Hello

It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet.

JUST KIDDING!

Hi guys, I know, it’s been a while. I’d like to apologize for my complete neglect of this blog. Life has just been pretty busy. I think if anything, my lack of writing post-Paris just goes to show how incredibly hectic NYC living compared to easy breezy Paris. Anyway, I’d like to update you on a few things before I get back to posting more regularly (fingers crossed).

Updates: I’m back in New York (yay). I am currently interning for Delish.com  and loving every second of it because food is life. I am still single (hey boys ;)). I am still living in a dorm (boo) although it’s in SoHo (fancy) so I’m not complaining too much. I am back to working at an elementary school so I’m getting my regular dose of kid loving. Oh, also I’m still a student, a second semester junior actually, so that kind of takes up the rest of my time when I’m not working, interning, applying for 1000 things, or going on woefully unsuccessful dates. I also started a second blog for a class on Immigrant Latinas in New York, so that’s pretty fun. Oh also, I cut my hair again.

As you can see, I’m basically busy af. But I have a bunch of blog ideas bouncing around in my head so I will hopefully sit down and knock those out in the next few weeks (if I don’t die of exhaustion first). So stay tuned, I promise to make this a little more interesting.

 

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2016

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. The idea is a good one. I do think we should strive to better ourselves and set a few attainable goals. I’m all for that. Let’s work out more and eat better and volunteer and learn to salsa. Let’s do all the learning and growing. But the whole notion of making all these goals right before or after the start of the new year because it’s a fresh start is kind of baffling. Because let’s be honest, the new year is just another year. Going from 2015 to 2016 doesn’t change who we are or immediately alter our circumstances, it just makes us fuck up a few thousand times when we write the date on something. The New Year is really just not conducive to greatness. Contrary to what many people think, the new year does not equal a new you. You can make all the New Year’s resolutions you want but you’ll most likely give up come February. Exhibit A for me is this blog post. Here I am writing about New Year’s resolutions on January 20th, 2016. Not December 31^st 2015, not January 1^st 2016, not even January 3^rd 2016. We are 20 days into the New Year and I am just now tapping out this blog post even though I told myself I would post it in time for the New Year. Oops.

 

Just for fun, I would like to further illustrate with a list of what my New Year’s resolution’s would be (if I had any) and the many ways in which I would immediately destroy these goals (and not in a cool victorious way).

 

1. Post on my blog two times per week.
2. Go to the gym or do some sort of work out at least 4 times a week.
3. Read 2 books in English and one in either French or Spanish per month.
4. Practice my French on Duolingo every day and start learning German.
5. Read all the cover stories of the New York Times every day.
6. Explore more of the boroughs.

 

As you can see, I’m not trying to go to the moon here. Most of the resolutions I would like to set for myself are easily attainable, affordable, and require no help from anyone. So what’s standing in the way? LIFE IS! The thing is, the New Year doesn’t form this little bubble around you that allows you to live in Candy Land and ignore your responsibilities and do whatever the fuck you want. You still have to work, and go to school, and do laundry, and buy groceries. I won’t post on my blog two times a week because come school I’ll probably be too busy writing articles for my classes. I might go to the gym but definitely not four times a week because most of my free time is spent commuting between jobs and school and the gym requires going out in the cold. I won’t read all those extra books I actually want to read because I’ll have lot’s of books to read for school and by the time I’m done with those I’ll be begging for mind numbing TV to rest my brain. You get the picture? Life just gets in the way.

 

As you can see my problem isn’t really with the idea of setting goals. My beef is with the idea that we should come up with these goals once a year, fail to achieve them, console ourselves with the cliché “there’s always next year” and continue with our lives. I think it’s stupid to set goals only once per year, especially because it is so socially acceptable to brush them away. To me New Year’s resolutions are just a way to make ourselves feel like we’re actually going to do something different but not actually committing to it. Sometimes it’s not our fault. Like I said, life gets in the way but something about resolutions just seems to make them especially susceptible to the little kinks in life.

 

So when should we try to spice up our lives with new goals and activities? All the damn time. That’s when. I think sometimes we have to wait for the right moment to start up a change in our lives. Because more often than not there’s a perfect moment when we can actually do what we have been wanting to do and stick with it. If you allow yourself to find a moment to grow at any point in the damn year, you most likely will actually grow. Because with everything going on in our daily lives we need actual motivation to push us to take a stab at our goals. And more often than not, motivation doesn’t just magically show up at our doorstep on the 1^st of January every year. So stop limiting yourself with bullshit New Year’s resolutions that you’re never going to achieve and try to work towards your goals when you’ll actually put some effort into them. When something inspires you to make a change in your life go with it, don’t brush it off ‘til the next year.

 

New year ≠ New You. Motivated you = New You.

Austin, Texas 

Turkish Delight

This piece was originally written for Baedeker Travel Magazine at NYU. It was completed on November 4th, 2015. I refrained from publishing it until I heard back from Baedeker on whether or not they would publish it. However, at this point I don’t really know what is going on with them so I decided to just publish it on my own blog. Enjoy.

 

When I first set out to write this piece I envisioned it going a different way. I wanted to write a story that talked about the Turkish people and how welcoming they are, in an attempt to dispel the notion that it is unsafe to travel to non-white European countries, Muslim countries in particular. I wanted to write about the Istanbul that I experienced, a bright city propelled by its aims at modernism but still holding on to the age old traditions that distinguish its rich culture. I wanted to share my appreciation for architectural wonders like Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque and my admiration for the thought provoking and well-curated works at Istanbul Modern. I wanted to write about the people I encountered and the small interactions I had that reaffirmed my belief that Turkey and its people were worth getting to know.

And then, someone broke into my Airbnb in the middle of the night and stole my precious phone, camera, and money.

I would be lying if I said getting my stuff stolen didn’t sour my opinion of the country. In fact, for a brief moment it made me hate Turkey and it made me feel guilty for not listening to the many warnings of friends and family who implored me not to go. I felt cheated by this city that I had wanted to love but that left me with little more than a broken heart and several boxes of Turkish delight. But Turkey was not done with me.

On my flight back to Paris almost as if by divine intervention, I sat next to Ilhan, a Turkish man who sensing my sadness, did everything in his power to make cheer me up. He listened to my unfortunate tale with sad understanding eyes, nodding his head along in sympathy and giving me advice on how to get some sort of justice. He pulled out a fragrant bag filled with home made Turkish pastries and gave me half of them, refusing to take no for an answer. When the airhostess came by with a cart of drinks for sale, he insisted on buying me “something to ease my troubles”. Ilhan asked me about my family and told me about his and treated me as if I were of his own flesh and blood. His kindness made me forget about the electronics that were no longer in my possession and focused my attention on the trip itself. My thoughts began to flashback to some of the more pleasantly memorable pieces of our trip and the people that made them important in the simplest ways.

Our days always began with a traditional sesame pretzel from a quaint little red cart in Taksim square. The pretzels themselves were nothing out of this world, but they were cheap, and the man who sold them to us was taken with our politeness and our attempts to communicate with him despite the fact that we didn’t speak Turkish and he didn’t speak a single drop of English. Given that we were continually thanking him in place of having an actual conversation, he attempted to teach us how to say teşekkür ederim, thank you, in Turkish. We continually failed, and he continued patiently teaching us, smirking every time we butchered it and smiling triumphantly when we finally got it right.

Then I remembered the day we attempted to get into Topkapi Palace for a second time using our museum card. We weren’t aware of the fact that you could only use your card once to get in and the guard apologetically said there was nothing he could do. However, upon explaining to him that we hadn’t had the chance to see the Harem, his demeanor instantly became charged with the desire to share with us the treasures of his country. He asked us to stand to one side while he talked to his superiors about what he could do to let us in. His superiors simply said that we were out of luck. But the guard waited until they weren’t looking and asked one of his tour guide buddies to scan his own pass, which deactivates the doors so people on a tour can go through. The guard simply winked at us as he ushered us through, clearly proud that he had helped us out but not making a big show of it or expecting any sort of compensation. He was seemed simply glad to share his patrimony.

Finally, I thought of the day when we were exploring Iztiklal Caddesi, a popular shopping street in the modern part of the city. As we were waiting to cross the street, a group of young guys came up to my friends and I and asked in English if we were from Istanbul because they needed help getting somewhere. We simply responded that we were also dumbfounded tourists and any attempt at helping them with directions would probably end up getting them more lost. Upon hearing our inability to help, a Turkish man who was just standing by quickly turned around and offered his help. He gave the guys some directions and even outlined the path on the map they had. I was astonished at the fact that this random person had no hesitation to help even when they didn’t directly ask him. This however, seems to be very common in Istanbul. I myself had many random people intervene on my behalf while trying to buy something or trying to negotiate cab fare. To me these were great acts of altruism, but all the people who advocated for me simply brushed it off, replying that since they had the ability to help, they should.

As I remembered all of these selfless people, I began to smile widely, attracting the attention of Ilhan who nudged me and said, “I’m glad to see you’re not so sad anymore.”

Ilhan was right, I wasn’t sad anymore. The anger at having lost my personal possessions dissipated with my remembrance of all the good times I had in Turkey. I realized I still loved my trip to Istanbul. I still thought it was worthwhile and I was definitely glad I had gone. Having my things stolen made me take a step back and really analyze my entire trip. But after all I realized that that really terrible moment couldn’t overshadow my whole memory of Istanbul. I couldn’t judge the entire country on the actions of one individual.

This realization really emphasized the idea that I originally wanted to explore in this piece. As westerners, and especially as part of the population affected by 9/11 and its aftermath, it seems we have become hardened to Muslim nations. Sometimes subconsciously, other times more overtly, a lot of us try distance ourselves from Arab nations and people out of fear. As a society we often generalize the acts of this or that radical group to a whole people or a whole body of believers. I myself am guilty of thinking in this way after being personally wronged but after analyzing my reaction I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being fair.

I was hesitant to go to Istanbul, I was told explicitly not to go by people I trust. I personally had a bad experience there. But I also had a lot of good experiences. The people I met, the food I enjoyed, and the beautiful art I saw made me fall in love with Turkey. I have a good reason to not go back and to dismiss the country as dangerous. But the truth is, I still want to go back. There is danger everywhere, there is crime everywhere, but ultimately, crimes are rare instances committed by bad people.

So forget your hesitations. Go to Istanbul or Bogota, or Mexico City or whatever place you’re missing out on because you’ve been scared away. I for one will not stop recommending Istanbul as a travel destination. The peace that befalls the city after a long prayer call and the succulent baklava on every corner are more than enough incentive for me to make the long trek back to Turkey as soon as possible. Besides, as Ilhan pointed out, I have to go back and recapture all those photos I lost.

Istanbul, Turkey/ Paris, France

Smart Phones: The Glue Holding Our Lives Together

So I haven’t really talked about it on this blog but I had a pretty shitty experience when I went to Istanbul. Long story short, I got all my stuff stolen from my room while I was sleeping there. Ok, so not all my stuff, but the thief took my camera, my phone, all my cash, and weirdly, my computer charger-so basically, all my Millennial essentials. Of course, I am grateful that I am alive and my friends and I left Istanbul unharmed. But I’d be a lot more grateful if all my electronics were still safely in my care. Anyway, I know that like many other people of my generation, I am extremely dependent on my smart phone. But it wasn’t until I was plopped down, phoneless, in big ole’ Paris that I realized what an essential tool smart phones are for city conquest. So yeah, this is a post about how great smart phones are because, let’s face it, they are the unsung heroes of our lives.

1. Smart phones help us keep our shit together.

You know those big chunky organizers we learned to use in elementary school so we could learn to organize our lives and be productive adults? Well, we often forget but smart phones are the modern, eco-friendly form of that. I use my smart phone as a planner, an organizer, and a “random thought/actually important things” notebook. Everything important that I should remember is contained in my tiny little phone. My appointments, my class schedule, my rendez vous, the list of restaurants I want to check out- all on my cellphone. When someone wants to hang out I have to check my phone to make sure I’ll be free. I even check my phone to make sure I’m going to the right classroom because I can’t even seem to remember where the hell my classes are located. And honestly, I don’t know how I ever woke up on time before having my smart phone. I need at least three separate alarms, set at 15 minute intervals, to wake me up, and that’s on a good day. With an analog clock or one of those lousy non-phone alarms, you max out at two alarms, so you’re guaranteed to be perpetually late (and I’m already always late as it is). What’s worse is having absolutely no notion of time because what young person actually wears wristwatches in this day and age? I mean, to be fair, lots of people wear wristwatches, but not me of course, because I had the false sense that my phone would always be all I needed. Also, no phone = no handy dandy notebook to take notes in. I’ve had to resort to writing all my little notes on my hands and arms and looking like Guy Pierce in Memento. You would think I would just carry around a little notebook with me or something, but of course, I always forget to and find myself paperless when I most need to note something. It’s kind of ridiculous, but really, city dwellers have busy lives to keep organized, and it’s just so convenient to have it all on a phone.

2. Don’t know the way to that new bar with the chicken and waffle sliders?  Good thing you’ve got a smart phone.

I personally suck at directions. I actually didn’t learn to get to my best friend’s house until last summer, even though she’s lived in the same place since we were both in 5^th grade. New York is a little easier to navigate because, thank God, the whole city is planned on a grid and there are tall buildings that function as markers of north and south (I would die if I were stranded in the woods). But basically anywhere else, Paris especially, I have to be lead around everywhere like a child. So there is not a single day that goes by that I don’t thank the heavens for my iPhone and Google Map .I mean sure, paper maps exist and all , but imagine having to carry those obnoxious things around. I owe my ability to get from point A to point B to the little blue dot on my screen. My dependency on this technology has never been more evident than when I found myself on the verge of tears after spending half an hour searching for Chipotle and not finding it because I didn’t have my iPhone telling me where to go. I decided to just get off at the Metro stop that was in the general area and pray that my Chipotle senses would start tingling and lead me in the right direction, but of course I think I gave my connection to Chipotle a little too much credit.

3. Smart phones actually have decent cameras

So, this one may not be as evident or important to everyone, but as a photographer I highly value the cameras on smart phones. I can’t speak for all smart phones cause I’m Apple and iPhone all the way, but it seems like nowadays most smart phones come equipped with a good camera. I take pictures all day every day and of everything. I’m all about capturing fun moments and taking pictures of pretty things and occasionally snapping a pic of a particularly scrumptious meal (judge me all you want, food is art and it merits recognition). As much as I love my Nikon (or loved, because you know, that’s gone now) it’s kinda bulky and it’s a lot weirder to aim a huge DSLR at a bomb ass salad than it is to discreetly point your iPhone at said deliciousness. It’s just easier to carry an iPhone and more likely that you’ll have a phone on you and not a gargantuan camera. So yeah, phones are convenient for my share-happy generation. They also come in handy when I’m too lazy to write down the name and address of that cute little boutique I want to come back to. Take out a pen and paper and slow down the crowd around me? Nah. I can just snap a pic with my phone and look at it later. Also there are times when my best friend isn’t with me and I need someone’s opinion on what I’m about to buy so what do I do? Take a picture; send it right away, and bam! Instant feedback to satisfy my Millennial anxiety.

4. Phones provide hours and hours of entertainment and procrastination.

It’s really satisfying when you are bored out of your mind and you have the ability to be entertained instantly. I love being on the subway and being able to whip out my phone and catch up on some New York Times articles-no bulky paper copy needed. I can just as easily drown out the noise of the city (or have a private dance party) by just playing some of the music on my phone. Or I can watch some Netflix while I wait for my next class to start. For the less culturally inclined, there are also endless games to choose from- all accessible thanks to our handy dandy phones. You can crush candy, dress Kim Kardashian, make a Doodle jump – the possibilities for mind numbing entertainment are endless. We also can’t forget that smart phone s are convenient (and dangerous) portals to our ever-important social media lives. Instead of playing games, reading, watching videos, or studying you can spend hours on Facebook or Twitter obsessing over how many likes you got on your last selfie. You can check out what your friends are doing on Instagram too and you can find yourself a hot date on Tinder. Honestly, as much as I judge people for constantly being on their phones and perusing social media, I gotta say it felt really off putting not having constant access to my Facebook after my phone got stolen. Not only was I constantly missing out on the latest political war being waged on my Newsfeed but I also missed a lot of relevant messages from people. It’s telling of the decay of our society, but being disconnected from social media actually has a tangible impact on our young lives.

5. The actual reason phones were invented: communication.

Given all the cool things that our smart phones can do now a days, and the many ways we rely on them as more than phones, we often forget the most important thing they do-they connect us to other people. Whether it’s through Facebook messages, FaceTime, texting, or calling (people still do that?) phones allow us to communicate with other people and we take that for granted. With our phones we can call each other for important things, make plans to meet up, or simply say hello. You’d be surprised how hard it is to do any of that without a phone especially when you live in a city. If you’re just planning on catching up with someone whenever you run into them, you’ll likely never hear from them again. After coming back from Istanbul without a phone, I had to plan everything to a T. There was none of, “I’ll text you when I’m on my way”, or “text me the address,” there wasn’t even room for a change of plans unless I knew exactly where to go for those plans. My friends and I had to plan where we were going, when we were meeting, and what we were doing ahead of time because if anything went wrong, we had no way of telling each other. And waiting around for hours at a coffee shop because your friend suddenly got a migraine and didn’t have a way to tell you they couldn’t come is not super fun. Basically, the only way I could talk to someone would be to have them in front of me or to wait until I had access to a computer and when you’re out and about doing your thing it might be a while until either of those things happen. So not having a smart phone (or really just a phone) basically means you accept a life of loneliness. My utmost respect to the generations that came before me and actually had lives before phones-I don’t know how you did it.

Paris, France

A Girl Defends Her City

Tupac and Biggie might have taken it a little far with their coast-y love but I get it. It’s important to represent your turf. It’s not easy living in a city. Living in a huge metropolis is not as simple and glamorous as Gossip Girl and Friends make it seem-it’s expensive, it’s cramped, it’s dirty and oftentimes, as one of thousands of people, you feel anonymous and unimportant. Still there’s a reason cities are so appealing and people from Sinatra to Kendrick sing their praises. People work hard to get the chance to move to big places like LA, New York, Paris, London, etc. (and they work even harder to stay). So when you do live in a dreamy city and you can still love it despite all the crap that comes with it, you can’t help but develop a certain sense of pride for your city.

I am so proud to live in New York. I am all about that concrete jungle where dreams are made of (or wet dream tomatoes, gotta work on that enunciation Alicia). I would wear those gaudy “I ❤ New York” t-shirts 24/7 if they didn’t make me look like a lame tourist. In short, New York is BAE (I hate myself for using that phrase, but it’s true). Now that I am living in Paris, and especially post-November 13^th attacks, I am also extremely proud to live in this city. I have to hold back from doing the t-shirt equivalent and constantly wear a beret. So when my mom came to visit me in Paris this past week, I was stoked to show her just how cool Paris is.

Of course while I planned a brilliant let-me-get-you-to-fall-in-love-with-Paris itinerary I kind of forgot that my mom isn’t a huge city fanatic like I am. In fact, she’s not a city person at all. She doesn’t like museums, she doesn’t care for architecture, she has no interest in history, she is anti-walking fast, and she most definitely is not down with rats (the nerve!). I planned to cram the 6 days my mom would be here with everything pretty and Parisian and she was having none of it. Notre Dame was meh. The top of the Eiffel Tower was too high for her. And the Louvre, oh the Louvre. She didn’t even want to take a picture with the damn pyramid like a normal tourist. She was more interested by the fact that straight men kiss each other on the cheek here than any of the world-famous pieces at the Louvre. I was frankly offended.

First of all I couldn’t believe how little interest my mom showed in any of the activities and places that are so quintessentially Parisian. As someone who loves to travel and see new cultures it baffled me that she didn’t really care to experience anything that makes Paris and its people unique,The world renowned museums that Paris is home to and the history that is contained in its walls meant absolutely nothing to her. The only thing that captivated her attention was shopping, which we did endlessly. What bothered me the most is how little she valued being in Paris. To a lot of people coming to Paris is a dream and to my mom it seemed more like something she just decided to do because, why not?

This isn’t the first time my mom dissed my city, she showed the same level of disinterest (and disgust) when she went to New York. All she did was complain the entire time she was there. Ay Sammy, why do you like to live in such a small room? Sammy it smells like urine everywhere. Sammy I don’t know why you like to ride the subway-it’s so dirty. Sammy why are you walking so fast? You would think I was living in the middle of a dump, not a large cosmopolitan city, from all the comments she made. I was so angry at how she reduced New York to nothing more than a dirty city. I mean she’s right, it does smell like urine everywhere, but it’s NEW YORK, I’ll take a little pee on the sidewalk over not living there any day.

The truth is, I love the cities that I live in and to me they are amazing so it’s always hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that other people don’t like my cities as much as I do. In fact, I can barely understand the concept of people not wanting to live in a city (where else are you supposed to live? The countryside?) I love big cities because they’re fast paced and exhilarating and there is always something to do. But I forget that those are precisely the reasons why people don’t like them. New York especially is a place that I’ve heard many Texans scoff at and dismiss as “somewhere they would never want to live.” It always takes everything in me because to not make some wise ass remark about how they couldn’t handle it anyway, because how dare they not value NYC as a place to live.

But the thing is, even though I love New York and Paris and all their big city pals, even I sometimes find myself thinking I may not want to be a city girl forever. I see articles about how married couples have to get roommates because their combined income just doesn’t cut it for rent. I watch as moms in the subway struggle to awkwardly get their strollers up the endless steps out onto the street. I work with kindergartners who don’t know the joy of running around in their own back yard and have to walk all the way to a local park to get the feel of some grass under their feet. Even worse, I see old people get bumped and pushed around as busy city dwellers fly off to their next appointment. I see all this and even I think sometimes, why would anyone want to live here? So I guess every once in a while I do have to put aside my tremendous pride of big cities and recognize that they aren’t exactly the warm homey places that some people need to live in and they are definitely not for everyone. I have to think that just like some people could never see themselves living in a big city, there is no way in hell I could ever live in a small town. A place where you actually know your neighbors (and they know everything about you)? Fuggedaboutit.

Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get tired of hopping along from big city to big city. Maybe some day I’ll move to a (slightly) smaller city and be ok with not having great museums and bars all over the place. But that’s not gonna happen for a looooonggg time. In the meantime I’ll keep repping the East side (and Paris) and you can be sure to find me at the Louvre.

Paris, France

La Douleur de Paris

Unlike a lot of my fellow Millenials I am not one to post about politics or show my solidarity with this or that cause on Facebook (except for Kony 2012 of course, but I was like 15 and stupid so I think I deserve a pass on that one). I do this for 3 reasons. 1. Facebook for me is a place to talk to family, post photos and occasionally rant about exciting things in my life. 2. I am not a fan of shoving my political/social/religious opinions in everyone’s faces. 3. As someone who eventually wants to be a journalist, I believe in keeping a bias-free image (of course, no one is truly bias-free, but I do my best). All that being said, I have been on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media basically non stop since Friday to see what is being said about the attacks in Paris and this time I felt compelled to join in and show my support for Paris. That’s right, I changed my profile photo to look like the French flag.

Of course, to me it made sense to change my picture. I live in Paris; this tragedy affected the place I am calling home at the moment and my personal sense of safety. It affected my friends, some of which live right by Le Bataclan and Le Petit Cambodge and had to stay in a hotel that night because they were too afraid to go home. Some of which were sitting at restaurants close to the cafes that were attacked and had to watch as people ran away from the chaos and tried to hide in these establishments. Some of which are flying back to the states early because they can’t stop thinking “what if I get shot today?” So yes, I changed my picture as did my fellow NYU students and people from New York, Austin, and all over the world to show our support of France. It felt nice, really, to see so many people’s pictures changed to the beautiful red white an blue stripes of the French flag. It felt nice that people cared and wanted to show they cared. But of course, people can’t let a good deed go unpunished.

Almost as soon as people started changing their profile pictures and writing a few words of support a whole other group of people started bashing their actions. Without missing a beat, Social Justice Warriors felt the need to demonize support for Paris given that so many other places were also being tormented by violence. You couldn’t even finish typing out the word Paris before statuses of people admonishing the lack of support for Beirut, Japan, and Mexico flooded your newsfeed. At one point people even started posting an article about a massacre in Kenya claiming that Paris was stealing the spotlight from this horrific event, which actually happened to take place in April (but you know, we should stop focusing on Paris). Perhaps the worst part is that people made this about race (because of course everything is about race) and started saying that people who showed solidarity with France were actually racist because they only cared about white pain. Give me a break.

I was embarrassed for humanity. Not only are we screwed because we keep killing each other left and right (that’s right Social Justice Warriors, I’m acknowledging death of all colors) but you know there is something disturbingly wrong when we can’t even let someone mourn without feeling the need to one up them on their misery. It’s honestly fucking ridiculous that in the world we live in, a country and its allies aren’t even allowed to mourn for one day, or even a few hours before someone feels the need to point out all the other death that is being “ignored”. In this day and age you’re a monster if you have an actual connection to just one place. That won’t do. You have to be constantly supporting every death of every country of every day-or you’re an insensitive racist fuck.

I wasn’t shocked by this reaction from the general Facebook populace. This happens all the time, every tragedy is automatically turned into a commodity or thwarted to fit the rhetoric of every political movement on the face of the planet. It’s not new, but it doesn’t make it right. I don’t understand what people get from hijacking a tragedy to fit their agenda, it generally doesn’t do anything to help their cause and it just makes them look like jerks. The whole “my horrible suicide bombing is worse than your horrible suicide bombing” argument is unproductive, idiotic, and such a slap in the face to the people that actually die in these events and their families. All terrorism is horrible and tragic and it doesn’t need to be made worse by people trying to fit it onto some imaginary scale to get their point across.

What’s more, all this arguing over what country has it worse and how racist white people are for “not caring” about death in other countries is distracting from the one thing people should be able to do without judgment-mourn the loss of life.   People should be allowed to mourn or simply to respond to something that shocks them without fearing that by doing so they’ll be insensitive to someone else. Everyone has their own tragedies and their own ways to deal with them and having someone yelling over their Facebook loudspeaker “but do you cry over the children in Africa?!” is robbing people of their freedom to feel their grief. There is nothing more disgusting to me than someone forbidding someone their own emotions.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Beirut, Japan or Kenya (and I definitely don’t have anything against Mexico). I don’t think that the deaths that happened there are deserved. I don’t think that any death is deserved, especially deaths caused by ignorance and hatred. When I pray at night I pray for everyone in this world because we’re all living in an awful place. But I don’t live in Beirut, I live in Paris. I’ve always wanted to live in Paris, I have French host parents, I have been struggling to learn French for years-I have a relationship with Paris. I can’t say the same thing about Beirut. So when a terrorist attack happens in Beirut around the same time that one happens in Paris, I’m going to be sadder about Paris, not even sadder, just more attentive, because I have a connection with Paris. And you know what? That’s ok. Or at least, it should be. I should be able to write poems and cry and pray and do whatever it is that is comforting to me and be sad about whomever I am sad about because these are all natural responses to loss. I shouldn’t have to apologize for the way I grieve or who I grieve for.

I know that changing my profile picture on an online social network does nothing to end terrorism or return the killed to their families or end all wars but reminding people of this fact also does nothing to better the world. It gives me comfort to go on Facebook and scroll through a sea of tri-colored photos and if that doesn’t give someone else comfort that’s fine too. You don’t have to care about the attacks on Paris, you can be racist yourself and not care about the loss of white lives, you can think what I am doing to grieve for something that is important to me is stupid-that’s ok too. But don’t you dare make me feel bad for doing what gives me comfort. Don’t you dare qualify my own grief against the grief of others. Most of all, don’t you dare make me apologize for mourning over something that is dear to me.

Paris, France

Vendredi 13/11/15.

 

When you live in a big city, there are certain things that come with it. For one, you should probably be ready to shell out loads of cash constantly for everything from your organic Trader Joe’s groceries to your exorbitant rent that you don’t even know how you afford. You can also kiss that whole big yard with a white picket fence pipe dream goodbye because that crazy rent money will barely be enough to get you a shoebox of an apartment. On the bright side, you can count on some pretty wild public transportation stories to wow your non-city friends (have I told you about the time I saw a dude poop on the subway bench?). But one thing that comes with living in a big place with a concentrated population is the one that most people generally overlook, or like to forget, and that is the potential for terrorism.

Yes, that big T word that makes everyone tremble is very much a real thing when you live in a city. New york is the blatant example, 9/11 happened there and it’s not because it’s a little podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Even Austin experienced its five minutes of fear when North Korea placed it on a list of American cities that should be expecting some major Kim Jong-Un wrath (he must just hate good music and BBQ). I have to admit, when I moved to Paris I was a little worried. I’m not any more exposed to the threat of terrorism in Paris than I am in NYC, but 9/11 was 14 years ago and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo still loomed in the public consciousness. So yeah, I was well aware that Paris being a large city and a hotbed for controversy had that terrorism-target potential, so I was scared. And then, this past Friday, my worst fears came true.

I was luckily not in France; I was in he middle of a solo trip in Poland. But my friends were not. They were right in the middle of all the chaos; some of them even lived within walking distance of the concert venue where a hostage situation took place. Of course Social Media being the monster that it is immediately released a torrent of panic-tinged live coverage by my friends. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I was miles way, protected by the relative safety of Poland, I was immediately sucked in.

You see, it’s called terrorism for a reason; quite simply acts of terrorism are terrifying. They are not scary, scary things are the potential monsters under your 5-year-old bed. They are not worrisome, worry is something your mother feels when you haven’t texted her to tell her you arrived safely at your destination. They are fucking terrifying. Terror has an awful power that transcends borders and races and ages, in a most cliché way, it knows no bounds.

So this past Friday I was terrorized. Even though I was miles and miles away from what happened I was scared shitless. I could feel the terror transmitted by my friends who were still in Paris. I could feel the terror as I got message after message from endless family and friends asking if I was ok. I could feel the terror emanating from my parents eyes when we had the chance to Facetime and they kept murmuring over and over again how relieved they were that I wasn’t in Paris. I could feel the terror as I wrote this post, trying to hold back tears to save myself some curious polish stares. I can feel the terror as I type this now.

In a way I feel bad for feeling so affected by this attack. Because I wasn’t attacked, I wasn’t there to feel the actual life threatening terror of having a gun pointed at me or a bomb going off near me. I wasn’t even in Paris. But it did affect me, because I could have been there. I live in Paris. I was in Republique just last Wednesday, what if it happened then? I pass by Les Halles every day on my way to and from school. What if it had happened on one of those many occasions? I live in Paris, I am a part of Paris and it could have happened to me. One of my biggest fears about living in a city happened in a city that I lived in, so yes, it did terrorize me.

I cried as I talked to my parents. I cried the next day. I’ve basically been crying non-stop. I wanted out. Out of Poland, out of Paris, out of Europe. I wanted to be back home surrounded by the relative comfort of my parents and my dog Rocket, and Chipotle (of course). But even the idea of home wasn’t completely comforting because Austin is still a city, New York is definitely a city, and this awful thing that happened Friday night could just as easily have happened there. That is the most terrifying thing. I no longer felt safe because this could have happened just about anywhere I live.

Regardless, Austin, though not 100% terror-proof seemed like my best bet and I was about to book a ticket to the states and say au revoir to NYU Paris. I was literally about to give up my amazing study abroad opportunity (and $30,000 worth in tuition) to go crawl into the illusory safety of my cozy Texan bed. Then my dad did the most dad thing he could have possibly done and used my own words against me (good to know you’re listening dad).

“Remember Sama, you are the one who always says scary things happen, but you can’t live all your life in fear. You have to do what you want to do.”

Of course he (but really, me) was right. That is what I always say when my parents are apprehensive about me doing something, and it’s true. This extremely agonizing event is unfortunately not unique to Paris; it can happen anywhere. It can also happen nowhere. The thing is we’ll never know when/where/if anything like this will happen. So we can’t live life in fear that it will happen. Living in a city, especially a large city, arguably increases the chance of being a victim to terrorism. But I love cities, and I can’t give up that love because of something that may or may not happen. Not living in a vibrant, amazing, generally enthralling city out of fear of things that are not in my control is letting the bad guys win, and I’m not about to do that.

Yes, I am scared and no I don’t feel safe and I probably will be hyper vigilant at least for the rest of my time in Europe (I may even break down on the metro, it’s all possible). But now I am back in Paris and eventually I will be back in New York and I hope to eventually feel more at ease and regain the ability to enjoy these cities to their fullest extent. Because yes, cities are major targets for terror but most of the time they’re not terrifying at all- they’re just fucking awesome. These cities are resilient; they have been targeted and suffered time and time again but they always bounce back. Paris, New York, all of these cities stand for creativity, and opportunity, and freedom and rather than cower in fear and give up these important ideals like the terrorists want me to do, I’m going to put my Chucks on with Saint Laurent and live it up in the city.

Krakow, Poland /Paris, France

The Eyes of Paris Are Upon You

When I first came to Paris I expected it to be much like New York, except maybe prettier. I’ve always seen the two cities compared to each other. They’re both large, they both have world-renowned museums, they’ve both been breeding grounds for great artists and revolutionary art movements, they both have incredible shopping, they both have great public transportation… the list goes on and on. In my mind Paris was the prim and proper cosmopolitan city while New York was its gritty boho counterpart. But the longer I’ve been in Paris, the more I’ve realized how different the two cities are.

One of the biggest and perhaps most striking differences is the way people treat each other in Paris. New York has a reputation for being touchy and not entirely friendly, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that people in New York are rude, but they certainly do appreciate their personal space and anonymity. Before I came to Paris I was told that I shouldn’t expect much better from Parisians. Most people said Parisians are snobs and just as unkind to strangers as New Yorkers. But I’ve actually found that this is not true. People in Paris have largely been friendly and welcoming. As soon as they hear me struggle with my French they instantly try to respond in English in an attempt to help me out all the while praising my shitty French and bashing their own shitty English-often justifying it by saying they “speak English like a true Parisian,” (i.e. very poorly).

But what’s even more striking is that people actually acknowledge other people here. My little southern heart glowed the first time I walked into a Parisian café and was instantly greeted with a warm bonjour (in Texas smiling at and greeting strangers is just a sign of good ole’ southern hospitality). It still flutters a little every time this happens, and it does a whole backflip when someone wishes me a good day on my way out. When I run into my neighbors as I’m walking out of my apartment, they always smile kindly at me, even though I’m the weird American girl who always wears too much makeup (by Parisian standards at least). People smile at you on the streets just because and I have to admit, it’s very refreshing.

Even the way people act on the metro is worlds away from the behavior you see on the subway in NYC. Here people actually wait for people to get off the metro before they try to hop on (a concept that is lost on New Yorkers). If you’re trying to get off the subway, good friggin’ luck not getting crushed by the mob of people crowding in that doesn’t give a damn if you have the right of way. And you can fuhgeddabout people caring if they bump into you (even if they actually knock you down, they’re not taking the time out of their day to say something). In the Parisian metro however, if the metro comes to a sudden halt and someone lightly taps you because physics do not cease to apply in Paris, they will turn, look at you, and actually apologize. What’s more, people are courteous; they give up their seats without having to be told (in New York, much to my amusement, there are stickers on the subway describing the situations in which you should give up a seat-because the MTA feels the need to imbue some manners on the lost lambs that are New Yorkers). Men give up their seats to women, young give up their seats to old, friend groups give up their seats to family groups, it’s a big old game of musical chairs-and its fantastic.

The most astonishing thing about Paris is that here, you can look at people. People watching is normal, in fact it seems almost encouraged. There are so many places to do it, parks, wide streets, etc. Parisian cafes seem built for people watching with their sidewalk seating outfitted with strictly street facing chairs. In fact, the waiters always get perplexed if you turn the chairs to look at whomever you’re sitting with. You don’t get attacked with a hostile “whaddayewlookinat?!” when you watch someone go about his or her daily life like you would in New York. You don’t look like a deranged person when your mind wanders off as you look at someone. People don’t mind if you look at them because they’re most likely looking at you-especially if you look particularly touristy. What’s more, people make eye contact in Paris. I never thought I would write about people making eye contact, but the comparison with the little eye contact in New York is so striking, I had to mention it. If you’re looking at someone in the metro, they’ll eventually look at you until you both look at each other’s eyes, and guess what? It’s not awkward. They don’t look at you brows furrowed, lips frowning, wondering what the hell you want from them. They just go on doing their thing.

Sometimes I do find myself reverting to my New York ways and cursing all the friendliness and hellos and watching of me. But as a little short girl who sometimes gets bounced around the metro like a pinball, it’s nice for people to apologize when they’ve almost just elbowed me in the face for a change.

Paris, France

The Town Best Organized For A Writer to Write In

Paris is iconic. As an icon it has many smaller icons, petites images that the mind automatically gravitates towards when you think of the famous city. Many people hear Paris and bring to mind the Eiffel tower, berets, croissants and macarons and the Mona Lisa (which I find ironic given that the lady hails from Italy). But for more literary minds, Paris may just conjure up chic little cafés filled with posh wine-drinking-cigarette-smoking people.

To the people who were lucky enough to be exposed to the equally iconic characters of The Lost Generation, Paris is a symbolic space for creation and one of the most important places where this creation takes place is in cafés. No author makes the case for cafés as beacons of creativity as much as Hemingway. His books are packed with vivid scenes of cafés; his memoirs make clear that these are the places where some his most memorable works took their first breath.

It should come as no surprise then that as a lover of words, I expected Paris to become for me that creative space that was so coveted by Hemingway and company. I expected to be driven almost as if by some otherworldly force to the perfect café that would let the pen from my ink flow and deliver line after line of pure, brilliant writing. This of course, is asking too much of a city and its rather mundane cafés but I did at least expect to find a café that would provide an adequate space to work and so far no café has provided what I need. Hemingway set the bar high for cafés and Paris has not backed up his claims. Maybe Paris has stopped catering to creativity and begun catering to tourists instead (seems reasonable given the overpriced menu that no Parisian in their right mind would dare to waste money on). Regardless, cafés and creativity are two things that do not seem to exist in harmony in this city.

If cafés were ever the places for the free flow of ideas, that is no longer the case. Cafés are much too social here. Even if you sit inside to stay away from the temptation of people watching that is so natural on a sidewalk table, you cannot work. Cafés have become meeting points where people get together, have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine accompanied by some mediocre food (which is really the same in just about any café you walk into) and exchange a few words to catch each other up on every day topics. Of course, Hemingway never described his cafés, as being devoid of food and conversation but this all seemed to be more an afterthought in his cafés, secondary to work and drinks. I don’t have a problem with food in cafés-even starving artists have to eat- but it is so hard to actually get any work done when everyone around you is having such an effortless time. Which brings me to my next point, doing work in cafés is the perfect way to ostracize yourself.

People don’t work in Parisian cafés, they just don’t. The person sitting off in a corner scribbling away on a little notebook is the focal point of everyone’s stares. They are not friendly stares either; people watch you contemptuously, they whisper about you, they purse their lips at you, probably in an attempt to hold back some bitter comments. And don’t even think about whipping out a laptop, you might as well just walk yourself to a guillotine because computers in café s are the ultimate act of heresy. Not only that but wifi in a Parisian café is a luxury, not a given. If you need to type anything or research anything, you might as well just stay home. Computers and wifi of course were not concerns for Hemingway but given the way our world works, to writers they are almost on the same level of importance as a pen and paper and barred access to these necessities is really stifling.

At first I thought I was just not finding the right cafés. I thought by some sad tourist intuition I kept wandering into cafés aimed to please passerby whose loftiest goal is to have a croque monsieur to get the full “Parisian experience.” But I have searched far and wide. I’ve toured the 5^th and the 6^th and the 9^th and the 13^th and even the 17^th and every café has been the same, its only distinguishing feature being the color of its awning. I’ve even wandered into Hemingway’s old haunts but of course they’re nothing but commodities now. The Closerie des Lilas is a bourgeois bore and Les Deux Magots is nothing more than an overpriced restaurant where the cheapest dish is 14 €. Now a day you can’t even count on Hemingway’s personal recommendations.

Ironically the only café’s that I’ve found which are conducive to producing actual work have been cafés that seem ripped straight out of a SoHo or Williamsburg street. These cafés are so American that they generally come equipped with a full English speaking staff and even serve such New York delicacies as bagels and gluten free/vegan snacks. Of course, I’ll take whatever I can get as far as a good workspace where I don’t look like a freak with my laptop out. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel cheated. I figured that café culture would exist here just as much as it does in New York but in a more romantic Parisian fashion. I imagined myself sitting on a sidewalk table, the warm sun on my face, beautiful Parisian people passing by with baguettes in their bags, the sound of clinking cups in the background-but the reality does not include sun and baguettes and clinking cups. My reality does include writing, but in a place far less reminiscent of the romantic Parisian café Hemingway created for me.

*Title taken from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Paris, France

Internship Applications: 21st Century Torture Devices

New York is the land of possibility. As the song says, “if [you] can make it here, [you’ll] make it anywhere. But the whole point is that you actually have to make it, and that’s not an easy task, am I right Sinatra? If you’re a student, you have to work 1000x as hard because you don’t even have a solid tie to the city yet. Sure, you have four guaranteed years in the big city (if you don’t get defeated in the process), but you have to start putting down some roots otherwise eventually your four years are up and come graduation you’ll be shuffling back to whatever not-New York place you’re from. You have to work to live in New York. I’m not even back yet and I’m doing more New york things than I am Paris things because let’s face it, Paris hasn’t changed in the last 100 years and New York waits for no one.

One of the things you can do as a student to establish yourself, is to build professional experience, in other words, internships. Internships are a necessity in New York (and most large cities really), equivalent to the latest must have accessory. Except this accessory can make or break you. Most people I know have at least one internship every semester; others (who might be slightly insane) have multiple internships per semester. The pressure to have an internship attacks from every angle-parents, classmates, your university-everyone is wondering what you’re doing to get ahead in life. But I think some of these people lack awareness on just how stressful internship applications are.

First of all, you have to make time to apply to internships, contrary to popular belief, internships don’t just materialize out of nowhere (shocking, I know), That means that on top of going to class, studying, going to work, going to the museum exhibit your professor wants you to see, doing laundry, going grocery shopping, finishing your 12 page paper, cooking, doing homework, going outside and getting some sun, sleeping, working out, getting from point A to point B, not dying-on top of all that, you have to make time to sit down and actually apply to an internship. If you’ve managed to set aside a morsel of time for this purpose, you are definitely lucky, but so painfully far from being done.

Internship applications take time for a reason, There’s the actual application of course, which can be as simple as uploading a few forms or as complex as requiring several different essays, but then there are all the supplementary documents. A resume is a given and the easiest thing to have at the ready. But many times you also need to turn in letters of recommendation. It would seem that this would be simple, given that all you really need to do is reach out to people to recommend you, but when it’s November 1^st and your application is due November 2^nd and you’ve yet to receive your anticipated letter of recommendation, that’s when it gets personal. The sense of injustice that accompanies a completed application waiting only on letters of recommendation is indescribable.

Work samples are also generally required (at least for journalism internships) and of course these don’t come about over night. Work samples mean that your application does not even begin when you sit down to put everything together, it begins months (or years) in advance before it even occurs to you to apply to write for any actual publication. If you ‘ve been proactive and been getting published (in a school newspaper for example), this part of the application process should be a breeze. You can feel like a boss uploading you published work without breaking a sweat. But if this is your first internship or you simply haven’t been published, this is the moment when you feel like you might as well hitch a ride back home-because you’re basically screwed. You can put off the application and try to get magically published before you turn it in (and have to find time to do that work on top of everything else) or you can hope that your personality is more magnetic than it actually is and will shine through your application to attract internship offers. Either way, your confidence is very vulnerable to taking huge hits during the work sample stage. Even if you are a lucky soul and have work samples at the ready, it’s always terrifying to submit your work, and you’ll probably have a little nervous break down. Submitting your work to a mediocre school paper is absolutely no preparation for submitting it to heavyweights like the Times or the Journal.

Finally, the most feared of all internship application components, the cover letter. Good cover letters are mythical beasts like big foot, people claim they exist but no one really knows what they look like. There is so much conflicting evidence on how to write a good cover letter, it’s kind of amazing that anyone has ever gotten hired. I’ve done ample research on the qualities of a good cover letter and every time I end up confused and nauseous and ready to just crawl back in to bed and live with my parents the rest of my life. Some people say it should be creative and stand out among the stacks of black and white pages that hiring managers have to look at. Others think there is a formal business memo approach and any deviation from it is a one-way ticket to land your cover letter in the trash. Don’t even get me started on the debate about varying the structure by using bullet points. Every time internship application season rolls around, without fail, I take a good long look at my cover letter outline and immediately freak out at its possible inadequacy.

Recently I asked one of my friends who has had many flashy internships (including a very successful one with the White House) to see his cover letter so I could get a glimpse at the glorious wording and enlightened structure that landed him so many sweet gigs. It was honestly, a flop. I mean it was nice but it was the most unoriginal, run of the mill cover letter I have ever seen. I even asked him if he just gave a template or something so I wouldn’t steal his powers but he swore that this was it. So if anything, now I am quivering with fear because I’ve filled out a bunch of different applications with witty, non basic cover letters, and I’m afraid there’s someone in the BBC hiring department having a good laugh over my attempt to get a job with them.

At the end of the day, I think getting an internship is more of a luck thing than anything so I try to keep my anxiety over the process to a minimum (an 8 out of 10 on a normal person’s scale). Sure, you may be a great candidate, but when it comes down to it great candidates are everywhere and if the company you’re imploring to hire you isn’t feeling it, they’ll just move on to the next person. There’s really nothing that you can do about it, unless you happen to have a creepy ability to know what a specific hiring manager is looking for. So the only real solution is to keep sending applications until your fingers bleed from typing, and just pray to the hiring gods that someone will give you a chance.

Paris, France