M5 Bus Collage (Paper from digitalized images)
What should I say about the M5... ?
In order to begin thinking about something to write, I took professor's Nancy's homework of using clusters of words to write around a main idea as an example in order to develop this essay. I began by circling the number 5, an expand the words or sentences that this experience brought to me. I found this technique very useful.

I took the trip on the M5 on a hot, summer Sunday. I must begin by saying that I expected this experience to be more exciting than what it was. I anticipated that the neighborhoods the bus would drive through would be very exotic, and that I would actually encounter something challenging and extremely adventurous. Contrary to my expectations, however, the trip proved to be a very peaceful one. It gave me time to do what I actually love to, which is to observe people, and yes, I went through some nice looking neighborhoods downtown, neighborhoods which I sometimes think are very fake and uptight. We also went through some other neighborhoods that I more natural and relaxed.

So why do I think that downtown Manhattan is more fake and uptight than anywhere else? My belief is because people take so much care of not putting anything that doesn't belong to Manhattan there, up to the point that the whole area begins to loose its personality, everything and everyone in their own world begin to look the same, in the effort for everyone to be different. Yes we all love Manhattan because it's the epithemy of perfection and of an organized disorder. A disorder in which you can find anything you want and be anything you want, and no, I don't believe that even if you dress like the craziest walking thing on the planet, nobody in New York will care, I think it is all a lie and while it's true that most people will make an effort not to care, they will inadvertently at some relaxed points in their life, re at w g they saw walking on the street, which means that they actually did notice.

If the purpose of this trip was to experience the variety of population textures, architecture and (what I notice the most due to my background), the different kinds of advertising according to the neighborhoods, the real assignment should have been some other kind of task to be done together with the bus trip, for example I think that maybe to experience the full spectrum of "textures", people should be forced to get off the bus and be asked to complete a task at a certain neighborhood (s), like for example find what an "empanada" is in Bronx, Queens, and northern Manhattan, everyone would be ve sed sults, and would have better food than you would find around the university.

Although this isn't the first time I travel by bus in New York or any other city, nor it's the first time I saw the kind of neighborhoods I saw, the only think I can think of is a he feelings I felt the first time I arrived to New York about 15 years ago.

As my family and I emigrated from what is wrongly denominated as a third world country (Colombia), to the United States, the first thing I noticed was the enormous size of everything, from the roads, to the bridges, to the buildings and furniture, and everything else. ******************To me this all seemed like one of those weird, anxious dreams that are neither good or bad, but when you wake up, you kind of keep on still remembering your dream and trying to imagine what would happen if inst king #148; decision in your dream, you would've done "y" decision.

My decision to move back to New York from Connecticut to enroll in my Master's program, and the trip on the M5 after a long absence from being a citizen of New York, completely brought me back of that very first trip from the airport to the Bronx apartment with my aunt and uncle, the city lights, the enormous bridges, the oversized cars with only one person each… It all seemed like a big dream, a dream that even after 15 years I still don't cease to wake up from, maybe that's the reason why I chose to go back to the pl my d inat to be able to snap from it, and continue my life as it should.

So this is what this trip brought to me, a peaceful time to reflect about the past, the future, and the reasons why I decided to come back to a place at some point my whole family including me, secretly dreaded. To experience the good side of what I had missed during my first stay here with our extended family, and to take advantage of what they had also missed as well. I have chosen to forget I have some kind of a family in this same city, the city where my dream began, and where it will continue, and while this dream lasts, I will make my best to try to learn from some me who will benefit my future, and make the best of what will come from ITP.