Slowly discovering New York City & preparing for student orientation

Second Ave (...I think). One of my favorite
things about cities on a grid is being able to see
straight shots down the city streets.

Very slowly, I'm starting to come out of my shell and explore New York City.

Last weekend my girlfriend and I went out with our friends from Clark University (our alma mater) again for some dinner and Mean Girls Trivia at a bar. Our friend Maxie, who is from a NYC commuter town, knows the area really well, so she was able to find us a good, cheap dinner during happy hour before we were due to go to a bar for trivia. Apparently we got to the bar early enough for 2-for-1 drinks which made the deal even sweeter. (By the way, I swear I'm not a big drinker even though I've brought up cheap alcohol twice in this short paragraph.)

Unfortunately, I've only seen Mean Girls twice (but we watched it the night before trivia obviously), so I wasn't much help at trivia. However, I am proud to say I was correct on a few questions we got wrong because we didn't go with my answer. We finished at the middle of the pack and had a good time.

Half of us went to another bar after said goodnight to the other half, and I'm really glad we did. Because we found THIS:

Um, best interactive advertisement EVER.
Left to right: take your picture with Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and email it
to yourself; a portrait of How I Met Your Mother that makes NPH's forehead
look bigger than it already is (his forehead is a source of self-consciousness); and an
interactive pinball machine game! Go touch screen pinball go!

Our friend Ryan dominating at touch screen pinball, obviously.

Yours truly dominating (cheers to Ryan for the picture!).

Me and the lady frannn with some awesome people.

Suit up!
(This is my current Facebook profile picture and it's awesome
 because NPH is in the foreground!)

We saw this ridiculous sunset on the way home the other night.

Overall, things have been really quiet with little adventuring. It's kinda hard to be motivated to travel around the city when it's so hot out (consistently in the mid to high 80's). I know I'll make up for it this fall when the temperatures are more decent and I'm more excited for the beautiful fall weather. Fall is by far my favorite time of year, and I'm determined to make it the best fall I've had in years. Anyway, with a quiet few weeks in the city, I've mostly been venturing out to to grocery shopping or something like that. The other night we saw this awesome sunset after picking up a few things. On a separate venture to acquire groceries, we tried the Trader Joe's down by Union Square. This ended up being quite the experience. Never have I ever been in such a packed little store. It was our fault really, for going in on a weekend day (something we don't do again). It was really overwhelming, but it reminded me this is what city life is going to be like: sometimes it's going to be really crowded and I'll have to wait in line a while. I'll just have to learn when I can do things off of peak hours for the best experience possible.

With grad school orientation this week, my girlfriend and I did a dry run on the subway so I could find my way around (this was most of my traveling for that week). I mean, it's a really easy ride from our apartment on the 6 train to the Graduate Center, which took us about 33 minutes this morning. I also wanted to make sure I knew where the classrooms/auditoriums were for my orientation meetings, because there's nothing worse than showing up late to orientation after being lost and looking like a complete noob. I don't want to look like a complete noob. A regular noob is just fine, thanks.

I have four days of orientation events to attend this week starting on Tuesday, where I'm meeting with the other biology students. Apparently this is my first time where I'll get individual attention and get questions answered. For Wednesday, I signed up for a one-on-one session to pass in paperwork and make sure everything is all set, which is really great. Best of all, I get to meet my potential adviser for the first time on Thursday after one of my sessions. His office at Baruch College is easily accessible on the 6 train as well.

A local soul/jazz band rocking out by the 6 train on 125th.

After looking back at my sparse collection of photographs thus far in my time here in New York City, one thing is certain: I need to start taking more pictures.

Settling into a new city

Last April I was accepted into the CUNY Biology Ph.D. program, my first choice to continue graduate school. (I finished my master's in biology this May at Clark University, where I also got my bachelor's in environmental science.)

Earlier this summer I was lucky enough to sign a lease on an place in the CUNY Graduate Center Apartments. Apparently they're fairly competitive to get into, because there aren't a lot of rooms available. For instance, there were approximately 50 people fighting over a single one bedroom apartment available for this year. Unfortunately, I wasn't that lucky person, so I settled for a small studio apartment.

However, the perks of my apartment are many, and as a first year student in a new city, I consider myself very lucky. Because I was living at home in New Hampshire this summer, it wasn't very feasible to apartment hunt in the city. There were too many variables to handle, so when we got an offer, my girlfriend and I jumped on the opportunity. We were sold on the idea of the studio, our second choice, because of the following:

• The apartment is fully furnished. In addition to a full-sized fridge (which apparently is a luxury in the city), I have a desk, small kitchen table, full-sized bed with three drawers below on either side, a bedside table, a bureau, a closet, and a spacious bathroom.
• We have a 24 hour fitness room (which is actually pretty big), 24 hour laundry ($4 for wash a dry per sizable load), bike storage, and a nice lounge.
• Most of the utilities are included except for electricity, but we have a nice air conditioning unit. Apparently our heating is also covered by the building, which if that holds to be true
• Oh, and the apartment building is a year old.

The apartment is however not perfect. While we have a microwave, we only have a two burner electric range, which means we don't have an oven. We also don't have any counter space. This means I'll have to make some serious transitions and learn to work with what I have. It's possible I'll get a prep cart to add some prep work space and maybe get a convection oven. Given the perks and few drawbacks, I consider myself very lucky, especially since the subsidized rent is very affordable.

This is something we had to take into account when looking at apartments, because the Graduate Center Housing is in Spanish Harlem (118th and 3rd). As I spent five years in Worcester Main South, this is not a big transition for me, but it's not ideal either. The apartment building is two blocks from the 6 train, which is a straight shot to the Graduate Center, down on 5th.

We've already met up with a couple of friends from Clark (our alma mater, where I got both my undergraduate and master's degree in science) who live around the greater city area. My friend Bridget (class of 2008), met up with us on our second night in the city (no less than 24 hours after unpacking) and walked us down to the Upper East Side. She lives in Astoria and is completing a master's of her own just a few blocks from us at a Hunter College campus (which is also part of CUNY). The following night, we went out with two of our Clark friends (my class of 2011) and an "honorary Clarkie", down in midtown for some dinner and gallivanting. Between now, going to Maine for a wedding, and my graduate school orientation later in the month, we hope to learn Manhattan as best as possible before the fall semester comes underway. To be honest, I want nothing else to do with any of the other boroughs until I know Manhattan decently well. Given the size of the island though, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to hold myself to that.