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NYC GAF |OT| We get around in a hole in the ground

Jhoan

Member
When you live in Manhattan but are craving Pizza Hut.

The struggle is real.
Hahaha, I had Little Cesar's yesterday and while it doesn't quite compare to Pizza Hut, it's something. I forgot the last time I saw Pizza Hut in Manhattan since they're usually paired with a Taco Bell.

Fun times last night. It was pretty refreshing after being out with my brothers, cousin, and my brother's friends the previous night. I realized that I need to get on my research for the next big GAF meet up thread but I also like these smaller gatherings between them because there's never a dull moment. I feel like the beach would be a good idea for another small meet up. The public pools officially open for the summer tomorrow and as always, I'm usually free in the weekends.

NYCMetsfan has an extensive knowledge of the city beyond my own understanding so that was fascinating. Sorry about the abrupt departure since my Metrocard got bent somehow. Good luck on the interview! B-dubs had some fascinating stories about reasons not to go to Salem and Lulubop threw out a few nuggets about Williamsburg.

Thanks to Makai for taking up the reigns and being in good spirits despite the small mishaps. I think I found my successor. Definitely avoiding midtown at all costs today even though for me, it would be a great opportunity to draw some fascinating people.
 
Walked around Brooklyn quite a bit today. Could tell that the police were really on edge about the parades. No doubt their bosses were on their asses about being vigilant, given everything that has happened recently. I'm really glad everything went ok.
 

Penguin

Member
I say we do a proper meet up this month...

I'd recommend the weekend of the 11th since only one guaranteed to be in the city for this month but that's only 2 weeks....

Could do a Suicide Squad meet-up first weekend of August!
 
You don't have a single photo of the foreskin pride float?
No cause I wasn't in the area where the parade was passing by. I was there for work and kept myself on a tighter leash so I could you know...keep my job. I was pretty much in charge of photographing my float, not everybody elses.
 
No cause I wasn't in the area where the parade was passing by. I was there for work and kept myself on a tighter leash so I could you know...keep my job. I was pretty much in charge of photographing my float, not everybody elses.

Sounds like a good excuse for someone who's clearly in the pocket of big circumcision.
 

Pau

Member
Could do a Suicide Squad meet-up first weekend of August!
I don't know if I should watch this movie in a group because if they end up going with the shit Joker Robin route and show or hint at it in this movie, I will be very, very bad company.
 

Mega

Banned
I don't trust DC to pull that off in a clever way (probably borrow ideas from Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker). Right now it comes across as a cheap and quick world-building gimmick. It just feels like DC is desperately playing catch up after falling years behind the MCU.
 

Jhoan

Member
I normally don't discuss local politics in depth, but I feel like this is important for my district (Northern Manhattan). I wasn't able to vote in yesterday's elections since I forgot and came back too late to vote. On to the article

State Sen. Adriano Espaillat all but declared victory in a crowded Democratic primary Tuesday night for the seat being vacated by legendary Congressman Charles Rangel.

Espaillat, in his third run for the seat, held an edge early Wednesday over his closest challenger, Keith Wright, a state assemblyman with longstanding ties to the Harlem establishment....Wright refused to concede, calling for close scrutiny of the vote.

Espaillat won in Washington Heights and the Bronx while Wright carried most precincts in Harlem.

Infographics in the link including the latest vote count.

For the uninitiated, the state senator Adriano Espaillat has reportedly claimed victory over state assemblyman Keith Wright who was endorsed by Rangel. Right now, Espaillat leads by roughly 1,100 votes as affidavit and absentee ballots are being counted. Espaillat's victory is a huge deal because if he wins the November election, he's going to become the first Dominican-American congressman.

As a Dominican-American myself, this is a testament to how far our community has come. My neigborhood already has Guillermo Linares and Ydanis Rodriguez doing the work of saints in addition to Espaillat. I will definitely be making my vote count come November since to me, this is much bigger than the presidential elections (sorry Makai and co.).

---
Any way, I saw mention of the Suicide Squad movie. Personally, I'm indifferent to watching a major movie in theatres unless it's a free screening and would be hard pressed to pay $14 for a movie these days. It's an idea that can be entertained but not it's not one that I would personally spearhead.

JadedWriter, since you mentioned taking pictures of people around your float, you work at CUNY I take it? Funny that I was riding on the CUNY float in the set of the 2011 Puerto Rican Day Parade I posted a few pages ago.
 

Pau

Member
I don't trust DC to pull that off in a clever way (probably borrow ideas from Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker). Right now it comes across as a cheap and quick world-building gimmick. It just feels like DC is desperately playing catch up after falling years behind the MCU.
Return of the Joker was the only passable way to do it.
Because it wasn't actually Tim becoming evil, but rather being "possessed" in some way.

I don't have any hope in Snyder making good choices about Bruce's children, especially considering what happens to Dick in Frank Miller's shit.
 
JadedWriter, since you mentioned taking pictures of people around your float, you work at CUNY I take it? Funny that I was riding on the CUNY float in the set of the 2011 Puerto Rican Day Parade I posted a few pages ago.
Yep that's where I work. I was approved for the apartment room so I'll most likely be moving there Friday, have to drive there, but whatever. Yep I rode the PR float that day, probably could've walked that since it was a lot shorter than the LGBT Parade, I practically limped over to the W4th street train station after it was done. At least my work commutes will be easier soon. Taking the E train to Jamaica Center and getting on a NICE bus back to nassau county is fucked.
 

Jhoan

Member
Yep that's where I work. I was approved for the apartment room so I'll most likely be moving there Friday, have to drive there, but whatever. Yep I rode the PR float that day, probably could've walked that since it was a lot shorter than the LGBT Parade, I practically limped over to the W4th street train station after it was done. At least my work commutes will be easier soon. Taking the E train to Jamaica Center and getting on a NICE bus back to nassau county is fucked.
Nice! I'm a byproduct of the wonderful world of CUNY having graduated from BMCC and Hunter. The bureaucracy surrounding CUNY is god awful though. I used to work for the Hunter undergrad student government and even there I saw how broken things are behind the scenes. Although the grad center building on 34th and 5th is admittedly pretty nice.

Good luck with the move! It's a huge step into the real world/adult life even though it was suddenly thrust upon you by your parents.

On another note, I hate mice and need to get traps to get rid of them. There's a mouse that keeps scurrying to and from my closet. I think there might be a hole in there. My mom being BFF's with the super complicates the matter since he takes it personally when he's ordered to fix a problem.
 
Nice! I'm a byproduct of the wonderful world of CUNY having graduated from BMCC and Hunter. The bureaucracy surrounding CUNY is god awful though. I used to work for the Hunter undergrad student government and even there I saw how broken things are behind the scenes. Although the grad center building on 34th and 5th is admittedly pretty nice.

Good luck with the move! It's a huge step into the real world/adult life even though it was suddenly thrust upon you by your parents.
I work for exec building CUNY, you haven't seen bureaucracy till you've worked there...then once you do...it all just starts making sense, but that's besides the point. I'm CUNY through and through, went to CCNY. I heard Hunter is just really weird though since it seems like they act above and beyond CUNY itself on some stuff. CUNY has some nice campuses. I think Lehman is pretty good, CCNY isn't too bad if you never go to a building that's borderline falling apart, I liked College of Staten Island a lot myself...I'd never go to school there cause it's in Staten Island, but that's just me. I'm a bit glad to finally get out of my parents house, the environment was just weighing on me too much. I hope I can afford the rent but that's mainly my only worry. Hopefully I can deal with my roommates...eventually buy a tv...need to get an air mattress or something as well. I'll need actual people to hang out with cause well being out of the house with no friends is just sad.
 

Pau

Member
I didn't know Hunter had that reputation. Although a lot of students I meet do think they're too good for Hunter and I'm like bro, come on.

I am jealous of the other CUNY schools with actual campuses but only Hunter and Baruch have my major.
 
I didn't know Hunter had that reputation. Although a lot of students I meet do think they're too good for Hunter and I'm like bro, come on.

I am jealous of the other CUNY schools with actual campuses but only Hunter and Baruch have my major.
Hunter is like the second oldest CUNY campus. I think they get that vibe either more internally or just from me, I think it's just me seeing stuff from a bureaucracy perspective. That and well you'd be surprised what you think if you went through the amount of CUNY news I've went through over the years...my god no wonder why I don't watch or even read the news in my down time. I just can't anymore. They're very very very good schools though, especially Hunter and Baruch. Regarding the campuses, I think by the time I got out of CCNY I was just done with it. You kind of just stop caring after you've been going to a place for a couple of years. I'm not the biggest fan of Hunter though...too many smokers.
 

Jhoan

Member
Hunter is like the second oldest CUNY campus. I think they get that vibe either more internally or just from me, I think it's just me seeing stuff from a bureaucracy perspective. That and well you'd be surprised what you think if you went through the amount of CUNY news I've went through over the years...my god no wonder why I don't watch or even read the news in my down time. I just can't anymore. They're very very very good schools though, especially Hunter and Baruch. Regarding the campuses, I think by the time I got out of CCNY I was just done with it. You kind of just stop caring after you've been going to a place for a couple of years. I'm not the biggest fan of Hunter though...too many smokers.
This made me laugh way harder than it should because it's true. As someone who double majored in Studio Art and Media Studies, I couldn't agree more. The first thing half the students in my classes would do when a break in an art/art history class came is tap their cig boxes or roll tobacco and cigarette paper and a make a beeline to the elevators to have a smoke break. It shocked me but I got used to it; some students had a strong lingering tobacco smell.

Even though there's signs that clearly say no smoking near the premises, the secondhand smoke hits like a truck the moment you come out of the subway station. The only reason I still go there is to visit my old English as well a painting professor, use the library's super high quality scanner to scan artwork, and work on computers since my work is remotely.

Hunter and Baruch have a bit of a rivalry going. A friend of mines who went to Baruch lamented about Baruch not having much of a student life so would go to Hunter to hang out with her BFF because she liked it so much. To me, Baruch doesn't look that impressive of a building because it's just there so to speak. If anything, I'm always mesmerized by City College's architecture. Brooklyn has the reputation of the poor man's Harvard.

I think the reason Hunter is holier-than-thou at times is because Jennifer Raab is a super business woman having met her twice and gave me the vibe of a smug politician behind the smiles. I heard that she loathes the Art department because it doesn't produce rich alumni. That whole Memorial Sloan-Kettering/Hunter Science building is a huge ego stroke for Raab. She's always been all about getting alumni to give big checks in order to increase the value of our degrees.

In addition to that, you also have Macaulay Honors College students who are stuck up at times and I met my share of art students that were a bit too pretentious at times. It's not Pratt or Parsons but the Art department was quite something given the amount of Muses Scholar students within the major and the super traditional BFA program. Although I loved the fact that we always got free food because of an event going on in the large critique room and the secretary was awesome.

The thing that baffled me the most was that departments don't talk to one another and exist in a bubble! In my final semester at Hunter, Art department faculty finally began discussing sharing resources and making a joint program with the Film & Media Studies department. But yeah, that's CUNY for the folks not familiar with our public college system: a terrible mess that functions but it has diamonds in the rough and some programs that rival Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and The New School without having to go into crippling debt.
 
This made me laugh way harder than it should because it's true. As someone who double majored in Studio Art and Media Studies, I couldn't agree more. The first thing half the students in my classes would do when a break in an art/art history class came is tap their cigs boxes or roll tobacco and cigarette paper and a make a beeline to the elevators to have a smoke break. It shocked me but I got used to it; some students had a strong lingering tobacco smell.

Even though there's signs that clearly say no smoking near the premises, the secondhand smoke hits like a truck the moment you come out of the subway station. The only reason I still go there is to visit my old English as well a painting professor, use the library's super high quality scanner to scan artwork, and work on computers since my work is remotely.

Hunter and Baruch have a bit of a rivalry going. A friend of mines who went to Baruch lamented about Baruch not having much of a student life so would go to Hunter to hang out with her BFF because she liked it so much. To me, Baruch doesn't look that impressive of a building because it's just there so to speak. If anything, I'm always mesmerized by City College's architecture. Brooklyn has the reputation of the poor man's Harvard.

I think the reason Hunter is holier-than-thou at times is because Jennifer Raab is a super business woman having met her twice and gave me the vibe of a smug politician behind the smiles. I heard that she loathes the Art department because it doesn't produce rich alumni. That whole Memorial Sloan-Kettering/Hunter Science building is a huge ego stroke for Raab. She's always been all about getting alumni to give big checks in order to increase the value of our degrees.

In addition to that, you also Macaulay Honors College students who are stuck up at times and I met my share of art students that were a bit too pretentious at times. It's not Pratt or Parsons but the Art department was quite something given the amount of Muses Scholar students within the major and the super traditional BFA program. Although I loved the fact that we always got free food because of an event going on in the large critique and the secretary was awesome.

The thing that baffled me the most was that departments don't talk to one another and exist in a bubble! In my final semester at Hunter, Art department faculty finally began discussing sharing resources and making a joint program with the Film & Media Studies department. But yeah, that's CUNY for the folks not familiar with our public college system: a terrible mess that functions but it has diamonds in the rough and some programs that rival Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and The New School without having to go into crippling debt.
I was a journalism major when that actually existed and was on the student newspaper...so many smokers. How CUNY functions is beyond me at times, but well it's still here and will probably still be there in some degree when the world taken over by aliens or roaches so I can't complain too much. And yeah I think you're right about Raab. There has been some stuff in the press about that stuff. Cuomo hated the Memorial Sloan Kettering deal if I remember correctly. Bloomberg was fine with it, but man...Cuomo's just got a bug up his ass regarding CUNY. We're like the Spiderman to his J Jonah Jameson.
 
I normally don't discuss local politics in depth, but I feel like this is important for my district (Northern Manhattan). I wasn't able to vote in yesterday's elections since I forgot and came back too late to vote. On to the article



Infographics in the link including the latest vote count.

For the uninitiated, the state senator Adriano Espaillat has reportedly claimed victory over state assemblyman Keith Wright who was endorsed by Rangel. Right now, Espaillat leads by roughly 1,100 votes as affidavit and absentee ballots are being counted. Espaillat's victory is a huge deal because if he wins the November election, he's going to become the first Dominican-American congressman.

As a Dominican-American myself, this is a testament to how far our community has come. My neigborhood already has Guillermo Linares and Ydanis Rodriguez doing the work of saints in addition to Espaillat. I will definitely be making my vote count come November since to me, this is much bigger than the presidential elections (sorry Makai and co.).

---
Any way, I saw mention of the Suicide Squad movie. Personally, I'm indifferent to watching a major movie in theatres unless it's a free screening and would be hard pressed to pay $14 for a movie these days. It's an idea that can be entertained but not it's not one that I would personally spearhead.

JadedWriter, since you mentioned taking pictures of people around your float, you work at CUNY I take it? Funny that I was riding on the CUNY float in the set of the 2011 Puerto Rican Day Parade I posted a few pages ago.
I'm glad Espaillat won.

Most of my social circle was pro-wright but I think both candidates are probably gonna be relatively the same in washington but I think its important to reflect the community and while it's been a "black" district for a while its now more latino (I think 50%+).

He's also a former undocumented immigrant which I think is another important symbolic element
 

Jhoan

Member
I was a journalism major when that actually existed and was on the student newspaper...so many smokers. How CUNY functions is beyond me at times, but well it's still here and will probably still be there in some degree when the world taken over by aliens or roaches so I can't complain too much. And yeah I think you're right about Raab. There has been some stuff in the press about that stuff. Cuomo hated the Memorial Sloan Kettering deal if I remember correctly. Bloomberg was fine with it, but man...Cuomo's just got a bug up his ass regarding CUNY. We're like the Spiderman to his J Jonah Jameson.
I'm always reminded of this GIF when it comes to anything CUNY related for Cuomo:

edtih.gif


One of Cuomo's major lowlights as governor has and will be the way he managed CUNY after his term ends. Signing a tuition increase every two years was a terrible mistake not to mention how community colleges get less funding than senior colleges and adjunct professors make pickles and get no benefits.

CUNY is still affordable as a whole and still a good value but that stuff is not permissible. Cuomo will no doubt aim for higher political ambitions post-term and not a care will be given to what happens to CUNY afterwards. Hopefully the next governor of NY rectifies and isn''t a moderate as Cuomo has been.
CCNY here, great campus, great students, garbage bureaucracy and administration.
My brothers graduated from CCNY. My brother went back for a music degree.
I'm glad Espaillat won.

Most of my social circle was pro-wright but I think both candidates are probably gonna be relatively the same in washington but I think its important to reflect the community and while it's been a "black" district for a while its now more latino (I think 50%+).

He's also a former undocumented immigrant which I think is another important symbolic element
Yeah, I would have voted for Espaillat either way as would my mom and brother so it would have done deal. It's a shame I had to blaze past him yesterday since I need to go meet with my boss otherwise, I would have spoken to him for a bit and thanked him for his work. He was outside the entrance to the 181st and Ft. Washington station; Wright's folks were downstairs inside the station. I saw a few discarded Wright flyers along the escalators.

Had Wright spoken a decent amount of Spanish, it would have been a bit closer.
 

Mega

Banned
Can't go into specifics because hey who knows who reads this, but I graduated from CUNY and previously worked for CUNY. I have a list of stories of loyal people they screwed over including me. It's a terrible mess. Their only area of excellence is not taking care of their own unless they have really deep pockets. The priorities are:

Overcrowding undergrad classes with bodies to the detriment of young people and forcing them to take more than 4 years of semesters to meet graduation requirements.

Enticing professionals into lucrative post-grad programs at all costs.

Year-long outreach to rich alumni for hefty donations.
 
Can't go into specifics because hey who knows who reads this, but I graduated from CUNY and previously worked for CUNY. I have a list of stories of loyal people they screwed over including me. It's a terrible mess. Their only area of excellence is not taking care of their own unless they have really deep pockets. The priorities are:

Overcrowding undergrad classes with bodies to the detriment of young people and forcing them to take more than 4 years of semesters to meet graduation requirements.

Enticing professionals into lucrative post-grad programs at all costs.

Year-long outreach to rich alumni for hefty donations.
You can vent to me. I've seent some shit.
 

Pau

Member
Hunter is like the second oldest CUNY campus. I think they get that vibe either more internally or just from me, I think it's just me seeing stuff from a bureaucracy perspective. That and well you'd be surprised what you think if you went through the amount of CUNY news I've went through over the years...my god no wonder why I don't watch or even read the news in my down time. I just can't anymore. They're very very very good schools though, especially Hunter and Baruch. Regarding the campuses, I think by the time I got out of CCNY I was just done with it. You kind of just stop caring after you've been going to a place for a couple of years. I'm not the biggest fan of Hunter though...too many smokers.
Yeah, I don't really deal with bureaucracy much. Although when I transferred in they lost my transcripts a total of three times. That was awesome. So I can imagine.

I've never noticed that a lot of Hunter students smoke, but I also don't tend to interact with many people. Maybe it also depends on your major. :p When I was at School of Visual Arts a lot of folks smoked during breaks but I don't see as many even though Hunter is a much larger school.

But yeah, that's CUNY for the folks not familiar with our public college system: a terrible mess that functions but it has diamonds in the rough and some programs that rival Columbia, NYU, Fordham, and The New School without having to go into crippling debt.
Sadly the Statistics department isn't one of them. I've only had a professor teach a course once and I've taken every requirement.

Overcrowding undergrad classes with bodies to the detriment of young people and forcing them to take more than 4 years of semesters to meet graduation requirements.
Do you think it's because of people taking too long to choose a major and minor/focus or because of fluff requirements?
 

Penguin

Member
OKay maybe not Suicide Squad to trigger some folks :p

But think a movie outing could be fun. Always like discussing with a group right after.
 

Mega

Banned
You can vent to me. I've seent some shit.

I'm okay now. I'm 5 years gone from CUNY (and in a much better place) and put it all behind me.

Do you think it's because of people taking too long to choose a major and minor/focus or because of fluff requirements?

No to the first. Yes to the second. That was something I noticed almost immediately when I started college. It felt like every semested had to be padded with unnecessary filler classes. But there's more to it...

From my own experience in the 00s, they didn't offer enough courses to allow everyone to take the classes they needed to graduate on time. This was from both a lack of staffing, foresight and a thoughtless prioritization system. For example, a class you need to take as a requirement for a major gets filled by students who are optionally taking it for a minor or an easy credit.

I only messed up in two classes during college and neither slowed me down or were critical towards advancing my major. It still took me 5 years because I could barely fill my schedule each time and it wasn't always with the courses I needed. An extra semester or two was common for a lot of people. I had friends who took multiple winter and summer classes in order to barely make it out in 4 years.

I'm a little hazy on this but I think it was also common to have a class canceled if not enough students registered. This may only apply to post-grad continuing studies so don't quote me on it.

Anyway I'm not trying to be a conspiracy nut but it all felt rigged to get an extra year of tuition out of students.
 
Fortunately there aren't too many Statistics majors so it's not too bad.
Then just thank god they didn't kill the program if that's the case or just turn it into a minor.

At the dude above me it was probably due to the core standards curriculum or whatever the fuck it used to be called, that and the ancient lesson plans teachers were bogged down with.
 
CCNY here, great campus, great students, garbage bureaucracy and administration.

nice! i think the campus is great too. i'm friends with the Dept. Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Computer Science Graduate Center @ CCNY.
sometimes i go there to have lunch with him.

I think i still have my Hunter College club space key and it still works!
 

Pau

Member
Columbia and NYU peeps are probably too cool for GAF. :p

I do see a lot of students on NeoGAF in my classes but I've never said anything to them.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I definitely know one Columbia grad who's too cool for GAF.
 
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