New York Realities

June 18th

It’s sometime past 6:30AM, and my sister wakes me with a soft knock on the dark wooden door.

Perhaps my reaction is a tad delayed in the fact that I am in fact going into New York city today, as I lie in bed for another five minutes or so, something I do when I’m at home and avoiding the moral call to get ready for work.

I shower with a bar of Aveda soap, and a travel-sized tube of St. Ives apricot scrub. It’s not until after I get out of the shower that I realize that I didn’t wash my armpits. The second round in the shower makes me confront my excitement for the day ahead.

I eat a bowl of multigrain cheerios in what is the immaculate kitchen of this Katonah, NY dream house. I’m a far cry from the still of Breakfast at Tiffany’s I have on my bedroom wall at home, but perhaps that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I sip a coffee that seems a tad better than the one Miss Golightly holds.

We enter White Plains, NY and I’m greeted by the greatest mall in the area: Westchester Mall. It’s a Wednesday morning, and arriving upon opening brings me stares from the mall employees. I always hate the first customers of the day, too.

It’s a cornucopia of American stores: Gap, Banana Republic, American Eagle, American Apparel, Starbucks, Urban Outfitters. It’s like I’m home again.

Urban Outfitters ends up being my only place of success, which is something of a surprise to me, but perhaps my high-standards are somewhat lowered in the face of two-dollar Girls calendars and ten-dollar BDG hoodies.

In my two hours, I’ve tried on more clothes than I have in a whole year, across the mall. I never try things on, but in the spirit of killing time, I indulge myself.

I walk up to my sister’s hair salon, and arrive a tad early. I’m greeted by her colourist, who informs me that I must go to “The Village.” I nod my head like he has just told me the secret to happiness, but inside my head there’s not a whole lot going on. The only village I know of is this really try-hard section of Park Royal with a Whole Foods and a Tommy Bahama’s.

We drive into the city, and I try to capture moments of the George Washington bridge as we drive by it. Sadly, there’s a lot of dashboard in these shots.

Ultraviolence plays the whole way into the city, with “Brooklyn Baby” played on repeat a couple of times. I don’t think I’ll ever be this close to Brooklyn with the lyrics of Lana this fresh in my head.

The day seems like a dream.

We park somewhere in a garage somewhere down an avenue that is in the forties. I watch the silver Jeep go up a lift, before I enter the humidity and hostility that is the air of New York City.

If there’s something to be said about this city, it’s that it’s alive. There is life every single place you look, there are people every single place you look. I can’t stop looking around as we dart through the people, only stopping when the light is truly red. It’s lunch time now, and the line-ups for food trucks are as big as they seem on The Food Network. My mind is on so many things, except where our end point could be.

Stop. We’re going the wrong way.

Turn around, dart faster, faster.

Dang, I am never doing NYC with a triathlon runner again, I think.

She darts into a building about five minutes later, and I chase after her striped dress, the door almost hitting me on the way in.

We’re at a show. The show has just started, but they still give us tickets. We rush up flights of stairs to our seats. It all starts to hit me that this is all really happening, and I’m about to see Michael C. Hall, Toni Collette, and Marisa Tomei in about thirty seconds. My sister remembered me briefly mentioning it, and totally surprised me! The show, The Realistic Joneses, takes just over an hour, critiquing human socialization, with a dark comedic edge.

It was one of the coolest shows I’ve seen, mostly because I haven’t watched anything like it before.

We’re ushered down the opposite spiral staircase to the street, and I sheepishly sneak my way back in to find a ‘restroom’ as the American’s call it.

—

We wander through Times Square, and I’m greeted by what is the biggest H&M I have ever seen, and a Gap that had a lot of the same stuff that my store had at home (ah, corporations.)

—

By this time, we’re reminded that our last substance was a package of mini-biscotti-esque cookies, and a lukewarm bottle of water.

We head to an area called Hell’s Kitchen, and head into a place called Mercato, as recommended by her colourist. It’s all very hip, and cute, with some patrons fawning over the World Cup near the bar. I don’t really taste the food as I shovel it down, but perhaps the point of this meal is the presence of my sister’s smile across the table from me.

—

We head towards Greenwich Village, taking the Subway. It’s a far-cry from the Canada Line, as their turnstiles actually work. Getting off near NYU, we walk to the Village, which falls short of the shopping I was promised. I see various stalls with vendors, a Chipotle, and a schwack of piercing places on the same block. Although tempting to add to my body mods while I’m away, I decide to save a sweet sixteen-esque, impulse piercing for another day.

We head for SoHo, walking by cool stores like Rag & Bone, and Brooklyn Industries on the way. In SoHo, I’m greeted by familiar stores like Zara, and Converse. Dean & DeLuca catches my eye, and I’m reminded of that moment in The Devil Wears Prada where they name-drop D&D for their pricetag of almost $8 per strawberry.

—

We subway back to somewhere near the forty-something avenue where the Jeep is, as it’s starting to hit dusk, and we’re both tired.

It’s been quite the day for me, walking through this city of dreams and dashed stars. I get to play Lana in the dark, as my sister drives back up-state.

You’re crazy for me, croons Lana in the outro to “Cruel World,” and honestly that couldn’t sum up my feelings for this city more. I am crazy for it.

—

I say a quick goodnight to my sister, and brother-in-law, once we arrive, and hear the echo of my patter on the hardwood, as I walk to my room.

I shut the dark hardwood door softly and wince in pain for a moment, as I look down at my right foot.

A small blister has decided to emerge on my pinkie toe after the day’s events.

There it is: my crown.

Derrick Gravener: Honorary New Yorker, for a day.

Learning

hallo.

welcome back to the possibility wasteland. holla.

—

whoa i finished first year.. ssssssssssshhhhoooooooooooooot

Seriously, that’s basically me… ^^

Transit + Other Drugs

It’s been a crazy year, yo. Like, I can still remember my first days on campus, being woken up on the bus by some other student. And like, now I can basically wake myself up on the bus. T A L E N T.

um. what else. i don’t recommend catching the 4 late at night. take the 99 because it comes more often, and then take the skytrain because the broadway-city hall station is really close to a Whole Foods open ’till 10PM and a Save-on-Foods open ’till 11PM. seriously, late night snacking ftw. ALSO MCDONALDS OPEN 24HRS there.

personal tip is try to get to school before like the huge rush (8:30-9AM??) cause then like you can get Starbz in the SUB or something without a grande line-up.

erm what else idk. learn to sleep on buses, but don’t fall asleep on other people because then people write things about students that aren’t very cooool.

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Food

seriously i spent hella money on food this year and like pro-tip would be to bring it from home, or find someone that you kinda sorta look like and steal their meal plan, (pref. varsity plan) no srsly. kidding.

stealing is bad, tho.

but like there’s no such thing as a bad sandwich. (mhm. dont quote me on that. perhaps my sandwich game is just really stong.)

also:

-subway is mreh. dont go expecting anything amazing. they are not made with love.

-the salad bar is pretty overpriced.

-the deli knows what’s up

-the burger bar is pre sketch. like sometimes they don’t cook the chicken all the way. i saw it. the fries are aiight.

-bernoulli’s is what dreams are made of. cinnamon cream cheese on a chocochoco chip bagel. WORD.

-Vanier’s has rlly good pasta and like the wraps are good, albeit, overpriced. don’t be afraid to go and check it out, even if you’re a commuter or don’t even go to ubc. we know who you are.

-venturing into the village never killed anyone, and like that place down the stairs, by the McD’s has some really stellar options for cheap Chinese food after like 5PM.

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Bookz

the bookstore hates you and does not have your best interests at heart.

might i suggest doing some research before hand and trying to buy it off a student a la UBC Textbooks for Sale – Facebook Group??

Maybe buy it off Amazon?

Maybe go to that place in the village that claims to be cheaper idk.

BUT LIKE MAYBE ALSO DO YOUR RESEARCH SO THAT YOU BUY THE RIGHT ONE IF U TAKE MEASURES INTO YOUR OWN HANDS.

AND THEN YOU WONT BE OUT 30$ BECAUSE SOME CHICK SCAMS YOU FOR HER GERMAN 100 BOOK WHICH IS ACTUALLY NOT EVEN GOOD FOR REALLY ANYTHING. (im not bitter at all.)

Sanity and Goals and Self-Worth

YEAAAAAAAAH idk.

All I can really say on this topic is try to prioritize, and time manage as best you can, and get all your assignments in on time.

Pro tip # deux is surround yourself with cool people who motivate you, and think you’re hot apple pie, because there are days when you will feel like you are leftover fruit loops in the box, outside the bag, that someone forgot about.

you cannot do this alone.

try to get involved, and get outside, and get a reasonable amount of sleep, and dont drink too much coffee.

i know i sound like a really concerned parent raining on a parade of college freedom, but seriously your mental health is gonna take a really bad turn if you go on some sort of no sleep, full-sugar bender.

self-worth: find something you love and hold on tight to it, because there is going to be so much other stuff flying at you during the year, you may lose sight of it. whatever happens, don’t forget to look down at what you decided to hold on to for yourself.

goals: pfft those are for second year. pFFFFFFFFT.
no seriously, set realistic goals, and be prepared to make sacrifices.

Concluding Statements:

first year was pretty rad for me, but i certainly had some tough times.

i’d like to thank my family, and my social circle for providing food, and emotion support. y’all are like a river rock and you catch me when i’ve gone down the creek a little too far.

title for this blog was inspired by this:

more to come on first year advice. i got some stories, yo.

shoutout to all the peeps who got admitted to ubc, and all the peeps that start summer courses this week (me, holla). it’s gonna be CRAAAAAAAY. RAISE THE ROOF. FLASH THE PEOPLE DOING CONSTRUCTI– ok never mind, that was a tangent. this isn’t freakin’ Spring Breakers.

k byeee~

How to Be a Hot Mess…

Hello, and welcome back to the Possibility Wasteland.

I am not dead, contrary to popular belief.

I was just busy being a really disorganized university student trying to manage: my work schedule, my social life, my final projects, my sanity, my food intake, and my dryer’s amount of lint discharge. Y’know, trying to make the basics, seem not so basic.

Did I succeed? Well, more or less. I mean, I made it through term one, and didn’t get Mad Cow Disease. I did, however, end up getting bronchitis about two weeks before the end of term, which was really fun times. [laughs to keep from crying]

It was all in the name of being a hot mess, though, which turns out to be what I succeeded in.

How did I do that, you ask?

Well, you too, can achieve “hot mess” status by doing these things:

1. Don’t start any of your papers until the night before they are due! Bonus points if you don’t start it until 2AM, on the morning that it’s due. The extra stress, combined with your lack of consciousness for spelling and grammar errors is sure to get you the highest mark in the class, and probably a spot on the Dean’s List.

2. Break up your meal schedule. It’s a really great idea to have breakfast at 6AM, followed by lunch at 3PM. This ensures optimum clarity in all of your classes. I mean, whoever brings water, or energy bars, to class is clearly doing something wrong. Up the ante by disregarding dinner on the night before your term paper is due (which is obviously haven’t started) and by having a three-part nervous breakdown between the bulk-food section at save-on-foods (I was talking to the bin of dino sours), your bathroom floor (after throwing your phone across the room), and your kitchen floor (after you receive text messages that you will read too much into). Of course, a heavy penne dinner at 10:30PM will solve all problems, and not sit in your stomach for hours on end, or anything.

3. Pull an unhealthy amount of all-nighters, in combination with a semi-full time work schedule. Please make sure to pull an all-nighter during take-home exams, and then say YES to overnight shifts at work. Because sleep is for keeners who actually get As in their classes. I mean who needs a relatively above-average GPA. Pssshh. Those are so overrated.

4. Catch up on your sleep during lecture! I mean, if you’re actually putting your notebook on the lap desk, and not your head, you’re doing something wrong. Bonus points if you fall asleep in the front row in your class of only 25. This will ensure that your prof will appreciate your iconic sleep-swaying all the more! (shout-out to Dr. Mauro. happy holidays. xo) Of course, you’re only hardcore if you’ve fallen asleep in every single class, AT LEAST ONCE.

5. Always show up 5-15mins late with Starbucks. This really screams that you care about the class enough to show up on time. Profs will really value your presence.

6. Don’t even budget. LAWL spending like crazy is a really great idea, and like the fact that you might have to dip into tuition to pay off your credit card bill, is totally fine, and won’t cause you panic attacks. I mean only Greece has to budget.

7. Always keep what’s in your mind ’till later. I mean that point that you had regarding neoliberalism will truly be as valuable during dinnertime discourse, as it would have been in your sociology 100A class, right? It will totally earn you participation marks. Bonus points if this carries over to your social life, and you end up exploding at people a month after the actual issue. Yes, very smart, poised, and sexy.

8. Obsess over small things. You see that zit on your forehead that you wanna pop like a molly at a rave? Yes, you should pick at it until it bleeds like Gatsby’s heart. Then you should loathe your own existence for not having any self-control over things like that. Yes, that is very healthy. Also, obsessing over what anchor iPhone case you will get off Etsy should be a really deep source of stress in your life, or you are clearly doing something wrong.

9. Dwell in the past. I mean living in the now is so cliché. Who does that? You should always live in your mistakes, and your short-comings, and failed voyages. That will really get you where you aspire to be, and truly make you seem present in social situations with people who might be there to change your life or something, idk.

10. Own the title. You clearly earned “hot mess” status all by yourself, why not brag about what a massive screw-up you are all the time? Yes, this will earn you respect in the company of your peers.

So, there you have it. And, if you follow these steps, you will indeed become just like be! (Bronchitis not included)

[disclaimer: please don’t do any of this, I seriously warn you. Bad things will happen. Your overall well-being is at stake, and this was only written in an attempt to evoke change. xo]

MILKIN’ IT. #RIPPLEEFFECTUBC

So, I actually got myself out on campus today to see a ripple effect lab!

It did not involve birds.
It did not involve planes. (cry)

IT
INVOLVED
COWS.

And, not just any cows, DAIRY COWS.

So, like, I drink milk, eat yoghurt, dream of ice cream, steam some cheese, dollop the sour cream, delight in fro-yo, cry happy tears into bowls of whipped cream. Yeah, I’m basically a milk addict. SOOOOOOOOOOOOO guyz, it’s no shock that I would jump at the chance to go learn more about where all of this stuff comes from.

Today I was greeted by the lovely faces of a dairy cow, PEARL, and a three-week-old calf, SAM. Both obviously had that celebrity cow charm, but it was Sam who took the cake, like the EYES on that kid. Basically, a future Island Farms model.

HEY, SAM!

He was potentially the most endearing thing on campus that I saw all day. He isn’t even old enough to know when he’s full or not, so he just spent the majority of the time after his feeding looking for things to suck on, after the bottle was gone. I don’t think I’ve “aweh-ed” out loud that much, ever.
Don’t tell anyone I have a sensitive side.
This can’t get out.

ANYWAY, He’s supposed to grow up to be about 1600-1800 pounds. I mean. DANG BOII.
Not only is he going to be buff and handsome, he also showed tremendous talent, walking at the age of only 2 hours!

Artsy shot of the feeding. #SamLyfe

[pause for reflection of what I was probably doing at the age of two hours…]

His veteran partner, Pearl, though, has quite the story, too.

PEARL, in the background, plus milking machine, plus milker/presenter extraordinaire…

She currently lives in Cloverdale, BC, and enjoys semi-long walks around the farm.
She needs to be milked about two, to three, times a day, or else.
She produces up to about 2240 jugs of milk, in the 10 month lactating cycle. (So, like all of the ice cream I eat?)
She got a tongue, that is 12 inches long. GURLLLLL. You, go.
She needs to chill out for an hour, after being milked, and not lie down, or ELSE her teats will be at risk for disease. (Gosh, it is hard being famous. I feel her pain.)
She enjoys a mixture of corn, grass, alfalfa, hay, and different ground grains for her meals.
She drinks about 120 litres of water, per day.
Each teat has its own compartment, which is why each one needs to be milked.
And, finally, her milk won’t leave the province, because it’s BC milk, and it’s meant to stay here.
BECAUSE
Canada does not export its milk, outside of the country.

For me, this was an awesome Ripple Effect lab, because I got to learn more about how much dairy, one cow actually produces. It also reaffirmed my belief that more meals can be made out of a dairy cow’s resources than simply a cow meant for meat. And, hey, that’s pretty sustainable.

So, with #RippleEffectUBC coming to a close tomorrow, I know I will leave with a more enlightened perspective on how I can fit more sustainability into my everyday life, as well as plan for a future, with even more lifestyle changes.

But, for now, I’ll just stick to eating ice cream out of the carton.

Day-Old Moonshine

Category Archives: so many pics tho

New York Realities

Learning

How to Be a Hot Mess…

MILKIN’ IT. #RIPPLEEFFECTUBC