Week 1 (part 2)

Okay, beginning where I left off.

Wednesday, 9/29 - I started on my assignment this day, by creating a sketch of a boy character.
I also went on a walk with Mrs. Crews and Scooter, getting a little taste of Riverdale, which is the section of the city they live in. It is part of the Bronx, just north of the Harlem river which separates the Bronx from Manhattan. Needless to say it's not nearly as hectic as it is down in Manhattan. Nonetheless, it's still very different than what I'm used to - rows of apartment buildings to one side and a commercialized street on the other!

Thursday, 9/30 - This was my first day coming in to the office to work. After taking the bus, then subway, then walking down to their location on 45th street, at 10:30 am I was shown to a computer and pretty much told to get started however I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn't really get to work with anyone, since none of the other interns were there - only Alex, who had a lot of other things to take care of for Shine.

However, I did get to listen in on the going-ons around the office as I worked, which was interesting. Shine actually occupies a very small part of the place, most of it belongs to employees of Worldwide Biggies. The artists and animators worked in a different room, so unfortunately I didn't get to see any of that, but I did get to listen in on the management side of creating games. It was a different experience.

Since I got caught up in my work as usual, it wasn't until 2 pm I realized I should go and get some lunch. Alex suggested a diner just a block away, so I visited the place. I ordered a burger there, but I really wouldn't say it was worth the $6 I paid for it - plus the staff wasn't very accomodating, and I got the feeling I annoyed them somehow. I decided I wouldn't be returning there.

I returned to the office for another 3 hours of work, getting done at 6. Honestly, I have never worked that many hours straight before, and I felt mentally drained by the time it was over. However, the boy character was completely finished - colored, shaded, rendered, 100%. Back on the subway & bus I went, not arriving back to the Crews' apartment until 7:30, which was just in time for dinner as they always eat quite late.

Friday, 10/1 - Still quite tired, I thought I would just stay at the apartment and start working on the girl character. I did this for awhile, but then Mrs. Crews decided to go to the New York Botanical Garden and I accompanied her. Now I know next to nothing about plants, but she knows a lot - so as we walked through, she explained to me what everything was and her experiences in planting them, etc. I learned quite a lot! Not to mention it was pretty, of course.

Saturday, 10/2 - This was the day I decided to take a break from working and have my first personal exploration day. My destination of choice was the Central Park Zoo. I was told that the zoo was quite small and would take me no time to get through, so I decided to also explore the park and visit other sites there. Little did I know that the map I brought with me would not save me from getting very lost...

When I first arrived at the park from the subway, I did not care too much where I was and figured I would just wander around and take in the sights. Right away I saw all the bicyclists -- so many! -- and all the pedicabs riding around on the streets there. There were also lots of horse-drawn buggys! It reminded me of the scene in Enchanted where they have a musical number in Central Park - they really did a good job capturing many of the park's elements. I took out my camera and took a few shots of the park with the cityscape in the background. I figured my wanderings would eventually take me to the zoo.

After my wanderings took me to anywhere but the zoo, I finally took out the map at the statue of Shakespeare in hope of getting my bearings. I did -- for then -- but after a bit more wandering I was once again clueless. Luckly I spotted the Children's Zoo, which is just before the main zoo, so ended up finding my way in. The entry fee for the zoo was $12. That seemed a bit much but then again, when else would I be able to come to the Central Park Zoo? So I paid it and began to view the various areas.

First I checked out the tropical area, which had lots of birds, bats, & snakes. There were also a few lemurs - however, I've seen lemurs before quite a few times at Como Zoo in St. Paul, so these weren't that exciting. The next area housed penguins, fish, and their two polar bears. For a long time I couldn't find the bears - but then I saw a crowd of people and figured they had found one. So I waited for them to thin out a bit and spotted one's sleepy head poking out. In the last area of the zoo, I saw a red panda, a black stork, and some swans - the latter which I didn't take any pictures of because they were in such an awkward pose that they didn't look like swans at all... what good is taking a picture of swans if you can't identify them? However, I never saw the snow leopard, which was dissapointing since it was one of their main exhibits -- but apparently the snow leopard is very elusive.

Once through with the zoo, I was hungry and considered stopping at the cafe in the zoo - but their prices were pretty insane. Instead, I returned to the main pathways in the park and picked up a $2 hot dog from one of the many, many stands all over the place. After that is when I got truly, truly lost. I kept pulling out my map, thinking that I had determined where I was, and then heading on only to find that I was going completely the other way! Before long I couldn't think about how cool the park was, but only about how much my feet hurt and how painfully terrible my sense of direction was. Countless times I sought out a bench to rest. Yeah, it was pretty sad. Only at long last did I make my way back to where I had come, and proceeded to board the subway again. So I spent a total of 6 hours at the park, and yet I didn't get much farther than the southern corner. To my credit, though, Central Park really is huge - practically the size of a town. Just look at a map of Manhattan if you don't believe me.

One site I thought I would check out that day was the Metropolitan Museum of Art which was in Central Park, but that didn't happen, so I decided to visit there another day!

More to come later. :) Sorry about the lengthiness - I'm always really wordy, I know. >.<