Mermaid Avenue

It's been quite a week, and let me just tell you that I am overjoyed to be chillaxing on a Saturday night.  Ahhhh.

On Wednesday, I had my first Writing About Art class.  I'd been pretty excited about it since the instructor, Martha Schwendener, writes for the New York Times.  Class was scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m., and many of the students (including myself) arrived early in anticipation of our well-known professor.  To our collective annoyance and awe, Professor Schwendener straggled into the classroom at 6:40 p.m., sweat dripping from her brow, mumbling something about deadlines, a re-route on the metro, and Ad Reinhardt.  Not one of us knew what to make of the black-clad woman before us explaining that, not only was she 40 minutes late for our class, but she had also misplaced our class roster and syllabus.  However, I was immediately purged of my judgements when she began her lecture (however haphazardly outlined).  She is obviously a superb writer and actually has a reputation within the art world for being quite a harsh critic.  Whatever her level of organization or punctuality (or lack thereof), I am thrilled to be her student.

My last class of the week was on Thursday evening, Modern Art, with Professor Weinstein.  He's a great professor, and modern art just so happens to be my favorite subject.  However, including the readings Professor Weinstein assigned, our total number of pages to be read before next week adds up to about 800.  Hence, I've spent the past two days reading nearly non-stop.  Thank goodness for the long weekend and shady benches at Madison Square Park, or I think I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge by now.

FINALLY I decided to take a break today, and met up with my long-lost friend Andy from the dear W&M.  I met him at NYU (where he's currently studying) and we hopped on a subway train bound for Coney Island!

I have always heard about Coney Island and fantasized about the world-famous roller coaster and hot dogs and so on and so forth.  When we actually arrived at the station (which was about 45 minutes outside the city) I couldn't believe how much it reminded me of Virginia Beach!

I felt so at home amongst the tourists, boardwalk festivities, and tiny swell.   Andy and I made a fabulous afternoon of riding the 1927 wooden roller coaster, walking the boardwalk, snapping

photos, listening to the Weepies on my iPod while the sand blasted our indigo denim, and eating hot dogs from the first-ever Nathan's.  (Note:  It is where they hold that ridiculous hot-dog-eating contest every year.  The current record is 66.)  One highlight of the day was a street named Mermaid Avenue.  

 Another highlight was the 1500-calorie order of chili cheese fries we shared.  We did not ride the roller coaster again after that endeavor.

I am looking forward to taking it easy for the rest of the weekend.  I still have hundreds of pages to read and a busy week ahead.  I have five interviews in the next few days, plus Fashion Week and classes to top it all off.  I couldn't be more excited