I really don’t get it. Someone needs to clue me in, because apparently, there’s something everyone else knows that I don’t: why would you sacrifice so much to live in New York City
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thoughts from your sister (whose livejournal is a fiction project)karacakeSeptember 24 2004, 08:45:26 UTC
How silly to think that everyone in such a huge city is here because they want to be cool! And to say that no one in it is nice! Everyone is responding to your (Chris's) current (variable) emotional state. It's nice that everyone is supportive, but do they know the limits of your experience? Do YOU know the limits of your experience? Can well-informed decisions really be made after being in a place for 10 days, when you've hardly explored it? Your feelings seem to be based on a) your past hard experiences, which you don't want to recur and b) cursory impressions of a place that didn't live up to unrealistic fantasies right away (see previous locked entry). Have patience. Get out of the city if you have to. But be prepared: life is tough no matter where you live. When your parents don't support you, you might not like what you have to do to support yourself. You know that everyone here in the city (who happen to be kind-hearted and not terribly cool, by the way) wants you to be happy. I'll be sad if you leave, but if it feels like the best decision, you should make it. However, I implore you to get out and give the place a little bit more of a shot first.
This is from Litza:
"I should have mentioned to him that when I came here, I WANTED to live in a low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, because I knew that it would teach me new things. It ended up transforming my conception of what a slum is and who illegal immigrants and welfare mothers really are. I wouldn't trade it for anything. My definition of "the people" that I meet here is not as narrow as what Chris makes that concept out to be -- it's certainly not the hipsters that drew me here or make my experience special, and neither is it only the multimillionaire Indian entrepreneur or the artists and scholars that I get to know -- it's also the Jamaican security guard, the Dominican street vendor, and the old men in Harlem. I think that what is magical to me about New York is that your world does not have to have any borders here, except those that you choose."
This is from Litza:
"I should have mentioned to him that when I came here, I WANTED to live in a low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, because I knew that it would teach me new things. It ended up transforming my conception of what a slum is and who illegal immigrants and welfare mothers really are. I wouldn't trade it for anything. My definition of "the people" that I meet here is not as narrow as what Chris makes that concept out to be -- it's certainly not the hipsters that drew me here or make my experience special, and neither is it only the multimillionaire Indian entrepreneur or the artists and scholars that I get to know -- it's also the Jamaican security guard, the Dominican street vendor, and the old men in Harlem. I think that what is magical to me about New York is that your world does not have to have any borders here, except those that you choose."
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