did, but Jen is a tough girl, I know she can handle herself.

The rest of my suite did laundry for the first time today. I passed because I didn't feel like I had enough laundry to merit a trip down there, but they said it was quite the experience, so I have that to look forward to. Caroline and Jasmine went to go see the new One Direction movie, and Karen went to the FYRE cruise (a freshman-only overnight cruise) with her friend Derrick. So it's just me and Dan-a chilling in the dorm room which is totally fine, we're just watching movies and generally hanging out. It's nice to be able to relax now because I know that once school starts it's going to be a nightmare.

First early morning...

And I'm not sure how I feel about it. The past few days I've been able to sleep in because I didn't have any early morning orientations like my other roommates but today was my turn. I had to be at a Steinhardt M-PAP orientation at 9 am, which seemed hellishly early compared to my (so far) usual wakeup time of eleven or so. When I got there I saw that they'd provided Starbucks coffee and various pastries which I was so excited to see. They know us so well already! Us music and arts students can't survive before noon without coffee.

The orientation itself was really fun. I made a new friend, Sonja, when we were checking in and we ended up sitting together. She's a studio art major, and she's from New Jersey, I think. Poor thing had really bad allergies-- she said something about being allergic to her dorm room-- and kept having to get up and leave to go blow her nose. I felt bad for the guy sitting on the end of the row because he had to get up every time to let her out.

We heard from various Steinhardt staff members who had a lot of really helpful tips on surviving our first year, and we got to know our Orientation Leaders, or OL's, who were current students at Steinhardt. We played a "speed meeting" game where they numbered the rows and had the odd rows get up and move to the next odd row back and turn around to the even row behind them and introduce themselves. I met a lot of nice people, most of whom were Music Business majors (seems pretty popular).

After that they broke us up into our various majors so that we could meet everyone else and find out more about our programs. I met about one-third of the VP's, because a lot of people had their diagnostic hearings during the orientation time. Most of the VP's who I met were Classical emphases, but that's okay because we're spending the first two years mostly together; they don't split us up until junior year. had two OL's who were both VP majors: Sydney, a MT emphasis, and Will, a Classical emphasis. They answered a lot of our questions and gave us so much useful information about the program and what to expect from the coming years.  One interesting point they brought up was that as VP majors, we kind of have a built-in excuse to wear sweats and tank tops to class most days out of the week. I have an 8 am dance class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and with five minutes in between most of my classes I most likely won't have enough time to change into something else. So if anyone asks we can be like "well I had an 8 am dance class, I didn't have time to change."

Tomorrow night we have a meeting/mixer with our mentors, which I'm really looking forward to. I actually already met my mentor Taylor on Tuesday at my first orientation. The cast of Sweet Smell of Success performed a few numbers and she's in the show, which I didn't know. So I was just sitting in the house waiting for the presentation to start and then she came up to me and was like "Melissa?" and I looked up and recognized her from her Facebook profile. She's really sweet and friendly-- she dragged me up to the front of house and introduced me to some second- and third-year VP majors and some of my fellow freshman.

Day Two of College Life!

Today was a little less crazy than yesterday, but it was still a whirlwind. I woke up around 10:30 am (sooo luxurious, I know) to an empty dorm room. All my roommates had orientation for their various colleges, which all started around 8 am. It was kind of weird to have the room to myself, but it was also kind of nice, I suppose. I showered, blow-dried my hair, and got ready for the day.

We had to meet in the elevator lobby on our floor at 12:30 so that we could all go to the Presidential Welcome and Reality Show as a floor. I figured my roommates wouldn't be back until noon or so, so I ate some leftovers from dinner last night. But by 12:15 no one had showed up so I called them and asked, "Where is everybody?" They all said they were running late but that they were suuuuper close, so I went out to the elevator lobby to meet the other people on my floor and wait for my roommates to show up. Finally everyone gathered up and off we went!

We took the subway, which was pretty exciting. It was my first subway ride as an official NYU student! Safe to say Brittany Hall kind of took over the subway system; there was a huge crowd of us and all non-NYU people looked at us like we were a cult or something. It was actually pretty funny to watch.

The line to get into the theatre was RIDICULOUS! It went around the block and wound around a few times, and it was very very hot. The Presidential Welcome itself was pretty cool. They showed us a few videos explaining NYU's history and kind of what to expect from our experience at NYU. President Sexton spoke to us, and his speech was pretty moving. He's a very inspirational person and he seemed to really mean every word he said. The only negative part of the event was that it was long. I mean, really, really, really long. I almost fell asleep a few times. But the Reality Show was pretty interesting, and not too long. It was a musical show written, directed, and performed by NYU students who were all incredibly talented. It was kind of neat how they took a bunch of relevant topics such as making friends, going to parties and knowing how to be safe, and balancing homework loads and turned them into musical numbers that were entertaining and informative.

After the show ended, my roommates and I decided to get away from the giant crowd of fellow NYU freshmen who were crowding the closest subway station. We walked down a few blocks to a different station and headed back toward Washington Square Park (WSP). I deemed Caroline our official subway navigator because she told us she used the system a lot with her parents and that she's pretty familiar with how things work. Hooray!

Our floor RA, Florie, sent out an email saying that we were all going to meet in the elevator lobby at 6:15 to walk over to Downstein for dinner, and that everyone should go. Apparently, Downstein is what they call Weinstein, because it's basically down the street from us. I went with my roommates and a few of the guys who live in the quint across the hall from us, they're pretty nice. I'm the first of my roommates to really try and make friends outside of our room and the people we already know here, so I'm pretty proud of myself.

I went with Caroline and Jasmine to go see the A Capella Show at Kimmel Center, which was AMAZING!!! I watched my friend Dash perform in the Mix Tapes, and then I was very surprised to see John Bujalski and Nick Kenrick both performing in a different group, the Vocaholics. I also saw my friend Adrienne Eller perform in the N'Harmonics, which I think might be the best group on campus because they were last to perform and when they were announced everyone started cheering like crazy! And they were kind of amazing. I got so excited watching everyone perform, and I really want to audition for one of the groups. Maybe Dash could help me get into the Mix Tapes, who knows!

After the a capella show, we stopped by our local grocery store Gristedes to get some nibbles and soda, and now we're chilling in our dorm room watching TV and painting our nails. Dan-a and Karen went out to some college party for 18+ that's glow in the dark themed. I kind of get the impression that they'll be the ones who go out to parties, and Caroline and Jasmine and I will be the ones to stay in and watch TV and hang out. But that's totally okay! We all get along really well and it's going to be fine. The only thing that was annoying was that this morning Dan-a's alarm clock went off like five bajillion times and she kept hitting snooze, and Caroline and I were both kind of like "Uhh hello...?". Caroline said she felt bad for me because I didn't need to be up that early but I was woken up because of her alarm. I didn't really mind because I understand that it's all of our first time sharing a room with others so we might not realize that it's insanely annoying to keep hitting the snooze button and sleep through your alarm that wakes everyone else up. Its forgivable for the first few nights, but if it continues to be an issue I think Caroline and I might talk to her.

On a better note! We're having a deep conversation about religion and beliefs right now and it's actually really interesting and enlightening. We all have very similar ideals and it's cool to discuss these kinds of things with people who agree with me. I'm going to go join that conversation now, so see ya later!

Signing off from the Big Apple,
Melissa

The Little Hapa takes on the Big Apple!

Greetings from my brand new dorm room! Literally, it's brand new, they finished renovating this building in time for us freshmen to move in. Brittany Hall is absolutely beautiful, it's so clean and white and new! It was so exciting to move in and unpack my new life. I think the only negative part of the entire process was the wait to actually get into the building and onto the elevator with my five pieces of luggage. I think my dad and I waited about half an hour to forty five minutes in the hot New York sun. Once we got into the building, however, I was so excited to be there that I didn't mind the wait at all.

I was the last of my roommates to arrive, so I didn't get to choose my bed or anything. It actually ended up working really well. Our room is shaped a bit oddly, it's kind of like an incomplete square, because the fourth side opens into the bathroom and the double room. My roommates Caroline and Dan-a arranged all the furniture before I got here, and I ended up with my bed against the wall opposite our big window, and with my desk behind that. The best part? I get my own closet! There's no door to keep the closet closed, it's just one big rack partitioned into two by a wall with a shelf running across the top. But it's nice and big and all mine. We have an awesome, brand new TV that Caroline's parents bought for us, and then a fridge that Dan-a brought and a microwave I brought. Overall our set up is pretty nice; I'm very happy with how everything looks and I'm so excited for the upcoming year.

Getting into New York was kind of crazy. The flight into JFK wasn't horrible but we had to wait in a gigantic line just for a taxi! You'd think that it being New York, taxis would be more than abundant. I dunno, it was crazy. But the line moved fairly quickly and we ended up getting into a taxi within a half hour. The cab ride was nuts, the driver was pretty aggressive and lead-footed. Dad fell asleep, and I enjoyed people watching during the extremely slow traffic into the city. 

I took my dad to eat at Artichoke Pizza and Vapiano, which are two of my favorite restaurants in the city. (Well, they're two of the only restaurants I really know in the city so far so...) It was so good! I haven't eaten at either of those two places in over a year and they were both just as good as I remembered. 

Right now I'm sitting on my bed just chilling with my roommates. We're all in the triple, and I feel like this is going to be a common occurrence. We're all sitting on each other's beds, surfing the interwebs and deciding which Welcome Week events we want to go to. I signed up for yoga, a comedy night, a hypnosis performance, and a few others. I signed up for a lot of these events with some of my roommates so I won't feel so awkward going there.

That's another thing. My roommates are so nice and awesome and socially awkward like me. We keep all laughing about how awkward we are in social settings and unable to talk to new people. So it's nice to know that I'm not alone in feeling that way, and I know I have a group of friends to be antisocial with if I need them.

We're all headed off to sleep now, but I'll write more later!

Signing off from the Big Apple,

Melissa