East Coast Ramblings of a West Coast Girl

At the moment, I'm very tempted to post a video. That's right, you heard me: a video. A video blog, if you will.

Actually, it's not so much a "vlog" (?) as it is an excuse to use my camera...

My little cousin (I call her little, but really she's only 2 years younger than I am) asked me one Thanksgiving, "Jessica, how could you have possibly gone to New York?"

"What do you mean?" I ask her.

"Well, you didn't have any friends there." ...ouch.

It was true, I didn't know anyone in New York before coming. Granted, my dad had a friend who lives in Queens (Uncle Michael I call him), and a family of the friend of my Uncle's living somewhere in New York (though I'd never met them)...so, ok, it was true.

"No, I didn't at first..." I say cautiously. "But I made some new friends while I was there."

Suddenly (I swear) her jaw dropped and she looked at me funny...with a sort of twinkle in her eyes. "You mean you made a whole set of new friends?" I nodded. "Wooww..." she said. Then silence ensued until the commercials ended.

So I think back, and I find myself equally amazed. All of my friends (yes, every single one) stayed in California. And me? Of course I wanted to be so cool and come out to New York. Many of you will someday experience Summer Orientation (I know, it's too soon to talk about it), or what I called "Being Here Really Sucks". Yeah, just being here for two days was not good for me (or for many others) just because we didn't know anyone. But then again, there were people from Jersey and Long Island who stuck together. It made me question my ability to come to school permanently here because everything felt so impersonal.

Long story short, school started, and I went to class. I put on a big happy smile. I had made friends with a couple of friends during "Being Here Really Sucks," but I didn't have so many classes with them. But, lo and behold, by the end of the semester I found that I'd made several very, very close friends.

In NYU, where we don't have a campus to keep us connected (so it's not like I can bump into someone in the yard -- whatever that is), it can take effort to meet and stay in touch with new people (that's why there's Club Fest!). Also, it's weird that it seems like your friends in New York don't even exist once you go back home to your California friends (and you should also make a grand effort to keep in touch with them).

But, what I'm trying to say is, don't fret about the friend thing. It takes an effort to make them, but that's what makes it fun, right?

So, speaking of efforts (this is a great interlude), my roommates (yes, my dear friends) and I try to keep our spirits alive with story time every night as we gather to eat together every night for dinner (yes, every night).

And, whaddya know, here's a little snippet of what goes on (PS some bad things were said, so some really poor editing had to be done):