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!!

Things I Miss About Texas: Driving

My apologies to y’all (all five of you) that it’s been so long since I updated. It’s midterms season at NYU, and that has, of course, consumed my life.

The title of this post might be a little misleading. As a thing, I hate driving. It terrifies me. Plus, I’m awful at it. Every time my friends and I are going somewhere together and I volunteer to drive, they all insist that we go in their car. That’s probably for the best.

So when I say I miss driving, I mean that I miss the drive between my house and Holliday. It’s a 14-minute drive full of fields all around you and hardly anyone else on the road. Even during the summer, when we’ve all forgotten what rain is and everything is desperately dry and dead, it’s still beautiful to me. Living in New York has made me so appreciative of that little route along FM (that’s Farm-to-Market to you city folk) 1954 that’s so flat that I can see the sky all around me.

Took this on my phone while driving... Told you I was a great driver!

I also miss my car. This is no ordinary car. It is The Eep. We got The Eep when I was in preschool—one of the few memories I have from preschool is excitedly telling my preschool teacher that we got a new car, and when she asked what color it was, I couldn’t really tell her. It’s sort of a goldish/tannish color. I also remember once, when it was still my mom’s car and she got pulled over, the cop had to ask her what color it was.

You might be wondering why it’s called The Eep. It is one of my family’s great folktales. I am told that it happened about two weeks after we got it. There was someone parked directly behind our driveway, which is treacherous enough on its own. I don’t have photographic proof but our driveway is so narrow (even after adding onto it) that countless people—all of my friends; all of my family; all of my parents’ friends; and of course me, multiple times—have backed off of it and into our ditch. ANYWAY (so sorry—I always get really sidetracked when telling stories, evidently even when I’m writing them), someone was parked behind our driveway, and Buddy, my (step)dad (I hate the term stepdad—it has such bad cultural connotations. Buddy is wonderful and I like to think of it like I have two equally awesome dads.), backed into said car, knocking the “J” off the back of the brand-new Jeep Cherokee. Ever since, it’s been The Eep.

One of my senior photos (can't believe it's 3 years old already!), in which I show off The Eep and its missing J. (Photo by the very talented John Walker!)

So anyway, when I was 16, I was delighted to inherit the car I grew up in.

One of the only photos of The Eep that exists. Here it is (half of it, anyway), chillin' at a park in Holliday.

It’s got over 200,000 miles on it.

Yet another photo I took while driving. Clearly safety is my priority. This happened, according the timestamp on the photo, on September 3, 2008,  although I remember it happening in Spring 2009, while driving home from one act play rehearsal. WHATEVER, my faulty memory is beside the point--it's at 217,000-ish miles now.

 It breaks down constantly in the 105+ degree summer heat, and I yell at it, but we always make up once Buddy has come to rescue me from the Wal-Mart parking lot it broke down in.

In summary, I am a reckless driver known to take photos while behind the wheel, and when I say I miss driving, but I really miss the very specific experience of driving from my house to Holliday, with the world sprawling about around me, in my 17-year-old car.

Favorite Places in New York: Peanut Butter and Co

Here’s where I am going to start letting you in on my own personal version of New York. First stop:

Peanut Butter and Company!

Most NYU students have eaten here at least once (and definitely less than the embarrassing number of times I go there during the semester). It’s conveniently located near “campus” in the West Village (I think so, anyway. It’s in an area that I refer to by the geographically scientific term “that hood behind Bobst [NYU’s library]”). Anyway, Peanut Butter and Co is pretty self-explanatory: they serve up all kinds of varieties of your favorite childhood classic: the PB&J.

My most recent trip to Peanut Butter and Co was not just out of the blue or out of necessity to satistfy a craving—I had a COUPON!!

That’s one great thing about being a student in the city—if you look hard enough, you can find stuff like this. I obtained a PB&Co coupon sheet in NYU’s very covert and underground Student Resource Center (or maybe other students already knew about this magical coupon wonderland and I’ve just been living in the dark for the last two and a half years). There is a different special for every month, so you can bet I won’t let these coupons go to waste.

I went to Peanut Butter and Co to use my coupon on my break between classes. I am indecisive when ordering food anyway, but when it comes to peanut butter sandwich varieties, I want one of everything. I considered trying something I’ve been curious about since my first time there, the Pregnant Lady (peanut butter and bread and butter pickles), but I wasn’t feeling courageous enough. I had my heart set on the Peanut Butter Cup (peanut butter and Nutella), but then I saw it… the sandwich I knew I had to get. I, of course, forgot the name, but I could never forget what it contained: peanut butter, vanilla cream cheese, and chocolate chips.

After freaking out the employee by placing my order way too overexcitedly, I got my free hot chocolate.

And then… the glorious sandwich.

It was delectable, OBVIOUSLY. The hot chocolate could have been better, but… it was free. Peanut Butter and Co is a lovely and delicious place to have your lunch (or dinner!), and it always makes me feel like a little kid. Even if you can’t make it the shop in New York, you can order some of their delicious peanut butter online (they’ve got about a billion different kinds). I know I’ll be stocking up before going home to Texas for the summer.

Howdy! (I’m supposed to say that, right?)

I’m Kirsten. I’m 20 and in my third year at New York University, and this is my blog about a small-town Texan living in the Big Apple. And when I say small, I mean $400-a-month-apartment-in-Brooklyn small.

That's me. See? Some of us actually do have big hair in Texas. 

I tell most people that I’m from a city called Wichita Falls, which is only kind of true. I went to school—all 13 years of it—in a nearby town called Holliday. Along with me, only 1, 632 people call Holliday home (so says Wikipedia). That still seems like too many people to me. Let me give you some more accurate statistics. There were 51 people in my graduating class, and the class that graduated a year before mine had about 80, and that felt bigger than Texas itself. I was one of five or six people from my class going out-of-state for college—and I went to the place that is the literal opposite of my hometown.

Here are the top 3 questions I am asked by people in my hometown about living in New York:

1) Why NYU/why New York?

NYU has a spectacular creative writing program, which is what drew me in initially. I’m now a student at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, a unique and fantastic program that’s allowed me to pursue my weirdly specific interests and get a degree in them. As for New York: it’s true what they say. It’s the greatest city in the world. It’s a concrete jungle where dreams are made up, etc etc. I have gotten to do so many things I would have never experienced.

2) Do you like it?

I love New York. (Well, most of the time. I don’t really love New York when I’m trudging home in the pouring rain because I can’t afford to refill my MetroCard and out of nowhere it smells like human feces, but other than that, yeah, I love it.) But it’ll never beat Texas.

3) Didn’t you transfer back home?

No. No, random person I graduated from high school with, I didn’t. I sure as hell got close, though. My freshman year at NYU was really, really hard. Which is why I didn’t start my blog then, even though it seems like it would make a lot more sense to do that—y'know, chronicle my experience from the beginning. The whole thing probably would have been pretty depressing. Not that I was miserable 100% of the time, but I did spend a lot of nights ordering in Chinese food and throwing myself pity parties.

One last thing you might be wondering: Why am I calling myself Little Bitty in the City?

The idea came to me while listening to a song from my childhood—Alan Jackson’s “Little Bitty.” I don’t really listen to country music anymore, but when I was younger, I would belt my little heart out with more twang than Brooks and Dunn combined.

Cuuuuuute mullet, Alan.

You might have noticed the chorus: It’s alright / To be little bitty / Little hometown or a big ol’ city. Appropriate to my life, right? I moved from a little hometown to a big ol’ city. And when I moved to New York I felt, well, little bitty. I was all alone among 8 million people, and I wasn’t a car ride away from my mama like all my friends. I was incredibly homesick and missed everything about Holliday—my family, my friends, my boyfriend, the Dairy Queen, and even Friday night football (something I HATED in high school). And it seemed like I was the only NYU freshman feeling this way. I wanted so badly to quit and to give up on my dream, to say Hey! I gave it a good run, but it wasn’t for me. But the thought of chickening out on living in the greatest city in the world made me feel little bitty. Being alone in the city made me feel little bitty, too, but I knew giving up on the dream I had since I was 12 would make me feel even bittier. So I forced myself to smile and trudge on, and as it turns out, I learned that life does go on for a little bitty while.