White Lady

Is she cold, or is she in fact wearing a beautiful mink coat?
I knew that this would make a good shot, but I'm even more pleased with how it turned out than I thought I'd be. I didn't see the ambiguity until I loaded the picture on my computer. Plus you can see the driving snow too, which doesn't show up quite as well in the others. It's a fun shot ...

White, Part 1

New York City (and much of the east coast, from what I understand) has had an unusually mild winter so far. It’s only snowed once, back in early Dec, and I didn’t get pictures. I told myself I’d go out the next day, but it didn’t snow much, and by the next day most of the snow had melted off. My friends told me that we were supposed to get snowed on today, between 3 & 6 inches. This is what they’d said last time, but given how mild it’s been, I didn’t believe it.
This time, they were right.
It started snowing at about 7 PM last night, snowed all night, and is still snowing as of noon today. But this time, I went and got pictures. There are several posts below these that have pics, and some fun ‘before & after’ shots. Even though my Canon Powershot is a little bulky, I continue to be impressed by the pictures it takes.
Snow and I have a funny relationship. I lived in Texas, where it snowed heavily, but I don’t remember it being bitterly cold, my friends and I played in the snow, and I remember it being fun. When I lived in central Washington State as a child, it snowed there too, and I remember climbing up the mountains of snow that the snow plows would push together in parking lots and playing king of the hill. (These were good mountains too, let’s say at least 12 feet high, some higher) Then my family moved to Canada for the last three years I lived with them before moving out, and I learned a new definition of snow and of cold. It snowed a ton where we lived. And it was cold. I’m talking negative forty degrees cold (which by the way, is the same measurement on either Fahrenheit or Celsius scales) where it would stay for weeks at a time. The place we lived in Canada was very rural, and I was always lonely there. I came to associate snow with those feelings, and I grew to hate it.
In Seattle, where I moved to after high school, it almost never snows, let’s say maybe once or twice a year, and never very heavily. And it’s never cold, not by the standards I knew. It was great. But I always resented the snow, even for the day or two it fell, as if it were interrupting my life in some way.When it snowed here back in Dec, my resentment of it came through loud and clear again, but as I wandered around campus and looked at things, I realized it was actually kind of pretty. The way it fell and stayed on the buildings, accenting things, kind of cool. Plus, they have the good, heavy-duty snow removal equipment here in the city, so the roads were plowed the very next day. And it wasn’t so cold. I decided to get over my grudge with snow.
So today when I went outside to take pictures, I found myself enjoying it. That’s saying something.It’s still very dry snow, powdery, like flour, so you can’t make snowmen or have snowball fights. But I saw more than a few families out with sleds, and I thought it looked like fun. You never know, it could be a good time …

White, Part 2

I’d mentioned in a previous post which classes I am taking this semester, but I didn’t talk about them much, mostly because they hadn’t really started yet. Now that we’ve been going for a month or so, I can put down some thoughts.
Statistics: I took stats before, back at BCC, but it was without Calculus, so the department here won’t accept it. It’s probably better that I retake it anyways, I got through the math ok, but I didn’t understand much of what I was doing. Stats is an important part of Econ, so I should have a more solid handle on it. It’s not tough so far, but I need to stay sharp, as I’m fairly sure it will become tougher.
Micro: Intermediate Micro is a lot of work. The instructor I have is known for being tough, and she gives out HUGE problem sets. (5+ hours of work to complete). One thing I’m realizing is that I actually don’t care much for large segments of Econ, they’re a bit too theoretical. I’ve been told though that once you get past the prereqs, the Econ electives are more fun, and easier.
Chinese II: I like Chinese, but I don’t like the program here. Too much drilling, not enough time focusing on the things I’d like to focus on. (The book we’re using is old, from Mao’s era, and I don’t care to memorize the characters for ‘Soviet Union’, or ‘party cadre’) However, they’ve been willing to let me modify a few things, so they’re trying to be accommodating, which I appreciate.
Frontiers of Science: This class has been fairly cool so far, workload is easy, lecture topics have been a bit boring, but they’re going to do nanotechnology later in the semester, and I’m looking forward to that. Although my discussion section instructor has an issue with me leaving class 10-15 min early, which I think is nonsense, but I’m not going to go into a rant on attendance policies and all the things that are wrong with them. *muttering under breath … ‘Freaking Bolsheviks’ …*
Music Hum: This class, which covers the history of music in the west, has actually been pretty cool. I finally understand what the Baroque period is, when the great classical composers lived, and so on. Plus we’ve listened to some GREAT music. We’re going to go see an opera in about a month, I’ll be sure to post it when we do. The first three subjects chew up the most of my time, the last two are fairly easy. One of the difficulties I’ve discovered is that I’m busy enough going to class, recitation, turning in assignments that I sometimes don’t have much time to just think. To sit down and learn, think about & absorb material. Which is a problem. But I think I’ve finally gotten a feel for how I need to budget my time, so I believe this will improve.

White, Part 3

Last night, I went out and did something I have been meaning to do since I arrived in the city, and really long before that even. I started learning to dance. And it was amazing.The church that I’ve been going to, which is a great church from what I’ve seen, has a kind of dance club, and they had an event last night. They were teaching tango, and my real interest is swing, but I figured it would be fun to just jump in and get started. I’m glad that I did. Tango is fun, and not too difficult I’d say. The steps aren’t that bad if you’ve got a decent partner. The music doesn’t have much of a beat though, so feeling how to step in time with the music takes a little doing. I’d say there were maybe 50 people altogether, different ages. I ended up spending most of the evening hanging out with a group of students from NYU. They were all a bit younger than myself, but they were fun and energetic, it was a good time. I danced with a few different girls, the instructor had us switching partners constantly, but one girl in particular stood out. Her name was Leah (sp?). She was one of the NYU students, I ended up getting paired with her and then she introduced me to the rest of the group. She’s tall, six feet without heels, so in the dance shoes she wore, she stood just about eye to eye with me. And I found that there were some real advantages to dancing with a girl who’s the same height. With all the other girls (who were shorter) I had to step more shallowly to not overwhelm them, but with Leah, I could step fully, naturally, and she could follow me without any trouble. She also just really enjoyed dancing, she was energetic, always game to try the new steps the instructor showed us, and wasn’t at all upset when we crashed into other people a few times. (I’ve heard it suggested that girls have the harder part of dancing, because they have to do everything the man does, but backwards. I’d just like to say, leading isn’t as easy as it might seem either. You’ve got to pay attention to where your partner is, help her keep her balance, not overwhelm her, etc. But you also have to be watching out so you don’t crash into things, and you have to plan your steps ahead if there are other people on the dance floor. It can be tricky.) I had a great time dancing with her, and meeting the other people in that NYU group. I’m still all about learning swing, but I think I may learn tango and salsa too, which seem to be the other two major “groups”. I enjoyed dancing even more than I thought I would, and I’m definitely going to make a point of doing it more.

Busy City Streets

The streets of New York aren't normally like this. Usually you have a seemingly endless river of taxis ... unless you want to catch one, and then they're all taken. So to have streets this quiet & empty, you have to wait ... well, for a snowstorm, apparently.

Before & After

Sorry about that guy standing in the first one, I don't have Photoshop loaded right now or I'd edit him out ... or at least replace him with someone who's better looking ...

Ignore this post, Part 2

Here's another fun one ...
you can go back and see the earlier "Ignore this post" for reference ...

Remember this guy?

More fun to come ...

Picture

I'd meant to start including a picture with each post, makes them more colorful that way, here's the one from the last post. This is a shot of Riverside Church, an old and pretty well-known church just down the street from my building. I've always had a thing for old churches, and this one is pretty impressive. One of my good friends told me that it has a great pipe organ, I still need to go check it out.

Useful outside New York

Something useful I found to pass along to others ...

My aunt sent me an email to let me know that starting today, Feb 1, cell phone number lists are being made available to telemarketing companies. However, you can place your cell number on the Federal Do Not Call list by calling the number below, or going to the listed website. (I used the phone number, only took a minute or two) The number, once registered, will remain on the list for five years.
I always hated getting those calls when I had a land line, and the last thing I'd want is to get them on my cell.

888-382-1222
OR
www.donotcall.gov