About Me

My name is Melanie Tan and I’m half Chinese and half Filipino. I grew up in Inwood, which is located in upper Manhattan.

One thing I like about NYC is that it is fairly easy to get around the city without a car, through the use of public transit. However, I dislike that sometimes waiting for trains and buses can take an extremely long time. I also dislike how dirty the subway is, although the fact that the NYC subway system is 24/7 makes me feel more lenient towards the uncleanliness of the subway. I also dislike how the MTA keeps raising the price of the fare. In my opinion, it is already quite expensive, especially for families with low income.

Another thing that I like about NYC is that there are lots of things to do if you go searching for them. You can go shopping, watch movies, walk in parks, etc. I also like that there are lots of places where one can buy merchandise related to their hobbies. For example, I am interested in anime and manga, and there are many places in the city where I can buy manga volumes and anime merchandise. Also, there are often conventions that people can go to to meet fellow fans. New York Comiccon is a convention that I go to almost every year provided that tickets haven’t sold out. I also like to draw and have a weakness for buying expensive art supplies every couple of months. Although I have mostly moved to drawing digitally, I still enjoy drawing traditionally and NYC has many art stores where I can browse for new materials and mediums to use in my artwork.

Transit Experience

In order to set the stage for this story, let me say that it was a perfectly decent hour in the morning, perhaps around 9 or 10 am. Let me also mention that I was riding the 1 train downtown, as I was heading from home towards Hunter College for a class that I had sometime around noon. Let me also say that I had another class after that one, one in which there was a lab report due.

I was finishing up the lab report in the train on my way to Hunter. Granted, there were only a few things left to type, like a confidence report and an uncertainty report.

Now, you wonder, how is this related to a transit experience?

I had my laptop on my lap as I was furiously typing up a storm while I was sitting in the train. Let me also mention that there was this woman who was either mentally ill or just couldn’t control the volume of her voice. Personally, I am leaning towards both. It was a hassle and was even more annoying than it would normally be since time was wasting away, each precious second had to count since the lab report was due later that day.

The woman kept screaming. I hated every second of it. That lab report just wouldn’t finish itself.

However, instead of just screaming she started going around bothering the other passengers… and then she made her way to me.

I had to stop my frantic typing as she towered over me and attempted to type on my keyboard. I had gently asked her several times to stop but she just didn’t listen to me.

Thankfully, a kind older gentleman came over to us and made her step away from me. He then escorted her out of the train where she was handed over to some police officers whom were at the station the train stopped at.

I sagged in relief for a moment before beginning to type again.

In the end, I never did finish that lab report… In fact, I submitted it the day after.