And one last sunrise pic

And sunrise 20 min later...

Mika Concert 4

Mika Concert 3

Mika Concert 2

Mika Concert 1

View of sunrise out my window

Brooklyn Follies

A couple of weeks ago, before school started, I went to a bookstore in Soho, McNally Jackson (for some reason used as the NYU bookstore on Gossip Girl this season, even though it's nowhere near school...) One of the books that they had on display as a Staff Recommendation was a book that I had recently seen at the NYU library. So I headed back to campus to take out this book. It took me awhile to finish it, mostly cus school started and I got super busy, but it was pretty good. It's the story of Nathan Glass who returns to Brooklyn to essentially die, after surviving cancer. Once there though, his family keeps creeping back into his life, essentially saving him from achieving his goal of dying in Brooklyn. He saves them along the way too. It was a pretty good read and was really cool cus I know I'm familiar with that area of Brooklyn so whenever he was on, say, 7th ave, I would know exactly what he was talking about. It was full of lots of quirky and interesting characters, so I would definitely recommend it for a quick read (unless you're me, and then it might be a long read...

Oh yeah, the book is called "Brooklyn Follies" and is written by Paul Auster.

Hair!

So yesterday I was filing stuff in the Student Council office, when I got a phone call from the Dean's assistant asking me if I wanted to go see Hair that night. I of course jumped at the chance (Broadway is expensive, don't say no if you get offered a free ticket...) even though I know like nothing about the show, other than that they're hippies. Anyways, the show was AMAZING - so much fun and dancing and music (aquarius and let the sun shine in are their well-known songs) and incredible voices. They kept running into the crowd to rub your hair or throw their pants at you or give you daisies. And at the end they invite everyone to come onstage and dance with them and the Dean was front and center, dancing her head off and singing. It was quite an unexpected night of fun.

I've embedded a video of them doing my favorite song at the Tony Awards:

Timekeeper

So while trying to avoid writing my paper that's due tomorrow, I found this really great video profile in the New York Times. I can't figure out how to embed the video, but you should check out the link. This guy is one of the millions of tiny reasons that makes NYU such a great, enjoyable, quirky school and EVERYONE who goes here knows who he is.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/04/07/nyregion/1194839284126/a-shepherd-for-students-at-nyu.html

Shh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_Society

Dinner with the Parents

Both Mom and Dad were in town for business yesterday, so we all went out to dinner. It took me like an hour to pick a place, but I finally did and then today I was looking through the WSN, which is NYU's newspaper, and what did I find but a review of that exact restaurant! Small world... Anyways, I've posted the article for your reading pleasure:

http://www.nyunews.com/#/life/2009/sep/15/caffe/?ref=ajax

My Fun-Filled Sunday!

Today I went to dim sum with my friend Sara and another friend of hers. It was my first real adventure out into Chinatown (except when I went to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory with a friend the other night, which is a famous ice cream store, but it doesn't really feel like it counts because it's not really Chinese...). We went to a restaurant called the Golden Unicorn which the other 2 had been to before. I'm kind of scared to try restaurants around here just because I feel like they will be hit or very big miss, so it was nice knowing that this place was a good one. We shared a table with two other random people and the servers wheel carts around to the tables and you just point at what you want and they give it to you. It was so delicious and really cheap and we ended up eating a ridiculous amount of dumplings and sesame balls and other Chinese food. I will definitely be returning.

Then, to put off our homework for a little more, we went to the Highline, which is this old elevated railroad that's been converted into a cool park. It's awesome and has a view of the Hudson River, as well as these cool deck chairs that you can lie on and suntan. Oh and some of the deck chairs are actually on the railroad tracks and have wheels, so you can roll back and forth a little bit. So we "did our homework" (people watched) there.

And then I finished off my night by going to my friend's apartment to watch the season finale of True Blood. Her buzzer broke yesterday so she was standing outside waiting for us, but my roommate and I were late because the train never came, and when it finally did, it was a local, so then we switched to an express and got off at the closest stop and took a cab which then proceeded to not turn down the right street so we just got out and ran. It was an experience. But her roommate makes homemade pie for True Blood watching and it was so amazing. I can't even begin to describe it to you. It was actually a recipe from "Waitress" which is this really cute/slightly heartbreaking movie starring Keri Russel and she makes pies and dreams up new recipes. This one is called the Lonely Chicago Pie and has blackberries, raspberries and strawberries, covered in chocolate. Soooo good. Makes me want to take up pie baking. New York should really get over it's love of cupcakes and rediscover the pie. I'm calling it: the next big dessert is going to be pie!

And now I have to do all the homework I didn't do this weekend...

New school year, new student council bulletin board!

This is what I did today:

Big Gay Ice Cream Truck

Went to the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck last night which another new specialty food from a truck place. This one is a normal Mister Softee truck but the guy that owns it has all kinds of crazy specialty toppings for his soft serve - think pumpkin butter, Ginger syrup, olive oil and sea salt, crushed graham crackers, the list goes on and on and changes daily. I got a ginger milkshake, the first one he had ever made and while it was good, there wasn't enough ginger in it for me.
I'm interested in seeing what else he comes up with so I'll probably be back again.

Housing Works

I went to this really awesome comedy show at Housing Works Cafe on Tuesday night. My old roommate, Emily, has been a Housing Works volunteer for the past year and I never really knew what it was until this week. Housing Works is an organization that donates all of its funds to provide housing and social services for New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. They have a bunch of thrift stores around the city, as well as this bookstore/cafe and it's almost all volunteer run.

Anyways, they do free comedy shows all the time and the one I saw was the last installment in a special series of summer comedy shows, called "Staycation." It was really great and I can't honestly remember the names of the comedians that performed, but they were much more impressive than I was expecting for a free show - one of them was just hired to be a new SNL writer, another is on the Comedy Central show "Michael and Michael Have Issues," another just filmed his Comedy Central special, the list goes on... It was a super enjoyable night and my cheeks hurt at the end from laughing so hard. And I got to see Emily, Dianne, and Pat for the first time all summer, which was great! I definitely plan on attending more shows and exploring the bookstore and thrift stores some more.

2 WEEKS UNTIL THE STUDENT COUNCIL WELCOME WEEK BLOCK PARTY!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

In the Loop

I saw "In the Loop" last night (I've been seeing a lot of movies this summer for some reason), which is a British comedy that is based on a show called "The Thick of It." Basically it's about whether or not the UK and America should declare war on the Middle East and it's a comedy. The movie was okay, funny at times though not "a gut-achingly hilarious farce" as the previews promised, and the ending was a total let down. Maybe it's because we're used to super happy endings where the good guy wins and the bad guy gets what he deserves, but the end of this movie was kind of a downer, just warning you. There were some pretty great insults in the movie though, including calling someone "the Nazi Julie Andrews," so if anything, you can enjoy that. Oh, and remember the girl from "My Girl"? Well she's in this and all grown up!

Pier I Cafe

Went to this cafe on 70th street with some friends the other night and it was really cool. So basically, if you're walking on the street, at 68th street you will come upon this giant staircase and ramp that will take you down to the water where there are lots of bikers, runners, a pier, a great view of Jersey, and this cafe. It's self serve and the food is pretty good, but the real appeal is that there are a ton of tables where you can just hang out and look at the water. It was really nice and even though NYC is an island, this is the first real waterfront restaurant that I've been too. Anyways, this is what it looked like:

Paris to the Moon

I just finished reading Adam Gopnik's book "Paris to the Moon." I originally found this book at Dad's house during Winter Break and started reading it, but didn't finish before I had to go back to school. Then when I was home over the summer, I found it again, this time on Mom's bookshelf and decided to take it. It's a collection of essays that Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker, wrote when he and his wife decided to move to Paris for 5 years with their baby son because they knew if they didn't do it then, they never would. I really enjoyed the book, mostly because of the anecdotes about his son, who is thoroughly entertaining. Also, I loved just being able to relate to the places he went to and the experiences he had as an American in Paris, although he was there from 1995-2000, so some of the stuff is outdated. So even though this one took me a long time to read (over half a year) it was still really good. And I finished it yesterday and had a dream last night about going back to my homestay in Paris for another semester abroad, weird...