My first week of life in New York commenced today with a formal introduction to SheWrites, as I am an intern for this summer. It's very strange, because in many ways I feel that I've been here for far longer. These last 7 days in Williamsburg feel comparable to the final 5 weeks of my last semester at school, where I was scrambling with final papers and grappling with the idea that everything I was doing was penultimate. Second-to-last this, second-to-last that. The terrifying realization that the comforts of college aren't forever- they are, more accurately, just a blip on the radar of our lives. Four years of anything is substantial for a 21 year-old, but further down the line, it's going to seem like an increasingly insignificant amount of time.
For now though, I am only 21, and 2.5 months still means a lot to me- this summer just has so much potential and I'm sure I'll gain a lot of life experience. Last summer, for example, I was in Cambridge, UK for 8 weeks, studying art history and romantic lit. I did very (VERY) minimal cooking for myself, as our shared kitchen was only sparsely supplied. This summer I'm in a fully stocked apartment and so I have no excuse as to why I've subsisted on hard-boiled eggs, spinach leaves, coke zero, and almond butter for the past week, except for the fact that I'm a lazy cook. Ari, my current flatmate, has made chicken for us twice. We have been out to eat a couple times; Sunday afternoon saw some delicious french toast, though the bananas foster kind at Heirloom in New Haven still reigns supreme. So there's that. I need to learn a couple of recipes so that this summer's dinners don't go Groundhog's Day on me. I have a really intense desire to do a low-country boil, but I think I need to learn to walk before I try running.
Speaking of running, I love it, and I need to find some routes to try out once I'm fully settled in for June. VCP is awesome, but too far away to make into a normal habit. Even Central Park and Prospect Park are currently a tad out of the way (hopefully when I get fit again I can justify taking the subway there and running back after a loop or two). Friday morning I am going to begin by conquering the Williamsburg Bridge, just going over it and back. If I feel fine I'll do it again that evening, and eventually build in loops until I feel in shape enough to explore. There's nothing more terrifying then running to exhaustion and realizing that you have no idea where you are. The last time that happened, I was 15, and a 40 minute run became an hour and 15 minutes long...I was well-prepared to do that sort of thing and I still just wanted to curl up into ball afterwards with my ice-cold gatorade and sob.
Ari has been getting (or trying to get) me into classical music lately, as he is a classic pianist. Likewise, I am trying to get him into contemporary music. The only thing we both really enjoy is opera, because we don't know that much about it and we're totally fascinated by its theatricality. He brought home the Ring Cycle on CD for me today from the place where he practices, and so we're going to spend a while trying to listen to it (which will be interesting as, full disclosure, I have never seen the entire thing). The bits I have on my iPod now are very intense, so here's hoping it doesn't give me nightmares. Auf wiedersehen!