Your P.A.L. Kat

well, i just finished packing for my departure from nyc tomorrow evening at 8pm…am i sad? yeah…

1. cuz i love this city

2. i didnt get enough time to enjoy the city

3. i made some amazing connections

4. this experience was unforgettable, and i am nervous to use this powerful tool outside of this safe place….

but, there is a flip side…i am excited to come home…why?

1. JON

2. JON

3. JON

4. JON

5. TOBY and BELLA

6. friends and fam

7. to share my experience

8. berry sweet

so, i will update and share the rest of my journey here about Theatre of the Oppressed soon…

until then, goodbye new york…i anxiously await our next encounter!

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yesterday, train ride,

we take alot of pics on the train….

 class…then train ride,  we pass this every train ride

then dinner to celebrate angela’s cousin richie’s birthday…

went to this little place called avinos in bellport…

not a lot…but still tired…still miss my husband…

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this is what we are doing in my class…in a nutshell…

“the way you show your love sucks”

 ”hey baby…i got it, you want it”

 ”what can i do? and where’s the help?”

 ”who are you to do this to me?”

 ”the lesson”

just some image theatre created from the oppressions in the room….it was intense!

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day two was spent with angelas family here on long island for a family bbq…lots of sanicola’s in the house…about 25 all together…anyway, it was a nice day hanging with her family and relaxation, lots of food…man italians eat and eat good, a walk in the woods with fire flies and lots of greenery (trees)…did this before our big week ahead…

here are just a few pics from that day (sunday)…

this is diesel, the dog…he is great and reminds me so much of bella personality wise…

me and my girls individually at times during the bbq

our current place of residence….cute porch huh?  its great here and we feel so welcomed by angela’s family

 view from porch

some shots from our walk thru the wood paths…it was lovely

 angela, tanae, me in the back yard….

great, relaxing day…

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im exhausted right now…i got nothin…except…i really miss my husband right now…this is the longest it has been without him for me….i am fully admitting to the fact that i do not like it, and that i need him near me…is this a weak thing?  i mean, i guess if you want, answer that…but in the end, it doesnt change, i need jon daily…and right now lets just say im glad im really busy…otherwise, this could be a lot worse…

by the way, class is goin really well…cant wait to use the tools i am learning…its such a neat experience, learning new things about  passion of yours that you never even knew existed….

ok, off to sleep…love you baby!

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whew…were these last two days a fly by, i tell ya!  yesterday was so insane as far as us being busy, and going into today, that i needed to wait til i gained some sanity again before i shared my last two days, so..       

yesterday morning, monday we started our theatre of the oppressed class with chris vine, who is amazing! woke up, got on our train with DUNKIN’s…yeah, i missed it, and headed to PENN station…got to class….excited to met chris vine and jump into theatre of the oppressed…

did class all day til around 6…then, upper west side, central park, etc…good times…but we are TIRED!!!

…we got 3 hours of sleep last night before returning to the city this morning for day 2 of class…side note…the people we are staying with live over an hour on a train ride outside the city…so it takes a loooonnnnggggg time to get home…so, after class last night, our plan was to explore my old neck of the woods in the upper west side of the city…

 this is me in front of my old apartment building…amsterdam ave. between 79th and 80th to be exact…anywho, showed them around and made our way over to central park where we snagged some FREE tickets for the summer event in the city of free shakespeare in the park…we were to be seing HAMLET

  …grabbed a bite to eat and sat in the park to eat it, messed around…

 me on the phone with my baby… the castle in central park…and then went into the show…it was great, but it was 3 1/2 hours….wayyyyyy toooooo long for me!  done well, just long…so, mind you its about 1130 pm, we have a long train ride home, but we decided to go have dessert and cappuccino at one of my favorite places near where i used to live…CAFE LALO…   some of you may have seen it in you’ve got mail with tom hanks and meg ryan…anyway, cafe lalo is known for their “exquisite desserts”…so we enjoyed a slice of peach cheesecake and mocha cappucinos…

   then we headed home sooooo tired…

and were in bed by 315 ish…up at 545ish, out the door again by 715ish…LOVELY!  to do the whole class again….10am-about 530pm today…

this class takes a lot of mental energy and physical energy…it has been so great so far…i am learning a LOT, and really am loving the people i have come in  contact with…one of the most interesting parts i have discovered is how sore i am right now….theatre people will appreciate this…for example, my entire right arm is soooo sore from throwing imaginary balls around yesterday of all shapes and sizes, my legs feel like jello from the NYC trek, which i forgot how much i loved…my brain hurts in a good way from amazing discussion nd exhausting repetition of strong opinionated people, my eyes are stinging, my throat hurts from how much talking i have been doing in depth with individuals, groups, etc, my feet and ankles are swollen, and my butt hurts from sitting on a hard floor in a space that has few chairs and looks over the streets of midtown, west 31st and 7th ave…all that to say, the class has inspired me, challenged me, and exhausted me, nd its only been two days…ahhhhhhhh…this is a shot of random things this group of people i m working with wrote in random tims on a huge floor to ceiling white board about what they think of when they hear the word oppression and some drawings we all did to share our individual identities…

im telling you, i cant explain what has been happening in this classroom the last two days, but it is a moving experience…the rest of the week is awaiting and so am i…

so to say the least, I AM ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTED…but it is well worth it…i just need to go see a “happy” broadway show now and i will be rejuvanated again…

on this happy note…there is a sad note…I MISS my husband terribly right now…i cant wait to hug him…only 5 more days…

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Well, today was great!  today, we…

-woke up to fresh “real” new york bagels and french pressed coffee at angela’s cousin richie’s house…this is where we are staying…at cousin richie sanicola’s place in long island…(pretty italian)…fabulous!  

-at around 12:30ish we rode the LIRR (long island railroad) into Penn station, and found CUNY-Creativ Arts Team-Educational Drama at the Kaplan Center on 5th and 31st…so thats where school starts monday…

-we walked around thru times square…

and eventually made it onto the subway to little italy… 

where i had some of the most amazing italian food ever at PUGLIAS… 

and us three ladies shared a pitcher of fabulous homemade real sangria…we all ate off eachothers plates…i had a little spaghetti carbanera, caesar salad, lobster ravioli, fried calamari, and my main dish was rigatoni and shrimp alla vodka…can i just say yum?

-anyway, walked around some more… 

back towards penn station and madison square garden…her family left us here…we were with them all day…and then we checked out midtown some more…

empire state building at night…

us in front of madison square garden…

then at around 930, we were done…grabbed some ice cream and went back on the train back to cousin richie’s…

its only 10:45 in cali right now…thats why im still awake…not for long…

tomorrow, apparently, there is a huge sanicola bbq here at cousin richies…should be fun and yummy…

til then…kat is signing off from new york…

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Well, we made it…Tanae, Angela, and I are in New York safe and sound…I will be posting daily or trying about what we did..of course, starting monday i will be in a class room for 8 hours…ugh…but we will make the best of it…i mean, dang, im in nyc baby!

here are the highlights of yesterday…

1.ate rubys in the airport

2. we flew virgin america airlines….why is this airline rad?  well, they have seat to seat chatting, on your own personal screen in front of you, a vast array of music you can add to a playlist and listen to personally at your seat, movies, and you can order drinks anytime you want from a touch screen, and they have wayyyyyy comfy seats…..anyway, check out their airlines…i swear, i never want to fly anything else…

3. arriving in NYC after the most entertaining plane ride ever…considering i always sleep on planes, this was rad!

so, thats it…im about to go downstairs to have breakfast and then we are off to check out the school and taste the city a bit…ta ta

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i will be in NYC…

how stoked am i right now?  its like those nights before you know you are going somewhere really exciting…lke when you are a kid and know you are waking up to go to disneyland the next day…

YOU CANT SLEEP!  i feel like thats how this night is gonna be…ahhhhhh

i cant stand it….

only down side is…i dont get to see my husband for ten days…this will be the longest we have been away from eachother…i know the doggies will miss me, but i have a feelin jon will need some company…

well, off to try to sleep…check in when i get settled in new york!

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for an addition to our community living…

it is late and i am still awake…its 1am, which is super late for Kathy…just settling down after the beginings of rearranging our house for another roomate!

everyone who came to help, evan, jonathan, and elizabeth (future roomie), and summer…you all rock!
heather, thanks again sis for feeding us all dinner and your unfailing willingness to  lending a hand…when its not even your crap we are moving!  

we all pitched in where we could and prepared the room which was once a guest room for elizabeth…

moved stuff out of the extra random attached room on the side of our house into the garage and made that the new guest room…long story short…we all did a lot….

and everyone worked up a sweat in our no air conditioned house…well, in the most common areas we have a wall unit…it works hard, that little air conditioner…anywho, we ate, sweat, worked, sweat some more, reaaranged, sweat, and finished up what we could…then off to BERRY SWEET we went…

came home and did some more stuff…all that to say, im pooped now…

thank again everyone for being there to help on such short notice…MUCHO appreciation!

now, we are almost ready to give this “community living” thing a new whirl!  YEAH…

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