New York, New York

I want to escape to a city that never sleeps. As I've learned over this past winter break, my mind is what keeps me up at night, nothing more and nothing less. It's not stress, work, or insomnia. Not really. What keeps me awake is this constant influx of ideas - with the last semester of college fast-approaching, I'm realizing that there are just so many things I want to do before college stops and real life begins, and I can't sleep because I simply can't wait.

These days, even when I try to wind down with my book of the moment before bed, I find myself jotting down notes about what I need to do tomorrow or ideas for future pieces that I harvest from the literature before me. Had a long chat with the mumsy today, something that's become quite a rarity, and she actually said that she'd given it some thought, and it might be good for me to experience life on the East Coast, if I was really that bent on pursuing magazine journalism.

"It's not that I want to get away from here," I said. "It's just that I want so badly to go there."

And that's the best way to venture out to a new place or try something new, isn't it? Not because you want to escape from something or are sick of your current condition, but because you want to move toward something new and curious and beautiful.

New York City is somewhere I want to be because there are just so many stories to be told in that small area of space, and its contradictions are so intriguing to me. How can a place so full of human interaction also be one of the loneliest cities in the nation? And how do so many different social enclaves work together and coexist given their turbulent history?

In a day and age when integration and acceptance are not only PC, but expected, I want to see what it's like to be in the center of this melting pot of cultural, economic and political thought.

I know it's cliche for writers and artists to want to venture over to NYC, but I really do see the appeal, and I'd love to experience the city while I'm still in my 20s. Romanticized? Maybe. But all the same, how can you not love the Big Apple?

Amazing food.

Beautiful parks.

Theater and entertainment.

Coffee shops.

I want to stay awake and dream with eyes wide open. Not like I get nearly enough sleep here anyway, right? Har har.