Week One!!… Ok I am a little late, but things got fun!! But I am mean and you will have to wait for my next post!!
I have arrived! I have gotten all settled into my apartment in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. I have joined forces with a few wonderfully nice and helpful ladies (its important to know where the nearest laundry mat is and what train to take). The most interesting part are that they aren’t theater folk, which is a nice change of perspective from living with theater people for quite… no, all the time while being at college. For someone like me there are not so subtle periods of adjustments going on. Like a lot of NYers, and a lot Fredonians we have a passing familiarity of the Big Apple. And for those, like myself, it’s a culture shock to go from county living to a suburban college environment to a metropolitan that defines what the world thinks of NYS. So like I said a lot of adjustments are happening.
Challenge one; there are a lot of people here. I mean a lot AND there are always people here. It’s true that this city never sleeps. Which would be fine if I didn’t have window thin glass and its makes no difference if it’s open or closed. Every day is like a Saturday night on Temple Ave. People always on the streets, cars honking. Well that is a given with NYC. The city that never sleeps and all!
Challenge two; I have no door. Well the apartment of course has a door, I just don’t have a bedroom door. Sometimes theater is dirty. This is one of those instances but I am going to see it as a new and exciting experience and especially one to put all my college skills to work. Now I have a pretty curtain instead of a door!
Challenge three; bridges. I know what you might be thinking. Why are bridges an issue? Well have you ever gone from Fredonia, NY to Brooklyn and tried to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge. My second day moved in I was determined I was going to get up and go explore. What better and more scenic place to explore than the Williamsburg bridge?? And its only two blocks away!! It did not go quite as planned… To begin with- there are bikes EVERYWHERE. I got very confused by the signs and could definitely tell that bicycles could go across one portion but am equally afraid of getting in the way of a bicyclist on a mission. Have you ever seen a cyclist on a mission? YUP THATS WHAT I THOUGHT! Bikers are intense in the city. It’s not that picturesque bike ride we all did as children. This is EXTREME CYCLING! You do NOT want to get in their way. Subways are also a little tricky from a country bumpkin like me. Thankfully, I had my friend and Fredonia alum Julie Shelton came to help me navigate the subway system that I’ll need to get to my internship in Manhattan. Thanks to my incredible luck, I am one subway stop away into Manhattan so Ms. Julie and I took the M line into Midtown to meet up with Colin Chauche and Ron Grimshaw (TWO MORE ALUMS). They told me lots of great advice about figuring out where you are in reference in the city, or what are good places to go or eat… if only I had had a recorder with me… then I might remember more than I do. A lot of it was my focusing on not walking into people and trying to catch a glance at a street signs. A lot of my problems will likely come with my complete lack of any natural navigation or directional understanding… But I WILL get better!! (I did experience my first subway fail with. I scanned my Metrocard just fine, and went to turn one of the turning doors rather than the waist height turnstiles and was in between the wrong section and got locked out… well we waited for about ten minutes because they don’t let your pass for a certain amount of time so you can’t just pass your card back… luckily it was 1:30 in the morning so I was only working on getting home and didn’t have to be anyplace at a certain time.)
So yes I have a lot of adjustments to make and I am in a place that I’m not entirely used to and today then there is the wonderful Tom Loughlin he helped me remember I have a large and great support system of friends and alum who are here AND exactly like me to remind me I’m not alone in this. We really do have a great network of fredonia alum in the city and one of them has already helped me out and I will be working for him this upcoming week as a Production Assistant on a strike!! more to come on that in next post!!!
Ta ta for now,
Theresa Pierce.
