Urban Jungle?

If you had asked me what the very last thing I expected to see walking down 34th Street around midnight last Tuesday night, I very well may have answered with "elephants." Nonetheless, last Tuesday night, around midnight, several elephants with a full police escort came walking single-file down 34th Street. What a sight, elephants in Manhattan.

For those of you wondering if I've finally succumbed to the crack habbit, the answer is of course yes. Nonetheless, the above story is in fact true. As it turns out, the Ringling Brothers circus is in town at the Madison Square Garden. Apparently, the elephants are too big to be brought onto Manhattan Island by truck, so they are walked through the midtown tunnel and across the island along 34th street to get to MSG. Since this is a bit of a traffic disruption, they do this in the middle of the night on a Tuesday.

Aside from that, this week has been anything but pleasant. Too much work, and not nearly enough time with which to do it. With the exception of a quiet Easter brunch with a friend, I've been in my office all weekend. Sad, I know, but true.

The story so far.

I've been living in New York City for about seven months now. It's a bit of a change from Houghton, Michigan. Here's a quick summary for those of you not familiar with one or both locations:

Houghton:
-Between 5,000 and 11,000 people (depending on whether or not school is in session)
-Everyone knows most everyone else
-It snows from September to May, and this is normal
-The nearest 'city' is a six-hour drive away

New York:
-Around 8,000,000 people in the city (3,500,000 residents of Manhattan)
-Everyone hates most everyone else
-It snows a few inches at most a couple days each winter
-This is The City, there are no others comparable

I would say I've just about gotten used to living here now. I can sleep through all the noise at night, crowded places no longer frighten me, and most importantly, I can navigate the subway system (a feat many New Yorkers cannot claim, I've learned). My midwestern accent is slowly fading, as well as my desire to return there.

I'm in grad school at Columbia. While it is cool to say that I now attend an Ivy League school, I've come to learn that grad schools are more or less the same wherever you go. There's lots to do, no time to do it, but that's ok because it should have been done two weeks ago. I work with a lot of great people, and while we all have our complaints, it's a pretty good department. I have a nice office that I share with some of the other grad students who came in with me. We're on the 14th floor of our building, and our windows look south across Central Park and to the Midtown skyline. The sunsets are stunning from here. (Yes, we're usually still in the office when the sun goes down.)

I dance. A lot. I've stepped up the competitive ballroom dancing, having found a great partner here at Columbia. We've danced in several competitions already this year and have done really well. I'm also still swing dancing. I've joined a Lindy performance troupe called the Manhattan Hoppers, and I go out dancing whenever I can. I've also gotten into salsa and Argentine tango. NYC is wonderful for dance venues. You can literally dance every single night of the week. I wish I could say that I do, but sadly my work gets in the way of that a lot.

So that's about it, really. I have all sorts of "New York Stories" that I'll probably throw into successive posts here, but I've already written enough in this one. I should be working anyway....

And so it begins....

I've sworn up and down countless times that I would never get into this blogging thing. Sadly, that terrible combination of avoiding work and boredom at having nothing better to do has forced me to reconsider. At the very least, I can justify it as an easy way to update everyone on what's going on without constantly writing the same stories in countless emails.

Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, no promises on how often I'll update this, or anything like that. We'll just have to see how it goes.