I Was An Extra!

Last weekend I was an extra in a student film! Elle has a friend from a summer camp she went to and he posted a notice about needing extras for his film project and she forwarded it to me saying that I should get in touch with him. So I emailed him and he was like, "Sure! We'd love to have you be an extra."

It was definitely an interesting experience. The script for the movie was kind of confusing, but then again I only briefly glanced at it. I was supposed to be a "90's cool kid", and I was in the party scene they were shooting. I got there at 9, like the call sheet said, but no one else was there except some of the crew. So I was kind of just standing around for a while, and no one really talked to me or introduced themselves to me except Aidan, the guy Elle knew, and some of the other actors who were there. More people showed up around 10:30, and then by the time 11:30 rolled around we'd only gotten two shots. The entire evening took what felt like forever. It was kind of awkward because I had to pretend to be friends with all these people I didn't know.

We were supposed to finish by midnight but I knew that wasn't going to happen, it was all very unorganized and I never really knew what was going on. I think we finally finished around 1:30, and then luckily one of the people who actually bothered to introduce himself to me was headed back to the same area of Brooklyn, so we took the subway together. I was glad about that, because I wasn't too excited about taking the subway back from midtown by myself at that hour of the night. I was perfectly fine to go back by myself, I felt safe, it was just a long trek and I would've gotten bored.

No clue when this movie is going to be finished, but I did run into Aidan and some of the crew in Washington Square Park when I was going to meet Elle for dinner. They were filming a scene at one of the chess tables in the southwest part of the park. I said hi, and I think they recognized me. One of the guys said he definitely remembered me because no one else had purple hair, so that's something. Hopefully they'll let us know when the movie is done so we can see it. I wonder if I'm actually in any of it!

Free Day!

Today I had the day off from work which was awesome! I slept in until 11, I woke up because someone was knocking on the door. Turns out it was one of the landlords and two people who were thinking about buying the building. Apparently they'd told Jules about it and she said someone'd be home, but she completely forgot about it and forgot to tell me. They didn't stay too long, which was good. They looked around and asked some questions, and then left fairly quickly.

After that Jules and I got ready and went into the city to run some errands. We went to Chelsea Market to look for a specific juice that Jules wanted. I hadn't been there since freshman year and it was Jules' first time there. I think we found the brand of juice that she was looking for, but they didn't have the flavor she wanted. After that we headed to Whole Foods to pick up ingredients to make breakfast for dinner - we made french toast, eggs, and bacon. So yummy! I suggested to Jules to cook the eggs in the bacon grease (which she'd never done before) and now she's saying she's always going to do that. Score one for me!

Other than that, today was a fairly relaxing day. Did a lot of reading which was nice, I don't get much time to read these days. I did pick up a bunch of books from The Strand for 50 cents or a buck each, which was awesome, and I've been reading those on the subway. I finished Ender's Game and Sarah's Key, and now I'm working on 1984. I'm going to raid Jules' book selection next once I'm done with this one. Seems like the only time I can really read is on the subway and on my lunch break. I'll sit at the table in the kitchen at work and read while I eat, and a couple people have commented on that. Nothing negative, just people find it kind of funny/interesting that I like to read on my lunch. They usually comment on how it's rare these days for people to read physical books, as opposed to stuff on Kindles and e-readers, and also that it's rare for people in my generation to read versus being on their phones. It's just a nice break, I suppose.

Happy Birthday America!

Yesterday was the Fourth of July, and my downstairs neighbor invited me and Jules and our guests to join him at the party he was having, which was really nice. He made so much good food! We had curried ribs, he made some kind of dish with duck, and there was pasta and hot dogs and hamburgers. I had a little bit of everything and I was stuffed. Then for desert there was homemade ice cream and cookies and cupcakes. Some of his friends are DJ's so they came and played music for us. Plus, there was a little pool outside set up from when Jean's daughter was here (she's eight) and one of Jean's friend's had a little eight-month-old baby boy who went paddling in the pool for the first time - that was adorable. It was a little awkward, just because the only people at the party were either Jules' friends or Jean's friends. Jules' friends were my age so I got along with them, so that was fine, but Jean is maybe in his forties or so, so all of his friends were a lot older.

For fireworks, we walked outside and watched from the stoop area. We actually had a fairly good view, because people were setting off fireworks from a couple houses down and then in the neighborhood. Probably wasn't safe, but it was fun to watch! I got to see fireworks!

Apparently Jean is having another party next weekend, a friend of his is moving to London so they're having a going away party for her, and he invited me and Jules and told us we could bring our friends if we wanted. I'm not sure if we're going to go but it's nice that he invited us. He's a nice guy and he cares about us a lot, so I feel safe having him live downstairs.

Sisters in the City

Sorry for the delayed post.

Katherine came to visit this last week and we had a mini sister vacation! Unfortunately I worked most of the time that she was here (during the day at least), so when I was at work she went off and did her own thing. I think she went to some museums and did touristy things. She also saw a bunch of shows without me, which made me sad.

The night she flew in I met her at my apartment and then we went into the city to go see On The Twentieth Century with KRISTIN CHENOWITH!!!! Ugh it was so amazing, it was my inner theater nerd's dream come true to see KCheno perform. That night it was pouring outside, which Katherine wasn't happy about, but luckily when we left my apartment to walk to the subway station it wasn't raining, and then it started up again when we got to the subway station. It sprinkled a bit when we were walking back from the theater but over all we managed to avoid the worst of it. In fact, it was kind of weird weather the entire time she was here. Overall it'd be fairly nice but it was still kind of muggy and overcast, and it'd sprinkle a lot.

On her last night here we went to go see Aladdin, which was amazing!! We saw James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie, which was so cool. I remember seeing him in Into the Woods and Spelling Bee and all these shows that he used to do in the Bay, and now he's on Broadway! Very cool. Afterwards we waited at the stage door and got pictures with him and talked to him a little bit about how we were from the Bay and that we used to see him perform. He introduced himself to us, and we were so starstruck. We left the stage door and went to Coldstone to get ice cream, because it felt appropriate.

Overall it was a fun little vacation for the both of us, and it was nice spending time with my sister! Just waiting for the next family member to come visit so I have another excuse to eat good food and see Broadway shows :)

The One Where Melissa Walks A Lot

This past weekend I hung out with a lot of friends who I haven't been able to see in a while because we're all so gosh darn busy.

Friday night I got dinner with Elle at a Thai fusion place near Washington Square Park called Galanga. Weird name, good food. We unfortunately sat near the world's LOUDEST four women, they kept talking extremely loudly and would periodically burst out cackling. It definitely made for a fun dinner, we had to keep pausing what we were saying until the four women next to us quieted down for a brief second. After dinner, we went to Sundaes and Cones and walked around the city. Apparently they've started showing movies in WSP on Saturday evenings, because we walked through and saw a huge screen put up in front of the arch. They were showing some foreign French film. I definitely want to look into what they're showing this Saturday, might be a fun thing to go to.

Saturday I stayed in and did chores, not very exciting.

Yesterday I went into the city to have brunch with my a cappella friend Jerry and his friend Lauren from high school. We went to The Penny Farthing (FAVORITE BRUNCH PLACE YUM) and then went to the Strand to book browse before meandering over to WSP to people-watch. Lauren got a text from her boss saying she needed to go to their company's booth in Tompkins Sq Park and clean off some chalk graffiti, so we walked over with her and helped her out. She works at some organization (I think it's called the Poet's Society of NY or something like that), and for the summer they've set up a wooden booth/shack thing with a typewriter inside, and during certain hours people can come in and write whatever they want on the typewriter. It's hooked up to an iPad which somehow logs every keystroke from the typewriter and puts it up on a website they've set up, so it's kind of like a live stream of the New York conscious. It launches tonight, actually, at 6 pm, but already someone tagged it with chalk. It's New York, what do you expect? Then after we cleaned off the booth, we went back to WSP and did some more people watching and book reading before heading back to our respective apartments.

I'd just like to say that walking from WSP to Tompkins Sq Park and back, and around the surrounding areas, is no small feat. I definitely got my exercise in for the day!

No New News

Sorry to report that there's no new news this week. Finished the third week of my internship, going into my fourth week. Living in Brooklyn is going well, joined a gym so I'm going to try to start doing that. Life is fine, just trying to get into a rhythm and figure things out.

Summer Craze & General Life Nonsense

Life has been crazy with both internships and trying to balance them without going insane. 

I'm now halfway through my third week of both internships, and settling into the swing of things. I've gotten into a bit of a rhythm with everything, and I feel less like a fish out of water.

I'm really enjoying working at Reservoir, I like the work I'm doing and the people I'm working with. The office has filled up the last couple of days with other interns for the summer, so I'm slowly meeting everyone else and figuring out names. Looks like there's six interns total, four guys and one other girl besides me. Also, my boss Cat told me that she's hoping to hire someone in the coming weeks to work under her (kind of a step between her position and mine), so that'll be fun to adjust to. She said I'd have the upper hand because I'll have been here longer, so even though this new person will be my superior in title, I'll be like their superior in experience at the company. 

Every Friday I'm tasked with completing something called Analytics, which is just a fancy term for data entry on the social media we're putting out and how it's being perceived. Pretty much what this means is going to various websites and figuring out what people looked at, how long they looked at it, how many people were engaged, etc. Ian (the guy who had this internship before me) said he hated doing Analytics because it was tedious, but I actually really enjoy it. I've had to do it twice already, and even doing it the second time I somewhat felt like I knew what I was doing. I wasn't totally familiar to the point where I didn't have to look up in my Intern Packet what to do, but most of the steps felt familiar. Plus, I really enjoy the whole data entry type of thing, I'm not really sure why. But I look forward to doing Analytics each Friday.

General life nonsense! 

I still have yet to do laundry, which really needs to happen soon. The laundromat around the corner from me closes at 7 or 7:30 every day, and most days I don't get home til close to 6. It takes about an hour and a half to do one, maybe two loads, so you do the math. They're also closed on Sundays. There's another laundromat not too far from me, it's by the subway station so maybe three or four blocks away. I could walk there, because I know they're open later and longer (sometimes they're still open when I come home from my second internship at 8 or 9). I just don't want to walk all that way with my laundry bag, I'd feel kind of silly. I'll figure it out though, I'm running low on clean undergarments.

The weather has been absolutely gross. It was nice and hot for a while, and then the last couple of days have been stormy and gloomy and icky. I thought it was June? 

Also, I got my first ever hair cut in New York the other day, which was totally as exciting as it sounds (sarcasm). I just got a trim and bangs, nothing special. I went to a Super Cuts, and the only reason I knew it was there was because I remember going first semester with Elle to get her hair cut. PLUS they gave me a student rate, which was awesome. 

So that's it for now! Updates on life to come.