Transplanted in NY

a blog about going to college in a place far away from home

[transplantedinny]

A Short Update

Hey everybody. Neither Leah nor I have been very good at updating lately. I wanted to write a quick post to say that I am starting a radio show though! It’s gonna be super awesome and will start this Friday at 5 PM EST (4 PM for my minnesotan friends). It would be really great if you could listen. Right now, the link to tune in is: http://tunein.com/radio/Sarah-Lawrence-College-Radio-s183856/

Also you should like my page: https://www.facebook.com/haveyouheardwithlily

I am also working on a longer update that will cover what’s been going on lately. There’s been a lot. Also I’m gonna try to talk Leah into posting something.

Thanks and I hope you tune in,

Lily

[transplantedinny]

The Things I Want Out of Life

Travel Take beautiful photos Write Hear good music Connect with people Be happy Feel good about myself Laugh Read lots of books See art Learn Sleep well Now I just have to find something to do with my life that lets me have all those things.

[ofthevalleyarts]

You Go Girl

[transplantedinny]

New York graffiti is wonderful.

[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]

Summer Pt.2

I swear I said I would blog more. But, with everything going on, it makes sense that I’ve slightly forgotten about this. Sorry. Anyway, I have more updates and a promise. 

I got a job! And then I got a second job! So now I’m working way more than is probably safe, but I’m making money. I’m also sleepless.

I went to Eaux Claires music festival, which was amazing and so much fun. It felt like a small community was formed just for two days.

I applied for a bunch of internships for the fall. Hopefully something will come out of all this and I can have something lined up for when I head back to NY.

I completed an Instagram challenge (a bit late) and worked to do 30 days of amazing photos.

And now my promise: I’ve realized that this blog has become less of a blog about what it’s like to move away from home, and more of a diary entry (see above update section). That is not what I wanted from this. So there will be some changes to the blog next fall. There will still be some update like posts, but I want to have more content be about the challenges of post-high school life. But, then again, I am terrible at keeping my blog promises, so we’ll see how this goes!

- Lily

[transplantedinny]

Summer Pt.1

Okay, so that promise I made to post once a month this summer... sorry? I just got so busy with trying to find a job, spending time with my friends, working at my internship that the blog just sort of slipped away. So here’s a quick update on what’s happened here in Minnesota!

I got an internship at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis! It’s a lot of fun and I’m learning a lot about working at a writing center and how a non-profit works.

I went camping with my dad. That was a lot of fun and exactly what I needed. Sometimes I spend too much time cramped in a city, overpowered by fast-paced life. It’s good to get away and spend time in nature. 

I had my wisdom teeth removed last week. It was disgusting. Enough said.

I volunteered at Rock the Garden! It was wonderful. I love music and being in a community of people who just want to enjoy the sound and energy of a festival was amazing. 

Those are the big things that have happened. There’s been a lot going on and I’ll be very busy for the next month and a half. I finally secured a job (two actually) and this means that my schedule will be crazy.  I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to update at all for the rest of the summer. All my free time will be spent sleeping or attempting to complete the list of tasks I have no hope of finishing by the end of August.

I’m a little worried I might be biting off more than I can chew with this schedule. I need to make money to pay for SLC, but there was so much I hoped to do during this summer. I’m gonna have to power through and hope for the best.

See you on the other side,

- Lily 

[ofthevalleyarts]

Construct/Destruct

Digital Photography

[wild-walking]

Photos from my Alt Spring Break trip to Virginia with Habitat for Humanity.

[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

[ofthevalleyarts]

Old Photos, New Edits

[transplantedinny]

Hey everybody, I have some new art up, check it out if you want to!

[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]

Ink My Skin

I’ve vacillated for a long time on whether or not to get a tattoo. I weighed the pros and cons, agonized over the pain, considered what to get and where to get it. At first I looked at a lot of book symbols, but all of those seemed to only have ephemeral meanings. What would it matter that I considered myself Dauntless in 15 years; what would those flames mean? 

Then there was the fact that my mother would not like me getting a tattoo at all. We had had a discussion about it when I turned 18. She made her disapproval clear. 

So I went with what she wanted I didn’t get a tattoo and I reapproached the subject last summer. I got a tentative fine, but I was about to move and so I didn’t worry about it. 

But, starting a few weeks ago, I started thinking about it more and more. Until finally I had to do it. 

&&& I’m so happy. It wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be. It’s there and I feel great. There’s still gonna be some blowback, but I don’t care. This makes me feel good.

I got the ampersand for a few different reasons. First, because I want to be a writer. Second, it signifies a continuation - nothing has to end. Third, it’s a connection - all you need to connect two things is an and. Fourth, and finally, I really love drawing ampersands.

Also, I want to thank all of our followers. We’re past 50 now and that’s really exciting! Thanks for following and sticking around.

- Lily

P.S. What do you guys think?

[transplantedinny]

To me, from me.

Senior in high school me: Is spending thousands of dollars on an undergrad degree even worth it? I should just go the U of M... But if SLC is where I want go, and I worked really hard to get the grades to get there, I should be there, right? Ok, now I'm lost. It feels like the obvious choice is SLC. For me, I don’t think the U would give me the opportunities that I want for my future... But I think I'm scared to be in a big city, to be in a place where if I don't succeed, I’d feel like I'm stuck. To be away from my family, stability, home... But at the same time, the U doesn't feel like home; it just feels comfortable. Of course I’d do well there, but is it what I want? SLC is scary; I don't know if I’m meant to stay there. But now I don't know if I'm just scared to go or if I actually should stay. I don't know what my heart is telling me.

Soon to be sophomore in college me: Don’t be ashamed of these fears! When you thought about making this transition...yeah, you definitely freaked out. But that’s ok! NY seemed so terrifying and foreign and big and uncomfortable and you couldn’t remember why you wanted to be away from the familiarity and love of home. I’m so proud of you for going for it, even thought you hadn’t truly figured your heart out yet. Maybe that seemed rash at the time, but you hadn’t even given it a shot yet, so how could you know what it was going to be like? Maybe that’s exactly why you needed to go: for change. Perhaps you would have done just fine at the U; perhaps it would have been nice to be close to family and friends. Sometimes, however, you gotta take risks for yourself. Remember, you can always transfer. I’m so glad mom and dad made that clear in this decision. You weren’t making a 4 year commitment right then and there: you were making a 1 year commitment. Feel it out, let it poke at you and mold you a bit and open your eyes a bit. Let it be scary and uncomfortable, because never will you learn more than when you are actually forced to figure out who you are in a place that seems to be ever changing. Perhaps the U of M would still be good for you; perhaps solid ground under your feet would have helped you in different ways. But I’m so glad you didn’t let fear hold you back. You are not just paying for an education: you are paying for a life changing experience and the chance to form a new, independent, innovative mind. This is the chance to make something new and scary not so new and scary anymore. One day, it might feel like home. You still sometimes think, is it worth it? Is this necessary? But then you remember how little and nervous and scared you were when you began, and you think about where you am now, and I’m so thankful and proud of you for being brave enough to do this. 

Senior in high school me: Will I regret this? Maybe initially it will be exciting, but at the end of the day, will it be right? Will my heart still want this? 

Soon to be sophomore in college me: At the moment, you’re very exhausted from the amount of work you’ve done this year, but you definitely don’t regret this. Being away from MN has opened your eyes to so many things, it’s unbelievable. You’ve gained a kind of perspective for which you will forever be thankful. You’re different. Maybe that doesn’t exactly line up with how everyone might want you to be, but you like this new you, and the credit truly goes to taking this risk. It’s definitely had its struggles. It’s hard to initially remember who you are in a place so new, but you’ve grown and you’ve been molded and I’m really excited to see what shape will ultimately form. At the moment, you’re not entirely excited about the work your classes are having you do, but that’s part of the experience of trying new things and learning what you like and dislike.  Now, you’re better informed for the years to come. The school has a distinct personality. That’s definitely gonna take some getting used to for you. It’s amazing for so many reasons, you’ll learn, but there will be some moments when you really want to get away. But that’s also ok; that goes with every location you call home for a period of time, but the opportunities and the memories that await will make it totally worth it. The only regret you have is carrying the weight of back home with you to NY. If you could do it all over again, you would still be scared to make this transition, but let that fear pull you toward finding strength in the hope of new and better things rather than relying on the familiar groundings you have back home. You have a desire for New York. Keep fostering that. 

[transplantedinny]

Egg Shells & Monkey Butts

For the first time in my life, I spent Easter away from home. And it was okay, because while I may not have gotten to spend the day celebrating with my whole biological family, I got to spend it with my new and lovely New York family.

To start out the Easter weekend, I attended a midnight Good Friday service. It was beautiful and solemn and reflective. Candles shifted shadows on the golden walls as we partook in communion and read aloud verses older than the common era. This was the night where we did not celebrate; we mourned.

The next day took on a much lighter and secular air. We channelled our inner child and decorated Easter eggs whilst eating Peeps and chocolate chip cookie dough. I even broke out the Crayola crayons to make these masterful bad boys.

Finally, the grand day marking the end of mourning and the beginning of celebration arrived: Easter Sunday. We donned our best dresses and ties and headed to New York City for the most joyful service I have ever attended. We sang, we laughed, we remembered, we prayed, we cried Hallelujah! and then we went on our way. We met tons of new friends over brunch, stuffed ourselves with the foodgasmic creation that is monkey bread (which my dorky father has termed “monkey butt”), and enjoyed the most incredible few of this grand city from a blustery rooftop garden.

While I may not have gotten to enjoy the presence of my Minnesota family or our special traditions, this Easter gave me a new perspective on what “family” truly means. It’s not just those that share the same blood or name; it is those that make you happy and feel loved. So, in the end, despite being in the still unfamiliar state of New York, I was not away from my family this Easter. They were with me all along: from the prayers and amens, to the egg shells and monkey butts. 

[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

[transplantedinny]

Art Adventures

Hey everyone, sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but I seem to have caught the laziness bug on Sunday and I am still being weighed down by this sickness. 

But let’s ignore that and instead talk about something more interesting: art.

This weekend I finally went to the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim museum. They were crowded, the lines were long and I felt as if I couldn’t really spend time enjoying the art with everyone else breathing down my neck. But that could be because I decided to go on Free Friday and Pay What You Want day.

Art. I was able to see Starry Night. It was beautiful Just looking at it and seeing it up close; oh it made me shiver. And being in the Guggenheim building, walking the spiral. It felt fantastic to actually be in the landmarks I’ve seen in the movies. 

It made me want to learn more. I need to know about the history of the pieces and the artists and just more. I feel like a blank slate still waiting for information. It was a startling realization how little I know and I need that to change. Everything needs to change.

[ofthevalleyarts]

Things To Do

A list for the future

Based on Richard Serra’s Verb List