2 posts tagged “summer”

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Hello, Adulthood? My Name is Charline; it's Nice to Finally Meet You.

    Let's just skip past the requisite returning-to-my-blog nostalgia and apologies; I left, now I'm back, let's resume from where we left off. I guess I didn't write much about my freshman year of college, which is something I regret in theory but not in practice (considering I never really had much free time, and the free minutes I did have I certainly did not want to spend cooped up in my dorm room on my computer). I actually had a really excellent time in school these past few months, made some great friends and learned some really valuable things. And now that summer is here, I will be working with the New York Neo-Futurists in the East Village as a Managing Director Intern, and hopefully getting some writing done for the first time in at least a semester. I've also moved out of my parent's house in New Jersey and am living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (in what my landlord described as the "proper, ungentrified" part that is supposed to give me "street cred" or something).

View from my Bedroom
View from my Bedroom
    And that is exactly what I intend this blog to be concerned with for at least the next three months: my experiences with living alone (well, with a flatmate, but I meant away from home and the dorm environment) and living in an area completely different from any place I've ever lived in. For accuracy's sake, I was born in Newark but moved into my parent's current house when I was a toddler. Save for the year I lived on the Upper West Side for school, I've only known what long-term living is like in suburbia. I'm excited to be embarking on this new adventure, and especially when the neighborhood itself is in such a state of flux. The population of the area is shifting, and the line is sharply visible: the north side of the BQE is populated by the stereotypical Williamsburg kids, postgrad hipsters who are just starting out their lives, while on the south side of the BQE (the side on which I live) is a family-oriented Puerto Rican neighborhood. 
    I want to preface my posts in the next few months with this disclaimer: as I'm sure you're aware, there's always a very fine line with anthropological texts between curious, academic exploration and exploitation, and I want to ensure anyone who's reading that I never intend to stray into the latter. I am not writing with the condescending air of someone who is bemused with the practices of people of a different socioeconomic class, but with the accepting view of someone who wants to learn about the new area in which they live and experience something different. I know that my writing should speak for itself and it shouldn't be necessary to write this beforehand, but I just want to be clear about my purpose should any conflicts arise.
    With that said, I ran into an interesting experience at the grocery store today. I am still exhausted from moving out of the dorm and into the apartment yesterday (that debacle is a whole other topic entirely), and getting myself food is basically the only thing I've done today. Anyway, I grabbed my tote bags (because carrying heavy plastic bags by themselves is just painful) and headed over to C-town to get some provisions and take a closer look around the neighborhood. When I went to check out I swiped my debit card on the, er, swipey thing, and was prompted to enter my "secret code," which is apparently the vernacular used here for PIN number. At first I sort of had to stifle a laugh (the cashier herself made an interesting vocal shift, saying, "Enter your secret code--I mean PIN number"), but then realized the necessity for such terminology in a neighborhood that is populated largely by non-English-speaking residents. I considered this on my way walking back to the apartment, and realized that I might not even be able to find a job in the area near my house for my lack of Spanish-speaking abilities (I'm looking for some minimum-wage gig at a piercing parlor or somewhere else that will hire someone with a mohawk and piercings). It was an interesting thought, but also a slightly uncomfortable one. I feel as though I've been transposed into another world entirely, with new rules and words that I have to learn all over again. As surprised (perhaps naively so) as I was upon initially coming upon this thought, it also offers some exhilarating opportunities to escape from the bubbles that I have lived in my entire life-- those of suburbia and, more recently, academia.
    Anyway, on another note, I have my first night working at the theater downtown (I had my first day in the Managing Directorial office last Thursday) and am quite excited to get more exposure into how a theater company works. I almost don't even want to write any more at risk of bumming myself out by sounding like I'm writing a scholarship application. Long story short, I'm pumped. I also kind of wish I weren't so tired so I could start writing the short story I was planning to start after school ended about the myth of the Leviathans. Exciting, and yet so daunting at the same time. Seems to be a running theme in my life at the moment, no?

2 comments Tags: summer, brooklyn, theater, williamsburg, internship, living alone

Summer Plans

depth
depth


    My Princeton University interviewer asked me a question about what I am planning to do this summer, a question about which I had been thinking but had not formulated a coherent answer to in my mind. I take a strange (or merited, depending on your views) pride in being a future-oriented person, but I really just have had so many different ideas of what I want to do this summer that I haven't been able to choose one particular path. Up until a few days ago I've had some vague daydreams about traveling and last-minute high school bonding experiences, but let's be serious: I'm sort of missing the, oh, twenty-thousand spare dollars I would need to save up to embark on an epic Verne-ian (all hail pseudo-literary terms) journey. I'll probably go on some lame road-trip or something with Eliav*, but I do need to get a job to make money for college. I would get a job in a store, but let's just say I wouldn't exactly thrive in a retail environment.**
    And so I started thinking about getting another internship, since I generally enjoyed mine at the local paper last year. I've been looking around for one and by the looks of it the Village Voice is looking for a photo intern, so I think I'll give that a try. I'm worried that I'll be considered "too young" for most of these internships, which is really a pity because I don't see what (besides age) is different between me and an upperclassman college student. Worth a try though, right? I just need to get organized and I'll be able to explore my options further. Internships probably won't pay much (or anything), though, so I don't know if I'd even be able to substitute that for a job. Maybe I'll try some more freelance photo work? Oh well, there's still time. There will be time, there will be time.****

*Side note: Eliav and I decided to go on an adventure last week after band practice. Since he just turned eighteen, our main goal was to (legally) drive past twelve. Dream big, right? We grabbed his guitar and my tambourine and made our way to the Long Branch beach with his handy-dandy cellphone GPS system. And let me tell you, common sense alerted me that the beach would be colder than Springfield (a decidedly non-beach area), but I most certainly not expect to be transported to the Arctic circle the second we got near the boardwalk. "Near" is sort of a vague term-- let's just say that there was a pointy fence standing in the way of me and sandy happiness, and the fence was winning. We ended up getting home at 11:30 anyway, so Eliav and I just drove around aimlessly until midnight, both letting out an anticlimactic "woo" once the clock struck twelve. You know exciting the whole Cinderella story was when you were like four? Yeah, invert that to understand how fun that "adventure" was.
**This is the scenario:
(CHARLINE stands in the corner, pretending [but failing] to be interested in the "intricacies" of multicolored velor tracksuits. Enter LADY.)
CHARLINE: (frightening grin) Hello! How! MayIHelpYou?!?! Wooooooooould you be interestedinnnnnn anything in particular???
LADY: Um, no, I-I'm good, thank you.
CHARLINE: You're good?? You're just good? Because really, I think you're excellent!!
LADY: (shying away) Um, I'm going to go... elsewhere... (moves to another part of the store to look at overpriced jeans)
CHARLINE: (moves up close to LADY) You're looking at those? No no no, I much prefer these (picks up a pair) for my side job. They keep me warm on the streets and give the customers just the right taste. I mean people say that men don't want to buy the cow if they can get the milk for free, but baby, my milk don't come free! (furious hip-shaking)***
***Keep in mind that this wouldn't be retail-induced insanity but rather a way to keep myself amused.
****That reminds me! I've been keeping in mind that I wanted to re-read some Eliot (The Wasteland &c. is sitting on my end-table buried under The Portrait of Dorian Grey and Science of Sleep [which I have yet to watch]). Someone please add more hours onto the day! At least being a second-semester senior will free up some time.

p.s. I don't care what angry bloggers say, I like Vampire Weekend's CD. I can't really elaborate at the moment as Michel Gondry is calling me to my portable DVD player, but I think that people are focusing too much on the Ivy League background of the band. It's about the music, not the college they went to. They are certainly verbose lyricists at times, but their words match with and complement the music the way good bands should function. Plus, any band that would write a song about Oxford commas is good in my book (for the record, I hate when people don't use them).

Post a comment Tags: music, summer, college, misc., internship, village voice, vampire weekend …