What a day! B-E-A-Utiful!
So I've definitely decided that New York is ridiculous, but in a mostly good way. Everything and everybody seems to move pretty quickly. It's nice to spend the workday in Brooklyn where things are a little quieter. I found out that the area my office is in is called DUMBO, Brooklyn, which is actually an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Can you believe that? After I was told that the other day I didn't really believe it, but I looked it up on Wikipedia so it's true.
Work has been very good. Big Spaceship is pretty similar in mood and environment to how things were in Hollywood, with foosball, ping pong, guitar hero, some free food, music playing all day and occassional drinking. The cool thing about the office here is that there are no cubicle walls, it's just one huge open room lined with long desks with computers on them.
Everybody here is split up into teams of about 7 or 8 people who work on one project for a few weeks. My team seems pretty awesome, with a bunch of cool people. My team leader, Tyson, hails from Napoleon, Ohio and is definitely one of the nicest (and tallest) guys I've ever met. Really all the people here seem to be really nice, fun people and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know them.
At first I wasn't sure what I thought about the project our team will be working on for the next few months, but the more I thought and learned about it, the cooler it sounds, and I think working on it will make me a better designer. Also, in addition to the one big project, there seem to be a fair amount of internal projects that float around. Like the owner kind of walks over to someone's desk and says, "Hey you guys, you know what? It'd be really sweet if we could do this...!" My team has been working on one of those projects for the last few days and it'll launch on Monday. It's a pretty funny and quirky project, so I'll post a link here next week.
Tuesday night I was fed up with UPS for trying to deliver my air mattress and bedding (which I shipped from the Wex last week) when no one was home, so I took a car service to the package center in Queens to pick it up. I thought it would only take a few minutes to run in and get the package and leave, but I ended up waiting for more than 45 minutes in line. After 20 minutes or so I told the driver of the car to leave and that I would call when I was done, but he was being really nice and insisted on waiting. I was pretty frustrated with UPS while standing in line but I was tired of sleeping on the couch in the living room and really wanted my bed. I was ready to pay the car service driver whatever he wanted, but he told me that it wasn't my fault and that I didn't know it would be so crowded, so he only charged me 40 bucks. I felt really bad for taking up so much of his time, but he insisted and even gave me a hand shake when he dropped he off. I was very thankful. And New Yorkers are supposed to be mean...
So now I have my double high aerobed set up in my room. I'll try and post a photo tour of our apartment in the next week or so. My other rooommate, Dan's friend Liz, is super cool. I knew we'd get along when I walked in and saw vhs copies of Newsies and a few obscure weird Disney movies from the 80s sitting on a shelf. She's a vegan, so before I met her I was feeling bad about having a whole gallon of milk taking up space in the fridge, but it turns out she's uber-laid back. We're going to get along for sure.
Last night after work I went over to my new friend Amber's apartment to watch the football championship. Amber is the older sister of my friend Garrett who I lived with in LA. She's a lot of fun and I went over and hung out with her and some of her fellow NYU grad student friends while we watched the game. They were all really nice and cool, and it's fun to make new friends. Unfortunately the Sooners lost, luckily I didn't care that much. I was just glad to hang out.
Tonight, I'm planning on hanging out with my friend Kristen and whoever else is around and free. Tomorrow Emily and I will be attempting to score some more cheap theater tickets. Maybe All My Sons, Shrek, or Spring Awakening, but really anything. Aside from that, I'll maybe do a museum visit or some general sightseeing and exploring. Just another weekend in the greatest city in the world.
Right now I'm reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Today on the subway I was hit by the section about complaining. Randy (who was living out his last few months with pancreatic cancer at the time) writes,
Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier.
Very cool. While I'm out here, I definitely want to do my best to not complain, because complaining wastes precious time. I only have three months here right now, and I don't want to waste it, even when it's cold, or I have a lot of work, or whatever.
Even back at home and in the Nati, I'm going to graduate in a year and a half and that's awesome but it's also a bummer. I don't want to waste any of it.
Sure it's easy to type this in a blog post, not so easy in the heat of the moment. But I'm really going to try.
Alright, it's time to finish this post and get my weekend started. I hope everybody had a great start to the quarter! I owe a bunch of people phone calls. I need to get on top of that.
I'll leave you with another picture from the park this morning. It's the other huge bridge, the Manhattan Bridge. Not quite as historic as Roebling's beauty, but impressive and huge nonetheless.
I really need to try and write shorter posts. Oh well.
much love
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