Comic Con 2013

Here it is! Finally! It's only been two-and-a-half months, but I'll cut myself some slack this time.

On Friday, October 11th, I headed down to the Javits Center after school with my friends Zeanna and Kayla to go to my first ever Comic Con. I'm not into comics or anime or video games at all, really, but I figured going would be worth the experience since I had heard from several people how amazing the whole event is. Zeanna went all out and dressed up like one of her favorite characters from a show she watches, and it was fun to see how excited she was about the whole thing.

I was definitely taken by surprise when I first glanced at the Javits Center set up for Comic Con: I thought I had witnessed a huge crowd when I spent 7 hours there in the 4th grade when I auditioned (unsuccessfully) for Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, but the Center was by far much more crowded for Comic Con. I was expecting entering to be a giant pain because of the specific instructions I had been sent in the mail when I received my ticket, but all the security guard did was scan my pass and I was free to go in .

Admission ticket

The inside was incredibly hectic. If anything is an organized chaos, it is definitely the layout of Comic Con. There were stands upon stands upon stands of comics venders, clothing sellers, and random merchandise venue lining the insides of the venue; however, despite the incredible crowd making it almost impossible to move at some points, the whole center was laid out like New York blocks (at least like upper Manhattan), with straight rows and columns to help you navigate your way around. Zeanna, Kayla, and I spent a long while just walking around, trying to acclimate ourselves to the completely foreign environment. Eventually, we settled in and each began buying some stuff that perked our interest. I was surprised by my lack of desire to purchase everything for sale, but I eventually ended up buying a Totoro plushie.

You can see how packed the place was

After walking around for about an hour, we came across a kiosk run by a company called I Heart Guts, which sells a variety of figurines and plushies of human body parts with faces on them. Zeanna and I were completely enthralled by the creativity of the woman who ran the company and talked to her assistant for a good 20 minutes or half an hour before finally deciding to buy anything. I eventually bought a stuffed testicle as well as an info-chart on testicular cancer, while Zeanna bought a Womb and an info-chart on the menstrual cycle.

Business Card!!!

My stuffed testicle (notice the "having a ball" on the tag)

the info-chart is actually incredibly useful

Given my lack of enthusiasm for a lot of the main features of Comic Con, none of the other displays really stood out to me. However, one thing that definitely left an impression on me was the incredibly kindness and camaraderie almost everyone at Comic Con showed to each other: when someone one a cool prize at spin-the-wheel thing, everyone cheered with excitement; people constantly approached strangers and asked for pictures with them and gladly returned the favor and even did so for others throughout the event. Comic Con was bereft of the sense of judgement that often permeates social scenes, and instead proved itself to be a place where people are welcome to be who they are, actively interact with those around them, and outwardly display their interests. Although I don't feel the need to return in the future to purchase more stuff or view more displays, I would gladly return for the breath of fresh air it provided.

I'm back?

I realize I haven't posted in nearly 2 months, which has been my longest drought of writing as of yet. There are a lot of things that I want to talk about, like Comic Con (which was my last promise for a post), but I'm still debating whether or not to put a lot of them in print. Ideas seem to lose a bit of their flavor over time.

Hopefully another long absence like this one won't be happening again any time soon, as I honestly don't know what was keeping me from crafting another post until now. School has been incredibly overwhelming but I've certainly had opportunities to sit down and write. I think some of it might have to do with a bit of a lack of motivation on my part, but I believe I've sorted that out. I wasn't very good about handling my stress and workload for the first part of the school year, but I've become reinvigorated and determined to follow a new plan that will hopefully allow to me to preserve my sanity for more than just a few weeks in the new year.

Christmas is right around the corner, so something might not be produced until the end of the week. But I will be forcing myself to get it done.

Why we shouldn't idolize Desdemona

Over the past couple days, there's been something that I haven't been able to get out of my head, so I feel writing about it may be the only way to finally get it to stop bothering me.

I just finished reading Othello for English class, and a large portion of our discussion of the book has been devoted to Desdemona as a Christ-like figure (you can tell I go to a Catholic school). Undoubtedly, Desdemona is a great person: her fidelity to her husband, Othello, and her unwavering kindness are traits not found in everyone. Readers can certainly look up to her in those regards.

But something else bothered me. The class began discussing a particular scene in which Desdemona talks to Emilia about the concept of women cheating on their husbands as the men around them seem to do with there wives. When Emilia suggests that women should be allowed to reciprocate the actions of their husbands, Desdemona disagrees, instead saying "God me such uses send, not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend." When observed on its own, I don't see much of an issue with the quote; however, my class ended up discussing the quote in the context not only of Othello's infidelity, but his violence towards Desdemona towards the end of the play. Eventually, the consensus was reached that we should idolize Desdemona for her ultimate desire to work on bettering herself instead of gaining revenge on her husband despite what he has done.

I do not agree with this. Sure, Desdemona's actions show her incredible goodness of heart, but they also depict her as a door-mat for Othello to trample all over. When observing the world around us, it seems outrageous to encourage people to model her behavior. We're basically telling victims of domestic violence to suck it up and work on making themselves better people rather than telling them to stand up for themselves. This thought didn't seem to occur to anyone in the room when we were discussing it in class, but upon further reflection that doesn't seem too surprising considering the entire English department is run by men. I by no means think that they're misogynistic in any sense, but I think the fact that the department remains women-less closes up the possibility of the discussion of different viewpoints and aspects of literature, especially women's issues in famous works.

I normally wouldn't want to write something like this, but I really felt that I had to get it out of my system. A post about Comic Con will be coming soon

Living

I've never considered myself much of a poetry fan, but every once in a while I'll come across something that speaks to me. Most recently, "Living" by Denise Levertov was one of those exceptions:

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.


Part of my reasoning behind starting this blog was to open myself up to new opportunities and experience the world in ways I hadn't before. The poem resonates with me because of its emphasis on living in the present, valuing experiences as they come to you but letting them go so you can embrace something else in the future. The poem's short, quick to read, and yet powerful enough to really capture one's attention.

The Feast of San Gennaro

Two weeks ago I attended the Feast of San Gennaro with a good friend Hayley. I had hoped to publish this post earlier in the week, but my dad spilled coffee all over my computer and successfully broke it, leaving me without a computer for the remainder of the week. I finally got a new one today, so I'm trying to finish this guy up.

Hayley and I met downtown in that awkward area where Little Italy and Chinatown really seem to blend together, as in you see a fish market right next to a pastry shop stocked with cannolis, and proceeded to make our way up the street fair.

Let me say that this festival was HUGE. I accidentally stumbled upon it last year when I went downtown and it didn't seem to be that crowded, yet I realized that of course it would less packed on a Tuesday afternoon than it would be on a Saturday evening. However, despite my intimidation by big crowds, I managed to push my way through. I wanted to take nice pictures of the festival on my camera, but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to crowded for me to be able to pull my camera out my bag + it was raining and I didn't want to risk breaking my camera. I was forced to settle for pictures on my phone, which turned out less terribly than I thought they would.

It was hard for me to capture any good photos simply because of the swarm of people that kept pushing me out of their way when they walked by.

who couldn't love a giant cannoli??

It started raining right when Hayley and I reached the end of the festival chain, so we decided to go into this cute little place called Macbar which is amazing because it ONLY SERVES MAC AND CHEESE!!!!!!!! Obviously I was very excited. I would recommend going there when not very full, because if you get a medium or large, you get a cool macaroni-shaped reusable container to carry your food around in.

Another unique experience of the evening was that I got to try a "cronoli". There was a lot of hype this passed summer about a new food item called the cronut, a mixture of a donut and croissant, sold only at this one bakery. Many bakeries have tried creating their own spin on the cronut, and the cronoli was Little Italy's interpretation, a cronut filled with cannoli cream. Hayley bought one and I had a bite, and I must say it was delicious. I don't think it needed the cream in the center, however, but I can definitely see why people wait outside of Dominique Ansel Bakery starting at 5 just to get their hands on two cronuts.

Hayley and I were a bit rushed on our way back from the festival as the light drizzle turned into a massive downpour. We ran to the nearest subway station and headed home. I would've liked to stay longer, but you just have to take what life throws your way sometimes.

Junior

I've just finished my third week of school, and I'm somewhat happy/not-so-happy to say that it has finally come on full throttle. I now at least know what to expect for the rest of the year when it comes to assignments, attitudes of my teachers, and class schedule which is nice, but the work is definitely starting to pile up, thus limiting the amount of time I have to write.

I say that things have really picked up now because I had my first test last week and have another 3 this week, and my test calendar should continue in a similar pattern for the rest of the year. I've gotten passed the boring first couple of days where teachers outline the syllabus and tell you that you can only take notes at home on the left-hand side of your notebook (which actually happened, by the way), so at least I'm learning now. The first couple days were also met with a lot of speeches from faculty members all telling us "Guys, you're going to work 749X harder than you've ever had this year. Some of you might die. Seriously," followed by the stress-management and "oh all your teachers are here for you even though they'll be slowly eating away at your soul with work" talks, which did not help me bring down my already high levels of anxiety. That just made me wish I could go back to the days where I would come home from school and watch Nickelodeon all afternoon while eating cheerios and not hating myself.

I went to the Feast of San Gennaro last Saturday evening with a friend, and I hope to have that post out by the end of this week. I brought my camera but it was raining and I didn't want to screw anything up so I took pictures on my phone instead. 

Ciao! (you can see I've really embraced Italian culture)

Fries to Pudding

Last week, in an attempt to fend off junior year anxiety from settling in too quickly, my friend and I decided to explore the East Village and try out a couple of restaurants to eat away our feelings. She had read about most of these places in a Buzzfeed article listing eateries (a word I loathe yet it seems to be the only appropriate one) that make living in New York during a shitty day worth it. Overall, I think the excursion went pretty well.

We started by going to a place called Pommes Frites and bought some poutine (a mixture of french fries, gravy, and cheese). While I've had better poutine, this was pretty close, and the fries were definitely good. It might have been more of a hit had I gotten regular fries and chose one of their various dipping sauces instead, but I'm not complaining.

mmmmm poutine

On our way to our second stop, we passed by "Moishe's Bake Shop," a Kosher bakery hidden behind scaffolding, and decided to go in. We were met by a wide arrangement of baked goods making difficult to choose one thing that I wanted. I eventually decided on a  sponge cake-like thing with cream in between the rolls of cake, filled with jelly and topped with sprinkles. I didn't know it had jelly at the beginning but it didn't make a difference: it was amazing. Perhaps my favorite part of the whole thing was that you got to tell them how big you wanted your piece to be, and the price is calculated by the weight, so you can configure both the size of your snack and wallet to your appetite. I got a bigger piece than I would have liked but it ended up being only $1.50 which is amazing for a place in the city.

delicious pastry of which I do not know the name

My friend and I continued on to a place called Vanessa's Dumplings and ordered their pork and chive dumplings (you get 4 for $1!!!!!!!!!!). The dumplings were incredible and were served quickly, and the price is hard to argue with. I don't know where else you can get a meal for $1 in New York.

FYI the brown sauce on the table is the one for the dumplings

Our last stop on the East Village food tour was to a place called Sugar Sweet Sunshine, and boy did it make our day bright (sorry, I had to). We ordered the Chocolate Chip Extravaganza, which is sort of like chocolate chip cookie pudding. And trust me, it tasted as good as it sounds. I would recommend sticking to a small unless you're really hungry and craving something sweet, as the quantity of the pudding is a lot more than you would think. The employees also gave me a free cookie to go along with it! How sweet!

Definitely the best thing I've had in a while

 Go to all these places!!!!! They're delicious!!!!! I'll write soon!