Pico De Gallo

It seems trivial now that i worried so much about getting along with my room mates as we sit and bond with chatty girl talk. But upon first arriving i was greeted by two wacky suitemates that only exhaserbated my nervous jitters of the first day of college.  I worried night and day about how i was going to deal with the apparent "triscuit monster" (my room mate that decided to cover our floor in broken triscuits ) and the other room mate that wouldn't stop apologizing for everything. But all it took was one night out and some extra sour cream on our burritos at a small hole in the wall restaurant on south street to start the understanding and stop the judging. Now there isn't a time we don't joke around and accept each other quirks as just that, part of their personality that goes unchanged and influences me to be myself. i sat down to write this blog on my bed while my sick room mate sneezed and coughed beside me, but before i even started the first sentence my room was suddenly filled with laughter.The apologizing room mate just got back from professing her love to a boy she has known all her life and found out it was not unrequited. We now share stories of our past and hopes for our future. I hope the sour cream and burritos never run out.

University 101 is not pointless

Traditional homework to me usually consists of reading or comprehension exercises and rarely requires me to venture away from my desk. But upon arriving as a student at Drexel, and attending my Univ101 class, I was forced out my conventional shell and shoved into a brand new city as part of my homework assignment. I was encouraged to go see new things and experience them for the first time as a student of the world instead of just an eighteen year old girl from New York. So as per my homework i set out with a subway map, fifteen dollars, my cultural passport, and a mission to see and learn something new. 

As a girl from New York, I was skeptical at first to see what I could possibly experience in a City much smaller than mine that I hadn't already been accustomed to. But of course, I spoke too soon. I sat down with the subway map ashamed of myself. I knew where I was, but I had no idea as to how to get where I was going. The stubborn New Yorker in me refused to take out the subway map at first, but the scarred teenager in me over ruled and I reluctantly gave into my defeat of having a great sense of direction. And within the next few moments something would occur to me. Philadelphia was making me street dumb. I already had a good sense of how to navigate through a city. But that was when I knew where I was going and where to avoid. But in this new city I was certainly clueless. Until a man I named Chuckles stepped into my life. My first instinct was to walk away and walk away fast. but something told me to just give him a chance. Well it turns out that he used to work for septa and knew every route by heart. I had chosen the right homeless man to not ignore.  

My cultural passport forced me into a new city to discover new things and in the process made me discover new things about myself and the people that populate Philadelphia. I learned that while my first instinct is usually the smartest one, it won't always get me where I need to go. I have learned to take the New Yorker in me and tone her down a bit and not be so bitter.  It turns out being street dumb in the city of brotherly love will actually make you smarter.