New York

Wow. It's been forever since I last posted on this (well, except for yesterday). My life has been so crazy lately, but now that I have a moment, I'd like to share my adventures (or pictures of them, rather) :)

I spent 7 days in NYC. A beautiful and crazy city. There are all kinds of people there, it was great! I LOVE diversity--I miss it a lot! I don't think I could live there, though, because I don't really like subways and it's way too hectic for me to try to get around on foot. I like chill atmospheres. AND not to mention the weather...every time I walked outside, my hands instantly got damp from the humidity. Don't get me wrong, though. It's an awesome place :)

I love walking everywhere, I wish we could do that more on the west coast. There was SO much to see. NYC (just like a lot of places in New England) has a lot of history and cool buildings. It was amazing to see all of the architecture and culture.

I went with 2 other girls. It was kind of a girls week, I guess. We did a LOT of exploring! Here's part of our list, and we did about 98%, if not ALL (plus some) of these things... (One of the girls did an internship there a few summers ago, so she made this list up, not me, I'm not patient enough haha):

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Yeah, it was a looong week! I was so tired by the end of it, I think I slept for about a day.

People always ask me what my favorite part of the trip was, and I can honestly say that I don't have one. It was all really fun and I loved just taking a break from real life.

Anyway, enough talking! Here are some photos (they're sporadically placed):
P.S. None of these are composited; just color-correction. It was really a beautiful time of year to visit.

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On top of the Empire State Building

View from the Empire State Building

I LOVE the architecture!

Are we in China?

Central Park

Now I feel like I'm in England...I'm confused.

"Tangled" tower?

Yeah, that's not grass... gross.

For all you Beatles fans

John Lennon's Apartment

The piano from Big!!

St Patrick's Cathedral

St Patrick's Cathedral

Since there are a shortage of trees on the street, this is kinda cool

Thought this was funny :)

Yup, I'm a tourist, and I don't know how to use a magnifier thingy!! ;)

The skyline

Don't remember what this was for, but it looked rustic and cool on this cloudy day.

The pier

Gotta have a pic of Lady Liberty

One of the Freedom Towers (under construction, obviously)

9/11 monument, really cool and peaceful

Lone leaf

Seen enough? Good, cause that's all!! (for now)

Time for new skills...

I'm a college graduate. I can't even express how excited I was to finally graduate! No more homework and I would get paid, not the school.

Well, little did I know, it's not that simple. I couldn't find a job. Not because I'm not qualified--simply because there is a huge lack of a job market for photography. 

Yes, I have almost completed one semester's
worth of work in 1 1/2 weeks. I'm a little addicted...

But, almost all (5 ouf of 7) of the siblings (and most of their spouses) are programmers. They are all ridiculously smart and (yes) nerdy. I say that with all of the love in the world. They are really going places: they all have great-paying jobs and are successful.

So, I thought I'd give it a shot. Now, I'm kind of addicted. I'm re-learning HTML and CSS and now I'm digging deeper into JavaScript and I actually find it FUN!! Crazy, right? But it's true. Something about typing in a code and getting the computer to display what I want it to gives me a huge satisfaction. My biggest motivator, though, is that there is a job market for it.

I'm learning WEB DESIGN and it's awesome!!
Here's where I'm learning it. 

And here's what I'm also learning... if you mess one little thing up (i.e. forget one little semicolon or parenthesis) your code goes  BOOM  and everything gets screwed up. Talk about frustrating... so you could spend hours like this and not know what's going on:

(In fact, I have seen my little sister Christina do this many times, it's kinda funny to watch, but not fun from the other end)

I'm obviously not a pro at it yet, and frequently feel like the little cartoon shown above, but I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere in this dead economy. I'm still--and always will be-- a photographer who loves to Photoshop, but I also love designing and programming now.

I guess I'm a nerd. It's in my blood-- you can't escape genetics ;)