Friday, December 22, 2006

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas and Happy Happy New Year to all! R and I are off for our annual tour of the Midwest -- 4 states in 2 weeks. It will be great. We're going to see my parents and brothers, R's parents and grandparents and many friends including Melinda, Laura, and many others who do not have blogs but are still fabulous people. :)

Today I had a long but good day. I woke up early and went and had an interview at a temp agency. They loved me and my mad Excel skillz so I should be able to make the rent each month. woo! Afterwards R and I met a friend for lunch and then did some Christmas shopping. We spent way too much time in Kmart and then nearly got trapped in Macy's, land of the never-ending escalators. After all that we walked around looking at window displays and finally saw the tree and Rockefeller Center. It was a great time and now I'm ready to head off for the Christmas celebratin'.

oooh! Also, there's a building near Rockefeller Center where there are big Christmas light snowflakes and they blink in time to Mannheim Steamroller Christmas songs. Awesome!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

random chit chat

R finished his last paper! Now he can frolic with me. Fun fun. Saturday we are heading out for our 3rd annual Christmas tour of the Midwest. Listen to radio stations near you for concert dates.
In the meantime, I have been super productive. I applied for a loan to pay the rent while I write the dissertation. I've also applied for a bunch of part time jobs and have an interview with a temp agency tomorrow, so we should not starve. We did have a brief freak out the other day about why *exactly* we decided to move to New York as two grad students with no income. But now I'm feeling optimistic again. I also got most of my health insurance application filled out and am now about to organize pictures to bring with us on the road. I'll have some pictures up for you blog readers before long as well.

So that's all my excitement. Oh, there are no stories from the DMV. It was very efficient and quick, except I don't get the actual license for three weeks. Until then I have a temporary one. Both Florida and Missouri can give out real licenses immediately. What's up with that, New York?

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

more NYC and maintenance

Today my big project is to go to the DMV and get a new driver's license. I am having some serious health insurance getting issues and am going to apply for Healthy New York which needs a driver's license from me. I am not 100% sure I am eligible, but it is worth a try. Health insurance SUCKS. Maybe I'll have some good DMV stories for you later.

I also moved to Blogger beta, so if you are reading on bloglines you might need to update the feed.

Monday, December 18, 2006

NYC

Howdy ho all!

I am trying hard toget my stuff together to post a lovely summary of what all happened to me in Suriname, but it is hard. Right now I am pretty overwhelmed with figuring out my life and how I am going to make my half of the rent plus tuition.

Also I am all getting used to New York, so I have that whole adventure to process. I love it here so far and I can even travel around on the subways by myself as well as someone tells me which trains to take! We live on the far north end of Manhattan and to our east is a very Latino neighborhood. I walked around exploring it yesterday, and bought some $2 jeans. Also in our 'hood we have several Dunkin' Donuts, grocery stores, and lots of restaurants. There is so much going on.

Last night I saw Stranger Than Fiction with some friends. I really liked the movie, and on the way home I learned an important subway lesson. The lesson is: if there is a full car next to an empty car on the train, there is probably a reason that one car is empty. I hopped on to this empty car, proud of my cleverness, until I noticed the horrendous stench. Indeed, some poor man was ejecting some sort of bodily fluids and smelled sooooo bad. About 8 of us had gotten in this car and we all kind of huddled in a corner until we finally got to the next stop and could flee. So that was my first important subway lesson. It also reminded me of how fun it is to live in a big city and bond with strangers over incidents like this. All of us in the car were brought closer together. It was really beautiful, except that it was disgusting.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Returned!

Hey everyone!

Here I am back in the US and in my New York apartment! Things are good, I got a ton of data, I love my new apartment, the cats don't hate me. Watch this space for some photos and more stories of Suriname. As a quick preview: I changed my methods at the last minute, saw a jaguar, and got a botfly. Also I lost about 20 pounds. Good times!