Hitting the Streets

This week has been pretty relaxed for the most part. It's still pretty snowy, but it's finally been starting to thaw out around here, and it's about time! Unfortunately the word on the street is that more awful weather is headed our way on Tuesday, so you can bet I took advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend while I still could. 

Monday was President's Day so once again... classes were cancelled. I never thought I would appreciate how very few times Iowa State cancels classes (side note, they also did that this week, someone said that was the first time that had happened in six years but I'm still fact-checking that one...). I was planning on heading in to Mashable to get some more hours, but as luck would have the office was also closed and I'm that girl who was silly for thinking they would still be open and unlocked. And my door key was still in my wallet I had yet to claim... So I finally ran to get that taken care of and while I was in the city I figured it was about time for a fancy NYC haircut I had dreamed of. To GroupOn... awaaaaay! My forehead was looking a little naked so I put on some serious coverage. Nobody wants to see that, you know.

On Thursday I had the fabulous opportunity to attend Meet the Greeks, a step-show and showcase of all the fraternities and sororities here at NJCU. It was crazy cool and for the most part it just reiterated my own sense of how incapable I am of dancing. It was neat to see how Greek Life compares to what we have back at Iowa State. Clearly the population is a lot smaller, yet more diverse in Jersey. There seems to be a lot of support for the Greeks out here though despite the numbers, and that's really fun to see in events like these. Can't wait to see more from them in the next few weeks as all the pledges get announced and initiated! 

Class updates, let's see here... Monday class was cancelled. Wednesday in Digital Media we began working on our first official animation project due Wednesday. It's two separate thirty second animations portraying Love and War using only coins. Thursday, I had Art Therapy and we had a demo of the puppets we'll be doing for our Midterm Project. It sounds kind of cheesy off the bat, but the idea is to make high quality, sophisticated puppets and really apply yourself to the project. Thinking critically throughout the process, you build a doll to capture and display your cultural and personal background. Typically I have Fridays off from class and work and it's just a great day to get everything done and out of the way just in time for weekend adventures. However, with Monday being a holiday I figured I'd get a few more hours in. As luck would have it, Friday night a few of the Mashable interns hit up Happy Hour and I still managed to make it home before the bus terminal got scary. Kudos to me. 

The impromptu Sign-enstein with all of my supplies
and cute little stool. Everything fits in my backpack!

Saturday I had a group practice with my Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity group via video conference (seriously... what did people do before the invention of the internet?), and after that I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for... *drumroll*... Caricatures on Times Square! It took a while for me to hunt down a printing service that actually had the resources to handle a 24x36" sign for my newly-acquired A-frame. While at an art supply store I found a street sign outside that I thought would be perfect for this new venture, and after asking the man if they sold anything similar to it since the closest thing I could find were over $200 easels, he said he'd give it to me for twenty dollars. SOLD! The only real problem was carrying that bad boy the four blocks to the train station, getting on to the bus, getting into my dorm... And then repeating the process. I'm telling you, I'd be jacked out of my mind by now if it wasn't for all this New York pizza. Besides the point, I called Staples and they confirmed if I brought in the file they could print it for me right there and I'd be on my way. Or so they said... after managing to carry this sign what felt like across the world, the best they could do for me was email me when the sign was printed. Which could be a few days. I was a little upset, but figured I'd wait and then on top of that print the largest sign they could give me on the spot and just sort of jimmy rig something that might work. I was disappointed it wasn't the grand debut I had envisioned... but the night still went pretty well.

I managed to snag a spot between two spray paint artists, nestled behind those giant iconic signs in Times Square and between that and Broadway. I managed to grab a lot of people on their way from and headed to shows. I'm really thankful I was smart enough to scope out the prices everybody else was charging. If I did my back home rates, I definitely would not have been nearly successful. Who would have guessed caricatures would be so much cheaper out here though? I drew a couple from Boston as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (complete with an NYC manhole cover, because I think I'm a hilarious genius) and a little girl on her way to see the Lion King with her dad! I was in the middle of drawing a family who had just seen Pippin, and chatting away with another couple waiting to have theirs done too, when an NYPD officer tapped me on the shoulder and told me to head out after this drawing. I was terrified! I'd looked it up online and didn't need any sort of license to sell art, and even confirmed with police officers in Times Square a few weeks ago, and I sat there stunned while he explained, chuckling, that everybody just had to clear the streets at 8:30 as a safety precaution. What a relief... So though I set up at 6pm, and was only there for two and a half hours, I made bank and let it go. I'll be back soon. No worries. 

The view from my spot between two spray paint artists!

Love the People, Hate the Weather.

This weekend was... what I suppose is a fairly normal weekend in the New York City area. The weather is still just god awful out here and I have begun to accept that it will most likely be like this until the day after I leave. That's just how it is.

Thursday morning I woke up to an email from my boss asking me to work from home because the weather was going to make my commute basically impossible. Nina's great like that.  So I worked on the upcoming "20 Most Brilliant Things Ever Thought in the Shower" from the comfort of my dorm bed. It was a pretty chill day... no, but literally. It was freezing outside. And of course, Thursday was the day I was meeting a friend from Iowa in Times Square. And after someone travels that kind of distance, it's pretty hard not to at least try and make it into the city.

So around 5 o'clock I decided it was time to embark into the icy tundra. Of course, after waiting around for a bus that never came, I called public safety only to find out that since campus was closed, they didn't know if the buses were running either. Nor did they care that I almost drowned in the puddles on the street. In hindsight, maybe they had a right to laugh at my dramatics. I got sneaky and managed to find a way to the path station, and was only a little late getting to Times Square. I'm learning...

So two architects and a graphic designer walk into a pizza place... it sounds like a joke but that was how we ended up in Lombardi's.  It was the pizza place my dad, Amy, and I ended up in and well... the place deserved second helpings. It did not disappoint.  Next on the itinerary was cheesecake from Eileen's, because once again I'm basically obsessed. They deliver to anywhere in the country. What I'm saying, is if you're reading this, you should really look into it. That cake changes lives. Now you would think at this point my thighs and waistline were probably screaming for mercy - and honestly they were - but Nick had found a milk bar the night before.

Yes... a milk bar.  And after hearing that, it's really hard not to try and find it again.  So, the three of us set out to find the promised land. And though it snowed all day, it was now a down pour. I'm talking Noah's Ark in the Upper East Side. Life's not fair. We're soaked through, and we finally manage to find Momofuku (because of course a milk bar would come from Japan), and it made me completely reevaluate my previous statement on whether life was fair. We enjoyed crack pie (which is basically just a fat bomb covered in powdered sugar, I know how it sounds...) and cereal milk.  Which tasted like the bottom of the bowl of cornflakes after all the, y'know, cornflakes are gone. I don't how they're selling something like that.  But I don't mind.

Also randomly at some point, there was a print by one of my favorite illustrators hanging in the train. Marcos Chin is centered out of NYC, and I knew he'd done a series for Grand Central station, but I definitely didn't mind the serendipity of running into this bad boy. Once again, maybe life can be fair after all.  After a pit stop at the boys' hotel in Times Square to dry off a bit and blow dry my boots (not kidding - that happened), Nick and I made our way to Stand Up NY to cash in those free tickets I got from the man whose blue rat peed on my hand.  Basically, my life is a sitcom.  And the comedy show was absolutely hilarious.

After the show I kind of just wandered around Times Square aimlessly, not entirely sure where my station was though of course the next day I'd figure out I was basically on top of it, and after a few words with some drunk guys outside of the bars, I decided it was about time to peace out.  I hailed a taxi for what was originally intentioned to be the World Trade Center station, but decided if the buses weren't running before, I might as well just take this route back to school.  At some point a girl's gotta draw the line between "I can handle this" and "This is Antarctica and I just want my bed." The taxi driver was probably one of the coolest guys ever, because after I told him I wasn't a local and he was nice enough to pretend he was surprised, he gave me a short tour of the city as we drove through it. We managed to navigate Jersey City after pulling over a few times to ask for directions and between laughing uncontrollably he managed to cut me a deal on my cab fare and even drove up on the sidewalk outside the school dates so I wouldn't almost drown in the puddles again. This guy gets it.

So after all of that, it was time for Friday's shenanigans.  I met my darling new friend Taylor and Nick again for dinner in Times Square. We decided on a random Scottish pub, and me being me, ordered haggis. What else could you order there? Moreover, it came with NEEPS and TATTIES. No, I have no honest clue what any of those things are. And no, I'm not interested. It was delicious. THAT'S ALL I NEED.

After dinner, Taylor and I made our way to Murray Hill to see what all the fuss was about. We decided on an Irish pub (I guess the UK was an unofficial theme for the night?) and got lucky with it being karaoke night. We laughed, we cried... at all of the acts. The only thing that could have possibly made more ears bleed would have been me taking the stage myself. But no, no such luck. Anyway, I ended up staying at Taylor's and it was a really great time.

But then of course, it turns out my wallet was missing.  But not my debit card. Which was incredibly strange... And as luck would have it, the snow would pick up right as I was leaving Taylor's. So there I was, waiting for another bus that never came. And once more I hailed a taxi.

I basically swore I would never go outside in this weather again. Most likely unrealistic, but I'm sticking to it as long as I can. I peeled off my soggy clothes, crawled into bed, and checked my email.  And wouldn't you know it? Someone had found my wallet, turned it in, and a police officer had contacted me that I could pick it up and a train station. The rest of my weekend? Basically rejoicing what wasn't the end of the world and staying warm. So very, very warm.

So in conclusion, New Yorkers are probably the BEST people in the world.  But New York weather? That's a whole different story...

Picking Up the Pace

It seems like things are becoming pretty routine these days. I do not have a whole lot to report this time around, aside from the fact that the weather continues to not be on my side. I never thought that I would be the one to complain about a snow day, but it's getting to be a little ridiculous.

Since classes have started I have had a whole one session of two of my courses and three (luckily) of art therapy. Though I don't have a whole lot to go on, thusfar I'm enjoying the content and practice in all three. 

You know... just your
typical art therapy.

I'll start out strong with the class I've gotten the most out of so far: Methods and Techniques in Art Therapy. It's a very tight knit program, with one professor heading the department and teaching the majority of the classes. A definite strength of NJCU is the small class sizes. I think there's only none of us in this particular courses, so it's very personal and I feel like I'm really building relationships with not only my fellow aspiring therapists but also the professor. A large part of each day's session is hands on work: experientials. It's been interesting learning how an experience relates to a client by stepping into their shoes and living the therapy. There's also lectures given by the professor where she tells of her own experience in the field. This has been especially enlightening in that she's still working in NYC, so obviously the diversity of her clientele is just extraordinary and her experience couldn't get much wider. Sometime in April I'll be leading my own art therapy session through the use of acrylic painting and co-leading a session with environmental art. 

As much fun as art therapy has been, I'm also really excited about my digital media class. The majority if it is animation in Adobe After Effects. I was worried this class would be difficult for me to walk into without the same pre-requisites but the professor does a great job walking through the exercises and I actually ended up assisting a few students near by, so that always feels good. The professor has us build the scenes and objects in Photoshop, which has bit of an adjustment from my recent obsession with Illustrator but I'm liking getting back to my roots and learning some new tricks. It's like reconnecting with an old friend and then making a new one along the way. In his demo during class, the professor threw in a random Godzilla in the background. Because, you know, why not? So I think we're going to get along just fine. 

They're not the NJCU Gothic
Knights for nothin'.

My third class is Information Design, a four hundred level course to take the place of the studio I'm missing back at Iowa State. Due to my ongoing battle with the PATH rails, I arrived a little late on syllabus day (whoops!) and so far that's all the class time we've had so far. The professor seems very passionate about the subject matter though, and as luck would have it she's been assigned as my advisor for my co-op learning assignments. I guess what I find most interesting about this class is though it's very specific, it's also everywhere. Information design goes into everything from textbooks to signage, and Professor Quinn really stresses being unconventional in your design. At our first hang ups she offered the critique to all of us they we were very much working within the easy definition of 'design', but why would we bother doing something that's already been done before? I think this class is really going to push my boundaries and redefine my portfolio. There should really be some interesting pieces that come out of this semester. The diversity on campus will probably have a big impact on my day to day design work. I just honestly don't see how it couldn't. 

Clockwise from top-left: my desk,
my mugshot, the art department intern photos,
and the Mashable feature wall in the bullpen.

Aside from the obvious benefit of hands on experience and the general fiesta that is my internship at Mashable, I'm also gaining class credit. Four whole credit hours to be exact. On top of getting paid and spending four days of the week in New York City, I don't think it really gets any better. As in, I'm still ninety percent sure this isn't real life. Nina, the art director, is from San Francisco and is basically a stud. I feel like I'm really learning a lot from her.  She's one of those people who's never happy with a project the first time around, and even in these first few weeks watching my work progress from sketches to the final publish on the site is so satisfying. Dat refinement, yo. Recently some valentines I made featuring Grumpy Cat were posted, and ended up getting over 24,000 shares at the time of this blog's publication! Pretty exciting, if I say so myself. Also I finally got my Mashable suite ID, which I was pretty stoked about but keep accidentally trying to swipe my meals with at NJCU... so that's always a little awkward. I also kickstarted my modeling career the other day with my headshot, so hit me up if you'd like an autograph. My people will be in touch with your people.

I took a few shots of the office on my phone for your viewing pleasure as well. In the top left is the Mash Cafe: complete with couches and TV's which primarily get used for uh... work related stuff. Like the Winter Olympics. Top right is the Brand Cafe with the 3D printer which I have every intention of learning to use for my own nefarious purposes (*cue evil cackle*). The two bottom pictures are of the wall with all the #InterNinja photos (plus Chinese new year decorations) and the sign leading to the Intern Parlor, which features a nice view of the building right next to us (i.e. a brick wall). Aside from what I consider possibly the funniest window placement ever (aside from those apartments in Ames called Beach View, like where is there a beach in Central Iowa? Hello?), it's actually a pretty sweet set-up with blue chalk walls and shenanigans at every turn. There is blue and green everywhere... like my dorm room. So it's easy to feel pretty at home. You don't hear me complaining.

The front door - complete
with door men!

Synopsis: work is great, classes are few. I'm gearing up for an exciting weekend, so I'll leave you all to guess what I'm getting ready for. Hint: I'll be cashing in some free tickets and hanging out with some friends, old and new!