New York City

Some recent statistics from the life of Allison:

Number of days lived in Manhattan thus far: 50

Number of blisters developed from walking over said city: Probably around 20

Number of chinchillas seen eating pizza out of a man's hand at a local pizzeria while walking: 3

Number of classes I am taking at Mannes College this term: 10 (Ear Training, Dictation, Song Interpretation, Opera Scenes, Vocal Forum, Italian diction, Intro to Grad Studies, voice lessons and coachings, Mannes Repertory Vocal Ensemble, and I'm auditing a first-year French class at the New School, which Mannes is a part of.)

Number of Ear Training classes I missed before I found out I was registered for the class: 3. Normally this is grounds for failure, but the teacher had mercy on me.

Roommates: 2

Commute time to school (walking and subway): around 45 min. each way, but I like to give myself an hour to be safe.

Operas seen at the Met: 1 (Salome, starring Karita Mattila. So glad I will never have to sing that role. But props to Karita.)

Colds: One, and I still have it. Hack, hack.

Time waiting in line OUTSIDE Trader Joe's to get groceries: 20 minutes. Then I had to wait in line inside for about the same amount of time to buy the groceries. After suffering multiple collisions with other customers. It's really unbelievable in there.

Number of different languages, on average, that I hear spoken on the street as I head to school: around 10

Number of times I have spaced out on the train and missed my stop: at least 5

Number of times I have listened to Strauss' Vier Letzte Lieder, instead of working on the music I'm supposed to be learning, in the last few days: At least 20.

Hopefully that gives you a little taste of my life. I am loving the city so far and think I could live here happily for quite some time. We'll see... I'm definitely a poor student, but having no money or furniture (Um, okay, I have a bed. And a desk. Otherwise my roommates, also poor students, and I live in a somewhat dark and cavernous apartment because we're too poor to buy couches or lamps or really anything besides ramen, in their case, and toast, in my case.) is an important experience for an artist, I feel. It definitely eliminates the distraction of shopping. Somewhat. I still look...

TTFN! Thanks to all my friends who have written. I'll try to stay in touch as well as I can!