Flushing (And Then Some)

First off, Happy Easter everyone! Recently I was educated on some more diverse holidays by a bunch of my Jewish coworkers, and to all of you, I say Happy Passover!

This past Sunday, I spent the day in Flushing, Queens, as part of my nonstop quest to visit every borough. My first stop was Flushing Corona Park, the site of the New York World's Fair. To my design friends: it's the fair Mickelson was all about in lectures right around the time he showed the film Metropolis, with the weirdly sexual robot. You know the one. To all of my other friends: that scene from Captain America where Tony Stark's dad is showing off some wicked cool stuff was at the World's Fair. Anywho, this month they're celebrating the fiftieth anniversary, which is pretty neat. Unfortunately, after the fair most of the buildings were demolished/repurposed and there isn't a whole lot of it left.

Right in the neighborhood is also CitiField, home of the New York Mets. Admittedly, once upon a time I bought a hat because I thought it was just a girly New York Yankees logo. As embarrassing fate would have it, it was actually a Mets cap. Besides the point, it's easily one of the most comfortable items I've ever worn. I wore the hat to Queens as an insurance policy (nobody likes getting beat up) and didn't realized I'd end up as close to the field as I did. Best spontaneous photo op ever. And as an added bonus, I stopped at a Greek place for dinner and the waiter sent me over a free glass of wine - from the chef.  He said he liked my hat. And I like free wine. So, in the end, everybody won.

After the Park scene, I hit up another item that's been wearing down on my NYC Bucket List: the Socrates Sculpture Park. I'll admit it, I had this idea in my head of just sort of a random hideaway with marble sculptures and a sweet view of the Manhattan skyline. I was only half right. The sculptures are actually all local originals - how cool, right?! - and I came in the middle of the process of building the new exhibits.  There were little girls hammering and sawing, and it may have been one of the cutest, most hands on community service opportunities I've ever seen.  I then experience one of the coolest things I've seen since I got here: massive sculpture fort.  I thought this girl was cool enough as it was from the outside: she was pieced together from found objects: from a headdress of cowboy hats to wooden plank fingernails. But then like a vision sent from the Lost Boys of Peter Pan: you could actually climb inside this thing. Bangarang!

In class news, this week I led a session in Art Therapy! As part Method & Techniques, each week one of the students researches a demographic and technique and runs the class for the day. My assigned medium was Acrylic Painting (one of my favorites!) and I demonstrated a session I envisioned as a sort of ice-breaker for future clients entitled "What does your soul look like?", where the students portrayed their fears as what they felt like, how they envisioned their future, and what made them happy as well as other prompts I offered. I was a little nervous running the session, seeing as how my education and training is pretty minimal, but the girls were great and I was thrilled with the results. In Digital Media, I started work on my final project, which is an animated music video which I'm honestly pretty psyched about. 

This weekend the entire campus closed down for the holidays, which unfortunately included dining. And I didn't realize this until Saturday morning (ha, who am I kidding, I rolled out of bed at noon) and went to grab food only to find LOCKED DOORS! The horror! So I geared up to head into Manhattan, because I'd been wanting some Shake Shack and finally had a valid excuse to wait in that legendary line. On the bus ride over, I checked my Facebook, and lo and behold, some Thetas from Iowa State arrived in NYC that morning and were already posting pictures. I quickly messaged them, and we met up for dinner at a pretty nifty little Italian place near the MoMA. That little taste of home was pretty sweet. Oh, and if you were wondering, Shake Shack was well worth the hour long wait. Never has a burger and peanut butter shake been quite as satisfying. 

Today, I spent some quality time with my Sharpies and paper in Central Park. The true horror of the caricature business is that every day starts out the same good or bad: with a quite lull.  Just as I was debating whether the trek into the city was worth it, a family came up to me. 

"Are you the Hernandez?" they asked me, a question my more noticeably Caucasian self has heard quite a few times these past twenty one years.  

"Yup, that's me." As it turns out, they, too, were also of the Hernandez clan.  Though they were Cuban, I'm pretty sure we were distantly related. Actually, probably not. I digress. They kicked off my drawing spree, and I ended up breaking my sales record out here, so needless to say I'll be munching down pretty hard on my lunch breaks this week. Nomnomnom... 

More nom's to come.

Thanks for reading :) I'll be sure to report back on those noms! 

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

Hey there world, how's it hanging? I've gotten a little irresponsible with my blog posts as of late, and for that I apologize. Weirdly enough, I've been pretty preoccupied with real life adventures as opposed to surfing the interwebs. Anywho, I'll take a few paragraphs to catch you up. 

Last time I posted I'd just creeped my way into reserving free tickets to the Daily Show, but my frugality does not end there. Oh no! 

Last Saturday, I along with my trusted sidekicks Amanda and Mirei braved the trek to the Bronx Zoo once more. Once again, we got there a little too close to closing time. But because we're cute females like that, the staff let us come on for the last half hour before all the animals went away - FOR FREE. So we took the express lane through all the animals and it was great. Afterwards, we took the train down to Brooklyn. It was my first time in the borough, and it did not disappoint. In all honesty, I fell in love. It's like Manhattan's hipster cousin to the south, and I'm all about that life. 

The first Saturdays of the month at the Brooklyn Museum are free for one and all, which was the nature of our visit. But after so long on the subway, a girl or three can get a little hungry. Recently I've discovered the lazy magic that is Siri on my new iPhone 5, so I asked where to get some eats in that neighborhood. She directed us to a small diner down the street which the three of us were all for and along the way we found some community art, which was another incredible experience to add to my repertoire.

The museum itself was crazy cool, because along with being free there were also concerts and an impromptu break dance competition on the second floor, because you know... It's New York City like that. The museum has a very eclectic, high quality feel to it. And I'd definitely say it's my favorite museum I've been to out here. It has a long history of involvement in Egypt, so obviously there were mummies all over the place, and there was even an exhibit dedicated solely to cats. Meow! 

On the way back, we stumbled into Big Gay Ice Cream after getting off at the Christopher Street stop and Amanda realizing she knew that part of town. It was an incredible, free day. With absolutely no regrets. Except maybe not getting a photo with the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh, and also seeing a lady drop her trousers and uh... Relieve herself... Right there in the PATH station in Hoboken. I definitely regret seeing that. 

Sunday I did a few more caricatures in Central Park and Times Square before getting some homework done. It was a pretty chill day. 

Just yesterday, I had a campus tour and interview with the director of the art therapy masters program at the Pratt Institute's Brooklyn campus. I was running a little late that morning (story of my life) and in my rush to make the train across the Hudson I leapt through the closing doors in one of my most impressive feats of physical coordination to date. Unfortunately, I'm still Danielle, and in doing so, one of my shoes fell off... On the platform on the other side of the closed doors. So there I was on my way to Manhattan... With only one shoe. 

A couple girls attempted to console me by saying they would have offered their flip flops to me if they had them on me, but because I'm the eternal optimist like that I just took it as an excuse to hit up the Shoegasm store just a block from the Mashable office I've gushed over since I started there. I'll take any excuse to go shoe shopping. While I was hobbling down 23rd Street (considering amputating my city-stained feet with every step) a random man on the street yelled out, "LINDSAY LOHAN! WHERE'S YOUR SHOE?!" So uh... that happened.  

After that morning's fiasco, I made it to Pratt no problem. The campus was GORGEOUS, with sculptures, artwork, and design literally around every corner. The art therapy department head was AMAZING and answered all of my questions thoroughly and was also incredibly entertaining. I guess twenty six years of working as a prestigious art school does that to a lady. Furthermore, she joked that there are cats that have stock in the institute, and they sleep all over the campus. If I wasn't in love already, the Pratt cats got me there. Easily one of the places I've felt most at home at since I got here, but hey that price tag might just kill me. So, I'm still keeping my option open. But if there's a way, I might just have to make that happen. 

After Pratt I decided to rectify my mistake by crossing the pedestrian path on the Brooklyn Bridge. I mean honestly, it started as just one of those "you can't go to NYC and not do that" sort of things, but midway through the skies open up and I saw the entire expanse of the city, from the Statue of Liberty to the Empire State Building. In a word: it was remarkable. 

Fingers crossed, I'll be hitting up another borough tomorrow. And toes crossed, it won't take me a few more weeks to keep all you readers waiting. We'll see, stay tuned... 

Oh and... BONUS VIDEO:

I Had It Comin'

I'm waiting in line to, fingers crossed, hustle my way into today's taping of the Daily Show. My palms are sweaty, my feet are starting to ache, and the man next to me hasn't spoken a word of English since I hiked my way here from the train station a mile away. It's go time.

This past weekend was one filled with a lot of productivity and serendipity - a deadly duo. I ended up working on Friday since there were practically floods in the forecast, a good call on my part, since the weatherman held up and caricatures weren't gonna happen. No siree, bob. 

I don't know if it's the city or the weather, but I got off work around 7 and felt wired. As in, invincible. I wasn't quite ready to truck it back to Jersey, but I didn't really have any plans. Over a cup of bubble tea that has changed my entire outlook on wet-leaf flavored beverages, I had an epiphany. 

See, Broadway is a lot like most businesses in which at a certain point, they get borderline desperate to make a profit. Thanks to the interwebs I was able to look up which shows still had seats for the night - at a tenth of the cost. 

Boom! Right there in web-friendly font laid before my eager eyes seven letters that almost spelled out home: C-H-I-C-A-G-O. 27 dollars, standing room only. Sold. 

I'd seen late night airings of the musical almost every summer on television. I'm ninety percent sure "Cellblock Tango" was the most popular choice for all female group ensemble musical theatre at every one of my high school speech contests. But nothing beats seeing it all come to life for practically free, except for maybe catching a show for... Absolutely free. 

Somewhere along the road between casually pinning to obsessively following boards, I stumbled across a list of things to do in NYC. I'm aware of how nearly every sitcom since the beginning of time takes place here, and it makes me feel like a big deal when I recognize the street corners and neighborhoods in the latest season of How I Met Your Mother (no spoilers, por favor, all this drama at work over the season finale has me trying to catch up like it's nobody's business). So with all of the filming going on it's pretty easy to catch a scene being directed. But I don't exactly have the free time to just wander the city looking for camera, nor do I have the necessary navigational skills, as I continue to prove to myself. A girl can dream? 

Luckily for me, there exists websites that dole out free tickets to the obsessive few. And if there's one thing I'm good at: it's refreshing a computer screen. I've been on a script's twitter updates like an unhealthy scoop of peanut butter on my spoon, and one magical evening the stars aligned, the clouds parted, and Jon Stewart himself appeared before me with a free ticket to his show.

So now here I am, with an email confirmation of a spot in line. There's twenty people ahead of me, and they don't start handing out the actual tickets for another hour. I'm starving for another one of NYC's best grilled chreese SHROOM from The Melt Shop, the group of people behind me aren't sharing their potato chips, but I'm having trouble containing my squeals and couldn't be more ecstatic to be here.