Spring makes me reflective in a slightly cheese filled way

[mister_six]

Sometimes I feel like the misfit kid sister who always shows up to family events with her hair a mess and sleep in her eyes and coffee stains on her shirt. I'm not quite sure who the older sister would be, though. But I'm the kooky one, for sure

Comments

[mister_six]

I thought the same thing, but then I figured $5-$10 a week on something that makes my house look nicer and me happy is worth it.

[colonelperry42n]

it's so funny that I just read your post, bc a second ago I was freaking out (just a little) over my german and I was running after my teacher, bc in response to a question about what I thought about a book I was supposed to read, I said I didn't think about it, bc I thought he was refering to a more specific question some one else had asked earlier. Maybe our situations are different bc I'm in Vienna where everbody speaks fluent german and it makes me feel really insecure about my german major, but I think it's moreso that I feel weird about the weird american students who think they're big schtick for being able to speak german. Even though I like the study of german, I have to sit back and laugh at the people who think they're better than everbody else, bc there are millions of people who actually speak the language! I sometimes have to step back and look at what I'm studying to see how silly the subject is compared to how people act about it

[mister_six]

For the most part I really enjoy being around my classmates, but sometimes it's hard being around a group of 16 girls all freaking out over papers. It's just nice to take a step back and put things in perspective.

[bing_crosby]

sounds like you have an awesome project going with Rochas. I'm embarassed that I don't know anything about him, he was french right? Because a lot of World's Fairs in the US also had colonial villages, starting with Chicago 1893's Midway (not so much villages as one big Orientalist neighborhood) and 1904 in St Louis (which had villages). Robert Rydell's All the World's a Fair talks about it in context of anthropology at the time. And FYI, a professor at Parsons named David Brody (whom I TA for) does a lot of work on race at the world's fairs. I also remember Patricia Mears, in that one guest lecture she gave us that I always refer to when commenting to you (I wish my frame of reference were better) said something liek the Brooklyn Museum would show "ethnic" costume and then have designers make inspired clothes?

anyway, please invite me to your book party when it comes out! it's so cool to imagine your research will lead you to something like that.

[mister_six]

Thanks. Hopefully, at my book party I will also be wearing Rochas. hehe. Yeah, Rochas was French. It's interesting, because he declared that he invented the square shouldered look (characteristic of the 1940's) first before Schiaparelli and Gilbert Adrain way back in 1931. And his influence was the costumes and architecture of the Indochine pavillion in the Colonial exposition. He's a very interesting quasi unscrupulous character who managed to stay open during the Occupation...however, I'm not sure he was necessarily a collaborator but I he certainly didn't suffer too much. The Occupation is actually such an interesting time to study in Fashion History, it's only been recently that research is coming out. Luckily, the French are leading the way. I think they needed time to deal with the pain and the embarrassment

[never_the_less]

I think your attitude about school and life and messiness is great. When I was in school, there was really nothing us to distract us from school work, competition etc. -- like nyc or something (also because we could all see each others' work, we had to present it publicly, we were all working on the same thing, etc.) i think there is a lot to be gained from interacting with your peers, having an academic community that you are a part of, but you are so right about wasted energy of "did i do enough," etc. i'm sure that when i go back to school it will be all too easy to forget to not get into this comparison mode of doing things, but this post is a good reminder of that.

i am also a mess. it comes across in everything i do, even though there are part of my life (my books, my finances, my iTunes music) that are hyper organized. i too wish i could change it a bit, but i feel like if i did, i wouldn't be me!

[mister_six]

I agree, it's so beneficial to interact with academic peers, because those are the same people who'll become your professional peers. And I'm lucky that I like everyone in the program and that we are all very open about what kind of research we're doing. I think for me, it's really about having confidence in my work and thinking what I'm doing is good enough and valid. Sometimes I think comparing myself to others, besides being such a negative activity, is a weird procrastination tool. I have to remind myself that everyone has such a unique way of doing things, me included.

I think I will forever be the girl who has random scraps of paper flying out of her purse and can't find her shoes. Eventually I'll just become a batty old lady who likes to eat cake way too much.

[bing_crosby]

my advisor was just saying to me the other day that NY is different than other places in that people who are students or (presumably) professionals are expected to have another life-- whether it's another interest or something to make ends meet.