Summer in the Park

My last weekend spent in New York City was amazing.

On Friday night, a bunch of girls from Centro Maria and I went to Central Park to watch a part of New York City’s Summer in the Park series. The night we went, the performers were two different dance companies. We were late and missed most of the first half of the show (thank goodness), which was modern dancing. The second half was hip-hop. The performance ranged from mind-boggling awesome to creepy-weird, so overall it was a great show. There was a lot of break-dancing and cool things like that, and a lot of back flips and hand-springs. The choreographer came out and danced a solo piece himself, but that was my very least favorite part of the show, because the music was full of sporadic startling screams and he looked a lot like what I would imagine the devil to look like while he danced.

But even though his solo piece was too scary for me, his choreography in the other pieces was really neat. The most amazing thing in the entire show was when one guy came out from behind one of the curtains doing back hand-springs across the stage. When he got about three-fourth of the way across the stage, he used his momentum to propel himself into a complete back flip. But it wasn’t just any back flip. While he was flipping, his legs were out and it looked almost as if he was walking around a circle in the air. It was incredible.

After the show was over, we all walked back to Centro Maria. But on our way, we decided that we wanted ice cream. Because who doesn’t love ice cream on a hot summer night?

None of us knew of any really good places, until Julie (a native French speaker from Montreal) told us in her cute little voice of a great place she had been to the other day that was in Hells Kitchen, a small neighborhood really close to Centro Maria that is filled to the brim with delicious restaurants. That sounded great to us, so we followed Julie. The way she had described the ice cream shop made it sound really cute and small and perfectly New York, so when we stopped outside Cold Stone Creamery, I laughed. No one understood why I had laughed, and being one of the only Americans in the group, I didn’t know how to explain why I had laughed. But I guess that for them, Cold Stone is a very authentic United States experience (even if it isn’t authentically New York for me).

My Good-Bye Lunch

In keeping with tradition, the guys at CNAM took us interns out to lunch on Friday as a way of thanking me for helping them out this summer. I got to pick what kind of food we ate because the send-off lunch was in my honor, so I chose Indian food since I had never had it before and Louis told us there was a great hole-in-the-wall place nearby.

It was delicious. Because I’d never tasted Indian food before (and neither had the other two interns), the guys at CNAM ordered all sorts of dishes for us all to share, and we also all went through the buffet line to try out the different chicken, beef, and shrimp (all with rice) dishes they had.

Other than being a bit too spicy for me, I loved it. My favorite dish was a sort of large crepe that was rolled and had a scoop of something kinda fruity-ish in the center. I also really liked my yogurt drink… not only because it tasted good, but the coolness was a relief for my burning mouth.

But the best part about lunch was that while we passed around the food, Louis, Andy and Peter shared with us their stories of traveling to different places. It was so great to hear their stories about trips to Brazil, traveling to Jamaica, and shooting scenes for a documentary in France and Poland. Listening to all the wonderful things they have gotten to do during their lives makes me that much more determined to make that kind of life happen for me. I am going to travel the world, live in a bunch of different countries, and fill pages upon pages or reels upon reels with all the fascinating stories and pictures of my adventures.

My Last Week

The last week of my internship with CNAM was probably my favorite week on the job (and possibly my favorite week in NYC). I got to work the entire time on AVID, creating and perfecting a short 2-minute trailer for CNAM’s video game.

When I first started working with AVID, I really didn’t like it. To me there seemed to be more buttons that necessary and more steps than needed to complete a simple job like delete video clips on the timeline. And for the first few days, I thought AVID was completely missing some really important functions, because I couldn’t find the function in the giant How To book. So I spent a painful couple of days doing a lot of editing step by step before Peter showed me how to do things the easy way (like move entire trips of video clips on the timeline by typing in numbers). But once I started to figure things out, once I could move around the program with relative ease, I decided that perhaps AVID wasn’t so bad after all. I think the frustration and dislike came with not understanding the program (a life lesson?), so once I gained familiarity with the keys, etc, I started to like it. Maybe not more than Final Cut, since I still think Final Cut is more user-friendly. I also know that my short week and a half working with AVID allowed me to only scratch the surface of the program… it is way to beautifully complex for me to have figured it all out.

.   .   .

I am so grateful that Louis gave me the opportunity to work on AVID. And the fact that he gave me an actual project that he was relying on me to complete made me feel very honored.

My project was to make a short trailer or preview of what the game is like for potential investors and people who are interested in the game. So I had to find a way to package all the fun of the game into one short sequence. Talk about pressure. Once I figured out the direction I wanted to go with the trailer (with help from Allen and Chase, the new intern), it was relatively to create. Contrary to most of my creative endeavors, the imagining was the difficult part and the execution the easy part.

On Wednesday, I thought I had a finished version, so I brought in Louis, Andy and Peter to see what I had done. They were very nice, but they were also full of criticism and other ideas. At first it was a bit nerve-wracking to listen to them talk about my work like that, but then I remembered something Allen had told me earlier on in the internship. You have to have a thick skin in this business. If you don’t, you wont survive.

But by Friday, after the fourth or fifth final version I had shown the three guys, they finally decided it was complete, and while I was there, they burned the DVD and sent it off in the mail. Now, that completely surprised me. I had completely expected them to wait until I had left on Monday and then go through and polish up my work to what they wanted it to be. But the fact that they mailed off to someone the trailer that I had created (without messing with it first) made me feel honored and very grateful that they had given me a responsibility like that. I am so grateful that my internship wasn’t just about filing papers and getting coffee (although I did some of both), and that the guys at CNAM allowed me to gain experience working on a real project with AVID. Not only was it all a bunch of fun, but this is going to look great on my resume. 

.wednesday.thursday.

.wednesday.

On Tuesday, as Louis passed my desk, he asked me if I had any editing experience. At first I was going to tell him that I didn't have any experience at all with the editing software they use (AVID), but just in case he was planning on giving me a job that would let me use AVID (which I really wanted to do), I just told him, "Yes, I have editing experience." Sure enough, it paid off, because I got a new job on Wednesday... working with AVID!

On Wednesday morning, Louis sat me down at CNAM's editing station, which includes a double-monitor computer, a large television, a sound board, and a bunch of cords and other important-looking electronic boxes. He opened AVID, told me what he wanted me to do, and then left me sitting there feeling rather helpless.

AVID is the film industry's leading movie editing program, so I was so excited to be able to learn it. And since it is pretty similar functionally to Final Cut (of which I have the student version), I was able to figure out what does what after a few minutes of "Where do I find..." and "What does this button do?" 

And by a few minutes, I mean at least half an hour. AVID is more complex and (in my personal opinion) not as straightforward and user-friendly as Final Cut. So it took me a bit of getting used to. 

I also took part of the day off from work to try to get tickets to see the Broadway musical Wicked. The guys at CNAM were so nice and had absolutely no problem with me taking off most of the day, so I left work at noon to go over to the theater to put my name in the lottery.

Because Wicked is so popular, they are always sold out months in advance. But for the lucky few who win the ticket lottery the day of the show, they pay only $26 for a front-row seat. Granted, front row seats does mean you don't have a great view because you are looking at the actors' shoes for a lot of the show. But considering that the next cheapest ticket available to purchase is $60+, its a great deal. The only problem is that there are only 26 lottery tickets available for each show, and at least 100+ people want them every night. 

Well, I went to the theater at 12:30 pm (two and a half hours before the 3 pm matinee) to try to get tickets. But sadly, when I arrived, the man told me that I had missed the lottery completely because the show started at 2pm, not 3 pm like I had thought. 

Dejected, I sulked back to Centro Maria, made myself a sandwich for lunch, and then headed back to work. I guess they wouldn't have minded if I had taken the whole day off (even if I wasn't going to the show), but I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do with my day. If I couldn't see Wicked, I wanted to be back at CNAM, learning how to use AVID.

After I got off work, I decided to try one more time to get tickets for Wicked. So I walked to the theater, got in line, put my name in the "hat," and waited with high hopes. 

But my name didn't get drawn.

I guess I have given up on seeing Wicked this time around. Someday, when I have oodles of money, I will come back to New York City and buy tickets to Broadway shows at their regular $180-$200 price and not rely on possibly getting my name drawn.  

However, the evening was not completely lost, because I got to talk on the phone to an old friend for a long time while sitting outside in Centro Maria's little patio. 

.thursday.

I got to work all day again with AVID, which was so fun. The project they put me on was putting together a demo DVD of their history video game (which I am assuming will be shown to potential financial contributors, etc). They gave me a bunch of clips that had been captured from the game, and I was to put them together into a little story. 

The way the game works is, as the character Anna, you walk through an early-1900s mill town and talk to the towns people about the current political news, etc. Throughout each conversation, you get to choose Anna's reaction and response to certain questions, so you can guide the direction of each conversation. For example, the little newspaper boy asks Anna if she wants to hear a joke. You choose yes or no, and then if you pick yes, you can choose if you want Anna to think the joke was funny or lame. 

Because the game has so many choices for conversation, the other intern had to video-capture the game with all the scenarios. So when I was looking through all the clips to put them together to make a story, I got to choose which story I wanted to make. It was very fun. 

I made Anna talk to the guy who sells groceries, the newspaper boy, the policeman, the mill gatekeeper, and the mill owner. She also gets information about different buildings, reads in the newspaper about socialism and unfair worker conditions, and buys vegetables for supper. 

After putting the story together, I then had to go through and insert various audio tracks of dialogue. For some reason, the other intern was unable to capture the sounds of the characters talking along with the footage. He had to capture the sound separate, so I had to go through later and "reunite" the captured sound with the captured footage. 

It was so much fun. I loved getting to work with AVID, figuring out how things are done in the program and things like that. It was confusing and rather frustrating at first though, because I couldn't figure out how to do the things I wanted to do, which made me think that AVID was not as versatile as Final Cut. But the more I messed around, the more I discovered where different features were. I even found a few that Final Cut doesn't have. So while I still like Final Cut better (probably because of familiarity), I am so glad I am getting the opportunity to learn how to use a program that is dominant in my future industry (although that could change soon). 

After work on Thursday, I took the subway up to the Upper East side because I had dinner plans with my boyfriend's aunt and uncle who live in Manhattan. When I got off the subway, I was a bit disoriented and walked up the wrong street before figuring out where I was. After quite a bit of wandering in circles and walking six blocks farther north than necessary, I finally found their apartment. 

Sue Sue, Bryce's aunt, was there with her baby girl Caroline, and after giving me a hug hello, she gave me a quick tour around the (very nice) apartment. They have a really nice view out their window of the surrounding (very nice) neighborhood. Their neighbors have a lot of gardens on their roofs and decks, which makes the picture beautifully speckled with green, and they can see a slight sliver of the river from their window if you crane your neck up against the glass. 

After the tour, we put Caroline in a stroller and walked a few blocks up to a nice sushi restaurant where T.K., Bryce's uncle, was waiting for us. Because the weather was so beautiful, we sat outside on the patio and took our time ordering our food, enjoying the nice weather and each others company. Unfortunately, Caroline had her own ideas about dinner. She didn't want to sit still or eat, and kept wiggling out of her stroller onto the ground. And at one and a half, she is a pretty fast runner. So Sue Sue had to be on her toes for whenever Caroline made a dash for the street. Finally, after trying everything to make the little girl less fussy, we decided to get our food to-go and eat it at home where Caroline could run around safely. 

Once we got back to the apartment and had settled Caroline down for bed, the three of us sat around the table eating delicious sushi and chatting about everything. I had such a great time at dinner, talking about all kinds of stuff. We talked about me because they wanted to get to know me (boring), we talked about where I should go while I am still here in New York City (informational), and we talked about what it was like for the two of them on September 11th (fascinating). It was incredible to listen to stories from someone who had watched the towers crumble with their own eyes. 

They were both living only three or four blocks away from the World Trade Center, and they both worked in that area, so they were right there when it all happened. Whenever my friends and I talk about where we were when we heard the news, the stories are always along the lines of "I was in school... we watched the news on TV all day," etc. Never before had I talked to someone who could describe the panic and pain the city experienced during that day and the following weeks. 

Also during dinner, they persuaded me to take a bike ride around the city before I leave, because it is a really good way to get a good sense of what each different neighborhood is like. And then they offered to let me borrow one of their bikes. So on Sunday I am going to take myself on a little biking tour of NYC. I am really excited.

Finally, after an evening of delicious sushi, yummy ice cream (Tasty Delight soft-serve vanilla bean), and wonderful conversation with fascinating people, it was time to go home. I was actually quite sorry to leave (even though I was exhausted). I have found another reason I wish I lived here in NYC-- I could visit them as often as I wanted. 

To cap off the perfect evening, T.K. insisted on giving me money to take a taxi so I wouldn't have to go home on the subway after dark. So I got to experience my first NYC taxi ride so far this trip. It was nice to see a part of the city I hadn't seen before, and to know that I wouldn't have to do any walking and was getting dropped off right at my front door. After walking everywhere for a whole month, I am beginning to have a new-found appreciation for the convenience and speed of cars.

Saturday at the Met

On Saturday, I paid 75 cents to get in to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The $12 for students that is written up on the sign is, thankfully, only a suggested price. They don't need my money anyway. They have people who donate millions of dollars to that place every year, and every year, thousands upon thousands of poor tourists don't read the fine print and pay the full suggested price. They really don't need my money.

So Alicia and I wandered around the Met for a few hours. We saw all the famous Monet, Degas, and Von Goethe paintings. We looked at statues, examined photographs, and walked around until our feet hurt. Actually, our feet hurt the entire time, but we just walked through the discomfort. 

My favorite exhibit was the exhibit of American landscapes. I personally think that to paint with exquisite detail a six feet tall by eight feet wide landscape painting takes a tremendous amount of talent. Even more than perhaps the more famous artists who simply slapped paint onto a canvas and called it done. I was sad that this particular exhibit was so small (only eight paintings), because I could have spent all day in there, admiring the incredible amount of work that must have gone into painting a canvas so large with such an attention to detail. Beautiful detail. 

One artist, instead of signing his name traditionally on the canvas, had "carved" his name into one of his trees. Another painting had rushing water that looked so real it could have passed for a photograph. And all had breathtaking views of snow-covered mountains and green valleys. The exhibit was just too short. 

I enjoyed the museum quite a bit, but I was definitely ready to leave a few hours late. All the walking had worn me out completely. 

As we left the museum, it began to sprinkle gently. Neither Alicia and I had brought an umbrella, so we were a little worried, but since it was such a light, misty rain, we decided we could probably just continue to walk (instead of wait for the rain to stop). So we walked back through Central Park alongside a road (so we wouldn't get lost wandering). 

Just as we were nearing the subway station (and I mean, standing on the other side of the street), the heavens opened and the rains came pouring down. And by pouring, I mean pouring. The front side of us (the side facing into the rain) was thoroughly soaked by the time we got down into the subway stop. Both Alicia and I were pretty amused, so we didn't mind the fact that we were all wet (although we got some funny looks from people). 

And its a good thing we didn't mind being wet, because otherwise the walk from the subway stop to home would have been miserable. It was raining lightly when we got out of the subway, but three blocks away from home it started to downpour again. So we gave up trying to scurry from under one tree to under the construction awning to under another tree again. It wasn't working and we were already completely soaked through. 

While I love museums and such, running through the rain was a nice release from the stuffy, cooped up feeling of the museum. 

Saturday in Central Park

On Saturday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Alicia, the girl who lives in the room next door. We took the subway up the west side of Central Park and got off at 81st Street, because the museum is backed up to the east side of the park and I thought that we could walk through Central Park (which I hadn't done yet) and look around. 

That park is incredible. Its ginormous, for one thing. And since the city planners figured that Central Park was really going to be the only big park for the entire city, they went all out. Everywhere is green, green, green. We walked through the middle-ish part of the park, so we passed by the little "lake" where people (couples mostly) were rowing in little boats. And we passed by part of the mall, which was completely crowded with people playing ultimate and laying out on blankets. Mostly they were laying out on blankets because it was too hot for much activity. What surprised me most about that was how many girls there were in bikinis just laying out to catch the sun. I know that perhaps Central Park is the only place to really lay out on grass (since backyards are non-existent), but I think I would feel incredibly uncomfortable sprawled out in my bathing suit in such a public place. 

We also walked by an open amphitheater, where they have free plays on some evenings. And we passed several fountains, lots of statues (including the one of Balto-- I loved that movie/book when I was younger), and lots of little vendor men who sold hot dogs and popsicles. We bought those chocolate-covered ice cream popsicle things, and tried to eat them before they melted. Which didn't work. So in order to not lose a drop of our delicious sticky mess, we threw all notions of pretty to the wind and managed to get chocolate all over our mouths. It was delicious.

One of my favorite parts of the park was the roller skating. In an section where there was an extra-wide sidewalk, someone had roped off the area and people were skating around to loud disco-70s music. At least, thats what I thought they were doing at first. But as we got closer, I wasn't sure if I was seeing things correctly. They weren't going around in the standard circle... and did I just see a guy shimmy? 

Sure enough, it wasn't just a roller skating party... It was a regular dance-off. Bopping up and down around the DJ, showing off their dance skills on roller skates, were at least ten older men (way past their prime) in flashy clothing that belonged to another era. The elderly gentlemen had attracted a pretty decent-sized little group of spectators, who sat in the shade on a small sloping hill nearby, too hot to show much more enthusiasm that an occasional foot tap, although I saw more than one graying head bob unconsciously to the disco beat. We didn't stay long enough to find a place to sit down, but we took our time strolling by, slurping our chocolate and admiring the skaters' fancy footwork. We watched them do the robot, the moon walk, and what I can only guess is something like the grandfather version of the modern-day electric slide (my favorite). Some men were pretty impressive, kicking their legs up, skating backwards, moving their knees and arms around so quickly I was sure they were going to lose their balance (they didn't). Some men were there to learn from the pros. And other guys, usually off in the corner, were just there to enjoy that good old feeling of roller-skate dancing again.

But the best part about the whole entire thing was the feeling of nostalgia you could see plainly written on the faces of all those men. 

Because while their audience nowadays enjoys their skating for its humorous, see-that-old-man-dance quality and not for its artistic merit, I'm sure those guys were quite the thing thirty years ago. And as they skate, you see them smile and get the feeling that they are really hundreds of hours away, reliving their old moments of glory. 

.friday.monday.tuesday.

One of the requirements for my internship (given to me by OU) is that I keep a daily log of what I do every day on the job. At first I thought it would be super easy, since I planned on blogging every day anyway. But I don't like to write about work, simply because I don't usually do anything more than sit in front of the computer and design web pages. But, for the sake of my OU professors and advisors (and so I wont have to write it all later), here is a rundown of the last three days of work.

.friday.
Friday was a productive day. Actually, every day is a productive day.

I delivered a letter to an office building up on 8th Ave and 59th Street. I hadn't walked north of 54th on 8th Ave before, so it was a fun trip. I like going places in the city I haven't been before (which is a lot of places). The more I see of NYC as I walk around, the more I like it.

On Friday I also finished creating all the web pages, which means that in one week I have made over 100 web pages. Granted, most are templates so all I do is copy, paste, insert words, repeat. Or, to speed up the process, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Page Up, insert text, repeat. I have gotten amazingly proficient using as many shortcut keys as possible. Too bad my laptop is a Mac and not a PC.

.monday.
On Monday I got to run another errand. I enjoy running errands. They make me feel important. This one was particularly fun, because after I went to the designated office and picked up the designated package, I took a little detour on my way back to the office and bought myself a cupcake.

The girl from OU who interned with CNAM last summer told me that while I was in NYC, I just had to check out this place called Burgers and Cupcakes. She said that, while the burgers were good, this place made the most amazing cupcakes in the entire world. She said they were so scrumptious that she would go there every day after work on her way home to buy one.

I figured that such a strong recommendation as this couldn't be overlooked (even if I wasn't much of a cupcake person), so I finally took the time to hunt down the cupcake store. At first I wasn't impressed. The diner was like any other little NYC diner, and the lady at the cash register spent the first five minutes I was there on the phone talking to someone. But when she finally did get off the phone, she was very nice and apologetic, and helped me choose a cupcake out of the many, many choices.

After much deliberation, I settled on a red velvet cupcake. I reluctantly paid more than I had originally planned and had it wrapped up so I could enjoy it at the office. While walking back, I do have to admit that I looked down at that little cupcake with no small amount of scepticism. I wondered, was this small frosting-covered bakery item really worth the two dollars and fifty cents?

Yes. Yes it was.

That little red velvet yumminess was the most incredibly delicious cupcake I have ever tasted. Ever.

Its a really good thing I didn't discover Burgers and Cupcakes until now, because otherwise I would have been in danger of spending all my money on cupcakes and not Broadway shows. As it is, I will have to exercise a large amount of self-control to not stray south towards 9th Ave and 36th Street. I wouldn't be able to resist being in such close proximity to such heavenly goodies.

Lets see... yesterday was also spent finishing the web pages (or so I thought). Unfortunately, when I was mass-producing all those pages, I didn't stop after a couple and have Louis take a look at them. I just made them all, assuming that their format would be okay.

So I had created every single page (and uploaded them all to the server) before finding out that they all needed a different font size and more links on each page. Woops. Because of that seemingly little mistake, I spent all Monday opening each and every file, changing the font size in each font box, and then re-uploading each page to the server. An entire day of mindless work for which there were no shortcut keys.

But at the end of the day, I was feeling pretty good because I thought I was done with them completely.

Nope.

.tuesday. today.
Today I spent my day inserting more links on each and every page. But now I do think I am done for good. Until Louis sees something else that needs to be fixed.

Around 1:30 or so, everyone leaves the office and then brings their lunch back here to eat. It is one of my favorite parts of the day because we get to sit around and chat with the guys about film stuff. Every morning I try to think of different things to ask them about their jobs and the film industry. I enjoy their insights and stories so much that when for some reason we don't eat lunch together, its a bit of a disappointment.

Today we talked about AVID vs. Final Cut (two film editing software programs). And we talked about new and obsolete technology (like how the first film they produced in the early 90s was on a computer that could only handle 2 GB max and no other programs besides the editing software). And how everything in the future will be on the internet. Everything.

A Real New Yorker

I felt like a real New Yorker on my way to work this morning, because I was walking with my sack lunch and cup of coffee. And I bought an apple.

To backtrack... Yesterday morning on my way to work, I discovered the small nook-in-the-wall coffee shop I've been searching for. And it is ONE block from Centro Maria. I pass it every day.

I was in a hurry yesterday, so I didn't stop in, but this morning I did. The lady working was so nice, and as I was paying for my coffee, she offered to put my tupperware (containing my lunch) in a paper bag for me so it was easier to carry. So off I went, carrying my white paper bag and filled-to-the-brim, deliciously bitter cup of coffee.

The only problem with the coffee was that it was too hot at first for me to drink, so it kept overflowing out of the lid and onto my poor hand. But pain for beauty. Or in this case, authenticity. It was worth it, because I felt like a New Yorker.

I also bought an apple. Not significant, you say. I beg to differ. The ability to buy fruit from a vendor at lightning speed is a trait well cherished by those too important to stop their rushing about for anything.

The background story: Yesterday morning I decided I wanted to buy an apple from one of the vendors that sells fruit on a cart by the street. So I stopped, asked for an apple, and then stood there fishing two quarters out of my wallet. As I fumbled around in my purse, a woman came buy, shoved a few quarters at the vendor, grabbed her fruit and rushed off. All in less than thirty seconds. And I was still opening my wallet.

But not this morning. I was prepared. I pulled out two quarters as soon as the stand was in view, and in a relatively quick stop, I smiled at the little man, handed him my quarters and retrieved my apple. I guess I must content myself with not being completely New Yorker in this area, because I just couldn't bring myself to not make eye contact and swoop in like bat out of hell just to be quick about getting a piece of fruit.

Out On The Town

Last Friday night was my first Friday night in New York City, and it was quite a memorable one.

On Thursday I discovered that it was Jessica's 21st birthday, so that evening I ambushed her on the way to her room and sang her the Happy Birthday song. I asked her how her special day had been and she didn't have a very favorable response. I was distressed.

Birthdays for me are a very big deal. A VERY big deal. I can't stand it when someone doesn't have a good birthday, and I go out of my way to try and make their day as wonderful as possible. Because how many days out of the year do you get to be treated like the star of the show? One. How many days out of the year do all your friends, new and old, send you happy messages full of love? One. And how many days out of the year do people do things to celebrate the fact that you are alive? One. So that one day should be a special day (no matter how old you are).

Anyway, birthdays are big.

So when Jessica told me that her day hadn't been that amazing, I just couldn't let that happen. And on her 21st birthday especially, which (whether right or wrong) is one of the most long-awaited of all birthdays for most people.

To solve this problem, I told her that we were going out on Friday night to celebrate her life and that she could invite as many people as she wanted.

On Friday, a group of us girls from Centro Maria met in my room to plan our evening out. As I curled Jessica's hair, we searched online and in our Guide To New York books for good spots, which was proving rather difficult because at least half of us were underage. We were looking for a place that we could all go, when Jessica made it really easy by requesting that we all go out for desert at a really nice restaurant.

I personally liked that idea the best. Who doesn't love fancy deserts at nice places?

So after getting all dolled up, we walked a few blocks to a fancy italian restaurant. We all ordered different things, and then whenever we wanted a taste of someone else's desert, we would pass them our spoon so they could scoop us a bit. The girls were a bunch of fun and I laughed almost the entire time.

After dinner, we walked down Broadway for a bit and then headed back to Centro Maria because our feet were killing us. On our way back, we decided to rent a movie.

When we were about a block and a half away from Blockbuster, I started noticing that we were pretty much the only group of dressed up girls on the block. All the guys had definitely noticed. We were getting the looks and a couple cat calls, and as we walked in the video store I started laughing because we made such a funny picture. A bunch of pretty girls in stilettos are walking down the street, and just as the guys are thinking, "I want to go to that party," the girls take a sharp right. Into a video store. Perfect.

After renting a chic flick, we headed back to Centro Maria. As we neared home, Jessica dropped off from the group ahead to walk with me (my blistered feet were lagging behind), and at a moment when the group ahead was particularly loud, she whispered, "Thanks."

Last Thursday

Last Thursday was a really interesting day at the work. Peter, Louis, and Andy had a meeting about the video game scheduled for all day, and they let me sit in on it as long as I answered the phone when it rang (which was only three times all day). Present at the meeting were four other people not from the office. There was a man from CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), two ladies from Maryland Public Television, and one eighth grade history teacher who was the mastermind behind the game's conception.

The meeting was very interesting and very informative (for me). I discovered that CNAM is working on one of seven projects that were pitched to CPB. I guess CPB sent out some sort of memo saying they'd pick up to three lucky projects (that teach history to middle schoolers) to receive funding. CNAM's video game made the first cut down to seven, and in November, CPB choses the three projects they will fund.

The man from CPB basically came to the meeting to remind CNAM (or explain, in my case) about the terms and guidelines for the competition (I guess you'd call it that). I'm still not really sure why the ladies from Maryland Public Television were here. Perhaps they represent potential outside sources of funding for the video game.

During the discussions about the game, the teacher had a lot of good ideas about how the video game could work. As a person who works with eighth graders every day, she definitely knows her stuff about ciriculum, etc... from a teacher's point of view. But as I was sitting there, I realized that everyone in the room, excluding myself, hadn't been in middle school for over thirty or maybe even forty years. So all their planning and their ideas are coming from what they think middle school kids will enjoy, although they really have no idea.

Thats not to say the video game is bad. Not at all. I actually got to play it on my first day here, and call me a nerd, but I really enjoyed playing it. I made a bunch of money on the little loom game, and I enjoyed following the girl, Anna, around and seeing the "sights" of the mill town. Its a fun video game.

But I kinda secretly wish they had asked me my opinion sometimes during the meeting. I know I'm just an intern and all, but I was the youngest person in that room by far and I'm really only one year out from high school history and five or so years out from middle school history. So I had a lot of ideas about what they were saying kids would and wouldn't like. Maybe I'm not a completely perfect respresentative for the age group in question, but I think that time of my life is much more fresh on my mind than it would be on theirs.

But no one asked me my opinion and I wasn't brave enough to chime in (I wasn't sure if that was my place or not), so I just wrote down all my ideas on a piece of paper that no one will ever read. But it made me feel better to write it down.

Fun Fact: There is currently between $7-8 billion dollars in funding out there for K-12 curriculum development. Billion dollars. I always knew those school textbooks were gold mines.