Friday, September 26, 2008

so there's more...

this afternoon, i received in the mail a notification to take my naturalization oath just days before an extended deadline for new citizens to register to vote. theoretically, i should be able to fully participate in this year's presidential elections.

but minutes later, r called me to congratulate on the good news and to deliver some bad news: his grandfather has been hospitalized for a heart aneurysm. his mother and grandparents live in florida so it must be tough for him to not be there with them.

hasn't autumn already settled? no more things popping up for a while. it'd be nice to have an uneventful rest of the year.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

new couch, apartment, and job

a lot happened in the past few days that coincided with the changing of the seasons. if we're doing the "things happen in threes," then we should actually go back to two weekends ago.

r and i have been thinking about moving, not necessarily to any specific location but just not staying in bushwick. where we are in bushwick, there's not much around. r likes to have a wide variety of restaurants around, cool bars to stop by, and options on how to spend our leisure time in the neighborhood. that's not bushwick. we take the train out to manhattan for pretty much everything.

so after seeing some rental listings that interested us in the financial district, we decided to explore that area a bit. we liked the architecture and sense of history that the part of town imbued, but we felt that it would feel too desolate at night, as if everything there operates on wall street hours. we were there on a sunday afternoon and there were hardly any people on the streets:


we noticed a lot of sidewalk construction going on in the area.


hidden incline


almost deserted street


a section of pearl street where restaurants set up outdoors seating

but since we were also near the piers, i suggested that we take the ikea ferry into brooklyn. after all, it was free. r was game so off we went:


looking at some buildings in the financial district from the pier


pier 11 - where to catch the ikea ferry


big boats down the pier


birds


a seagull


view of brooklyn from the pier


ikea ferry schedule


ikea ferry - "furniture purchases cannot be used as floatation devices"


the brooklyn and manhattan bridges connecting the two boroughs


cranes on the brooklyn shore


2 other boats


sails


cruise ship - i've never seen one upclose; they are huge!


ikea - ikea had made a park at the pier it took over for its store


park at ikea pier


ikea lounge chairs


crane, no longer seems to be in use, at the ikea pier


part of an old bridge in the state of decomposition near the ikea pier


statue of liberty and a bit of governor's island


one of the four waterfalls by olafur eliasson


another one of the four waterfalls by olafur eliasson


a waterfall by olafur eliasson under brooklyn bridge


approaching manhattan skyline 1


approaching manhattan skyline 2


approaching manhattan skyline 3

we had been couch shopping the previous day and had looked at several stores in manhattan. r had originally snubbed ikea because he wanted a nice couch, one of really good quality and design. he doubted ikea for being known for selling cheap furniture. but we had no luck at those fancier stores and figured we'd check out ikea's selction while we were there. just as you would suspect, it was at ikea that r found one that he really liked. he purchased it on the spot. unfortunately, ikea didn't have any of that model in stock that day. we placed the order anyway and figured we would just wait until they get a new shipment.

in the subway station on our way back to bushwick for the night, we saw this sign:


"danger: 3rd rail alive" - alive like frankenstein?

the following weekend (last weekend), we figured we should start checking out some apartments that had caught our interest on craigslist. there was one in particular that looked like it had the amount of space, light, and configuration that we were looking for. we made an appointment with the broker, and it turned out that listing had false photographs. the broker claimed that the landlord was tricking people into going to the building only to offer another unit, much dingier than the unit in the photos. so he sent us to look at three other places that fit our criteria.

out of the three, we liked the first one we saw the most. in fact, we liked it immediately and only looked at the other two places just in case they could actually get better (they didn't). it felt spacious - 2 levels with the kitchen, full bathroom, and a living area on the first floor, and a bedroom with a wall-to-wall closet, another full bathroom, and a potential work room on the second floor (basement). oh, not to mention access to a private terrace from the first floor and to another terrace shared with a neighbor from the basement. the rent is a little on the pricey side - neither of us could afford it on our own - but with our powers combined, we can make it work. it's actually about the midpoint of our budget range. in fear that we could lose it by delaying a day, we applied for it that afternoon. we've been approved and signed the lease earlier this week. we're just waiting until we can get the keys. the delivery of the ikea couch will now be diverted to the new apartment.

also, i had to shuffle around some stuff in starting work next week. i had originally agreed to work on a tv pilot with someone i have worked with before and whom i really like working with. but then, i was contacted about another job, a feature film, that would start at the same time and one that would last three times as long. being a freelancer, you have to take the long jobs when you can. (r and a friend of mine concurred with this philosophy.) once i was extended an official offer to work on the feature film, i had to pull out of the tv pilot (luckily, that person was extremely understanding about it).

it's just days into autumn, and the chill has already crept into new york. i wonder if i can hold out on unpacking my cold weather clothes...

Monday, September 15, 2008

what is this world coming to

i found this article today about how human activities are having unintentional consequences on ocean life. man-made noise pollution are drowning out the ability of whales, dolphins, and other sea creatures who rely on sound to communicate with each other, thus, posing dire effects on their survival. it reminds me of another article about the surge of orphaned elephants and the destruction of their social order, also due to human activities, that has turned this normally benign animals into raging killers, in my mind, much like the african children who had been torn from their families and turned into killing machines. the fact that all these things that human beings have done, invented/created to ease our livelihood and survival in this world, have such severe consequences on other creatures, makes me want to cry in shame, guilt, and helplessness.

upcoming presidential election

the week before last, i had spent a few days in boston with my friends, p & d. p was on last week of maternity leave. since her mom was there as well, she took the afternoon off from being mommy-p to just being p. we went out to lunch and then to see the dark knight, which was even better the second time around because i caught things that i had missed the first time.

on our walk to harvard square, we started talking about sarah palin, whom we don't support. (i refuse to support anyone who doesn't support women's rights, especially when she is a woman herself. it makes no sense and shows how hypocritical she is.) we had been watching the week's worth of the daily show with jon stewart and the colbert report. as we walked and talked, a woman in front of us hung up her cell phone, turned to us, and said, "i know who you're talking about." p and i looked at each other, unsure of how to react to that statement. then, the woman said, "i hope you're not for palin," and proceeded to go on a rant about the her and the republican party.

she revealed that she had been a federal government employee and hated working under the bush administration. apparently, every time she logged into her work computer, she has to click "yes" to a statement asking if she will work in the best interest of the government to farm out as much work as possible to contractors. regardless of whether she agreed with that policy, she despised having to be forced to agree with it on a daily basis. she was so fired up in telling us how wrong she felt the republican party has treated this country that as we reached our parting ways, she apologized for having us listen to her tirade. we, of course, loved that it had happened, that people are becoming so impassioned about this election that they would reach out to strangers and share their views.

last night, r and i eavesdropped on two guys at the table behind ours, discussing palin's run for vice president. it's exciting to hear people talk about politics after all the talk accusing the american public how uninvolved they had been in previous election years. of course, being in boston and new york is partial. they're mostly democrat supporters. what i would find more interesting is to overhear what people are discussing in the mid-west and other areas of the country where they are more republican. nonetheless, this election seems to illicit more attention and participation than the previous two elections. maybe we now have more at stake, with wall street taking a huge hit today (announcement of the lehman brothers' bankruptcy, merrill lynch being bought out by bank of america, aig's close position to destruction) following a pattern of a troubling economy and the ongoing military involvement in the middle east, that people are paying closer attention. on one hand, yes, people getting impassioned by this election is exciting. on the other hand, however, it's almost as if it's only because this country is facing a dire situation that americans are finally listening up. i can't help but wonder if people had been this involved and paid this much attention the last two times, would we be in this situation.

on a side note, i received a notice from the ins that because i had failed to make my appointment to take my oath of naturalization, i will have to wait for further notice of a rescheduling. i never received the first notice of the oath to begin with. to think that having taken the oath would've secured my ability to vote! now, i have to wait and see if i can make it by election day. fingers-crossed!

Friday, September 12, 2008

rainy days and cigarette butts

i had dinner plans with my father this evening. we were to meet at the canal/centre subway station in chinatown. chinatown is always a little gross with the wafts of day(s)-old-seafood odor hanging in the air and mysterious murky puddles that if one were to see some mutated creature emerging from their surface, he/she should not be surprised. but rain elevates this grossness to another level, and it was raining.

i arrived there early, and while waiting for him, a homeless man caught my attention. he started to yell about something. i was on the phone with l and so didn't really listen to what he was saying. but the bits of "you chinese" that i caught makes me think that it was somewhat racist. he's homeless probably because he has a mental illness though, and i would rather not antagonize someone who doesn't bathe and clean on a regular basis to avoid making any level of physical contact with them.

while scanning the crowd, looking for my father, i noticed a lit half-smoked cigarette had fallen to the ground. then, i saw the homeless man reaching for it. i had to hold up the magazine in my hand to avoid seeing what was going to happen but then had to look to confirm my suspicions. yes, he dropped it on the wet, nasty ground, picked it up, put it on his lips, and continued to smoke it. after a couple of puffs and more ranting, he dropped it again. the gesture seemed almost deliberate. i couldn't help but wonder if he found the cigarette tastier when dipped in street juice.

what is it with rain and cigarettes and crazy people?

Monday, September 08, 2008

labor day - parade and coney island

this post is a little late as i have been out of town for a few days, thus, away from my computer:

for labor day, r and i met f to see the caribbean parade with the promise of coney island afterwards. the parade was more f's idea since she's from panama. r and i probably wouldn't have gone to it had it been up to ourselves. we're just not parade people. standing in a large crowds waiting to see "something" is not really our idea of fun. besides, f's mom didn't have a food stand at this event so the main attraction was not there. but i love f so we went:


the parade at washington and eastern parkway, in front of the brooklyn art museum


looked like a peacock


more parade


more parade


girl in costume

and then onto coney island!!! this summer is supposedly the last summer the amusement rides and games would still be there before the developers come in to demolish them. it's been the rumor for the past few years, but those years seem have run their course. we shall see if the rumor this year is true as we head into next year, if the coney island we saw this summer will remain the same or if we had been there at a historic season.


coney island - view from train


we took the q train to the coney island station


nathan's - our first stop, hard to imagine that the plan is to building condos onto of this structure - according to f, nathan's has been named as a historic landmark so it cannot be destroyed


our nathan's feast...or what's left of it


proof that hot dog vending machines do exist - had we not been filled with delicious greasy nathan's, we probably would've tried one


some like to roll in style


boardwalk


shadows of the three of us


boardwalk and park


in the park


music courtesy of the red boom box


we survived the cyclone!


at sunset


cops hanging out by a sign


the beach that none of us were brave enough to venture onto and we admire those who did


boardwalk at sunset


alley


games


beach at sunset


q train crossing the manhattan bridge on our way back to bushwick

i took most of these pictures blind, aiming without looking looking through the viewfinder to be inconspicuous. of course, these are only a selection of all the pictures i took, and some of these are cropped. still, taking pictures this way was easier than i thought it would be. about 80% of all the pictures were fine as they stood, without further manipulations. i owe this to using a digital camera, which i'm discovering affords me a certain liberty that my nikkormat couldn't.