a week in my life in nyc | life updates, movie premieres, protesting for iran

Auto-captioned from the film, lightly cleaned. Elena's words, not edited prose.

hello last month has been such a journey I've been slowly readjusting to really being back in New York for the first time and essentially four months which is crazy but there was a lot going on in the city I've been seeing friends and getting out and about and I really feel like I'm entering a new chapter like a new season has started and some key characters left and there was heartbreak new ones have entered settings have changed and there's definitely been a lot of character development I can't say this Vlog is very indicative of this it's mostly some Rambles and just moments and memories but I'm excited for what's to come I kind of feel like I'm on episode one of a new season you know what's up hello from New York City let me adjust this hi hello how's it going it's Elena welcome back to my channel I'm so excited to be here happy October it actually feels so good to be home I've said some past videos but like none of my videos are really going out chronological so there's still gonna be like a smattering of different travel based videos coming out in the next like two months we're just we're rolling with it you know being back in New York has been so lovely I have been quite chill for the most part um it's been really gloomy a lot so I've had a lot of Permitting days if you watched my last video I finished all The Hobbit movies all the Ring movies and now I'm up today on rings of power and I'm officially a fan I'm really late but I am indeed jumping on the bandwagon and it's been nice I've been reading again I figured I would just do kind of like a mishmash of days here in October so this is definitely not like one proper week a lot of my life has been a bit boring with me just like working from home I try to take the days that were a little bit more excited lighting and film those oh one big update too is I have a new roommate um Natalie my fellow 6-1 Queen moved back to California for her to go back to school which is badass of her I miss her dearly but one of my other really good friends Megan moved in so you'll be seeing her in Vlogs but I did resign this lease so I'm gonna be here at least another year who knows what the next year will hold we shall see yeah here's like a bit of October in my life thank you lunch break time I never really know what to film when I work from home again it's not very exciting I'm all out of food so let's just go pick something up also I'll be sharing more but I have probably the coolest event I've ever been to tonight or ever will go to tonight finished lunch I'm so excited because I'm going to the New York screening of don't worry darling with the cast so I'm gonna see Harry Styles a little while Joe Chan in the flesh I've been looking forward to this event ever since I got the email I'm like freaking out so let's get ready let's go I wanted to say a quick thanks to today's sponsors Aveda I'm so excited I've been loving their stuff especially this Botanical repair collection is so lovely it's so nice on my hair it's like hello hello showered styled my hair so before I head out I want to take a second to again thank today's sponsor Aveda they're doing this really really exciting collab with Philip Lim as you can see here here I love their products clean they're plant powered and gifting season is upon us the holidays around the corner I'm trying to think strategically here and this is just like the cutest little gift set for one the design is gorgeous and it comes with this cute hair scarf a hair mask and the strengthening leave-in treatment so I always struggle figuring out what to get and I just think the design of this is so beautiful and it's such like a mindful gift it's sustainable so you can feel good about sharing it with others these products too like I was mentioning a little bit earlier incredible they have plant derived hair bonding technology with with their mask and their leave-in strengthening treatment I think it's just a very sweet meaningful gift that's also good for the greater world that's 100 vegan it's cruelty free so it's really nice it's a gift for a better tomorrow and hopefully my mom doesn't watch this because I want to get this for her so if you want to check this out everything will of course be linked down below foreign I think when I read that I think it was um I just want the story and uh the moon board was very tasteful struck often but the entire cast was just at that after party so we were standing cute person an incredible night one for the books we need to go to bed but it's bedtime we had so much fun we're live laugh loving the light in here is so lovely okay I need you guys opinion though there's something about the apartment where I'm like it just still feels kind of bland like I want it to feel really cozy now that I'm gonna be here for a full winter getting a gallery wall for here which should help but I'm like should I put something here but I don't know let me know if you guys have any good opinions because I'm trying to figure out how to make this like very cozy and feeling finished and some of my past videos I kind of want more so when I first moved to New York I would always get these comments where people would be like this isn't the real you or like you know you clearly belong at the ocean and all of that type of stuff and remember at the time I was like don't put me in your box I can I can be a city girl at a beach girl which is obviously true like you know we are multifaceted people but as more time goes on I just had my fourth year anniversary in New York which is crazy I'm like damn yeah I deeply miss being close to Nature especially the ocean obviously like I am close to the ocean like there is an ocean here and it's not the same somewhere where the ocean or the outdoors is a big part of your day-to-day life I think spending so much time this summer going to places that were Coastal and spending a lot of time in the ocean and Outdoors this made me so happy and brought me so much joy I don't know I don't know exactly what to do this information like I'm not planning on leaving New York anytime soon but it's definitely something that's top of mind the thing is I would move to like Europe before I moved to LA so who knows games I'm so happy hello I got back from the Persian Arch a little bit ago I took myself out to brunch this morning and I've had on my calendar that I wanted to go to the March for the women in Iran and I went alone and I was extremely socially anxious but I'm so glad I went immediately teared up when I got there it was so incredible to see the women and the men supporting Gathering to basically protest what's going on in Iran which essentially women have been under extreme subjugation for decades now ever since kind of like the Iranian Revolution women have been forced to wear like compulsory jobs and have been forced to cover their hair amongst other things so the recent story that has like really spurred this through you have morality police there and like she was taken in by the morality please because like her job was not a proper her hair was showing and she essentially died in the custody of the morality police simply for showing her hair it's baffling you're on two it's an incredible country there like the women are extremely educated they're part of the workforce and to have you know someone die over their hair showing it's just kind of like the last straw and it really ignited this anger throughout the entire country as well as now the world to fight for equality and women's rights and you know protection and safety it was really powerful to be there it's one of those difficult things when it's like going on the other side of the world where it's like how can I contribute to a cause that I find so important but feels quite distant by even using your voice and like spreading the message I think is so so important even on a more personal note I know a lot of you guys probably experience this when you're like only a little bit of a certain ethnicity or maybe you don't speak the language and kind of be like well do I even belong here it's really really special for me to be around so many Iranians like I never really get to do that a family in California are like 100 Iranian so like a lot of my holidays were celebrating Iranian holidays and like with my very Iranian family but obviously I don't speak Farsi so it was just special to kind of be in that setting and I got to like meet some people there I met some really cool Iranian subscribers it is really moving powerful like enriching experience so yeah please stamps do it with the news it's really scary but important to know what's going on and like thoughts go up to all my gals in Iran and Beyond all right so that's a little bit later and I forgot to mention this earlier my roommate and I are hosting a little party tonight which I'm really excited about we have a very fun theme which is 2014 tumblr core that was my back in the day let me insert some photos here this is like before I was really on the internet like obviously it was on Tumblr but I didn't have like a social presence so like nobody really knows this era of my life that's sneaky so we were joking the other night it'd be fun to do like a little comeback so wait I have a happy birthday did you better post this on your YouTube I swear to God ladies hi hello how's it going good morning the United Nations General Assembly is happening and because of that there's a lot of other events going on in a similar vein because there's so many incredible leaders and high-level figures who are here for that I'm about to head out to the he for she event with the United Nations like women sector so the key for she Summit is basically for different political and academic leaders and figures who I'm working towards a more diverse and gender equal world so I'm really excited to go and listen to some really incredible speakers my friend has invited me who does some Ambassador work for the automations so I'm very excited I'm gonna try to film some key points from that let's go this is so cool this is the stuff I'm passionate about the pursuit of gender equality differs from one country to another but the root causes of discrimination and reform and inequality are the same across every society unfair gender roles normalized violence and the undermining of women and girls in every country changing this is the work we must do together can you hear me just finished up at the event and then I actually met these two pool gals one of them works for the UN women and we grabbed sweet green we sat in the park we talked about a lot of shared interests so inspiring getting to meet people who have those passions but like fully work in that field friends oh my looking a little sleepy because I am this week has been crazy there's a big event hosted by YouTube for creators for climate action which I am so thrilled about this week is like blending all my passions that I sometimes are hard to like Infuse in what I'm creating when I'm on the go so I was just so so exciting um it's in collaboration with global citizen because this week is also climate week I'm gonna get to hear from a bunch of different speakers about climate action and I'm really excited to hear them and then Global citizen is putting on a fundraiser concert which is super fun it's like a blend of all these different types of musicians that I enjoy like it's like Jonas Brothers in the like Metallica which I'm like hell yeah I've always wanted to see Metallica more than human lives the responsibility of knowing you have a platform and you have a voice you've got to be able to use it for what matters to you I organized everyday to go on stage and no one