Happy Halloween!

Well, it has been awhile, hasn't it?! Sorry, my bad. I've been super busy with everything going on in my life, and I always want to sit down and write but I never have time. So, get ready, this should be a monster of a post.
Fall is in full swing in the city, and it is gorgeous. The air is still ALMOST just as fresh as back in Minnesota, and there is the same, general crisp feeling when you walk outside into the brisk and mostly sunny days. Obviously, today is Halloween, but I'm just really not in the mood at all, which is too bad. I guess the biggest Halloween parade in the world takes place in my neighborhood, but I just REALLY don't feel like dealing with crazy and costumed drunk people. As exciting as that sounds...I'd rather stay in and get homework done. My roommates, on the other hand, are getting all dressed up in costumes (or lack thereof) to go out. I'm actually excited to have my room to myself FOR ONCE.
Last weekend was NYU Parent Weekend, and it was really nice to see my dad again. It's weird that I've been here only 2 months, but at the same time, it didn't seem like it had been THAT long since they were dropping me off here. I feel like I've really blended in to New York since August, obviously, and it was nice to be so much more aware of the city than the last time I saw Dad. He arrived on Thursday and left on Monday morning, so I had plenty of time to spend with him. We were able to go out to eat a couple of times (yay for getting away from the dining halls for once) and we also obviously made a stop at Magnolia bakery for some famously delicious cupcakes. Also, on Friday morning, we decided to walk around Central Park. It was a beautiful fall day, and my dad had never really been to Central Park, so we just walked all around it and had a great time. I think few people realize how big it actually is, and how easy it is to forget you're in the middle of NYC. So...Friday night. Because my dad had told me over and over again that we could do whatever I wanted, he was there to see how I lived my life here. Big mistake on his part...haha it ended up being very fun for both us, but I decided we should do stand-by for SNL to try to get tickets and go to the show. Because that's what I do on the weekends, right? Of course. So, Friday night, we got all ready to go with blankets and sleeping bags, and headed to my little home-away-from-home that is W. 49th Street. Then the rain started. And it didn't stop. ALL NIGHT. We were there from 8:30 or 9 pm to 7 am. In the pouring rain and wind. It was not extremely pleasant. Not even a little bit. But Dad was an amazing trouper, and we were able to just laugh at the situation and mock ourselves all night. Dad got to meet Jason Sudeikis when he came out, and he was really friendly, and I guess he became Dad's favorite cast member just from that little confrontation. Haha. We finally got our stand-by tickets (numbers 3 and 4!!!) and slept for a lot of Saturday. We obviously got into the show (I saw Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order: SVU go into the show AGAIN) and we had very good seats. The episode was actually really funny! I know Dad had a good time, too. After the show, we stuck around outside, and I had like a 15 minute conversation with 2 guys from 30 Rock (one of them, John Lutz, also writes for SNL and is at Asssscat almost every week) about improv, which made me REALLY happy. I feel like I'm making some good connections. Also, I waved at Jason's wife, and she randomly came up and hugged me, that was cute. I had a good night. On Sunday, Dad and I did some shopping (which I'm sure was thrilling for him), and then went to the early Asssscat show, which Dad also really liked. John Lutz was there, as well as Jack McBrayer of 30 Rock, but it was a VERY small cast of 5. Still fabulous improv, though. I am envious of their talent, but I think that if given the opportunity, I would be able to hold me own in a scene with them. I think.
It was sad to say goodbye to Dad, but I know it's only like 6 weeks until Christmas, when I get to go HOME! I'm sure that will be very, very weird. I've really gotten used to my life here.
I'm trying to switch majors. After talking with my adviser and my writing teacher, I decided that Journalism really isn't for me, and instead, I'm going to try to transfer into the Tisch School of Arts to major in Dramatic Writing. It is, quite literally, the PERFECT major for me. You get to specialize in either writing for film, theater or TV. Obviously, I want to write for TV, so this is ideal. I just need to put together a portfolio and pray that I get in. I should have a fairly decent GPA, too, so I'm hoping that helps.
I need to get out of my dorm. My roommates are crazy and costumed.

Artsy Emily

It does feel good to finally have a calm weekend. I've had time to sleep in my nice warm bed (they actually turned on the heat in our dorms this weekend), get some homework done (midterm tomorrow) and just hang out in the room. I do have a good amount of work to do this weekend, so it was helpful to be able to pace myself more than just having to get it done during the day on Friday and Saturday when I'm not sleeping. I'm still going to Assscat tonight, though. We'll see how many SNL people are there when there on a weekend where there isn't a live show.
I felt very fancy and cultured yesterday. I have a paper due pretty soon in my Cultural Foundations class and one of the topic choices is to go to the Met and review the Greek art exhibit. So, yesterday, I got all dressed up and took the 6 train up to east 77th to the very rich part of NYC. I definitely didn't feel like I fit in on the Upper East Side, but it was fun to pretend I did. The Met is so overwhelming, and so busy. Luckily, the Greek exhibit is right at the entrance, and I could get the info I needed and then leave -- I started to not feel well, I think it's the temperature changes of being outside in the windy cold and then going into a stuffy and hot museum. I am looking forward to going back, though, maybe when I have more time and energy to really look around. I only pay $1. The admission price is supposed to be $10 for students, but if you look closely, it says "suggested donation". So I give $1. I figure they have rich old people who donate to the musuem, and so many people don't think it's a suggested admission price, so I don't feel bad at all paying $1.
I'm really excited for my first improv show with Dangerbox on Friday. I really like the group. They are cool. They also apparently now read this blog.
I should probably start studying for that midterm. Or go to Gap. We'll see.

my new haircut

The salon wasn't as shady as I assumed it would be. Unfortunately, after the woman had styled it perfectly, I had to walk several blocks in the pouring rain. Thus, it isn't as perfect in the picture as it once was...I'm still pretty pleased with it, though.

Birthday weekend extravaganza!

This is going to be a very long entry. Fair warning.
So, it's official, I'm 18 years old and a legal adult. Am I supposed to feel any differently than I did yesterday? Obviously not, but today (I guess it's yesterday now, it's 1:30 am), I allowed myself to feel a bit older and more sophisticated. Actually, I allowed myself to feel that way the whole weekend. Perhaps part of my attitude had to do with the fact that Alex and Colette visited, and I actually had the chance to show off the New York I know, the New York I have learned and become familiar with since arriving here that isn't familiar or known to others not at NYU. Greenwich Village, parts of SoHo, the areas of Midtown like Rockefeller Center that I have learned how to navigate around, that I know do without much thought.
It was so great to see Alex and Colette again...I've gotten to that point where I no longer actively miss people on a daily basis, but little reminders of friends and home trigger a fleeting sense of homesickness and longing for the way things were. It was almost overwhelming, though, to see my home friends again, and to experience that completely uninhibited laughter and fun that accompanies old friends. They arrived on Friday night, after an agonizingly long and very sketchy bus ride to Chinatown, so I ended up catching the B or D train downtown at like 11pm. The whole situation was really shady. Haha. But I met them at Chyrstie and Grand and we immediately got back on the subway. Alex and I headed straight for Rockefeller Center so we could get settled in for the night to wait for SNL tickets. Essentially, I looked like a homeless person...I was wearing like 3 layers and had a pillow stuffed with a towel and my comforter. Thankfully, this is New York and people are very comfortable around homeless people...basicallly, I didn't get too many strange looks. Alex and I set up our pathetic little bed on W. 49th...we laid out the towel and slept on top of it with my cream and beige comforter that I don't think I can wash. Good choices. We actually had a really good time (despite the bout of freezing rain around 2 am...not cool at all...) and I saw some of the SNL cast members and had a chance to chat a little bit with them. OH! Random coincidences! Maybe no one else thinks this is weird, but I do. Last Friday, I saw cast member Jason Sudeikis when he came out of rehearsal, and we talked about improv, etc. I then went maybe 3 blocks away, definitely around some corners and random streets, to the McDonalds to use the bathroom and get a McFlurry. When I came out of the McDonalds, Jason was walking past on the sidewalk, so he stopped and sort of said hi again. Then I talked to him after the show last Saturday, and he sort of mocked me for going to McDonalds. I was really embarrassed, because I never go there, it's just convenient in that situation because it's open 24 hours. THEN, this Friday, I went to McDonalds at a different time to get food for me and Alex, and when I come out, Jason is walking past AGAIN! So I get all defensive because he sees me with McDonalds AGAIN, and it was funny, and basically now we're friends. After the show on Saturday, he recognized me and started talking. I'm very proud of this encounter, but sad that I couldn't have been walking out of a Starbucks or something a bit classier than MickeyDs. Oh well.
Anyway, I warned this would be a long post, so deal with it.
Saturday, Colette and Alex and I just walked all around SoHo and Greenwich Village and a bit of Chelsea, because the weather was GORGEOUS. Warm sun, cool fall breeze, the air smelled wonderful, there were little farmer's markets and street fairs...very beautiful. Saturday night, Colette went to a Broadway play with one of her friends from Boston and her friends from NYU. Alex and I wanted to find a place in Midtown to have a rather inexpensive pre-birthday dinner. That proved to be way more difficult than we anticipated. We finally ended up settling on this place called Lindy's on 7th Ave. It felt SO GOOD to have REAL food again after all my dining hall eating...Alex described it as just getting back in the country from a long vacation where the food was sort of iffy. We both had huge burgers and fries and it was wonderful. And very expensive. Meh, I haven't been spending hardly money on food, so I felt it was justified. After dinner, Alex and I had to get ready to go see if we would get into SNL! I was number 21 AGAIN, even though we were farther up in line; no one wanted to go to the dress rehearsal, so we could've had numbers 4 and 5 for that show, but we really wanted to see the live show. This week was far more tense than last weekend, because they kept us waiting up until the show was about to start! People with real tickets kept showing up and we didn't think we would get in, even though we heard that 93 people got into dress. Finally they let me in, but not Alex! I was freaking out! How could it seriously get cut off after 21?! They seated me actually in the center of the balcony, which was a really good seat, but I could not relax until I saw Alex get seated, also in the center of the balcony, but sort of far away. We didn't get to sit together, but we both got in, so we were okay. The episode was not really that funny, but the experience was still really cool, obviously. After the show, I met Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph. I was happy.
Sunday, Colette had to go back to Boston, but Alex and I walked around Chinatown and a ritzy part of SoHo. Then, I obviously had to share my Sunday night tradition of Assscat at the Upright Citizens Brigade with Alex, my former Improv-A-GoGo buddy. It was a great show, with Amy Poehler, more Jason Sudeikis, and RACHEL DRATCH! And essentially the entire cast of 30 Rock, minus Tina, Tracy and Alec Baldwin. P.S. Everyone should watch 30 Rock...the cast is amazing.
Then, today, the infamous 18th birthday. Alex decided to take the sort of less shady Greyhound home, so I took her to the Port Authority. After I dropped her off, my roommates said I had to be ready to go out at 3pm, and they wouldn't tell me where we were going. We all got dressed up, even though we didn't really need to, and took the train to 57th. They ended up taking me to this themed restaurant called Jekyll and Hyde, which had a sort of Halloween theme. It was VERY elaborately decorated, with lots of talking mummies and animated paintings. Also, there were actors that would come up and talk to us that were supposed to be like gypsies and mad scientists...?! It was hilarious. Kids running around. Cheesy actors. Good times. Then I guess we walked around Midtown a bit, because I'm actually in love with that area of New York, and then we went back to the dorm. I'm supposed to be writing a critical analysis philosophy paper right now. Clearly, I'm not. Plato should understand that it's my birthday. My professor may not. I should get on that. Sorry this was an un-godly length...most people don't really care about my SNL adventures, but it's my blog and I feel like sharing them. They're very exciting for me. Okay, goodnight!

Oh, P.S. the pictures are of my roommates and I before getting on the subway and Alex and I after the SNL show. We were amazed at the people we were seeing.

The weekend again? Seriously?

It's hard to find something to write about during the week after my amazing and event-filled weekend. But I guess there's something to be said for the mundane and everyday, I suppose.
The week actually went by very quickly; that's what's happens when I have 2 classes a day for 4 days. Essentially I have a Monday and a Friday for each class, which is pretty nice. It also doesn't hurt that I legitimately like my classes. They're challenging and enlightening, and unlike high school, where I had essentially 7 college classes to deal with everyday, I only have 2 a day. I actually have time to do my homework well, and I'm alert in class because I'm only sitting in a room for 2 and a half hours a day. It doesn't hurt that I'm not taking math or science this semester... :)
Before leaving for school, and actually way back in April when I was deciding where I should go, people kept telling me about the perceived lack of community in New York City. Obviously there was a community, people would say, but it was supposedly so different and somehow worse than the community I felt in St. Louis Park. Well, since I have been here over a month now, I think it's come time to comment on the sense of community and general familiarity I have here. It's amazing how well I've adjusted to a supposedly nearly opposite environment. Everyday, I walk past the same places; Anthology flower shop, Bob's Bagels, even the horrible BBQ restaurant, with its awful lingering smell and garish neon lights. My neighborhood is a little community in iteslf, definitely smaller than St. Louis Park. Manhattan in its entirety is only 13 miles long and 2 miles wide. Yet it is divided into mini-neighborhoods that have their own style. It's amazing that Washington Square Park (the "center" of our "campus") is in a different "neighborhood" than my dorm, and it's only 6 or so blocks away. I live in the East Village, and it's my community. Just the other day, I was standing in line in the grocery store, and the ladies behind me and in front me recognized each other and had an adorable conversation. What I'm saying is, that happens all the time at the Cub in St. Louis Park, but it happens here, too. I love how much I feel like I belong here, how I really do feel like I live in a warm environment. I was all prepared to have to be cynical and jaded and accept that I'm alone in a big city, but I don't have to.
This weekend is going to be so fun! Alex and Colette come down from Boston, waiting in line tomorrow for SNL tickets, hopefully SNL on Saturday, Asssscat on Sunday...and then MY BIRTHDAY on Monday (and no school)!!! I'm happy.

Why did Emily hyprerventilate? Let me tell you.

I didn't expect to get in to SNL. Well, sort of. But I couldn't let myself get my hopes up too high. Because then I get worked up and upset, which is unneccessary. So, Jon and I got ready to go and took the subway back uptown at like 9:30. We got to 30 Rock and waited in line -- AGAIN. The thing with stand-by tickets is that there is never a certain number that is guaranteed admission. It all depends on how many people with actual tickets show up, how many people the host/musical guest brings, how many people with connections choose to go to that episode. So, sometimes it's 50, sometimes it's 0. So, we stood waiting in line, in numerical order, watching all the lucky people with actual tickets go through the metal detectors and file onto elevators to go up to the 8th floor. Then the NBC page got the first 15 people from the stand-by line, and said "We're going to let you guys go through the metal detectors so you're ready to go if they have room. Just because you go through the metal detector DOES NOT mean you have a seat. Once you get on an elevator, though, you're in." So, being number 21, I'm still in the line, freaking out, wanting them to hurry up and decide how many people they need. Then we get to go through the metal detectors. And then....WE GET ON AN ELEVATOR!!! I almost passed out. I was so excited! We got wristbands and as soon as we got off the elevators, everyone practically ran down the hall to the studio. Studio 8H. The historical studio that SNL has occupied since its birth in 1975. I don't know who still watches it, but I was up in the far right balcony. Opposite end of the musical guest stage. We got all situated, I still couldn't really breathe properly, and I just watched in awe as the SNL band played, and all the crew busily moved cameras and pieces of sets and all the organized chaos. Every once in awhile I'd get a glimpse of Lorne Michaels. Then the announcer, Don Pardo, got onstage to sort of say hi and warm us up a bit. He introduced Darrell Hammond, who did a bit of rather unsucessful stand-up. As soon as he was done, they started setting up the cold opening on the stage. They could take their time a bit with this set. The cast for the cold opening sort of leisurely got ontstage, and the audience clapped. Amy began the cold opening. This was pretty much one of my favorite parts of the show, because when they were shouting "1 minute!" or whatever, Amy just started tap dancing, and singing things like "first show of the season! Live show! 30 seconds, everybody!" Haha. And the stagehand had to yell at her to stop because the show was going to start. It's the little stuff like that that you don't see while watching it on TV that make it all worthwhile. It's hard to tell when you're watching it on TV, but the studio is really small, and they don't do hardly any sketches on the stage. The sketches are all done sort of around and next to the maybe 20 swingy chairs on the floor. So some of the sketches were right below me, some were off on the other side...so some you couldn't really see but they had TV monitors so you could still watch. I liked the ones right below me because I could read the cue cards and know what was going to happen before they said it. Watching SNL live is like watching a well-oiled machine. Because they have to do all the set/costume changes during the commercial breaks, as soon as a sketch is over, the cast jumps up and runs off, and a million people rush in and clear everything away. It's so chaotic, it's amazing! And there was a problem with the set of a sketch right in front of me, and Lorne Michaels had to come over and fix things, and it was crazy, and then it just had to START, they had to stop messing with things and just adjust and deal. I love it. It's an art, really.
Then, after the show, I met the cast and I just had a truly amazing night. I LOVE THIS CITY!!! Tonight I'm going to an improv show! What could be better?!?