Summer on NYT

After leaving my family friends' house in Jersey, my dad and I headed up to New York on the train to drop me off for my NYT program. Instead of directly just flying there, because my eighth grade DC trip had been cancelled due to Covid, we had spent a couple days earlier exploring the capital and then drove up to Jersey to spend the night there.

When I arrived at Fordham for my NYT program, I was completely shocked by how huge the place was. My dorm was on the 14th floor, and I had friends all the way on the 21st even. After saying bye to my dad, checking in, and putting my suitcase down, I saw that my roommate's bags were there too but she was gone. Because I had a carry-on, I had a bunch of small things I needed to buy, so I quickly went and bought a couple things at the Target right over with a friend I knew previous to this program. In the evening, after exploring the campus a bit, we had an orientation meeting and then split up into small groups to meet the people on our floor; that's where I met my roommate finally and the fun began. After talking and getting to know a couple others on my floor, around six of us went to Whole Foods to grab some dinner and walked around the nearby areas to explore. Only in the evening when we returned did I realize how high up my dorm was and how big the view was from where I was though, and I just spent the night talking to my roommate (who was also from San Francisco) and looking through Canvas for my class the next day.

The next morning, I completely forgot that my AP scores came out, and once my roommate reminded me, we both panicked but calmed down when we saw that we both did well. After I got ready and had breakfast, I went to my class, Inside the UN. The main reason for me taking this course was to learn more about human rights and talk about current political issues that most people refuse to discuss. We spent the morning in introductions and then began discussing the UN Charter Preamble and the purpose for it. I had never had such an in depth conversation about such a specific topic, and the students in my class were so smart that it actually scared me a little. After our first session of discussion, we had our lunch break, and my friends (that I got to know from orientation) and I just ate in the cafeteria because we had no plan on where to go.

In the afternoon, my class discussed the formation of the UN and the individual bodies that made it up. Because we would be having several guest speakers come in the following days, we had to make sure that we were prepared with the background information on the UN. My teacher taught us about the difference between the ICC and ICJ, and we got into multiple debates about the effectiveness of these different systems. After class, we had mandatory meetings with everyone on our floor and were taken on a tour of the campus and the boundaries we couldn't leave without signing out. After our tour, there was a photography scavenger hunt and my friends and I went as a group to look around. We walked all the way to Times Square and just had dinner since we were already there at Shake Shack.

On Tuesday, we spent the morning learning about the effectiveness of resolutions passed by the Security Council vs the General Assembly, and examined cases of when the coalition of the willing was used to intervene in countries. In the afternoon, we got to go to the UN and even saw an ECOSOC meeting in progress. I had been to the UN once before this, but I was much more educated this time, and my class asked so many questions to the tour guide.

I never realized how big the council rooms were until we got to actually sit down in them and see where all the different delegates and organizations sat. After coming back, we had a quick debrief and were then dismissed. We had mandatory meetings again and afterwards, ate dinner in the cafeteria and worked on homework and assignments due the next day.

We began talking about the Cold War and its effects on the UN and international relations on Wednesday, and it was interesting to see post cold-war measures that still have effect on us today. In the afternoon, we discussed the Rwandan genocide specifically, as it was an example of one of the biggest failures of the UN, and learned the specific definition of genocide (and how people can get tried for it). We then studied various peacekeeping operations in different parts of the world by splitting off into groups that each studied a different part of the world. My group studied the UNFICYP (UN Peacekeeping Operation in Cyprus), and we examined the correlation between personnel sizes and what type of mandate was being used. Afterwards, we had a guest speaker who talked about her research on mass atrocities committed in the Horn of Africa, and we asked specific questions on her work and how she decided to go on this path. After class and our mandatory meeting (last day of mandatory meetings), my friends and I headed out to Target and just spent the evening there wandering around.

Thursday was the first day we were allowed to sign out and explore the city past the campus boundaries, so my friends planned to go to SoHo after class. During class, we focused on human rights, and in the afternoon, got to meet someone who actually works at Human Rights Watch. We learned about the specific crises he covered and how helpful these NGOs are in mediating and solving humanitarian issues. After class, my friend group took the subway to go shopping in SoHo. I was so excited because I had never been there before, and from my friend who lives in Jersey, I was told that there were all the popular stores on just one street, making it so easy to shop. It took us a little while to walk there and we did get lost, but we finally made it and spent most of our time in Pacsun.

We ate at Joe and the Juice for dinner and then just walked around the street for a little while before heading back. On the ride back, my roommate and I convinced our friends to just dance and sing all the way back because we would never meet these people on the subway again.

On Friday, we all got our role assignments for our final project, Model UN. I was Algeria, which I thought would be pretty unimportant as it wasn't a P5, but I would later find out it was quite the opposite. After getting our country statements, we had some time to work on it before lunch, and afterwards, we went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage to view the disastrous effects of the Holocaust through artifacts and monologues given by those who survived the genocide. Because Friday and Saturday had extended curfew until 10pm, my friends and I headed with a larger group to explore Chelsea Market. BTW you have to go there if you visit New York. The market was so big, and they had literally all cuisines possible. We first went to Los Tacos and had the best tacos of my life, then stopped at a mediterranean place for my friend, then a sushi place, then a grocery store to buy chocolate, then a cheese shop, then a gelato place of course, and then ate the gelato at a thrift store on the other end of the market.

We definitely tired ourselves out at that point but still wanted to do more, so after our group headed back to the campus, we signed out again to go to the Nordstrom at the mall nearby. Because Nordstrom was having a sale, we thought we could afford the clothes there (we grossly underestimated the prices), but after seeing the prices, decided to have a fashion show instead where we all picked out each others' clothes.

Over the weekend, all of our RAs had encouraged us to go out and explore the city since we had no classes at all. So we took the city and went all the way to Brooklyn to walk the entire bridge. Only in hindsight do I realize how unprepared we were; we had no water, no caps, and no sunscreen during a heatwave. When we first got to Brooklyn, we hit the flea market and afterwards, my roommate and I ate at a Los Tacos because we were literally dreaming of it since the day before. We then walked to the start of the Brooklyn Bridge after getting lost a couple times, and then began our walk. The weather was so hot and I was in sweats, the worst combination possible.

After we finished, we walked over to a nearby froyo place to just collapse there for an hour. On our way back to the university, we stopped at Crumbl to grab a box of their new flavors, and then taste tested them back in the dorm.

On Sunday, we wanted to go back to SoHo and since we didn't have any other plans, we went shopping round two. First we stopped at Brandy, and after waiting in a long line, finally got in and shopped around. We then went to Edikted, which I was super excited to go to, because there are none back home, and then shopped at Garage and Cotton On.

After coming back and resting for a bit, we headed off to Central Park to take some photos, grabbed dumplings for dinner, and then came back to the dorm to work on our final projects before school the next day.

On Monday, we worked on our country statements and clauses in class and I wrote my first draft for each of them. Because my friends and I finished our work in class, we decided to watch Mamma Mia in the evening since my friend had never seen it before. We tired out ourselves dancing to every song in the movie, and went to bed relatively on time that night (around 12am).

My class had a trip to the American Museum of Natural History the next day which I was super excited for. We first visited the climate change exhibit as a class, but afterwards were allowed to explore wherever we wanted to go to. My friends and I first went to the North American wildlife exhibit where we saw different bears and deer that we took tons of pictures of. Next, we saw the meteor section which led us to my favorite part, the exhibit Ice Cold.

They had famous rappers' grillz and chains that I filled up my camera roll with. We then saw the marine section and the huge whale covering the ceiling of the place. Lastly, on our way to see the dinosaurs, we stopped by and posed with the elephants in the African mammals exhibit.

After coming back, we quickly dressed up and headed to Rosa Mexicano to eat dinner before heading out for our floor's off broadway show, the Blue Man Group. It was the first actual sit down, proper dinner we had and it felt really fancy to eat in a fancy setting.

The Blue Man Group ended up scaring me because of the flashing lights and blue men that jumped out at us, but it was definitely an experience! It was too late by the time we came back, so we all just headed back to our rooms, showered, and went to bed around 1am.

On Wednesday in class, we did our final preparation for our final the next day by reading out our statements with each other and asking our teacher for advice. As Algeria, I didn't really know what to say about the Sudanese conflict (the conflict we would be discussing) since my country wasn't actively involved in the process, but after thoroughly struggling, I managed to write up an appropriate statement for our presentations on Thursday. For lunch, we went to a bagel place nearby. I had wanted to go to Liberty Bagels because of the famous rainbow bagels, but since it was too far, we ate at another really good place a couple blocks from us.

After class, my two friends and I headed to SoHo since one had gone back home over the weekend and didn't get to go shopping with us then. We shopped around all the stores again and then bought pizza to bring back to the rest of our friends. We ended up eating the pizza in the lounge section in Aritzia while one of our friends shopped, and then again on the subway. While we had gone to get the pizza and shop, our other friends went out to get Crumbl and bagels so that when we all met back up, there would be tons of food to share.

Thursday was the last full day of my program, meaning it was finals day. I thought that my class had one of the best finals; instead of doing a project or speech, we got to simulate the Security Council through Model UN. Contrary to my previous opinion about Algeria being unimportant in the conversation, as a part of the A-3, we ended up having a heavy say in what got passed in our resolution and Algeria was even specifically part of our solution. However because I had to represent my country, I was forced to abstain from voting on the resolution because of specific wording even though it ended up passing in the end. From this, we learned how hard it took to pass such an overall meaningless and open ended resolution and how many oppositions there were to every word added. After class, we had a debrief with everyone in Central Park, where my friend and I played on the swings while everyone else just sat (they seriously missed out).

In the evening, because it was our last day, we took the subway to Manhattan Henge to walk the high line during sunset and take pictures. On our way there, we walked by a Palestinian protest, and it was crazy to see the number of police (at least multiple squads) showing up to a completely peaceful (they weren't even yelling) protest while there must've been much more life threatening events going on in New York.

Before walking the high line, we first stopped at a Spanish tapas place where we got to eat over a foosball table. It was a pretty fancy place which felt nice, and I got to try a bunch of really good new food that I had never had before. After eating to our hearts' content, we walked the high line all the way to Chelsea Market instead of until the very end since we had to make sure to get back to the university on time before curfew.

At Chelsea Market, we just walked around inside, got a couple donuts, and relaxed there while we watched the sunset go down completely. After coming back in the night, we packed until 1am, and my roommate and I had one of our usual night dance parties for the last time.

In the morning on Friday, we had our closing ceremony, and then went back to our rooms to check out. Because I was only going to leave around noon, my friends and I quickly took a taxi to Raising Canes (we had to bring our luggage with us and I also hailed a taxi for the first time) since there are no Canes near me back home. The food definitely lived up to my expectations, and it was fun getting to talk to the taxi drivers and learn more about them on the way back. After reaching Fordham, we all sadly said goodbye and took tons of pictures to remember each other. Since my roommate was also from the Bay, we made a promise to visit each other during the year, and we also told our other friend from Jersey to hit us up whenever she stopped by the Bay (and we made a promise likewise to her if we visited Jersey).

Since my flight was the same day as the Crowdstrike outage, flying back for the first time by myself was definitely an experience, but I was calling and texting my friends who were going to their respective airports too. I never thought I would be texting my friend from Sao Paulo, Jersey, London, Boston, and Arizona, but this experience opened my eyes up to the world in a whole new way that I had never seen before.

So long New York, hope to see you soon again.