Continuing the De-clutter Saga

Just an update, to let you guys know that I haven't altogether given up de-cluttering just because I'm on the other side of the country. I've been amassing a large Duane Reade bag full of clothes that I don't like anymore. It's been sitting rather unattractively in the corner of my side of the room, so I finally took it to Goodwill today! I am so pleased that there's a Goodwill right on 23rd St., not even a block away from my dorm.

I didn't have time to do any shopping though, despite REALLY wanting to. It's too bad, because I could really use some new clothes to fill the space of the ones I didn't like anymore. I also want some things to decorate our apartment with, because it turns out I will not be studying abroad in Paris next semester like I thought I would. Luckily I was prepared for this possibility, and I'm now looking into summer study abroad programs. Don't worry. Anyway, it was a productive day today. :)

Sites I Like #8: Des meubles de cuisine à petits prix

Something I've noticed since spending lots of time in my new dream dorm is that, no matter how pretty and clean a place is when it's brand new, it takes a certain amount of effort to keep it looking nice and comfortable. Our kitchen is one place where our filthiness likes to manifest itself. Neither my roommate nor I do the dishes on a regular basis. Unless you could call "whenever we run out of dishes and decide to do them all in one fell swoop" regular. I'm kind of a hypocrite, because of my history with de-cluttering and my manic need for things to be organized in my California home but not in New York. But I feel like I'm allowed to be messy since I'm in college.

Whatever my excuse, our kitchen gets dirty. It's still pretty, but if you actually look at the floors and run a hand along the granite counter top, you might just recoil in disgust. And, instead of cleaning or doing the reading I need to do for Francophone Literature (in which I have an impossible-sounding midterm on Wednesday), I thought I would present you with this wonderful link to pictures of Low-Cost Kitchen Furniture. Enjoy! It's in French, but I mean... all you really need are the pictures. Maybe someday I will translate the blurbs as an exercise for myself, since I'm taking Translation now, but for now... I don't wanna learn. I do what I want! A lot like Mindy Kaling and Cartman.

NYU: Walking the Walk

So aside from feeling guilty that a) I haven't done any homework yet this long weekend (we have today and tomorrow off for "fall break" - HA) and b) I just spent a total of about $267 on a new coat and boots for myself (I actually feel kind of wretched and nervous, but I need these things! I essentially deconstructed my old coat because the cheap snaps fell off and I tried to re-sew them numerous times to utter failure), I would say I've had a pretty good weekend.

I went with C and her friend M to Prospect Park yesterday. It's in Brooklyn, for those who don't know. We had a lovely picnic, which resulted in the glorious gift of my having guacamole which now desperately needs some chips to go with it. We saw cute children on boats, many many wedding crews taking pictures, and the beginnings of fall colors. We also visited the zoo at the park and had a lot of fun randomly talking about and cooing over the animals.

After that we went on a tour of the Tenement Museum, which was very interesting! I'm not usually a history person, but I can take it in short bits like this; the tour was about an hour long. We learned that sometimes in the garment workers' working areas it would get to be 120 degrees! I thought that was unbelievable; I'm amazed anyone survived those conditions.

Right near the Tenement Museum is a vegan/gluten-free etc. bakery called Babycakes, where I got this crazy, cute cookie sandwich thing. It's a teeny tiny bit expensive, but pretty impressive for not using animal byproducts!

It's been a good couple of days. Now it's time to creep ashamedly back to reality on all fours, head bowed and ready to work. I'm getting kind of worried that I don't take my work seriously anymore. I think I overcompensated with enthusiasm at the beginning of the year.

NYU: Faux-pas

Relationships seem so complicated to me. Especially the beginnings. Not only the romantic ones, even though I think that I may be on the brink of one? but just with all people. There's this weird sense that you don't know anything about the other person, and it's true to some extent; people often fall into your life seemingly from out of nowhere. Then there's a process of learning all about them, what their beliefs and memories are, and how they see the world. I'm making it sound tedious, like I don't enjoy it, but I do enjoy it. It's just that there are all these weird social norms and subtleties to the art of befriending a new person. (I can't imagine having to abide by all the superfluous rules of something like Victorian society.) It's probably not all that, but I guess my problem lies in how to act friendly without being annoying or clingy.

Lately, I've been discovering that I'm kind of a rude person. By "lately" I don't even mean "lately;" I mean "the past four months or so." Realizing this makes me very grateful to have the friends I do, because they understand that my sense of humor involves a lot of insincere insults that are really meant in the most affectionate of ways. My upbringing was strange, in that my family has never been a particularly affectionate one in the physical sense. It is true that, probably because of this, I have a high sense of respect for other people's personal space. But maybe too much so.

Dorm Delightfulness on the Cheap

Katherine of BackGarage sent me this really cool article from the New York Times about the creative ingenuity of college students in their dorms. Some of the ideas these people dream up are amazing!

The only thing that makes me cluck a bit at the article is that a lot of the students showcased go to design schools! I mean, obviously they're going to be amazing and put all the rest of us to shame. I wish I had the cleverness they did. But I do think there's something to be said for discovering frugality during the college years.

Personally, I have been spending more money than I'd like to lately. But a lot of it is on necessities like food and shampoo, stuff like that. So I'm not really stretching my budget, per se. However, I can hardly dream of spending anything on design-ish things right now, because I'm all about function over fanciness haha. Make no mistake, though, I would love to have a more personalized dorm space. My current room, as you probably noticed in my post on Gramercy, features two measly posters and a lot of blank wall. I'm just cheap. Furthermore, NYU doesn't allow us (technically) to bring in outside furniture. Whatever, I'm making excuses for my lack of creativity.

For now it's nice to look at the pretty pictures in the article and be jealous of the creativity of others! Thanks so much for the link Katherine!