It is a rainy day in Brooklyn, and I am sitting in my room wondering anxiously what I should be doing. I finished my program at Columbia on Friday. We had a final banquet and received one of these suckers:

Hooray-ya-yay
The last 48 hours have pretty difficult. I had to be out of the Columbia dorms by 10AM on Saturday, but I didn't end up packing until a few hours before that deadline. Foolish perhaps, but I cleaned up, sorted everything, and was out just in time. I shared a cab with a friend and headed to Brooklyn. I dropped off my things, took a shower, and began walking toward the mall in order to get an air mattress. The Atlantic Center mall is located five blocks from my house. I didn't realize this until yesterday, and I am so thankful for the convenience. Other residents of Brooklyn, however, are not so thankful. It is another recent development that people think are marring the city's character. In fact, I am living right next to one of Brooklyn's most ambitious building projects in history, the Brooklyn Arena and Gehry complex:
I live on Vanderbilt and Dean, directly on the lower right corner of the map. Most of Brooklyn's buildings are about 4 stories, with a few going up to no more than 10 stories. Imagine, then, this in the middle of the Brooklyn Brownstones:




We shall see how that works out.

Anyway, got my mattress, carried it home, and then took the subway back to Manhattan to see Rachael and Shannon:

I realize that these photos are sideways, but I'm not motivated enough to alter them in photoshop, so just tilt your head. We hung out in Union Square Park, walked through a farmers market, and ended up in Madison Square Park. After lying on the grass and talking, we took the subway to Brooklyn, visited my apartment, and ate a great meal at a local cafe.
After Shannon left, Rachael and I bought some ice cream and watched tv. We soon realized that my apartment is extremely hot. My roommate has a small cooler in her room to battle the heat. Smart, very smart.

I slept with a spray bottle and periodically sprayed myself while we listened to the Saturday night racket outside my windows. It was awful. The first thing Rachael and I did in the morning was walk to the mall and purchase an air conditioner:
You see it here nestled in my window hard at work. A very long ordeal, however, was involved to get it to this place. I didn't realize how hard it is to carry a full window-sized air conditioner. Very heavy to lug five blocks. Then it started to pour outside. This was a low moment. After several anxious moments of lugging an air conditioner along the street while cabs sped past, we finally hailed a cab and got home. Tough day.

Things are getting better, though. My room is wonderfully cool. Rachael and I had a nice meal before we parted. I bought groceries and talked to my parents and John David. I took a nice nap and a hot shower. Now I am thinking of tomorrow: a cool interview, fresh laundered clothes, and a clean room. I'm looking forward to it.