First Days on the Jobs

First off, shout out to Dan, who suggested I blog about my internships and moving to New York. However ironic (it was a little, right Dan?), it planted a seed, so here it is a wee sapling. Watch it grow.
I moved a week ago today, from Chicago to Brooklyn Heights, and I'm getting that recurring feeling that I got my whole four years at Middlebury: Holy shit, this is where I live.
So yeah, first days on the jobs. I started my internships at Psychology Today (PT) yesterday and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) today. If first days are valid indicators of how the job is going to be, I can say with full confidence that CRI trumps PT. Not what I expected. In fact, I almost declined CRI's offer, thinking that two science writing internships, plus freelancing for Baylor, would be a full plate rivaled only by the family-style spaghetti at Bucca di Beppo. But, obvs, I didn't. Good thing.
All 8 hours of my day at PT yesterday (save an hour lunchbreak, when I made the mistake of paying $3 for a bottle of green tea that tasted like burnt toast) were devoted to searching online journal databases and science news websites for possible new article topics. I sort of felt like a kid whose babysitter plopped me in front of the TV because they didn't know what else to do with me. It got old fast, and with no direction to whittle my searches, typing "psychology" in the search field yielded hundreds of thousands of results and slight panic.
The only break in the monotony was a mid-morning meeting, which was strangely tense. I think they were arguing about the best way to comment on each other's drafts, but the rest of the discussion was cryptic. I still don't know who any of those people are, or what they do. No idea about office protocol or how to use the phone or how to get my $20 a day. I did, however, discover the bathroom and the refrigerator, so I survived.
I'm thinking/hoping that our babysitter, the Guy Who Organizes The Interns (official job title? dunno), will do less "organizing" and more organizing. Gotta give him credit for coming back from Burning Man that very morning looking like he just spent Labor Day weekend at the library rather than a trippy arts festival in the Nevada desert.
My day at CRI, in comparison, was a dream. Lovely staff, lovely office, lovely 2 stops from my hood (=20 min. door-to-door in the morning). I met everyone, I have my own phone extension, and there's a big communal pot of coffee in the kitchen. (I guess following yesterday's act, these things seem extraordinary in comparison.)
My first assignment is to interview post-doc fellows who just received a grant from CRI to conduct research on cancer immunology. And then I'll write profiles about them for the website.
I'm tired now. I will end on a This Probably Wouldn't Happen Anywhere Else In The United States (TPWHAEITUS) moment:
Last Saturday on my way to Grand Central Station on the 4 train I was treated to a dance. By dance, I mean flips and somersaults and handsprings to music. On a crowded train, around the poles in the middle of the aisles.