Death to WAMU, But SHIA shines!!

Friday September 26, Washington Mutual was shut down by the government. It was then sold to JP Morgan and Chase. So sad, its been around for 119 years and its the biggest bank failure ever to happen in the U.S. The fact that this big of a bank was shut down, I think sent a big message to everyone in the nation how in trouble financially we are in.

EAGLE EYE!! My suite mate and I went and saw the fabulous Shia Labeouf Friday night!!! The tickets were a whopping 12 dollars! but for Shia it was worth it! The movie was awesome! So well done, acting was excellent of course and it was a new fresh story! The theater we went to was so cool it was like three stories high, and you had to ride all these escalators to get to the theater your in! It took us forever to get there, we left right after I was done cheering at the soccer game! We would of ended up making it in perfect timing except the ACDB trains were only running express and it totally skipped our stop, so we had to find a different train to get us to our stop. We ended up only missing like maybe 5 or 10 minutes. So it wasn't too bad! After the amazing movie with SHIA LABEOUF!! we went and got food at the famous cart at 53rd and 6th! It took us forever to get there because the subways took forever to get to our stop, and then once we were there we had to transfer to different subways like three times, so each time we had to wait like 15 minutes. Once we got our food at around 2 we didn't end up getting to our dorm room until around 4:30am, it was ridiculous. Public transportation at night sucks, it takes forever. But over all it was a fun night! Especially since we had to wake up and be to community service day at 8:30am. I didn't really sleep last night!

Today we (cheerleaders) went to a local community center and taught little black girls to cheer! and The dance team then taught them a dance! We turned on some music to dance around at the end and these little girls could shake it! It was so crazy to see. Ale was like my daughter is going to stay in a closet until shes old, because the moves these like 8 year olds were doing were way to old for them. It was scary/cool to see. They were amazingly good at free style hard core dancing! but they have definitely been watching too much MTV.

Church

So at church on Sunday I was asked to be the 2nd counselor for young women's! Bishop couldn't tell me how many girls are in it or when I start but, it should be fun! Sister Ransom is the President and she is the closest girl to my age, and she goes to St.Johns and she's really down to earth and cool! I'm going to really enjoy working with her!
Also on Sunday I was asked to teach relief society. Ive never taught any class ever, so this should be interesting. Its on such a random topic too. its on a talk given by i don't remember from the general conference last may and his talk is on abuse. weird huh. I didn't get to pick it the president of relief society gave it to me. I'm not sure what I'm going to say yet but i think I'm going to start working on it on Friday. So no worries until then!

I went to the MET this past weekend. The place is huge! There is so much to see I don't even think i saw even half of it. I took lots of pictures though, Ill put some up later. It was cool to go and see the pieces of work that I'm studying in my art history class! It's amazing how old the pieces are.

INTERNSHIP!!

So my most recent good news is that I got the internship with Prevention magazine!! YAY!! I'm so excited about it! I am taking the internship as an independent study class and its going to take the place of graphic production class! I'm so excited!! I think i already said that but its ganna be awesome! The only down side is that I'm going to be sooo busy! Almost every last second of my time is going to be taken up by cheer, school or internship! But that's what I came out here for!

So i haven't had time to write about my trip to the singles ward. Well I traveled to the stake center on the upper east side of Manhattan! Two singles wards are meeting there at the moment because the other wards building is getting work done.

The stake center as you can see from my pictures is really pretty! Its brand new and its like five stories high! I felt really young at the singles ward. Everyone is around 24 years old or older. Its so weird. The cool thing about the singles ward is that they all wear really nice clothes. They all looked like models!

So after sacrament they had this class called the new members class, it was nice because i knew exactly where to go! and the class was just welcoming everyone new to the ward and figuring out which ward you belong to and telling all of us where to go for Sunday school and relief society!

They said that my records belong in my Jamaica ward but I'm welcome to visit the singles ward whenever I want to! But I know I'll never feel like i belong to the ward, because I'll only be able to go sparatically. I'll just have to settle with my Jamaica ward, where I'm the only one my age and there's like nobody in it!

So recently I've been staying busy doing homework, working out and then eating. The food here is making me sick, every time I'm done eating a salad and whatever else I have I get this light headiness, almost like I've been smelling metal for hours and its gotten to my head. I don't like the feeling. I don't like the food, and on weekends everything closes early so I have to buy food to eat, and the easiest thing to get is Chinese food. I've had sweet and sour chicken like five times already in the past two weeks. Ok that's an exaggeration but its annoying. I hate the food here, even quiznos gets old. I need to go grocery shopping but I don't have the time, except Sundays and that's not an option.

YSA in manhattan!!

RODALE

Friday sept 12th I got to step into the Rodale offices!! It's soooo amazing that I got the opportunity! I interviewed with Jessica Sokol for an internship with Prevention magazine!! the office was really pretty! it was very modern. Her office was small and had a sliding glass door as office door! I learned so much in the interview! I learned they use CS2, and they only work weekdays!! Jessica taught me all about the magazine. They did a redesign in 2007 and changed things like the size of the font, they stopped using light pastel colors for their text, they stopped having text on colored bars and a few other things I can't think of at the moment! it was fun to find out that Jessica was working on the December issue and that's the one with the biggest loser on it so she couldn't show me!
Jessica also told me that their newstand sales are down, and there online readers are a totally different audience than the print readers.
The interview went ok, I wasn't nervous but I don't think I asked the right questions in order to leave a good impression, so well see if I get it! I feel really blessed to have gotten the opportunity to go and interview!

Friday night I cheered at my first soccer game at St. Johns! It was pouring down rain, so we wore our sweatshirts jackets and pants. It's crazy cheering at the games there's no room. I'm so glad that the band didn't show up so that we didn't have to dance at the game, because I don't think there is room to dance. I really just like competitive cheer, games are so exhausting. we were on our feet for about 5 hours. we have to get to the games so early and then sit there and wait for the girls game to get over. Its kind of sad that we don't cheer for the girls, but I don't think I could last for two whole games. The cool thing about the game is that we got free t-shirts! I like t-shirts its like all I wear!
Although the game was really long and we got a little wet it wasn't to terribly bad! We won so thankfully we didnt go into overtime!
After the game I ordered some chinese food and did a little homework while watching a tv show online! and then I went to bed!

Kei Kobayashi!

Kei from PSU came to visit me today! We had a really fun time talking and stunting! I was a little nervous that I wasn't going to be able to do even hands, but we quickly got hands, cupie, lib!! and an ugly arabesque!!! It felt so nice to talk to someone I know! I haven't gotten to talk to people like that in a long time! But I found out that Jermaine, my old stunt partner, is engaged to Ashley Hill! Crazy huh! I also found out that all three digit freeways always meet up to a single or double digit freeways! Heres some pictures of me and Kei stunting!!

Me and Kei stunting!! But we were a little off from being centered on the circle..

Taking a second!! Were ganna try it again!!

Yay!! We got it better this time!! It's not perfect, but it works!!

My roomate Maia graceously took the picture for us!! and then took one of herself!! love you Maia!!

Rain!!

So today I've experienced my first rain storm in New York! And let me say when it rains it pours! It wasn't coming down hard at all, it just came down in sheets! There was so much water every where! The cool thing about it was that it was 77 degrees outside! It was so warm out. The rain was like bath water! So I decided to venture into the city today. I went to Office Depot on 41st and Broadway. I was soaked by the time I got there! I got a few things and then I went to get dinner at this little famous cart on 43rd and 6th! I waited in line for almost thirty minutes for the food. Yeah as if i wasnt already soaked, I was after that! I was so hungry by then that I ate part of my food on the subway home!!

This week went by so fast. I have lots of homework to do and perfect amount of time to do it in! My favorite part about this whole week is that I got to workout every single day!! Since I dont have to work at this time, I feel i owe it to myself to use my spare time to workout!! And having cheer force me to workout is very helpful!! Me gusta!

I have a lot to learn when it comes to drawing! Its not something I've practiced like everyone else in all of my classes. It's fun though and frustrating at times. I like making art!

Today I finally had my philosophy class. The teacher seems really laid back and nice. Its show up and participate and get an A!! Sounds like the perfect class for me! Its wierd though because there are only 7 people in the class. Im suprised they would still have the class.

Something wierd that I noticed today is that St.Johns still has chalk boards. Chalk Boards!! I thought those were like banned for how bad they are for you. I am inhailing a lot of bad stuff here in Queens, Second hand smoke is a huge problem here, as well as dust from all the construction, and chalk poison! lol My lungs must be hating me!

Yesterday I went to Pearl Paints on Canal Street. I actually ended up getting off the subway a few stops to early and started walking in the direction I was hoping that Canal street was. Its really easy to get a little mixed up when you step out of the subway. As I was walking I got to see an elementary school, they were walking kids in a straight line to recess. It was nice to see how the kids live in the city. I having an internal GPS system was walking the right way and I found Canal Street. I was asked if I wanted to buy a purse like twenty times! But I finally found Pearl Paints. It was five stories high and full of so much art supplies it was crazy! They had everything! It was fun to find my way through all the art stuff! I like venturing around the city! its so big and there's so much to see!!

My Weekend with my Dad!!

Wednesday August 27th I went to my dads hotel on 54th and 6 ave. I said Hi to him and then i was off to get a huge fruit bowl and then headed up stairs to organize the clothes that he brought for me. I stayed in his room while he finished his conference. once he was done we went and got dinner at an indian place called Darbar! the food was yummy! After that we walked around times square and got some M&Ms! Then we went back to the hotel, planned out how we were going to get everything done during the weekend. Then we went and bought tickets to Phantom of the Opera and then i was off back to school.

Friday morning I headed back to the Hilton at 5:30am got there at 7am, yeah its a long trip to manhattan. Once i got there dad and I ran 6 miles around Central Park! then we took showers and headed for the art stores! we went to utrecht first and got tons of art supplies! the ones that we didnt end up getting we went around the corner to New York Central and got the rest! After we were done spending tons of money on art things, we ate a very yummy lunch at Chipotle. Crazy though, here its 7 something for anything on there menu, where at home its like 4 something. After we were done eating we headed back to the hotel to drop off all the stuff and then we headed to Costco in Long island! We ended up getting on the wrong subway! but thankfully it was on stop away from its last stop so we were forced to get off! lol once we found the right subway, we shopped and shopped! once we spent another huge amount of money on food and paper we had an adventure trying to get a taxi ride back to my school. We ended up having two people duke it out for our services, and we got them to lower the price from $50 to $40! We really didnt realize how far away the costco was from my school, because any normal taxi it would of been a heck of a bill so $40 dollars wasnt bad! the taxi driver was really nice he said he was from Columbia and all his family still lived back there. So once we dropped the stuff off at my dorm room, we headed back to manhattan to go see the Phantom of the Opera!! It was a really cool play! the sets were amazing! I personally liked the voice of the girl in the movie rather than the girl in the play, but it was still awesome to see! At the play there was a lady from Barcelona and she was speaking spainsh that i could actually understand! it was cool! I definitely couldnt translate everything she was saying but, i could at least get the jist of what she was saying! it was kinda nice to hear someone talk like they did on those listening test i always had in school!
After the play we went back to the hotel and fell asleep!

Saturday we woke up really early and headed back to my dorm room with all my art supplies and clothes in hand! I pretty much took up the whole room, this weekend. Once we got there we quickly dumped all my stuff off and then ran to the bus to head to target. we took two buses and got to a mall but we had to ask someone where the target was because it definitley wasnt were I was thinking it was going to be. But we eventually found it. The target was sadly under stocked and i wasnt able to finish all the shopping i wanted to while we were there. but once we got everything we could we found a faster way home by subway and ended up taking all my stuff back to the dorm room. I was supposed to have class on Sat. so the whole day was us trying to hurry to get back, but when i got the classroom it was deserted. No teacher, no note, no students, So i assumed we didnt have class and me and dad went and got some pizza at reginas cafe. then we went back and started organizing my room! it took quite a while! after we were done we ordered chinese food and started shopping online to get the rest of the stuff we werent able to find instore. Dad and I were both pretty tired so he left around 7pm and i fell asleep quickly after!

Sunday I woke up at 10am and started getting ready to go to church. Dad came at around 11am with some dunkin donuts! soon after we headed to the bus stop to go find the church. We totally passed it on the way and had to follow some missionaries to the building.

The outside of the church blended in so well you would have never thought it was a place where church would be held at all. We got there a little early, but it was good because I got to meet a girl named leda! She was so sweet and she told me how singles ward only meets in Manhattan. Leda is 21 and goes to school to become a teacher! She speaks three different languages and she teaches seminary! Shes a busy girl, oh and she works as a teacher at a school! She was really nice and im really glad i met her! once we went inside to sacrament meeting tons of people came and introduced themselves to us! everyone was really friendly! We met two of the women missionaries, one was from Salt lake, and the other was from Idaho! they were really nice as well! After church we had headed back to my dorm room to change. We had to wait forever to catch the bus, but it worked out and I ran to my dorm room, changed as fast as i could. then we got on the bus, then the subway and headed back to the hilton so that we both could change into our Human Race t shirts! then we got a taxi to the pier where we caught the ferry to randal island! there were so many people in red shirts! We got there in perfect timing and stood for a while in a huge line of people. They started the race around 6:30pm and we didnt get across the start line until ten minutes past the start time! the race was a 10k! It was pretty easy incline wise, but the only part that was pretty funny on nikes part was that there was a foot bridge that could only take so many people on it, so it slowed everyone down! we were standing waiting to get across it for like 5 minutes. but we ended up finishing the race together! and then we got free power bars, a bracelet for finishing, and some bare naked gronola with yogurt! it was yummy! After the race they had the All american rejects perform! It was so cool! there are really good live! I had a lot of fun! after the concert we got back on the ferry and went back to the hotel and went and got some food at a food stand outside. The line for the food stand was like 20 minutes long. I guess this cart is famous for its food! it was rice and lettuce with chicken and lamb and some pita bread! it was sooo yummy i pretty much ate the whole thing i was so hungry! after that I fell asleep at one in the morning only to get up at 4:30 am to take a shower. Dad got up and we both said bye to the hotel room and said our goodbyes to each other and then I headed on to the subway which was deserted at 5:30 in the morning and Dad headed to the airport!

We finished!!! YAY!!