Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

It's been a wacky few days since my rather quiet evening in on Sunday night. Since then, I've a recieved a shiny new mastercard and have managed to activate my phone - although this involved a rather entertaining scene in which I did fearsome battle with the automated activation service. It would ask me to spell my name, which I would, and then it would proceed to say "please confirm that your first name is spelt Y - R - U - N - A - T". American voice recognition software really doesn't like English accents. There were torrential downpours in the city all day Monday which meant I did little other than pop into Uni to do some admin - which is always a lot of fun. The university seems to run on the basis that all admin is our responsibility whether we know about it or not, and they sure aren't going to make it easier by leting us know there's a really important form we need to fill in by Monday. No one ever really knows quite whats going on, but it does make it very easy to bond with other students - everyone has a Hunter admin nightmare story to tell. In the evening I was invited out by some other NSE students, and 6 of us headed down to the local bar where all the students drink, as it is well known for not ID-ing. It was relief to be out with people and drinking, which led to the usual one slightly too many. I have acquired a great new drinking partner in Jorge, a hilarious Puerto Rican student who was absolutely wasted after a few pints of Stella (being rather on the short side). The barkeeper finally kicked us out at half 3 and we headed back to halls to explore the basement, where there are some teaching rooms for the adjoining nursing facility. There were some interesting moments when we discovered the room where the prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs were stored - but of course being one of the older and more sober people there, I was very well behaved. Ahem.

Tuesday I awoke with the familiar headache headache - as ever, a small price to pay although this may have contributed to some of my struggles with the automated telephone system of doom. However, nothing could stop Ron and I trekking up to Times Square - Ron of course constantly mimicking the announcer on the subway in a fasion that would probably have resulted in his being assaulted on the tube - and attempting to pick up tickets for a show. We managed to get some very reasonably priced standing tickets, and so later that night we returned to the dizzying lights of Times Square to see:

It was amazing. Unbelievably hilariously ridiculously funny, as to be expected from any combination of Monty Python and Broadway show. I think the only song that didn't have me in fits was "You Won't Succeed On Broadway if You Don't Have Any Jews" and I'm guessing thats just because it's an American/New York/Broadway gag. My favourites included "He is Not Yet Dead", "The Song That Goes Like This", and "Run Away!" which included the lyric "We turn our asses as you part, In your direction we all fart!". Even "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" got a look in, but is never quite as funny when not sung from people on crucifixes. On a more personal note, I realised after just a few moments that King Arthur was played by none other than Harry Groener, Mayor Richard Wilkins of Buffy fame. Incidentally, his was the only believable accent in the entire thing, as the English, French and Scottish accents were possibly the worst I have ever heard, probably intentional and it certainly just added to the ridiculous effect. It definitely wasn't the film, but it was in fact rather hard at times to figure out what it actually was, other than very very silly. On top of all that, Times Square was amazing - I've attempted a photo or two, but my camera really doesn't like bright lights, poor thing. I went home a very happy bunny, and attempted an early night in preparation for today, the first day of classes.


Today has in fact been largely successful, Roshni and I making it to all our classes on time - we share three of the four we're taking this semester - and enjoying a rather long trip around town during the 4 hour gap between them. Gender in Modernism was first up at lunchtime, the professor was very friendly and just gave us a brief overview of the course, our reading lists and let us leave early. We then headed all the way downtown to visit Ground Zero, which was upsetting for a lot of reasons, and really clarified for me how angry I am with the way both America and Britain are being run at the moment. I have no idea what that means for me in practical terms, but it was something of a suprise at the time. To shake off any potential genuine opinions I might have forming, we moved on to Century 21, the most hilarious department store I've ever seen. The women's floor resembled T.K.Maxx as it might be in some kind of hellish 80s time warp. Even worse, everything there is designer label, and I think the women shopping for items well generally well over $500 were not too impressed by Roshni and I running around posing and taking photos of the worst of what was available. The basement was slightly more acceptable, and just to proove that I haven't been abducted by kidnappers cunningly using this blog as decoy, I've included a photo of me and a teapot mysteriously named after me. Its a very nice teapot, of course.



We walked back uptown trying to explore Soho and the Villiage, but somehow got rather lost and ended up eating huge slabs of pizza before rushing to catch the subway to our Pragmatism and American Lit class. I was particularly daunted by this one and at first the proffessor seemed pretty scary, lecturing us on lates and absences, but after a few minutes it was obvious that he was actually fairly nice, and certainly made an effort to explain what looks like a fairly complicated topic in a straightforward and understandable fashion. When I figure out what pragmatism is, I'll let you know - the furthest we got today was that it was a method of philosophy concerned with practice, actions, results and consequences. Hmm. The reading for everything looks pretty good, from 'Three Lives' by Gertrude Stein and 'The Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison to 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf and 'The Sun Also Rises' by Ernest Hemmingway. On top of that, the bookshop for our courses has a very large resident cat, which partially made up for the price of the books I bought today. In any case, tomorrow is my earliest start so I'm going to attempt a little reading - Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'Circles' - before bed, and hopefully my brain will be functioning by the time I get to my class on advanced linguistics in the morning. I leave you with more dodgy night shots from my camera - the Chrysler building and the roof of Grand Central last night and the view of FDR drive and the East River from my room window.