Day Ten+Eleven.
Nothing really prepared me for not only this seminar, but also being in New York. The slow-growing limbs of Los Angeles’s Metro rail system now seem like child’s play compared to the labyrinthine web of connections and services in the MTA Subway. The claustrophobic ceiling clearances of New York subway stations compared to LA’s cavernous expanses. Standing on the sides of escalators while grumpy commuters rushed to catch prime subway real estate. Cramming into subways with a bunch of even grumpier commuters. Reluctantly walking any clear crosswalk, after spending my first week adamantly refusing to do so. Visiting Newark and Harlem.
Seeing bottles of Arrowhead, Aquafina, and Dasani replaced by Poland Spring. Having more Duane Reades or Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner than CVS, Walgreens, or Starbucks (which take up even more street corners back in SoCal). Finding a Turkish restaurant next to a pizzeria, a Tex-Mex place, a deli, and Japanese eats. The incredible density and height of all these buildings crammed into an island no bigger than two Downtown Los Angeleses (roughly). Seeing and being in locations that have served as the backdrop and inspiration for countless movies, television shows, books, and video games. Spazzing out at snowfall.
And on top of it all, the seminar experience! I’ve had “field trip” portions in my museum studies classes at Irvine Valley College where we got to go to behind-the-scenes in local museums. And I appreciated that we also hit up institutions that may not register on the typical tourist’s radar, in addition to notable mega-museums. Shuttling to one museum after another, day after day, was also quite exhilarating, as I rushed through galleries and gift shops soaking in as many exhibits (and dropping nearly as much cash) as I can within the space of an hour (or an hour and a half), before or after we hear from seasoned professionals behind the scenes.
Yet the real kicker, every single day of the seminar, was meeting, seeing, and being physically present with my classmates. Being the socially-awkward introvert that I am, it felt quite surreal to now be in a space to interact with my peers beyond Blackboard discussion board posts. Yet over two weeks, I got to see camaraderie among them, and even share in a bit of that with my prototyping project peers. I greatly appreciate their enthusiasm and fun attitude towards this project, which definitely outweighed my own perfectionist, plodding tendencies.
It still hasn’t hit me that I have to go back to Southern California now. I was just getting used to the way things were here and with the breakneck pace of the city and the seminar. But I certainly do feel a lot more inspired, by the destinations we visited & the peers and professionals I met, to move my career along a little more.
Now to finish packing and hope those paperbacks I bought at the Strand last night will still fit…
