I’m excited to be wrapping up my final week here at Cornell Tech. The DREU program has already booked my flight home, so I’ve been counting the hours until I board my flight back to Colorado in 24 hours. While I’m ambitious to be home, I’ve had concerns about missing New York throughout the week. Last night, I heard a phrase that struck me – people pay a premium to live here for the space and convenience. Having a deli on every block is something I didn’t realize I wanted until experiencing it. I could have visited a different deli on every trip and still not have covered all near my apartment. Opting for SharedEasy turned out to be a great decision. I’ve had several roommates come and go, and I wonder if I’ll stay in touch with some of them, particularly the one who became interested in eventually moving to Colorado after hearing my stories. Due to complications with my move-out date, I had to pack up my belongings a day early. So, I’m out exploring New York today, anticipating it might be the last time I do so. I’m uncertain if I really want to return, at least not just for a vacation. However, I might come back in November to work on the project with the AIRLab again.

This week flew by quickly, thanks to the abundance of free events I discovered. I’ve been browsing various Instagram pages for events happening in New York, and I managed to find something for every day this week. It all began with a “buy nothing” event at the Tata building here at Cornell Tech, where they were giving away a bunch of home goods left behind by previous students. I also got to indulge in free chocolate ice cream sandwiches from the M&M truck on National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. Wednesdays have been especially enjoyable, with free concerts at Hudson Yards, hosted by Wells Fargo. The lounge offered complimentary soda, popcorn, charcuterie boards, and shaded seats, making it a delightful experience. Thursday nights have been dedicated to free wine at art openings, allowing me to mingle and connect with new people. Tonight, I was contemplating a free paddleboarding event on the Hudson River, but I decided against it due to the water’s condition. Instead, I’m looking forward to attending the Museum of Modern Art’s free admission night to celebrate their new arrivals, similar to last night.

I’ve been eagerly counting down the days until I finally get home, and it’s just two more weeks and a day now! Although I must admit, as much as I’ve enjoyed my time in New York, I’m starting to feel a bit restless and can’t wait to reunite with my friends. However, I know that once I leave, I’ll undoubtedly miss the stunning views of this city. It’s a bittersweet feeling, not entirely sure if I’ll return here in the future. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to a plan my roommates and I discussed – setting up a projector to showcase all the photos I captured during this unforgettable summer trip. For the remaining two weeks, I’ve made a resolution to maximize my time and check off some things that have been on my to-do list for quite some time.

Returning to New York after an eventful weekend was a great restart. Plus, my brother is with me this week. He intends to move to NYC for college once he graduates, so this is a good taste for him to determine if he will enjoy living here. That being said, I am constantly on the move, visiting big-name locations or walking around a ton. My feet hurt, and you know my step count is an insane amount. Almost as insane as the amount of work I got done this week.

This week was somewhat slower. I have some events I am looking forward to this weekend, and I am also pretty adjusted to the New York lifestyle. The 9-to-5 has become a little boring; thankfully, the project itself is still very motivating. But taking an hour-long subway ride to work is beginning to take a toll. In addition to that, I feel like now that I am halfway, I am starting to count down the rest of the weeks until I get to go back home for the school year. This weekend will be a good break away as I get to fly home for a wedding. Very exciting, but I will still be working a little remotely.

Halfway through! This week has been a rollercoaster of motivation, ranging from feeling highly motivated to feeling completely unmotivated. Unfortunately, my professor has been absent for the past two weeks due to travel and COVID. However, I’m excited to showcase the virtual environments I have created in the meantime. But before I delve into my workload, I had a conversation with another lab member about our progress. He mentioned that he is still conducting extensive literature reviews and researching baseline information on software like ROS. I’m grateful that I have been able to make progress on both the paper and the virtual environments. Nevertheless, I still experience imposter syndrome and sometimes feel overwhelmed. To add to it all, this week has been rather uneventful, except for the Fourth of July. Watching fireworks on the rooftop with a 360-degree view was delightful. Unfortunately, the experience was marred by the behavior of my new flatmate, who turned out to be creepy. Thankfully, SharedEasy swiftly addressed the issue by asking him to relocate. However, it highlights one of the downsides of finding random housing in the five boroughs.

I’m now wrapping up my third week in NYC, but it’s my fourth week on the project. This week was both wonderful and chaotic. My boyfriend flew out from Colorado to visit me. We went to fantastic events like the night cruises (I highly recommend using Groupon!), walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, visited rooftop bars, and took way too many subway rides. We also made the most of a sunny Saturday by taking a ferry to Rockaway Beach. Before coming here, I had heard about cheap pizza, but I haven’t been able to find a slice for under $3 yet. Fortunately, my labmates in Angelique’s lab have provided me with plenty of restaurant recommendations.

This was my second week in New York City, which was calmer than my first. I have a better understanding of the subway systems and have been able to get to Cornell Tech on time. Additionally, I have been discovering numerous movie spots and exploring different neighborhoods around me. I was pleasantly surprised to find a cheap dollar store nearby. At the end of this week, I had a group meet-up planned with some other lab members. They wanted to have a barbecue at an apartment called The House located on campus. However, they started late, and I felt nervous about getting home in the dark.

I arrived in New York City on Sunday, the day right before my internship started. The LaGuardia Airport was chaotic, but not as chaotic as how often my first Lyft driver honked. My housing is an hour away from campus, and I only realized this week that I spend a minimum of two hours a day on the subway. I think I really got screwed by not having housing provided. However, I am barely at the housing anyway. I am walking the streets of NYC and exploring its boroughs daily! I am particularly drawn to movie locations and enjoy taking photos in the exact spots where movie scenes were filmed. I am pretty much visiting a new location every day. So far, I have visited locations from Spider-Man 3 (Mcguire), Die Hard 3, the first Avengers, and Home Alone 2. There are many more locations I plan to uncover, especially in Central Park. Despite the housing situation, I am excited to be here, and being at (Cornell Tech)[https://tech.cornell.edu/] makes it ten times better.

I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Angelique Taylor almost a month ago. We decided that I would start early alongside my workload at the Natural User Interaction Lab at Colorado State University. I started early by learning Unity and conducting literature reviews. By now, I summarize ten articles a week and am making progress in Hello World Unity Applications. I intend to have two solid Hello World Applications by the third week, if not more. I would like to have an environment where the pointing gesture can flicker on an icon. The second environment would pick up speech phrases and also produce the icon. To clarify, the icons will be used to indicate what tasks colleagues are working on in a resuscitation environment.