Girls are mean. I thought that if I attended a women’s college like Wellesley, it may force me to reexamine how I view other women, and maybe I could then have a more positive attitude toward them. This did not happen. If anything, I left thinking that women are just out to tear each other down because when one woman succeeds, it is at the expense of another. I experienced the fiercest competition I’d ever seen, and left thinking even more that I just get along with men better. In New York, I have met similar competitive women, even during job interviews, where it seems as though when I am answering questions, they feel threatened by me. Why does it need to be this way, or is it just me…?

As the popular saying goes, New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s also the city that never shuts up. Wherever you go at whatever time, there always seems to be noise in multiple forms – people talking and laughing, a train passing underneath you, cars and buses honking (this is also the only city where I have seen signs that read “$250 Fine for Honking”). Over time, I’ve gotten used to all the different sounds and the lack of quiet and learned to block certain things out. To enjoy and ultimately survive New York life, I think this learning is almost a necessity.

It’s common to hear that most who live in a city don’t really do many of the “touristy” activities that visitors will do. I am guilty of a number of these: in San Francisco, i still have not visited Alcatraz. Here in New York, I still haven’t been to the top of the Empire State Building, having favored taking guests to the Top of the Rock, and I still have not been to the Statue of Liberty. Like other locals, I detest Times Square and avoid it like the plague, and I take pride when tourists ask me for directions because it’s almost like a badge of pride that, yes, I do live here.

For the first time ever in my five years in New York, I actually saw someone in Spanish Harlem today carrying a bag of potting soil. This woman was apparently going to bring it home to grow plants this spring. If you really love growing fruit, vegetables, or flowers, this city really isn’t going to be the place for you unless you are so lucky to have access to a yard, or a sunny window (also definitely not a guarantee in this city; natural light in an apartment is highly coveted and in low supply), and if you have those things, they probably won’t be in Manhattan.

That statement, along with, “There aren’t many Mexicans in New York,” seem to be things people just enjoy saying about New York.  For those who have actually explored New York outside of Manhattan (because believe it or not, “New York City” actually consists of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, in addition to Manhattan), they will know that there are big neighborhoods, primarily Corona in Queens and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, where you can find huge Mexican populations, and along with them, really authentic Mexican food, like Tortilleria Nixtamal and Tacqueria Coatzingo.

Tonight, we went to see the off-Broadway play called ANN: An Affectionate Portrayal of Ann Richards. While I was not aware that Ann Richards was the second female governor of Texas before reading the synopsis of the play, I really enjoyed it. Crass, potty-mouthed, and completely not politically correct, it was really refreshing to hear someone who was so brutally honest. I know that is hard to down in our society, especially in cities like New York, where you are harpooned if you do not go out of your way to not offend people, but sometimes you really just need to hear life the way it is without the PC bullshit.

A year ago, I lived in a spacious apartment in Queens where hosting guests was a no-brainer: if I had two guests, they could sleep on the fold-out futon in the living room, or if I even had three guests, the third could sleep on the air mattress in the dining room, and I’d still have my bed (and room!) to myself. Now that I live in Manhattan, space-wise I am not so lucky. If guests sleep in our bed, we share our futon in the lounge room, but since the lounge room is basically the only other room in the apartment other than the bedroom, we officially now have no free floor space. Oh, the joys of living the life in Manhattan when hosting.

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.