I have changed my mind about eating out, it’s now perfectly okay as long as you’ve been vaccinated. I have definitely not received a large sum of money in exchange for retracting my previous view. This is totally unrelated on restaurant reviews I may be contracted to do in the future.
In all seriousness if you live in Manhattan check out Veselka ( 144 2nd Ave ) and Dim Sum Palace ( 144 2nd Ave ). Paul’s Da Burger Joint is good too if you don’t mind arterial blockage ( 131 2nd Ave ). If you ask why all the restaurants I recommend are all on the same avenue I will not hesistate to pursue legal action against you.
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Disclaimer: This is lowkey, a venting-out post, and I’m a total hypocrite, and I really need to take my own advice, but hear me out.
Zoom burnout is a thing.
I repeat: teachers, parents, students—ZOOM BURNOUT IS REAL.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always had a preference for brainstorming, taking notes, writing essays, and putting any and all of my thoughts down to paper (there’s nothing like the feeling of a writing utensil callusing your finger joints with little nubs).
It really wasn’t until I graduated high school that I started using screens as much as I do now. In fact, when I first entered university, I was shocked; no, gob-smacked (cool word) at the number of other students who used their laptops to take notes. Since then, I’ve replaced the sensory satisfaction of a pen and paper with the sweet clack of a keyboard. And now, I feel an “unproductiveness” and a sort of emptiness without my technology.
As a college student, I spent a good chunk of my time hunkered down scouring the internet for information, typing away my papers, and lounging in bed while blankly gazing into the glare of blue light of Hulu when I probably should have been either studying or sleeping (speaking of which, guys, you gotta sleep). But the amount I spent scowling at black docs and scrolling through streaming services is overshadowedeclipsed DECIMATED by the time I spend in front of screens ever since the pandemic started.
I like to consider myself an adaptive person. At least, I try to be as flexible as possible (though I was a lot more fit before the pandemic). Still, this whole “everything-online” and “virtual living” thing has me worn out, and I know I’m not alone in this sentiment.
I’ve spoken to friends, classmates, coworkers, professors, and other professionals, and while I—or we—can’t speak for everyone, to my knowledge, the general consensus is that people are getting really tired of hopping on a Zoom call X many times a day.
School, work, socialization—everything is online. And while it’s important to acknowledge what a privilege is to even have access to these resources that allow us to engage in spaces, realize opportunities, and connect with others around the world in real time, it’s also important to recognize the not-so-positive impacts that technology has had on people during this time. Zoom burnout (and really, just burnout in general) is a real thing and can not only affect performance but also our overall well-being.
None of us could have anticipated the start of a pandemic at the dawn of a new decade (well, that is, apart from…). But now that we’re over a year into this global quagmire, it’s important to do what we can to ameliorate the situation, not simply with tech-driven solutions, but also understanding others as well as the self.
Teachers: I get the whole “keep your cameras on during class” thing—trust me, I understand what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera, hosting a meeting or class and seeing grey boxes with names floating in limbo in place of faces. It can feel isolating, awkward, and, quite frankly, annoying when it seems like nobody wants to be there and chances are they don’t. Now, it’s not that they don’t want to be in class necessarily, but most people don’t find it particularly pleasant to have the morning/midday/midnight face and bedroom/kitchen/living room (/bathroom?) out on display for everyone to see. Many people would rather be in class in person.
Parents: I can understand why you might get frustrated with your kids once in a while when/if they seem like they’re not putting effort into their classes, chores, or other goings-on. My mom gets pretty ticked with me too when I “forget” to do the laundry on Fridays, and I get it. I mean, c’mon, you go to work how many times a week, work how many hours, and juggle how many other responsibilities that come with being a parent? I truly do understand, and I’m sorry that your kids seem to have seriously regressed into actual kids, but—and this is not an excuse but a plea from one of these aforementioned kiddos—there is a lot going on. And yes, you’re right, right now, most of us don’t get up every morning to commute, or go to work (in person), or pay the bills, but have you ever tried your hand at feigning a smile (and/or attention) while on camera (which, by the way, is probably recording your every move and every word) multiple times a day on multiple days in a week? Dude, it’s tough.
And students: I only have two words for you—CHILL. OUT. It is a rough time for a lot of us right now, and just because this is a global pandemic with people around the world pushing through it and many individuals making do, doesn’t mean that your experience is not valid. I can promise you that no one is having an especially easy time right now (well, I mean, unless you have some green and the nerve to fly over to some island resort during this truly tragic period, no shade intended…okay, yes, shade intended).
All of that said, I have four more words for everyone, from teachers to parents to students to whoever else—give yourself a break.
Actually, I have two more words for you all (welp, I guess I’m a hypocrite and a liar)—be gentle. Be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with others.
If you take nothing from this read (except for my shade and HILARIOUS sarcasm), or in case you’re in dire need of a TDLR, here are four key takeaways:
Zoom burnout—and burnout in general—is real.
We’re in the middle of a global pandemic.
Stay home and stay safe.
Give yourself a break.
Be gentle with yourself, and be gentle with others.
by Christianne Evasco
Christianne is a senior at New York Univerity, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies (CAMS) and Creative Writing. Christianne’s endeavors are fueled by her passion to use her voice to help others harness the power of their own voices through therapeutically-creative means and to connect people through language and cultural exchange. In her free time, you can find her catnapping with her cats.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Soup is great. Normally I’d talk about how bad I feel about my own soup and all of soup’s various flaws, but I’m not going to do that. I love soup. More accurately, I love soup as a concept. It’s like food, except you can carry it in a bottle and you can drink it all at once if you’re bored of eating and are an uncultured swine like me. Of course, to say that I actually cook soup is not actually correct. In almost 100% of the cases, I just buy it. See, my dorm is literally located right next to Trader Joe’s, and they have pretty good soup. Tomato soup, chicken soup, clam chowder, onion soup, all the good stuff. Some people say that Trader Joe’s is an unethical business for whatever reason, and they’re probably right because I don’t see how they could profit off selling stuff for such ridiculously low prices without engaging with some sort of criminal activity somewhere along the line. I’ll still happily support them, though, because whatever the hell unethical thing they’re doing directly benefits me since I can go out and buy a month’s worth of soup for ten bucks. It even comes in neat little cartons. When I don’t want to support the mining of African blood diamonds or whatever (which is almost never, I get pretty much all of my food supplies from Trader Joe’s), I generally pick up wonton soup from that one Chinese place. I don’t question what’s in the wontons so it generally works out pretty well for me. The only actual culinary preparation I have to do is microwaving the soup and maybe dipping some breadsticks or garlic crackers in it afterwards. Soup is a fairly messy food for most people what with the complex interaction between the movement of the fluid in the spoon and gravity, but I generally find it to be a lot less messy than any solid food because it just leaves a nice liquid puddle that can be cleaned up instead of ten thousand tiny crumbs that just get fucking everywhere and when you try to clean them they just get everywhere and then in a month when I’ve forgotten about them they either end up attracting swarms of ants or somehow enter me nose at night like they were conjured to life by the sorcerer’s apprentice and causing me to cough up a storm triggering my hypochondriac covid anxiety and also making me continue on this sentence for way longer than any competent editor would allow. If I’m feeling really inventive I’ll just buy broth and drop some leftover turkey chunks from my standwiches in it then heat that up. To be honest I don’t really have any substantive advice on how to prepare soup, I’m just using it as an excuse to rant about whatever I feel like. I guess that isn’t really different than the rest of these columns though.
By: Alexander Rose
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
In October of my sophomore year, I applied for a semester abroad at NYU Madrid. At the same time, I submitted an application for the for-credit internship program there. In November, I had a Skype interview with the director of EUSA, a separate company NYU hires to run many of its abroad internship programs. During this meeting, we discussed the fields of work I was interested in, and she evaluated my level of Spanish fluency.
When I arrived in Madrid, I received an email notifying me that I had an interview in two days with the European Foundation of Society and Education, an education policy think tank. The interview process was a whirlwind. A few days before, I was pickpocketed at a nightclub, and my phone was stolen. To make it to my interview without a cell phone, I had to purchase an alarm clock and memorize the route to the office. Luckily, the foundation was in the city center and not the outskirts of Madrid, but I still had to transfer trains and ask for directions on the street.
I was nervous because the placement information made the office sound like a strict and formal environment. However, I was greeted by a charming old man. He reminded me of a kindly grandpa as he offered me a cup of coffee and complimented me on my success at NYU. His name was Miguel Ángel, the President of the foundation. It wasn’t even a real interview; we just worked out my schedule and got to know each other.
Contrary to my preconceived assumptions, the foundation was casual and friendly. I ended up wearing jeans every day. It was also customary to say “hola” and “adiós” to every person individually when you arrived and left each day. I even remember a coworker apologizing profusely one afternoon because she hadn’t said hello to me when she came in.
The work was a mix of administrative tasks, translating, social media management, and research analysis. I also went to a required weekly class at NYU Madrid for the students in the internship program, which involved various projects including a capstone research paper at the end of the semester. The most challenging part was reading quantitative research papers that the foundation published in Spanish, then writing my analysis (in Spanish) in a blog post. It seems I did okay, though, as Miguel Ángel submitted two of my articles to a Spanish newspaper.
Every morning, Miguel Ángel would ask me about my classes, exams, and weekend trips. These conversations were almost always interesting, as Spanish people tend to speak about personal topics more openly in the office than we do in the U.S. For example, I mentioned once that I had been baptized as a Catholic, and Miguel Ángel was so excited to tell me all about the importance of that sacrament.
At the end of the semester, the foundation invited me back for a goodbye party with coffee and snacks. They even bought me a Zara bag as a thank-you gift. I was sad to leave. I had genuinely enjoyed my time in the office, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, terrace for drinking coffee, and genial coworkers. However, when people ask if I recommend doing an internship during your semester abroad, the answer isn’t so simple.
Even now, after all of this reflecting, I still don’t know the answer. I am sure it looked impressive on my resume—job experience in a foreign country and in a foreign language. I could now prove my Spanish proficiency to future employers. I wrote about my work at the foundation in numerous cover letters and personal statements. For years, it has served as a unique experience that I can draw upon when promoting myself for a new job or academic program. More so, being a “working professional” in Madrid made me feel like I actually lived there, that I wasn’t just a typical study abroad student.
At the same time, I don’t believe I was fully ready for the transition to life in Spain. I left my closest friends and family in New York to study in a program where I barely knew anyone. Then, I filled my schedule with classes and my for-credit, unpaid internship hours, so I didn’t often have time to connect with other students. For them, their time abroad was an “easy semester” where they slept in, went to clubs on weeknights, and traveled every weekend. Meanwhile, I was shut in my room during the week, trying to finish my homework in the little free time I had after work. I rarely succeeded—I constantly felt that I was behind in my classes. I still got to travel extensively, and I had the most lovely time jet-setting across Europe. But I was so tired, so anxious, and my support system was across the ocean. I wonder what would have happened if I had spent those 16 hours a week (plus transportation time) taking care of myself rather than working in an office without getting paid.
Interning as a student is a learning process. In Madrid, I learned that it is okay to take a step back from work when you need to. Being a student and being a human are jobs too. Despite my struggles, I do not regret my time at the foundation. I challenged myself, and growth always comes from facing challenges.
By Marisa Bianco
Marisa graduated from NYU in May 2020, summa cum laude, with degrees in International Relations and Spanish. She grew up in Nebraska, but she is currently living in Córdoba, Spain, where she works as an English teacher. You can find her eating tapas in the Spanish sun while likely stressing about finding her life’s purpose.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
After a long day of classes, Elizabeth and I meet on the corner of 23rd and 8th to check out Flé Flé grill. With the frigid New York winter coming to a close, we are craving the fresh tastes of spring. No cuisine quite captures the essence of a reawakening sunny city as much as Mediterranean food–with each bite you can practically envision yourself sprawled out on the beautiful beaches surrounding the Mediterranean sea.
Conveniently located next to the subway, Flé Flé is a great place to grab food on the go or meet up with friends. The restaurant itself is in an attractive brick building that is brightly lit. This part of the city is vibrant, many bars and shops teem with people and it isn’t far from the High Line, Chelsea Piers, and Hudson Yards.
Flé Flé is a versatile restaurant. It can be whatever you want it to be. For instance, you can pick up food, order food, sit alone, do work, or use your phone while eating. Flé Flé is also a great location to catch up with friends. You can make the outing last 10 minutes, or you can go on an entire adventure and explore gems in the city after eating.
The interior of the restaurant is clean and offers diners a wide variety of seating options. There is a rectangular table for a larger party, and there are stools. These seating options give customers a chance to create the dining experience they wish to experience.
Flé Flé offers you the choice of creating your own bowl or pita sandwich. I chose to create a bowl and Elizabeth made a sandwich. You are given the choice of a vegetable and grain base, and there are a wide variety of meats that you can put on top. Extra toppings include more veggies and sauces.
The food itself is tasty, filling, and affordable. There are many flavors represented in the food: the saltiness of the meat, fresh vegetables, and spicy habanero sauce. I was impressed with the garlic whip, which I had never seen or tasted before. Flé Flé fries are seasoned with middle eastern spices, which was a welcome addition to the classic french fry.
The food is very filling, which is good if you are a student. A single bowl is enough to keep you going for the entire day. You can also make sure you are getting all of your nutritional needs because you have the freedom to choose what goes in your bowl.
There are many advantages of going to Flé Flé. That being said, the best part about this restaurant is that it gives customers options. This is reflected by the following:
Location. Flé Flé is right by the subway, which is convenient for diners.
Experience. You can grab food to go, eat while multitasking, or enjoy a meal with friends.
Food. At Flé Flé you are given the opportunity to create your own pita sandwich or bowl.
The number of options and flexibility of this venue is perfect for all diners. For students looking to eat out for any occasion, I recommend stopping by Flé Flé grill in the near future!
By: Erin Zubarik
My name is Erin Zubarik and I am a Junior at New York University majoring in Global Liberal Studies and minoring in Chinese and Italian. Over the last few years I have been lucky enough to study abroad in Florence and Beijing, where I enhanced my language skills and became acquainted with lovely people. This fall I am primarily holed up in my apartment taking online classes, and playing with my hamster Pork Chop.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services. At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Sandwiches are pretty great, and I’m not just saying that because they’re the one food that probably appears in all the restaurants you can get coupons for from this blog. Invented by some lazy English guy who couldn’t be bothered to put down his playing cards while eating, the humble sandwich has become one of the most ubiquitous forms of food in the modern era given how easy it is to make and eat. The sandwich’s largest benefit—the ability to be consumed in motion— has fallen by the wayside for me now that I no longer need an excuse to not leave my room, but its one-handedness still makes it easy to eat while doing something else. The fact that it’s so pathetically simple to prepare also means that it may be the one food that doesn’t make me feel totally inadequate relative to the rest of my family when eating it. Sure, they still prepared the actual ingredients on a level far beyond my feeble mortal comprehension, but the actual sandwich was just that plus bread so I can at least pretend I don’t suck. Of course, I still manage to find a way to screw things up anyway. Bits of sandwich filling always seem to be falling out of the bread, partially because I always end up holding the sandwich at an angle since my attention is usually focused on robot models but also because I just stuff whatever in there without any regard for consistency. Banana and honey sandwich? Sure. Sliced sausage with leftover ketchup? Could be worse. Peanut butter and roast turkey? Better than you’d expect. Hummus and Bolognese sauce? Actually that last one was a terrible idea and I wish I could go back in time and punch myself in the face to stop it from ever existing, buy you get the picture. While I normally try (and fail) to follow existing recipes, sandwiches are the one domain where I can “fuck around and find out” to use the vernacular. In order to accommodate these structurally disastrous innovations, I have invented an entirely new type of food: the standwich. Take a bread roll, cut off one of the sides, and then hollow out all the fluffy stuff to create a food-pocket. Since there’s only one point of exit for the filling, the standwich can “stand” at an angle (thus justifying my horrible pun) and prevent anything on the inside from falling out. This results in a sandwich that can take much more gravitational abuse than any other, allowing it to be eaten while you perform all sorts of one handed tasks that I will not name here. Truly, I am a culinary genius. Also please don’t google “meatbread”.
By: Alexander Rose
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
I have had zero positive experiences with cooking dairy at school. This isn’t to say that I dislike dairy or that I can’t make food involving it—I eat cereal with milk and out cheese in sandwiches. Sometimes I even just eat slices of cheese straight out of the package like the absolute barbarian I am. It’s just that any time I try to use milk in conjunction with heat, unspeakable horrors occur. My most successful lactiferous endeavor has been with macaroni and cheese, and that’s stretching it. Normally I would explain how to make the food in question here but anybody who doesn’t know how to make mac and cheese from a box probably shouldn’t be allowed to cook in the first place so I’ll just cut to the chase and say that the cheese somehow always ends up splattered over both the microwave and my shirt, which you’d think would be mutually exclusive. Ultimately it was still edible though. The real issue I have is the quesadilla.
The quesadilla is another food that my family can all prepare better than me, but normally I get around it by rebranding it as a “quasi-dilla” because my love of terrible puns is far greater than my self loathing at not being able to master basic life skills. I can make pretty good quasi-dillas normally, too—it’s a simple process. Just oil the pan, put the cheese on top of the tortilla, fry until the cheese is melted, then fold it in half and eat. (You can throw little bacon in there while it’s cooking for extra flavor and an increased chance of rectal cancer later in life.) at least that’s how it works anywhere either than in my room. When I try it in my room it takes so long for the cheese to melt that the entire tortilla has invariably shriveled into an inedible black crisp. I have no idea what variable causes this as I can’t reproduce any other result.
A similar problem occurs with grilled cheese. I either butter the bread before putting it on the pan and the same thing happens as with the quasi-dilla, or I don’t and the bread becomes burnt on the outside and raw on the inside which is actually worse. Yes, I tasted it. No, I don’t know why. I think the problem might have something to do with my stove, it has no numbers for the temperature settings and food always seems to take longer to cook than the receipt says it should. At the same time, I’m not sure why cheese is such a problem, considering most of the other food I cook on the stove turns out all right. The microwave problem I can understand; every single time I put a liquid in there it acts like a volcano on viagra. But the stove just seems to have it out for cheese specifically. It would be really annoying if there wasn’t a pizza place right down the block. Ahhh, New York.
Some people classify eggs as dairy, but those people are crazy. It doesn’t even come from a cow. Eggs will be covered in the meat section. Except I already wrote the meat section, so I guess anybody who wanted egg stories is shit out of luck.
By: Alexander Rose
Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.
For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC, from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.
At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.
Intern Katie leads today's discussion. We talk about the pandemic's effect on college students, since current juniors and seniors' college experiences have been largely defined by the pandemic. We discuss what it was like being sent home from college in 2020, navigating online classes and extracurricular activities, and the lessons we've learned from this whole […]
Welcome back to a new season of the Campus Clipper podcast! Intern Megan leads today's discussion. We talk about the activities that inspire creativity in our cities and how to balance creative hobbies with schoolwork and internships. We also discuss the uncertainty and insecurity that we often feel when putting our creative work out in […]
Intern Ehani leads today's discussion. We talk about the films, series, books, and other art that has touched our hearts, even when the world makes us want to be dark and cynical. We also discuss what role our passions have in our lives, and what passion means to us. Mentioned in this episode: Call Me […]
In this episode, our interns talk about going to college in a big city - from the cultural advantages to how they deal with the expensive cost of living. We also share our favorite things to splurge on. Mentioned in this episode: The Whitney Museum The Tenement Museum Tips for budgeting (even when you're not […]
In this episode, our publishing interns talk about why they love writing and how they use writing and creativity as a tool for personal development and mental health. Check out our publishing interns' writing on the Campus Clipper Blog. This episode was recorded at the new East Village, NYC location of Marinara Pizza. Click this […]
Anna leads today's discussion about her ebook, Balancing Your College Life: An Existential Perspective on Exercise and Entertainment. We talk about how we chose our majors and dealing with uncertainty. We also share our tips for coping with academic pressure and art and literature that inspire us. Check out more of Anna's work in her […]
Monica leads today's discussion. We talk about why we chose our respective college, coping with homesickness, and our internship experiences. We also share our tips for getting to know a big city. Check out more of Monica's work in her article "Chapter 2- The First Week at University (Full of Homesickness and Doubt)." Read about […]
Sydney leads today's discussion, and it's all about "Plugging in with Good Intentions." We talk about technology - from maintaining long-distance friendships to podcasts and music recommendations. We also share our tips for managing anxiety on social media. Check out more of Sydney's work in her article, "Plugging in with Good Intentions — Chapter 4: […]