Guess what arrived at my door today?

December 12th, 2007
One year. How time flies.

New York ARGH #1

NYC Subway.
Originally uploaded by daltonrooney

OK, so tonight I decided I needed to put into words my opinion of the Brooklyn bound L train departing from 14 Street Union Square station & the 14th street buses.

For the second time now, on a Thursday night at approximately 8:30pm when I'm heading home from Fashion Drawing class armed with 4 illustration boards (20x30"), my portfolio bag and school bag filled with textbooks, notebooks, markers & coloured pencils. I usually take the bus, but for some reason, it seems to take forever on this day. So instead of freezing my ass off in minus 5 degree weather, I head to the subway to take the L train home.

I struggle down the stairs into the warm subway platform, I see people, alot of people. More people than usual. My thoughts are: "Oh, they must be sick of waiting for the bus too or its cold out and they're retreating to the subway for warmth." I naturally assume, everything is normal and the train will come in approximately 2mins as the overhead digital sign indicates.

10mins pass and still no train. More and more people gather as time ticks away. People are cranning their necks to see if they can spot any sign of the headlights of the train - nothing. No lights, no whoosh of wind coming through the tunnel, no rumbling sounds on the tracks. 20mins, still no train and at probably close to 30mins, sign of track life appears and we feel the whoosh come through the tunnel and the L train finally arrives. At this point, I'm surrounded by a bazillion people, and note I am still armed with my art supplies.

We all stuff in. I find a good spot to stand, close to the exit so I can take my leave in about 2 stops. We all file in, find our places and brace ourselves for the inertia sway of the train taking off from the station. But the doors never close, the train never moves. The inertia I was anticipating never happened. And it never happened for another 15mins! The automatic announcement is made that there is a delay. We all wait patiently in the train, waiting for the doors to close.

Another automatic announcement is made, that the delays are due to traffic ahead on the track. Then automatic another announcement is made that the L train is out of service. People start to file out, frustrated and sighing. But there are some who remain, steadfast in their postion hoping that this is merely temporary and we'll be off soon. I am one of these hopefuls.

So I stand and wait. I pull out my phone to listen to some music and keep myself entertain or more truthfully, prevent myself from staring at the man in front of me who shows clear signs of agitation at this delay but refuses to leave the train. He is hopeful too, but a frustrated hopeful.

Finally, the conductor comes on and announces that the train is in service and that we will be moving shortly once the incident ahead of us has been cleared. 10mins later, we are finally moving...VERY SLOWLY...and then, we stop - right in the middle of the tunnel. GREAT...then we start moving again and literally crawl into the next station. OMG this is terrible. If I walked in the blistering cold, I would've been home by now!

At last, I reach my station. 2 freaking stations away from where I started. Sigh. I'm just glad I didn't miss my Grey's Anatomy.

New York Eww #2

Someone who lives above my window, pours some foul smelling water from their window occasionally at night. Either that or that yucky smelling water is coming from somewhere above me. I keep my windows closed at night now. Gross.

Home for the weekend

It's late in New York time.
But I'm home.
And it feels so good to be home.
Home-cooked meals.
Home-made soup.
Family.
Digby Baby.
My double sized bed, fluffy warm pillows & snuggly duvet.
A massive bathroom to myself. No sharing.
And all the toiletry space in the world.
The massiveness of this suburban home,
contrasted against small, New York & Bostonian apartments
The luxury of in-house laundry.
Quiet, Peaceful Suburbia
Beautiful British Columbia
Vancouver will always be my home.
New York will probably always drive me crazy.
It's good to be home.

New York Eww #1

I saw a condom on the floor of the M14D bus while heading home.
A used condom no less.
Just lying there, in plain open sight for the whole world to see,
crying "Look at me! I'm used, dirty and disgusting!"
I threw up in my mouth just a little bit.
Eww.

Partying MIT Style

MIT Fall Ball - November 16
MIT Sloanies know how to party - ever since Jordan joined the Sloanie family, I've had this impression that anyone who goes to MIT is the epitome of dorkiness. I was so wrong. Apparently, Sloan is where the cool dorky kids go (if such a concept does even exist) but regardless, these Sloanies know how to have a good time.
I've been introduced to the infamous 141 parties and the Sloan potion and just this weekend, I've attended the "must-attend" event of the year - The MIT Fall Ball held at Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. Everyone got glammed up and with an open bar, we danced to a mixture of 80s and Top 40s music. Clearly, the DJ misconstrued the age bracket of this group of grad students - Jordan and I were born in the 80s! Nevertheless, we had a good time. Who would have thought Bhangara music would be sucha hit with B-school students? *grin*

The Art of Fabric Swatch & Paint Chip Collection

In the course of my studies at Parsons and my stay in NYC, I've learnt the subtle techniques of getting things for free/cheap (ie. free furniture from the garbage, getting into museums for free, cheap Broadway tickets, cheap drawing paper = legal sized Xerox paper etc) A new thing I've learnt this semester is scoring fabric swatches and paint chips.

In colour theory class - I've learnt that paint chips provide a far better and more accurate sampling of colour when doing colour palettes. It saves me alot of time because then, I don't have to mix the colours from scratch and paint them into chips - I simply cut and paste. My personal go-to place is the Benjamin Moore store near school where I'm sure several art/fashion students flock to for paint chips which are of course free. The sales people don't blink an eye when I step in, armed with my computer print-outs of Vermeer and Sol Le Witt and my art bin which holds an arsenal of paints and colour aid papers, I head straight to back of the store where walls of paint chips in a multitude of hues, shades and intensities await - crying to be chosen by me. I happily gather as many as my heart desires and am never disturbed, disrupted or distracted by the sales people. No weird stares, no "can I help you with anything? but I really want to kick you out, you cheap student!" - just peace and quiet and the whole wall of Benjamin Moore's collection at my disposal.

Fabric swatch collection is a little more tricky and requires a little more manipulation and tactics. First of all, New York's Fashion district is lined with many fabric stores at a designer's disposal. And being in one of the fashion capitals of the world, I'm sure dozens if not hundreds of fashion students go to these stores to source fabrics for their projects - fabrics which they do not purchase, but merely use for presentation and mood boards. I am one of these students. Now, the rule in this particular store is that each student cannot swatch more than 10-15 fabrics. What I learnt on this fabric swatching trip, was the subtle but effective method of choosing the right people to swatch for you. What many people don't realise is that when you enter a fabric store, you cannot simply whip out your own scissors and cut whatever fabrics you want - you require the assistance of a staff person to do it for you.

Now, you can see how frustrating this can be, when the number of people sourcing fabric versus the number of staff that can help you is improportionately imbalanced. There are clearly more students/designers than staff - thus making swatching an extremely challenging task, especially when the store is 3 storeys big. First, you need to find a staff person amidst the isles of chiffon, jersey knits and tweeds. Second, you need to hang on to that staff person before another student steals him away. Third, once you have his attention, you need to hide from his attention the fact that you already have 30 swatches of fabric and kicks you out of the store. Although, that night when I was there I came across 2 types of staff: a) the one who is anal about the number of swatches you collect and really isn't in the mood to follow you around and cut swatches for you or b) the one who doesn't care how many swatches you collect, is super friendly and even suggests the matching fabrics to go with the ones you already have in your hand!

Note to all swatch collectors: bring a bag to keep your swatches - that way, you can easily hide them from prying eyes. Happy sourcing!