I’ve had friends from back home, from other states and even other countries ask me about life in the Big Apple. Is it as tough as people say? How hard is it to find a job? Is it really expensive?

There are lots of things to keep in mind. But anything is possible if you truly want it to be. They say that if you make it in New York you can make it anywhere, and I believe that is true. The life experience you gather here can open many doors for you, if you take advantage of it. Life here is both exciting and challenging.

First of all, you’ll need money. How much do you need? Enough to buy yourself food and pay rent for a few months. You may find a job within your first week of looking, but you want to be prepared for survival in case it takes a bit longer. Also update your resume and have printed copies at hand if possible and a digital copy that you can take to a place like Staples or Kinko’s and get it printed.

If you have a relative or friend who lives here already, talk to them. They can give you tons of valuable information. Also, if you feel comfortable enough and have a good enough relationship with that friend or relative, maybe they could provide a temporary living arrangement for you, or suggest one.

Something that a lot of people do is, they set up job interviews for an entire week or a few days, and then they take a trip to NYC specifically for interviewing. This is up to you, I didn’t do it that way. I did my job hunting while living with a friend.

One great thing about moving around in NYC is that you don’t need a car! The public transportation here is great in general terms. It is not perfect of course, and those who have lived here long enough will tell you that it can be a “pain” sometimes, but compared to the rest of the world it is pretty damn good. If you are attached to your car right now, and think you might want to bring it with you, all I can say is that you will be spending a lot of extra money to keep that car. Car insurance is expensive here, and so is parking space. So unless you plan on living outside of the city, far enough that you will need to drive a lot (and that in itself will be expensive), then give up the car. Trust me, once you get used to it you won’t ever need it again (I was once a car owner too).

You’ll be traveling around by foot, subway train, bus and taxi. So, if you like reading you’ll have tons of time to do that while  you sit on the train, bus or taxi.

Renting here goes like this: it’s small and usually expensive, but you can always find a place that suits you and that you feel comfortable in. Living with a roommate is a great alternative that many people go for. The cost of rent gets divided so it’s easier to deal with. Fancy, large apartments will cost you more of course, and the location will also dictate the price. Nicer areas cost more while not so nice areas will of course be a bit cheaper. Also, if it looks too good to be true it usually is. When you go see an apartment, try as much as possible to go see it during hours in which the neighbors might be in (late afternoon and night). This will give you a more realistic experience of what you’re getting into. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and don’t settle for less (unless you are truly desperate). NYC housing experiences is a whole other topic I might have to write a separate article about lol.

One thing that must be mentioned is: The Internet is your friend. It can help you do so many things without leaving your home, without having to travel. There are tons of websites that can help you do your research, find housing, a job, etc. I’m going to include some websites here (below, just keep reading) that are very helpful. I’m sure I’ll miss some but I’ll add more later and if you know some good ones please let me know and I will add them.

Remember, that those who never take risks never truly live. I used to be (and still am to a degree) very shy, and I’m also not a huge fan of drastic changes. However, I took the risk and came to New York City from a tiny Caribbean coast town were everyone knew each other. The change was enormous to say the least. I had to adjust to so many differences in culture and lifestyle, even the people who are from my same island of Puerto Rico are not the same here. Those who grow up here have a very different way of talking, thinking, living etc. which is understandable. Like I said before, it is exciting and challenging. Anything is possible.

Here are some helpful Links:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/ (jobs, apartments, furniture for your apartment, VERY helpful website)

http://www.manhattanaddress.com/ (to find any place in NYC you need the “cross streets”)

http://www.notfortourists.com/NewYork.aspx (tons of cool info on good places to go to)

http://www.weather.com/ (the weather here dictates how you’ll dress so you have to keep up with it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City Lots of good info about NYC

So that’s all for now. I hope to be able to continue this later with more information and experiences. I have no regrets and I’m proud to have come this far in Gotham. I love this city.

Good luck with your move!

Me and my hubby went to see Arch Enemy at the Nokia Theater last friday (Jan 22). When we got there, the line wasn’t so bad but it was a bit cold outside. People asked what was it that we were waiting for, and one person thought it was something related to MTV which we thought was very funny.

Anyway, the bands were: Mutiny Within, Arsis, Exodus and Arch Enemy of course. As usual the first band sucks. Those guys should just play Power Metal and skip the growling. Arsis was ok, Exodus had terrible sound but they still put on a great show. Arch Enemy blew me away! Their sound was perfect, everything sounded so good including Angela’s voice. I really was impressed with their live performance. One thing surprised me though, no encore! It’s the first time I’m in a show with no encore, but I was exhausted at that point so in a way it was a relief.

Well that’s another band to add to my list of “Seen Live”.

But it’s not enough. I want to learn other languages. If it were up to me I’d go to school and learn as many as I could, no joke. But, years ago, even before I moved here, I was introduced to Japanese anime by a friend. I did not like it and brushed it aside. Later on, the same friend showed me more anime, and this time I did like it. After watching an entire series, I didn’t really watch anymore. I just wasn’t a fan. Anyway, I started getting into anime once again recently, and also manga. This made me want to understand Japanese. I also got into Japanese rock music. There is a lot of good music, good anime and manga, oh, and even TV dramas! Of course that’s not all there is to Japanese culture. But what I really want is to be able to read a magazine, a book, watch an anime, and understand it all perfectly without the need for translation into English. It’s such an expressive and passionate language, I want to learn!

Of course for serious learning one can not rely on anime (that would be ridiculous). I did my research, and I found many resources. There is school, books, software, websites, all kinds of resources. These are the ones I am using at the moment.

• All Japanese, All The Time. http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ a friend introduced me to this awesome blog. Khatzumoto has his own method for learning Japanese, and although it may be too extreme for many of us, we can always learn something valuable from this language warrior. I read up a lot in his blog, and gathered the information that would be useful to me.
• Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese Characters by James W. Heisig. This book has many good reviews and recommendations as a great method to learn and remember the Kanji. I just started with it, but so far, so good! I got my copy from amazon.
• Byki. This system has desktop software, a community, and the basic software is FREE. And it’s not just some crappy free trial, it’s actually pretty good. It uses common phrases, basic words, everything that you need to know. It’s not boring at all. It gives you real pronunciation, images, and you can take tests, record yourself to compare with a native speaker, get new lists of words from other users, etc…There are many things you can do with Byki. I started off with the free version but I liked it so much that I bought the Deluxe (it was on sale for $40).
• Music. I remember that one of the things which helped me learn English faster and to pronounce more accurately was listening to music. I’d crank up the volume in my room and sing along with my favorite Rock and Metal bands that of course sang in the English language. So I’m repeating this method now with Japanese. I have a few favorite bands right now like, L’arc~en~Ciel, D’espairsRay, Versailles to mention just a few. I try to look at their lyrics as well, even if it’s Romaji (a system of Romanized spelling used to transliterate Japanese). I also listen to Japanese radio, even if it’s just news.
• TV. I don’t watch much of it to begin with, but I’ve reduced my amount of English language TV as much as possible. Instead, I watch anime, or Jdorama (Japanese TV dramas). I still use the subtitles in English but hope to stop using them soon. So my Netflix queue is usually full of anime these days. Unfortunately they don’t have Jdoramas in Netflix yet, so I have to buy them or find them online on streaming websites. One really good website I go to constantly to watch anime is crunchyroll.com. They are getting a lot of great new anime that are legally streamed in their website. Plus, since it has a great forum, I can find out about other good ones to watch, and even for TV dramas.
• Reviewing the Kanji. This website is a wonderful tool to use as a supplement to Remembering the Kanji, mentioned above. Once I get through a chapter on my book, I go online and review the Kanji learned. This way I will reinforce it. The website was created for this exact purpose so it works perfectly with the book. It also motivates me to keep learning.

So those are my current tools. It’s not easy to learn a new language, but the more you immerse yourself into it the more you learn. I can not have a conversation in Japanese as of yet, but each day I understand a little more. I’ve even started to think in Japanese a little bit, and that’s a good sign to me. Now what would be even more helpful is a friend who is fluent in Japanese. I guess I have to work on that…

またね。

But I still felt a bit limited because I could not create poster sized images with my little Kodak which is a 4 mega-pixel camera. I wanted to go further so I decided maybe it was time to get a DSLR. I’m not trying to go pro here, so this was a difficult decision. I love taking pictures, but sometimes I like to use the pictures to create digital artwork and I need them to be very large for that. A friend of mine who is a professional photograher had a Nikon D70s sitting in her closet, unused so I bought it from her for a good price. Now I have lots to learn with this new piece of equipment.

So I want to take more and more pictures now. I did take a lot last year when I went to Puerto Rico. I upload my best photos to my JPG magazine profile. I also submitted one for the possibility to get published in JPG magazine. So check it out! Vote for my photo here!

BTW the photos you see on the top right are from my collection.

How about you? Do you like photography?

~L

Why should I allow myself to plunge down into the destructive spiral? Why should I allow my sanity, my thoughts to be completely invaded by all this, quickly placing my ability to continue in a positive direction in a complete freeze? One thing is, admitting the state of things in the Now we are living, and another is, allowing that to become the future as well. I can’t allow my mind, my thoughts, my desires, my energy to focus on Now, when Now is not what I want for me. I have to continue to work on my thoughts, and on my focus on what I WANT my life to be. That is the only way I will get THERE.

As a former colleague recently wrote in her LinkedIn status, I am a recent casualty of the economy. So I’ve been home for the past two weeks or so, doing many things: updating my portfolio, browsing job postings and applying here and there, keeping the recruiters updated, going on the Unemployment Insurance website, and of course I’ve been doing other things like watching anime, checking out some Flash video training for myself (I will get better at it!), and working on my Japanese Lessons.

Of course being at home, I’m saving all that money I  used to spend on lunch while at work and that is great. Also, I’ve become an addict of HGTV. I call it my training for buying my first home. I’m also cooking dinner more which I really like doing, and no I am not cleaning more. That’s not a job that I do on my own so I’m not going to turn my mini vacation at home into a cleaning binge. Another thing which  is a bit of a side effect of watching too much HGTV is, the decorating/organizing/re-arranging obsession. I kinda keep looking for little projects to do, lol, and my first one was to find a nice frosted film to place on the living room windows, so that I can have all the light coming in but still keep it private. I found a really nice on on eBay for a nice price. So I’ll cover the bottom half of the windows with it, and then I can take out the dark curtains and enjoy the light.

Yup, mini vacation is going well after all.

ヤね

~L

The first definition I found for this word was: A firm decision to do or not to do something. Ok, that seems quite clear to me. But from what I hear and see, most people start the year with tons of resolutions, which are then forgotten or given up on, very easily.

I don’t do resolutions. I believe in something called The Law of Attraction. It is very simple. You attract what you think of, what you focus your thoughts on constantly, whatever things you think of with emotion/feeling. You know how when a day starts off badly, it seems like things just go downhill from there? That’s you doing it. One thing goes wrong for you, then you get upset, sometimes start arguing in your mind about how “these things happen always at the worst time”, and from there it starts building up inside you. And very soon, another thing goes wrong and you say…what do you say? “THIS DAY JUST GETS WORSE EVERY SECOND”, “WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS”, “IT’S ALWAYS ONE THING AFTER THE OTHER“. Do any of those sound familiar? It’s all you, it’s your own doing. Attracting like a magnet, your negative thoughts, together with the feelings of frustration, anger, and your focus on whatever negative thing happened to you at the beginning of the day, plus any others that may be coming back into your memories from past frustrations, make up a huge spiral. And before you know it, it really is ONE THING AFTER THE OTHER. And again, it’s all your own doing. Nope, no one did this to you, there is no one punishing  you, no outside forces are against you.

Your thoughts are more powerful than you think. Remember, every reality has to be a thought form first. The chair you are sitting on was only a thought before it came to be constructed/materialized. It is so simple, and yet most people don’t take advantage of this for their own benefit. It is too easy to get caught up in what we are looking at now, what we are feeling now, what is happening now. We just focus on the “now”, and never think beyond that. We say things like “But I’m only being realistic, this is what I have.” and lock ourselves in it, preventing any possibility of big improvement to happen. All we have to do is spend some time THINKING! Wow, how crazy is that?

And yet, it is that simple. Taking the time we spend spacing out, or watching TV, and use it to think about what we WANT to be doing, the things we WANT, how we really want to be living our lives. In fact, you can use the TV to  help you out. Anything that helps you see in your thoughts the life you want to be living, the healthy person you want to be, or the house you want, the car, job, whatever it is you want. Don’t just look at the commercial of the car you want and say, “Wow that looks so cool I wish I could afford it.” No. See yourself driving the car, filling up the tank, listening to your favorite music in the car while driving down the highway. It’s like creating your own life movie in your mind. But you are going to focus only on as many things as you can at once (if you try to focus on too many then you won’t be able to put as much thought, desire, focus into each one). See yourself there already. In that house you want, or in the physical condition you want, or in that job you want.

So you see, it IS that simple, and yet it might not feel so simple at first. You might start focusing on one thing, then start asking yourself why you don’t have it yet, and then more and more times passes and you don’t have it. That’s because you are shifting your focus from what you want, to not having it/lacking it. Just focus on getting there, not on the road.

I could go on about this (the post is long enough as it is lol!). But all I can say is, that this really is how things work whether you like it or  not. And for me, using this law of attraction has been working out well. I still am a bit of a newbie at really taking advantage of my thought focus, but I am getting better at it every day.

~L

For those of us who understand that there is no time, and that this is but one life amongst many others, and that death is nothing but another step into the next one, things are a bit different. It is all one line, going on and on, and the point of it all is to enjoy it.

Worrying about simple things, becoming upset and frustrated about mundane situations or people, these things that are so difficult to avoid for many, are amongst many of the pointless activities in which we focus this precious life. When you think about it, can you see how pointless and idiotic it is?

It is sad how so many people spend day after day missing out on so much, ignoring so much, pushing aside so much. And instead they choose to spend all their energy into things that will never give them the happiness, enjoyment and satisfaction that their souls are really craving.

Fear, shame, worry…..controlling us, holding us back, taking everything from us.

Say what you really want to say, do what you really want to do, think what you really want to think. Everything is constantly moving, evolving, changing. Live.
Really…..what are you waiting for?

~L

I went to vote and I also had to wait in a long line. I think it took an hour for me to finally cast my vote. Yes the line was that long. The sound of the loud crank kept going on and on as each person pulled the big lever to cast their vote. I took a few pics, and I will try to upload them here later. The funny part was when I got to the front, signed in and asked the question: How do I write in my vote? Two people freaked out and said I couldn’t write in a vote once I signed in. But other two said to wait a minute and they’d find out. One person tried to help me but he couldn’t figure it out. Then this sweet old lady who had been giving out candy earlier came by and explained how to write in a vote. Everyone was nice (even the ones who freaked out). So, I walked in, wrote RON PAUL, pulled the lever and walked out.

Yes that’s what I did. I decided this time I wouldn’t pick the least bad, the lesser of two evils. This time I’d vote for the candidate that I think would actually do the best job. It doesn’t matter if he wins or not, if you think my vote was a waste or not. I did what I think was best and that makes me feel good.

I hope you all voted.

~L

When I first noticed the machines they had one with plain chocolate M&M’s, and one with Skittles. I stayed away from them. And everyday I hear the cranking of that knob, and pouring of candy, again and again and again. Then I’d walk by and see which candy was going faster, and it was always the M&M’s.

And everyday, crank crank crank! More candy being poured. And I’m talking all times of the day, from early morning to late afternoon. This office runs on sugar! From my cubicle I can’t see the people when they are getting the candy, but I wish I could.

This week I noticed something. The Skittles are gone! They’ve been replaced with MIKE & IKE candy. Wow, no more Skittles. I wonder how fast these will go. Will they have better luck than the Skittles? M&M’s are difficult to beat I mean, it’s chocolate hello!

Yes I did try to stay away from the candy machines, but it didn’t last long. The cranking and pouring noise was too tempting, plus sitting at a desk all day drinking plain water made me crave something else. But I usually get the M&M’s. Of course this week I had to try the new candy. I do like Mike & Ike candy, but it’s kind of annoying because it sticks really badly to your teeth. So I’m going back to M&M’s.

…So far I don’t see a difference. I don’t know which candy is winning yet.

Sugar….

~L