carpe

I first arrived last night around 7:30. Heather met me at the station and from there we went straight to the loft, mostly to drop off my bags (and shower). We were both starving so after I met my other roommates, we went to this little place less than a block away that has no name other than a deer on an old sign on the front of the building so we decided to name it "The Stag." Pretty cool little place. Great music, great food (humongous bacon cheddar burger, salad, and potatoes). From there, we came home watched The Office and crashed.

Today was interesting. My first real taste of the city, so to speak. After watching a few short films this morning, we went to Silver Spurs, a place we just walked across, for brunch. I had three pancakes and an orange slice I stole from Heather's plate. We walked down the street peeking into shops here and there if anything managed to catch our eye. Eventually we ended up at Ground Zero and also saw the new World Trade Center location. As we turned the corner we found the church that housed so many of the rescue workers during all of the turmoil because of its close proximity and the fact that it was the only building to not suffer from the wreckage of the attacks -- not one window was broken. It had a really well maintained old cemetery out front, but many of the tombstones couldn't be read due to acid rain, pigeons, and years and years of age. The inside of the church was actually converted into a museum -- it contains information including time lines of the event, letters written, blankets given, prayers offered, etc. It was really depressing to see the memorial section with all of the photos and flowers and small toys and trinkets. After staying there for a while we decided to walk back to our place and not ride the subway or anything. So this part of the adventure started with walking across the Brooklyn Bridge which was about as touristy as you can get I guess. It was really cool with a great view and loads of people, but, I swear, it was never ending. It took 30 minutes to cross with taking photos and everything. Speaking of which, the genius writing this decided to leave his camera at the apartment instead of taking it with him like a moron. Missed a whole lot of great shots, but I guess I'll get over it or do it all over again. After finally making the crossing we knew relatively which direction to find home, but nothing exact. We walked forever it seemed, all the while seeing some great architecture and a beautiful park and the Pratt Design Institute, not to mention the ghetto we got lost in for about 2 hours. Eventually we both gave up and boarded a bus so that we could finally sit down for a bit. I fell asleep time and time again, trying to keep my eyes open, but I didn't sleep all that great last night, and I woke up fairly early with the sun in my eyes. From there, we transferred to the L and then to the subway and got back to our neighborhood (thankfully our subway stop is extremely close to our building). When we found a map we realized how close we actually were. It was ridiculous.

It was so great getting to finally kick off my Chuck's. Another chunk of the innersole on the right one fell out so it became pretty uncomfortable and I'm still walking like my foot is being cut open, but guess what -- I survived.

horoscopes

Wednesday
Do not fall into the trap of defining yourself in terms of external things or circumstances. Everything you do today will be part of a learning curve. Accept it for what it is and keep from letting it bring you down. Consider finding a new territory if you want to make a fresh start.

on this day i went with Josh to look at an apartment in Conway right across the street from the college. i sped right after work to get there to be able to look at it myself. the place was pretty nice. very exciting really. josh went ahead and got it. 2 bedroom place is $500, whereas the 1 bedroom place is $440 so he went with the 2. i tell him i need to think about it before jumping in too deep (he already knew about my plans to move to brooklyn). i did the math and realized that i would be spending $700 a month at least without doing anything extra. school would be 100 more miles per week as well. i went to be without having made a decision.

Thursday
Fate sends opportunity your way if you listen to your instincts and give your natural sense of curiosity a free rein. Enter the next few days with wisdom and caution. You cannot take anything for granted because it may come back and haunt you later. A slip of the tongue might put you into an embarrassing position this evening.

made up my mind today. i went to dinner with my family to talk about everything. actually, they were more reluctant about conway than brooklyn which was surprising, obviously. i'm not going to move into the apartment. it's just not practical with me going to lolla, getting a new mac and moving to / saving for brooklyn. i haven't told josh yet, but i'm going to later tonight after work. mostly though, i'm just happy my parents didn't completely lose it on me when i told them about ny like i expected. hopefully, and i really think it will happen, my stress level will go down now.