#transplantedinny

[ofthevalleyarts]

Art Show: POSTPOSTPOSTPOSTPOSTPOST...

I'm so excited to be showing work with my art class next week. If any of you Internet people who have happened to find my blog who also live in the New York area want to come by and see the show that would be awesome! https://www.facebook.com/events/1554121321574344/

[ofthevalleyarts]

[ofthevalleyarts]

You Go Girl

[transplantedinny]

Guess Who’s Back?

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three.

Hello all. I am back on campus and it feels so good!. No more working crazy hours that leave me sleep deprived and with a cold. Now it’s just tons of homework and my internship. It’s a crazy world. 

As I promised earlier in the summer, this year the blog will hopefully be less like a diary continually playing catch up and more about certain moments where things feel thousands of miles away from home. It will be about the feelings of difference and the scariness of not having parents to fall back on. 

I will try to post semi-regularly, with interesting content that is not entirely text based. Leah will be posting as well. Less regularly than me, but with great posts all the same. Tomorrow is the first day of classes, so we’ll swiftly get into the real joy of being at college. But, for now, I want to share some snippets of a student returning to orientation.

I hate pretending that I know everything about this school. The first years move in and they latch on to anyone who looks mildly confident about what is going on and BOOM a question. What’s the food like here? Are people in Bronxville nice? Where is the Blue Room? I half want to lie. Tell them that the people in Bronxville love us. Get them to leave me alone until they’re acclimatized to the school and no longer rely on me for answers. But my head works past that. I want this school to actually be good. I want students to like it here; I want it to become a community. I want to make new friends, even though I know that in a school like this that is virtually impossible. So I tell them the truth. Don’t walk Kimball Ave. at night. Bates brunch is the only good meal. I pretend I have all the answers until they can create their own.

The privilege walk makes me feel uncomfortable. I have always known how lucky I am to be born into a white, somewhere in the middle-class family. But I have never thought of myself as someone in the front of the pack. I can imagine doing this same exercise at my high school. I would be strictly in the middle. Nowhere close to the front with the kids whose parents own two boats and can afford to go to Cancun each spring break. Not in the back with the kids who are on reduced price school lunch. I felt comfortable there, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. At Sarah Lawrence, I am flat against the fall, propelled forward by my white skin and heterosexuality. And it seems so unfair that I benefit from something I can’t control. I want to make change; I do my part to educate as much as I can. But I’m overwhelmed and I fear that my voice will get drowned out by the mountains of people with different opinions who can’t see how unfair and stupid their views are of people of different races or sexualities. 

Cary Elwes, leading man and hunk in The Princess Bride, graduated from Sarah Lawrence. Each year, during orientation week, there is a drive-in movie style showing of this darling movie and I swear half the campus shows up for it. We clap when our favorite characters show up on screen, shout out the best lines (inconceivable!), and someone yells, “Registration!” when Wesley and Buttercup go into the Fire Swamp. I am surrounded by people like me and sometimes it makes me so happy. It’s easy to feel comfortable when I forget all the problems we face on campus. The administration doesn’t exist, no one feels disrespected or treated badly, everyone is just enjoying the movie. The shots of joy make me feel safe and I fall asleep underneath my blanket and wake when Wesley and Buttercup are reunited once more.

- Lily

[transplantedinny]

First Year Finished

I’ve been waiting maybe a little too long to write this post. Leah and I have finished with our first year at Sarah Lawrence College. I can hardly believe it and maybe that’s why I haven’t written - that would make it final. 

But I can’t put off an ending my refusing to write the final scene. In a whirlwind of packing and printing out papers, I ended my first year. I’m back home in Minnesota now. Leah is too, but she’ll be returning to Florida soon. It feels so good to relax.

I’m not sure how often I’ll write during the summer. Hopefully at least once a month. I want to keep you updated on what’s going on, how being back is different after spending a year in New York. 

Enjoy your summer,

Lily

[transplantedinny]

Conference Week Overwhelms

I don’t know how I became like this. Back in high school all of my homework was done with minimal rushing. I got it done on time and there was no worrying about whether or not it would be finished and of good quality. 

Now I have two weeks left of school and two very important papers to right and I am unable to start them. Well, one of the papers I really need to have a discussion with my professor before I can start, but the other one I could’ve started writing three weeks ago. And I haven’t. I just keep getting side tracked. 

I blame moving somewhere new. I still feel like there’s so much to explore, so I can’t just sit around in my boring old dorm all day. I blame living with people. I want to have conversations with them instead of working on homework. I blame the sun. It’s so much harder to concentrate when it’s so nice outside. I blame homesickness. I just want to see my family, friends, my town; I want to be home already. I blame worry. I need a job for the summer and I’m not sure if I’ll get a good job, or if I’ll have to go back to waitressing, which really isn’t a terrible job, but does nothing for my resume. 

I never used to have these problems. I would just do my work, maybe watch a movie, hang out with my friends if they weren’t busy doing homework. Frankly, I was boring. I’m glad I’m not anymore. I enjoy being out, doing interesting things, being more busy than I have time to be. It might not be good for my schoolwork, but it’s good for me.

-Lily

[transplantedinny]

Minneapolis Calling

As the end of semester nears, I can almost hear my home state calling me home. It’s not that I don’t love New York - I love the rush, the excitement, all the different opportunities I have yet to take - but I’m ready to head home. I’ve made a list of all the great events going on this summer; I’ve started searching for a job. 

And in all this excitement I realized that I’m okay with moving back home in the future. Maybe not right after college - I want to explore my options a bit (Seattle, Portland, maybe actually live in New York City). But, if nothing fits quite like Minnesota does, I’m okay with going back. 

I think, before I moved to New York, the idea of living in Minnesota meant giving up. I can’t handle living anywhere other than the place I grew up. But now, I see it more as, there’s no other place I want to be. I’ll travel extensively, and maybe it’ll end up being that I can’t stand staying in Minnesota during the winter, but I can imagine myself living in Minneapolis.

This is no way for certain. I’m a teenager still, and I haven’t even finished my first year of college. Yet, this marks a big change in my thoughts. It kind of makes me happy to know that I have a place to go that I love. 

Anyway, school is almost over and I’m going to finish the year strong. Lots of homework left, but I’m not gonna let it get me down. I have some cool events planned for the next two weekends, which may or may not mean I will get a lack of sleep trying to finish my homework, but it’s gonna be good. I’m excited.

- Lily

[transplantedinny]

Of Bicycles

I decided to embark on a challenge. It was kind of unfortunate that I decided to do this challenge the year that I moved away from Minnesota, seeing as the organization is based in Minneapolis and there are a bunch of events there, but some things can’t be helped. I pledged to do 30 Days of Biking - meaning I bike every day in April; distance doesn’t matter, just that I hop on a bike. (If you want more info, go to: http://30daysofbiking.com/)

It’s been going great. Despite the fact that my bike scares me (the brakes are shit, the gears jump, and hills, while exhilarating, are also terrifying), I’ve been completing the challenge every day. I even was able to make it up two of the evil Sarah Lawrence Hills yesterday, which made me feel fantastic.

Until today. Today I got in an accident, which was profoundly embarrassing and I’m still slightly in shock. I AM OK. (For the most part. I have some scrapes and my left arm hurts a bit, but I survived.) My bike not so much. The front wheel is crunched and can’t move. I also tore my coat, broke my necklace, and crushed my bike basket. 

I went to lecture even though I felt like I was about to faint and later realized I had blood dripping down my arm. I couldn’t focus at all and was unable to take notes. My arm was incredibly uncomfortable and I was unable to find a position to place it without it aching. At first I felt so hot, like I was covered in sweat, but then I began to feel cold. Luckily, class ended then and I was able to head to health services. 

But despite this accident, I’m still going to complete the challenge. I might have to borrow a bike from the school’s ride share program and count going on the stationary bike as a ride, but I will stick with it until the end. I want to do something that feels meaningful. I want to reach this goal. I need this.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to make it to this bike shop I found in Mount Vernon to get it repaired. Hopefully it’s cheap. I’d be really sad if I was unable to ride my bike for the rest of the year. 

- Lily