Two weeks notice.

It's time to answer the big question. After an enriching two weeks in New York, how am I doing?

The city and me are still honeymooning, I guess you can say. I'm still breathing in the shared air, still delighting in bustling parks, still eavesdropping on foreign languages, still enthusing over the appreciation for Theater. Still inspired to act, recent credit to Jude Law's chilling take on Hamlet (Broadway). I'm still learning the subways and how to reference cross-streets (it's street name, then avenue name). Still donating loose change like a tourist and accepting pamphlets like a tourist. Still trying to locate that New York accent we all fawn over, only to find that most of the people I encounter are transplants like me, so the accent of the city can sound like anything from Japanese to Haitian.

And I've honestly never seen so many practicing Jews. Yesterday was Yom Kippur, noted to me by observing stores that were closed for the day. It was really a blessing, because I was inspired to take time and learn what Yom Kippur celebrates. Now I know why that day there were Jews filling the steps of synagogues I'd pass; those beautiful buildings, easily overlooked amidst the many, many beautiful buildings.

That's one of the key aesthetic differences here: the buildings here are so old, some by centuries. There's so much history and antiquity that even the residential brownstones are a sight to see (the kind of housing complexes I'm used to are the ones I've known since they were nothing but a land plot). Yet inside these weathered walls lies such a modern people, both stretched and refined by a dozen other cultures vitalizing the place.

It's that very juxtaposition of history and modernity that made my two mornings attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church an intriguingly new experience, one that deserves nothing short of its own blog entry, which I'll follow up with soon. But let me just say, as the contagiously bromantic Ho Chuan-i would say, that Tim Keller is legit.



And get this, I haven't gotten lost. Not unintentionally, anyway. This can be attributed partly to the predictable street number system, partly to the subway map on my iPod, partly to the abundance of free time, and partly to the geniality of strangers...oh and out here, they get pretty strange.

Even greater a part to my success here would be the geniality of non-strangers. I'm told finding a place is one of the hardest things to do here. That, and finding a job. Thankfully I've felt the cushion(s) of friends. Laura & Xin generously offered a couch for my first 10 days, albeit shared with their cats Leon & Remy. Two friends have offered work contacts, as well as a third, who offered his help the day we met; and a fourth I just met last Sunday who's helping me get an internship at a local theater. Now I'm staying with Jana, who you may remember from accounts of my days in Italy. Jana, honestly is too much. Upon my first visit she cooked me food and gave me juice. When I first moved in she had already prepared a bath towel, a bed, and a laundry basket. She insists on washing the dishes and when I come back to the apartment after a few hours she's folded my clothes.

So many people to thank, so many parts, all to a whole that is God's sufficient grace. It's funny, because I came out here, leaving much of my security on the far corner of the country, in hopes of falling on my butt. Yet still I've received so much support. It's just like my mom often reluctantly says while shaking her head, "You know, Ian, God must really like you." I wanted to escape my mom's care and got Jana's instead. Sure I wanted to cut some advantages out of my life, but who am I to deny God's blessing? Never had a problem accepting a gift.

Dialogue with the life back home is a river still flowing (Boyz II Men much?), courtesy of living in the digital age, not to mention my brother's visited me twice since I've been here (via a Jet Blue month-long unlimited pass). I've been receiving phone calls, e-mails, wall posts and blog comments, and although at times I fail to respond, please know that I cherish each one. I'll do better to reply. And yeah, I still read the cards and watch the DVDs.

As for the lovely lady and me? We're doing just fine.

Much thanks and 143's to everybody, and keep 'em coming please. A hearty two weeks it's been, but still hardly any time at all. Still in need of work, still in need of guidance -- I'm still a man in need of prayer. Above all, only the Father knows what the future holds, because He's the one who's holding it.

“No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show...but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries."

- Daniel 2:27
Praise the Lord.

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NYNJ Vlog #1.5 - Special interview with (Maria) Corazon Gatchalian De los Santos Leong. She's not nervous.

Audition #1.

"I was so stellar, they didn't even need to have me read."

You gotta learn to just let it roll off you. Today was my first audition in New York, a thrilling debut to the professional world slash return from the hiatus started at the end of college a whole year ago.

One thing cool I notice about growing up here is that you get to ride the subway with your friends. I guess it’s like riding the bus with your friends, except it’s still cool when you’re doing it in high school. Anyway I’m standing there staring at the reflection of these two guys who I guess are having some argument. The ratty jacket-wearing reflection on the left is accusing the other of “startin’ [stuff]” while the young other in glasses stays silent and keeps his glance away. But this doesn’t stop our boisterous passenger from cussing him out for another six stops (15 minutes). Halfway-through I manage to sit down across them and notice the belligerent man is wearing a lanyard with an I.D. attached to it identifying him as a biomedical engineer or something. Man, all those brains and he still reps Long Island like a thug. Intimidation comes in all shapes and intellects here I guess.

A look at the time causes me to dart down the street hoping 10 minutes in isn’t too late to join the morning Tai Chi class. Turns out it is, because Wednesday is too late to join. And too early to join as well. The class is on Tuesdays & Thursdays, and I’m in Bryant Park at 7:40am with nothing to do. 

 


With the audition later I decide to make the most of my morning, and pick up some overpriced breakfast at a local café to eat amidst the beautiful park-in-city view.

One overlooked task awaits me before my time slot that afternoon, which is after I’ve changed and prepped for the performance (gotta treat it like one): the headshot & resume. My manager was telling me all about how often she sends them digitally now I hadn’t asked if I would need them for this one. After being reminded by my fellow auditionee I bolt out the audition studio to the local FedExKinko’s with an hour to spare. When I say bolt, I mean figure the stairs is faster and, unaware I’m on the top floor penthouse, slowly shuffle down 12 flights. The sweater I paid too much for so I could impress the auditioners is apparently now joining forces with the sudden humidity, making me sweat. That makes me nervous, which also makes me sweat. Print out a makeshift headshot and an old draft of my resume (the only one I had with me), and then on my way back past taxis and tourists to the audition studio where I’m right on time.

3 minutes later and I’m exiting, savvy to the unflattering verdict. So goes the grind, and I’m content with it. But as one of my acting teachers taught me, no matter what happens after the audition, treat yourself to something nice. And I do. A couple times (including the breakfast splurge). After stopping by the printing office to approve of my actual headshot prints, I visit the adjacent bakery and buy awfully overpriced desserts on sale -- so only slightly overpriced -- at $3 for two very small, very delicious min-tarts, then wait at the park for an hour to catch Baskin Robbins’ $1 scoop Wednesdays, of which I get two, finishing it off by stopping at the market to buy chips and soda to eat with my pizza leftovers. It seems the decadence has only turned my contentment into nausea, which I self-medicate with a 3 hour nap. It’s midnight and I don’t feel that much better. Melody shows me Psalm 62:8, which sobers me up.

"Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah"

I asked God earlier today the same thing I ask Him before every audition. I ask him to attune my heart to His will, and reveal His plan to me. Win or lose, hire or reject, my priority is to know what God wants me to do about that. And let me tell you, the answer isn’t $20 on snacks and sweets. As much I had told myself to be content, I'm only human and we simply don't like rejection. Rising above that just isn't as easy as we want it to be. In those times, our own devices, trinkets and troubleshooting alike, are no substitute for giving our feelings to God. Having faith in God's plan is more than positive thinking, it's more than optimism, it's an utter surrender of yourself. I had only been handing my sorrow to Him, when the verse demands I "pour out [my] heart" to Him. What a drastic difference in response. God is a refuge for me, and today I felt Him calling me home.



Audition for "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," for a Florida production group (...so not Broadway).

Subway Observations #1

As written in my iPod:

Sept 18, 11:50PM
Hard-looking guy, wouldn't make eye contact with him on the street. Looks like the guys talking outside the barber shop. With his 3-yr old son, giggling and playing, his son straddled on his lap, almost as if there was nobody else on the subway car.

Sept 19, 3:15PM
Couple stroll in their toddler. No seats available. Husband grabs hold of pole and puts his other arm around wife. Wife grabs stroller and holds it close as the three huddle together as one mass. Passenger leaves at next stop so I get up and offer the two vacancies to them.

Someone once asked me that if I could live in the city or the country, which would it be? I replied "both, and for the same reason." There is just so much to do. The only times I've ever felt this crowded were at theme parks and the fair, but I'm refreshingly not frustrated by it. People traffic is slightly less agitating than the kind in cars, but here in New York I don't feel the slightest bit annoyed. Then again this is just my first week, and it's not like I have a job or anything to press me for time. The past three days have consisted of waking up on the other side of the double digit numbers, relaxing for a bit, showering, more relaxing, then out to wander the streets for most of the hours, trusty backpack at my (back)side.

Getting the hang of the subways (thank you NYC map application), which allows me to enjoy one of my favorite pastimes and observe the life around me. My friend asked me why I wasn't more excited to be here. She thought I was apathetic, but how can I possibly be so, when I just voluntarily moved across the country? Not in the city, not with plethora of places to ponder, and a surplus of sights to spark thought. At this point, I'm quietly taking it all in.

Flying Out.

Oh man...I'm moving.

As if almost written in Lite Brite below, this next thought jab in a series of minipiphanies came as one of the unmentioned amenities of the flight. The comprehensive realization of what it is I'm doing hasn't been instantaneous, so to say it hit me would be inaccurate -- I don't remember the last time something hit me like that. I liken the experience, then, more to birth contractions (clearly the more relevant), gradual and growing; leading to, well, re-birth I guess...hm. Perhaps in this case metaphor is making the account more dramatic than necessary. It's a move, a change in lifestyle just like quitting soda is a change in lifestyle, and akin to my frequent attempts at cutting Coke...I always come back home. The only permanence I'm anticipating is of the life-lesson variety.


Melody, Patrick, Carlos, and Cora. PTL for people who take time out of their day to carry your bags to security check.

From Family.

I turn to my dad and ask him what his thoughts are on what the clock looks like for someone at his age.

My dad proceeds to explain how he longs so much to retire, yet fears the idleness that comes with it. How he would love so much to go to the Philippines and live lavishly for little money, but knows how he would hate to do it without his family. How he wants to be done with the business, but empathizes with the employees he'd be leaving without a source of income. How he wishes that I would've stayed with the business, but knows that it's not my path.

It seems this is truly at the bottom of his heart. I grieve for how much he is lost without Christ. He's so caught between desires, and struggles to know what to do with what remains of his life. "For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). That's so unusual, because people hardly consider death gain. To know that Christ is life is to know that everything on this Earth takes its most influential, inspiring, and important form when it is laid upon the foundation of God's blessing. To know that Christ is life is to trust in what Christ did on the cross, that he died for your sins and rose from the dead. "Because I live, you will live also" (John 14:19). When you know that, death can't be anything else but gain, because you know it isn't really death at all.

My sister begins to pray. As she does, her voice gets scratchy. This isn't that different from the way a voice sounds when a person's just woken up, and it's fairly early in the day. But right about the middle she takes a pause, then the moment she says "he'll always have a home here" her defenses drop and the tears come. At that moment there's a brand new connection made. Years of sibling rivalry and reluctant sharing had toughened up our exteriors too much be sappy with one another. Sure the love got bolder and more apparent as we matured, but something this vulnerable and frank had not been seen before. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel my own tears roll down.

My mom quickly jumps in afterward, asking to pray. There are few people on Earth who can recount your life like your parents. She starts with last Saturday, and gradually moves back in time. I listen as she starts with talking about the people at the party, to how I was in college and high school, to how I was growing up, to quoting the time Pastor Ed joked that I was the most faithful person in the congregation because I was going to two churches. I soak in the testimony of a mother about her son, how much she had observed and seen me throughout the years. I hear her cite my forgetfulness, my lack of car, my youth, and how she said it didn't stop me from what I needed to do. She recalls the late hours, the lack of sleep, and the conversations she sees me having online, over the phone, and in person. She confesses how proud she is and how unworried she is about me because she has marveled so often at how much God has taken care of her son despite the eccentric situations he often finds himself in. The approval and understanding of a mother in your most confusing and faith-testing endeavors is better than gold. The faith of a prayer warrior is unmatched. I hear her sobs and feel the tears run down her words and resonate in the pain she is feeling as she anticipates the distance that is going to lay between her and her youngest. I feel the tears drop on my pants and my breathing get violent; that kind of hysterical crying usually reserved for a kid after his scrapes his knee for the first time, that kind of ugly crying where you watch the snot rapidly string down in front of you and strip you of your dignity. For good reason I try not to listen when people say they're going to miss me. I'm usually really good at letting such compliments feed my ego. But this -- this broke me.

I look back now and think about that hour and a half in disbelief. Glory to God for the work He's doing in my family.

Disclaimer

This is chiefly a thoughtblog. That mean less gushing over sights and snacks, attractions and appetizers, edifices and eats, and more writing reflections, penning pensives, and alliterating.