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I find that New York in winter is more attractive from my window than from the street.  The subways, the dirty streets, everyone bundled up and rushing to get inside - this doesn't offer a new resident the finer glimpses of Manhattan.  From my window when I was sick, all I saw was the view – the glittering lights, the Statue of Liberty, everything from a distance.  Up close, however, some of that shine wears off. 

Last night, the Yield Management group at Chase Manhattan Bank had its holiday dinner at a Brazilian restaurant in Midtown. ... waiters offered us 17 different kinds of meat, including lamb chops, prime rib, pork sausage, chicken sausage, steak, prime rib wrapped in bacon, salmon, ribs and chicken hearts. My co-workers at Chase really make me feel at home.  It was one night that I will not forget.

For some reason, people always ask me for directions, a big mistake. As soon as I stepped on to the ACE platform, I noticed him out of the corner of my eye, a kid with way too many bags to be carrying all by himself. ... He (asked) if I knew how he could get to 42nd Street so I pulled out my map and helped him devise a plan. I wished him a good journey and a nice life.

Working and studying in a global city has made me realize how important it is not to live in a bubble, as students sometimes do at Hamilton. In my internship in foreign exchange at Lehman Brothers, I repeatedly find myself sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the latest GDP numbers to be announced ...

"It wasn't about September 11th," David Niles told us.  We had just seen his film "Remember" in the Tribute exhibit in the Standard Oil Building. Filmed with HDTV technology, "Remember" depicts life before and then immediately after the September 11th terrorist attacks. 

Very few things make me as happy as seeing the dogs come in and out of our apartment building.  When the elevator doors open up and a golden retriever or a pug steps out, I immediately rip off my gloves to pet the dog and let out an involuntary “oh.”  Whether the dog is a hyperactive Chihuahua that jumps all over my calves or a mammoth St. Bernard that plows his head into my stomach, I adore them all.  By in large, the dogs in the building are small yippy things whose owners dress them in booties, Burberry sweaters, or Coach jackets.  Thankfully, these dogs have no idea of how ridiculous they look. 

This week was my first full week of work, but I already feel at home. I am developing relationships with co-workers and beginning to take on responsibilities. I have much to learn, but everyone is eager to help.  Hamilton College has a great reputation, which helps me but also raises the bar of expectations. In order to meet these expectations and succeed in my internship, I need to put forth my best effort. But all work and no play . . . . On Thursday, Rob and I received comp. tickets to see The Stills at the Bowery Ballroom.

New York's kiosks amaze me. Not much bigger than airplane bathrooms, they somehow hold everything one could want. They sell more candy than I knew existed and more magazines than one person could read in a week. And this is only one-quarter of the merchandise contained in these tiny boxes scattered along the streets of Manhattan. 

As a native New Yorker, I have taken the city for granted, but this program has made me see New York City in a different light.  I have been able to visit places that I never knew existed before (like the exhibit Tribute in the Standard Oil Building), and our academic classes have forced me to think about the details of NYC in new ways.  For example, this week we read about the transformation of Times Square. Kenneth Jackson argues that "what is being played out in Times Square is the tension between commerce and culture."  Even as people flock to The Lion King, Jackson argues, they are contributing to the diminishing of culture on 42nd street.  This argument interested me. New York City will always have struggles between culture and commerce, assimilation and diversity, and public and private.  Yet, these tensions are healthy.  In Times Square, for example, commerce may have diminished its traditional "culture," but that culture was characterized by crime and the degrading of women. Maybe, the commercialization of Broadway isn't such a bad thing.

On Friday at 4 p.m., I boarded the bus to Manchester with other staff from the NYC headquarters. ...We arrived after midnight, so we went straight to the YMCA in Manchester. I slept on a gym mat made for a six-year-old. We woke up at 6:30 the next morning and got a head start on our first day volunteering. I spent the morning canvassing and then worked until 11 p.m. answering phones at the headquarters.