Little Victories

I have now been in New York for a full week. The apartment hunt is not going well, so don’t ask about that. But other things have been good, and I’ve had a lot of moments when I have felt like a success or genuinely excited to be here. Here are a few:

• I managed to not look naked in my ID photo

While standing in line to get my FIT ID photo taken I suddenly realized I was wearing a sundress with spaghetti straps. Depending on how the image was cropped, this could result in no clothing appearing in my photo. I had this problem with my international student ID I got for Vienna. You think, “well, maybe no one will notice.” Everyone notices. I explained the issue to the photographer, and even though he pretended not to care, he cropped it just right. Visible clothes! Success!

• I survived my first week of class

This week was not the official start of school, but was instead the “proseminar” in which they made sure we were all on the same page about reading, doing research, and writing papers. Five years ago it was a full semester class. After that it was two weeks. This year they decided to condense it to one week, and the result was about what you would expect. We had papers and presentations all week and all got kind of burnt out. The plus side was I think it helped me make the mental switch back to school mode. I had a freak out about the work on Tuesday, but then got organized and it came easily.

• I have generally felt appropriately dressed

One of my big fears about New York was that my wardrobe—oft complimented in Seattle—might as well be socks and sandals by New York standards. It turns out frump exists in New York as well. A couple of weeks ago I put on an outfit and commented to Elise that I was sewing my tacky oats before I moved to the big city. This week, that outfit was one of the only things I could locate in the messy pile inside my suitcase. I wore it, and no one threw rocks at me.