Catchup...again.

On Tuesday I got a call from the Chinese speaking Sister missionaries. They were taking a new member to the temple to do baptisms and they needed someone that spoke Chinese to help. The Chinese Elders were there too, with a new member. It was a lot of fun. They really don't have any learning materials, so I'm going to contact the mission office and see if I can't help them out. They also showed me the Chinese Preach My Gospel handouts for the Plan of Salvation, and there was the Wu family that Elder Mendez and I taught in good ol' Xihu. They're an awesome family, they're sealed now.

After we me up at an Italian restaurant to celebrate Andrea's birthday it was a great dinner and everyone had fun. Afterward we went to go get cupcakes (apparently that's the cool thing to do here now) and when we got to the place we sat down outside waiting for the rest of our group. But we found out that we got there just before they closed so we got locked out. The girls all pleaded but didn't get anything and one of the girls kind of freaked out too. She yelled at them "this is totally lame! Come on, customer service dude!" But then this gay couple was in there (we were in Chelsea) and they saw, so they bought her a cupcake. Plus, one of the workers came out and asked what the girls wanted. Anyway, the girl that freaked out felt bad! Someone had a candle so we randomly asked some guy for a light and sang to her on the street.

Yesterday I saw "Company" with Andrea. It was really well done. The set was really minimalist, and all of the actors played their own instruments. It was interesting because a man would be singing about his wife, and his wife would be playing the counter melody on a violin. For the most part, I really enjoyed it.

Another good day at work today. Just a lot more research. Tonight I went to a meeting of all the interns from BYU with some of the BYU alums that are working in NY right now. It was really interesting. My brother Mike was there as well. We rode the train together back home so we got a chance to catch up.

Catchup!

OK so I missed a few days...I've been a little busy since I started work. Monday I went to work at the Daily News Building. The building is really cool and I like working in the financial district. Everyone at work is really nice and I'm having a lot of fun. My supervisor, Alli, is really cool. She used to work for a fashion magazine, I think. I have to be careful about what I post about work, but I don' t have anything bad at all to say so it works out!

My first day was fun, but I had a lot of training. Then I went to my desk and learned WordPress, and HTML coding. The guy at the cubicle next to mine is an admin. He's really funny because he talks to himself all day long. At one point he was doing it really bad, until he said "Have you ever seen that episode of Will and Grace..." and I realized he was talking on the phone that time! He's nice about it though. He was like "I'm sorry...I talk to myself." I also went out to lunch with Dave who is another intern here from BYU.

That night we went out to Central Park and met up with the Professor that's here with the BYU group. The Comms department has a big group of students interning right now and they all live in the international housing at Columbia. I'm not in that group, but it's fun to meet all of them and hang out.

This week I've been doing research on online media music. There is a lot of cool stuff now that I've found. I'll have to put all of the info on here when I'm done. They want to make an online media platform that has all of the info for new technology. I also sat in on a meeting with my whole team about a NGT video. They are really impressive. We saw one version of the movie and they thought of all these things to make the movie less corporate. I might be helping to get some sound clips from my friends about how important things like SNS and mobile are to them.

Thursday I met up with Lisa and Phil, who are both with the Columbia group. Lisa plans a lot of excursions which is a lot of fun. Thursday night we went to this old bookstore and then went to St. Mark's and ate hummus at this really cool Greek cafe.

The next day we went to the lottery at "The Drowsy Chaperone" which is the best musical tony award winner this past year. We won $25 tickets in the front row. It was SO funny. The premise is a guy in his apartment that plays a record of an old musical and the musical comes to life. He narrates as it goes. It was awesome. We ended up wandering around forever just for fun.

On Saturday we went to Stake Conference which was awesome. Stake Conference gets translated into ASL, Chinese, Cantonese, Spanish, everything here. It's pretty impressive.

That night we went all the way up to 175th street (and I found out that the Seinfeld cafe is just north of my house) to go to a Dominican restuarant. Sunday after church we made dumplings at my house and then I went up to the International House with the Columbia kids to have cookies at that Professor's house.

Last night for FHE we went to the Shake Shack which had great shakes and burgers and has seating in the park with lights up in the trees. It was a nice atmosphere. We also saw Joey Slotnick (Ellen, Boston Public) on the train. My first B-list celebrity! I met a guy in the ward that's from Nanjing. He's really nice. He got baptized while he was at school at Harvard.

Church

So today was my first day of church in New York. It seems odd. Like on the subway on the way a big group of people got on and you could tell they were all members. So I chatted with them on the way down. Its also weird because its right across the street from Lincoln Center (home of the Met, the Ballet) and the temple is in the same building. Everyone was really nice. Mike warned me that people aren't quite as friendly towards interns because they know they're just going to leave in a few months anyway, but it helped that Mike's in the ward, so everyone introduced themselves to me. Mike gave a great talk, and I actually subbed for Gospel Essentials which was really fun. Everyone was really appreciative. I met a couple of the interns from BYU that are all living in international housing at Columbia, and I hope to meet up with them and hang out this week. I also met this guy that is an intern at my company working closely with my group. He is a really nice and willing to answer any questions. Then I went back to Mike's apartment and he made fried rice for me. I'm excited to start work tomorrow!

Spiderman 3

My roommate (the Actor) asked out a girl from the ward, and asked if I wanted to go on a double date with his best friend. So we went to go see Spiderman 3. I had a really good time. My date is an actress as well (another MDT major, she was friends with Tony at the Y). She was cute and fun. She's off this summer to tour for--get this--High School Musical. I hope you guys appreciate that! She said she ran into Matt Damon the other day--literally. She was running late for a rehearsal, and she accidentally ran onto a movie set on the street...the guards let her pass because she was in all her rehearsal clothes and makeup, so they thought she was working on the film! And she bumped into him.
Spiderman 3 wasn't great, but seeing a big-budget movie is always fun. I think Toby McGuire is getting fat. I swear I saw a lot of double chin action. Plus I don't think that was Kirsten Dunst's real voice. I also don't understand why the Sand Man could just hop a fence and get into the secret testing area when he turned into the Sand Man. We need to take extra care to protect the secrecy of our high level government project...quick, put up some chicken wire.

The Promise School

I went with Mike to the Promise School in Harlem this morning. It was really fun. This school is privately funded and they teach low-income kids. We were with the kids that were about 7. A lot of the other volunteers were from the ward. One served in the Taipei mission. We basically just played with them. They were so funny. I think at one point I had 6 kids using me as monkey bars. I kept giving airplane rides, but this fat kid wore me out. The funniest part was some kids said they could breakdance, and I saw a couple of girls do the robot for a while. That was dang funny. It interesting here in New York, every subway stop is a completely different culture.

Cafe Lalo

We went to Cafe Lalo tonight, which is in "You've Got Mail." Its the place that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meet up in (with the rose). It was really good, I got this roasted eggplant and mozzarella sandwich. I met up with Mike's friend Fergie who is in "Jersey Boys." She was a lot of fun. She also understudied for Cosette. We walked down to the Hudson afterward and talked by the shore. It occurred to me that BYU and New York have something in common...people are always walking around talking to themselves....

First thoughts on New York

Well I'm here! I finally landed here in New York last night, and I'm officially a local. It worked out perfect because my brother was coming back from a business trip so there was a car waiting for us. The guy had the little sign with our name on it and everything!
Last night I unpacked and got into my new apartment. I met one of my roommates Tony, who is an actor. He graduated in MDT (I know...) from BYU. He seems really cool. He was Diego on the tour of Dora the Explorer (beat that!). Josh is another roommate who graduated in film, but I haven't really gotten to know him. I think they'll be great roommates.
My apartment is really cool. I'm just off of Broadway and 108th on the Upper West Side. Its a really pretty neighborhood. I'm glad I decided to stay out of the Ghetto. My apartment is all wooden floors, and my room has exposed white brick. I really like it.
Today I got my room all situated and then I walked over to Central Park (about 2 blocks) and went on a quick run. I think I saw a squirrel run up to scare a group of pigeons. I swear he did it on purpose.
Then I went down to Time Square. Its funny walking off the subway at Time Square and you can just tell everybody is a tourist. All of a sudden its "Ah jeez Madge, look there's Les Mis!"Then I went down to lower mid-town to check out my new work building. The Daily News Building (Yes, from the Superman movies everybody) is really cool, but I almost got tackled by security trying to go upstairs to check it out...I guess I'll wait until I have a work badge.
I thought that I might feel a bit like a bumpkin out here (what with high society's cement ponds and indoor privies and all!) but I think I'm doing OK. Give it a few days and I hope I won't look like a tourist anymore.
I'm doing well, and I plan to go out and hang out with Mike tonight. I'll have more details soon!