IT'S MY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY

Hello, my beautiful, beautiful people. Guess what today is? Yeah, it's the one month anniversary of my real-live-residency relationship with New York City.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. I feel so overwhelmingly happy every time one of you contacts me and says something like, "Please blog!" You guys are really way too kind to me. Sometimes everything is so exciting and I try to write blogs and they turn out... Well, basically like this one is going to turn out. They're like, "WE SAW FIRST DATE AND MET KRYSTA RODRIGUEZ," or "I WENT TO A REALLY COOL PARTY IN A REALLY PRETTY EAST VILLAGE APARTMENT." It's sort of overwhelming because sometimes I don't know how to put into words everything that is happening. So, I mean, here are a bunch of phone pictures and let me try and update all of you on the wild and wonderful that is life here.

WE SAW FIRST DATE AND MET KRYSTA RODRIGUEZ.

Quite honestly, it's not exactly the best show ever. Like, 3 stars (if that). Zachary Levi is gorgeous and it's a cute show and all, but the music is forgettable HOWEVER, it sealed my friendship with the cutie in the middle who is called Alex and he lives down the hall from me and we're soul mates and I'm probably making him crazy at this point, but I don't know how to live without him anymore.

I GOT TO COVER A FASHION SHOW FOR WSN.

This was really exciting. I've never been to a fashion show before, and I got to sit front row with a press pass and my dear friend Jake took gorgeous pictures and it was so exciting. The review is here, and I'm quite proud.

I... face planted and shoulder planted and elbow planted into the ground mid-run.

This doesn't deserve caps. Honestly, at this point, it's starting to get hilarious. This picture is fairly embarrassing, but now I'm starting to giggle about the whole story. My whole shoulder bruised up and I had to get a new phone case (because it cracked when I fell) and headphones (because they broke in half catching my fall) and like, 15 people saw me fall, and I just lay on the ground in shock for a little bit while everyone was like, "Oh my gosh are you okay do you need help did you hit your head can I help you up" and I just wanted to be like, "Everyone please leave me alone so I can cry out of embarrassment and horror and my shoulder and cheek and elbow and side and knees are bleeding and bruising," and the guy whose foot I actually tripped over was this homeless man who had Neosporin in his bag and started rubbing it on my shoulder and the whole deal was just ridiculous. I had been here for TWO WEEKS and I was lying on the ground because I am a total klutz and ah. Just last night Alex pointed at my shoulder and goes, "Did you cut yourself?" NO, ALEX, I AM STILL HEALING FROM WHEN I FACE PLANTED WHILE RUNNING. I know. It's really actually hilarious. I'm finally finding it funny. You're all allowed to laugh.

Being in New York during 9/11 was a really odd experience. The whole city was quiet and somber and there was a sort of remembrance that you could just feel in the whole city. This picture is right at the end of my street with the lights from the memorial. It's one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen.

On the night of 9/11 my best friend and roommate, Alys, went and saw Pippin the musical, and she came home and cried and told Alex and I about just how beautiful it was and the way it made her think about how lucky we are to have the freedom to create good art, how resilient we are as a country... So. Obviously, Alex and I woke up at 4 am Friday morning to get rush tickets.

We're very cute friends. Even before sunrise.

SO WE GOT RUSH TICKETS ARE THEY WERE IN BOX SEATS.

And it was the best show I have ever seen. I can say that with complete and total surety. I've never seen something so electric. I've never seen a show so perfectly produced and gorgeously put together. I've never seen a new concept work so well. I've never seen an entire show stop in the first act for a standing ovation. I've never cried so much about little beautiful things. I've never seen anything like it. 5 stars.

After the show, Alex and I stood by the stage door for an hour to meet our idols, and Patina Miller was so kind and warm and welcoming and gracious and we took pictures with her and she signed them for us and I was just overwhelmed by how beautiful the whole show and the whole day was.

So this is my desk and me and my wall, and it's covered with wonderful little mementos that my really cute family and friends mail me. I'm actually really obsessed with my dorm room, because it's really pretty and I feel inspired to do great things by it.

I saw this on the side of a falafel truck on my way to class earlier this week, and it thought it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. "Sari, will you marry me?" As always, I love New York.

SO a so cool thing that has happened is called I Have Terrible Shin Splints. My mom, who is feeling terrible for me, told me to take some Advil and go buy myself some new running shoes and some new boots. I took all afternoon to go uptown to go shopping, and I looked like a little ball of joy when I came home laden with shopping bags. Also, my shin splints are cured.

So Alex's favorite band is Ohio's own Walk the Moon, and because he is the best human, he got me a ticket and took me to the concert. It was as amazing as it looks.

Seriously. It was super fun, and they were all so cute and so gracious and so wonderful live and the whole thing was gorgeous and it was just feel-good music and I loved it all so much.

After the concert, we -- WAIT OH, ALSO. We got STUCK IN THE SUBWAY. Because someone pulled the emergency brake and it was absolutely terrifying and we thought for sure we were going to die and we were stuck in the tunnel for a while and we were half scared/half bored as can be, so it turned into just a lot of jokes and a nice bonding experience for everyone on the train. Misery loves company or something.

The point is, after the concert and the terror of the subway holding, Alex and I went to a party of a friend of ours who lives in the East Village. The apartment was gorgeous and everyone was so nice and it was all so glamorous and we went on the roof and everyone was the best ever.

On our way to the party, we ran into a few of our friends, so we brought them with us. This is my cute friend Adam. He has great glasses. After the party me and Adam and Alex got cheap late-night pizza and I walked around the city holding hands with both of them and I loved everything very much because my friends are absolutely the cutest.

Saturday is laundry day. I end up wearing really odd outfits on laundry day (oh, but notice my pretty new comfy boots) because all my clothes are dirty. I had to help Alex do allllllll of his laundry because he's allergic to his laundry detergent, so we spent the entire day in the laundry room. Thrilling. But actually enjoyable in a weird way. It good to get everything clean.

MY NEIGHBORS FROM HOME WERE AT MY CHURCH IN FRONT OF ME TODAY.

This was a thousand coincidences -- no, a thousand miracles, actually, and it made my whole week. I started crying and we hugged a lot. It was good to have a little taste of home again.

My library is really, really pretty. I spend a lot of study time here because it just makes me feel ultra-studious. Today, though, I got to do an especially exciting assignment, because I wrote my first piece for my brand new, weekly column about women in the arts, Matrons of Art, that comes out either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week on the NYU arts blog called The Highlighter. I'll get you the link soon, but til then, look at the pretty column header I made!

So that's a really rough rundown of my first month. I know it's not exactly beautiful and poetic like you've come to expect from me, but for some reason when my life itself is beautiful and poetic it's hard to put it into beautiful and poetic words for some reason. Does that make any sense?

Guys, I need you to know another thing, though, too. This has been one of the hardest months of my entire life, and I know you don't see that in my pretty photos and happy writing, but I want you to know that there are still struggles and moments of doubt and I cry all the time. But I have the most amazing people who take care of me. My roommates are amazing. Alys. I need to specifically say that I  love her very desperately. Alex is amazing. Avery is amazing via telephone, like, every day. My family is amazing from 2,000 miles away.

But I need you to know another more important thing: I have never been more grateful for my anything in my whole life. I just can't get over the fact that my life is here now, and I have beautiful friends and my own weekly column and it's all just overwhelming and perfect and exciting and I eat a lot of sushi and read and write a lot and I love it here. I really, really love it here.

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes." -Kurt Vonnegut

Yours,

Addy Sue

I live in New York City now and I can't shut up about it.

Hello, gorgeous family, friends, and readers. Good news: I am still alive. Better news: I am still alive and I am an official resident of New York City.

I was planning on making this post an organized, Stuff I'm Generally Loving This Weekend: NYC Edition sort of post, but I can't imagine trying to turn the craziest week of my entire life into an organized post. Basically I'm just going to ramble on about absolutely everything and show you a lot of pictures. Welcome.

Okay, I brought so much stuff. Literally. Look at this.

I brought eight suitcases of my own things, and I feel fine about it. I've learned a lot of lessons -- not about overpacking (that's a lesson I'm never going to learn; let's be real), but about organization! It's practically ridiculous whenever anyone asks me how I am fitting my whole room and closet into a teeny tiny dorm room because I start going, "Under the bed storage, dresser, double closet hanger, crates, extra shelving..." So yeah. My closet back home was a cold storage unit, and now my room is about the same size as my closet back home. The good news, look how cute it is!

And even better... Look at the view. Yes, that is the Empire State Building right outside my window. I wish I could show you what it looks like at night but pictures don't even do it justice. The entire city lights up and it's so gorgeous it might be the death of me.

Move-in day was absolutely insane. I've never seen anything like it. Imagine 700 students moving into 15 residential floors in the middle of the East Village with all their family members and 60 billion suitcases and boxes and no one wants to climb the stairs ever, especially with bags and boxes and living on the 16th floor...

I live right off the park that's the center of campus in the most gorgeous building ever. It's old and has a lot of character and a reputation for being adventurous, which played out on Sunday night when someone, like, pulled a fire alarm or was smoking in the room or something (or maybe it really was a real fire; we never actually found out), and all 16 floors had to evacuate and the firetrucks came and it was all very exciting, but then the elevators were broken and we had to climb up 16 flights of stairs, and literally, you guys, I had better have the best butt at the end of this because those 16 flights are brutal.

Goodbyes were sad, obviously. I mean, that's expected, but it was also okay.

It was good also because they all came out here with me and we had three little vacation days before move-in where we went shopping and did Rock to the Top and ate yummy dinners and whatnot. My whole family has been rocking NYU gear for the last week and I'm so proud. Representing the Violets back home in dear old Utah County.

The only times I get homesick are when I start getting more focused on what's back home than what's right in front of me. I think that's the real problem with anyone's homesickness or sadness. When I start to remember how absolutely gorgeous everything I have now is, I feel so much better. One of my favorite things is the chalk "Happiness Circle" someone has drawn in Washington Square Park the last little while. I like to go stand in it and feel happiness because I love New York and I love the park and I love NYU and you can't help but feel very happy inside of a Happiness Circle.

I haven't had any classes this week. It's all like, orientation and welcome and whatnot, which for me, has basically meant cohort meetings. I have like this academic cohort that I meet with once a week and then have a class with half of them... It's very complicated. But long story short I've spent a lot of time with these 40 random people, and I can't remember half their names, so I sort of call them by their haircuts... There's "good bangs" and (my personal favorite) "Hitler Youth" (I know it sounds awful but his hair is exactly like the pictures of children in Germany during WWII) and there's "dreads" (who is also nicknamed "The Russian Gypsy" and "Stin"), who I am completely enamored with just because he's a little crazy and my number one hobby is to take pictures of him when he doesn't know it... I know I sound so creepy right now. He's just very interesting to me. Mostly he's interesting because on the first day when we were introducing ourselves and saying where we were from he was like, "I was born in Belgium, but I've lived all over the world, so I'm not really from anywhere. I'm from the earth."

I don't think any of you fully understand how ridiculously classic NYU this is. Other classic examples of NYU kids:

1.) The boy across the hall who is a vegetarian because "it isn't economically sustainable" and claims to have come to this realization in the fourth grade.

2.) The boy down the hall who is from Texas but uses only the metric system because his family is from Spain and always says things like, "Ugh. Americans."

3.) The Swede across the hall who plays soccer and gets really excited about new words. His favorite right now is "nifty," which he picked up from me and I am very honored about that.

4.) The boy who grabbed my waist at the dance last night so we could move through the crowd without losing each other and then yelled, "I'm grabbing onto your waist, but don't worry! I'm gay!"

The best part is that these people are becoming my very best friends. Everyone is in the same situation that I am where everything is new and exciting and away from home and starting life again. There's a line in Gastby where he says something along the lines of, "The city seen from the Queensborough bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world." I love that, because I feel that every morning when I roll over and see the entire city stretching outside my window. It's glorious. It's glorious and everything is possible again.

I feel like one of the reasons I haven't been very homesick is because when my three sisters left, I got three new flatmates that became my new sisters. 

There's Cecilia (the one on the far right in the picture of the four of us), who's from Sweden and we have had similar schedules, so we get breakfast together (at the highest grossing Starbucks in the world). 

And then there's Alys (with whom I share a room, on the left) and Sally (on my right). They're so completely beautiful and smart and lovely and I feel very happy to have them in my life, because I totally scored.

So, that's New York, I suppose. Everything is wild and wonderful and beautiful and interesting and new. I'm making new friends every second and seeing wild things always -- like this teeny little dog that I should've taken a video of this morning because it literally waddled and I practically screamed out loud when I saw it because it was just so wild.

Or this teeny cat me and my new friend Stella (who's in my cohort) tried to get to come play with us while we were taking care of trees for community service in Brooklyn and we made a lot of jokes about how the effort we were putting into this relationship with the kitten than we've ever put into any relationship in our lives. We also had to make a lot of jokes about being white girls with manicures doing community service in East Brooklyn, but it turned out to be actually very fulfilling, especially when a man walking into work passed us and started going, "Y'all have done so much work! Thank y'all! Thank y'all!" It made me happy to know someone would appreciate it, and it made me happy to make something prettier than when we found it, and it made me happy to make new friends, humans and cats alike.

Starbucks, for the first time in 18 years, spelled my name correctly on my cup the other afternoon (after we talked our cohort leader into moving our meeting into Starbucks) and it required a picture because this is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. My friend Rory (who is awesome and also practices yoga) helped this picture with a good thumbs up.

This is my friend Louis from my cohort who is loud and hilarious and looks like this cat I found. (Yes, I showed him and yes, he thought it was funny; I'm not being a total cyber-bully right now.) Oh, and also there is a girl on my floor who looks like a praying mantis. But in a good way.

I already have infinite homework. But it's happy homework. And interesting homework. And I love reading fat books about Shakespeare. (I realize that could potentially sound sarcastic, but I'm dead serious. I do.)

And there's always a thousand things happening. This is us at Glo Ball last night. Tonight me and Alys are going to head uptown and see a show on Broadway. Like, this is my life now, and I can't hardly believe it. I'm here.

Last night, at the Glo Ball, they played "Empire State of Mind" and at one point my friend who I was there with just screamed, "They're singing about us now!" and I almost started sobbing. I know it sounds cliche, but it's true. I made it, you guys. I know it's not going to be perfect always, but, like, it will be perfect always. Because it's New York City. And I'm here. And I'm in love with this place.

"One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years." -Tom Wolfe
Yours oh-so-truly,
Addy Sue