tigertail in new york

Today is my 3 month anniversary of arriving in New York.

Anniversaries are usually a time for reflection, celebration and present giving.. I'm going to do the reflection and, depending on how I'm feeling, some of the celebration, so feel free to do the present giving, either in electronic form, or if you prefer, by mail.. Just wait till I have a couple of hours to go to the post office to collect it..

I'm not feeling the best today - came down with a sore throat yesterday evening, and by this morning I was really under the weather. Had to call in sick to my internship, which I felt really bad about. Still better to try and get better today, then have to cancel a paid gig tomorrow or Friday. Except that tomorrow was cancelled today, and so I'll have tomorrow to get better too.

Steady work is still eluding me, although I know that some of this is due to the season. I did manage to get some freelance research work, which I can do from home, so I'm very lucky, but so far it's only a couple of days work and we'll see where it goes from there. It was the quickest interview I've ever had. She had asked me to come in after seeing my "fantastic resume", we chatted for about half an hour and then she offered me the work.

I've managed to cut my resume down to the regulation 1 page required here. That's right folks - one page. Forget putting all the things in there that show how diverse you are, forget a detailed work history, forget grandiose statements about what amazing skills and training you have - one page. And then in most cases you have to include it in the body of your email, so forget fancy formatting too.

But enough of (lack of) work, this was about my anniversary. I'm doing ok - have a nice place to live, great flatmates, some new friends, somewhere to spend Xmas with my wonderful brother and sister-in-law (or sister-in-fact.. whatever Dave) but I don't have the solid, real friendships I had back home. I know that this takes time, and that meeting as many wonderful friends as you guys back home isn't necessarily going to be easy. And I think about fabulous people I know who upped and moved cities, states and countries and who I still have strong bonds with - whether I met them before or after their big moves (I see you - Jen, Kim, Kate & Dave, Sherrie, Gabina)

But it can be lonely, and you can feel like you're way to eager to make plans with people and then you get frightened you'll scare them off. Or they seem really keen to hang out and then somehow never call, or always have something else on. So you start wondering if it's this town, or whether it's you or whether you should fake being more blasé. But I'm a very straight up person - I can't be fake and pretend to be your friend if I really don't like you. So conversely, if we get on really well and I'd like to hang out with you, then I say so. And if we make tentative plans to do something on a particular day, then I'm thinking that we'll be talking about it closer to the day to organise it.

Maybe I expect to much of people - hey I know people are busy - I've been really busy too. And maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite as I still have many unanswered emails to respond to. I just can't help but feel disappointed sometimes. And I don't like being disappointed in people. I like to think the best of people and when they don't come through I can get hurt. Too much time waiting for phone calls that don't come through, or doing things on my own, which I actually don't mind - just not all the time.

So that's the downside of the reflection. On the more positive upbeat side, there are some new friends who make an effort - and I'll be hanging out with one of them on Saturday. There are also some networking people I've made contact with, and that's going ok too. Work, when it doesn't fall through, is really good - reminds me why I moved here and didn't stay at home where film / tv work was very thin on the ground. I do miss the people I used to work with back home, and of course the salary...

I have 2 cats - well, they're my flatmates, but they're here, and so for the first time in a long time I get to have pets. And they're very cute, except when they run up and down the hallway at 4am mewing. And except for one day, the weather has been ok - not too cold. Never thought I'd be saying that 14 degrees c was ok, but there you go. Also never thought I'd be working a job where I had to be there at 5am, and had to leave my house at 4 am to get there on time.

I had a wonderful thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to Xmas, so there are many things to celebrate - and of course there is the city itself. New York is an amazing place - there's lots of things going on and lots of places you never knew existed. I'm sure that as I have more work, and therefore more money, I'll be able to enjoy some of the more costly things here, but until then I'm just enjoying getting to know my neighbourhood a bit better, and how to get to places on the subway.

Posted by Ness on Wednesday, December 13, 2006 at 9:56 PM | Permalink