(re)discovering NYC

I've been up to quite a bit since I got here on Sunday and it hasn't even been a week yet. I have a bike, it broke a few times, I fixed it a few times and now I hope it'll be fine.
I went to the Bluestocking cafe on Monday to hear a talk about the summit that took place in Cochabamba on climate change and I learned a lot and a lot of issues that I knew existed became a lot more interconnected in my mind. A big idea I learned besides interconnectedness of issues is that the cause of probably the majority of problems is capitalism, yea maybe I'm a little bit late, but now I know...
At the Bluestocking I met a guy called Joey that told me a lot about the activism and punk scenes in NYC and what I should look for. From what I can tell and the protest I went to (more on this later) the scene here is docile and composed mostly of people older than myself, (I prefer/am used to a youthful militant scene; see Montreal circa now). We talked about anarchist groups and various issue groups and just politics and stuff in general, it was good to hit it off quickly after getting back into the city. Even found out about a free punk show going down Sunday, so I'm excited about that.
After leaving the Bluestocking I called Crisis since I knew he was in the area and we met up, he was riding long boards with his friend from out of town. We crossed the Williamsburg and got lost in Queens trying to get to downtown Brooklyn to dumpster, which was pretty lame but in the end I brought home some fruit from a dumpster that I ran into by chance. Crisis became pretty punk since the last time I saw him, long boards and mohawks.
I hung out with the old park slope crew a bit and it made me realize how much I've changed, M:tG and video games don't interest me nearly as much as they used to, I wanna do activist stuff and sneak around and mosh at shows and dumpster and share with my friends. I went to go see Cipher and he's doing okay, still playing WoW, lol. We talked about our summer plans and he isn't too sure about hitching and would prefer a car :-/. We've all experienced deterioration in our ninja skills since neither of us (or Crisis either I suspect) have been keeping nearly as sharp a vigil on our skills as we used to.
Yesterday I went to a protest against Pacific Rim wanting to mine (read: poison drinking water) in El Salvador, not being able to (because no one wants to drink cyanide) and suing the government because of that (I mean it's only reasonable to go after people who don't let you poison them, right?). I was disappointed when I first arrived and didn't even join the protest, I sat and watched as about ten protesters handed out pamphlets to passersby and spoke close to their table and held up a sign, FROM BEHIND A POLICE FENCE! In Montreal protests are so large that they could never be contained within fencing and I'm sure if police attempted to conflict would erupt. Maybe I've been spoiled by the Montreal scene, I hope I haven't been. As I as sitting to the side watching I saw a friend from high school and we talked about travelling and bikes for a bit then he left and I went to help with the protest, no point not helping, there was a little bit of street theatre towards the end but it was very cheesy and cliche, in the end before leaving I traded contact info with this photographer so I'll write him an email soon asking what's up and how did the photos come out (can I have the ones with me in them?). Joey from Bluestocking told me I should be organizing shit instead of joining it since I'm used to wilder things and I'm starting to think he's right, so far the things I've seen and heard about activism seem too tame in my view. I'll see what I feel after Sunday, and when I know more about my summer, I'm supposed to work for the month of June, I wanna travel to the west coast and squat beach houses with TKJ, Rainbow, Australia, Domin, and Rainbow's friend, they wanna hitch from Toronto after the G20 which I also wish I wasn't missing. Just found out I can't register for classes in winter and fall until I get "special permission" because I didn't do well in school :-/ so that may play a part in something as well.
The plan for Sunday is to do food not bombs at ABC no Rio and then head to a free punk show at Tompkins Square park afterward (ABC no Rio serves there anyway so I'll probably be able to go straight there after serving). It'll help me get a feel of the food not bombs and maybe find people who are down for something more invigorating than what's happening already...
We'll see what happens, either way I got some posters that I've passed to my mom to photocopy at her work, I'll wheat paste them around when she brings them back. I ordered Expect Resistance from Crimethinc last night and I'm excited for it to come and all the posters and zines and stickers that'll come with it :D. I'm also happy and curious to see what happens when Ithaca gets here, but I'll probably have to add more padding to the bed since I almost sleep on the floor and she'll probably want it softer.