I am writing in a diner on 79th and 1st (ingeniously) titled Café 79th and listening to Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, a tremendous 80s rock ballad playing over the loudspeaker.

A scene from Woody Allen's Manhattan, which I saw for the first time tonight in full

The sizeable window next to my booth frames the crisp late-afternoon autumn scene unfolding right before me: people and vehicles going uptown, downtown and crosstown (79th street is a major crosstown road, as is 86th, 72nd, 57th, 23rd, 14th). Cabs, families, joggers, a gentleman carrying a ridiculous television under his arms. It is Sunday afternoon and—after many, many months—it is time to resume my long-stalled, oft-talked about, water cooler mainstay reportage on the rich mosaic of modern young adult living. You’d better hope I haven’t gotten rusty. This could be one excrutiating slideshow.

As of the first of October, I have been living two blocks from this very diner, at the corner of 78th street and 2nd avenue: 308 East 78th Street, Apartment 19, New York, NY in the “coveted 10021 zip code” of the Upper East Side (UES, hereafter) according to the New York Times? popular handbook, If You’re Thinking of Living In … All About 115 Great Neighborhoods in and Around New York.

So how on earth did I get here from my last humble sambecker.com serial offering: a series of photographs depicting the not-so-obvious merits of a line of junk food utilizing Passover to exploit common Jewish stereotypes? The answer is long and uninteresting, so I am going to boil down these last six months into a succinct and highly accessible account of good versus evil, love and loss, the graduation procedure at Syracuse University, a tantalizing summer in Highland Park and the bold coming-of-age, often-talked about but rarely understood process of finding your first major graphic design job in Manhattan. This would be a good place to stop reading if you don’t have a room to yourself and generous block of free time—you have been warned.

The second semester of my senior year was fantastic on most levels. I arrived back from London last December (where I studied during my penultimate semester of higher learning) and readied myself for four more months of grueling Communications Design work (four new massive projects, a portfolio that makes a case for my existence) and hanging out/saying goodbye to all of my Syracuse friends, who I’d been missing for the last eight months. During this time I developed a family of logos for myself:

as well as an elegant resume and thorough portfolio of work to store in an expensive, embossed leather box. These were “supposedly” the tools I would need to seize a job in the real world. As it turned out, there was a little more special sauce necessary, but I will get into that later.

One notable academic achievement was being selected, along with four of my fellow CMD students, to participate in the Art Directors Club Top 100 Student Review (a quartet are chosen from each of the top twenty-five design schools in the country). Brie, Laura, Dara (my current roommate, more on that later) and myself drove down in the trusty silver CR-V (admittedly, a much nicer drive than the bloated, sluggish, black CR-V which sits “around” the garage in Highland Park) and stayed at an excellent Double Tree Hotel the night before the show, which was located at the ADC?s main offices in downtown Manhattan.

It was a six hour affair where the students stood behind their portfolio and pounced on the seasoned professionals who tepidly approached their book, wanting to know more about their work. It was just wonderful going down for a New York road trip with good friends at the end of my final semester at SU. A lovely bookend for an education that included everything I had dreamed it would: writing, graphic design, computer graphics, photography, programming and studying design in London. I couldn?t have asked for more: very good closure.

This was the quickest-vanishing semester to date, and before I knew it, I was having dinner with my family, along with Phyllis and Duke, and Eunie and Poppa, all who graciously dropped what they were doing to fly in to glamorous Upstate New York and celebrate my birth into the real world (as Stewie?s effeminate acting coach would say in The Family Guy, “now, burst through the placenta!”).

Later that week I packed up my Livingston apartment and hit the road with Mike back to HP. We drove through the night and finally, at around four in the morning, stopped at a Motel 6 with $39.95 two-bed suites featuring floor-to-ceiling windows exposing our 1st-floor room to a parking lot full of onlooking ne’er-do-wells (honest-to-god, we passed up a Red Roof Inn first when we found out our room would cost $59.95. Who do I look like, Donald Trump?).

I spent my summer in Chicago doing freelance work for several HP proprietors, and working out of an empty cubicle in my parents’ architecture firm. This was good fun: I had full use of the office printers and wireless internet connection as well as the able minds of the talented Becker Architects staff for questions regarding everything from building materials to billings invoices. Everyone offered their advice for how to fabricate the new stainless steel portfolio I was building as well as how to maintain the fickle surface (which, I might add, picks up more fingerprints than Paris Hilton—Buuuh-Zing!):

Weekends that summer included trips to the newly furnished lake house, hanging out with friends (Zach Norman, Jon Sugar, Marc Frost, et al.), family (Sally, Sibz, Schneiders, etc.), pets (Harrold the Magnificent) and an outrageous European trip with Mike originating where he studied in Dublin and then going on to Paris and Amsterdam, including an unintended detour to Brussells that nearly cost us $2000 in travel rebookings (which we cleverly avoided through our depthless and sensitive knowledge of the French language and the tireless spirit necessary to extract information from virulently anti-American ticket clerks) when we boarded the wrong train. See several photo-illustrations below:

There were also, of course, games at Wrigley field

And, as we ally know, all good things must come to an end, thus this summer concluded with one well-documented, thoroughly enjoyable, blockbuster of a family vacation. Our beloved road trip to the Cape of Cod:

We swing by Syacuse to drop off Mike’s car

Then eat at the worderful Stella’s

This would be P-town

I love Romans!

A day in Newport

Does anything catch your eye in this photo?

Has anyone seen my sister?

Do we have an appointment?

Home sweet home

Once we returned, I began to tie-up my freelance work as well as initiate the multi-pronged approach that I engineered to land me a job at a top-paying, high-prestige, highly-sought-after Manhattan graphic design firm. This process, finishing my work and setting up job interviews, consumed many, many days and nights that month, but ultimately culminated in my finding an excellent job, building terrific contacts and securing a delightful apartment.

To get my job, I first created what I affectionately called employment care packets. Said parcels were scarlet 9″x12″ envelopes containing: a cover letter, portfolio CD, resume and “employer questionnaire” complete with a calendar to be filled out in order to book me for a week in New York. See personalized front:

… and the back …

All told, I sent out eighty of these packets to roughly forty firms, and was able to organize one week consisting of fifteen separate interviews. I flew to New York and stayed with the lovely Lewins for eight crazy nights. I met up with my roommate, saw roughly twenty apartments and then spent the remainder of the week running in the thick summer smog to job appointments scheduled far too close together. I went home weighed my flattering offers and flew to New York, again, for good, about just two weeks later with all of my worldly possession (ok, so I mailed some stuff, and left most of my junk in my room in Highland Park. I was tired!). Faîte accomplis.

A word about my apartment and neighborhood before I sign off: I am located on the quiet 78th street block between 1st and 2nd avenue. Please accompany me on a virtual tour:

You enter the apartment directly into the kitchen

And then you have the rich choice of going into the bathroom

or the living room

This is Dara

and her bedroom

Next to Dara’s room would be mine

Comfortably furnished by IKEA (no hard feelings Crate and Barrel)

Here’s my bookshelf, or as I like to call it, the Tower of Power (what is life without poetry)

and my immaculate desk (you can take the farm out of the girl but you can’t…  how does that go?)

I take the six train (Lexington Avenue Local) every morning to get to work

I am located directly above the famous hundred-year-old Orwasher’s Bakery

From the ground floor up to the fourth floor, where my apartment resides, you can smell freshly baked bread around the clock; it is a perpetual tease. I proudly note that I have only succumbed to the pastries there twice, however a third gorging cannot be too far off. The nicest part about where I live would have to be the close proximity of so many delectable amenities. I am not exaggerating when I list these alarming figures: within approximately 100 feet of my front door there are 6 sushi restaurants, 7 twenty-four-hour diners, 3 major drug doors, 3 synagogues and a multitude of bagel shops that seem to have no problem with carbs after 5PM.

Do not fret, I will talk about my brand new job (though I’ve been working for two months) and all of my delicious NY happenings in the next post. I would say it all right now, but no one’s going to buy the cow—you know how that one ends! Leave some love below. I am desperately looking forward to a “comment orgy” in the ensuing week.

PS. I’ve very recently read the following awesome books (In Cold Blood, Freakonomics, Breakfast at Tiffany?s, Killing Yourself to Live) and seen the following amazing films (Capote, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Squid and the Whale). In case you were wondering how I was watering my brain.

PPS This beefcake, come-hither shot is supposed to balance the supposedly “unflattering” shot of my father

Two-thousand and five. It?s a new year, and with it, comes a new voicemail message (call, you won?t be disappointed), a new room in a new place, and now, miracle of miracles, a new web site posting. I know what you?re thinking … Sam, this web site was a chronicle of your exciting and outrageous gad abouts through Europe, what in the hell are you going to write about now that you?re in Syracuse, NY! Well, I?m damn glad you asked.

Well, first, I would like to you direct your attention to the structural wonder in my neighbor?s front yard.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And apparently when life deals you sub-zero temperatures and torrential snow storms, you go outside with your buckets of water and mittens and make a sophisticated snowstructure. I believe the people next door are fifth-year industrial design students and, therefore, know what they?re doing. So that was at least one thing worth reporting. Then there is always the odd and end.

Oh, this takes me back. Just kidding. I don?t actually remember my briss, however I am quite familiar with the consequences!

Anyway, that should just about bring you up to speed. I recently sent out my sexy 2004 thank you notes (birthday and Chanukah) printed on hot pink paper with retro Catch Me if You Can Trade Gothic type. Those should go over pretty well.

Winter break was a dense collage of errands, acclimations, vacations and work. I came home from London on December 16 and left the next morning with my brother, Jack, on a one-way flight to Syracuse to help my other brother, Mike, drive the car home. That mini-trip involved a wonderful and ceremonious dinner at Pastabilities (with my closest SU friends), a 10PM, midnight madness, lease signing, and an all-night drive back to Highland Park in which we found ourselves stuck in an Indiana blizzard around 7AM (which we finally made it through to Chicago at 11AM, terrific!).

Shortly after that our family went on a kick-ass trip to Florida (Long Boat Key, Sarasota) and I worked for the next two weeks and my old stomping ground, Crate and Barrel (you don?t write the ?&? when you don?t use the logo, FYI). I saw old friends on the weekend and, with a few exceptions, managed to oversee the rehabilitation of the endlessly growing collection of computers at the Becker household. It was a little sad to leave (both Chicago and England), but it?s really good to be back and I?m ready to get my hands dirty.

Thanks for your unwavering support and web traffic, it has done wonders for my self-esteem,

Samma Lamma

PS This time around I would seriously like my school friends to post some comments (in addition to the rich and dependable base of family and friends from back home); show them what we?re made of Orangemen.

The fabulous twenty-three on the door to my mews. Now that I am safely on my way back the US of A, I can divulge the secret location of my English whereabouts:

23 Beaumont Mews
Marylebone, London
England W1G 6EN

You can write, but I doubt my subsequent tenant will be forwarding my mail. I am somewhere over Greenland in a Boeing 747 as I pen these thoughts and reflect on my hurried morning, the last night in my cozy flat and my last thirty-six hours in London.

I got up early in the morning on Wednesday and ran in Regent?s park. I visited the design museum (leave it to me to go to the design museum on the last day of my design education), walked around the harbor area near Tower Bridge and capped off the day by sitting in on a parliament session (that?s House of Lords and House of Commons, I?m no slouch)! They spoke about topics as varied as Turkey?s accession into the European Union and the state of Football (that?s Pele not Payton) in England. There were no outbursts, as SNL would have me believe, regarding the national under-appreciation of Teletubbies.

Later that evening Gill, Karen and I went out to a late Mediterranean dinner near St Christopher?s Place. We did this in lieu of the proposed activity by the industrial design contingency: the Circle Line Power Hour. This project would entail getting on London Underground?s Circle Line at the Edgware Road stop and riding the entire twenty-six stop circuit, drinking a minimum of two gulps of beer at each stop. I desperately wanted to go, but dinner intervened and I thought the quality flatmate time was more important and memorable (memorable, as in I would literally be able to remember it).

When we got home Karen went to finish her final paper this term (jeeeeeeeez!) and Gill and I joined Tom in the living room to play a little go fish (which was exponentially more fun because we drank like fish at the same time)! Gill was already packed, so after the game I began the thankless task of organizing the rich tapestry of papers obscuring my floor so that I could eventually put them and all of my other belongings and acquisitions into bags and boxes. I did this at a leisurely pace to stay up with Gill until her cab arrived—she had a 9:30AM flight so her cab was scheduled to arrive at 5:30AM. I made it till five o?clock before she relieved me of my post. In the meantime we had managed to annotate her scrapbook (she borrowed my wit to ensure its interest for posterity), clean the kitchen and squeeze in a little Dr Phil (his simple outlook on life and Texan sensibilities are not wasted on the English). We said our goodbyes and I promised to call her the next day when I arrived in Chi-town … which I almost certainly will.

I got up the next day at 10AM by some stroke of luck. I managed to creep out of my naked bed and tip toe out of my room which was vacant, save for the thick layer of film on the carpet. I looked myself in the mirror and decided that I would run in Regent?s Park for the last time even though I was on five hours of sleep and my cab was due to arrive at 11:45.

I finished in record time and was able to shower and migrate downstairs by 11:20. At this point I realized there were several things I still needed to do before leaving her majesty. I had a sack of change to be converted into bills, I needed to pick up more joint vitamins that I fell in love with at the local Boots and I wanted to get my book on the London Underground graphics system signed by an anonymous tube employee at the Baker Street stop. I really only had time to do one of these things and I think I made the right decision. With twenty minutes to go, and fresh off of my run and shower, I booked it to the station in the rain and grabbed the first attendant I could find.

He thought my request was quite curious, but obliged and then took me upstairs to give me a poster-size map of the underground which I will cherish forever.

… wait, flight announcement, the gentleman next to me just passed the most potent gas I have smelled in months—let me just dry my eyes and try to stay on task …

I made it back with two minutes to spare though my cab was already at my door waiting for me. I loaded in my inordinate amount of bags and we were off. He even took me by KPG (one of our school buildings) so that I could drop off the tripod I borrowed (to take some night pictures on Oxford Street, which, of course, I never got around to) and pick up the NTSC VHS tape my video teacher left me of all of the video projects I did this semester.

I finally made it to the airport with bags of time and slowly made it to the United check-in desk. Once it was my turn, I directed my unruly cart of luggage and slowly advanced towards the counter. The young lady behind the desk saw my crazed expression and the tower of terror in front of me and immediately began frowning. ?Are those all yours?? she asked. And then, ?are you sure you?re traveling by yourself?? she queried. ?Well that?s definitely going to cost extra.?

I told her my name and where I was going and then the most miraculous thing happened.

… ok, second flight announcement, I have just been hit with a second wave of flatulence and I must say it smells uncannily like the in-flight meal, but played in a minor key …

She told me, carefully studying her teleprompter, that it stated at the base of my record that I had an unlimited baggage allowance. She said that someone had flagged my record for this privilege and that they were going to waive any potential fees. I happily gave her my three enormous duffle bags—each, I?m sure, violating a weight or orientation rule—and made my way to the gate.

Once there, I just sat down, rested and thought about this week?s and this term?s madness. At one point, I even got out my laptop and responded to Jason?s treatise on the conflict arising between modern robotics and our global, multicultural workforce. Just before we began to board our flight, I called my father to try and use up my Orange Mobile top-up minutes and also to alert him that the Christmas goose was about to fly the coop and to make sure the necessary preparations were readied for my arrival.

Once again, it?s worth noting that this whole voyage has been one wonderful—even educational at times—ride. I cannot wait to complete the second half of my experience by waiting to see what freaks me out now in America.

Sincerely, Homeward Bound,

Samma Lamma

PS I posted this, obviously, several days after I wrote it. I have been quite busy lately between my connecting flight to Syracuse (to help my brother move and drive home) and the all-nighter-car-ride-through-a-blizzard that carried me back to the windy city. But I am back now and fully enjoying my newfound downtime. I do wish I had just posted this just yesterday, as it was this site?s most-trafficked day ever—eight-hundred hits. Those of you who did not visit the site during that mad rush, please leave lots of thoughtful comments for me to read during this impending month of laidback bliss.