Some Suggested Reading

So, if you're reading this blog, you're either my mother or you're mildly interested in the experience of a small-town Texan in New York. And my mom informed me the other day that when you hit "next blog" at the top of my page, it takes you to assorted mommy blogs, which are great (I mean really, who can resist a good mommy blog? Pastels and chubby cheeks galore!) but completely unrelated to my own blog. If you want to read some good stuff that might be loosely connected to my blog, I've stumbled upon a few good ones in the last few weeks.

1) "New York, I Miss You." @ Cheeky Cheeky

This post comes from one of my favorite blogs, Cheeky Cheeky. Carmen is hilarious and adorable, which are the two qualities your blog needs to have to make me love it. She moved from New York back to Ohio, much like I will be moving from New York back to Texas in December (whaaat?). Reading her post is like a message from my future. See item #1 on her list of things she misses about New York:

Food At All Times- When you live in New York, you tend to take for granted the fact that you can get thai food delivered to your apartment at 3AM any night of the week. You can also get liquor delivered to your office (I srsly did this ALL the time. Ooops?) Ohio doesn't work like that. We've got delivery pizza... and that's about it. Oh, and they stop delivering at like 10pm. If you've got the munchies late at night, you have to get your ass up and make food in this foreign land called a "kitchen." THAT'S NOT LIVING, MY FRIENDS! Not only that, but all this food that you can get at all times in New York is DELICIOUS. Some of the best food you'll ever eat. UGH- get in my belly!

2) Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess)'s New Book Let's Pretend This Never Happened

The Bloggess is, as millions of people (LITERALLY) have attested, is REALLY funny. And guess what? She's from Texas! Her book, which I had the privilege of sneak-peeking at my internship, is as funny as her blog and it includes lots of stories about growing up in West Texas. If you're cheap and don't want to buy her book, at least visit her blog. Here is one of many beautiful nuggets:

It’s 2am and I’m only half awake because of all the sleeping pills but I just had a million dollar idea and if I put it on the internet no one can steal it, plus I’ll remember it in the morning. 

STRAWBERRY GRAVY. 

That is all.

3) "Texans Thrive in New York City" @ The New York Times

Ha! See? I wasn't just blowing smoke. I thrive. If the New York Times says it, it is invariably true. This is a nice article, although it is a little bit snooty. It speaks the truth, though. It gives some good links for Texan-approved places in NYC. I'll be the judge of that. I also approve of anything that compares Louboutins with cowboy boots:

He guides me over the wooden floors to the shoe department (“The holiest of holies!”), where he pronounces Christian Louboutin’s red-soled architectural marvels to be the most Texan of footwear. “Animal hides! High heels!” he says. “They’re just like cowboy boots! Texas is the only place in the world where men’s footwear costs as much as women’s.”

That's all for now, little bitties. Coming soon: my trip to Boston!

NYU Has Sports?

Once, while wasting time between classes in the massive, echoey lobby of NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, I overheard a tour guide telling a group of prospective students that “people don’t think we have sports, but we’re actually pretty good at them.” He proceeded to rattle off statistics about a bunch of championships that we had won, which were probably made up. I love NYU, but if there’s one thing we’re not known for, it is our athletic prowess (except in fencing—word on the street is that we are AWESOME at fencing). I love my program, I love the “campus,” and I love our weird school history — like our mascot. We were the Violets forever, but then someone had the bright idea to get a more ferocious mascot, so we picked the Bobcats, which not-so-ferociously comes from our library database, BobCat (a portmanteau of Bobst Catalog). Yet our sports teams are still the Violets. I don’t get it either. I don’t think anyone at NYU gets it. (Oh, and we were the Violets originally because Washington Square Park, the centerpiece of our “campus,” used to be filled with violets. Because of the great 1831 NYC Parks and Recreation Department’s great gardening skills? No. Because underneath WSP lies a ton of dead bodies because it used to be a potter’s field, and violets thrive in cemetaries. Yup.)

...anyway. Point is, I love my school but we’re a little bit lacking in the athletics department. (Although our bookstore does sell ironic “NYU Football” t-shirts, even though we haven’t had a football team since 1952. So appropriate.)

Every NYU student is constantly plagued by e-mails, usually from listservs they didn’t realize they were on (is this a phenomenon at other schools too?). Every so often, we’ll get an invitation to something called “Tear It Up.” Sometimes you’ll even encounter people on campus trying to shove a fluorescent flyer in your hand, also advertising this “Tear It Up.” I was vaguely aware that it was sports-related, but I didn’t really pay much attention because…it’s NYU. But, after almost three years of being away from Holliday, I kind of miss the school spirit that I was indoctrinated with for 13 years. I missed the sense of unity that comes from victory (and I don’t want to brag, but…you get that feeling a lot at Holliday). I never thought I would say it, but I missed watching my school play sports.

So, I decided to investigate “Tear It Up.” Turns out, it’s just a normal sporting event, but they give out free food and free t-shirts. I thought I would have to attend Tear It Up alone, because most of my friends are pretty dubious about NYU athletics (I can't say I blame them). Attending a men's volleyball game alone would have likely been the single most pathetic thing I've ever done in my life, but luckily, I somehow wrangled one of my friends, Kiara, into going with me!

Kiara, looking adorable while enjoying the free food.

I can earnestly say that I was shocked at the number of purple-clad NYU students that were at this men’s volleyball game against Stevens Institute of Technology. And we even ended up winning! …Or so I hear. Kiara and I left before the final set because, let’s be real here, it was getting late and I don’t have that much school spirit.

The team that led us to victory

Here's a way more impressive and valiant photo that I found here (where you can even read all the exciting details of the game!)

I feel satisfied that I can say I’ve had an experience most NYU students haven’t—I have witnessed the existence of NYU athletics. And the shirts are pretty legit!

Go Violets!!