When most visitors I know have come to New York, one of their top things that they want to do is shop. New York has every major store you could possibly think of, from the affordable H&M and Uniqlo U.S. flagship to the higher-end Bergdorf Goodman and all those designer boutique shops that I can’t afford. I’m a huge sucker for bright colors and fancy packaging, which is synonymous with Kate Spade, where I went to purchase a gift today. I think she is one of the major fashion icons of New York and what I always imagined New York to embody.

You know when spring has arrived in Manhattan when you notice the potted blossoming daffodils and hyacinths in Herald Square, pass women strolling the streets in pastel and floral-printed skirts and flip-flops, and smell the first wafts of heavenly garbage as you exit your apartment to get to work in the morning. You can feel spring during lunch time as you are grabbing lunch with colleagues, and decide that you don’t to go back to eat at your desk. Instead, you will sit and enjoy the newfound warmth and sunlight and eat on a bench in the middle of the crazy traffic around you. Spring fever has certainly arrived.

Today, my friend sent me the article “Is San Francisco the Brooklyn to Silicon Valley’s Unbuilt Manhattan?” It compares San Francisco in terms of general living to Brooklyn – access to green parks, “locavore” restaurants, independently owned businesses, etc. But it reminded me of the neighborhood in which I grew up in San Francisco – the Richmond, and how I used to compare it to Elmhurst, Queens, where I first moved when I came to New York. Elmhurst is like the Richmond in that the rent is relatively low for the city, it’s full of great ethnic food, transportation is simple to downtown, yet… it’s not necessarily “up and coming” to those in their twenties.

Weekdays in Manhattan are hectic. Everyone is in a rush to get somewhere – to work, to an appointment, a lunch… maybe even to get laid. While on my way to the office this morning, I started thinking about why people walk so fast here and why everyone is always so pushy on the subway and on the streets. If I cross this street diagonally instead of waiting to get to the crosswalk, I might save 20 seconds! If I do that, I could save a minute! What are we really gaining in our mad rush to get from place to place?

Even in a city as cultural and diverse as New York, you still hear ignorant conversations walking its streets. The other day as I was on my way somewhere, I overheard a conversation between two friends — one guy, one girl, both white — walking behind me. The guy was telling his female friend about this new Asian girl he just started dating. She asks him completely innocently, “Does she speak Chinese?” He responds, “No… I don’t think so. She is Korean.” Was it because I was in the Upper East Side? I didn’t realize that “Asian” meant “Chinese.”

Tonight, we decided to go out for pizza to satisfy my pizza craving. While enjoying our thin-crust basil mozarella pizza, Chris said that although he’s had lots of pizza that he’s enjoyed, he has yet to try a slice that is “to die for.” It’s a pretty valid point, especially in the city that prides itself on the quality of its pizza. I thought about my slices at the famous spots Grimaldi’s and DiFara, and gourmet spots like L’Asso and Roberta’s, and I realized what he said was true – while they were all amazing, have I ever craved pizza from one of those specific places, or did I just crave that general brick oven thin crust taste and feel?

It seems like every day I am in New York, I am listening to someone discuss the latest food trend (gluten free? Low carb? No eating after 6pm?). I have a coworker who just eats a grapefruit for breakfast each morning and does the low-carb thing the rest of the day. I have another coworker who is doing a five-day juice cleanse, and when she is “feeling desperate,” she is “allowed” to eat cucumber slices. Fast-paced, work-centric city life seems to make us resort to painful, pointless fads to stay thin, but what long-term achievement will be found from this?

I had never seen a real cockroach in my life until I moved to New York at the age of 22. Naive little me, I had only heard about them and never though I’d have a problem with them because I am a completely anal clean freak. Then within a week of moving to New York, for the first time I saw a tiny roach running across my bathroom floor. I freaked out and squashed it, but I knew there’d be more. Now, I very occasionally still encounter them, and I have to settle into the fact that no matter how clean I am, somehow they will still come.

When I first moved to New York, I often got asked where I was from. When I’d respond that I was from San Francisco, people would laugh and say, “I thought so. You are so Californian!” In general, if you are a happy, upbeat, bubbly person, you will not fit in as a stereotypical “New Yorker” here. It wasn’t until my third year here when people would actually assume that I was originally from here that I’d realized that New York’s mean, cynical reputation had potentially taken the best of me. After a certain amount of time, living here certainly does shape you and make you a bit harder, and whether that is a good or bad thing is really up to you to decide.

After my friend got engaged and had a 1.5-carat diamond, I started noticing engagement rings more. I recalled the times when my mom got oogley-eyed over 1-carat diamonds, but I quickly realized that the amazement over one carat in her day has progressed to an obsession over two-carat diamonds today, especially in New York. As they say, the bigger, the better. What was once considered a symbol to prove how much a man loved and could support a woman has now sadly become an item that is largely used for women’s comparison purposes against one another (and insecurity jogging).