I moved into this apartment four years ago
I recall that I spent January 3rd traveling on subways with suitcases and backpacks right after a major winter storm, and finished the trips after midnight.
I spent January 3, 2018 in a way that I think represents my time in this city pretty well.
First, I woke up an hour late, because I couldn't sleep the night before. Some insomnia from staying up late on New Year's Eve and sleeping late on New Year's Day. I'd taken a walk outside to cool down and hopefully make it easier to fall asleep but I left my phone in my coat pocket in my closet, and therefore slept through the alarms. I somehow got to work only ten minutes late, even though the train had stopped and this little kid in a stroller kept kicking my leg on the crowded train car. When I got to work, the front door of the building was locked and two of my confused students were waiting outside, and really freezing. The front door is never locked in the morning, and there was no one at the front desk. So I called our office and told the front desk, and they sent down our new supervisor, who'd been supervising me on the UWS until a few months ago when I became a full-time midtown teacher, but I didn't want to give the impression that I arrive late and was hoping to slip in unnoticed, as most students are more than ten minutes late on any given day anyway. So there went that plan.
I must admit that I wasn't in a good mood the whole way to work. But as soon as I saw my students waiting outside, I was all grinning from ear to ear. First I told them, "Okay, so the story is, we've been down here waiting for someone to open the door for TEN minutes!" They were confused, but I told them to just go with it. Of course, when I got upstairs, one of the students who is routinely 30 minutes late debunked our story by saying she'd arrived just five minutes before us and that the door wasn't locked then, for some reason. That said, we were all smiles and laughs, and the morning class went swimmingly. Even though I have contempt for the infrastructure of this city and the manners of many of its mass transportation users/pedestrians, all my negativity washes away when I see the smiling faces in the morning. I'm a really lucky guy to get to start my day that way.
The only other annoyance during the day was that someone had removed all the white chalk from my afternoon classroom, and I hadn't even noticed when I'd walked in because there's always a bunch of chalk. The only chalk remaining was green, and it was a green board. So when I needed to write something and noticed the situation, I cracked up laughing. Then I proceeded to tell the students the story of the day thus far on my four year anniversary as a resident of New York, New York. A woman from Serbia, who has lived through bombings and having no tap water for a year, smiled and said, "But you're laughing about it!"
After four years of getting on the 1 train at the City College station, I suppose I've learned my lesson.
That said, I reserve the right to swear up a storm whenever I'm alone and the city appears to be doing its utmost to try to get me to leave. After all, one new year's gift was that a vexing roommate appears to have abandoned his room for a multi-month international experience without paying any rent, and he was already several months behind, so the landlord is renting it. That would be good, but the latter just moved all the former's abandoned belongings into our tiny cramped kitchen, perhaps expecting him to pick it up in a few months. So now we cook with the smells of shoes and dirty clothes piled in garbage bags everywhere. I've complained and received no response, which is pretty much how things go with that guy. I wish I would stop discovering special magic places in the neighborhood so I could just leave this place behind. But ya never know what nuisances the next place will bring.
All that said, today is a winter wonderland, so I'm going to go play in the snow, by which I mean shovel out my car.
Happy New Year!
I recall that I spent January 3rd traveling on subways with suitcases and backpacks right after a major winter storm, and finished the trips after midnight.
I spent January 3, 2018 in a way that I think represents my time in this city pretty well.
First, I woke up an hour late, because I couldn't sleep the night before. Some insomnia from staying up late on New Year's Eve and sleeping late on New Year's Day. I'd taken a walk outside to cool down and hopefully make it easier to fall asleep but I left my phone in my coat pocket in my closet, and therefore slept through the alarms. I somehow got to work only ten minutes late, even though the train had stopped and this little kid in a stroller kept kicking my leg on the crowded train car. When I got to work, the front door of the building was locked and two of my confused students were waiting outside, and really freezing. The front door is never locked in the morning, and there was no one at the front desk. So I called our office and told the front desk, and they sent down our new supervisor, who'd been supervising me on the UWS until a few months ago when I became a full-time midtown teacher, but I didn't want to give the impression that I arrive late and was hoping to slip in unnoticed, as most students are more than ten minutes late on any given day anyway. So there went that plan.
I must admit that I wasn't in a good mood the whole way to work. But as soon as I saw my students waiting outside, I was all grinning from ear to ear. First I told them, "Okay, so the story is, we've been down here waiting for someone to open the door for TEN minutes!" They were confused, but I told them to just go with it. Of course, when I got upstairs, one of the students who is routinely 30 minutes late debunked our story by saying she'd arrived just five minutes before us and that the door wasn't locked then, for some reason. That said, we were all smiles and laughs, and the morning class went swimmingly. Even though I have contempt for the infrastructure of this city and the manners of many of its mass transportation users/pedestrians, all my negativity washes away when I see the smiling faces in the morning. I'm a really lucky guy to get to start my day that way.
The only other annoyance during the day was that someone had removed all the white chalk from my afternoon classroom, and I hadn't even noticed when I'd walked in because there's always a bunch of chalk. The only chalk remaining was green, and it was a green board. So when I needed to write something and noticed the situation, I cracked up laughing. Then I proceeded to tell the students the story of the day thus far on my four year anniversary as a resident of New York, New York. A woman from Serbia, who has lived through bombings and having no tap water for a year, smiled and said, "But you're laughing about it!"
After four years of getting on the 1 train at the City College station, I suppose I've learned my lesson.
That said, I reserve the right to swear up a storm whenever I'm alone and the city appears to be doing its utmost to try to get me to leave. After all, one new year's gift was that a vexing roommate appears to have abandoned his room for a multi-month international experience without paying any rent, and he was already several months behind, so the landlord is renting it. That would be good, but the latter just moved all the former's abandoned belongings into our tiny cramped kitchen, perhaps expecting him to pick it up in a few months. So now we cook with the smells of shoes and dirty clothes piled in garbage bags everywhere. I've complained and received no response, which is pretty much how things go with that guy. I wish I would stop discovering special magic places in the neighborhood so I could just leave this place behind. But ya never know what nuisances the next place will bring.
All that said, today is a winter wonderland, so I'm going to go play in the snow, by which I mean shovel out my car.
Happy New Year!
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