Last New Year’s, I sent some friends a “happy new year” message, and my good friend B. replied: “hopefully you’ll celebrate 2009 new year’s eve in Time Square”.
That was one week before the application deadline for the M.S program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism – a dream I’d had for so long, and a dream that has become reality… here, now :)
I’ve only been in New York for four days, and it’s already starting to grow on me. I walk up two blocks in the morning to go to Nelly’s and get Puerto Rican caffe con lache. I stop by the small deli around the corner and get amused by how the Dominican guy who works there insists on talking to me in Spanish. I step outside my fifth floor window and sit on the fire escape to enjoy the view of the old red brick buildings, the park, and the Hudson river. I love the buzz of so many different dialects and languages at every corner. I love walking out of the subway at 42nd street station to hear the sound of a saxophone or percussions or gospel music from amateur musicians.
Yesterday I was walking through Soho and stopped to look at some framed prints. The old Russian man who was selling them started talking to me about how he met Duke Ellington in 1970. He took out a photograph of himself with Duke, signed with a special dedication, and then he started telling me all these stories about celebrities he met and photographed. It was very amusing how he told people passing by that they’re not allowed to talk on their cell phones, because he was afraid they’d be taking pictures of his work. I googled him when I got back home, and it turned out that this man, Vladimir Bliokh, was a renowned Ballet & Dance photographer and was the official photographer of the Bolshoi & the Kirov Ballet in Moscow, Russia where he worked from 1960 till 1976 before he left to the United States.
This morning I woke up and turned on the radio to WNYC – because, as we’ve been told at the orientation for international students, this is what our professors at the J-school listen to every morning and we have to stay on top of things. After endless analysis of the Olympics in China, John Edward’s affair, and Obama’s stand on energy… I switched it off and started listening to poetry readings by Mahmoud Darwish on his website. When I heard about his death last night, I felt this surge of sadness and homesickness. At that moment, I felt I really missed certain friends back in Amman.
There are around 61 international students in this M.S. class at Columbia, and we’ve been told that this is the largest number of international students they’ve ever taken, because they’ve been very impressed by the international applicants this year. That’s actually one of the exciting things about the program – the fact that most students are incredibly interesting people with such diverse backgrounds and ranges of experience. And then you have professors who are best-selling authors and Pulitzer Prize winners and amazing journalists. Ever since we got here, we’ve been constantly told by the Dean of Students that this is going to be the most stressful and challenging year of our lives; that we will be working 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week – that’s how they fit a two-year Masters program in just ten months. It’s funny because then they tell us it’s important that we get enough sleep, AND have a social life. The math for all this doesn’t quite add up, and it's easy to feel a bit intimidated, but I'm still uber excited… I just hope that in the midst of everything I’ll find a bit of time to blog :) if not, then at least I’ll keep a photo journal, once I get a new camera!
This post has been very incoherent, and I still have so much that I want to write, but I’m going to stop here and hopefully write some more later.
That was one week before the application deadline for the M.S program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism – a dream I’d had for so long, and a dream that has become reality… here, now :)
I’ve only been in New York for four days, and it’s already starting to grow on me. I walk up two blocks in the morning to go to Nelly’s and get Puerto Rican caffe con lache. I stop by the small deli around the corner and get amused by how the Dominican guy who works there insists on talking to me in Spanish. I step outside my fifth floor window and sit on the fire escape to enjoy the view of the old red brick buildings, the park, and the Hudson river. I love the buzz of so many different dialects and languages at every corner. I love walking out of the subway at 42nd street station to hear the sound of a saxophone or percussions or gospel music from amateur musicians.
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Up on Avenue A there's this lovely petite old woman standing and asking passers by for "a quarter to buy a coffee". I was so amused when I saw her yesterday because I saw her on that exact same street when I visited New York last year. And I had the same reaction. I mean, when she says "can you please give me a quarter to buy a coffee", you can't but give it to her. It sort of reminded me of that old woman in Amman who came to me as I was getting in my car and asked me for money so she can take a taxi to go to the Bashir hospital because her daughter was so sick and she had no money for a taxi. I offered to give her a ride to the hospital. That obviously caught her off guard because she got all confused and started trying to come up with reasons why I should just give her the money rather than give her the ride she needed. I don't know why I felt so upset at that moment. Why was I so upset that she was lying to get money? Everyone lies for different reasons, don't they? Who knows, perhaps the woman on Avenue A just uses that coffee line because it works on people like me! Not everything works on me though... the other day on the subway this young man started reciting poetry about his struggle with aids and how his parents disowned him and all that - and I would have sympathized if his poems were any good, but his was the cheesiest most redundant fourth-grade style poetry I'd ever heard! Another old man was playing his Accordion and singing in Spanish, and he had a terrible voice constantly going off tune and hurting your ears, and for a second I wished someone would give him money to just shut up, but then I realized that I'm actually amused by the whole thing :)
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Yesterday I was walking through Soho and stopped to look at some framed prints. The old Russian man who was selling them started talking to me about how he met Duke Ellington in 1970. He took out a photograph of himself with Duke, signed with a special dedication, and then he started telling me all these stories about celebrities he met and photographed. It was very amusing how he told people passing by that they’re not allowed to talk on their cell phones, because he was afraid they’d be taking pictures of his work. I googled him when I got back home, and it turned out that this man, Vladimir Bliokh, was a renowned Ballet & Dance photographer and was the official photographer of the Bolshoi & the Kirov Ballet in Moscow, Russia where he worked from 1960 till 1976 before he left to the United States.
--------------------
This morning I woke up and turned on the radio to WNYC – because, as we’ve been told at the orientation for international students, this is what our professors at the J-school listen to every morning and we have to stay on top of things. After endless analysis of the Olympics in China, John Edward’s affair, and Obama’s stand on energy… I switched it off and started listening to poetry readings by Mahmoud Darwish on his website. When I heard about his death last night, I felt this surge of sadness and homesickness. At that moment, I felt I really missed certain friends back in Amman.
--------------------
There are around 61 international students in this M.S. class at Columbia, and we’ve been told that this is the largest number of international students they’ve ever taken, because they’ve been very impressed by the international applicants this year. That’s actually one of the exciting things about the program – the fact that most students are incredibly interesting people with such diverse backgrounds and ranges of experience. And then you have professors who are best-selling authors and Pulitzer Prize winners and amazing journalists. Ever since we got here, we’ve been constantly told by the Dean of Students that this is going to be the most stressful and challenging year of our lives; that we will be working 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week – that’s how they fit a two-year Masters program in just ten months. It’s funny because then they tell us it’s important that we get enough sleep, AND have a social life. The math for all this doesn’t quite add up, and it's easy to feel a bit intimidated, but I'm still uber excited… I just hope that in the midst of everything I’ll find a bit of time to blog :) if not, then at least I’ll keep a photo journal, once I get a new camera!
This post has been very incoherent, and I still have so much that I want to write, but I’m going to stop here and hopefully write some more later.
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