I don’t think a lot of us understand what love really is. We have these idealized concepts of what it means from Disney movies and television series that romanticize it and spread all the wrong messages. I recently read All About Love by bell hooks and it truly informed my understanding of love and what it means. hooks proposes we treat love as a verb, rather than a noun.

When we change our definition of love from a feeling to an action, it debunks the majority of these stories we grew up watching and listening to. It makes us understand that while our dysfunctional families did care about us, that does not mean they were loving. Love and pain do not coexist. It is not loving to beat your kids or call them terrible names. Redemption can be found, but as that infamous saying goes: actions speak louder than words. We can claim to love people, but it is in our actions that we are loving. 

To be loving to others, we have to be loving toward ourselves. We spend much of our lives dreaming of receiving this romanticized notion of love from others, but we fail to realize that we are fully capable of giving this sort of love to ourselves. Once we learn to do this, any other form of love we receive will pile onto the love we are already getting. No one can make you feel unloved when you already love yourself. hooks wrote that self-love is an action we take for our own spiritual growth and that once this process of self-love has begun, it makes it possible to extend ourselves to others (hooks 54). We have to take measures to ensure that we are avidly growing and being mindful each day. Living consciously, as hooks put it, is another fundamental step. She claimed that we have to “engage in critical reflection about the world we live in and know most intimately” (hooks 56). In doing so, we become more aware of our surroundings and the role we play in them. The best thing we can do for others is to be loving toward ourselves because it will subsequently enable us to be more loving toward them. 

hooks briefly brings up the concept of cathexis. Cathexis is defined in the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as the concentration of mental energy on one particular person, idea, or object (especially to an unhealthy degree). She explains that sometimes, we think we have found ourselves in love but we are really just experiencing cathexis. I don’t know if that is what that boy and I had. If we look at our not-relationship from the lense of love as a verb, then maybe we were not actually in love. The not-relationship was and still is really important to me and it made me feel more than I have ever had, but I think the best parts of it were the parts that happened after it ended. I am loving toward that boy now, and he is the same with me. It took us a while to mend our friendship after we exploded but we are finally in a good place— in which I actually let him read an early draft of the second chapter that I wrote about him. He told me that I did not discuss his own flaws enough. We had the most honest conversation in the entirety of our friendship that day. We both took accountability for our flaws and admitted that we still have much more growing to do. But we had begun the first part: taking responsibility. 

Taking responsibility for our actions and how they affect the people we are loving toward is one of the most crucial aspects of living consciously and loving. hooks claims that, “taking responsibility means that in the face of barriers we still have the capacity to invent our lives to shape our destinies in ways that maximize our wellbeing” (hooks 57). When we accept accountability, it changes our reactions and our feelings. We cannot control the events that happen to us; we can only control how we react. 

One of my favorite quotes from the book is, “[w]hat we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands” (hooks 209). A lot of us have damage, but we cannot let that rule our lives. We have to practice self-assertiveness. Without it, we perpetuate the cycle of abuse by letting it continue in different forms. If we don’t treat ourselves with respect, why should anyone else? I started standing up for myself these last few months; I started with my mother. It obviously did not have the best ending, but I am not being taken advantage of anymore. I am not having daily reminders of my trauma and swallowing it down just so that she can live with herself. Her boyfriend has haunted my dreams for many nights in the past few years. Last night, he visited them again, but this time I was different. I stood up to him. I called him out for everything he had done in front of an audience, but I did not care who heard. All I needed was for myself to be heard. I don’t know if the dreams will continue. If I am being realistic, they probably will. But I stood up to him last night and now I feel a little more free. 

I know that I have to forgive my mother. It is not healthy to carry that pain and resentment within me. Now, when I say forgive, I mean let go of all of this. I mean to attempt to understand where she is coming from and to finally accept all that has happened. I do not mean to let her back into my life. I yearn for my mother most nights, but I need to continue to respect myself and my pain— which she does not. Until she does, we cannot be in each other’s lives again. This is another truth I must learn to accept. hooks proposed that, “to know compassion fully is to engage in a process of forgiveness and recognition that enables us to release all the baggage we carry. It serves as a barrier to healing” (hooks 217). Releasing my baggage is a difficult task for me. At one point, it was all I had. I thought it defined me. I have to let these toxic ideas go. I have to continue working toward that compassion so that I myself may be free. 

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Jaelynn is a rising sophomore at NYU majoring in Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis with a focus in Latino studies and is minoring in Creative Writing. The list of her hobbies is almost as drawn out as her majors are. She writes poetry, essays and stories, she dances, mentors high schoolers in the Bronx and often plans environmental events in NYU Residence Halls. She has a poem published in the introspective study Inside My World by the Live Poets Society. Despite vehemently condemning social media, she ironically has instagram which you could follow her on. 

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

I was a weird kid growing up. I don’t mean sit in the corner and pick my nose weird, but I did spend a lot of time alone. Too much time alone.

Whenever kids asked me to play, they would reach for their Hot Wheels, dinosaurs, and dolls. Out of the three dolls were the absolute worst. I remember girls would dress them up, give them names, and even come up with background stories. Like, this is Amber, she’s a model for Limited Too, and she’s dating Chad. I always thought that was so stupid. Why am I pretending an inanimate object is real? It wasn’t until Toy Story that I started to second guess myself, but that’s beside the point. I preferred coloring or having DMCs, also known as deep, meaningful conversations. I was a child but oddly, I behaved like a grownup.

It was difficult fitting in with my age group, and on the off chance I met someone I got along with, it would be impossible to see them outside of school. Both of my parents worked full time, so they didn’t have the opportunity to drive me around to a friend’s house or to the mall. I was at home watching television or talking to my nanny most of the time. She was probably the only person who really knew me back then.

When my little brother Anthony was born in 2005, things changed. I had a built-in best friend. He was the cutest, chubbiest baby, and I was obsessed with holding him. My parents love to remind me that when the doctor announced it was a boy, I threw a tantrum.

I screamed, “Why? I don’t want a brother! Give me a little sister.”

The doctor had to calm me down before I alarmed any patients.

He explained, “A little sister will steal your clothes, wear your make-up, and annoy you a lot more than a little brother. Trust me.”

Well, the doctor was right. My brother was definitely annoying, but he was nothing compared to some little girls I knew. For some reason, little girls love to “do” your hair. At least, my brother never turned mine into a bird’s nest. Instead, we invented games, like the sock game, where we both start off wearing a pair of socks, and the first one to take off the other person’s socks wins. I believe I beat him every match, but I know he’d fight me on that. Over time, my brother became one of my closest friends.

Fast forward several years to middle school, and I still hadn’t found my niche. I would hang out with this group of girls because we had the same classes, and they lived one bike ride away. Nonetheless, there was constant drama within our friend group.

“She doesn’t like me? Well, f*** her. I don’t like her either.”

Even though we enjoyed talking about school and boys together, all the gossip and negativity weighed me down. I swore to myself that in high school I would escape the drama and focus on my grades. It was a dream of mine to get into a good college and make my parents proud. When they emigrated to the United States from Brazil, my mom had her high school diploma but my dad had barely finished middle school. Neither of them spoke English, and they worked day and night to give me and my brother the life we live now. Inspired by them, I said I would be the first of our family to go to a university, and that’s exactly what happened. I spent all my high school years stressing over SATs/ACTs, Advanced Placement exams, and essays. During the college application season, I wouldn’t have anyone to guide me through the process. I would have to wander through unknown territory on my own, so I began preparing early.

Because I was busy studying all the time, I missed out on many high school experiences: parties, relationships, and random, late nights with friends. I cried of loneliness and fear of missing out (FOMO) hundreds of times. At night, I would lie awake uncontrollably sobbing into my pillow so my parents couldn’t hear me. I felt alone, unloved, and unhappy. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. I had a wonderful, supportive family that cared for me, but I also had the habit of catastrophizing. In future chapters, I will talk about how I dealt with these issues.

I regret not having as much fun in high school, but the hard work eventually paid off! I was accepted to New York University (NYU), which was a huge accomplishment at my high school. Most people commit to our popular state school, Rutgers University, or a community college. The handful of students who attended a prestigious university or left the state were applauded. Never did I expect to be one of them.

I was about to embark on a life-altering journey.

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Thayz Queiroz is a junior at the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Her concentration is a mixture of psychology and sociology with a focus on human behavior and why people commit crimes. She plans to attend law school upon graduation and looks forward to what the future holds. Completely unrelated, her book “Miss Independent is Taken” is about the transition from being single to starting a relationship. In her book, she shares her personal struggles with confidence, school, and love. Thayz has faced many obstacles, some discouraging and others inspiring, the past three years of college. By the end of her book, she reveals the lessons she’s learned in hopes that it will help other young adults.

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 encourage 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.

Falling in love affected me so deeply because afterwards, I was forced to stare into the mirror. I was stripped naked, sitting cross-legged on the dark floor of my room as it reflected the darkest parts of myself: the wounds that never fully closed. I realized then that I was not equipped for a relationship because I had not healed from my past. I had endured trauma and abuse in many forms and that had affected my relationship with myself. It was not entirely the boy’s fault that this did not work out. It was mine, too.

My prior relationships had left me racked with numerous scars. Some were visible; I covered them with tattoos. The other scars were invisible to the naked eye because they lay dormant in my struggling soul. It is not the romantic relationships that had scarred me this way, though; it was my relationship with my family. My father’s alcoholism dramatically worsened following my mother’s abandonment when we were younger. People often say my mother and I are twins, meaning I was a daily reminder of his pain. Subsequently, I received the brunt of the abuse when he was drunk. Once, he wished me dead. I loved my father, but everyday he battled numerous demons. He fought as long as he could for us until May 4th, 2014. For years after he passed, I still flinched when I saw a belt. The first relationship I had with a man broke my self-esteem, so I rarely stopped other men that had similar habits. It was what I had become used to.

I also realized this past year that I felt guilty for my sexual assault. The pain that that caused me is one that I am still dealing with to this day. Six months after I moved out from “home,” I tried to salvage my relationship with my mother. But every single time we spoke, we were lying. We were pretending that everything was okay. She would still bring her boyfriend up. There were pictures of him in the house. I would have to hear his voice on the phone when he called her. And I had to be okay with it. But I was not. Her and I spoke every single day, so every single day I was being reminded of the night when everything came to a head. When the years of him grabbing my butt and making inappropriate comments mixed together to form the infamous night. The night that he grabbed his bulge in front of my face. The night that he held both of my legs open and while standing between them repeatedly asked me “Why not?” The night that he yanked me off the couch and rubbed himself up against me from behind when I wouldn’t let him grab me.

I was sixteen when he assaulted me. Two years after in college, I thought I had gotten over it. But when my heart broke in a way I never knew possible after that boy and I ended our not-relationship, I knew I was far from being okay. I could no longer pretend like that night— those years, did not happen. That man treated me as an object and I subsequently began treating myself the same way. I had to listen to my mind and my pain to put an end to it, starting with my mother. I could not speak to her knowing she was actively not protecting me. Knowing she was avidly moving to Florida this summer to live with him without knowing if I had a place to stay. So I told her the truth. I told her I was incapable of pretending anymore and everything blew up. My heart shattered for the millionth time as my mother left me on read. I walked her through the vivid details of what her boyfriend did all over again and she read it, but did not answer. She still has not answered. She has spread lies and spun narratives in which I am the bad guy. She has blamed the victim. That hurt my self-esteem more than any boy ever could.

This is my damage. I have grown up like many other minorities have in this institutionalized system: poor, hungry, abused. I did not succumb to my circumstances, but I realized I had still not overcome them. Some of those demons still clawed at me from beneath my bed at night. I spent many years being angry at the world, but I realized I can’t do that anymore. I can’t be angry that some people had nice houses growing up and have never gone hungry. I can’t be angry that some people have two parents that love and support them. I can’t be angry that some will never know the pain I have. I should be happy for them. I am happy now that many have not suffered the way I have. But I have to share my stories for the ones that have not been so lucky. For the ones like me that have had random hurricanes thrown in their paths without rhyme or reason.

Before I can truly help others, though, I have to help myself. I have to hold myself accountable for my own negative habits. I needed to stop hindering my own growth.

By Jaelynn Grace Ortiz

Jaelynn is a rising sophomore at NYU majoring in Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis with a focus in Latino studies and is minoring in Creative Writing. The list of her hobbies is almost as drawn out as her majors are. She writes poetry, essays and stories, she dances, mentors high schoolers in the Bronx and often plans environmental events in NYU Residence Halls. She has a poem published in the introspective study Inside My World by the Live Poets Society. Despite vehemently condemning social media, she ironically has instagram which you could follow her on. 

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

One day as I sat in the dining hall conversing with a friend, I broke down. We were having a normal conversation, but the entire time she was speaking, all I could think about was going back to my empty dorm by myself. The walls were cold and the room was dark. The small window in my low-cost triple dorm provided little to no light. My view was a brick wall. His room had always been so bright. As tears rolled down my face in the crowded dining hall, I realized I had fallen into the same hole my mother had.

I was scared to be alone. My mother is too. She has consistently been in relationships since she was nineteen. She continues to be in them, even when they harm her. Even when they harm me. I always told myself I would never do the same, that I would never be that girl who depends on a guy for her source of happiness and security, but here I was. I cried daily for a week and somehow found a way to make everything about him. And as I sat in that dining hall, I was being a bad friend. I was so absorbed with my own problems that I couldn’t focus long enough to listen to what she had to say. But the idea of being in my own company for a prolonged period of time felt as smothering as the four white walls of my shoebox dorm did. I was being suffocated by the feeling that I wasn’t enough for myself. Like if I wasn’t with someone else, what was the point? What did I have to offer… myself?

Then I became upset. I had everything I could possibly want: a full scholarship to my dream school, a dorm in the city that never sleeps, the opportunity to pursue my passion of writing. Why wasn’t this enough for me? Why did I feel so empty? I had also experienced pain more severe than this. I was abused mentally and physically growing up. I slept on couches and floors. My father died. I was sexually abused. I moved out at sixteen. This was nothing compared to all that! How had I conquered all of those experiences and the pain they yielded, but I was struggling to conquer this?

I realized though that that anger toward myself was counterintuitive, because it typically made the situation worse. And I can’t minimize my current problems just because I have had worse ones in the past. I am unable to control my emotions, and thinking I could was toxic to my health. I held myself to such a high standard that I became disappointed whenever I felt that longing because I am supposed to be “strong” and “independent.” This is what I taught myself but that is what I had to unlearn. I was definitely both of those qualities, but my definitions of them were incorrect. I was not weak because I loved and subsequently hurt; that is what made me strong.

There is this expectation in college that everything should be casual and that this is not the time for romantic relationships. My own friends made me feel abnormal for wanting commitment instead of a casual fling that lacked a label. I wanted  to love someone instead of just enjoying the pleasures of the flesh they would. I feel so much to the point that I thought I was feeling too much. But I realized I needed to stop apologizing for the complexity of my emotions. I know I hold no control over them, but I can control my actions. I can control how I react and can limit the amount of actions that will yield these deep emotions I typically experience.

The main problem was that I love other people with all of my heart. I give everything I have, even when it means that I go without more times than not. But I was not loving enough to myself. I was not giving to myself. I was not accepting myself for my flaws like I had unconditionally done for others. Of course I didn’t feel comfortable in my own company. I didn’t have enough respect for myself. Would you pass time with a person you do not love or respect? And while I was not loving myself enough, I also was not holding myself accountable. I was not acknowledging my own flaws and weaknesses. I was playing victim but failed to acknowledge that I was part of our downfall too. I didn’t fully acknowledge that until the night I went out with a group of friends to see a movie and he was there. I don’t even remember how we got to this point in our conversation, but we had begun conversing about when we were together. The conversation was half-joking, half-serious. I told him it was his fault that I was so distraught the week we ended. I implied that the whole ending was his undoing. He said “Really? Come on, Jae. It was your fault, too.”

I needed to hear that.

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By Jaelynn Grace Ortiz

Jaelynn is a rising sophomore at NYU majoring in Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis with a focus in Latino studies and is minoring in Creative Writing. The list of her hobbies is almost as drawn out as her majors are. She writes poetry, essays and stories, she dances, mentors high schoolers in the Bronx and often plans environmental events in NYU Residence Halls. She has a poem published in the introspective study Inside My World by the Live Poets Society. Despite vehemently condemning social media, she ironically has instagram which you could follow her on. 

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

I fell in love for the first time this past year. It was passionate and messy and blew up in my face. However, it yielded much needed self-reflection and realization that facilitated unprecedented growth within myself.

Shortly after my first semester began, I found myself in something that resembled a relationship with another NYU student. I was hungry for life when I arrived at college and he nourished my soul. We thought we could get away with not putting a label on ourselves, though. He had just gotten out of a five-year-long relationship and I had just gotten over a short, mediocre one. My mistake was thinking I could control my emotions. I thought I could spend my days with this boy and be embraced with his sweet kisses without getting too attached. I thought wrong. I fell for him much more quickly than I ever believed possible.

As soon as I got out of class, my first thought was when can I see him again? Even if it was for twenty minutes, I wanted to be in his presence. He brought calm into the normal chaos that was my daily life. He held me while I had panic attacks and made me say every single thing I was grateful about, from my little brother back home to the cheese and grape platter I always bought from Sidestein. When I was with him, I didn’t think about the pain brought by the loss of my father or the invalidation from my mother. I didn’t think about the nights I went to sleep for dinner. He even stopped the daily night terrors I would have about my mom’s boyfriend.

The thing about college, though, is that we often get much more freedom than we have ever been exposed to before. I didn’t have to wait until my uncle was at work for a boy to drive twenty minutes to pick me up. This boy literally lived right across the hall from me. Boundaries exist for a reason, but I broke them. It felt too good to be with someone that had also struggled, that understood much of my pain. He was hesitant about us, though. He would constantly have talks with me to make sure I wasn’t getting too attached. He had just gotten out of a long relationship and made it clear he wasn’t ready for a new one. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt me. So, I told him I wasn’t falling. I lied.

 I lied to myself for a long time. I told myself that I didn’t have deep feelings for him. That we were just casual and having fun, but deep down, I knew. I wrote a poem two months in that went:

a beautiful night

heart inflamed

my soul awakens

in the presence of you

i love you

but im not in love with you

i promise

i know you dont want that

you dont want to be limited again!

you shout from the rooftops

you shout so loud that windows shatter

i eat the glass

every night

you hold me

but when im not there

i cry

i cry because i know

i love you

but not like in love with you

i promise

As our not-relationship progressed, I became dependent. I expected him to constantly  long to see me as well and to not be with anyone else, even though we had never made that clear. When my expectations weren’t always met, I began feeling empty. So, I started overcompensating. I stopped going out of my way to see friends. I spent more money on him than I had to spare. I sacrificed sleep each night to drowsily stay up doing homework with him. These were my own conscious choices; he never asked for any of it.

Our days were often sweet and bright, but I knew we were running on borrowed time. The expiration date was closing in on us like the four white walls of loveless apartments I grew up in. Because of this, I never had sufficient time to brace myself for the fall.

It all exploded one night. I saw him check in another girl to our residence hall. My friends were trying to keep me away so I wouldn’t see, but the plan failed. He walked past without even looking at me. My eyes locked with the girl. My heart shattered.

I walked outside and the cool night air wrapped itself around my cold skin as I collapsed against the brick wall. I can’t do this anymore. The nights when he spun me around and called me his girl, when we sat in Washington Square Park eating pizza and he told me his dreams about helping low income communities, waking up to his soft kisses after he got back late from the library, it wasn’t enough anymore. This hurt more than I can ever put into words and my battered soul couldn’t bear another moment.

He was a mess after seeing me and made the girl leave. He begged me to come over but I told him it would just make things worse. I would yell. He said it didn’t matter. I stormed in and let myself go. I stopped trying to be what I thought he wanted. I had never yelled at anyone like that in my life. I trusted him. I loved him. I told him he was selfish. But I left out the part that I was, too. I cried; so did he. He said it was his first time in years. Big deal, I told him, I had been crying all week. That night we held the pieces of what was left of us in our tired hands and attempted to mend them back together. They didn’t fit anymore. He texted me at two in the morning and said he wished I was laying in his arms. His bed felt cold without me.

My heart broke repeatedly that week. The next morning was my Spanish final. I tried to tell my friend what happened before it started but I ended up running to the bathroom and breaking down all over again. I am a writer. I write about my pain. But this? This was something I couldn’t even think about without feeling sick to my stomach. He said he was practically writing an anthology. I couldn’t bring myself to reflect on it long enough without feeling like my knees were about to buckle and my lungs would give out. It made me physically ill.

I have endured exponentially more awful experiences in my life than heartbreak, but for some reason, this hurt the most.

By Jaelynn Grace Ortiz

Jaelynn is a rising sophomore at NYU majoring in Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis with a focus in Latino studies and is minoring in Creative Writing. The list of her hobbies is almost as drawn out as her majors are. She writes poetry, essays and stories, she dances, mentors high schoolers in the Bronx and often plans environmental events in NYU Residence Halls. She has a poem published in the introspective study Inside My World by the Live Poets Society. Despite vehemently condemning social media, she ironically has instagram which you could follow her on. 

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

In September of 2018, I found myself alone in the city that never sleeps. Ironic, considering the countless nights I had laid in bed, dreaming of one day calling the city my home.

I longed for the diversity, the trash-filled subways, the way you could wear an outrageous outfit while singing obnoxiously and people would simply walk by, minding their own business. Just another day in the city. I also needed to escape my pain. I love my hometown, Newburgh, New York, but I could no longer stand visiting the supermarket I had last seen my father alive in.  My heart ached every time I drive past the apartment where papi and I danced to Marc Anthony and would drunkenly slap me around in. I could hardly bear to look at my mother’s face while speaking with her. We were ignoring the fact that her boyfriend sexually abused me when I was sixteen and ignoring that she never believed me and that she was still dating him. I was being haunted by places and faces. Haunted by the ghost of my father and the essence of my mother. I yearned to be free.

The city offers this freedom I yearned for. I knew I would no longer be bound by the shackles of my closed-minded town. People would no longer ask why I dress the way I do or why I thought writing was a feasible career. I could wear my red velvet skirts and fishnets and write uncensored, get tattoos and piercings and feel more at home in my body.

I did most of these things once I arrived: converted to thrift shopping, got three tattoos and five piercings, wrote more in a year than I ever had in my whole life, but after just two weeks of the first semester I sat alone in my dorm, sobbing. I had everything I wanted: a full ride to my dream school, NYU, a dorm in the heart of Greenwich Village, and the most freedom I ever had. Yet for some reason, I still felt empty. There was a hole in my chest that no amount of the city could fill.

I had forged new bonds with friends. We would occasionally get lunch or go out at night, exploring and unearthing the mystifying gems the city had to hide. We found many. However, the second I walked back into my dorm after one of our rendezvouses, that empty feeling crept its way back in. I was surrounded by silence and four, cold white walls. My friends had family and significant others to return home to. What did I have?

I sat at my desk, staring at the polaroids and Photobooth pictures of me and my friends, cheesy grins plastered on our faces. How is it that I could I feel so at peace with them? How is it that I could I coin the nickname Smiley and take hundreds of silly Snapchats, but feel so hollow in my own company?

Humans experience a multitude of complex emotions. These emotions are difficult to comprehend and take much chipping away to reveal their origins. Sometimes it takes life-altering experiences to truly understand them. As I sat sobbing in my dorm, I realized that happiness is a fleeting feeling. The excitement I felt to hang out with my friend had quickly turned to despair as she cancelled on me for the third time that week. I was alone in this world, and I had not yet learned how to cope.

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By Jaelynn Grace Ortiz

Jaelynn is a rising sophomore at NYU majoring in Journalism and Social and Cultural Analysis with a focus in Latino studies and is minoring in Creative Writing. The list of her hobbies is almost as drawn out as her majors are. She writes poetry, essays and stories, she dances, mentors high schoolers in the Bronx and often plans environmental events in NYU Residence Halls. She has a poem published in the introspective study Inside My World by the Live Poets Society. Despite vehemently condemning social media, she ironically has instagram which you could follow her on. 

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

Finding friendship can be difficult. New York can be difficult. Finding friendships in New York? Ouch. Whether its the sea of busy faces that never seems to wane off in intensity or speed, or the fact that all your old high school friends keep promising to come see you, but never do, it takes some outside the box thinking to find a squad to stick to in good times and bad. Here are 5 places to start looking (with a recommendation on the best way to do so.)  

1. A bookstore. I would most recommend the strand, around the outside racks where you find 48 cent pulp fiction novels. Every now and then, interesting people stop by. If they look close to your age, if they’ve got a sense of fashion you like, or hate, start up a conversation by pointing out a book on the shelf. You never know, it just might work.
2. The gym. Specifically? At 6 in the morning. You hit Palladium at opening times for three months in a row, you become one of us. We acknowledge you, respect you, we watch the weights you lift get heavier and heavier, bigger and bigger. Eventually, we take you in as one of ours. Just come by and say something, we’ve probably wanted to talk to you too.
   
3. A club you only have mild interest in. Specifically one you have only a mild interest in. Everyone says “join a club you are passionate about” but that takes so much investment and risk. What if the photography club here at NYU is pretentious and they don’t like me? What if the other basketball kids don’t like the Wizards like I do? Join a club you are curious about, but one that you might enjoy. A small club where there is a tightly knit community, and they’re looking for new blood. Who knows, maybe NYU’s golf team becomes your home away from home?

4. A museum. One you care about, obviously. But also one that is a little more lowkey. If you go to the Museum of Sex looking for friendship, you’ll probably run into more tourists looking for a free place to stay the night rather than future groomsmen at your wedding. I recommend local art galleries and exhibits, the National Geographic is currently running a cool exhibit just south of Washington Square Park. The botanical gardens in Brooklyn are also awesome for this. Go check it out, wait for a guy wearing a leather jacket or a girl with a New York Times tote bag to go in and strike up a conversation. You might strike gold!

   

5. Finally, I would recommend a park. I know it feels more like a pick up artist strategy than a real way to make meaningful friendships, but you never know, it could be both. Sit somewhere near a street performer and throw in a comment about it to the people next to you. Sometimes, all a good conversation needs to get fired up and going is a little spark. Parks are places where people relax. They aren’t usually going to be in a rush if they’re standing around looking at something. Get a couple phone numbers, ruin your instagram follower ratio, and start making friends.

By Victor Galov. Victor is a Sophomore Student at NYU passionate about self-help, self-discovery, and the self regulation of not eating too many unhealthy snacks. He is easily spotted in the wild, usually sporting a red jacket and skipping to whatever classic rock band his ears are crushing on that week with headphones in. He will most likely have tinnitus by 40, but doesn’t worry about it too much, because he knows humanity will live on in robots and computer simulations by then, anyway. He also hopes to have published his novel by then, though at the rate he is going, he will totally delete it through revisions before getting even close to finishing the first chapter.

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 encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

Studying, in a world full of distractions and commitments, fun activities to do and cool people to talk to, can be difficult. It seems so much easier to just put off your assignments, your work, your schooling, till later. Especially when its not some concrete homework assignment of 25 math questions you need to finish by Thursday, and is instead a test on Thursday that you know half the material of half as well as you really should. Sometimes, the willpower dips just an inch, but the entire boat seems to sink. Well, there’s always ways you can solve that. Here’s 3 of them.

First? Find a Mantra. Not the first definition on Dictionary.com, but the second. “A statement, or slogan, repeated frequently.” Come up with something, and have it mean something a little more than it sounds like. Personally, I’ve got a couple. When I need to get moving, or I need to get started on something, I’ll give myself a three count. 3, 2, 1. I’ll say the words out loud, too, so that once the dust settles on that last 1… You don’t really have a choice if you don’t get out of bed and get working. I also have a “keep going” mantra, I’ll just go “Hoo, Ha, Hoo, Ha” under my breath for a while when the willpower starts slacking. I do it when I hit the gym and need to lift weights that are a bit too heavy, or when I’m studying in the library and after thirteen minutes of hard work my mind starts wandering. Mantra’s work, if you train them, and even though they miss at times, and you fail, it’s still worth trying.

What’s next? Get out of your room. We all have productive spaces, and unproductive spaces. Personally? I can’t get ANYTHING done in my room, ever. Whenever I tell myself “oh, this time I’ll master that space and work productively in it” I end up watching podcasts on the ethics of hunting bears with a bow and arrow for four hours. WHile I’m something on an expert when it comes to both sides of that debate, now, I’m scrambling for grades. I hit the library, and a specific section of it, and if possible, a specific seat. I have one “power” spot on the second bottom floor of Bobst? I’m invincible there. An unstoppable force.

Finally, get help. Be it an online resource, or a friend, limit your own options of screwing around. I’ve got an app called “Cold Turkey” on my computer, which you can get for free here at https://getcoldturkey.com. I block websites, apps, and distractions with it every single day from 10 AM to 10 PM, and I get a lot more done because of it. Whenever I try to open up netflix, boom, blocked. Facebook? Nope. Today, by sheer force of habit the first tab I opened up while starting up on this article was youtube, and I was greeted with a gray screen and a quote that I think sums up the importance of taking the proper steps in your study routine, which I will use to close off this article, and get back to the 25 page paper I have due next week.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” -Confucious.

So go, slowly, sure. But don’t stop. Keep trying.