A day of firsts

Today I had my first:

Day of work
I'm officially a working woman in New York City.  Today marked the beginning of my public relations career.  My whirl-wind day started at 7:30 a.m. after a sleepless night (I always have issues sleeping when I'm anxious or excited).  5W moved buildings sometime between my interview in November and now.  The new building is beautiful, and as I've already said, in the perfect location nestled between Central Park and Times Square.

Like most new jobs or internships, my morning was mainly dedicated to filling out paper work and reading the intern packet and handbook.  Everyone I met today was so nice and helpful.  I was also able to contribute a little today, which I wasn't expecting.  Usually, you just have to get all the administrative paperwork out of the way.  I'm still content with roaming around parts of the city that I have yet to encounter so  I welcomed the opportunity to run an errand out in the city.  I was also able to help with a clip book.  I headed home around 5:45.

Subway ride by myself without the help of Hop Stop
I don't know how anyone lives in NYC without an iPhone.  I use Hop Stop to get me everywhere.  It's so neat, it's like Google Maps for subways.  I never thought I'd be able to step on a subway without first double checking my Hop Stop to make sure I'm going the right way, but today I rode the subway a whole FOUR TIMES without once glancing at my phone.  Mainly because it was too cold and I couldn't bring myself to take my gloves off for a few seconds.  Now I know why most New Yorkers have BlackBerrys: you need warm finger tips in order to use the iPhone touch screen.

Encounter of a rude New Yorker
I couldn't figure out the intercom system trying to get into a building and the woman on the other end yelled at me :(


Day of class
Normally, our class meets somewhere on 28th, but today we met in the the "library apartment" on the 15th floor of our building due to the snowstorm.  We were all hoping class would be cancelled, but Dr. Kickasola doesn't seem to be (and proved not to be) a time waster.  We quickly went over the syllabus and played a get to know you game.  It was actually a lot of fun.  I'm looking forward to getting to know Dr. Kickasola more.

SNOW FALL
FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE MANHATTAN BECAUSE IT'S SNOWING SO MUCH!!! WOO!!

I can't wait to see what the city looks like tomorrow :)

The fun just keeps coming!

Man, do I have a lot to talk about today!

First of all, have y'all ever seen an escalator for a grocery cart?  I have to say, aside from Fresh Direct, this is the other best thing that has happened to grocery shopping.  KA, Julia, Mandy, and I ended up at Whole Foods in Union Square after a fairly long day window shopping near KA's internship at Focus Features, which is close to the NYU campus.  We were all fascinated by this grocery cart escalator and I will probably do half my shopping with Fresh Direct and half my shopping with Whole Foods, just because they are both so cool (and Whole Foods is a client of 5W).  I know I am way more excited about this than I should be.  Oh well.

Sadly, you are not allowed to go up the grocery cart escalator with your cart :(

While this escalator was exciting for us to experience, my roommates and I had a few other surprises tonight.  Like our apartment flooding.  We discovered a minor leak in our pipes earlier that turned into a major leak that flooded our dining room wall-to-wall.  None of us have all of our things here yet, so we were short on towels to mop up the water.  It was a hectic 20 minutes trying to clean up the water and convince the front desk that it was definitely an emergency and that we needed a solution now.  The funniest part of this whole fiasco: Julia decided she should ring out the mop we were using in the kitchen sink.  Brilliant.  We had a good laugh about it though :)

The most entertaining part of the day came last, naturally.  Lauren's mom and sister are in town visiting and are staying at the Empire Hotel, which, incidentally, is the location of the Gossip Girl set tonight.  I don't watch much TV and I've never seen Gossip Girl, but it was still so much fun to watch.  Since Lauren's family are guests of the hotel, we were all allowed inside the lobby to watch the filming.  Chase Crawford was the only full-time cast member we saw on set.  

Chase is from Texas.  During one of the breaks Julia innocently walked up to him to ask if he would take a picture with us.  She got "Hi Chase, we're from Tex..." out of her mouth before his body guard literally pushed her away from him, but since we were from Texas he was more than willing to come take a picture and chat with us for awhile.  He turned other girls down for pictures... and they definitely weren't shy about their jealousy! What can I say?  Texas girls are the best!

Although I've had so much fun as a tourist in the city, I'm ready to start my internship tomorrow, start a routine and let myself become a New Yorker.

Follow my experiences in the Big Apple

I think I'd like to legitimately start blogging.  Now that I live somewhere new and exciting it will be worthwhile to document my adventures.

For those of you who don't know, I'm in a program called Baylor Communication in New York (BCNY).  The purpose of the program is to allow Baylor students, specifically Film and Digital Media and Journalism and Media Arts students, to experience our fields outside the confines of Waco, TX.  There are 18 of us now living together in NY!  We are all taking two classes with Dr. Kickasola, doing an independent study, and working at internships in order to receive 12 credit hours.  We were all expected to find our own internships.

I'll be starting my internship with 5W Public Relations on Tuesday!  5W is a fairly new PR firm; it opened in 2003, but has already been named in the top 15 PR firms in the United States.  It was also named the fastest growing PR firm three years in a row (yeah, they mean business).  5W works within 10 different industries: consumer products, corporate communications, technology marketing, health & beauty (my industry!), travel & hospitality, food & beverage, lifestyle, entertainment & sports marketing, public affairs/government relations, and events marketing.  Some of 5W's bigger clients include: McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, Guitar Center, and Whole Foods.

5W is going to be such a great place to learn and grow professionally.  I'm so excited to start in a few days!

The Beginning:

I arrived yesterday afternoon and settled into my new apartment in Long Island City, which is about a 10 minute subway ride to Manhattan, if that.  In fact, you can see the beautiful Manhattan skyline from my window.

 

After unpacking my roommates, Katherine Anne, Julia, Lauren, our friend Anthony and I headed out for our first exploration of our surroundings.  We hopped on the F train and headed toward Astoria and got off two stops later.  We found a nice, cheap Thai restaurant.  After lunch, we all went home to rest up for our big night out for KA's birthday in Greenwich Village.

Today, my roommates and I slept in, hung around the apartment and ordered our groceries.  Yes, we ordered them.  Online.  I am totally loving the fact that I can get up in the morning and go "grocery shopping" on my couch in my pajamas.  Fresh Direct is probably the worlds greatest idea. 

How it works:

Once you create an account you're able to browse all the brand names you'd find in any grocery store.  You can read about what the condition of the produce, how long any fresh fruit or veggies will last, and you can even order your toilet paper to be delivered right to your doorstep!  The prices seemed reasonable, for New York, and there was only a $5 delivery charge.  Yes, I will pay $5 extra to save myself time from jumping around to different markets to find everything I need and carrying all my groceries back in the freezing cold.  It's probably the best $5 I spent all day. 

Julia and I decided to go find our offices today and tour the city.  It took us awhile to find 5W's new office on 7th Ave. (although it was right in front of us, we just weren't paying attention).  My building is right down from Times Square, how cool is that?!  We found Julia's internship (CBS) pretty quickly.  We then took a stroll through Central Park, which was covered in snow.  It was such a beautiful sight, I meant to take a picture, but Julia and I had our hands full with the delicious pretzels we bought from a street vendor.  

We had to make a stop at the Plaza Hotel on 5th Ave.  Julia is obsessed with the Eloise books, so of course we had to go to the Eloise shops in the hotel.  I never read any Eloise books as a child, but I'm sure I would have loved it.  Julia had a great time telling me about all the adventures the fictional character had while living in the Plaza Hotel.  It was so fun to see her reaction to all the merchandise in the store.  She ended up buying an Eloise mug.  It made my day seeing her so happy to relive part of her childhood. 

After such a busy day, all the roommates spent the night in.  I've had so much fun my first 24 hours and I'm so excited to see what opportunities await me in this electric city.