Bridge 2: The Art of Walking

When we talked about derives in class, I immediately started to think about the first month when I moved to New York.  I was staying at a family members apartment in Washington heights and still had not gotten a part time job. I would spend my days taking the subway to twenty third street and walking downtown to union square park and then walk back uptown until I reached central park. I roamed around the streets with no purpose and let my mind wander to discover new parts of the city.

I was thrilled to hear that the class would be doing a derive together at the oculus. However, it was a bit ironic that the derive was being planned and that we did have a purpose. It was an assignment and we needed to take notes on our experience such as who, and what we saw. at first, it felt like it was a true derive, I walked around and let my mind wander. I remember traveling through the oculus and not paying attention to where i was going. Many security workers stopped me because i was about to enter through employee only sections of the building. After about ten or fifteen  minutes , the thought that I needed to take pictures, take mental notes of my experience there to write a paper, and that I would be graded on the derive all started to pop right back into to my head. Immediately, it became an assignment and not a derive. I realized that assigning a derive completely defeated the purpose of a real one.

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