The Elephant in the Room

One of the great things about living in the big apple is all of the wonderful theatre opportunities.  Yes, New York has amazing musicals and I love going to see the big Broadway shows, but there are also a lot of smaller shows and venues that play some pretty interesting things.  Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult for me to convince my friends to go see a show with me that is a little less known or more obtuse.  I totally understand this, it's hard to shill out money for something you've never heard of or heard anything about before.  Personally, I sometimes like to see some of these lesser known shows, especially when there is something connecting me to it.

In this instance, I found out that a friend of mine was involved in a production called The Elephant Room and I decided it looked fun.  So on Sunday I decided to take myself to see a show!

The show was written by and about these magicians.  I guess the premise is that these magicians are showing off their office where they work out their tricks.  It was a very tongue and cheek approach to big time illusionists, so the magicians wore crazy outfits and would wander around the stage and pose and generally be very silly while pretending to be serious.  They did some smaller slight of hand tricks, but not a ton of larger illusions.  So while it was entertaining, it really wasn't the best magic I've ever seen.  The show was definitely one of those out there kind of shows, but all in all it was a fun afternoon.

The theatre space was pretty interesting too.  The theatre is called St. Ann's Warehouse and it is indeed just that, an old warehouse.  So the lobby is this big open space and the theatre itself is a small black box theatre with risers to put the chairs on.  I think it sits less than 150 people.

The theatre is in Brooklyn, which I think is known to be a little bit more artsy and hipstery than some of the other Burroughs.  Actually right across from the theatre, I thought there was an interesting art installation piece.  From what I read basically this guy chose a color (from the hexadecimal color system for those where this means something) for how he was feeling every day for a certain period of time.  And then they put it up in a timeline of sorts.  You see a little bit of everything in NY I suppose!

The beginning of the art piece with the explanation

The continuation of the art piece.  I'm really not sure how far it wraps around

And on a completely unrelated note:

My roommate made Baklava this weekend!  This isn't like normal Baklava apparently because the inside doesn't have nuts, which is awesome for me!  It was very very tasty :)

mmmmmmm

Nature in New York DOES Exist!

I went for a walk with my roommate today and we went to Morningside park and the dog park and there were soooo many beautiful flowers out!  I couldn't help but take a million pictures.  And I think they turned out rather well considering I took them with the camera on my cell phone.  So anyway, this proves that there is indeed nature in NYC and it can be beautiful :)

No Regrets Here

So I'm finally getting around to posting about the show I saw last weekend!

I ended up going to see a new play called Regrets.  It was basically about this place in Nevada where in the 1950s guys went if they wanted to get divorced.  I'm still a little hazy on why this was needed for a divorce, but I also haven't bothered to do much research into it.  There was, of course, also a side plot about communism.  Basically the reason I ended up wanting to see it is that Alexis Bledel was in it.  Basically I know her from the tv show Gilmore Girls (she played the daughter Rory).  She actually had a surprisingly small part in this play but the play itself was really interesting and the other actors who were in it were fantastic.  The set was also really cool in that it was made to look like rural Nevada so there was actual sand and grass and stuff on the ground and they had a campfire that had a real fire in it.

There's an interesting kind of behind the scenes video of the play:



I've decided I need to start seeing more plays. I do enjoy the occasional play, I think I just end up getting caught up in the glamour of musicals.

Speaking of plays, I'm going to see another play tomorrow!  And someone I know is in it!  So that should be pretty fun.  I couldn't find anyone to go with me to this one, but I still wanted to see it, so I just decided to take myself out to see a show.  How's that for empowerment?

Cupcakes!

Well I don't really have anything exciting to share.  I haven't done a whole lot recently except work.  My friend came down from Rhode Island to visit me last weekend, so that was a lot of fun.  We had a Target adventure along with my roommate and I was able to get everything I needed.

Mostly I felt like sharing a photo that a friend of mine posted on facebook.  I think it's a true sentiment.  Plus I found it amusing.

I'm going to see a show on Friday so I'll update then! :)

I'm unpacked!

Yes, that's right!  I have finally unpacked all of my boxes and organized my room.  Basically yesterday was an extremely productive day and I feel good about myself.  Today my plan is to do laundry, go grocery shopping, and then I'm not sure what else.  Maybe I can find something fun to do, we'll see.  Well, I don't really have anything else in particular to mention, so I'm going to get my day started.

Stories from the past week...

I've realized that there are several disjointed stories I wanted to share, so I figured I would do that!

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As some of you may know, my sisters from Japan were visiting the past couple of days!  We had soo much fun.  I can't believe I haven't seen them in 2 years!!

I also bought mini cupcakes because they were just so freaking adorable

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The other day at work my phone rang (which it never does because I'm not important enough for people to actually call me lol) so I answered it.  This was our conversation:


Me: Hello, this is Allison.


Guy on phone: Hi, do you have time for a [didn't understand what he said here] in the next 20 to 30 minutes?


Me: I'm sorry, time for what?


Guy on phone: A men's haircut.  Do you have time in the next 20 to 30 minutes to get a men's haircut?


Me: um...no?


Guy on phone:  Oh, do I have the wrong number?


Me: I think so?


Guy on phone: Ok bye.


Me: Huh?

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I'm kind of famous!  I went into TC and the description of my thesis is up!  Granted I was the one who wrote it so I knew it was going up there, but I thought it was exciting nonetheless to actually see it.

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I thought this was a fun picture from when my parents were here :)

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This place has the best french fries.  And it's around the corner from my apartment! Yaaay!

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Ok, I think that is all of my random stories for now.  I think I'll go get a hamburger from the above place and then get started on my unpacking!  (That I, again, have put off in favor of updating my blog hehe)

My Apartment!

Here it is...the post you've all been waiting for...pictures of my apartment!

(Again it was either this or actually unpack boxes...shudder)  The unpacking boxes portion of the moving will come after I finish getting over this cold of mine.  Stupid cold.

Aaaaanyway.  What can I tell you about my lovely new apartment?

It's a 3 bedroom, 1 bath.  It is within walking distance of where I used to live and a subway that I can take to work is only 3 blocks away and gets me to times square in about 20 minutes depending on how the trains are running.

I live with a girl, a guy, and a dog named Ice (The dog is named Ice, the people are not, just to be clear...)  My roommates are super nice and I think we are going to get along really well!

AAAnd here are pictures!

Ok, so the front door is on the left and that's a window to the right with a hallway curving to the left.  My roommates' rooms are to the right of the picture off camera.

This is standing next to the window in the above picture and looking left.  The doorway on the right is the bathroom and the one straight ahead is my room.  There's a hallway that continues past my room.

My room is the door on the right and you can see how the hallway curves.

The same hallway as before that opens up into the living room and kitchen.

The kitchen and part of the living room.

A dark picture of the living room.

A dark picture of the kitchen.

A better picture of the living room.

My room from the doorway.  Don't judge...I've been sick so it's a little bit messy.

Looking to the right in my room from the doorway.

Standing in front of the mirror and looking back. The door is the door to my room.

Ice the dog :)  He's really sweet and very quiet and well behaved.

And that's it!  That's my awesome NYC apartment :)

Bonus Post!

Yes indeed, it is a Bonus Post!!!!

First of all I want to brag about myself a little bit, so I thought I'd share the photos my grandma sent me of the cross stitch that I made for my grandfather.  I worked really hard on this and I'm really proud of the way it turned out :)

The finished piece

My grandfather! :)

Anywayyyy, back to other matters.  So many of you know that I did indeed find a job but you probably have no idea what I do!  Well, let's clear that up right now.  I may not have posted in a while but I have been keeping a running list of things I wanted to share about my job so here goes:

I am indeed working freelance for BBC America (yes, the TV channel).  My title is Digital Content Assistant in the Digital Distribution Department.  Basically we deal with the shows that get shown online, in places like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and XBox Live just to name a few.  It's pretty cool and the people I work with are really awesome so so far, it's been great!

Here are the highlights of my job so far:

• Bagel Fridays....yes, every Friday there is an assortment of bagels to choose from.  It's pretty much the best thing ever.
• I've learned how to spot British spelling from a mile away as part of my job is to "Americanize" episode descriptions, meaning that I end up changing a lot of S's to Z's and taking out a lot of U's.
• Also having to do somewhat with the previous bullet point, my first week I learned what a "spanner" was.  Turns out, it's a wrench.  Yup, I had to google that but hey, now I know...and so do you!
• There is a guy who sits near me who I swear sounds exactly like Alan Rickman.
• One side effect of this job is that I now have all these new shows that I really really want to watch, but of course have no time to do so.  It also means that if you give me a title of a British television show, I can probably tell you if it's from the BBC or not.
• Speaking of if a show is part of the BBC or not.  One thing I've learned, which yes, I didn't know, is that not everything British comes from the BBC.  Downton Abby is a perfect example of this.  Yes, it's British...No it does not come from the BBC.

Ok, well that was my running list :)  My next post shall be about my apartment but I haven't had the chance to take pictures of it yet so....that will happen eventually! Huzzah!