Month: September 2017

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Gooooo Irish! Beat Georgia!

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How to get the 8th floor of the library for yourself: go the morning of a football game.

In fact, I got the gym to myself this morning too. Seems like Notre Dame kids like their football game days so much, they don’t really do anything else those days. No homework, no working out – not even eating in the dining hall.  Tailgate –> game –> candlelight dinner –> party.

Do the students still party even if we lose? I’ve only been here for one game, so I don’t actually know. I wouldn’t be surprised though; people seem to like to party, regardless of the occasion.

St. Patrick’s Day ought to be interesting to spend here.

I don’t mind though. It gives me some time to myself, and that’s rather scarce here. My dorm room is a quad, so there’s pretty much always someone there, the dining halls are always crowded, and even the upper floors of the library tend to have one or two nerds studying there late into the night.

I’ll head to the game later this evening (maybe even drop by a tailgate or two if one of my friends has family there), but for now, I’m just happy to hang out up here on the 8th floor by myself. I haven’t even done much work or been productive…something I’ll probably regret tomorrow when I have to spend all Sunday doing homework.

Anyway, that’s it for today! Still gotta go back to my dorm and change into my gameday attire. Never did wash the Shirt…guess that means I ought to spray it with some perfume or something. Whoops.

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September 2, 2017 – Irish Intrigue (OOTD #102)

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Funny – these photos come from last Saturday, during my experience at my first home football game at Notre Dame, and at the time of me writing this, I’m preparing for my second home football game.

No lie – I can even hear the band practicing from outside my dorm room window right now. They’re playing the fight song, of all things.

Anyway, last Saturday was my first ND football game experience – as well as my first tailgating experience (bar that one time I went with a friend to a UK football game), my first midnight drummer’s circle experience, my first crowd pushups experience, as well as a whole slew of other Notre Dame football tradition experiences.

It was also my first time with the Shirt. What’s “the Shirt?” What makes it so special that it gets its own capital S? I’m still figuring that out myself. The Shirt, from, from what I can gather, is a tradition for the Notre Dame student section for their home football games. We all buy this same shirt that we’re supposed to wear on football days. Most – but not all – students wore it, making for a pretty cool sense of unity for us all. Even I, a freshman with pretty much no ties to Notre Dame other than I’ve been going here for a few weeks now, felt like I was a part of some huge many-faced beast. But like…a nice beast. As long as you’re a part of it.

Some of my reading said that we’re not supposed to wear the Shirt outside of football games (at least until the end of the football season), but I’ve seen plenty of kids wearing the Shirt on regular weekdays. Does that mean those kids are just idiot freshmen who don’t know what they’re doing, or was my writing wrong? I dunno. I myself am an idiot freshman.

Since this post is being written a week after the game took place, it should come as no surprise to you that ND won. In fact, there wasn’t really even much of a doubt that we would win during the game itself – I don’t think we ever lost our lead against Temple. It was actually kind of a boring game, looking at it as just a game. As an experience though, as a fan in the stands for the first time, it was a ton of fun! I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow’s game against Georgia.

Maybe not looking forward to wearing The Shirt again though – I don’t think I’ve done laundry since last week. Lol.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Shirt: ND Bookstore

Skirt: Forever21

Choker: Madewell

September 1, 2017 – Is It Fall Yet? (OOTD #101)

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Shoot, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I haven’t posted anything here since last Sunday – in other words, it’s been four days since my last blog post. I think that’s still a little shorter of a hiatus than the one I took when I was in London…but yeah, it’s been too long.

College has been treating me well enough. That said, it hasn’t exactly been easy either – for example, I spend more time than I would like hanging out in the upper floors of the library writing papers, and less time than I would like writing blog posts. Still, I enjoy the freedom, the fewer hours spent in classes, and the exercise I get walking around campus.

It’s interesting: now that I’m living on a college campus, where there are so many people moving from place to place 24/7, I’m not sure when it’s appropriate for me to change out of my “school clothes” and into my “lazy clothes.” In high school, I wore nice clothes during the school day, and when I got home, I changed into comfy clothes (which sometimes just meant pajamas). But now, I’m pretty much always at school because my home is school. So when do I get to stop being fashionable and start looking lazy?

Speaking of fashion, this coat has quickly become one of my favorite articles in my wardrobe. Why? Because it’s one of the only coats I bothered to bring here, and Lord knows the September weather here in South Bend necessities it.

But why didn’t I bring more coats? Because in Kentucky, at this time of the year, it still feels like summer. It’s not unusual to have weather that’s still in the 80s and upper 70s – in other words, nothing that would ever require a coat. In fact, I probably don’t break out my jackets until mid to late October because I’m still able to wear shorts and t-shirts.

Not here – here, it’s been chilly and rainy in the mornings just about every day since the start of classes two weeks ago. I’m not complaining; I much prefer this to the heat we had in Kentucky (anyone who’s been following this blog since the summer can attest to that). Still, I left all of my sweaters and coats at home, and I’m really missing them right now.

In fact, I’m missing all of my clothes I left at home. I wound up having more room in my wardrobe than I thought I was going to have, so at fall break, I’m definitely going to bring some more pieces. My clothes are kind of like my children; I miss them when I’m apart from them.

Anyway, I’ve got to scoot off to Astronomy, which begins in 20 minutes, so that’s all for today! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Coat: Vintage

Pants: The LOFT

Shirt: Forever21

Saturday Musings + Coffee – First ND Home Game

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Yeah, I know it’s not Saturday at the time of publication – calm down.

Usually, when I do a Saturday Musings post, I like to publish it on Saturday – otherwise, the name kind of loses its relevance, you feel? But for this post, it unfortunately just has to be that way. I feel like my excuse is pretty decent though.

Saturday, the day I drank my coffee and took my photos of it, was my first home football game at Notre Dame. Football, of course, is a huge deal at Notre Dame, so when my parents told me that they had purchased season tickets for me, I was more than grateful.

But here’s the thing – I’m not a football connoisseur. I like football, don’t get me wrong – I grew up cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles – but I know nothing about the culture and the I’ve only ever been to one college game in my life, and that was for the University of Kentucky – not exactly a very good team. I went to a lot of high school football games, but then, that was for the social aspect of attending, not actually to watch the game. No offense to my high school, but we kind of sucked.

At Notre Dame though, it seems that football games are huge both for the socialization aspect and the actual game. People tailgate for hours beforehand and then party afterwards….it’s insane.

It was a lot of fun though! I’m definitely glad I had the coffee before the day started though, because the day didn’t end until way too late for my taste. I’ll have to tell you more about it later though when I do a full blog about Saturday’s OOTD – have to save some details for that post!

Anyway, I think that’s about it for the day for me. I have an obscene amount of homework I’m in denial about their due dates, and I probably ought to do some of it. Whoops.

August 31, 2017 – It’s Casual (OOTD #100)

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I can’t believe I’ve never used that as a blog title before.

For real – blog titles are hard, and I’m not very good about being creative with them. Thus, my titles are usually some sort of dumb reference to pop culture that’ll probably be irrelevant within a few months, but mean that I don’t have to come up with anything intelligent on my own.

I spend most of my waking existence as a college student trying to fake being intelligent in class, so I figure this blog is a place where I can be myself, yeah? And  “myself” really just means being lazy and un-creative most of the time, lol.

Case in point – Thursday’s outfit. It was pretty much as simple as it gets – a white t-shirt and jeans. Granted, I like to think there was a little creativity in there, as layering the green barrette underneath and matching the suede choker to the suede shoes took some thought, but I’d be lying if I said I thought it was a masterpiece.

It’s not, and that’s okay! Not every outfit is a winner, and I’m happy so long as none of them are absolute losers. I’ve even already had some girls from my dorm start telling me that I “look nice everyday,” which is usually my goal when I move to a new place and have to establish myself as a fashion-conscious person. Gaining a reputation for being stylish is all about wearing consistently thoughtful outfits, while every once in a while throwing in a truly artistic one to remind people that you take fashion seriously, and every once in a while, having a dud because nobody’s perfect.

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Target

Bralette: Aerie

Choker: Madewell

Jeans: J. Crew (thrifted)