A couple of weeks ago, I was dropping one of my friends off in Brooklyn. As they’ll be moving upstate soon, her family moved out of their old home in Queens and are temporarily living with relatives.
Since we were passing through her old neighborhood, we decided to stop by her old home. She’d missed out on giving a final goodbye because of exams the week before. We grabbed coffee from Dunkin Donuts and parked in the driveway.
It’s amazing how much of a blessing it is to have good friends. For about a year now, I’ve been slowly trying to get back into the habit of spending time with friends while balancing it out with schoolwork. It has worked out for the most part. There’s just something about being around people who genuinely care about you. It’s got somewhat of a stress relieving effect.
Reminiscing about things that seem to have happened only yesterday is always nice. You look back at the little things and realize they had the most significant impact on your life.
Today, I went on a class trip to the Tenement Museum in downtown Manhattan. It was an interesting trip. The whole neighborhood was somewhat ghetto. There were a lot of stores that sold things for cheap. My group went on a walking tour around the neighborhood. The guide explained things to us about the whole area.
Our second tour was of an actual tenement. It was interesting in that they created a different scenario-type thing in each room. We visited two flats from different time periods. Each room told a different story. The attention to detail was quite amazing. There was even a huge cockroach in one of the sinks! Walking inside warmed us up quite a bit.
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After the tours, a group of us went ice skating at Bryant Park. It was probably the best part of the many trips I’ve had over the past week. (I’ve been going on trips since Thursday, that makes 5 in a row.) I had never skated before so I didn’t know how to move around. Hell, I don’t even know how to rollerblade. My friend had to hold my hand the whole time. I still fell, though, and I had to keep grabbing the rail to gain my balance. The last time around, I was able to do it without falling or grabbing the rail. I did hold my friend’s hand the last time around, though.
A few things to remember if you ever go skating:
Last night, Rasidul, Einul, and I headed out to the Knitting Factory to watch Say Hi, The A-Sides, and The Velvet Teen perform. We had a great time. The three of us were probably the only people who weren’t white at the concert. It was actually my first time at the Knit, which was way smaller than what I’d imagined it to be. The three bands sounded very different from each other.
The show started out with The A-Sides performing about 5 or 6 songs. Their music has sort of a poppy, cheery vibe. I guess one could define it as power pop or something along the lines of that. I really liked that they ended with “Diamonds,” a great song.
The Velvet Teen was the second act. They were great. Both Rasidul and Einul were amazed their performance. This is when we started dancing. I was impaired by my jacket, though. (Being cheap, I held onto my jacket only to find that it would get pretty hot.) A bunch of hip kids started dancing like crazy during the songs. It was actually my first time seeing people dance to indie music. The three of us found it amusing. We’re used to seeing people grind and stuff (our school dances involve mostly rap music and not rock), not dancing with themselves and rub their hair.
Once the Velvet Teen was done, almost all of the people in the front moved away. As we were actually the first people to get into the show, we’d been near the stage. We decided to go as close to the stage as possible. We ended up right in front of the stage. I didn’t have to hold onto my jacket, but there weren’t anymore opportunities to dance like crazy. 
Say Hi set up and started playing. They played a few songs off The Wishes and The Glitch, their new album which I bought on vinyl at the show. They also played a couple of older songs. Eric played “Let’s Talk About Spaceships” because it was someone’s birthday and they’d requested it. That’s one of my favorite songs after “Laundry”, which I love.
The three of us took the subway home since my dad’s car broke down and he couldn’t pick us up. That made my mom a little upset because she didn’t want me hanging around the city that late at night. She even said that I can’t go to anymore concerts. I’m hoping that changes. :/
I’d have posted some mp3s for you guys but I’m too lazy. Go to elbo.ws or something.
So, Ramadan is over and we finally celebrated Eid a week ago. It was a fun day. I spent the day with Sudman and Rasidul. Nazmul also hung out with us for a while. At night, we went to my cousin’s house. Since his house is right next to my friend Einul’s, we hung out there instead. (It’s not fun in my cousin’s house.)
I had gotten a haircut the day before because I was tired of my long hair. As I’d expected, I had angered many of my friends. What I didn’t expect was the amount of comments I got from people who’d never said anything about my hair before. I guess change is good. It’s still hard to decide between keeping it short for a while or growing it out again.
Of course, the photo above is one of the first photos of my new haircut. I got back a roll of photos today and put them up on Flickr for your viewing pleasure. I’m actually surprised at the amount of photos that came out nice this time around. Hopefully, I’ll be getting my LC-A fixed sooner and have more than just indoor shots to show off.
What have I been doing lately? Well, I’ve been caught up in schoolwork. Junior year’s very harsh. Definitely don’t wanna slack off this year. It will hurt you. Of course, I’ve also been playing Phantom Hourglass. Although I really like it, the length of the game is disappointing. It’s way shorter than I expected. I honestly think Nintendo could’ve spent more of their time working on the gameplay than the little enhancements. We barely get to use all the little features they spent so much time on. That’s just what I think.
Also, In Rainbows is just awesome. It’s definitely something to listen to. I’ve had the songs stuck in my head since I got the album. I even went as far as putting the whole thing on my phone.
