I spent most of my years growing up in a small town, in my own little corner, oblivious to most of the things happening outside my sheltered little life. When one comes to the big city, people back home tell you... "be careful" "you know people up there are "different," be careful!" All these comments scared me sometimes when contemplating the big move... But after almost two months here, they are actually kind of funny. What these people mean is... "they're weird" "be careful, you might see something you've never seen before" "be careful, you can't be sheltered off like you are here." To them, I can now say... "I'm sure glad I came!"
Even at home, some might say I live a "boring, sheltered" life, so coming to New York was definitely going to make an impression. Being sheltered or oblivious makes for lots of awkward situations, or at least makes people feel like a situation is awkward. My friends joked around about how I would get stuck with crazy roommate........... Some joked about me getting shoved during rush hour in the subway... others said I would be "too nice at work and get trampled." After two months, only two of the three have occurred, and lets just say I'm doing fine at work! Hahahahahaha!
In these two months, I have experience awkward situations like never before, but like one of the partners at the firm recommended to our group of interns "you have to learn to get over feeling awkward." Contemplating where I was and where I am now, I think I'm starting to make progress!
Thursday, for example, after working all day on the presentation for the end of the summer (where I will tell what I did and learned), I decided that I would go exploring West Village, a part of the city I had not been to. I invited the interns, but I got no response from the group... At the beginning of the trip, I would have probably either taken this personally (without realizing that they all live waaaay out of the way and hate to get home late) or gone directly home trying to avoid having to do things by myself... I guess I always thought that was "awkward"... Instead, I had an amazing time and found a part of the city that would be amazing to live in. After my walk I even enjoyed a lovely meal at Joy Burger (a recommendation from one of my suite mates) by myself. Two months ago, I think I would have been mortified to be seen eating by myself! Now, I really enjoy it! I was able to people watch and enjoy the new coolish weather taking over Manhattan after the rain last week.
Friday, was a wonderful day at work... But the awkward was hard to avoid. Although I had a lunch meeting with my supervisor scheduled, she changed the plans and took me to a meeting with an entire team I did not know and a partner I had only seen from a distance once. The group discussed issues I didn't know anything about, constantly joked about matters I didn't understand, but also turned out to be a wonderful source of knowledge. Later in the day, my supervisor sent me an email and asked me to stop by her office. Once there I heard her on the phone... her door was open... what to do? A month ago, I would have awkwardly hung out in the bathroom and sneaked back every few minutes to check if she was off the phone. Friday, I just knocked! Soooo... she pointed for me to enter, and continued on the phone... AWK! No... not really. I waited, and as soon as she was off, we continued the conversation. After our meeting, which actually was very insightful and ran long because of it, I commented that the interns downstairs joke with me and say that my supervisor does not exists. She laughed and I explained that they knew her name very well, because they had heard me say it over 500 times every time I did a phone survey. She laughed and said she was coming down to meet everyone!!! I was in shock! Once downstairs, I introduced her and the room got awkwardly quiet! In 2 seconds my boss turned it into a laughing scene, including everyone in conversation, and joking about her disappearing acts! It was wonderful and left me incredibly happy to have worked on her team.
After work, I took another leap by myself. Actually it wasn't a big deal at all, but I think 2 months ago it might have been. I walked from 41st and 7th, to 49th and 3rd... For those of you that don't know the city, that is 8 blocks up, and a LOT of avenues over... OH! And avenues are veeeerrrrryyyy long! It was fun, I got to make a few phone calls, I caught up with people, and I enjoyed the cool weather of post storm Manhattan. On 49th and 3rd, I waited at Smith and Wollinsky for Laura, Adam, and Katharine (and Ole Miss student who is working in D.C. this summer and was visiting for the weekend. We had reservations at this incredible place (since its restaurant week) and were all excited to try it out! The food was delicious! I had fried calamari, grilled salmon, asparagus, mashed potatoes, and chocolate moose cake... The others had fillet mignon, coconut cake, cheesecake... and yeah.. It was delicious!! After eating came the awkwardness... of course... how do we split the meal? Again, I have learned... Since our waiter had not proven to be very friendly, I wrote funny descriptions of our credit cards and assigned amounts that needed to be charged to each of them. When he saw what I had done, he started cackling, it was priceless!
After dinner we had planned to go see Young Buffalo play. I truly couldn't believe they were playing here... Its kind of surreal to think that the talent that walked through Oxford High School with us is now sharing its talent in the big apple... When it got close to time and Adam and Katharine kept saying that they would start late, I almost decided to skip out and go to bed. My thought was... I've been up for forever, I will have to leave early because I'll be too tired, and that would be awkward right? NOT... I decided to go, and I am so glad I did! It was a blast and such a pleasure to hear Young Buffalo again, they amaze me every time I go listen to them. I listened to the second band, and sadly had to call it a night half way through Dent May's performance.
This morning, I woke up to awkward... My roommate had a friend spend the night. I don't know her, she doesn't know me... My roommate is asleep and we are getting ready while she sleeps... Or she's getting ready while I am supposed to be getting up... In my head, I though... let me play like I'm asleep until she leaves.. I don't want to bother her and make this awkward... Soooo, I texted my suite mate and pushed back our departure time! Am I an idiot or what? After two seconds I realized how dumb that was, got over the awkward, and got ready for the day. This morning involved a wonderful trip to the Cloisters on 190th St. This is a beautiful area! I had heard about it from a couple of people, but Mrs. Fitts had specifically recommended it last week, so I knew I had to go! It was incredible!!! The park, the trees, the river, the monastery... I really can't describe it, so I'm putting pictures !
After that, we took a subway back and ate at a cute bar in Hell's Kitchen. When ordering, we asked our waiter what the best thing on the menu was. He answered crab cakes, which none of us where super excited about. When asking what else was good, he shyly answered, its all good, but I can only recommend that because it's my mom's crab cakes... It was sooo cute, sooo of course we ordered them, and he was right! DELICIOUS!!
After that I hurried to see the Lion King... The production was sooo impressive... The voices were incredible, but most of all, they actually looked like animals. I don't know how the heck they managed to make it so beautiful, but it really was! My only problem with the show was the fact that only the main characters looked excited to be on stage... I guess I'm getting really picky, but they just didn't look very happy to be doing the show... It was strange actually... maybe it was just the costumes eating the energy up... The show brought back a lot of memories though... so it was still emotional. The movie always reminds me of my grandmother, and as soon as the cast started singing "In the Jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight." I got flashbacks to the first time I heard it being sung by Lucia's choir in Uruguay and the times that the Scotland group sang it at the bus stop in Scotland improvising harmonies, noises,etc... Oh the memories... If someone was to add up the people that I think about while here.... whew, NYC would be waaaay more overpopulated.
After the show, I took the subway of awkwardness. I was shoved into a VERY full car... worse than I'd ever seen! But, I got over the awkward... all for Levaine's cookies... I had to go have my last cookie! I blame Drew for this... since the first time her recommended this place to me, more than a year ago, I haven't stopped coming back! From there, I sat at a Starbucks to recharge my phone and then headed to Columbus Circle where I found Sephora doing free makeovers. At first, I though, NO WAY!! So awkward, right? Everyone watching, creepy! But then, I got in line. Sadly, Adam called before my turn and we met to pick up Harvey tickets. (I say sadly only to make him feel bad, because I was totally ok with it.) After picking up the tickets, we went in search of potato skins and fell into McGees pub, which turned out to be the place where the bar in How I Met Your Mother is based off of. The place was wonderful and was close enough to the theater.
Midway through dinner the usual awkward NYC situations began.... And that is why I love this city, it is teaching me to expect anything and be ok with anything that comes my way. Next to us we found Terri, a middle aged woman, with her nephew. The conversations started with her asking us for directions... Then it extended to her telling us that they were going to a comedy club, they had free tickets to a show, and she has a house in Brooklyn and one on the beach in Rockaway Beach. Great right? She's a psychologist, lives on the beach, her rooftop view faces Manhattan and she even showed us pictures! After we turned down her tickets, since we had some for harvey, she started telling us how her nephew soooo wanted to see it. At this point I considered giving him my ticket, but quickly realized I had promised Davenport I would see it, AND I only have one week left.... So I told them if it wasn't for that, I would give it to him... At this point she starts talking about her beach house and Adam says he's been trying to go up there. Soooo she tells me to take down her number and call her. She's having a party Monday (with board games) and we are invited. Since I'm signing my bill, she stops to wait before calling out her number... Impatiently Adam says, I can take it down... At which point she says looking at me, "as long as she says its ok!" What???? We were so confused... Either way we took down her number, said our goodbyes, and headed to the pharmacy... Since Adam is getting sick, we got him some water and medicine, in order for him to make it through Harvey.
Almost to the theater we realize that neither of us can open the water bottle... So.. naturally Adam approaches a bouncer and asks him to open it for him. I could have literally died I felt so awkward. But the guy was a great sport and looked like he barely tried before getting it open. We laughed our way into the theater and continued laughing for the next 2.5 hours. The show was a hit and Jim Parsons was very fun to watch on stage! Overall it was a very awkward day, but most of it no longer felt awkward to me! Most importantly it was a wonderful fun day!
