Goin' to Hang With the Gays, Yeah!!!

A bulk of our (so far, completely fascinating) J-school experience involves covering individual beats--each of us reporting on a separate neighborhood for the entire time we are in the program. We were given our assignments for our neighborhood beats today. We knew this was coming, so we were all a bit excited and anxious to find out where our second homes would be for the upcoming months. The very informal ceremony of handing out neighborhoods was held with a tiny bit of fanfare--one of our professors (Wayne Svoboda, an amazing writer and Fulbright scholar) stood at the podium in front of the whole class, called each of us by name and then picked our neighborhood out of a hat. I was a little scared that I'd get some place out in East Queens or the Bronx--somewhere that would not only be difficult to get to, but that I've had little to no experience in. So imagine my surprise (and luck!!) when the prof says, "Kathryn Lurie," and then picks "Manhattan District 4" out of the sea of neighborhoods. Some of us had our laptops open to identify these areas immediately, so I was able to see that I, in fact, have Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen! I sooooo lucked out! (My sympathy goes out to Megan, who lives in Staten Island and got assigned to Far Rockaway.)

Morning Commute

I have been commuting into midtown from my grandmother's house in Morristown, NJ, for a week now, and will be doing so until Wednesday. We move into our new place on Thursday. The commute involves a 15 minute drive into town to grab the train, and then about an hour on the train until we get to Penn. Not horrible, but definitely not ideal. My express ride on the Q to midtown from Brooklyn will be most welcome. Getting up at 5:30 AM is not agreeing with me very well. In my sleepy daze, I seem to misinterpret things here and there.

Take this morning, for example. . . . If you've ridden on NJ Transit, you know the trains--2 seats on one side, 3 on the other. This morning I had the misfortune of getting the middle seat between two rather hefty guys on the 3-seat side. The guy to my right, who had the window seat, was dozing, his headphones connecting his head to his Walkman. (Yes, you read that right, he had a Walkman, which he had resting on his shoulder between the window and his head.) Anyway, he woke up and said to me suddenly, "Susan? Get out!" I looked at him in utter confusion (and to be honest, a little bit of terror) and mumbled, "Excuse me?" He patiently repeated himself: "Excuse me, I'm getting out." OHHHHH, I thought. That makes much more sense.

News at 11

So. This month marks a huge change in my life. I am moving to New York City and beginning graduate work at the City University of New York's new Graduate School of Journalism. When I began the tedious grad-school application process, I knew that I would apply to NYU and Columbia. I didn't intend on applying anywhere else, but then I read a New York Times article about this new journalism school that had just opened that was a part of CUNY, and it sounded terrific, so I decided to apply there as well.

After the essays, tests, interviews, etc., I got accepted at both NYU and CUNY and waitlisted at Columbia. The reason I chose CUNY--for anyone who's wondering, as I have had a lot of people express their surprise at my selection of CUNY over NYU--is because after I spent a lot of time researching all three programs, I came to the conclusion that the CUNY program is the most progressive, interactive, and attractive of the three. The (completely Mac-based) facility is amazing--it's housed in two stories of the old Herald Tribune building in Times Square, and the new New York Times headquarters are being built directly next door. I fell head over heels for the program, and I love that it's public education, and it has a terrific faculty--professors who have worked (and in a lot of cases, like most adjunct profs, still do work) at CNN, Rolling Stone, Newsday, the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Forbes, etc. These people have won Emmys, Pulitzers and the like, and I'm so excited to start learning from them.

Nate (one of my very best friends who's moving with me to NYC) and I got an awesome 4-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and we are moving in on 8/30. I am already in the city because my orientation starts tomorrow. Today I was at the school to let the techies there install all this awesome new software on my computer. (Seriously, we got hooked up.)

I was very sad to leave Metroland, but the time had come. I was feeling a bit burnt out, and I was dealing with some difficult circumstances. But I love the paper and hope that they get a new website going and make the changes they have talked about recently.

That is the update for now. Plenty more to come. Wish me luck!

Baby!

I went to Allentown, PA, to attend a reunion of my mom's side of the family this weekend. Lots of people were there--a lot of whom I haven't seen in a number of years. Here is the newest addition to the family, Harmony (my cousin Renee's second daughter), taking a snooze on yours truly. There's really nothing better than holding a sleeping baby. She's so sweet and well-mannered.

Lyric of the Day

"Dead Man's Curve . . . /Never think in time to swerve/Till my lesson has been learned/Yeah, one more lesson learned."

--from "Pendulum" by Garrison Starr