8/24/09 First city rats, first day at FIT

I can’t believe I have only been here for three full days. Yet, one week ago I was still in Seattle, having drinks at Linda’s. Since I have arrived I have mostly been recovering from general physical and emotional exhaustion of moving across the country. Today however, was the first day when I think I got really excited about the city (oddly, I was a bit excited yesterday when I saw my first genuine NYC rats in the subway station, but I’m don’t think I’m supposed to find that charming). Since my cab ride from Penn station, today was the first time I’ve gone back into Manhattan. There is really something thrilling about coming out of the subway and being in the middle of it all. Instead spinning around and throwing my hat, I felt happy to stomp down the street with my fast New Yorker gait and act like I knew where I was going. When it turned out I was, in fact, going the wrong way, I tried to act appropriately scowly.

I was in Manhattan because today was my first day at FIT. In the afternoon we had orientation, and later in the evening we had our first class. The group is all women (even “Patrice” whose name seemed suspiciously male when I saw it on the list), most are in their twenties, and many have quite a bit of experience under their belts. Clearly, not everyone has museum experience though, as a couple tried to bring food and drink into the conservation lab (most of you reading this are probably shrugging, but I know a few are gasping in horror). There is one other West-Coaster (Carmel, California), a few from various places (Toronto, Detroit, Israel), but most are from New York state. Oh, and one poor woman is commuting from Philadelphia.

As interesting as it was, I’m finding that I haven’t quite switched over to school mode yet. It seems weird that I am officially a “graduate student.” When our professor was talking about all the different libraries we could use and how the special collections were open by appointment only, one woman raised her hand and asked if they would allow us to make appointments and what kind of connections we would need to have. Our prof. responded by saying “You are graduate level researchers. That is what special collections are for.” Oh, yeah! You’re right!