A few months ago Ted Cruz said that NY values aren’t American values, which some people agreed with, but a lot of New Yorkers were angry. Not getting into the politics of the situation, I can’t really say I was surprised, and I certainly didn’t take it as an insult. New York values are different from Middle American values; can anyone really disagree with that? Whenever I talk to tourists, no matter where they are from, city or country, and I ask them what they think of NY, they say its just different. We should embrace those differences with pride, and admit those differences, not because they make us worse, but because they make us better.

Very often you said that we weren’t interested in our assignments when we first heard about them, but once we did them we realized they are interesting and fun. A lot of us started blog posts with the same sentence of “I wasn’t expecting to have a good time but…” and then would go off on how much we appreciated the site. Maybe that’s because we have an expectation for our classes to give us projects that we have to do, not want to do. Very often we are disgruntled about going out and having to spend a day in a new place that doesn’t make us comfortable. Or maybe it is because a lot of New Yorkers have a very “Been there, done that” attitude to most things in life. You don’t expect to be amazed by some small museum in upper Manhattan when you have already walked up the magnificent step to the Natural History Museum. When you grow up in one of the most amazing cities in the world, its hard to be impressed. I remember a few years ago I went on a family trip to Philly, and when we were there we looked out to the skyline, and my little brother said “That’s it?” in a very underwhelmed tone.

One thing I have grown to appreciate about my site, the Irish Historical Society, is that it is not very flashy. It is actually quite plain, which is not something I am used to in NY. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Which again, I suppose is a NY value.

Also for anyone that is considering leaving NYC, consider this: the life of expectancy of a New Yorker is on average two years longer than an average American.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/nyregion/life-expectancy-of-new-yorkers-rises-with-immigration-increase-study-finds.html?_r=0

That’s two more years of living in the best city in the world. And I know I’m staying.