Dress for the Job You Want (Day 8/9)

(I didn’t post yesterday and I’m sorry but the good news is I’m still dressed for yesterdays job. ENJOY)

I realized yesterday that there is an incredibly limited amount of time where I get to wear outfits like this….

… out in public without being judged. Why? Because for the next 42 days I am still a college student. College students (girls only) are allowed to wear leggings and a long shirt with boots and be totally comfortable without people judging you. (People who judge girls who wear leggings as though they were pants are jerks.)

It’s nice to just be a college student. Sure I have to write papers and go to class but I also get to go to basketball games, my friends senior projects, and LARP (today is my school’s yearly LARPing event) and wear leggings as pants. I like it. So today and yesterday I decided to just be  a college student… for the rest of my life. Besides I look good as a college student, I got at least three compliments on it (two of which were from my friend Colten).

List of what I’m wearing:

1) Long yellow cotton t-shirt

2) Long red tank top

3) Leggings

4) Long red socks

5) Tall boots

Dress for the job you want (Day 7)

Last night, after many hours of successfully avoiding homework, I got roped into playing a second game of Pandemic by my brother and my housemate. We had already beaten the game once (by curing all the diseases) and reasoned to ourselves, “yeah, we can totally save the world again.” I think that a lot of the super heroes who get trashed on for being lame had a similar thought process (Aquaman: Hey I just saved the world by talking to fish, I could totally do that again.).

We lost. Not only did we lose but before the end of the game the entire population of Europe and Asia were either infected by three different diseases or dead. My totally logical 2:00 am self immediately concluded, “oh man, the whole could really be consumed by four out-breaking epidemics at once. Whatever will we do?” Right then and there I decided that I needed to switch majors (who cares if I’m going to graduate in a month and really hate science) and become a scientist so I can save the world when it happens.

Today I am a researcher/scientist/doctor type person (I’m really not sure all I did was steal a lab coat from the science building).

Note: I did not really steal a lab coat and if a lab coat mysteriously went missing from the third floor of the new science building this morning around 11:23 exactly I had no part in it.

List of what I’m wearing

1) A lab coat. (because that’s what world saving scientists wear)

2) Everything else is irrelevant

Dress for the job you want (Day 6)

I’ve decided that all that nonsense about reading or being an adventurer is for fools. Why on earth would I want to do something so mundane. No. Exploration is for fools. I have decided to become a wizard instead. Not just any wizard but an internationally known Quidditch player.

It is a really good thing I went to Hogwarts and played on the Gryffindor team (If I didn’t then explain how I got this t-shirt) otherwise this career path would NOT be open to me.

For the non-magical beings out there (some of us are not so pretentious when it comes to being a wizard to call you muggles. It’s so offensive.) allow me to explain why I play in shorts, tights, and a t-shirt. It is the year 2012! And this is America! Just like the uniform requirements for beach volleyball have changed over the years (at the London Olympics they will be allowed to wear shorts and shirts with sleeves) so have the uniform requirements for quidditch.

There is a super offended Harry Potter fan out there somewhere who is accusing me of making stuff up right now. My response to you is: shh, I don’t want everyone else to catch me.

I chose tights to wear tights because; 1) it’s still March and therefore cold outside and 2) if I am going to be zipping around on a broom stick over packed stadiums then I would like my legs to be covered (it get’s a little chilly at those altitudes).There’s no proof that Harry Potter didn’t wear jeans underneath his wizard robes when he would play.

It’s either this explanation or I got up this morning and asked myself, “what would the cool kids wear to school” then wore the exact opposite

List of what I’m wearing:

1) Gryffindor t-shirt that I totally got during my time at Hogwarts (just go with it).

2) Denim shorts.

3) Brown tights over grey leggings

4) Long red socks that peak over my boots. (they go really well with my boots as well as everything else and I really like wearing red)

5) Brown boots (to keep me warm at those altitudes)

 

Dress for the job you want (Day 5)

Today I have decided to pursue a very noble career. A career that is the secret dream of frumpy English majors and future Crazy Cat Ladies alike. The career of Librarian.

Not just any librarian but the kind who sits behind a large desk stamping books and shhh-ing  the just barely too loud kids disturbing the dust collecting that my books are doing.

(As you can see in the photo I also intend on being the kind of librarian that is secretly a terminator.)

The way I see it the accessories are what really make the librarian look. The dark colored sweater. The glasses. The stack of books. When coupled with a basic black dress or top and skirt my fellow college students cannot help but notice the similarity. (Librarians are great, this is not me trashing on librarians.)

I have received the “you look like a librarian” compliment a number of times. Usually when I’m wearing my glasses or the purple sweater shown above (I still don’t know how to respond to it.).

To be honest I’m looking more forward to being a terminator (or mega-girl robot) but I think the combo is pretty rockin’. (The only way to decommission a mega-girl unit is to lower them into lava. Everyone knows that.) Of course I will have an inhibitor chip so that I can’t kill people, even if I would like to.

I’m just going to say it. Deadly robot librarians would be the coolest thing in the whole world. No one would steal library books ever again.

List of what I’m wearing

1) Glasses (it is a universally acknowledged fact that glasses are totally stylish right now and that without the ability to take off your glasses and shake out your hair you can’t be a librarian.)

2) Dark sweater (I think the dark color makes the ink that will get on my sweater from the stamps not show up as well. Also it’s cold in libraries)

3) Basic black shirt and skirt.

4) Books

Librarian is also the secret dream job of all bibliophiles. If there were a venn diagram of all three things I would be at the very center of it.

 

Dress for the Job you want (Day 4)

One: Apparantly I don’t work on Sundays.

Two: It’s rainy today a lot.

So I have decided that today would be the best day to be a writer. (Note: I said writer not author, that one comes later.) The kind who doesn’t really do anything because it’s raining, and Monday and nobody wants to do things on Monday. Especially if it is raining.

Now what I know about freelance writing (please don’t correct me if I’m wrong) is that you don’t really leave the house when you’re doing it. One freelance writer I know does most of her work between the hour of 3 and 5 am. So today, seeing as I am a writer and don’t want to leave the house I put on sweat pants (also I just came home from a morning p.e. class).

And look how stylish I still am also notice the FANTASTIC posture. I’m sure all that freelance writing is going to get done in no time. Or that I’ll just go back to bed.

All right you caught me. I’m lying to you and will totally change before class but if I was the kind of writer who never left the house I would only ever wear sweatpants.

Dress for the job you want (Day 3)

Today, as foreshadowed, I am a lumberjack and I’m okay! Either that or someone in their 20s who lives in Washington.

No college student in Washington’s (eastern, western, or in between) closet would be complete without at least one plaid or flannel shirt that they wear as a light spring jacket. I think it’s a “subtle” nod to our lumberjack and Oregon trail heritage (I’m pretty sure at least half of the Oregon Trail game was about the importance of buying good plaid shirts from the local traders).

Because I drink and make really fantastic espressos and have the ability to lift an ax and shout timber I’m pretty sure that I am not only qualified but probably already have both of those jobs. No wonder I am so tired ALL THE TIME!

I’d be an awesome lumberjack. Just like this guy: Lumberjack song.

List of what I am wearing and why it’s awesome:

1)Basic jeans and tank top. Jeans are very important in my life. I actually cried the last time one of my pairs of jeans got an unrepairable hole in them.

2) Plaid.

3) Boots. If you are going to live in Washington you are going to need to buy some boots.

Dress for the job you want (Day 2)

Brace yourself.  The following is the second post in my “until I get bored with it” blog series on dressing for the job you want.

Today I am either an old-timey reporter or a prohibition era detective. Either way I’m about to go round-up a group of mobsters and rough them up a bit until they give me the information I need (I don’t know what information I’m looking for but I am going to get it). I’m pretty sure I’m qualified for both of those jobs. I took a murder mystery class during Jan-term and have seen every episode of Bones and Castle… so… yeah, I’m definitely qualified.

Look how tough I look. I could go knock some heads together and get information from 1920s gangsters.

My original plan was to be a lumberjack today but I had a coffee disaster all over my flannel and had to improvise. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking. You are all thinking “Damn, that girl is so stylish but wait… isn’t that the same brown blouse she wore yesterday?” My response to you is: I don’t have the slightest clue what you are talking about.

All right fine, you’ve caught me but the outfit only works as a prohibition era Private I because in my mind (strange and twisted as it may be) this shirt looks enough like the kind of trench coat you see in old film noir movies. Besides, it’s still totally clean and it’s the 20s. Times were different.

I topped the whole outfit off with my brown boots, the ones that were made for walking.

It’s important for a Private I., especially the prohibition era ones to have boots designed for walking because they spend a good deal of time “pounding the pavement, looking for leads on their latest investigation. Even if you aren’t investigating the disappearance of the baseball diamond on the same night that wealthy, eccentric, Uncle Joe was murdered having good boots you can walk in is just a good idea.

(According to Terry Pratchet boots, especially the kind designed for walking, are part of the reason that the rich are rich. He says in Men at Arms, “take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in the city on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”)

List of what I’m wearing:

1) Blue jeans and black tank top (You have to love the basics)

2) Brown blouse that looks a little bit like a trench coat.

3) Brown boots that are ready for some serious pavement pounding.

Now all I have to do is put my feet up on my desk, smack some gum for a little while and wait for a classy dame to come knocking on my door (that’s totally how it works in the movies). It might also be helpful if I develop a drinking problem in the next few minutes.

Dress for the Job you want (Day 1)

They say that you should dress for the job you want and not the one you have right now. Personally I like my job right now. I get to sit on the computer in the library for a couple of hours every day and if there is a paper jam or someone who needs help I take care of it (you can guess how often that happens). Sadly I cannot be a lab assistant forever, I don’t think it pays well enough to support my imagined post-college lifestyle, so for the next month (or so, depending on whether or not I get bored with it) I am going to dress for the job that I think I want that day and see where it takes me (I want to be so many different things it’s hard to pick just one).

Today I want to be a Safari Guide/Adventurer. I remember when I was a Sophmore I was at the mall and say in one of the super stylish stores a dress that looked like a safari jacket. I immediately told my friends that I wished I was cool enough to wear outfits like that. As a senior I feel that I don’t have to wait to be that cool any longer.

This is how I think I should dress to be a Safari Guide/Adventurer:

(It snowed today so I couldn’t possibly wear shorts without tights even though it is supposed to be spring.) What we have here is a lot of khaki and brown because Safari Guides/Adventurers tend to get dirty a lot and wear clothing that doesn’t show dirt as much. It also doesn’t attract as much heat as dark colors like black.

The first thing I thought of when I put this outfit on was the movie Rescuers Down Under, specifically the moment right after Bernard thinks Bianca has agreed to marry him (3 minute pause because I was thinking about how great that movie is) and he asks her “well don’t you need some sort of gown or something?”

“No just some khaki shorts and hiking boots.”

“Hiking boots?” Bernard stops in the hallway and seems genuinely shocked.

I make all my best fashion decisions based on quotes from Disney movies.

Of course no adventurer  would be complete  (or foolish enough to leave on an adventure) without a compass. Which you can see here on my left hand.

It’s a real working compass (you have to be holding still with your hand flat but it does work) that I bought on Etsy (I really like Etsy and Pinterst and I didn’t think I would). I think that with the addition of the compass it will be minutes before people come clamoring to my door in search of a Safari Guide/Adventurer. I assume those are actually a hot commodity in the current economic situation.

List of what I’m wearing and why I chose it.

1)Brown tights and black leggings from Target. (It’s a little cold out in Spokane. It’s the second official day of Spring and therefore the BEST time to snow.)

2) Khaki shorts from Plato’s Closet (I love that place). I have never seen a Safari Guide who has not worn khaki.

3) Blue Tank top (I don’t remember where I bought this but I got it sometime last summer.)

4)Light brown blouse.

5) (not pictured) Hiking boots.

“Hiking boots?”

How Many _______ Does it take to Change a Light Bulb?

Determination is a lot like flattery; it won’t get you everywhere but the place it will get you are pretty nice.

Because this week is my spring break and I have been doing everything in my power to avoid the 5 million hours of homework I have to do (all of which will be put off until Sunday night) my house is super clean for the first time probably since I moved in last May. I’ve spent a little over 12 hours working on it so far and I pity the fool who messes it up (note to the administration at my college. That Mr. T reference does not mean I am the person who has been spray painting Mr. T on all the campus building). I have also spent about 45 minutes changing a light bulb.

The light on the basement stairs (which my house fondly refers to as The Paths of The Dead) went out a little over a week ago. So today, after buying one of those super long lasting light bulbs, I decided to change the dead bulb for the new one. When my dad was here six months ago and changed the bulb he created a device using an old broom handle, the cap to a spray paint bottle, some painters tape, and three nerf darts. My dad is MacGyver because I tried to make the same thing and it DID NOT work. After a little while of failing at that I decided to try something else. Normally I would have just given up but I was feeling very determined to not have to start working on homework. I ended up having to stand on a wobbly stool, hanging onto the door frame, and fearing for my life before the light was changed.

This Stool.

Over these stairs.

I’m a pretty determined person. It may not get me everywhere but today it got me some light. Even if it also almost got me death.

True North (Why I love compasses and their metaphor for life)

The cool thing about compasses is that they don’t tell you where you are, they don’t even tell you what way to go. All compasses really do is point out your options in the form of “this is the direction you are facing and these are all the other directions.” If you, like Columbus and all those Oregon Trail people, are just meandering west then the compass will tell you what way to go or if you come into your dorm room one evening and announce to your roommate “Willie, I’m going north,” the compass will not only tell you which way is north but it will constantly point that direction, just to be sure that you go north. But if you get dropped, blindfolded, from a helicopter into the woods or lost on hike (let’s face it most of us not thrown into survival situations like that first one) and have your compass all it is really useful for is telling you which way is north. You have to figure the rest out on your own. That’s what I like about compasses, there are no freebies.

I sometimes believe that compasses are an accidental metaphor. A compass doesn’t tell you where to go it just sends you in the right direction and if you are smart it will work out for the best. A GPS will tell you exactly where to go, when to turn, and will yell at you if you miss that turn. I don;t use a GPS. I like to believe that I was best at navigating in the days of maps. My family did two cross-country moves during the age of maps (oh the 90s). Depending on which car we were in (the lead car or the second car) my brother and would trade-off the job of navigator.

I would hold the folded map so only the highlighted road and the surrounding area were visible and trace my finger along it. I often checked the compass to be sure we were heading the right direction and look ahead, calculating the miles until we reached the spot that would be good for lunch or the closest rest area. It was good for us, my brother and I, because we learned how to figure things out and more importantly how to correct any mistakes we made (it’s possible that trusting an 8-year-old with cross-country navigation is not always the soundest of policies). We learned how to get there without someone telling us what to do every step of the way.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this sort of thing (compasses and navigation I mean) so much is because I will be graduating from college in two months (two months? Wow, that’s so soon.) and now have to figure out a direction. In two months I will have an English degree. Unlike most majors (i.e. business, sports medicine, science, engineering) English does not come with a set career path. There are all sorts of things a person can do with an English degree but like a compass it only tells you which things you can do and not which direction you have to go or even should go. I feel a little bit like I’m standing at a trail head with ten different paths in front of me and I have to figure out which one of them leads home and which ones lead to the pit of despair. Fortunately I have my compass and can always turn around and try a different trail later. Who cares if my shoes get a little muddy along the way.

I feel like I got a little off topic somewhere in there but I’m going with it.