New York - Part II

(Pssst, I wrote this a while ago, in September, and am just now posting it...)

SEPTEMBER
We found an apartment in South Williamsburg.  It's close to North Williamsburg, and we have bikes (which haven't yet been stolen!) so we are close to a lot of cool stuff, though not within walking distance to a lot, which is kind of a bummer.  I don't love our apartment but I'm trying to be happy with it because we are here for the next 6 months.  The apartment itself isn't bad.  But it's a pain getting our bikes up here, the elevator is old and slow, and people play music a lot here.  It's got a lot of partiers, so that sucks.  But its so nice to have an apartment finally.

After being in New York, I've already changed some of my habits.  Especially my driving habits (:  But if I had to choose, I wouldn't live in New York.  It's annoying because trying to do what I'm doing, you have to be here, or maybe LA, but mostly New York is where it all is.  Where everything is happening.  I love this city and I hate it, and the things I love are the things I hate about it too.  Here's a list to give you a better idea:

Things I love about New York
1. The people.  They are so interesting and everyone is doing what they want to do.  Nobody cares if you want to dress crazy, you should, your in New York!  I once saw a billboard here that said "In New York, your believes are tolerated, but your shoes will be judged."  So true!  You see some crazy, funny, awesome, amazing things happening all the time in New York, because people are here for a reason.
2. Transportation.  I love the metro
3. Exploring.  You can just walk around and find things to do, discover new things wherever you go.
4. Movie Theaters.  So many cool ones.
5. Endless adventures.  Lots of places to see, lots of things to do.
6. Food.  Lots of choices, not as good as Seattle though.
7. Lots of blue skies (I'll take the NY skies over Seattle's good food)
8.  Confidence.  The most confident city, the kids, even the pigeons don't move for cars.
9. Culture.  Lots of it, one neighborhood to the next is like a different country sometimes
10.  Shopping.  Except when you need things for your apartment.  Target?  Forget about it.

Things I hate about New York
1. Ordering food.  Sometimes you go to these really New York places, and it gets really intense because you have to order REALLY fast, and they talk really fast, and it's very stressful!
2. Transportation.  If you can't get somewhere easily on the metro, it sucks (this is more a problem in Brooklyn than Manhattan).  If you park wrong, which is VERY easy to do thanks to the millions of different signs that don't make sense sometimes, you get a whopping $115 parking ticket each time.  We've gotten 4 so far.
3. Cost.  Self explanatory, even car insurance is more expensive here, everything is.
4. Humidity.  Always makes it feel hotter
5. Double Parking.  Drives me crazy!

Working for Sarah is great, I am learning so much about how all this works.  I should mention, I'm not sure what I'll be doing in the future, no I dont think I'll be shooting for Vogue, but there are lots of things photographers can do that isn't shooting weddings or portraits if that's not what you want to do.  Sarah works for an agency and she gets to do fun projects through them.  That's where I'd like to be, only my focus would be on children's fashion, because I just love shooting kids so much, and while I think the idea of Children's Fashion can be a little silly, I could have so much fun with the shoots and be really creative.  I get to go on shoots with Sarah, and I just try to be as helpful as possible.  I learn a lot from the photo assistants, and seeing what they do, I'm not sure I could do it.  They set up the lights and solve these problems that I don't think I could, since I'm not very technical.  Other than that I'm in the office, working on photos or organizing for Sarah.  I also have to keep doing the etsy shop, as we can't afford to hire someone to do my job, since it's so expensive here.  I havent started full time yet so I'm not sure how it will work.  I will work for Sarah 30 hours a week, unpaid, but still have to come home and do the shop so it may get tricky and I'll basically be working my butt off for the next year.  I'm not sure what follows after this, but in the meantime I'm going to be working on doing my own shoots and getting published in some smaller magazines that I like.

It's been a crazy journey and I can't believe I'm doing this, but I am so happy I'm finally pursuing my passion.  Even if it doesn't go anywhere (which I'm confident won't happen), I can still say I tried.  I am really excited ot be able to tell my kids about this time.  For so long I was stagnant, not going anywhere and not doing anything with my life.  I was happy, and Seth and I got to spend so much time together, and I got to spend so much time with my family in Indy, (and being with the people I love is always the most important thing) but there was always a naggy feeling, I was always frustrated with myself for not trying, and being content with doing the shop which wasn't what I wanted to be doing.  So I'm excited about the future, I'm going to work hard and give it everything, and we'll see what happens!