Posts Tagged ‘new friendships in NYC’

From New Delhi to New York

Sunday, February 25th, 2024

Living in New Delhi, India, offered me a lifestyle that many would envy. The vibrant culture, delicious cuisine, and close-knit community made it feel like home. But despite the comforts of my life in New Delhi, I knew that there was something more waiting for me beyond its borders.

The decision to leave everything behind and move to New York City was not an easy one. With just three suitcases in hand, I embarked on a journey that would change my life forever. While the prospect of attending Parsons School of Design was exciting, the reality of leaving my family, friends, and pets behind was daunting.

Arriving in JFK Airport, I was hit with a wave of emotions. The hustle and bustle of the city, the towering skyscrapers, and the diverse crowds were overwhelming yet exhilarating. It was a stark contrast to the familiarity of New Delhi, but I knew that I was exactly where I needed to be.

As I settled into life at Parsons, I found myself grappling with challenges I had never encountered before. Making friends, navigating a new city, and exploring my identity became my daily struggles. It was during this time that I realized the importance of resilience and adaptability.

I often find myself contemplating the concept of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s remarkable ability to restructure itself by forming new neural pathways over time. I can’t help but feel a sense of detachment from my own brain. It seems to adapt and evolve at a pace that sometimes outstrips my ability to adjust to my changing lifestyle. 

As I navigated the complexities of life in New York City, I got to experience different cultures, and perspectives. For instance, mastering the intricacies of the New York subway system became a pivotal moment in my adjustment to city life. Each interaction, each moment of discomfort, was shaping me into a more open-minded individual.

Despite the initial hurdles, I began to embrace the transformation that was taking place within me. I learned to appreciate the cultural differences, to cherish the friendships I made, and to embrace the uncertainty of the journey ahead.

This journey from New Delhi to New York City was not just about geographical relocation; it was a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. It taught me the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone, of embracing change, and of remaining true to myself in the face of adversity.

As I reflect on my time in New York City, I realize that this chapter of my life will forever shape who I am and who I aspire to be. 

In the end, this journey across continents is not just about the places I visit or the experiences I have—it is about the person I become along the way. And for that, I am forever grateful.


Students can save up on açai bowls, smoothies, juices and more at Baya Bar with this coupon.


By Kimaaya Khanduja

Kimaaya grew up in New Delhi, India and is currently studying at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York, pursuing a degree in Product Design.


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.

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Love and Other Problems: Fading Nostalgia

Monday, June 27th, 2022

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Fading Nostalgia

After walking away from home to travel to an unfamiliar, towering city, I wanted to figure out what to do, what I wanted, what type of love I wanted. While I did try to brush old dust off my hands, put ‘figuring things out’ in a casket and let life take me wherever it wanted, I’ve realized that while I met someone new everyday, I never had a connection with someone that made us more than casual friends. My life became full of friends you see occasionally, friends you’d grab a coffee with but it would be too much to get serious, to vent about trivial things, to share your fears because, well, now everyone’s uncomfortable. These friends were like holding a lit firecracker between my teeth; fun, explosive, painful and with me for a minute. 

After watching another blank smile, another the-one-that-‘walked’-away, an age old story, the sound of cold footsteps becoming fainter and fainter was a rhythm I became all too familiar with. So I thought about the most intense form of love I could experience; romantic. I’d had three relationships in the past, three very different ideals and experiences, three different lessons learnt—and I came out of them with three different understandings of what type of love I wanted. 

The first was foolish and exciting. I never wanted to think about the relationship too seriously and never thought about why I didn’t want that—this love had fumbled somewhere, I didn’t know its purpose anymore and so it was an inevitable end. The second was a blazing meteor and maybe my karma for the nonchalant mess of the first—it was a crash-and-burn-and-run scene, a rehearsed speech and anger and pettiness, a gaslighting, nauseating mess; in hindsight it was for the best that it ended. The third was less intense and exciting than the others, it was healthy and good and pretty, it was comfortable, but we had no chemistry. The contrast between the previous excitement and current calm became boring and my words had lost their meaning somewhere between my heart and mouth. There was no point in lying to myself and forcing it, so I ended it. We did stay friends, but then I changed and he changed and we didn’t get along anymore. 

These feelings and experiences molded what I looked for in others — I knew more about myself as a person and what I wanted out of people, not just partners but also friends. Some of these attributes seemed obvious, but I apparently needed them slapped across my face to see clearly. Looking back at every lesson I’ve learnt and every moment that was spent learning loudly through tears or screaming or quietly through silences and overthinking (all silly things now and I skirt from recalling them too often before unpleasant memories can fully form, before they can bite) I comprehended a large reason as to why it was becoming so hard to grow close to someone in college: fear. I comprehended this through a fourth almost-relationship that I had. He was perfect, with a pretty eye-smile and was sweet and funny, but I was scared of timing and life (it didn’t seem like the right time, being so new to the city, but when I got that there was no ‘right time’, it was too late), so I rejected him and it was something I ended up regretting. Fear took this from me and gave in return a lot of mediocre could-have and would-haves. 

I made mistakes and I learnt, people made mistakes and I learnt too. Love in college was harder than I expected (where my expectation was borne from books and other fiction). I wanted the same things as these rose-tinted fantasies but it hasn’t been easy. I don’t have a storybook arc, I don’t face a challenge to come out ‘stronger’ or anything remotely similar, love and life in reality doesn’t like to be so straightforward.

out with my friends for our last new year together!

I did not think of these challenges when I started classes at NYU, and then I made the aforementioned mistake of just ‘watching, not trying’. I did like people, people I saw across the room, people who were in my classes, pretty, smart, gorgeous and fun people. I talked to them too, I got to know them superficially but that was it. I talked to them when I had an excuse, but that was also how I talked to any new friends I had made…and they all stayed like that: friends. This wasn’t a terrible life-ending situation to be in, but it got exhausting when everything seemed to be going well and then there was a halt, a stagnant sort of space where nothing became of our talking or closeness. Then we fell out of touch.

That was when I thought back to just a year ago, how all of my experiences had shaped who or what I wanted. There’s a lot of people who think everything that happened in high school was supposed to stay there, but I disagree. I liked who I was in high school because it shaped what I want today, and everything that I had experienced wasn’t as irrelevant as people made it out to be. In the excitement of moving from one stage of my life to another, it was really easy to forget what I had figured out from my time there, and easier even to claim a fresh start instead. That didn’t help me, it just set me back.

This comprehension came later though, a semester-into-my-freshman-year later. There was a lot I sat through in that first semester which made me think back to high school, and ultimately the contemplation shaped me into a person better prepared for the rest of the years I had left in university and even after. It made me learn how to tackle love and friendships in a way that would result in the outcome I wanted, an outcome that would leave me happier for it.

dinner with new friends in the city!

While attempting to talk to people there were a lot of restaurants I visited with different people, I used to visit Bareburger with a coupon that I found really helped override the costs that came with eating out so often! Take the opportunity and grab this coupon for Bareburger for a great lunch with your friends too!


By Mahrukh Shaikh

Mahrukh Shaikh is a student at New York University studying Business and Finance with a Marketing concentration. She has been writing and creating literature for years and is fond of various artistic mediums and social issues.


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.

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Philia

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

Courtesy: Independent

Courtesy: Independent

“I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone,  a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New Yorker prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all, everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.” J.D. Salinger

New York can be though on you but NYU could be a lot tougher. If you come from anywhere around Asia or the countryside, you would know that nosy neighbors are bats that gained bad reputation arising from the folklore that ties them to vampires and Dracula. In terms of usefulness, bats are prime agents of pollination and seed dispersal. Often devalued, most bats are not blood sucking creatures but a friend to the mankind: killing insects those of whom are threats.

Nosy neighbours are skilled at dispersing gossip. But drifting away from the reputation of gossipy housewives in their mid-forties, neighbors drop your kids, bring you food, help you when you are locked out or when you run out of sugar.

In New York, you don’t speak to your neighbors, it’s an unspoken ground rule that everyone seems to abide by. You don’t greet them. You don’t know them. It isn’t uncommon to live in your dorm room without speaking to your suite mates for days.

Elevators give you stress and phones without signals are awkward getaways. More than anywhere in the world, New York is where you most need a friend.

My classmate, Aerin Reed comes from a small town known as Eastern Connecticut where the only revolutionary thing that has happened in the last few years is the renovation of the Eastern Village Store. Moms and gossips and hitting deer accidentally are as much a part of her childhood vicinity as are bagels, frowns and subway horrors in New York.

“My town has a thousand people more than NYU’s graduating class,” Reed said while describing her transition from a traditional small town to the city that is overly crowded even on Sundays.

Unlike her friends and classmates, Reed never dreamed of studying in a traditional campus setting, which made NYU one of her first choices. “I remember walking down the road after welcome week and thinking I do not know anyone on the street,” quite unlike the million recognizable faces she would encounter while driving a car in the part of the world which she calls “home.”

At this exact moment what she would have missed is a friend. At this exact moment she needed the kind of love Greeks call “philia.”

Philia was first used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who defined it as brotherly love or love shared by friends. The English language does not have a separate word for what Aristotle believed to be unconditional and pure i.e. “with good reason,” so we shall do what we always do: follow the path lead by Greeks.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni recently wrote a column titled, “The Real Campus Scourge,” which discusses the overwhelming theme of loneliness in a campus setting. “In a survey of nearly 28,000 students on 51 campuses by the American College Health Association last year, more than 60 percent said that they had “felt very lonely” in the previous 12 months. Nearly 30 percent said that they had felt that way in the previous two weeks,” he wrote. All these folks deprived of Philia.

In New York, everything is always on the extreme as is this feeling of loneliness. No amount of Rainbow themed Starbucks or insta worthy cookie doughs can fill the void that only friendship can fill. But my dearest, you are not alone in this. New York has that power over you but you have something that the city lacks: the option to halt, start over and rebuild.

Text your freshman year roommate.

Don’t let Netflix govern your life.

Talk to the person sitting right next to you, chances are she feels the same way.

Log off Instagram.

Remember, loneliness is a feeling that is temporary. It is not a lifestyle.

Don’t just make acquaintances. Get to know them. Turn them into your friends.

Most of all, remember to let go of whatever is holding you back: fear, shyness, insecurity, rationale, over possessive boyfriend and then you will learn to live. You need a friend and so does the person next to you. All you have to do is smile.

By Sushmita Roy

Sushmita Roy is a Campus Clipper intern and a junior at NYU majoring in Journalism and Psychology. Her research interests includes immigration, human interest stories and social psychology. When she’s not studying, Sushmita enjoys catching up with friends, binge watching TV shows and cooking for anyone and everyone. 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. 

 

 

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The Importance of Friendship

Wednesday, July 19th, 2017

Image Credit: Caroline Flynn

Image Credit: Caroline Flynn

 

Last September when my friend Maghan walked into my new apartment for the first time, tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s so lonely,” she said, overwhelmed by the pure adultness of the empty white walls and Ikea furniture. Annoyed and uncomprehending, I pushed her through the remaining 24 feet of the apartment to the window where my bed sat. “It’s not lonely. It’s perfect. And look I even have a real New York City fire escape.”

Today though, I know what she means. Summer in New York is much different than the school year. The city itself seems to sweat on even the mildest of days, the streets are crawling with tourists who wander aimlessly into your path, and all traces of college life disappear. As I sit on my real New York City fire escape, the people below are unfamiliar and my thoughts drift to faces I do know, some who are in New York and some who are not, some who I’ve seen recently and some who I haven’t. Regardless of distance and time, real life isolates me on this fire escape and loneliness creeps in as jobs, bills, and adult responsibility seem to push everyone separate ways. I feel like it didn’t used to be this way. Summers between high school were filled with constant contact and group messages, day plans and night plans and weekend plans, part time jobs and the comfort of your family home at the end of the day. Maybe I wasn’t quite prepared to be one of 8.5 million people living and working in New York City this summer.

Academic and professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen says in her book You’re the Only One I Can Tell, “Knowing that somewhere in the world there is someone who cares what you wore, an insignificant detail of your life that would seem unimportant to anyone else, makes you feel more connected to that person and less alone in the world.” This small action of sharing is capable of piercing distance and time, wiping out loneliness, and reinstating the comfort of someone else’s joys and sorrows.

The other night, my best friend and I met up with a classmate we hadn’t seen since school got out in May. During the school year, the three of us talked often and saw each other daily in class, but it had been two months since we’d all been in the same room. The conversation that night was a breath of fresh air, air that you can’t get in a city sitting alone in your room. Air that might even be hard to find in the countryside. Each breath carried new laughter and love, new stories to be shared, new heartbreaks to be healed, new plans to be made as we all felt a sense of relief from the summer’s overbearing humidity. There is nothing better in the world than long conversations that flow endlessly and seamlessly. Even as we grow up, even as we drift apart, even as we get heavy work schedules and full time jobs, even as new people in our lives come and go, it will always be hard to feel completely alone if you can make the effort to keep up friendships and conversations.

A relationship that can withstand crowds of people, state or country borders, and days and weeks of not seeing each other is a strong one. Slowly I am learning that the bond is there even if they are physically not. So next time I find myself sitting on my fire escape, reminiscing the days when making friends was more important than making money and building my resume, I’ll remind myself that although there might be a thousand people between me and the next familiar face, the familiar face is the one that matters.


By Caroline Flynn

Caroline Flynn is a Sales and Publishing Intern at the Campus Clipper studying Theatre at NYU Tisch. Caroline is passionate about the arts and dedicated to using her voice to make other people smile. As she heads into her Junior year, she is excited to be writing about how relationships have shaped her life while she takes on summer in the city for the first time. Check out her Instagram for more witty and heartfelt content on her life. 

We have the most talented interns ever and we’re so proud of them! 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. 


 

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Settling: The Art of Friending, Side Friends, Lunch & Dinner Friends

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

You’ve unpacked, bought your books, and attended a few courses, and missed one on account of  the screeching alarms being set off at 3 a.m. No worries, you’re just becoming a real New Yorker. You’re a competent adjuster but forming new friendships is another story. It would be much easier if this were kindergarten where anyone sharing their PB&J is your friend.

   Don’t panic. Here are useful tips to transverse that murky friend zone. How do you know a person is a friend? There should be a “talk” or verbal contract specifying you’re both friends as it would ease the friendship, unfortunately, it does not exist yet. I digress, people are your friends if they are willing to spend time outside class with you for more than 1 hour (this does not encompass study partners) and attends parties with you and other people, and has decency to say goodbye if they leave before you. People are in your friend circle, additionally, if they eat either lunch or dinner with you more than once a week. You shouldn’t force it but prop up naturally, spontaneous.  These scenarios also apply to you because people expect you to reciprocate the same efforts.

             

  We have finished the rules to being a friend. Now to find them. Arguably, New York City is treacherous for newcomers because of the fast paced, goal driven personas you often meet on the streets. Unless you’ve grown up in this jungle you can’t be expected to know every single nook and cranny. If you’re new on campus worried you won’t meet other newbies then join a campus club; you’ll meet tons of like minded people and enjoy your activity. Keep in mind you should try other clubs that spark your curiosity, and if you dislike them there’s nothing chaining you to them except guilt. Find clubs you think mesh well with your personal values and goals. If you’re searching for active, outdoor people then enrolling in an art club is unwise; the positive is you’ll learn tons about abstract color synchronization techniques. If you’re like me, then enroll to every single club you find interesting, attend their first meetings, and then decide whether to commit or scratch it off your plate.

     My school holds a club festival every beginning of the semester to enlist new members–then again my college is in upstate New York so choices are scarce during winter time, either you remain inside your dorm eating instant noodles or visit off-campus sites to gorge on the local food…and then regret it.

      One club stood out the most, the Men and Women’s Rowing club. My first thought was that this would really get me down to my ideal weight and body shape, and seeing as my friend was eager to join, we signed up. Our first meetings were just basic paperwork, insurance information, and minor details. However, practices were gruesome. For starters, I always thought they would be held during late afternoons; turns out we had to meet at 5:30 a.m–this our coach would later angrily explain meant we had to be on the dock at 5:30am. Therefore, for 3 times a week I woke up at 4:45 a.m to be driven down to the boathouse and arrive at 5:15 a.m. This was utter madness. yes! Why do it? Tremendous guilt would burden me for life if I left my friend suffering alone,  but the unforeseen occurred: I liked the sport and people.

     There are other outlets, of course, you can use these days to forge new friendships while in NYC. If sports are not your forte, then stick to your interest, slowly branching yourself into other groups. You don’t have to  join the local soccer, football, or rugby team. You can start small with Yoga classes at Moksha Yoga that offers a free class to first timers who bring the Campus Clipper coupon, if that’s your preference. There’s never a reason to not try new things–unless you’re highly allergic or you’re bedridden–so start small and end up winning big.

 

 

 

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Sergio Hernandez, Skidmore College. Send Sergio a Tweet Tweet only on Twitter

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