I affirm that today is a good day, damn it!

“Reality TV” has a strong way of making me feel like I’ve got my shit together. I can watch something like “The Jersey Shore," "For the Love of RayJ” or "Tough Love” and think “well shit, at least I’m not that ridiculous” or “well, thank god my life isn’t on TV.” This can be a refreshing break because all to often in our media crazed society we are struck with stick thin figures in magazine ads or multimillionaires under 24 who appear to have it already made. Think “Gossip Girl.” Daily our lives are polluted with images, stories, tweets and posts that lead us to believe our happiness, success and worth lie somewhere outside ourselves. Perhaps in our next purchase, next paycheck or the day we lose 20lbs. I personally have become increasingly dissatisfied in the rat-race that is placing my happiness on the obtainment of the next best thing and my sanity on reaching the next day off. You must admit that the general public would be a happier if everyone could learn how to create satisfaction in the now even if they are working for a better tomorrow.

Written by Rhonda Byrne The Secret came out and 2006 made Oprah’s Book Club and got a pretty big spotlight in the attention of the media. The book has some pretty big supporters and contributors, all who are well known in the circles of whatever it is they have dedicated their lives to, which in someway or another is linked to personal fulfillment and spiritual happiness. The Secret, which I find a little overbearing at times, bases its premise on the law of attraction. Or the idea we attract and create everything that is in our lives through our thinking. This concept can be overbearing because it forces you to look at any of the negative things in your life and think, “Why would I create that?” Then for people like me, who are super critical of their own thoughts and actions it proposes a really big challenge: “How am I supposed to create positivity in my life if I am always stuck on all the little mistakes I’ve made and how everything could’ve gone better.” While it is groundbreaking in helping you recognize that you have the power to make your life anything you’d like it to be The Secret, isn’t the most helpful in letting you know how or where to start, because we all know that changing our thinking isn’t as easy as 1.2.3.

Affirmations are a way of directly creating positivity in your life by banishing negative self-beliefs, denial and fear. They are a way of recognizing your own power and changing the way you think about yourself and your life, as well as affirming what it is that’s already working. An affirmation is any sentence you choose to be spoken that represents whatever it is you want to create in your life or anything you want to change. Louise L. Hay who is author of the books The Power Is Within You and You Can Heal Your Life says that “the most powerful way to do affirmations is to look in a mirror and say them out loud.” The mirror shows us any resistance we may have by reflecting back to us the way that we react when we say our affirmations. Hay says that the best place to start in creating affirmation is by being aware of the negative things you say to yourself and others as will as your thoughts.

Thinking about how what I say and think affect my feelings about myself and my satisfaction with life, I am starting at “how does what you say affect your day?” I am one to get up curse my alarm clock and grumble in pursuit of five more minutes. I also have a tendency to think about something I didn’t like about the previous day and let my mind sit on how I don’t want to deal with it today. I’m already shooting myself in the foot just by waking up and thinking about how shitty it is to get out my bed so early.

I’ve decided to practice patience with the following.

To start my days off better: “Today is a new day and I have to power to make it more positive then yesterday.”

To be a little nicer and less critical of myself: “In this moment I am doing the best I can with what I’ve got. All I can to do is keeping doing my best.”

To deal with my roommates and crazy coworker: “ I don’t have to accept everything that people throw at me I can choose to let go of it.”

Granted it takes a lot of effort to change the way we think, affirming that we have the power to be happy in and with our own lives is a powerful place to start. A happy morning to you! Getting up and trying to be better is a challenging process no matter how much sleep you get.

New School Students Fail To See The Future Of 65 Fifth Avenue

The Theresa Lang Community and Student Center of Arnoald Hall opened its doors for students, faculty and members of the community to view the building plans for the 65 Fifth Avenue last Thursday from 3:30 to 6:30pm. Despite last year’s protests at which students expressed frustration over a lack of designated student space and resources, the majority of New School students failed to make an appearance to view plans for the new student center Thursday night.

“I wish there were more students here, but that’s a wish. I think the students are narcissistic, lazy and not committed to their school,” Ben Dornbush, a junior at Lang and former NYU student said with a smile.

In spring 2009 the University Facilities Committee comprised of faculty, administrative leadership facilities staff and students was created. Its role was to provide support in the programming and design of the campus, including the university center at 65 Fifth Avenue. Of the five students that were involved in the planning process there were no undergraduates and no one representing Lang, Parsons, Jazz, Mannes or The New School for Drama.

“It was like trying to steer the Titanic, and you are turning the wheel but Lia Gartner and James Murtha are holding the rudder,” said Heather Contant, the only student member of the University Facilities Committee present. Contant, who is a Lang alum currently pursuing her graduate degree at the New School for General studies said that being involved in the planning of 65 Fifth Avenue was a frustrating experience where she felt she had no input in the process. She admitted she was relieved the project had come to an end. “ I now understand how these things really work from start to finish” she said.

Last year’s protests which were aimed primarily at New School President Bob Kerry, also targeted Executive Vice President James Murtha who was heavily involved in the planning process of 65 Fifth Avenue.

“It’s strange that students who are willing to be maced by police in the name of school resources are unable to attend a meeting about the new student resource center,” Julie Rhodes, a freshmen at Lang, said.

When asked about the poor student turn out, Constant said she wasn’t surprised. Between 5pm and 6:30 there were four students total. Vocos and Dornbush who had been there the length of the event on behalf of the New School Radio said they had seen two other students earlier in the evening; making student attendance six total.

The Current plans for 65 Fitth Avenue include an auditorium that changes to fit the needs of performances including audience size, a student center, library, as will as classrooms, a meal hall and student housing. The building will provide about 600 students with dorm accommodations. At this point there has been no timeline given for the construction of the new building and its completion. The surrounding community Watchdog Groups seem to be more responsive in calling the current building an “eyesore” then the New School students have in acknowledging the building’s current state of affairs.

“There is a lack of organization, lack of people leading and a lot or red tape,” Aundrea Vocos, a Lang Student and New School Radio personality said about the lack of student participation university wide. She said she felt that the open house was poorly advertised but even so the student body is standoffish when it comes to any sort of involvement.

"Well-rounded" and the need for experience

My conversation with Grace last night had me thinking a lot about what it means to be a well-rounded individual. I don’t really have a clean definition of what “well-rounded” means in its entirety because I am always reforming my idea of the “individual” and pushing the envelope in looking at to what degree experience plays a part in shaping who I am and what I think of myself.

For myself I’d like to focus on the developing the following:

1. The curiosity to continuously learn, explore and experience

2. The ability to see from multiple perspectives but hold close to my own values

3. The courage and confidence to act on my passions, in favor of my values and without fear of age, inexperience or failure.

Getting involved and getting experience has a lot to do with the way I understand “well-rounded.” I’m excited because I have noticed that a lot of what I’d like to start doing is appearing to me in opportunities I stumble upon randomly.

For example, I’ve been dying to go to India and I’m also super interested in studying Holistic Practice and other alternative methods of healing. Global College at Long Island City University has recently announced a program that encompasses them both. Also, my intro to Journalism class has me thinking about how I can travel and write for a cause I care about and that is basically what the Seattle based organization Common Language Project does, and I found out that they hold workshops. Randome discoveries as these make me feel like I am headed in the right direction.

It's Friday, Go do something out of the ordinary

A 9 to 5 has always been my worst nightmare but a 6:30am to 12:30am I swear is gonna be the death of me. It’s not the long hours part that gets me. I’m all down for hard work, expanding opportunity through education and experience, as well as working towards the sun on the edge of the horizon. But routine without change is like dancing with the devil seven days a week in the hopes of expediting the return of Christ. It’s monotonous, hopeless and exhausting.

I’ve always hated routine, which sucks because I remember reading somewhere that human existence is around 70% routine, or some other ridiculously high number. On certain days a fact like that is more depressing than others. On Mondays for instance when I get up make tea and rush to spend from 8am-6pm on campus, 70% is haunting and it feels as though my alarm clock startles me at 6:30 only to mock my “human existence.” Come Thursday night routine does not present itself as poorly. I sleep in till at least 11:30 and awake with a renewed appreciation for the world and the wonders of living in New York City.

My recent efforts to battle it out with the consuming nature of routine include more Internet searches on entertainment and a pact with a friend to “go to one interesting thing each week and/or explore something new and preferably free.” A positive addition to my routine might keep the rest of the week a little less depressing and my relationship with my alarm clock a little more faithful.

Had I started my research earlier, I would’ve know in advance that tonight I can learn how to create my very own “sex education comic” at BlueStockings. Further possibilities include: attend a classy night out over at Aretsky’s Patroon for Fried Chicken Night (I’m a little weary of paying $25 to eat fried chicken with a linen napkin, might settle for popeyes), head over to the American Museum of Natural History’s music show, SonicVision and get myself right to the sounds of the Flaming Lips, Boards of Canada and Radiohead or laugh my ass off in the east village watching The Best of Harvard Sailing Team. What a night!

“The Happiness Project,” A Personal Pursuit A review on Gretchin’s Rubin’s new book and a note on putting words into action

In effort to satisfy that nagging feeling I get when I think about New Years Resolutions and my own guilt over my ever-expanding collection of self-help books, I finally picked up my copy of Gretchin Rubin’s The Happiness Project and have begun mapping out what I feel would be a “happier,” more satisfying version of my own life.

“I decided to dedicate a year to happiness,” Gretchin Rubin writes on her blog about the motive of her project and new book. Author of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin is a Yale Law graduate and my newfound inspiration for the launch of my own happiness pursuit. I know, call me a biter, but I can’t help but think we’d all be a little less bitter if we spent more time focusing on what makes us happy. The Happiness Project is Rubin’s reflection on a year she spent focusing on finding her own happiness. From health, organization, attitude, spirituality, friends, family and love, Rubin dedicated a month to each new resolution. Creating her own commandments, holding herself to a daily one-sentence journal entry and keeping the whole situation light-hearted by referring to her “secrets of adulthood,” Rubin had the whole process organized into a twelve-month project.

A twelve month program reminds me a little bit of something you’d hear at an AA Meeting, but perhaps sobering up step-by-step to the joy one should have in his or her life is not the worst of ideas. I vividly remember as a little kid, the tangents I would go on telling my mother, and really anyone I could get to listen, what I was going to be when I grew up. As a little tike I had it all down I was “gonna’ be a veterinary and a model, and a fire fighter and I [was] gonna’ travel the world. “ At about 14 my vision for myself had become a little less eccentric but far more vague: “Whatever I do, I want to be happy.” It hasn’t evolved much since thought it needs to. Damn near 20, I am in college getting a better sense of what it is I am good at and interested in, I realize I also need to be defining the whole happiness part too.

To complement, and I’m sure to get a little self promotion in with her book, Rubin has created a website, entitled “The Happiness Project Toolbox,” where readers can start, chart and blog about their own “Happiness Projects” as well as read up on the projects of fellow bloggers. I’m not going to deny my own excitement about the whole thing, I am a self-proclaimed nerd when it comes to the self-help section of any bookstore and I do like the idea of starting my own “Happiness Project.” This is why, as of yesterday, I have joined the web community of fellow happiness seekers on happinessprojecttoolbox.com. So far I have six Personal Commandments, the two most pressing being “#5. Whatever the present is, be there,” and “#6. Sleep.” Being a noobie to the whole adult scene, I only have one “Secret of Adulthood” but I’d say it is relevant in learning how to feed myself properly: “You sure do spend a lot of money on food, so you might as well be buying the good stuff.”

Granted, my route so far in this journey to happiness is not yet as nicely charted as say, Rubin herself, but two days has given me a rough outline and like she said “every project is going to look different.” Well of course, unlike Rubin I am minus two kids, husband and apartment on The Upper East Side; but when it comes to having the desire to acknowledge every moment of happiness there is and create many more, I am right there. I wish I could get my roommates in on this project. We could start by the self-responsibility of removing the film of food that acquires on the stovetop daily, and then we could all bond over the experience of not waking up to each other’s filth.

I’m excited to see how my progress pans out, my focus for this month is my health: mental, physical and spiritual. I mean sure, I’d love to wake up and look like Beyonce like every other women, but I’d settle for waking up feeling like Toni the tiger over a bowl of frosted flakes, and that’s why I’m starting where all good things do: bed. My focus this week: sleep.

COLD WEATHER = FROZEN FUNDS FOR UNION SQUARE ARTISTS

Union Square, New York City: Cold weather is a cause for little business amongst Union Square Artists.

“It’s very cold, there is a recession in New York and there is not a lot of business at this time,” says Esteban Kremen, a local and regular vendor in the Union Square Arts Scene. Originally from Buenos Aries, Kremen has lived in New York for eight years and supports himself largely off what he makes in Union Square. Like many other artists, Kremen uses Union Square as his main place of business.

“After December you can keep working until about half of January and its very good because a lot of people get bonuses from their jobs and keep buying” Kremen continues,” the city is still full of tourists who want to bring gifts back home.”

The Holiday Market at Union Square, which is open November 27th-through Christmas Eve, is a major source of profit for many artists but also a big expense. A booth alone runs an artist $12,000, $6,000 if they don’t mind a smaller space. Esteban shares a booth and with the help of his assistant, works hard to sell what he can, make connections, get exposure and do more than break-even.

After the Christmas rush has ended Union Square seems to come to halt and pause for all of a New York minute; if not simply freeze over. The only vendors who are entirely consistent are those of the farmer’s market variety; a faithful folk who can often be found serving hot cups of apple and pear cider to walkers and shoppers.

“I use from February to April to make my production for the rest of the year. It’s a very long period of time, so it’s a great time to be creative. Take vacations and prepare for the busy season,” Kremen says. He adds that often during the Christmas rush he gets a lot of requests for special pieces. He uses his off-season to fulfill such duties. Not all Union Square Artists are lucky enough to have their art in galleries or cater to private buyers as Kremen does, so there are a few who wait-it-out in the cold to pay their rents.

“Artists started to sell their art in Union square less than 5 years ago. The best place was Soho on Broadway. That was the place to be. But, like everything in New York, it changed and now Union Square is much better,” Kremen reminiscences.

For a Union Square Vendor, weather has a direct affect on business, but for the artist who can afford the time off like Kremen, winter may come with a welcome.

“You’ve gotta’ remember that first and foremost I am an artist. Sure, I like to get paid for my work but I also enjoy producing it.” Kremen responds speaking about the extra time winter provides to catch up with his creativity.