Met Cosume Gala... Best and Worst (According to Me)

So I like to leave red carpet/runway reviews to the professionals but sometimes, like at the Oscars, I feel sassy and want to tell you guys how I feel. Here goes.

First? Well Gwen Stefani of course. She is so gorgeous it's stupid. And that husband of hers aint to bad. ;)

Another favorite? Chloe Sevigny... Always stunning. I love that she's wearing a short dress. So cute. Cute shoes too!

Oh... are these M.I.A.'s sisters?? What's that you say? That one in the middle is not a sister? WHAT? It's Alexander Wang?? Oops.

Well whatever. M.I.A. looks like she's making the (pardon my vulgarity) "eat my box" gesture with her fingers. And her dress is Alexander Wang for Gap. Though I doubt we'll ever see it in stores. I mean, could you imagine??

(CONTINUE READING...)

Leave it to Kristin Stewart to look awkward in Chanel. Nice hair...

Oh. Hello Balenciaga shoes. I love you...

Ok I love me some Karl but in this case I love the fishy lip kiss in the background better.

I mean the woman Mr. Lagerfeld is with looks like she's wearing a beach coverup.

...Is that Angelyne back there??

Hello Louboutin for Marchesa runway shoes. Hello lady. You're tall.

Well of course the Marchesa girls are in the same shoes. But wait... they're tall too. Is it the shoes?? Love love love.

And on a different part of the carpet... A toga party.

Weirder still? Tina Fey in a pantsuit? Very strange.

But look! BOOBIES! Anorexia boobies...

Chubbly bubbly boobies! And small animals attacking shoulders!

And finally, Zac Posen shows up with his fairy godmother. Magical.

Bippity boppity boo!

That's my two cents. If you want real coverage... check one of these:

Style.com

Red Carpet Fashion Awards

things I am thinking right now

Young people of my generation (and anyone else who has an opinion), please respectfully disagree in the comments so I can think harder and lose more study time over this. I need opposing ideas to bounce around.

1. I think "Follow your passion" is a middle class mindset. If everyone followed their passion and tried to turn it into a career, I'm sure we wouldn't have janitors and factory workers and ... I don't know, people who castrate bulls, or whatever. I think that Mike Rowe TED speech about dirty jobs got it right. You don't just do what you like. You go where no one else is going. In that same vein, you find a problem and solve it. It's typical how-to-start-a-business thinking. Find a solution to a problem. Or find a solution better than the currently existing ones.


2. Even if janitorial work is meant to be a temporary thing, just a stepping stone on your way between greatnesses, and everyone's supposed to do it at some point to pay their dues, what if your passion isn't something that can be monetized? What if your passion is Helping poor people? You want to get paid for that? Whose money are you taking? What if your passion is eating gourmet truffles?


3. What if the U. S. collapses and I decide to move to a foreign country even though I don't speak the language and can't get a job working in that language, because there is better than here? Sound familiar? Am I supposed to work really hard and hope my kids do better? Would I be deeply unhappy?


4. And I don't think you can follow your passion unless you're in a position to do so. As in, you're financially secure enough to do so. So am I supposed to set myself up to be financially secure? Or is that not the point? Why should I spend all that time setting myself up when I am going to die? If I can't pay my bills, can I still follow my passion? Why do bills matter? People matter.


5. What if I graduated early?


6. I think I am being truthful with myself when I say that Computer Science is not something that gets me out of bed in the morning. I don't need a FutureMe email composed from three years ago to tell me that. I know I don't love it. So am I wasting my time? Or should it not matter that I don't love it? Am I missing a bigger picture here, or is this the gut feeling I should listen to? What was my gut feeling about UCLA vs. Cal? Was it the feeling of really scary opportunity and discomfort that I should have listened to, or the one that said This is something safe and familiar but different enough to make you a little nervous?


7. Me being overly analytical about this right now is normal. So maybe not every college student goes through this, but some do. And we're just a different brand of normal. A typical quarter-life crisis is supposed to occur after college graduation but when have I ever done things on time instead of early? It happens.


8. Being Asian means there has never been a separation between what my family values and what I value, because the highest value is family. So do I actually care or not? How bad can things possibly get? Sure, there's debt and hospital bills and insurance and money problems, but how scary is financial instability in the face of... a) your significant other leaving you, b) the people you love dying, c) almost being killed in a car crash, d) losing a limb, e) going blind, f) being diagnosed with cancer? Does it matter or not? It's not like these are ridiculous situations either. EVERYONE DIES. Is it more important to be uncomfortable now and stable later, or to like everything I commit to? What if I'm on the verge of completing my Computer Science degree and then get hit by a truck and am completely disfigured and paralyzed? Will I not have regretted using my time doing something I'm not that fond of?


9. But if everyone did things they liked, wouldn't everyone just be having sex all the time?


10. How do you determine what you want? Will I just know? Or will I know in hindsight?


11. Am I just being lazy? Am I afraid of working hard? NO. Crap. I do work hard. But only for things I care about. So then what?


12. I know that I said I Made A Decision about what I am at Cal for. But that was mostly to firmly plant myself in one camp of thought. And now that I'm here, all I feel is trapped. Scared. And most definitely not willing to put in the work that a Computer Science degree will require. Why should I do this when there are people who are willing to put in the work, and when there are things I am willing to put work into that other people aren't? Why should I do something I find less than easy that other people find completely easy, when there are things I find easy that other people find difficult?


13. Am I supposed to find the thing I am exceptional at and milk it for all its worth? Or solve someone else's problems? I was told that I don't seem to be that type of person. But I was told that by someone who doesn't know me very well. Shouldn't I know the answer to that myself, if I know myself so well? What if I'm indifferent to the idea? What if the first impression I leave is more accurate than the me I've constructed for myself in my mind?


14. Can't I just be a fucking tailor or cobbler or cordovan or something?


15. I pretty much fail at this whole "fashion/style blogging" thing.

[EDIT: Today, I was inadvertently alerted to the fact that "cordovan" is a type of leather. Not the person who works with the leather. Epic fail indeed.]

I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up

My long, fruitless hunt for affordable Peter Pan collar blouses led me to believe that companies just didn't make them for humans beyond a Youth XL (which is actually too big for me, but I mean they don't run into adult sizes), until I was reminiscing about my first taste of Peter Pan collars from my Catholic school days and remembered that DUH I had to go to a uniform store to find one. Thus, girls' size 16:

Uniform blouses are usually boxy and sexless, but I guess the fit goes with the whole forever-prepubescent Peter Pan theme. (Now, if I could find an affordable Peter Pan collar dress, I'd be set for life.)

White Peter Pan collar blouse: French Toast uniforms. Ribbon neck tie thing: packaging? Ring: Forever21. Skinneh jeans: Forever21. Oxfords: Payless.

things i love: april 2010

When April's gentle rains have pierced the drought

Of March right to the root, and bathed each sprout
Through every vein with liquid of such power
It brings forth the engendering of the flower

April, truth is - I'm crazy about you. How can I help it when you bring me things like...

• reading The House of Mirth in one-page installments, via DailyLit, via Gordon, during boring parts of my CogSci lecture
• Tom
• being a blogger
• naturally waking up at 7
• Bangkok Thai on University! Very good, and the interior is adorable.
• that upon hearing that I wasn't coming home for Easter weekend, my family came to visit armed with bags and bags of oranges, homemade cranberry oatmeal cookies, Rice Krispie Treats in the shape of Easter eggs with sprinkle designs, cartons of lactose-free milk, and children's toys
• repotting my plants and the feeling of dirt under my fingernails and the smell of damp earth
• my French math GSI for never having heard of L'Hospital's rule, and for pronouncing the S
• that I found my contact lens after dropping it on the floor of the women's bathroom in the library, and that nobody stepped on it
• getting a 94 on my math midterm, if only because one section asked for a prose explanation, and what I wrote was ambiguous enough to be correct
• reading about quarter-life crises
• Elisabeth, my Uma Thurman graduate student instructor, who told us in her German accent not to pursue anything unless we "have a fire inside for it," and who said that some people hit their quarter-life crises early, in college, and who confirmed that linguists don't get jobs
  
• that my current lab partner, Stephanie, is taking computer science classes with me this summer and this fall, which makes them that much less terrifying
• attempting pin curls after finding out that's what kater from all this happiness does to her hair, and discovering that they aren't that difficult (thanks to the following video tutorial)




• that Denny can't spell
• the pricelessness of feeling cute after months and months of the uglies
• deciding to skip math lecture to do math homework
• Shelby
• Harriet!
  
• Lincoln
• TK
• Connie
  
• Victoria
• Jess
  
• that my right shoulder doesn't get tired carrying around a laptop anymore
• the return of GLEE!!!
• Jon Groff (who is openly gay) as Jesse St. James UNF WHAT IS THIS MAN EVEN.
  

MELCHI GABOR! What a radical!

Unf.

THIS.

• backcombing my hair into a giant, voluminous mess, even if it is damaging
• Jessie + La Med
• the peculiar all-over numbing sensation that comes with using peppermint body wash
• Kathleen
• Charles, the other GSI, because he is a really good lecturer
• Henri for "Woah! When I said 'final,' all your heads popped up."
• my skirt from eShakti
  

• finishing a midterm... and being sad that it is over
• Denny and Spencer and Café Strada, as usual
  
• giggling with Daniel and trying to sit up really straight in class while producing voiceless nasals
• saying no
• watching a row of four guys in front of me fall asleep, all their heads lolling in different directions
• getting a pre-curve 90 on a midterm when the average is in the 70s
• Jergens Express & Nivea fake tan!
• the cute dirty blonde in suspenders holding a guitar walking down Telegraph, and mutual elevator eyes and smirks
• feeling woozy-tired before 10:30 PM
• The Cellar! (Jocelyn told me about it last year, but I had to check BARE magazine's blog for the exact location.)
  
• Joce & her cooking & Ching & Theatre Rice & the fellow who greeted me at the door by handing me a program and saying "That is a very nice top"
• Kyle Riabko's rendition of "Left Behind"
• strawberries
• seeing gay couples holding hands, because I'm not in San Francisco anymore
• hearing spoken Cantonese, because I'm not in San Francisco anymore
• Léon with diacritic, and the wonder that is YouTube

• the moment when I lie down in bed and my spine feels like it's uncrunching
• that 9 years of Catholic schoolgirl skirts have left my legs completely insensitive to the cold
• my attempted panade, thanks to LifeHacker
• Angela for baking our entire lab cookies and bringing us sour candy
  
• coming back to my apartment at around 9 PM to a cooked dinner of roast eggplant stuffed with pork with garlic shavings, angel-hair pasta, and green beans
  
• new shoesies!
• Little Henry's on Balboa. Yelp reviews be damned. I have too many childhood memories attached to this place.
  
• Tony, who should technically be filed under Things I Love: May 2010, but I'll give him 33 minutes of leeway
  
• This disproportionately huge photo collection of Serious Lookers Jake Gyllenhaal and Frida Gustavsson:
  

[one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight]

[all Fridas via The Fashion Spot]

Weekend Gettaway

(target towels, goyard bag, ray ban glasses, zinka sunscreen, forever 21 jewelry, harajuku lovers wedges, louboutin wedges, missoni jellies, fendi purse, forever 21 jumper, forever 21 floral dress, ella moss dress, reefer madness book)

Packing is always a drag. I always bring too many shoes and almost always forget something important like deodorant or face wash... Gross, but true. One time I went to China and forgot to pack underwear!! HAHA! Ben had to FedEx me undies because the shops in the area of China I work in didn't have anything big enough for my butt. It was pretty hilarious but that's a whole different story...

(CONTINUE READING...)

These Harejuku Lovers wedges are one of my first designs for the brand. I finally got myself a pair and was excited for weather warm enough to warrant wearing them. And yes- thats bright pink Zinka. Remember how cool that stuff used to be? I'm bringing it back like Wendy Brandes is bringing back denim on denim!

I love these Missoni jelly flats even though Chinese Laundry knocked them off already!

On the way out to our weekend in Palm Desert I wore my "sensible" Louboutins (I love calling them that) and this super cute new skirt I got at Forever21. Yay for inexpensive clothes! It sure makes shopping for Spring a while lot easier.

It was bright but the wind was seriously threatening to blow my skirt up!

(skirt- Forever21, tank- silence + noise, sweater- frenchi, glasses- Ray Ban, shoes- Christian Louboutin)

old habits die hard

I want this on my head like, now.

Above, In the garden of good and evil headband by Calicogarden, $28 on etsy

darling excuse me i think you're on fire

Second attempt at curly hair: I never thought I would say this, but the curls were too tight. I had to dampen my hair and finger-comb it before leaving the house in the hopes that it'd wilt over the course of the day.

Intelligent commentary intelligent commentary.

Hair ribbon: gift packaging. Gray longsleeve: Target. Green dress: secondhand + hemmed. Tights: generic. Oxfords: Payless.