Amanda In The City

Second Day In The City

amandainthecity — Fri, 22 May 2009 05:12:09 +0000

This is my third post of the day and good God am I getting tired of typing! So, today I continued to explore the city. I woke up late after freezing half to death on the air mattress that Dave bought yesterday. I don’t know why I was so cold, but I definitely was. I started out by taking the subway over to Brooklyn’s Chinatown. I ended up getting off at the wrong stop, but figured out where I was and where I was going in about a minute, so it was all good. The area was actually pretty boring unfortunately. Not at all like Manhattan’s Chinatown. The only real discovery made on this part of the trip was that Chinese fish markets do not smell good at all.

After that I walked to the nearest subway (which was not near at all), and headed down to the Ivy Bakery in Brooklyn. I’d read that they were supposed to be amazing and I was craving the cappucino cupcakes I’d seen on their website. When I finally got there, a sign advertising their specials was outside along with an “Open” sign on the door. However, the door was 100% locked. I decided to walk around the area for a while assuming that the person working just had to go to the back or something and wold be back in a few minutes. When I came back half an hour later, the door was still locked. I was cupcake-less and pissed, and headed back to the subway.

I got home, ate pasta, and then decided it was naptime. After sleeping for an hour and a half I finally convinced myself to get up and accomplish something. I considered trying to look for a job, but decided to go into Manhattan to check out the St. Mark’s Place area. I took the subway up and walked around for a few hours checking out the stores. I saw a bunch of skaters around 9th St. and Ave A, and had heard there was a skate park nearby, which I’m assuming is in Tompkins Park, but I didn’t actually see it so I’m not entirely sure. I thought some of the street vendors had cool stuff until I realized that they all had extensive collections of ugly hipster scarves, which I detest. I did find a cool record store (which actually had records this time) on Astor St. between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. There’s actually a store, and then a guy in front of the store who also sells records. The actual store is kind of expensive, but the guy out in front has some good stuff for super cheap, but it’s cash only. I picked up a Beatles album and Led Zeppelin for $21 dollars total, so I was happy. And I will definitely be going back.

At about 6:30 I decided to head back to the subway and stopped at Cold Stone to get something to drink on the way there. So far, I really like the subway, but I’m told I’ll get tired of it after about a year. I have to say it’s better than driving, where you have to pay attention. Back at the apartment, I searched for media companies online and did research on how much to charge starting out. I also updated my LinkedIn profile and got ready to send out resumes tomorrow. Now I’m cooking a late late dinner and getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow will be job search day, wish me luck!

First Day In The City

amandainthecity — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:35:15 +0000

Wednesday was my first full day in New York. I had originally planned to head to Manhattan for a while, but decided to check out Brooklyn instead since that’s where I’d actually be staying. I got up after the guys had left for work and began on my quest for food. There are a hell of a lot of market/delis in the area, which is good, b/c I am always hungry. The bad news is that they’re all incredible overpriced since they’re locally owned. I started at 16th Street and wandered up 4th Avenue up to around Downtown Brooklyn. For those of you not familiar with Brooklyn, that’s about 4.4ish miles round trip. On the trip I found a Walgreens with cheap food and stocked up on pasta and some Hot Pockets. I learned several things on the first outing of the day: 1. New Yorkers must get into A Lot of accidents for there to be this many auto body shops; 2. Cats in grocery stores is apparently totally acceptable; 3. Cats in grocery stores will occasionally attack your leg, and by “your leg”, I mean “my leg”; 4. My nose is NOT used to breathing in this much pollution, I spent the better half of Day 1 feeling like I had to sneeze; 5. At least SOMETHING is cheap in NY http://twitpic.com/5nnae .

After I finally got back to the apartment I swore to myself that I would Never Again walk such a truly insane distance. Then I ate my entire package of Hot Pockets and some pasta and took a nap on the couch. I don’t know why the guys were knocking sleeping on the couch, because I was hella comfortable.

After my nice little nap I decided to go exploring in the opposite direction. I wasn’t really paying all that much attention to where I was going and how far I was getting until I realized that I was at 40th Street. This is the point where a normal, sane person would have thought to themselves “okay, 40th where I’m at – 16th were I’m staying = About 25 blocks, maybe I should turn around”. But not me, instead, I thought to myself “40th street! That’s only about 15 blocks away from where I’m going to be living! I should just keep going!” So I did. I found where I the brownstone was that I’m going to be living in from June through the end of August. There was trash everywhere on the street, but I like the area a lot.

From there I went up to 5th Avenue and kept heading farther away from the apartment until I convinced myself to turn around at 60th Street, almost 45 blocks from where I started. Brilliant. Luckily, this walk was not nearly as brutal as the first because I could avoid sunlight better and I had two bottles of water I brought along. The area around my new apartment has a lot of shopping, with cheap clothing and lots of cell phone stores. This is a good thing, because I need/want a new cell phone in ways that words can’t explain. Eventually, I ran out of street and had to head back to 4th Avenue. I got to a subway stop and thought about how much faster it would be to take it rather than walking, but I’m so brilliant I decided that I could tough it out. I eventually made it back in a state of “beyond exhausted”. I calculated that I walked a grand total of 8.8 miles that day. I know, you’re impressed, I would be too.

These are the things I observed on this trip: 1. The sign might SAY 99cents, but trust me, there is nothing that is actually 99cents; 2. NYC needs more benches so I can stop and rest like an old person when I get tired; 3. There is no such thing as wide, spacious aisles in NYC stores; 4. People who can skate on sidewalks this awful are probably better than I’ll ever be at skating; 5. It might say “record store”, but there’s probably only CDs and DVDs.

After getting back from my second excusion I decided to eat and stay at the apartment. Until I realized that I was out of juice. This time, I at least decided to be smart and take the subway to the grocery store down the street. After that, I looked for jobs online and fell asleep a few times while doing so. Dave’s advice to me was to look at creative websites listing companies in New York and then spam them until I find work. His other advice was not to get an actual job, but just to freelance. I’d be fine with this, as I could then take vacation when I wanted. This would allow me to take off for Really Important Things like cheap flights of Travelocity and out of town skate contests. Love it.

Recap of Tuesday, Arriving in NY

amandainthecity — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:57:52 +0000

It is now Thursday, and I haven’t blogged in a few days, so I’m going to make a separate blog post for each day to keep it from getting too long. I flew out of Peoria to NY on Tuesday and had a quick 20 minute layover in Chicago. Luckily, the plane wasn’t supposed to actually leave until a half hour after boarding, and it was in the same terminal, so I didn’t have far to go and made it in plenty of time. I even had time to grab a sandwich to eat on the plane. I don’t know who I was sitting next to, but she worked for Pepsi and didn’t stop talking on her phone until we were taxiing down the runway and she lost the signal. The flight seemed shorter than expected and was fine aside from some turbulence. I also got through baggage claim pretty fast which was awesome, because normally it takes forever. Once through, I called one of the guys I’m staying with, who was still at work, and then hung out at the airport for 40ish minutes until he’d be back at the apartment to meet me. While there I talked to my mom on the phone, had a migraine, did some complaining about aforementioned migraine, and then eventually got a cab out.

I wasn’t feeling great by the time I got to the cab, due to the migraine, the smell, etc. and felt even worse by the time I got out. I know that cabbies usually drive like maniacs, but this guy was like the guy who refused to let anyone pass him. When I leaned forward to see how fast we were going at one point it said 70. I stopped looking after that. I was looking out the window on the ride there and could see Manhattan and thought to myself that I should be a lot more excited that I was. Instead I was just kind of like “oh look, the Empire State Building, that’s nice”. I’m not sure if it was that I was tired and felt like crap, or if I’m just not impressed by things like I once was. I’m hoping it was the former. I got to the apartment after about 20ish minutes and got settled in. I ended up sleeping on a yoga mat with a sleeping bag since all of the air mattresses in the apartment were flat and apparently the couch isn’t that comfortable. Not to mention small. It’s really more of a love seat than a couch. And that was the end of the first day. Onto the second.

Today Is The Day… Recap of Past Few Days

amandainthecity — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:56:50 +0000

I’ll be honest, I’ve been avoiding blogging like the plague. Or swine flu. Every night I tell myself that I really need to do it, but I just never get around to it. Allow me to bring you up to speed on the past few days.

I finished packing, building websites, and doing everything else I needed to do prior to leaving by last Thursday. Friday the family came into town for graduation on Saturday. Graduation was on Saturday, which was long and boring. It took about 3.5 hours, which was half an hour less than last year. We had to meet in a room and then walk outside to get to where we were supposed to enter. This was obviously planned by a man who failed to think about the fact that girls in heels aren’t good at walking down long, concrete ramps. At the bottom, I somehow ended up doing an interview for a local tv station, which I thought was interesting because when she asked for volunteers, I was the person pointing at everyone else. Yet somehow, I was selected to be interviewed. I took my iPod to listen to to keep myself entertained. And before you judge me for that, I would like to point out that at one point I looked across the row I was sitting in and saw almost Every Single Person had either an iPod, a phone they were texting on, or a Nintendo DS they were playing on to pass the time. The speeches went fairly fast, but the acoustics were awful so I couldn’t really hear anything. My hat kept falling off everytime I walked. After graduation I hung out with my family for a while and then escape to watch the Protec Pool Party online broadcast (skate contest, for those of you who aren’t aware), which was amazing. Pedro Barros is phenomenal!!!

I finished getting everything out of my room and into suitcases on Sunday. It was a pretty uneventful day. Monday I rearranged the suitcases and managed to get my skateboard in (yesssssss) after I went skating with Ryan Ann for about an hour. My grandma left town and I spent some time with my mom afterwards. Then I went out with Amanda #1, Josh, and Kelly to eat and go to Target. You know what I love about Target? The fingerboard selection. I. Love. Fingerboards. Call me dorky, but I think they are Awesome. I tried to get Josh into my fascination with them, but he just wasn’t into it. I was disappointed. Then we dropped Kelly off and went mini-golfing. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at it. We attempted to keep score for a while and then just gave up and goofed off. Eventually, mini golf turned into a full contact sport, with the three of us running around hitting each others balls as far away from the hole as we could and then slamming into each other to try to stop anyone from making it in before we could. Then Amanda #1 and Josh dropped me off at my mom’s and said goodbye. It was a great goodbye that I totally messed up by calling them to make them come back so I could give #1 her stuff back. Oh well. I’ll see her in a few months when she moves as well. I spent the rest of the night dying my hair, packing, and moving boxes around.

Today I got up and finished getting ready to fly out, went to lunch with my mom, and wrote thank yous to everyone for graduation. My mom brought an extra suitcase to the airport so in case I was over the weight limit, I could get rid of stuff. Shockingly enough, I was not. Both suitcases were fine. At least, if they weren’t fine, they didn’t tell me or charge me, so I’m okay with that. I also managed to get through airport security in record time. I figured I would probably have to unpack my whole entire carry-on since it’s full of hard drives and electronics. Luckily, I only had to unpack a few things, which was a relief. Now I’m sitting at the gate waiting to board. The plane is here and ready to go in about 40 minutes. I just hope we’re on time because I only have half an hour to get to my next gate in Chicago. I’m now 4 hours and 23 minutes away from landing in NYC. I’m EXCITEDDDD!!! A little nervous about getting all my luggage and getting it to Dave and Joel’s apartment, but excited. I can’t believe I’m actually going to be there that soon. It feels like the past year has flown by.

I’ll be blogging more once I get there and actually have stuff to talk about. Might blog again tonight if I have the energy. Goodbye Peoria, I won’t miss you. Not even a little. I promise. I will miss my MM peeps though!! I’m going to start changing all of my social networking locations. Peace out!

Packing Is Complete…Getting Closer

amandainthecity — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:52:20 +0000

It is now a mere week until I will be leaving. I finished packing on Sunday and only have a little left to deal with. Most of it will just be packing suitcases and doing laundry. My room feels so empty without anything in it. The walls literally echo now that I’ve removed all the posters. Unfortunately, I still have plenty of other stuff to take care of. I have a website to build, a two hour video to edit, and a shot breakdown for a feature length film to do. Luckily, school is done. I finished my portfolio presentation yesterday as well as my video class. I also got all 20 of my print portfolios printed, assembled, and DVDs burnt in only about 7 hours. I’m very pleased. By the end of today I will hopefully be done with the website and will just have a video to edit on Wednesday. Tonight another graduating Multimedia senior is having dinner at his apartment for some of us. It feels weird that in a few days I may never see some of these people again. Only one week til moving! I have yet to figure out how I’m going to get all of my stuff into two suitcases.

Thoughts About Moving, Packing Continues

amandainthecity — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:57:28 +0000

After working on my portfolio today, I came back to my house to start packing up more stuff. Packing is one of those things that just really feels like it’s never, ever, ever going to be done. In reality, I’m probably close enough that I could finish tonight if I really wanted to. Granted, I would be up All Night Long, but that’s about how close I am. While packing, I’ve discovered several things: 1. I have entire too much stuff, 2. I really need to get a trash can and learn to use it, 3. So that’s where all the dishes in the house went! One of the main issues I’m having while packing is all of the things that fall into the category of “I probably don’t need this, but I definitely do not want to get rid of it, so I should probably keep it, but I really don’t want to have it shipped out and then have to find something to do with it, but if I don’t want it that badly, is it really, really worth keeping?”. Things that fall into this category are typically things like diaries, journals, writings, random things your friends gave you in middle school that you can still remember them by and feel like it would be somehow morally wrong to dispose of it. So I guess the only real choice I have is to put them into one box and hope to God that my mom is okay with holding onto it forever. Or at least until I’m living in a place that’s larger than a closet. I’m not even sure at this point how many boxes I have packed up, but it doesn’t look like nearly as many as I expected.

I’m flying in late on a Tuesday night. Too late to really do anything once I get there, other than getting settled in. This means that I will have three days until the weekend. Because of this, I feel like I have two options: 1. Hit the ground running finding a job first thing on Wednesday morning, or 2. Go exploring for five days, get it out of my system, and start looking for work the next week. On the one hand, I Really Need A Job. But on the other, trying to get myself to focus enough to look for one when I’ve just landed in my favorite place in the world, which I haven’t been to in 6 years, and where there is always something to do, is going to be nearly impossible until I’ve gotten to have at least a little bit of fun. I’m hoping that I will be motivated enough by the possibility of having to come back to Illinois (or worse, Missouri) if things don’t work out that I won’t put off the dreaded job search too long. I mentioned the decision of what to do first to my mom, who pointed out that it was probably best to learn my way around, get things I’d need for the first few weeks, learn the area/subway/etc, check into a new cell phone (mine has gone to complete crap recently, I can’t even see the screen), etc. before doing much else. And let’s face it, moms are always right, right? So I’m going to take her advice. And interpret it. So my interpretation of it will probably go something like this: learn my way around with some nice window shopping; buy some stuff; learn the subway system by visiting Times Square/Central Park/The Empire State Building/Anything Else That Might Be Interesting, and; actually find a new cell phone with texting, picture messaging, and most importantly, Twitter.

So while I was thinking about the ordeal of job searching vs. exploring, I was talking to Amanda #1 today (my best friend, for those who aren’t aware), who was recently in New York for a few days in February, about subways. I haven’t been on a subway in years. Most people hate them, but I absolutely love them! Despite their grimey-ness, grossness, noise, smell, etc, I think they’re wonderful. I’m so excited to ride on one again! The R runs between the two places I’m going to be living at, which are only 2.5 miles apart, so I can get to know the entire area without having to go too far. I can’t believe I’m Actually Going. I’ve been planning for over a year, but actually having tickets, an apartment, etc hasn’t fully hit me yet. So far, things have fallen into place very well, and I’m just hoping that it will continue like that. I’m off to do more packing, and by packing I mean washing every dirty dish I found in my room.

Dutch Jan Hagel: This Has Nothing To Do W/ Me Or The City

amandainthecity — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:59:09 +0000

This is the tastiest recipe I’ve ever had. It doesn’t or look like it would be that great. But I assure you, you will NOT be able to stop eating them once you stop.

Dutch Jan Hagel

1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Cream together butter, sugar, brown sugar. Stir in egg yolk. Add mixture of flour, salt, cinnamon, mix well. Press into ungreased 10x15inch pan. Beat egg white w/ water. Brush egg white mixture over dough. Sprinkle almonds over top. Bake at 325F degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into diamond shapes while warm.

Twittering New York

amandainthecity — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:56:28 +0000

I have a confession. I am hopelessly obsessed with Twitter. I think my friends might have to take me on that show Intervention, for a Twitter Intervention. It’s that bad. So after officially getting the apartment I was interested in in Brooklyn for the summer, I sent off the rent check and got on Twitter to start finding users dedicated to posting Tweets about events in the city that I will soon call home. Did you know that Every Single Subway in all of NYC has it’s very own Twitter account? Well, now you do. Here is a list of great NYC Twitter resources I found:

Free New York: http://twitter.com/freenewyork

Free Film NYC: http://twitter.com/FreeFilmNYC

Obscene NYC: http://twitter.com/obscenenyc

Free Foods NYC: http://twitter.com/freefoodsnyc

Free New York: http://twitter.com/Free_NewYork

NYC Unlike: http://twitter.com/NYC_unlike

Time Out NY: http://twitter.com/TimeOutNewYork

NYC Deal: http://twitter.com/nyc_deal

Inside New York: http://twitter.com/InsideNewYor

Thrillist NY: http://twitter.com/ThrillistNY

Event New York: http://twitter.com/EventNewYor

We Heart New York: http://twitter.com/WeHeartNewYor

City Search NYC: http://twitter.com/CitysearchNYC

Amanda Has An Apartment/Doesn’t Have Enough “!”

amandainthecity — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:55:28 +0000

After sending out over 50 emails to craigslist ads about available apartments, I am happy to say that I found something! And it is going to be great! It’s in a brownstone in Sunset Park (Brooklyn). Less than a block to the subway and lots of shopping. And it’s only $575/month! With no utilities! And it’s furnished! An added bonus that I just noticed is that living in Brooklyn instead of Queens means that I will be that much closer to where Manny Mania 2009 and Back to the Banks 2009 are being held on the first weekend in June! In case you are wondering, those are both skate contests. Which will also be the first two I have ever been to. And I am EXCITED!!!

So, the apartment I’m going to be living in until August 31st is actually not available until June 1st. However, I am going to be staying nearby with some Bradley Multimedia alumni until then. I booked plane tickets last night and am officially flying out May 19th, landing at 8:30pm Eastern time! Are you as excited as I am? No, you’re not! You’re really not! As I told my advisor earlier, if people could spontaneously combust from excitement, I would be EXPLODING right now!

Amanda Has Not Yet Arrived In The City…

amandainthecity — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:55:35 +0000

I don’t know how I should start this blog, so I’m just gonna jump right in and start typing. The plan is, there is no plan. At least not for writing. What there is a plan for, is moving to NYC. At least, there’s a sort-of plan, which the details are being worked out on now.

I was about 13 when I first started trying to convince my mom that we should just pack up and move to New York. Apparently, she didn’t think that this was as brilliant of an idea as I did, because it certaintly did not happen. The first time I went to NYC was when I was 15, in June before I began my sophomore year of high school. I was only there for about a three days, but I loved it. I went back again the next year for a day on a 4-H trip. You really can’t see that much of the city in that short of time, but it was still a blast. I haven’t been there since then, which was 6 years ago, but I’m pretty stoked about moving.

I started an official countdown for moving almost a full year ago. I figured if I had an actual date for moving, I would be more likely to actually get my stuff together so that I could move. I could probably also title this post “No One Has Ever Put This Much Effort Into Moving. Ever.” I’ve spent the past year calculating living costs, how much I need to move, how long I can survive on savings, how much I need to make a year, how much taxes will be, what areas to live in, what areas to avoid, and what I want to do when I get there. Luckily, it’s paying off. I’m 13 days away from moving and I now have a place to stay until June, plus about 7 different possible apartments for the summer. I’m buying plane tickets tonight. The only thing I don’t have ready is a job, which I’d like to take a moment to blame on the economy. I’ve also been packing since February. I have entirely too much stuff, and going through Every Single Thing trying to decide what to keep and what to trash is getting truly exhausting. I’m hoping to have it finished by the end of the coming weekend though. And then I just have to wait. And graduate. And then I’m off!

I’m bored of typing so I’m going to stop now. Check back later for things going on in my life as I’m getting ready to move, graduate, join the ranks of the hopelessly unemployed, etc. I’ll also be posting video blogs eventually. And in December, Amanda #1 will be joining me so we can start our hit youtube show “Amandas In The City”. It will be epic. Get excited.