Welcome to Aspie Land!

I am beginning to feel less like an Out-of-Towner and more like a New Yorker. Perhaps I should explain. Am I using expletives and foul language at any given opportunity? No. Do I like the Yankees? Definitely not. Am I beginning to feel more settled and accustomed to the vibe of this city, a vibe that never seems to end and finds new life after the night has settled in? Yes.

Even when I was home in California I did not feel like I belonged there. I felt like a New Yorker. I felt like this was the city I was destined to live and work in. My friends from school who are interning here are finding that they want to go back home, to what is comfortable and most familiar to them. Partly because the have been unable to find work and partly because they miss the state that is their world. Californians have this arrogance because it’s engrained in their heads from early on that the world revolves around California and the miles of coastline. Upon moving here, I learned that the world doesn’t care about beaches. It doesn’t care at all. My friends think California is the center of the world. They don’t realize New York is the capitol of the world.

New Yorkers have this sort of me first attitude which to my friends from California seems pushy but to me it seems to be more about survival. There is a reason the city is called the Jungle. It’s survival of the fittest. For Californians who are laid back and not used to competition the city can seem scary. For me, not so much. I understand the need to compete and in fact thrive in an environment which can be as cutthroat as card sharks circling around the weakest player at the table. In order to survive in this city a certain measure of risk must be taken perhaps more than what many of my friends from California are ready to take. One never gains anything if they are not willing to risk everything for the promise of a big payoff. Given the history of this city and the throngs of immigrants who came here risking everything to build as better life I am beginning to acknowledge that taking a gamble at life is what makes a New Yorker.

I have been dealing with a lot the past week or so and it seems as if the world has ripped right out from under my feet. And as I fall what used to give me security is no longer there. Such is the way things go when someone you care about deeply is tragically ripped from your life. All you can do is try to pick up the pieces and hope for some semblance of normality at a time when what made things normal is no longer there.

Work is not the only thing in an intern’s life.

While we as interns have to focus a lot of our intention on our internship and try to have the best experience possible, doing well at your internship is only part of having a great experience. Making friends while you are here is just as important as the doing well at work.

For me having travelled 3,000 miles to do my internship the idea of making friends is important particularly since I did not know anyone when I arrived here in New York. For the first few weeks I spent much time by myself. Partly because I noticed that many people who I live with in my residence knew each other or had friends that lived in the city. So trying to fit in seemed like a daunting task, until it dawned on that that is what they were trying to do. As much as people seem they are different they more they seem the same. Perhaps the best help to get to know people is the residence that I live in, which offers excursions and trips for the residents to various events and attractions and has offered me the opportunity to meet interesting and fun people. Knowing that there are other people who are of the same age that I am, and that are dealing with a lot of the same issues such as getting used to this city and their new internships is a major benefit and ice breaker of sorts. Having common ground helps, but living in the same building helps even more. Especially since the residence is more like a college dorm than an apartment building.

Still the transition has been made a lot easier when I met up with some fellow Cal State Fullerton graduates who are also in New York it felt like there was a piece of home here in New York and the experience was made all that much better and we chatted about how the recent storms we have been having have been more like California winters. In California the people would bundle themselves up. Here New Yorkers at times were walking in the rain without so much as an umbrella. I found myself doing the same thing on a few occasions. When in Rome do as the Romans do or you can always buy an umbrella from a street vendor who can be found at the entrance to a subway station hoping to sell one to the masses that make their exodus from the underground during rush hour.

Staying on Track

For many the New York subway system is the lifeblood of the city as it takes people to and from their destination. Yet, for those who are not familiar with the system it can be as confusing as trying to figure out Einstein’s Theory of Relativity without the E or the C2.
Having been two New York twice before, and having ridden public transportation in my native Los Angeles, I was not completely unfamiliar with how a public transportation system worked. Still there is nothing like a New York City subway. I realize that by referring to it as the subway I am marking myself as an Out of Towner because I learned from someone that the subway is referred to as the train. When I think of trains, I think of Amtrak, not a metal tube speeding through the underbelly of a city.
The system was a little daunting to learn because knowing where each stop is is only half the battle.
In Los Angeles, all the rail lines are named after a color, the red line, the purple line, and so on and so forth. Here in New York the system works a little differently. Instead of the Los Angeles rainbow New York has the alphabet soup. The lines are named after letters and numbers, and to make matters worse depending on the destination a color. The 4, 5, and 6 trains are green. The N, Q, R and W trains are yellow, the A, C, and E trains are blue while the F, J, and V trains are brown. At first that made my head spin but then I realized that the train numbers and whether or not they are express or local are what matter. Local trains like the 6. the N, the Q, the R, and the W trains will stop at every station. Express trains like the 4, and the 5 trains will not stop at every station. The stations while conveniently located near most places in the city can be confusing particularly since they are more like freeways for people especially during rush hour when people are disembarking from the trains en masse. After having gotten off at the wrong station and not to mention the wrong train at least four or five times during my first week in New York I realized after being helped by some other riders that the stations are marked with signs telling people where they need to go to transfer trains or exit on the right street.
The existence of signs was not as surprising as the willingness that some New Yorkers have towards helping others find their way on the subway system. I guess when you are standing on the platform looking around and walking in circles trying to make sense of the signs with a rather wide eyed look does indicate to people that you are not from around here.
I had heard many times never look a New Yorker in the eye especially while on the subway. After being helped various times on the subway and successfully managing to navigate to my way on the train my starry-eyed wonderment and confusion now somewhat dissipated I began to notice that while I was spending my time trying to not look at the other passengers I noticed out of the corner of my eye that is exactly what is what the other riders were doing. If they were not reading, a newspaper, a book, texting on their phone, or listening to their Ipod they were staring at the floor, at the walls, or at their feet with this rather blank look on their face like statues that only seemed to move when the train hit a bump or came to a stop. When that happened, people would do whatever they could to not fall on the person next to them because they were tightly packed in the cars like sardines. Looking at the other passengers I felt that there was this huge divide because we as humans place so much intimate value on the simple looking people in the eyes that sometimes when I am on my way to work I feel a slight sense of disassociation. They say its easy to get lost in the city. Now I see why no one can see you if they are not looking then when the train stopped and the doors opened it was like peeling back the lid of a can and letting some of the pressure out. The passengers would literally tumble out of the car and move like a giant wave in the same direction: the exit.

It seems I have been remiss in writing in my blog for quite sometime. A lot has happened since my last blog but I am tired and will write it tomorrow.