Best Commercial Ever

I just saw a shorter version of this on TV.  It's pretty amazing:

Scratchiti

This is apparently the official subway term for all of those window scratches that people make.

I can always count on the subway to make a really bad day just a little bit better. (actually that's not true, it usually makes it worse...)

Sent from my iPhone

Laundry Night

First time since I moved in...

CAS Winter Formal

So last Saturday night was Student Council's annual formal, this year at the W on Lexington.  It ended up being a huge success and was a lot classier than last year's formal at the Tavern on the Green (which, if you have never been, is possibly the gaudiest/tackiest place ever).  The food was good, the venue was good, the music was good, so um yeah, altogether a good night.  I'm sure there are pictures floating around somewhere but my camera was dead, so I didn't take any.

Afterwards, a bunch of Student Council members went karaoking in KoreanTown, which was a lot of fun, but everyone was so tired from the dance and student council and just life, that we weren't as lively as normal. 

Our next big event is the Alumni Student Banquet in two weeks, which I'm helping plan.

Tubthumpin

So I was just listening to this French radio station online and they played  a French version of the 90's classic, Tubthumpin by Chumbawamba.  It was awesome.  I think I spent a good 20-30 minutes searching for this song online - I checked Amazon, French Amazon, iTunes, French iTunes, Youtube, French Youtube, illegal music downloading sites, Google Videos, French Google Videos, pretty much everything that I could think of, but to no avail.  

If you ever come upon this song, please let me know because it was great.  Wish I could share it with you...

Close up of Megan. She got pushed down earlier. It was intense.

That's Megan on the pole, taping everything for NY1

More of the crowd. Half haters/half supporters.

Cops, ready to use pepper spray (which they did)

Take Back NYU protesters on the balcony of Kimmel

Action outside of Kimmel at 1am

Ugh, bus

So every school day, a majority of the 1200 students living at Water Street make the commute up to campus via NYU'S bus system.  This morning, I went to get on the bus, just minding my own business, when the bus driver all of a sudden was like, Nope you're not getting on.  And I was like, Um, why not? I just showed you my ID, so what's wrong...  Turns out that she wouldn't let me onto the bus because I was eating my breakfast.  So I agreed to put it in my bag until we got to school.

I sat down, slightly upset and totally perplexed as to why I wasn't allowed to eat (though I can't recall any specific time when I've eaten on the bus before, I have carried a pizza box, and I know that I can't be the first person to have a snack on my way to/from campus).  Another girl sat down next to me, the bus started moving, and this girl whips out a granola bar from her bag and starts eating it, while I'm stuck with my half consumed breakfast in my bag.

I asked Aleja (my roommate/RA) if she had ever heard of someone not being allowed on a bus because of food, and she was as outraged as I was.  So when I got home from class today, I called up transportation, and after being transfered about 4 times (and when I explained my problem each time, I get the same response of "You weren't allowed on the bus because you had food??!), I was finally directed to leave a message with the man in charge of transportation.  

So while I admit that by calling transportation, I might have escalated this situation into something larger than it is, I'm am still completely dumbfounded as to why I wouldn't be allowed to eat on the bus.  It's not like I was about to start flinging my food at fellow passengers.  And until tomorrow, I anxiously await a return phone call in regards to my complaint.

Update on the Lock-In

So I've been reading NYU Local's coverage of the protest that is going on in our student center and a poll that they've conducted online shows that 72% of people who responded aren't in support of the protest. Also, here a few of today's highlights:

• 2 girls protested outside of Kimmel, topless
• NYU offered to give the students who have barricaded themselves in our cafeteria vegan food, but they refused because it would be supplied by Aramark, which provides all of the food on campus and apparently uses slave labor or something like that
• The protesters broke the deadbolt lock onto the balcony in the dining hall (that is currently closed for the winter) so that they could smoke and protest louder.  They previously had a non-violence/no property destruction statement, which has now been revised to only a non-violence statement. 
• Based on comments on NYU Local's coverage, students are in agreement that making our library accessible to the public would be ridiculous and would compromise our safety
• The protesters were offered a meeting of 5 students with the senior Vice Provost and the senior VP of University Relations at 5pm if all of the protesters vacated at 4pm.  Take Back NYU refused this offer.
• Take Back NYU was informed that Kimmel closes at 1am and that they must be out by then.  Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens...

My sunset is prettier than your sunset...

AllU Games again!

If you want to see some pictures (since my friends still haven't posted theirs), here are a couple from NYU Local, which is an online school associated news source.  Click here.  Though there aren't actually that many pictures of CAS, all of the other schools seem to be pretty well represented.  And, see if you can spot me in all of the sumo wrestling pictures.  I'm there (and I'm not the one in the suit).

I finished ALL of my HW for tomorrow at 11:15pm...

...And now I don't know what to do with myself.  

In other exciting news, Take Back NYU, a club at NYU that is pretty much unhappy with everything about the school and finds radical ways to protest everything that they hate about school, have decided to barricade themselves in Kimmel, our student center tonight à la the New School sit-in earlier this school year.   For pictures of the barricaded dining hall (which is inside the student center), click here.

Also, here are a select few goodies off of their list of demands:

• Full annual disclosure of budget
• Full union rights for all employees, including grad students
• Annual scholarships for 13 Palestinian students
• A donation of excess supplies to rebuild the University of Gaza
• Tuition stabilization for all students
• General public access to Bobst library
• Full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation

To which I say a couple of things (though I admit that I don't have all of the information necessary to be making the most sound and educated decisions on all of these issues):

• NYU is a nonprofit organization so isn't a bunch their financial info public record?
• What makes you more qualified, at 18-22 years old, to understand and analyze the budget than the people who are employed to do so?  It is their job, they spend their day dealing with all this money stuff, that I admittedly have no clue about.
• Where does Gaza fit in with all of the NYU discontent?
• Bobst? Open to the public? I (my mom and dad) pay $50,000 a year for me to go to a private university and using the library's resources is included in that price.  If you want access to a library, go to the New York Public Library.  It's free.  And large.
• If you're going to ruin school property and make security guards work overtime just so that you can get quoted in the Village Voice, then you should be held responsible for your actions.
• This is not the New School.  Chances are nothing concrete other than a couple of news articles will come of this protest.  John Sexton will ignore you, just like he ignored the graduate student strike a couple of years ago.
• If you hate NYU so much, go to another school.  You knew what you were signing up for when you enrolled.

So I realize that I sound incredibly bitter (more so than I actually am), but I just have some issues with the way that they are going about trying to get things changed.  

Bad Night

So this was my last night:

I was working by myself at the ice cream store and everything was going fine until a lady decided to buy a box of chocolates, which I rung her up for but then she picked it up, felt that it was only a 1/4 of a pound (which I had told her when she asked how many pieces were in it), announced that there wasn't enough chocolate in the box for the price, and left.  Now this is a pretty normal occurrence since the store is a little bit ridiculously priced ($4 for a scoop of ice cream?) but I was now stuck with the chocolate rung up and no one to buy it.  Since it was only my 3rd time back after 5 months away, I totally forgot what to do and just started pushing the void button, which I later found out is exactly what I'm not supposed to do.  I called my boss, but since she had just left, she was on the subway and obviously didn't answer.  There was a kid standing there who wanted a slice of cheesecake, but I couldn't ring him up so I started frantically calling everyone I knew who had ever worked at the store, hoping that someone would tell me what to do.  I finally got ahold of my friend, Jenn and she helped me through, though at that point I had already just estimated the guy's cheesecake and given him change from my wallet, as well as another person who wanted that same box of chocolate that had caused this problem (if only he had come right after that lady left!).  So I ended up paying like 2 bucks out of my own wallet to make up for the difference of what the people had payed me when the register wasn't working.

Then some lady came in and she wanted 2 Turtle Sundaes, which are made with caramel.  Of course, we were drastically low on caramel so I was like scrapping the bottom of the container to get enough.  Once she left, I went to the back to refill the caramel and in the process of doing that, I moved a bag of nuts that was in the fridge and apparently the bag broke open, spilling nuts all over the fridge.  So then I had to clean that up, but I kind of ended up just sweeping most of it onto the floor instead of into my hand.  

Then we ran out of the bags that we normally give people and I couldn't find anymore.  

Then a couple from Italy came in and bought literally all of our Larabars, because apparently they don't have those in Italy.  I then had to restock them, which is a pain mostly because it involves getting out like 10 different boxes of the bars. 

Then I misplaced the store phone somewhere, which I only realized once my boss called me (which she does about every hour or so) and I didn't pick up.  So then she just kept calling again and again, and finally called my cellphone.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to help customers while also simultaneously trying to look for the missing phone and in the process of doing so, I spill coffee all over the counter.  When I pick up my cellphone and tell my boss that I can't find the phone right now, she proceeds to talk to me about it for 20 minutes, saying things such as, Oh well you have to find the phone, we can't operate with out it, etc.  And I was just waiting for her to get off the phone so that I could use my phone to call the store phone and try to find it.  I eventually discovered it in the bathroom, which is where I left it last time I was talking to my boss, because I was taking out the bathroom trash while she was saying whatever it was that she was saying. 

My phone search meant that I didn't get any of the closing duties done that I wanted to, which meant that I had to sweep/mop the floors, clean the coffee station, do the dishes, and count the money after the store closed, even though I should have been able to finish most of that beforehand.  

Finally, I locked everything up, only to realize that my phone was sitting on the counter. 

It was just that kind of a night.  Blah.  Thanks for letting me vent.

All University Games!

Thursday night was All University Games, which is the one night a year (in my opinion) when NYU shows any sort of athletic competitiveness.  Each school within NYU puts together a team to compete in all different kinds of events (foosball, sumo wrestling, tug of war, volleyball, basketball, rock paper scissors, limbo, dodgeball...) and they come up with a theme, along with a banner and T-shirts to match.  It's mostly a student council event, but your goal is to get as many participants and supporters as you can.

The CAS theme was Looney Toons, with the slogan - A.C.M.E.: A College that Makes Everything, which speaks to the idea that our school has about a bazillion majors.  Our mascot (which has to be the student council president) was Willy Coyote chasing the Roadrunner.  We notoriously never win, and this year was no different, though we did place third in dodgeball after some intense games.  I did sumo wrestling, which I also participated in last year (and came in 2nd!) though this year I got knocked out in the first round.  I'm chalking it up to the fact that I was starving and therefore, had no energy.  I would put pictures up but they're on other people's cameras.

The night was really fun until we went to leave and found that 3 people had gotten some of their stuff stolen.  So that really put a damper on an otherwise great evening. 

After nights like this, I wish that NYU had just a little bit more school spirit...

Procrastinating

I have one ridiculously long fingernail right now. I wonder how much
longer it can get before it breaks. I'll keep you posted...

Can you tell that I don't want to do my homework?

(home)work

So I'm back to working at the ice cream store, a job that pretty much took over my life this past summer. Mondays are the slowest night and this one isn't proving to be any different. So pretty much, I'm getting paid to do my homework tonight.

I'm reading about this really awesome type of prison, called the panopticon, for my english seminar. I've learned about it before for another English class and I would love to describe it to you, but I don't have the patience to type that all out on my phone.

What I really want to share with you is how printers used to use a character that closely resembles an "f" for the letter S, which makes for some really great sentences such as this one:

"To cut the matter as fhort as poffible, I will confider it at once in it's application to fuch purpofes as, being moft complicated, will ferve to exemplify the greateft force and variety of precautionary contrivance."

I giggle every time I read old stuff like this.

Harry Potter and Horses

So tonight I went to my first Broadway show since I've been back to the city, and boy, was it a good one...

I saw Equus which features Daniel Radcliffe (HARRY POTTER!!) and Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon Dursely from Harry Potter). It's the story of a troubled boy (Harry) who has an obsession with horses and is currently under psychiatric care (Uncle Vernon) because he blinded 6 horses. I enjoyed it a lot and it was awesome seeing Harry Potter. Speaking of which, when I say seeing Harry Potter, I mean I saw everything. Including a naked, I'm-going-to-jump-around-the-stage-as-I-stab-horses-in-the-eyes scene. Anyways, it's closing on the 8th, so even though I would recommend that you see it (as long as you're up for some serious Harry Potter nudity), you can't.

And then we stood outside in the cold for like 20 minutes, clinging on to the incredibly cold barricades, hoping to catch of glimpse of Daniel. He's very short.

So this is where that $50,000 goes...

NYU has a couple of computer labs around campus with free printing, but they're normally jam packed with people trying to print out stuff for class, especially during those 15 minute breaks between every class. Stern (the business school) is renovating it's main building and in so doing, they got rid of the most trafficed computer lab to put in more class rooms. To make up for this, NYU opened a new laptop lab in Kimmel, our student center. And it's awesome. Here's why:
First of all, the view. Undoubtedly the best out of all the computer labs, most of which are underground. I'm not sure if you can totally appreciate it from this picture, but I'm looking at the west village, as the sun's setting.

The way that they set up this lab is that there are a bunch of desks with MacBook Pros on them, as well as (and this is the coolest thing ever) a bunch of comfy arm chairs that have swivel trays attached to them, where you can use the brand new MacBook (the one with the black keys) that is conveniently stored on a shelf underneath the chair.

The comfy chair/computer stations come in sets of 2, with a nice work table located in the middle.  By the way, I have no idea who that girl is, nor does she know that she is getting her picture taken and then posted on a blog, but she's doing a great job of showing off the new equipment.

So this is like my new favorite place on campus and I don't think that many people know about it yet since it's brand new.  (Hopefully it stays that way for awhile).  And there's more free printing! which is incredibly nice for those of us who don't have a printer because they broke it freshman year and never got it fixed/bought a new one.

Anyways, back to the homework! (and by homework, I really mean Facebook...)

Another first...

Last night, Student Council hosted a Tailgate Party for the All-University Games (which is kind of like a school Olympics, where all of the colleges within NYU compete against each other in a bunch of different games). Anyways, our goal with the Tailgate Party was to recruit people to the CAS (college of arts and science) team and to generally get people excited about the AllU Games next week. To really achieve the spirit of a tailgate, we rented a root beer keg (my first!) and had people playing root beer pong. (try getting a 15 gallon keg into a school building...) The night was pretty successful, but we have so much root beer left over.

Same night, different first:
I was watching out my window last night after the Tailgate Party and I noticed that there was a lot of activity going on in the river. 3 police boats were searching the waters and there were a ton of police cars and ambulances parked by the side of the river and on the Brooklyn Bridge. My friend called NY1 (the local news channel) to report all the activity/find out what was going on and it turns out that someone called the police saying that they thought they had seen a woman jump off the bridge. After about an hour, the search came to an end and they all left. I've been checking the news to see if I can find anything about it, but it doesn't look like it made the news.

It's snowing! Part 4

It's snowing! Part 3

It's snowing! Part 2

It's snowing! Part 1

Record Player

So I went over to my friend Lindsay's apartment to watch the Superbowl (which I'm actually not really watching right now) and she's stolen her parents record player. Maybe this is one of those things like bell bottom pants but I think they're going to make a comeback and kids will soon be scrounging around garages, basements, and attics for their parents old turn tables. And parents will be scratching their heads wondering why their kids are suddenly interested in that old junk.

Anyways, if I had an actual apartment that I knew wasn't going to change in 4 months, I think I would be stealing dad's record player to (if you let me, of course :) ). So while everyone else is excited about watching the Steelers and the Cardinals, I'm more excited about the fact that I played my first record today, all by myself. (it was the beatles, by the way)

Lindsay's record player:

Lindsay and her Steelers pillow:

Sent from my iPhone