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That Ginger, Anna

That Ginger, Anna

Tag Archives: NYU

European and U.S. Populisms: Gender, Economy, and Society.

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Commentary

≈ 1 Comment

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Academia, american, anthropology, college, commentary, conference, constituents, europe, european, FN, France, French, french national front, french studies, history, le pen, left wing, leftist, New York City, new york university, NYC, NYU, peron, political, political science, political sociology, politics, populism, right wing, sociology, trump, United States, voters, voting

Let’s talk about European and U.S. populisms, shall we? Maybe you read my previous post about how one could equate Fascism and Communism as they relate to populism. Well, on Friday I went to a conference at NYU titled, “The French National Front and Beyond: A Global Populist Movement?” It was SO interesting. I was able to confirm several things I understand about populism, come up with some new questions, and widen my understanding of Right-wing political movements in both the United States and Europe. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for the keynote speech because I arrived when the conference started and couldn’t stay until the evening, but the two panels I listened to,“Sexual Politics” and “Populism from Below: Ethnographers at Work”, were both amazing.

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DISCLAIMER: I have complex opinions (some lengthy and mature in their development, others new and ever changing) regarding topics each panelist spoke about. I am not prepared to write each of them out in this post. When I write about my disagreement with a panelist it does not mean that I agree with the alternative viewpoint, it only means that I don’t agree with their specific interpretation in the context of their presentation. If I write something that offends or confuses you, ask me to clarify what I mean and I will gladly do so!

The first panel was about Sexual Politics and three presenters spoke about their work: Kathleen M. Blee, Anika Keinz, and Cornelia Moser. Kathleen spoke about Right-wing movements in the United States as they relate to gender. Kathleen touched on something that I agreed with: the Right isn’t necessarily ignorant, but they use a different strategy of ideological bundling than the Left. Ethno-nationalism, masculinity, hierarchy, and anti-globalism are each ways the Right in the United States is able to appeal to different ideological bundles people hold. This directly confirmed my idea that one’s hierarchy of social identities determines if they will vote Left or Right. I did disagree with one assertion she seemed to make which was that politicians who develop or articulate their stances issue by issue rather than as a complete ideology are opportunistic. I am of the opinion that anyone (politician or not) can hold opposing views on different things without being a hypocrite or an opportunist so I would have liked to have heard more about her ideas on that.

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Cornelia spoke mainly about gender and the Right in France. I liked all of the presenters, but two points in Cornelia’s presentation struck me. She identified the Right as “familialist”. That is, promoting ideologies that emphasize families in tandem with oppressive sexual and gender norms. Had this been used solely as an adjective to describe the way the Right wishes to organize society, I may have agreed, but it wasn’t. I understand that it refers to the way in which a group hopes society organizes itself-that is in a familial structure-but the definition of a family has expanded considerably over the years. With the progressive changes in domestic partnership and adoption law (especially in France), the traditional husband and wife with two children is no longer the only form families take. What I mean to say is that familial organization of society is not as narrow as it once was and doesn’t not have to denote “oppressive sexual and gender norms”. Even historically, a familial organization of society has not always meant organizing around a nuclear family. I also do not know what one who is against familialist parties or societal organization would propose as an alternative. Cornelia mentioned that the Right is also anti-individualistic in some ways, so I am again curious what the alternative is, if anti-individualism and familial organization of society are both negative. Cornelia also spoke about something that was my biggest objection of the 6 presenters: “dediabolization” or the idea that “making stances discussable” makes them less negative. She specifically mentioned this regarding neo-nazi stances. I wish I could have asked her to explain what she meant more clearly but I vehemently disagree that talking about an idea or stance makes it less evil or negative.

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Anika spoke about the politicization of gender/sexuality in Germany. Her presentation was very interesting and she spoke about a topic that was the focus of many of my classes at NYU: othering. She specifically talked about German politicians bringing lesbian and gay citizens (all presenters were clear that politicians do not recognize TQIA* in Europe) into their constituencies in order to make Muslims the new, more other, other. She and Anika both explained homo-nationalism and gay-imperialism as ways in which the West is reinforcing the Orient-Occident colonial (and pre-colonial) divide in a neo-racist way. I’ve often thought about this topic, so I was glad that these two presenters discussed it and provided examples. That being said, I would love to hear more about gay-imperialism because it seems to be a poor way of describing the permeations of Western sexual culture outside of the West. I don’t agree with cultural imperialism (hence my firm belief in regionalism), but where is the line to be drawn? Speaking of gay-imperialism between the Occident and Orient seems to imply that there is a singular cultural idea about sexuality in the Occident, which is being forced onto the Orient . When, in fact, as each of these presenters showed, cultural ideas about sexuality and gender in the West are very different. It was also mentioned that many decolonial governments preserved sexist and homophobic legal systems, which in itself seems to contradict the idea of a contemporary gay-imperialism in many ways. Who constitutes a cultural group? Should all cultures be preserved and protected from ideological imperialism? Which cultures are to be made to embrace contemporary, progressive ideas of gender and sexuality? When is ideological imperialism “liberation” and when is it imperialism? Why? Anika also presented the Right on a spectrum, which I also thought was quite accurate and fitting (right conservative-right populist-right extremist). This panel was the most eye-opening and definitely sparked my curiosity and need for more research. If you have thoughts on these topics or want to recommend literature, feel free to drop a comment below and we will discuss!

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The second panel and my personal favorite featured Don Kalb, Christele Marchand-Lagier, and Rachel Meade. Don spoke about the Right as it relates to workers in Poland and race in Hungary. Rachel spoke about populisms on the Left and Right in Michigan, and Christele explained the intricacies of the social positions and views held by voters for the French National Front-the leading Right-wing party in France. Rachel’s presentation was an explanation of her field work in Traverse City, Michigan. She spent 4 months with an Occupy group, a group of Bernie Sanders supporters, and a 912 group. She explained that both the Left and Right populist groups situated themselves against the party establishment, felt their values were being undervalued, and distrusted the media. Her research also echoed something similar to Christele’s: there was a clear disconnect between people’s day-to-day life, their online persona, and their voting identity, especially among those on the Right. She explained the similarities and differences between populism on the Left and Right in each of these cases and also relayed her personal experiences as a researcher. She also focuses on Argentina and I was quite sad that she didn’t talk more about her work there because I have done some research about clientelism in Latin America as well as Italian Fascism in Argentina so I would have loved to have known more about populism there (she did explain that Argentina presents a perfect example of historical populism on the Left with Peronistas, while contemporary Leftists in Argentina reject the populist label).

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Don spoke in-depth about class and labor-share as it relates to voter turnout and the way people vote. He focused on the working poor and how the Right was able to capture their vote. His was the most historical of the 6 and he also explained the evolution of Left-wing Catholic, Trotskyist voters in post 1989-Poland. I was intrigued by this aspect of Polish labor history and will definitely be looking into it more. He also introduced an amazing idea that I felt was a great way of distinguishing populisms on the Left and Right. He characterizes populism on the Left as binary: “the people” against the elite with equality as their main goal and populism on the Right as tripartite: “the people” against the elite and against the undeserving classes in the promotion of a new elite made of the “deserving classes”. While I don’t necessarily agree completely, I do think this is a productive and helpful way to distinguish populisms. He also threw out an alarming statistic about the working poor and Roma in Hungary: many families in each group survive on 200 Euros ($212) a month, which I think is absolutely insane. He mentioned several other things including geography, nationalized welfare and public schooling (would love to see how it relates to the formation of French nationalism and public education—see The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s by Isser Woloch) as they relate to the Magyar–Roma relationship in Hungary.

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Christele interviewed people in two southern French departments over many years and asked why they voted why they voted. She has also done extensive exit polling. She explained that the French National Front attracts a diversity of voters that often do not know or may not even agree with the party platform, but that feel they are choosing the best candidate out of many bad candidates…She explained that one’s interpersonal, social, and economic relationships to society and how they change over time (Dan also made a point to explain how one’s class identity changes over time and therefore often causes a change in voting) are the biggest factors in determining how a person votes. She also made a point to dispel the notion that any party speaks for the “silent” citizens or those that “don’t have a voice” because as she said, silent citizens or citizens who aren’t represented do not vote. I thought that was a great point. Another point that I agreed with and was glad to see her research support is that people’s votes do not necessarily translate to agreement. I thought this also played into one thing that Kathleen brought up which was the erasure of gender as a factor for the 53% of Caucasian women who voted for the Right in our most recent election. Christele also spoke about geographic differences in voting, as did Don, which I am also very much interested in.

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I liked that each panel had a presenter who showed how populism in the United States both aligns with and differs from European populism. I would have liked for any of them to relate their work to regionalism and Euroscepticism (one of the audience members asked about this but they ran out of time). It delighted me that most presenters agreed that populism was not a manifestation of only the Right or only the Left and that it can emerge from any political ideology. I was also happy to see presenters from different fields presenting their research (historians were under-represented though) and it was especially good that there were people who had done fieldwork on their topic. Historians don’t have the luxury of being able to prove things that aren’t available in primary or secondary documents (except oral historians), so it was great to see research that was based on living people. Christele focused on something I am most interested in: what makes people vote the way they do. She is a political sociologist; she said that it is an underrepresented field of Political Science and that there is only 1 other Ph.D. in France working on anything remotely similar to what she focuses on. I wonder if there are any political sociologists in Italy studying Lega Nord voters or secessionists in the south? What about the political sociology of members of organized crime syndicates? The political sociology of voters in the Southern U.S. or Hawaii? I could do it! Anyway, this was an amazing conference and I hope that I am able to attend other similar events in the future. I think next up will be another lecture at Columbia about Italian Renaissance drawing so come back soon!

 

Settis Lecture

If you’re near Columbia on the 20th, you should check it out!

 

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Part 1: Why the Jews and Perché Venezia?

07 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in School and Work

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

academics, bronx, fate, God, grad school, graduate school, historian, history, history student, jewish, jewish history, jews, judaica, judaism, MA, NYU, religion, sephardim, six degrees, student, texas, Thesis, UNT, venezia, venice, writing

So, as usual, I didn’t get to follow the schedule I’d planned for starting this new series because life and that paper chaseee. But here we are now. Ok, this first post will mostly be a background about why this Catholic, Army-brat from Georgia became interested in Judaica studies (didn’t even know that was a thing until 2011) and how a seminar paper from 2012 became a thesis chapter in 2013 and has impacted my life more than I could have ever fathomed. This initial post is more about me than about Jews in Venice (if that’s all you’re here for, just wait for part two-there will be no personal stuff in that one), but I will link to my original paper and the L.A. Times article about the same topic from last year. Part 2 will be an updated summary of my paper/thesis chapter with some new material and commentary.


I am going to start by saying I knew NOTHING about Judaism. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I knew Hitler killed millions of “the Jews” in the Holocaust, that Jews didn’t believe in Jesus, and that they didn’t eat pork, but that was the extent of it. I know about Christianity because that’s the religion my parents are and therefore how I was raised (mom’s Baptist non-denominational and my dad is a non-practicing Catholic). I know about Islam because I had several Muslim friends (see also: hung out with an Imam’s son in the back of his coffee shop after school for a few weeks my Junior year) in Tulsa and I became more curious about that religion when my dad was deployed to Iraq. I’ve learned about Christianity in Sunday School since I was 3 years old and I learned about Islam through independent study, friends, and a couple of university classes. But guess what? In all my travels and all the moves, I had not ever met a Jewish person-to my knowledge.

Circa 2006 or 2007, I went to Alabama with my mom and we had lunch with her uncle. He knew I was interested in history and gave me a jump drive with our family tree on it. He was an amateur genealogist and had traced my mother’s, father’s, mother’s family tree. I never looked at the jump drive, but he passed away in the Summer of 2011 and I thought I’d better check it out. I opened up the document and to my surprise, he traced the family back to the 15th century in Bassano del Grappa, Italy! After some Googling, I saw that research had been done by other people who thought the family were exiled Jews from Spain or Portugal. I obviously thought it was cool, but didn’t really dig any further. When I started graduate school in 2011, I took a class about Venetian History and learned about the ghettos and a little bit about the Jewish population there. A new student arrived the following Fall and we became friends-it turned out she was Jewish. It just so happens that I signed up for a History of the Reformation class with her and the professor was Jewish too (hold on to your shorts, this will get trippy in a little bit). We had to come up with a paper topic and since I always tried to piggy-back my research paper’s off one another, I thought I would expand upon research I’d already done about Jews in Venice.

**Grad School pro-tip: I highly suggest finding a broad topic you like before you start graduate school and using that to guide all of your seminar papers. It turns out my broad topics were Italian Politics and Judaism. I went to two universities and took 25+ classes and was able to spider-web my papers and expand upon a few core topics each semester. (Obviously, I took unrelated courses like Carribbean History and Russian Cinema for which I wasn’t able to research anything related to these topics, but you get what I mean.) If I ever got nervous about using my own prior work, I’d just cite myself and link to my paper on Google Docs, but as far as I know there is no academic dishonesty in this approach and it will cut down your workload tremendously because you’ll be familiar with a group of sources and have already researched a topic that you can just expand or reframe in your next class.**

As a result, I wrote a seminar paper entitled: Jewish Life in Early Modern Venice: Migration, Segregation, and the Economic Necessity of Jews in Venice. I worked really hard on this paper and was proud of it. (SN: This paper contains the least amount of passive voice I could possibly use-so if you have issues reading things written in passive voice you best skidaddle on out of here now…also, this was my first real seminar paper, so excuse the errors and also realize I am NOT AN EXPERT of Judaica-sorry in advance). After some issues with my thesis committee and topic, in 2013, I decided to build upon this paper and some research I’d done about Venice in another course. This paper became a chapter in my thesis (I wrote more about it during my trip to Italy in 2014) and I got into the Ph.D. program at UNT shortly afterward. I left UNT, I had this chunck of research/writing, and a tangential connection to some family history. So, that’s the end of it, right? Nope.

In 2014, I went to Italy and got to visit all the places I’d talked about in my thesis. From the place the first Venetian settlers came from, to the town where my family came from, all the way to the Jewish ghetto itself! Later that year when I got to New York, I quickly found a job in Riverdale, an affluent-and largely Jewish-suburb in the Bronx. I began working for a family as a companion to a lady with Alzheimer’s. I soon found out that her daughter-in-law was from Fort Worth, Texas. The following year, upon meeting her in-laws, I asked them if they knew the Jewish professor who was on my thesis committee (not just because he was Jewish-I’m not that redneck-but because I knew he was an active member of the Jewish community in North Texas) and helped guide my research. It turns out my new bosses’ in-laws were very well aquainted with that professor I took the class with way back in 2012. Then, early this year, I logged into Facebook and had several notifications. 3 or 4 friends that knew about my seminar paper and thesis had linked me to the L.A. Times artilce about the history of Jews in Venice! I found out shortly afterward that I wasn’t accepted into a Ph.D. program, so I really thought that was the end of all this history stuff, but it turns out I wasn’t quiteee done.

As part of my job, I go to a Jewish Senior Center multiple times a week and earlier this year I met a member of the senior center who is an Afghani-Sephardic Jew from Israel. We became close friends, and in the past 6 months my research about Judaism has increased ten-fold (peep my IG if you’d like to see my interactions with the Jewish community in the Bronx). While I’ve branched out beyond Venice, I am still finding new sources which connect to my thesis!

So, a family tree given to me in Alabama in 2007 and viewed in 2011, led to a seminar paper in Denton, Texas in 2012, and a thesis chapter in 2013. An application to a Ph.D. program using this chapter as a writing sample brought me to New York City in 2014, where I found a job with a connection to two Jewish families in Fort Worth, Texas and the Bronx, New York. This new job led me to a Jewish Senior Center and a new friend from Israel, who just so happens to be an expert in the field of Judaica. Here I am, 4 years after writing that first paper and just last week I found yet another connection between Venice and “the Jews”…

*Next up: Let’s talk about the modern day divides within Judaism and the history of Jews in Venice/their importance to the Venetian economy!

*Probably next weekend…

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The Grad School Struggle was Real…

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in School and Work

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Academia, brexit, college, eu, europe, european, european union, grad school, grad student, graduate school, italian, italiano, Italy, nationalism, NYU, politics, separatism, state, supranational, transnationalism, UNT

So, I’m annoyed, y’all.

First, let me tell you a lil’ story. I grew up in Georgia and Hawaii. Two states with a rich history of separatism/self-determination movements (Georgia in the Civil War, obviously, and Hawaii after the overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani). Growing up in these two states (and with my mom’s family being from Alabama), I was well versed in the idea that people often do not feel represented/enfranchised under the rule of national governments. I remember seeing Mililani Trask on Oceanic public access programming and realizing there were many people in the United States that wanted self-determination and did not particularly feel like a national government satisfied that need. Fast forward 10 years. I went to Spain in 2008. When I got back one of the guys who I went on the trip with changed his Facebook profile picture to the words “Sinn Fein”. I was like, what is that? I found out it’s an Irish political party that advocate(s/d) separation from the U.K. and the establishment of an independent Irish nation. So, I obviously kept researching and realized separatism and dissatisfaction with national governance is a huge issue all over the world. There are separatist political movements everywhere, even in Italy. I went to Italy for the first time in 2006 and I’ve been back three times since. I fell in love. I want to live there and plan on retiring there if I don’t get to live there in my younger years. Anyway, through my research I learned that there was an active culture of separatism in Italy-both Eurosceptic movements and movements which advocate the separation of northern Italy from southern Italy. In 2011, I was accepted to UNT for their M.A. program. I concentrated on Modern European History. I was dead set on studying post-World War II European Political History and specifically the history of regionalism and the rise of separatist, self-determination movements like the Basques, Catalans, Padanians, Irish, etc.

Well, I went into graduate school completely ignorant of the process. I didn’t know anyone that had gone to graduate school for any degree other than for early childhood education. I thought I was going to be taking classes from experts and they were going to lecture me regarding what they knew about historical events and help me explore my interests. I thought it would be several hours of fascinating lectures a week, about different geographic areas and eras and then independent study about my interests. I didn’t realize my studies would be dependent on what area the faculty focused on in their own studies and I also didn’t realize my studies and pursuit of my interests would be dependent upon the faculty’s publication schedule, sabbaticals, conference presentations, travel, etc. I also was unaware I would be expected to digest 300-600 pages of historic texts every week and churn out book reviews about topics that I was not particularly interested in or that I knew little to nothing about previously, with very little lecture time (where my auditory learners at, yo?). So, I wanted to study Contemporary (see also: post-WWII) Italian Political History and it turns out no one in my department focused on that. One professor worked on WWI and WWII Italian Military History, but that was the extent of it. My favorite professor focused on Medieval Italian history and said she could stretch to Early Modern, so that’s what I went with. After writing a really interesting seminar paper about Jews in Venice for a Reformation course (I am going to tell y’all all about it in another post soon) and taking a class about crime in Venice, I decided on Venice for my thesis. I wrote about the decline of Venice leading up to Napoleon’s takeover in 1797, including the importance and decline of the Jewish community in Venice. You can guess what that meant: no study of separatism in post-WWII Europe and no Political History outside of the context of Military History.

I got into the Ph.D. program at UNT but after a few personal issues, a lack of funding (which the University has since remedied for current Ph.D. students, thankfully), and the realization that I wasn’t going to get to study the topic I wanted to study, I left after two semesters. I applied to several other Ph.D. programs but wasn’t accepted to any of them. NYU accepted me to their M.A. program in World History so I took the plunge and moved up here. NYU had tons of classes about Contemporary Italian History and Politics and several other interesting areas like Fascism, Labor History, etc. While schedule conflicts with required courses and my job kept me from taking many of the classes I would have liked (like this kickass Italian History through Film class regarding Fascism w/Dr. Ben-Ghiat), I got to take several fascinating courses. My experience at NYU was much more rewarding in that sense. I still had to read 500+ pages a week and write book reviews about topics I didn’t care about, but I got to spend much more time on topics I liked and had many more resources for studying those topics. I will say, my time at UNT really saved me when I got to NYU! Having a firm grasp of the Habermasian Public Sphere and the importance of the Enlightenment on society and politics in Europe (I was so lucky that this was my first class in graduate school way back in 2011) as well as knowing how to “graduate read” and churn out reading responses was a godsend. My first class at NYU was a Ph.D. level course (unbeknownst to me and the other M.A. student that signed up) and I wrote an end-of-term paper about the failure of transnationalism in Europe and in Italy in particular. This paper became my Masters Essay (a mini-thesis NYU requires for History M.A. students). I took other courses about the ambiguity of the definition of Europe/European, the rise of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and a seminar course about American Labor History. I wrote several papers about Italian-American Fascism, Fascism in South America, European identity, and many other interesting topics. I again applied to several Ph.D. programs before I left NYU and was not accepted to them, so that was it.

So, why am I annoyed? I got my degrees, I got to move to New York City, I have a job… Well, fast forward a few months more and guess what? Foreign Affairs, Bloomberg.com, Boingboing.net, The New York Times, and The L.A. Times have all published articles about which topics? The history of Jews in Venice, the failure of transnationalism, the coming referendum in Italy, Fascism (both the ambiguity of the definition and Italian-American Fascism), and Brexit (aka the failure of the European transnational project). All things that directly relate to or overlap with what I wanted to study or have studied and written about over the last half decade! I’m annoyed I wasn’t accepted to a Ph.D. Program since the topics I’ve written about all relate to things that are obviously publishable and would have helped advance current discourse. Please be sure to check out those articles because they are all interesting. But, now that I know my interests and ideas are valid and relevant to current discourse (one of my thesis committee members at UNT strongly disagreed, so that L.A. Times article gave me life, haha!), I want to keep writing about them, even though I am no longer a student. In the coming months, I will post links to my original papers from 2011-2016 and then summarize, fix, modify, rehash, and expand upon my theses. All of the papers relate to the current political environment in Europe and Italy specifically or historical events that I find interesting.

So, now that you know about my academic journey in graduate school, join me! Let’s talk about stuff and *things!

*1. I will write in passive voice. 2. As you’ve already noticed, I have issues with comma placement and other thangsss (Hawaii public schools for the win!) so feel free to let me know if I make a grammatical error; know that I am aware of my ignorance and the probability that I’m going to master commas or anything else is pretty slim at this point in my life. 3. I will engage in debates and appreciate corrections. 4. If you attack rather than converse that’s fine and dandy but I won’t respond. 5. These posts will not be on a schedule and I do have another travel series planned which will interrupt this one in December/January!

40.824055 -73.908719

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40 for 40: Summer 2K15 in NYC!

13 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Personal and Fun, Travel

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#40for40NYC, activities, adventure, brooklyn, budget, budget travel, college, foodie, forty for forty, fun, graduate student, manhattan, new york, New York City, NYC, NYU, queens, single, staten island, student, thatgingeranna, the bronx, tourist, tourist trap, Travel, twenty something

I’m back!

I just had my last class of the semester on Monday night and except for some paper editing, I am done with all of my final assignments. The end of this semester wasn’t nearly as hectic as last semester, thank goodness (no flu, yay!).

I really want to explore the city and do some fun things before I start back to classes in September. I probably won’t get to go back to Texas because I’ve picked up a second job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun up here.  Keeping in line with my pattern, I am going to start another “40” series. This time I am going to do 40 activities for under $40, in NYC and the surrounding area! I want to do as many free/low cost things as possible, but there will be a few things that I splurge on. I will post pictures of all of the activities on IG, with the tag #40for40NYC. Here are the 40 things I plan to do this summer, in no particular order:

  • The High Line
  • Roof Garden Café and Martini Bar
  • Fort Lee-Korea Town
  • Geocaching
  • Garibaldi House on Staten Island
  • Coney Island
  • Run a 5k
  • Go to a Concert: Willy Nelson 8/12 or Sublime 8/5
  • Rockaway Beach
  • Queens-Korea Town

  

  • Bronx Zoo
  • Self-guided I Love Lucy or SATC walking tour
  • Baseball Game
  • Ellis Island
  • Fleet Week
  • Pride Parade: June 28
  • Horse Race
  • The Polo Bar
  • Giglio di Saint Antonio Fest: August 6-9
  • Italian Film Retrospective: May 22-31

  

  • Dim Sum
  • Wine and Picnic in Central Park
  • Hot Yoga
  • Weekend Trip Upstate (The Hamptons or elsewhere)
  • New York Public Library
  • Empire State Building
  • Brooklyn Bridge
  • Central Park
  • A Farmers Market
  • Natural History Museum

  

  • Comedy Show
  • New Movie+ Write Movie Review
  • Pok Pok NY
  • Real dive bar/pub
  • The Cloisters 
  • Jamestown/Lucille Ball Comedy festival
  • Soccer game
  • Jollibee
  • Jackson Heights
  • Green-Wood Cemetery

This is just a provisional list. I may do more than one activity in a day, some days and other times, I may only be able to fit in one activity the entire week (I’m taking a 6 week class toward the end of the summer). I will blog about the activities as I go along and if any of you have any particular places you’d like me to check out and report back on, leave your suggestion in the comments! Since this is a rigid schedule, I may skip some things and substitute other activities in their place. Other options include: beach camping and fishing (if I can find a buddy that has supplies), bowling (if I can find a group to go with), ice skating, the Montauk light house, more restaurants, more classes/lectures, exploring the Bronx  and Long Island. The goal is to spend less than $40 on each activity. Obviously I don’t have $1,600 to blow on summer activities, but many of these things are free or low cost, so that will allow me to save the allotted $40 or its remainder for some of the bigger activities (weekend trip, concert, Jamestown, etc.).  I will begin participating in #WODW again and also blog about other things here and there. Thanks again for reading, lets get this marathon of tourism started!
What should I do first?!

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Moving in a New York Minute aka Three Weeks of Hell: Part 2

30 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Personal and Fun

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Academia, bachellorette, bronx, budget, budget moving, city to country, dallas to new york city, grad school, graduate school, moving, moving tips, new york, New York City, new york university, NYC, NYU, rental, renting, single, student, studio, texas to new york, transplant

I’m sure you’ve gathered by now that nothing in New York City is simple.

What I thought was a 4 day search that ended in 3 possible apartments, quickly turned in to a 3 week saga and many angry phone calls.

After my awesome day of seeing 7 apartments and applying for 3, I hit a brick wall. I can’t say why, but I do believe that the agent I was passed off to in Riverdale was not a proactive as he could have been.

With $1200 cash in his pocket and all of the required paperwork from my cosigner/guarantor and I, I don’t understand why all 7 apartments fell through.

He didn’t contact me for days and despite many texts and calls from me, I didn’t find out until the middle of the following week that I hadn’t gotten my dream apartment and the 3rd apartment in my queue was already rented. By the end of the second week, I thought I was only waiting on the second apartment. One of the other apartments I saw was still available, but it was my last-ditch option. I saw the second apartment I was waiting on listed online and I got my mom to call and ask about it and it turns out it was rented. So, after all of that previous work, two weeks later and I was literally at square one.

I panicked and started cruising site after site to find anything and everything.

I applied to a Christian dorm at the NYSUM in Queens (I highly suggest applying if you are moving to NYC-it’s only $5000 a year). I never heard back from them, but I do think it’s a good option, so check it out!

I looked on ACME Listings and found several other listings and my mom found a guy online that was renting out a room in his apartment. I called my agent at Rapid Riverdale and told him that my cosigner and I were coming back to the city and we were ready to look at as many apartments as possible and sign leases ASAP.

My mother and I rented a car, packed it up, and drove to New Jersey.

IMG_7047 IMG_7073

The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and took the train in to New York. I had set up an appointment with another real estate agent, but the train to New York was stuck on the track for over an hour and I missed my appointment. We made our way to Rapid Riverdale and my agent took us to see an apartment. It was in Riverdale, but far from the train and $100 over my new budget and $300 to $400 over my original budget. We went back to the office to wait for another agent to take us to a few other viewings and there were signs on the front of the office advertising one bedrooms for under $1200 a month. I asked my agent and he acted as though he knew nothing about it, but asked another agent named Serin!

Serin rocked! He came into the room where my mother and I were waiting. By this time I was pissed that my agent had let 7 places slip away and that I had to find listings for us to go see, when I was paying HIM a broker fee. So, I just spoke up and told Serin that I would take anything under $1200 that I could move into immediately. Serin took my mother and I to look at a huge place in the Bronx. It was a one bedroom that could be two, in a Dominican neighborhood, and was $1175 a month. We went to see two others and I told them to put my application in for 3 of the 4 apartments we saw (we saw a janky one near Yankee Stadium). My mom was NOT happy with any of them, except the one in Riverdale, and was especially not happy about me living in the Bronx alone.

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