I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
Today was my first truly snowy day in NYC! Holla!
(Cue the sound of crickets).
It snowed inches upon inches. Kathy told me the night before that perhaps there’d be a snow day and thus, a long weekend, but I dismissed the sentiment. I made copies for my Friday classes and laid out a stylish and comfortable Friday outfit. I have two windows in my room that face another building, so I didn’t realize how snowy the city was until I walked outside.
Kathy (the seventy-something woman who is the primary renter of my apartment): There’s this other bar around here called the Ding-Dong Bar.
By the the time my boots were clicking along the sidewalk again, the delicate piles of snow had melted from the cars parked along the street. The doorman of the building I can’t afford to live in swept fallen leaves from the building’s entrance to the curb. They crunched defiantly. “I’m sorry,” he said when I passed. I don’t know why - perhaps he realizes that I wish I could afford to have him ring up my guests and accept my packages. “But happy Thanksgiving!”
What I vow every time I go to the grocery store:
When I go home for Christmas, I’m bringing back as many boxes of cereal as I can fit into my luggage.
They say you can buy anything in New York. There are stores that only sell clothing for dogs. Or stores that only sell cheese…or condiments…or condoms. (That one’s called Condomania).
Bobby: I know we live in New York City, where there are tons of famous places to eat that you can only find in New York, but…
I got home after walking around in the rain and cold yesterday to find that the radiator was working. Finally! It makes a fabulous wheezing noise and (I hope) will enable me to get out of bed with more enthusiasm. Each morning, I have to wake up, pull the covers over my head as I curl into a ball, and count at least three minutes one second at a time. I have to physically prepare for the cold startle when my bare feet touch the floor. In apartment buildings, the super controls when the radiator will come on. Some buildings have a system that turns them on once temperatures drop to a certain point. Mine depends on some rude guy named Pedro. I’m making this up. The super’s Dominican, I hear he’s rude, but I don’t know him or his name.
Howdy.
I said goodbye to my students today. Mind you, I’ll still work with my classes once a week, but they’re not my sole responsibility anymore. Woo hoo! Students took it fairly well that I am taking on another position at the school. I first told the news to Hicks’s homeroom. Some students broke out into very rude applause, which made me feel a bit bad. I can be honest about it, and I know I was not demanding anything from them that they couldn’t and shouldn’t deliver. It’s not my fault that some of them were so angry, disruptive, and apathetic. I know very well that I didn’t positively reinforce any of this behavior. My girl students were the ones who were most taken aback. Some asked me not to leave. One girl - a student it seems that only liked and did work in my class - stormed out of the room, was gone for twenty minutes, returned quietly to finish her work, and then told me she would never speak to me again. Hmmm….okay.
Bobby has shared some pictures from his cell phone and I feel obligated to post these, especially because I never took lots of pictures of the big ole city of New York the way a good Southern girl would do. I actually didn’t even bring a camera with me, because I wanted to pack more clothes. Sigh. Priorities…
“Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away…”
They were. Bobby, my teacher friend from I.S. 666 has been suggesting we hang out since school started. It hadn’t happened until yesterday, though. One weekend he went to Florida. Other weekends I spent alone, recovering from a week of school. Yesterday, we finally met up on the Upper West Side, ate at Koronet, and ventured downtown. Bobby jokes that the farthest downtown he goes is our West Harlem school, because he lives all the way uptown in Inwood. He could gallop to the Bronx in mere minutes…if he ever wanted to. (I’m kind of an NYC geography snob. The Bronx and Queens have nothing going for them, as far as I’m concerned. Oh wait, the Bronx has a Target. That’s it).
