Reverse Culture Shock in NJ

I have always had a perspective on suburbs - I don't understand them. Driving down a street, seeing identical houses lined up always reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle:


"Below them the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers there would be exactly the same number for each house. In front of all the houses children were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bounding balls. Meg felt vaguely that something was wrong with their play... As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers." (pg. 98-99)


Fun fact: A Wrinkle in Time was first published in 1962. 


This passage has stuck with me through the years.


It speaks to some of the fears I have, the same that stir when I see an office filled with cubicles. 


Suburbs have always been unsettling to me, (I don't know exactly why, it has something to do with the passage above, and the fact that I am a country girl). That unease/confusion is stronger now.


I see the huge houses and wonder how one family can fill them.


I go to the grocery store and am overwhelmed by the choices and the lights. 


I see family for the first time, and am beginning to see some of the ways I have changed through their eyes. 


I think this is what they call reverse culture shock. 


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Coming Home

I am not a fan of all of his writing, but in this paragraph, Mark Manson speaks the truth on traveling and coming home. 

"Which I guess is what the paradox resolves into: a devaluing of superficial pleasures and a greater appreciation for simple, authentic ones. I don’t really enjoy the presents at Christmas anymore, the fireworks at fourth of July, or even the parties on New Year’s Eve. I’ve seen bigger parties, been to more beautiful places, and already own everything I’ll ever want in this life. But unlike before, I appreciate every day spent with those who mean a lot to me. A quiet [soda] on a patio. Watching a basketball game together. Going to a birthday party or a barbecue. These are the events I look forward to now and get excited about, days and weeks ahead of time… And that’s probably the way it should be." http://postmasculine.com/international-lifestyle

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NY Week 4, 5, & 6

So again, I am a bit behind on my blog. But I am in the city that never sleeps, which then means that I am busy.

Week 4: Rehearsals are still going on, and going well.

For my other internship Cleo and I went way uptown to pick up costumes, and then brought them down to the Brooklyn storage space. This was made into an adventure due to the fact we didn't read the website well enough, and so showed up after storage was closed, which meant another trip.

Palladium has a lot of fire drills/alarms. The one this week caused me to be walking around NYC in my plaid pj pants and a plaid shirt. The plaids did not match.

2 of my aunts came down this weekend, so it was nice to catch up with them.

I had to ask tourists where Times Square was in order to find them. It shows I am living an anti-tourist lifestyle. Ask me to find a whole in the wall restaurant - can do. Times Square? Not so much. We also went to South Street Seaport and a boat circle around part of the island.

Week 5: It was the 4th of July. Yay! I edited and submitted my Government and Religion paper. Which ended up being 27-pages long. I am now done with that class.

I also went to the Met. Went to go see the Islamic art exhibit, ended up in the Modern Art section, and saw the Buddhism on the Silk Road statues. You can spend a whole week getting lost in that place.

And of course, rehearsal and internship stuff.

Week 6: The Week of Theater!

I went and saw Sleep No More on Monday. It is a really interesting concept - there is a building renovated to be like an old hotel, and you explore as you are following different characters in a loose adaptation of Macbeth. I thought there were moments that were really strong and powerful, but at times there were just too many people in an area.

Wednesday I went to see Fuerza Bruta. Which was brilliant - vibrant, intense, a beautiful aesthetic, engaging, and interactive. Go see it. We went to rush tickets 45 minutes before the show opened on a Wednesday, and we had no problems getting tickets. Go. Again, awesome moments, and an awesome experience. It's a show I would see again. Although due to the staging and visuals, it is a mix of performance, dance, and theater.

I don't want to write much here about either show, because I think they are best experienced with fresh eyes and not much previous knowledge.

Also this week was frantic prep for a workshop Theater Mitu is hosting. Amazingly, we got everything done that we needed too.

Adventures happened at the end of the week, but it is technically Week 7. So y'all will have to wait until next week to hear about them.

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NY Week 3

Week 3 - this week was a bit calmer, until the weekend, which was chaotic in the best possible way. 

Work and RealAD were good as usual - I feel like I am doing good work in both internships. 

Hung out a bit more with Rachel and her friends from Wellesley - it is just so nice to remember that there are other people my age that aren't NYUAD - it is something we don't realize enough in Abu Dhabi.

Shakespeare in the Park is a theater performance of free Shakespeare, (and this summer also Sondheim), performed in Central Park. The only thing is, you have to line up for tickets. With my schedule that is impossible, because a cloning machine hasn't been invented yet. But what I did find out is that you can enter an electronic raffle, which I did, and the second day I entered I got tickets! I had never seen As You Like It before, and it was awesome. A bit confusing at first, but the music was brilliant. The most memorable scene for me was the "All the world's a stage..." monologue, paired with the music of Steve Martin, which is a bluegrass style sound that made me think of home. This was a show that was well done. 

I had to go pick up the tickets early, so I also wandered the park and read The Little Prince. 

"But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart." 

This weekend was also Pride. It was epic. There was so much glitter. 

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NY Week 2

Week 2!

I stayed in the beginning of this week - RealAD and my Mitu internships are going well, they are just a lot of work. We started to learn one song with the NYC cast, and that was awesome. I love the song, and it is nice to meet more people that aren't NYUAD, because the Sama bubble was kind of translated to NY, with us all rooming together and seeing each other all the time. 

For Mitu we had to go to Brooklyn one day, which is a quieter part of the city. 

Kimmel is an amazing dining hall. Hands-down better than Hayden. 

Went to see the Broadway musical Memphis. It was good, but I have started to see some really amazing theater. The actors seemed bored - there was no passion behind the performance. It was a job. And it's awesome that Broadway is a venue that you can make a living in theater alone, but it is also sad that people think that Broadway is the thing you should always aspire to, that it is the best theater, when I don't think it is. The message of the show is something that needs to be said, and the script was good, but the performance was a spectacle - what Peter Brook characterizes as Deadly Theater. There was no drive or passion behind the acting, and so it seemed hollow, instead of powerful. 

However the show led to important conversations of what I think theater is, what it should be, and what kind of work I want to make as an artist. 

Got a third piercing in one ear. Story is in another post. But this did NOT fall under the banner of "Things That Might Make Responsible People Cringe". In this case, I was the responsible person. 

Met Jordan's friend Rachel from Wellesley, and she came over to the dorms and we all (Cleo, Jordan, Rachel and I) played cards - Oh Hell and Uno. That has been a near-weekly occurrence, and basically tells you how dorky we all are. 

Went to a Mitu/NYUAD gathering at one of the company member's apartment. It was really nice to get out of the dorms and hang out with friends I usually only see in a school/work environment. 

Saturday one of Cleo's friends was in the city, and we went to see the Highline, which is an old railway that used to run above the city, but has now been transformed into a park. Also tried Smac Mac n' Cheese. Which is spectacular.

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NY Week 1

So I have not been as good at keeping up with this over the summer as I wanted to be. But here is a roundup of my first week in NYC

My internship started well, working on a few different assignments at all times. RealAD also got off to a good start.

I went with a few friends to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Cindy Sherman photographs - if you don't know who she is, check her out - all of her photographs are self-portraits, but you wouldn't know it by looking at them. Cleo hadn't been to Times Square yet, so we did that as well that night.

Starting to figure out the Subway, haven't gotten (very) lost so far. It is also really nice to people watch on the trains, and then to see all the dancing and drumming in the stations.

Walked at night with a friend, having good and needed conversations about life and the universe.

Central Park is really cool. Trees and green and beauty.

The homesickness here is different than in Abu Dhabi, because things are similar, but different.

$1 pizza exists. It is brilliant.

I also went to Governor's Island for the art festival FIGMENT. There was drawing and political theater, and performance art and installation pieces and interactive projects, such as the Love Yourself campain.

Finally saw Stonewall. It is a small bar, off of a side street, where the gay rights movement started. One of my final papers this year was on Stonewall, violence in relation to the sixties and power, and Marcuse's theory of power, so I know a lot about the history and the legacy - more than some of my peers, which I find sad. You need to know history, or it will repeat. Knowing that those were the same streets that the LGBTQ movement started, where power was taken back, where people were beaten and fought back, is pretty powerful.

Insomnia happens. The city is louder than I remember - car horns and music and voices.

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Piercing

I don't actually know how to write this in adventure story format, but I will make the attempt.

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to get her nose pierced. This girl was not me, it was my roommate. I wanted to get a third piercing in one ear.

Neither of the girls wanted to pay an exorbitant amount for their piercing, but both wanted a clean and safe shop and good quality jewelry.

They found good shops and bad shops, and one knew of a place where the shop was clean, but the jewelry was homemade and so raised the price beyond college level.

A decision was made to check out St. Mark's Place, not for a shop, but for the jewelry.

But wait! There was a gem hidden among all the stones of tattoo and piercing parlors, a place called Jewels32, where the prices were reasonable, the metals good, the shop clean and licensed!

The piercings were done, and new friends were made. Afterwards 2 Bro's Pizza was had, the perfect end to an adventure!

A week later another friend wanted her tragus pierced, so again we journeyed to Jewels32.

Anyone in the city who wants a clean, reliable shop for piercings, go take a walk down St. Marks!

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