Arushi Malhotra

The MET is the largest museum in the United States which covers world history and is definitely one of the spots to check out when you are in New York. The museum is ginormous and has donations from around the world. They have EVERYTHING from dresses to furniture, stones to paintings. Personally, I loved this Armenian history museum. We don’t hear too much about the Armenian history other than the genocide. But looking at the influence of Armenia on Catholicism was new and enlightening. Surprisingly, I found “my spot” in New York. There is a section dedicated to Chinese zen area with water fountains and peaceful scenery. In the chaos of thousands of people, this place was peaceful and serene that I would go to the museum just to enjoy the silence.

Given that the Museum is FREE for New York residents, I would definitely suggest this museum to anyone who is interested in History or needs to kill 7 hours. But as someone who loves technology, and animation, overall I found the museum very dry and overwhelming. I spent 4 hours and I think I was only about to view 30% of the museum. I would only go back if I wanted to visit ‘my spot”!

P.S: They have amazing Halal food trucks outside the Museum!

Escape Room is a game where 12-15 people are locked in a room and have to scavenge clues to find the key that would lead them out of the room. Last weekend I went with a couple of my friends to the Escape Room NYC to celebrate my friend’s birthday. I did not expect too much out of this experience but to my surprise, I had the best time. The theme for our room was “The Office” and as the name would suggest, it was an office set up. Each game lasts about an hour and if we are constantly watched by an instructor who would help us whenever we got stuck. The room is not REALLY locked, and we can walk out whenever we want to. The game cost $40 per person and since we were 10 people, we got the whole room to ourselves.

We were given initial instructions and were left to find clues on our own. Being a very competitive bunch, we all spread out throughout the room to start unlocking the drawers. Initially, we had great momentum and opened 4 drawers within the first 20 minutes. However, some of the clues were hard to solve and we had to take help from the instructor. Eventually, we did get to the last clue but we weren’t able to piece all the information together and we lost the game. I think the biggest reason we lost was that we all spread out and did not communicate with one another. But to be fair, the room only had a 20% success rate. However, I would say that this an amazing experience, especially for team building and bonding. I am definitely going back to try more rooms!!

The Lion King is a broadway based on the movie with the same name and it is one of the most popular Broadway show ever. The tickets are very expensive and are sold out for months. Given the hype, I was very excited to watch the show. The show ran over 2 hours with an interval and had some amazing surprises in between (I’m not going to spoil it). The most interesting aspect of the show were the costumes and stage setup. Given that the characters are animals, it’s not an easy script to work with. However, the director did an amazing job by using puppets without hiding the fact that every animal on stage was actually a human. This made the performance raw and unique that constantly kept the audience engaged with the performance.

Unfortunately, we had the “nosebleed” seats and were seated at the back of the stage. Given that, some elements were not a surprise as we could see the stage come up and down, and the actors move around. If anyone decides to watch this show, I would say you should definitely save your money till you can get better seats to gain the most out of this experience. Irrespective of the seats, this show was definitely worth the hype, and it is definitely the best Broadway show I have seen so far.

This was my second broadway show, and overall, this was a good show to watch. Right from the costumes, to the elaborate dance routines, everything was well designed. I loved all the stage set ups throughout the show and one of the most memorable scenes was at the end with Jasmine and Aladdin on the flying carpet and twinkling lights. It almost felt like we were a part of the play.

The show pretty much stuck to main script and every actor, from Aladdin to the guards gave their all with each scene. But genie STOLE THE SHOW!! He was all glitter and sparkle, and had an amazing interaction with the audience. His remarks about politics, and stuff that’s currently happening around was a great strategy to keep us engaged as audience!

I might have read the book hundreds of times as a child but I had forgotten so much of the book. As a child these books are entertaining, and build your imagination but revisiting the same stories as an adults you see deeper takeaways from these story.

** This book had me in tears through every page**

This book is not about politics, it’s about Michelle Obama’s journey to becoming what she is today. It talks about the daily struggles of a woman, and is probably one of the most relatable books. It’s about growing up as poor Black woman, about being married and struggling to maintain that marriage, about being a mother, and being the First Lady. This book simply represents that no body has a perfect life but how you handle the hardships shows your character and upbringing.

Living in the world filled with fake celebrities, it’s hard to find a role model. But Michelle Obama definitely is an inspiration in my life! I have watched a lot of her interviews, and she is one of the warmest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen.

It’s very easy to be over shadowed by a successful husband but Michelle Obama has held her ground, and has had an amazing career herself. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that even through her immensely successful career she has managed to remain that working class girl from Chicago.

I’m not going to giveaway the details in this book but it’s an amazing read and I think EVERYONE can take something from this book!

If you’re a UX designer and you know Sketch is one of the most used tools. Even though it’s an AMAZING tool, it does have certain limitations, and here are some plugins that can help you design better using Sketch –

1. Magic Mirror – It gives you the capabilities of making mockups without using leaving sketch. It is a transformative tool which helps you reflect and reshape mockups.
2. Icon Font – Gives you pretty much all the icons and reduces the effort of constantly creating new icons.
3. React Sketch.App – This plugin provides a more reliable way to manage your assets. Implement your designs in code as React components, then use this plugin to render them into sketch.
4. Craft – Helps you upload your art boards to Invision without having to export them separately.

This art installation was set up in Brooklyn and is supposed to be “first and only immersive art experience celebrating pizza”. I’m obsessed with pizza, IT IS A PART OF MY EVERYDAY DIET! And as soon as I found out that there is a pop up installation coming to New York, I jumped on the first opportunity to see it. When I got to booking the tickets, they were sold out for weeks, and I could only get a date 5 weeks later. Given the popularity and the PRICE (so not worth it!), I was hoping to get a lot out of this experience.

After waiting for weeks, and struggling through the cold I made it to the museum with VERY HIGH HOPES. But much to my disappointment, this installation only had 4 rooms – one for a history video, one for pizza boxes. one for melted cheese and one diner (where we got pizza). Unlike the Rose Mansion, which I had visited earlier, there were barely any interactive installations, no learning experience and no guides to help us through the rooms. I was expecting to spend an hour or so, I was done in 15 minutes. It was a COMPLETE waste of my time and effort. Basically, the only thing that was interesting about this installation was the pizza we got at the end!

BE READY TO CRY!!!

I knew I was going to be emotional through the movie but I never though how much I would be affected by it! Everything from acting to the story line was so on point!! This movie had the right actors, just enough drama, and VERY relatable storyline.

**Spoiler alert** The story is about a young boy who struggles from drug addiction and how his father helps him get through it. The son is extremely and talented but somehow he gets involved in drugs, and one addiction leads to another to a point where he has no control over it. His father struggles to understand how his “beautiful boy” went from an artist to a drug addict under his supervision. However, he swallows his pride and tries everything in his power to get his son out of it.

Even though I personally haven’t suffered from this issue, I have friends and family who have struggled through similar situations. This movie really made me think about how I look at people and how much family can help you get through toughest of times. It’s very easy to blame people for their addictions, and brush it off like it’s not you responsibility to help them. But after watching this movie, I do agree that maybe it is a choice to get involved with drugs but after a point, it is a DISEASE. And like any other disease, it requires patience, love and care to get people out of it!

I have lived in a lot of cities over the last couple of years but I have never seen any food trend as popular as brunch in NYC. EVERY restaurant is packed with very long waiting lines. I did not understand the craze and wanted to do some field testing myself. In the last several months I have tried to explore various brunch places all around the city from expensive to cheaper options and here is what I have realized:

1. The city is very expensive, and bottomless brunches are a way to get money’s worth. Usually, restaurants let you sit for 2 hours, in which you can rack up 5-6 drinks which makes them a perfect outing.
2. People in NYC are obsessed with fashion, and a brunch is the perfect opportunity to get dressed and take pictures
3. It’s a huge social media trend, and everyone is obsessed with posting the SAME boomerang for Instagram.

However, the one part I really enjoyed is that EVERYONE from their early 20s to late 60s can be entertained at these brunches.