Monday, June 18, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sorry I've been MIA
The end of the semester was SOOO busy. When I wasn't writing papers, I was cramming everything I'd miss about New York into my spare time. I'm back home for the summer, which is nice and it just dawned on me that if i have it my way, this will be my last full summer in Pittsburgh :-O! WEIRD. ..and a little intimidating.
So in between writing papers, I managed to go to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop - which is magical. It is literally a hole in the wall - thank God the first day I went there was a line down the block - and it was WORTH IT. The first day I got something called the Salty Pimp, which was delicious, but the second time I got the Monday Sundae which is so wonderful - twist ice cream, caramel, sea salt, whipped cream all in a Nutella dipped waffle cone - yes, please. It was so yummy.
I made a few trips to Veselka with my friends before I skipped town and saw four shows within a week and met Bethenny Frankel. Yes! She had a book signing at a nearby Barnes and Noble for her book Skinnydipping and of course I stopped mid-paperwriting to get my butt up there, despite all the May Day protests and it was worth it. She was funny and engaging and very sweet. I wish her talk show lots of success, but I hope it gets moved to New York, so she doesn't move to LA and I can work for her hahahaha (but seriously). It was epic, it was like meeting an idol and I told her so.
The shows I saw before I left were Leap of Faith (twice), Newsies, End of the Rainbow, and A Streetcar Named Desire.
I saw Leap of Faith twice because I loved it so much, but I saw it so soon because it unfairly closed before it should have. It was SO much fun and you could tell the cast really loved the show and had fun, which made me have fun. The music was great and I'm so thankful that it seems as though I'll at least get a cast recording of the amazing show, since I can no longer go see it. I'm really hurt that this closed so quickly. Raul Esparza was amazing and the entire cast was just outstanding. I cannot say enough good things about this show.
Newsies... I got a ticket for for my birthday because Jeremy Jordan was in it. That is legit 90% of why I bought a ticket, and at the time it was a limited engagement (now it's an open-run). I never saw the movie, so I'm not part of this cult following or anything. The choreography was amazing, and I really enjoyed listening to the music with it being mostly male parts. I did find myself wondering why they didn't cast more kids in it, because they would say "kids" and such and I didn't buy it. The music was good, but not something I needed. I just find that it's pretty overrated because it has the cast following. I liked it, but it was probably my least favorite show of the week, unfortunately.
End of the Rainbow was AMAZING. I laughed and I cried and I was thoroughly a little disturbed. It's about the end of Judy Garland's career and life, so she's pretty hot mess for the show, but it was just haunting and amazing. It was really outstanding. Tracie Bennett plays Judy and if she doesn't get the Best Tony for an Actress in a Play award, I'm going to be so pissed off. She was really outstanding. It was only a few cast members and it was great and intimate. I loved it, if you can, go see it!
Lastly, A Streetcar Named Desire, which we saw on my birthday. My family wanted to see it more than I did, but I liked it a lot. I never had to read it when I was in high school and I have never seen the movie with Marlon Brando the entire way through, so I had no idea what I was walking into. Similarly, it was heavy and sad and intense, but it was outstanding. Blair Underwood was great. Nicole Ari Parker as Blanche was so disturbing and so sad to watch. She was excellent. I cannot say enough nice things about her. And I finally got to meet Daphne Rubin-Vega, which was fantastic and crazy. I love her. It was great! I loved it. It was very good.
Here's my album, a lot of pictures are on my friend Caitlin's FB, unfortunately.
I had fun and I'm not as sad to be home for the summer as I thought I would be. Time to look for apartments and just enjoy my friends and my family :)
xx.
So in between writing papers, I managed to go to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop - which is magical. It is literally a hole in the wall - thank God the first day I went there was a line down the block - and it was WORTH IT. The first day I got something called the Salty Pimp, which was delicious, but the second time I got the Monday Sundae which is so wonderful - twist ice cream, caramel, sea salt, whipped cream all in a Nutella dipped waffle cone - yes, please. It was so yummy.
I made a few trips to Veselka with my friends before I skipped town and saw four shows within a week and met Bethenny Frankel. Yes! She had a book signing at a nearby Barnes and Noble for her book Skinnydipping and of course I stopped mid-paperwriting to get my butt up there, despite all the May Day protests and it was worth it. She was funny and engaging and very sweet. I wish her talk show lots of success, but I hope it gets moved to New York, so she doesn't move to LA and I can work for her hahahaha (but seriously). It was epic, it was like meeting an idol and I told her so.
The shows I saw before I left were Leap of Faith (twice), Newsies, End of the Rainbow, and A Streetcar Named Desire.
I saw Leap of Faith twice because I loved it so much, but I saw it so soon because it unfairly closed before it should have. It was SO much fun and you could tell the cast really loved the show and had fun, which made me have fun. The music was great and I'm so thankful that it seems as though I'll at least get a cast recording of the amazing show, since I can no longer go see it. I'm really hurt that this closed so quickly. Raul Esparza was amazing and the entire cast was just outstanding. I cannot say enough good things about this show.
Newsies... I got a ticket for for my birthday because Jeremy Jordan was in it. That is legit 90% of why I bought a ticket, and at the time it was a limited engagement (now it's an open-run). I never saw the movie, so I'm not part of this cult following or anything. The choreography was amazing, and I really enjoyed listening to the music with it being mostly male parts. I did find myself wondering why they didn't cast more kids in it, because they would say "kids" and such and I didn't buy it. The music was good, but not something I needed. I just find that it's pretty overrated because it has the cast following. I liked it, but it was probably my least favorite show of the week, unfortunately.
End of the Rainbow was AMAZING. I laughed and I cried and I was thoroughly a little disturbed. It's about the end of Judy Garland's career and life, so she's pretty hot mess for the show, but it was just haunting and amazing. It was really outstanding. Tracie Bennett plays Judy and if she doesn't get the Best Tony for an Actress in a Play award, I'm going to be so pissed off. She was really outstanding. It was only a few cast members and it was great and intimate. I loved it, if you can, go see it!
Lastly, A Streetcar Named Desire, which we saw on my birthday. My family wanted to see it more than I did, but I liked it a lot. I never had to read it when I was in high school and I have never seen the movie with Marlon Brando the entire way through, so I had no idea what I was walking into. Similarly, it was heavy and sad and intense, but it was outstanding. Blair Underwood was great. Nicole Ari Parker as Blanche was so disturbing and so sad to watch. She was excellent. I cannot say enough nice things about her. And I finally got to meet Daphne Rubin-Vega, which was fantastic and crazy. I love her. It was great! I loved it. It was very good.
Here's my album, a lot of pictures are on my friend Caitlin's FB, unfortunately.
I had fun and I'm not as sad to be home for the summer as I thought I would be. Time to look for apartments and just enjoy my friends and my family :)
xx.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tours
You know, those double-decker bus tours are kinda fun. My family came in this weekend and they wanted to do the uptown tour in New York, which we did. They're long and they're kind of nice to just sit and take pictures and get an idea of where things are. I wish we had gone on the night tour or the Brooklyn tour more, but it was what my grandparents wanted.
It was nice that my mom was able to come up so that when my grandparents got too tired, they could go back to the hotel and we were still able to walk around the city and talk and play. I wish they would come up again every weekend I'm here until finals, but not only is that unrealistic, it isn't going to help much when it comes time to write these stupid papers. I also got my mom hooked on Sprinkles, which is reassuring that they are really good cupcakes, since this is the woman who swears she's not that impressed with cupcakes in general.
The thing is, most New Yorkers never want to be hokey. They avoid Times Square like the plague and try to avoid anything mainstream and chains. Yeah, there are times that I get frustrated when I'm trying to walk somewhere and I'm behind people who are stopping to look at everything or who are clearly tourists, however, some of those things are fun. It's nice to take a walk through Central Park in fall and take pictures of the changing leaves. It's fun to sometimes get on a tour bus and be driven around the city, especially when so many people seldom leave their own neighborhoods. Sometimes, it's nice to just go to Times Square and shop up there instead of near your apartment (though, this is the least important one). The thing is that everyone is a little cliche, and by trying sooo hard to not be cliche, you're fulfilling one of the biggest cliches of all and you're being annoying. I'm never going to like slow walkers, but I will make it a point to get to Central Park every fall to see the leaves.
In other news, I'm trying to think of places that my friends and I can live, but it is so nerve-wracking and I'm just scared we're going to end up someplace shady - which I know with Laura, we won't. It's just the first time I'm living in an apartment, paying my own rent without my family and that just feels so final. This could be the last summer that I spend in Pittsburgh for the entire summer and I can't handle that thought. I love New York and I'm so sad to have to start thinking about leaving and heading home for the summer, but it's weird to be thinking about completely changing my life for real.
It's finals time. I really need to just sit down and start pounding out papers, especially my Genre Meets Gender paper because that class feels as though it is a colossal waste of time and I need to just be finished with it all. My goal is to finish it by the end of the weekend (fingers crossed). Clearly, Adrienne and I are going to not be allowed to talk or see each other this weekend or neither of us are getting anything done.
One last thing, before I go to watch Glee and start thinking about my final papers - vote for my friend Kaitlyn? Her book blog, Kaitlyn in Bookland is a fantastic blog, if you haven't checked it out already and it would mean the world to me if you clicked this link and gave her some love: http://www.goodreads.com/book_blogger_award/entry/318
Thanks!!!
xx
It was nice that my mom was able to come up so that when my grandparents got too tired, they could go back to the hotel and we were still able to walk around the city and talk and play. I wish they would come up again every weekend I'm here until finals, but not only is that unrealistic, it isn't going to help much when it comes time to write these stupid papers. I also got my mom hooked on Sprinkles, which is reassuring that they are really good cupcakes, since this is the woman who swears she's not that impressed with cupcakes in general.
The thing is, most New Yorkers never want to be hokey. They avoid Times Square like the plague and try to avoid anything mainstream and chains. Yeah, there are times that I get frustrated when I'm trying to walk somewhere and I'm behind people who are stopping to look at everything or who are clearly tourists, however, some of those things are fun. It's nice to take a walk through Central Park in fall and take pictures of the changing leaves. It's fun to sometimes get on a tour bus and be driven around the city, especially when so many people seldom leave their own neighborhoods. Sometimes, it's nice to just go to Times Square and shop up there instead of near your apartment (though, this is the least important one). The thing is that everyone is a little cliche, and by trying sooo hard to not be cliche, you're fulfilling one of the biggest cliches of all and you're being annoying. I'm never going to like slow walkers, but I will make it a point to get to Central Park every fall to see the leaves.
In other news, I'm trying to think of places that my friends and I can live, but it is so nerve-wracking and I'm just scared we're going to end up someplace shady - which I know with Laura, we won't. It's just the first time I'm living in an apartment, paying my own rent without my family and that just feels so final. This could be the last summer that I spend in Pittsburgh for the entire summer and I can't handle that thought. I love New York and I'm so sad to have to start thinking about leaving and heading home for the summer, but it's weird to be thinking about completely changing my life for real.
It's finals time. I really need to just sit down and start pounding out papers, especially my Genre Meets Gender paper because that class feels as though it is a colossal waste of time and I need to just be finished with it all. My goal is to finish it by the end of the weekend (fingers crossed). Clearly, Adrienne and I are going to not be allowed to talk or see each other this weekend or neither of us are getting anything done.
One last thing, before I go to watch Glee and start thinking about my final papers - vote for my friend Kaitlyn? Her book blog, Kaitlyn in Bookland is a fantastic blog, if you haven't checked it out already and it would mean the world to me if you clicked this link and gave her some love: http://www.goodreads.com/book_blogger_award/entry/318
Thanks!!!
xx
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
April!?!
Okay, so I very clearly dropped the ball on this blog thing - but it's not my fault. Is anyone else SHOCKED that it is already the first week of April? It just dawned on me that these final papers that I feel like are a distant memory are, I realize they're due in just a month. WUT?!
Anyway, not too much has been happening here. Lots of work. Depression over Burger King discontinuing chicken fries. Scoping out the Gossip Girl set. I have been lucky enough to get pictures with Ed Westwick, Leighton Meester, and KayLee Derfer while picking the brains of production assistants on set to see how they got their jobs and how to get into that kind of business. I went to a Careers Outside of Academia panel and that was much less helpful than talking to these two guys for forty-five minutes.
I'm QUITE ready to be done with school. Anything I may have said about continuing on to get my Ph.D is a complete lie (at least for now). I want the hell out of school and to get working and make real money. Even if I'm at the bottom of the income bracket, at least it's more than a part-time, minimum-wage job, though it is going to hurt a little when I have to leave my BBW family.
I'm trying to find apartments for next year, but it is so hard to try and find a place to live, especially in the city. I wish I could just stumble across a great deal in Hell's Kitchen, because that would be my ideal situation. The Village is nice and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to live here, but I don't like it. It's like living in a little mini-Pittsburgh, pretty much - people walk too slow, things are closed by like 10pm, only things are noisy so it's even worse because it's like living in the South Side on a Friday night every night. I'm looking at Craig's List and in general no-fee rental sites, so hopefully something comes up - but there's no point in really looking right now seeing as I don't want to move until August 1st.
My internship is good and super fun. I've made some great friends there and it's going to be a little sad when we all split up and go our separate ways at the end of the semester. I've learned so much and I'm really happy I got to intern with such a small and fun staff who seems to really care about teaching interns the ins and outs of their job. I also volunteered with the Tribeca Film Festival and that's starting soon, so I'm excited about that. I think it'll be a lot of fun and it'll be nice to see things from a film perspective to see if I'd rather stick around with television or flop to film and film festivals.
I FINALLY won the Wicked lottery, by the way!!! It was amazing. It's $26 for front row seats, which is a good deal. I think a few rows back would be better, but they were amazing and the cast was FANTASTIC. Chandra Lee Schwartz is the most AMAZING Glinda that I've seen (clearly Cheno doesn't count) and she's absolutely wonderful. She's so bubbly and has PIPES. She is absolutely hilarious. Jackie Burns was a GREAT Elphaba. I loved her Fiyero run in No Good Deed and her Defying Gravity. When she's just singing, I was not that impressed by her voice, but she can belt like no one's business and she was just adorable. I also loved Richard H. Blake as Fiyero. I was really excited to see him because I love him in Legally Blonde the Musical and he really shined as Fiyero. He was so adorable and I really loved the way he played him. He had a very good balance between being shallow and pretty for Glinda and secretly smart and caring for Elphaba. You should go see it immediately if you can.
I wish I had been able to get tickets for Seminar before Alan Rickman left :( I feel like that's my biggest NYC fail so far. However, on my bucket list of shows to see there is: The Columnist, The Book of Mormon, End of the Rainbow, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Newsies, Nice Work if You Can Get It, Once, Peter and the Starcatcher, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and A Streetcar Named Desire - yes, I just went through the list on Playbill.
Anyway, my last month here, I promise I'll get better with blogging. I'll even keep the periodic post while I'm home in Pittsburgh for the summer, with apartment news and whatnot. It's better, I swear.
Anyway, not too much has been happening here. Lots of work. Depression over Burger King discontinuing chicken fries. Scoping out the Gossip Girl set. I have been lucky enough to get pictures with Ed Westwick, Leighton Meester, and KayLee Derfer while picking the brains of production assistants on set to see how they got their jobs and how to get into that kind of business. I went to a Careers Outside of Academia panel and that was much less helpful than talking to these two guys for forty-five minutes.
I'm QUITE ready to be done with school. Anything I may have said about continuing on to get my Ph.D is a complete lie (at least for now). I want the hell out of school and to get working and make real money. Even if I'm at the bottom of the income bracket, at least it's more than a part-time, minimum-wage job, though it is going to hurt a little when I have to leave my BBW family.
I'm trying to find apartments for next year, but it is so hard to try and find a place to live, especially in the city. I wish I could just stumble across a great deal in Hell's Kitchen, because that would be my ideal situation. The Village is nice and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to live here, but I don't like it. It's like living in a little mini-Pittsburgh, pretty much - people walk too slow, things are closed by like 10pm, only things are noisy so it's even worse because it's like living in the South Side on a Friday night every night. I'm looking at Craig's List and in general no-fee rental sites, so hopefully something comes up - but there's no point in really looking right now seeing as I don't want to move until August 1st.
My internship is good and super fun. I've made some great friends there and it's going to be a little sad when we all split up and go our separate ways at the end of the semester. I've learned so much and I'm really happy I got to intern with such a small and fun staff who seems to really care about teaching interns the ins and outs of their job. I also volunteered with the Tribeca Film Festival and that's starting soon, so I'm excited about that. I think it'll be a lot of fun and it'll be nice to see things from a film perspective to see if I'd rather stick around with television or flop to film and film festivals.
I FINALLY won the Wicked lottery, by the way!!! It was amazing. It's $26 for front row seats, which is a good deal. I think a few rows back would be better, but they were amazing and the cast was FANTASTIC. Chandra Lee Schwartz is the most AMAZING Glinda that I've seen (clearly Cheno doesn't count) and she's absolutely wonderful. She's so bubbly and has PIPES. She is absolutely hilarious. Jackie Burns was a GREAT Elphaba. I loved her Fiyero run in No Good Deed and her Defying Gravity. When she's just singing, I was not that impressed by her voice, but she can belt like no one's business and she was just adorable. I also loved Richard H. Blake as Fiyero. I was really excited to see him because I love him in Legally Blonde the Musical and he really shined as Fiyero. He was so adorable and I really loved the way he played him. He had a very good balance between being shallow and pretty for Glinda and secretly smart and caring for Elphaba. You should go see it immediately if you can.
I wish I had been able to get tickets for Seminar before Alan Rickman left :( I feel like that's my biggest NYC fail so far. However, on my bucket list of shows to see there is: The Columnist, The Book of Mormon, End of the Rainbow, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Newsies, Nice Work if You Can Get It, Once, Peter and the Starcatcher, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and A Streetcar Named Desire - yes, I just went through the list on Playbill.
Anyway, my last month here, I promise I'll get better with blogging. I'll even keep the periodic post while I'm home in Pittsburgh for the summer, with apartment news and whatnot. It's better, I swear.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year!!!
I can't believe it's 2012 already. If we believe the Mayans, the world ends at the end of the year! This is the year to live it up.
I rang in the New Year with two of my sorority sisters and a sweetheart in Times Square. It was not anywhere as bad as I expected and I'm really glad that we went. It was so fun and we met some awesome people and it was great actually being there and watching everything happen as it happened (except performances, we weren't that close). We left my apartment at like 7p and we were on 7th and 54th Street, so we could actually see the ball and the big screens. It was epic and awesome.
We got up there on Thursday night and it was Emily's first time in NYC, so we did all kinds of fun touristy things for her and she loved it, which made us all so happy and so relieved. My roommate was a rude, psycho to my friends, so that kind of sucks. I'm sorry, if you're not okay with having people stay over for a few days, just say so and we can get a hotel. Don't say you're okay with it and then act like a bitch. Just saying.
However, she did not rain on our parade and we had a lot of fun. I'm really glad that we did it and I think it's definitely something that everyone should do once, especially if the weather ends up being as nice as it was before. Even if you're not on 7th Avenue, there are TVs set up on various streets so that you can still see what is happening but still be in the masses. It was a once in a lifetime experience. It was really great.
Making resolutions is always sometimes silly, but I do think that they help! So, my goals are to get not just thin, but IN SHAPE, which is most important and to just keep working hard to get what I want and to go on a budget, so that I can afford to STAY in New York City forever and ever amen.
I hope you all had a good New Year's!
I can't believe it's 2012 already. If we believe the Mayans, the world ends at the end of the year! This is the year to live it up.
I rang in the New Year with two of my sorority sisters and a sweetheart in Times Square. It was not anywhere as bad as I expected and I'm really glad that we went. It was so fun and we met some awesome people and it was great actually being there and watching everything happen as it happened (except performances, we weren't that close). We left my apartment at like 7p and we were on 7th and 54th Street, so we could actually see the ball and the big screens. It was epic and awesome.
We got up there on Thursday night and it was Emily's first time in NYC, so we did all kinds of fun touristy things for her and she loved it, which made us all so happy and so relieved. My roommate was a rude, psycho to my friends, so that kind of sucks. I'm sorry, if you're not okay with having people stay over for a few days, just say so and we can get a hotel. Don't say you're okay with it and then act like a bitch. Just saying.
However, she did not rain on our parade and we had a lot of fun. I'm really glad that we did it and I think it's definitely something that everyone should do once, especially if the weather ends up being as nice as it was before. Even if you're not on 7th Avenue, there are TVs set up on various streets so that you can still see what is happening but still be in the masses. It was a once in a lifetime experience. It was really great.
Making resolutions is always sometimes silly, but I do think that they help! So, my goals are to get not just thin, but IN SHAPE, which is most important and to just keep working hard to get what I want and to go on a budget, so that I can afford to STAY in New York City forever and ever amen.
I hope you all had a good New Year's!
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| The three of us waiting to ring in 2012! |
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