You would never have guessed it, would you?

There is a jackhammer being used on the pavement outside of my apartment. It is past one am. This is the second night in a row that this has happened this week.

I know that most of you who have already moved onto college are in much more suburban or urban areas than I am. You still have things like buses all over the place and siren sounds, crazy singing drunk people under your windows at 4 am. Jackhammers, traffic, large crowds of people ... It's comforting; just like home. Right?

Somehow, over the periods of months that I've been away (punctuated by returns to my beloved Big Apple), I have lost my ability to block out all of this background noise, despite having grown up in this lovely noisy city and living in this particularly noisy apartment for 7 years. To my ears, every brake pad in Manhattan should be oiled, every horn removed from the vehicles. Drunk frolickers should be banned from 34th street, especially now that they've closed the Copa.

I'm looking for any excuse to escape the noise.