Tag: football

November 18, 2017 – Here Comes the Freezing Rain (OOTD #163)

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Why on earth can there not be a Notre Dame home game with decent weather?

Seriously – South Bend doesn’t necessarily have bad weather all the time. Maybe that’s the stereotype, and maybe I personally tend to complain about South Bend’s weather more than I ought, but in reality, it can be quite nice up here sometimes. In fact, I’m pretty sure the day just prior to November 18 was absolutely beautiful – high in the 50s or something like that – but of course, November 18 itself was horrid.

I don’t think you can fully understand how horrid it was. I mean, if you were just to walk outside for a few moments to go from one building to another or from your car to a building you would’ve been fine. It wasn’t even that cold – 40s maybe. But it was the wind, and the rain, and the 40 degree temperatures, and the fact that I forgot gloves, and the fact that I had to stand in one place not moving and totally exposed to the elements for hours that made the game day experience less than optimal.

Thankfully, I know there will be plenty more game day experiences in my future as a Notre Dame student, so I didn’t really feel badly about leaving after the halftime show, even though it was the last home game of the season. If I were a senior, maybe I would’ve stayed – no, I definitely would’ve stayed – but seeing as it was just a mediocre game, and it wasn’t even that big of a milestone experience for me, it was alright to leave.

I was a little sad that I didn’t get to wear a more exciting outfit for my final Notre Dame home game of this year – I mean, I’ve got a gorgeous blue and black plaid cape that I was really hoping I would get to wear before the season ended – but with the weather, it was just more practical to go for something that I wouldn’t freeze and die in.

I mean, I ended up kind of freezing and dying anyway, but it was all in good fun.

Afterwards, I went back to the dorm and changed into warm, dry pajamas and had a cup of cocoa, which was pretty much the best feeling ever.

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: The North Face

Blazer: Forever21

Sweater: Forever21

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Cold, Rainy Game Day

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Maybe this weather is a metaphor for Notre Dame’s playoff chances.

See, we started off the year with gorgeous weather and sunshine. It was late summer in northern Indiana, meaning that being outside and standing for hours in the stadium actually wasn’t bad. Then, as fall came around, the weather cooled, but in a really genuinely nice way.

And now it’s nearly winter – our last several games have been either freezing, raining, or some combination of both, and it’s getting harder and harder to will myself to stay for the entirety of the game. Not to mention, morale is low, and our playoff aspirations are as good as dead.

It should still be fun anyway. And if it’s not, I don’t really feel any obligation to stick around past halftime, especially since I can use the excuse of having a headache from falling the other day.

I guess I never posted about that here! Yeah, so the other day,  I fainted while washing my hands in my dorm’s bathroom, and I hit my head pretty hard against the wall on the way down. I woke up on the ground feeling pretty lousy, but I managed to get back up and walk back to my room. After laying down for a little, I felt much better and was even able to go to class about a half an hour later.

I never went to the clinic to get myself checked out, though I probably ought to have, but I haven’t felt that way since and the only lasting issue I’ve had is a headache from hitting my head.

Anyway, I’ve got to get dressed in some sort of Notre Dame-themed outfit and get ready for the game, which starts in a little over an hour. Maybe this time, I’ll actually be able to make a blog post out of my outfit, instead of losing the photo files like I did last time. Go Irish!

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!

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Desk Tour

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I’m sitting in my room watching the ND game right now, and let me just say – it’s not off to a good start.

It’s presently 2 minutes until half, and Miami is winning, 20-0. I’m hoping, of course, that things turn around, but right now, it’s not looking so hot.

So, since I’m so sad watching the events of this game unfold, I figured it would be good time to do a blog. And since I was sitting here at my desk alone, I thought – why not offer a little peak of my desk space?

Now, truth be told, I don’t spend a ton of time working at my desk. If you’ve seen my Saturday Musings posts, which often feature photos of my planner, laptop – you know, work supplies – you’ll notice that I like to go all around campus to do my homework. The library, the student lounges, outside – I’ll go anywhere.

And anywhere does include simply my room, sometimes. Today, which was chilly, cloudy, and dark, seemed like the perfect day to simply rest at home.

The top shelf of my desk has my cactus (which I haven’t killed yet! Go me), my books, and a portrait of myself that I did last year in high school. The second shelf has some keepsakes – my teddy bear BoBear, a painting I bought when I went to New York, my camera (where pretty much all of my L’ensemble du Jour photos are taken), and some pumpkins I keep for decoration.

The actual surface of my desk has variable objects strewn across it, depending on the day and what I’ve been up to. Since I was taking photos of my desk space and trying to show off to you guys how nice and neat and “organized I am,” I cleaned off the dirty socks and candy wrappers until I was left with only have the essentials – my laptop, the book I’m using for a paper, my planner, my makeup, and about a dozen drinking vessels (two mugs, a thermos, and a water bottle to be exact). I’ve also got a nice little pin board, but I hardly ever use it for anything relevant. Mostly it’s just ticket stubs and random pieces of paper that I thought looked pretty.

I mean, that’s pretty much all my Pinterest is though, so…

Oh, and look – it’s halftime and we’re losing by 27 now. Bama is losing, Georgia just lost…clearly the world is ending. I’d better go back to watching the game – I don’t want to miss our epic second half comeback!

Assuming it’s coming…hopefully…

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Not Cold

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Hey, hey, guess what?

I’m cold.

I know, I know, I’ve never said that before in a blog. I have never, in the history of this site, written a blog based upon me being cold. For that matter, I’ve never even done a blog about being too hot. I am immune to the elements; they do not bother me, and I have no reason to complain about them.

Besides, who could complain when they have coffee? And not only coffee, but coffee in a Christmas cup!?!

I’m still trying to decide upon my go-to cold weather Starbucks drink. I’m happy to do a cold brew, even in the winter, but not all the time, you know?

Anyway, I’ve been experimenting around, and I think I might have landed on an option: a café Americano with steamed almond milk on top. It’s got just the right touch of decadence with the steamed milk, while still being bitter enough to make me feel warm inside.

Unfortunately, my coffee is gone now, and all I’m left with is the yellow stain on my teeth.

I’m also very cold, so things could be better. Notre Dame is presently winning though – is the win worth me standing out in the rain for four hours? I don’t know. But I’m here now, and I got some good touchdown pushup photos out of it, so I guess it’s not so awful.

Anyway, that’s it for today! See you in the next blog! Maybe by then I’ll have warmed up.

October 28, 2017 – The Frozen Irish (OOTD #147)

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Get it? ‘Cause it was cold?

(I’m not funny, sorry.)

I was so hideously underdressed for this football game, like…wow. Never making that mistake again.

30 degrees Fahrenheit is much too cold to go without a coat for three and a half hours – even if you’re wearing two sweaters, a jacket, and a scarf, even if you’re crammed into a stadium with thousands and thousands of people, even if you wear a hat and pull your scarf over your mouth and nose and put on sunglasses to block the air.

The fact that I’m already acting like a miserable wimp about the weather and it’s only FALL makes me low-key terrified for the winter. Winter has always been my favorite season, but something tells me that one winter in Chicago may make me change my mind.

I was talking to one of my friend’s parents at a tailgate about how cold it was and they mentioned that one year, while they were at Notre Dame, they came back to campus after winter break to temperatures 40 BELOW. I didn’t even know such temperatures existed anywhere in the continental US. The coldest I’ve ever seen in 10 below, and when we had temperatures like that in Kentucky, they closed school.

In better news though, Notre Dame won the game! That’s always fun. It feels like that one time in my junior year of high school our basketball time won the state championship, but on a larger scale. I’ve never been a huge college football person, but I may be becoming one.

Notre Dame may take away my will to live the wintertime, but at least they have the kindness to replace it with an interest in collegiate sports.

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!

Sweater: Forever21

Jacket: Chaps

Pants: Banana Republic

Boots: LL Bean

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Gonna Make It To The Game This Time

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Considering the fact that I’m sitting in the ND stadium right now, I think I’m going to make it to the game against NC state today.

For context, last week, after rushing to get back to campus in time for the USC game, I missed the game regardless because I couldn’t find the email with my tickets. Instead of going to the game, I sat in my dorm and folded clothes – so in other words, it was kind of a bummer.

This time, I made sure to have my tickets downloaded the day before, so I could definitely be there for the game.

In exchange, I might have lost my camera (with the last several days of OOTD photos on it too!) because I have no idea where it is currently, but hey, at least one thing went right today. Little victories.

It’s currently 35ish degrees right now in South Bend, Indiana, which is, to me, way too cold for October. That’s like, December weather to my Southern brain. And furthermore, that’s like, much too chilly to be standing outside for hours in a stadium without a coat.

And with a wet butt to make matters worse! It was drizzling this morning, so all the stadium seats are damp. I’m actually fairly warm right now because I dressed in so many layers, but my butt is having a different experience from the rest of my body.

Anyway, kickoff’s in 10, so it’s time to devote my attention to field. Go Irish! Beat Wolfpack!

October 21, 2017 – You Had a Bad Day (OOTD #141)

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You’re taking one down…The Meilin of these photos did not have a fun day.

You might not have guessed that from the way I’m smiling here – I look rather cheery, don’t I? That’s because I was about to go eat a Five Guys burger and fries, and I love that restaurant. Saturday was also the last day of my cheat week, so that burger was going to be the last ones I’d have for a while.

I was also happy because I had just found a really cute place to take my OOTD photos, despite being far from home and not knowing where I was. Finding a good background for your OOTD photos is kind of a tossup when you’re on the road – sometimes, you can find some really nice restaurants with beautiful flowers and colorful exteriors, and sometimes, there’s nothing but the dirty brick wall of a Taco Bell. this time, I was lucky, as there was a spa with these really pretty lion decorations just around the corner from the restaurant we were stopping at.

Unfortunately, my day went rather downhill after my burger and fries. In these photos, I  was in the process of heading back to school, and I was about a third of the way there. This first third simply involved sitting in a car, writing my Saturday Musings + Coffee post, and dreaming about how exciting the ND vs USC was going to be when I finally arrived on campus. More on that travesty later.

The last two thirds of the journey involved sitting on the Greyhound bus and waiting for it to pull into the South Bend airport. If you’ve never taken a Greyhound, let me tell you – they are uncomfortable, some of the people are sketchy, and it takes forever to get where you want to go. But they’re cheap and they get you there, and that’s ultimately what matters.

Finally, after having sat in my parents’ car, the bus, and an Uber for a combined length of about eight hours of travel, I finally made it back to campus. I lugged my two giant suitcases back to my dorm, touched up my makeup, and prepared to head out to the stadium.

BUT ALAS, it was not meant to be, for, as I was just about to go out the door, I realized that I couldn’t find the email with my tickets. I searched my Gmail, my computer’s email app, and my phone’s email app using every combination of the words “football” and “tickets” possible, but to no avail. After about 30 minutes of searching and bitterly listening to the cheers of the people who were actually there in the stadium, I gave up, and decided to spend my evening putting away the clothes I had packed.

Thankfully, a few days later, I was able to get my remaining tickets re-emailed to me from the ND tickets office, so I’ll still be able to go to the rest of the games this season. Still, I’m kinda bitter I missed this particular game – apparently it was a really good one.

Ah well, next time.

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!

Jacket: Forever21

Sweater: American Eagle

Boots: LL Bean

Jeans: Hollister

Saturday Musings + Coffee – On the Road Again

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I like, actually don’t know a single lyric to that entire song except for what I wrote in the title – “on the road again.”

It something a tired and delirious Amanda would sing in the Atlanta airport any time we had to run from one terminal to another in an attempt to make it onto a plane from the standby list. I was too tired and delirious myself to question it – I’m not even sure it was a real song, now that I think of it, maybe she was just expressing her frustrations through song.

Welp, I’m frustrated and on the road again, so it struck me as a sensible blog title. Frustrated? I don’t know if that’s quite the right word…it’s more like, mildly annoyed. See, I’ve got another Greyhound bus to take today, and I was not so much a fan of the last one I had to take, and this time, I don’t even have home to look forward to at the end of the road.

Granted, I do have the Notre Dame game against the University of Southern California to look forward to, and that’ll be neat, but it’s much more exciting for me to get to sleep in my own bed than to get to stand for three hours in a football stadium with a bunch of *not at all intoxicated* college kids.

So you’ll have to pardon my particularly unglamorous coffee lifestyle photos today – it was a particularly unglamorous morning.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life here at Notre Dame.

September 30, 2017 – The Fighting Asian (OOTD #125)

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Look! It’s a Friday blog and it’s going up on time because I didn’t take an four hour nap after classes were over!

Last Saturday was the first game day we’ve had at home for a few weeks, so as you might guess, people were pretty excited – even me, The Social Recluse ™ herself. I still haven’t figured out tailgating, or post-victory partying, or even apparently what things you’re allowed to bring into the dumb stadium (fun fact: metal water bottles are a no), but I like to think I’ve figured out game day fashion.

If nothing else, at the very least I can now show up to a game dressed like a proper Notre Dame fan, I can say the correct chants, and I can sway and sing the Alma Mater at the end. Still haven’t tried crowd pushups though. Guess that’s the next thing to cross off the list.

Another thing to cross off the to-do list should probably also be “find more ND apparel,” because I’m running out of ways to wear the same two shirts. I have this scarf now, which changes things up a bit, but I’m always happy to buy more clothes.

Whoa, a fashion blogger who likes to buy clothes, what a novel idea.

One of the nice things about Notre Dame is that we have a wide range of school colors to choose from. Our official colors are blue and gold, but green is often thrown in there because we’re the Fighting Irish (hence the title, the Fighting Asian). Thus, when making football day outfits, I have a whole range of appropriate blues to choose from, from a bright royal blue to navy, a whole range of gold-tones, from metallic gold to tan to yellow, and a range of greens, from dark emerald to a bright leprechaun shade.

The only downside to that is that the student section doesn’t usually look very cohesive (the exception being the first home game, when we all wear The Shirt), because you have  people dressed in a whole rainbow of variations on the same three colors. And as far as I know, we never have something like a “Blackout” or a “Whiteout”  (well, how could we, considering that we don’t have black or white in our color scheme at all – but you know what I mean), so I guess the ND section is doomed to look like a mishmash of colors. Not that I mind – it’s more fun to have the variation, if you ask me.

Notre Dame also gets kudos for having a very easy color palette to work with. Navy and camel? That’s a classic combination; you can’t mess it up. Unlike other schools I looked at (*cough cough* a hideous orange and black for Princeton), Notre Dame colors are  highly versatile and yet still consistently classy. Plus, we have some really good sports teams, so it’s actually worth it to go out to games decked out in the school colors.

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!

Turtleneck: Forever21

Skirt: J. Crew

Scarf: Notre Dame bookstore

Saturday Musings + Coffee – First Pumpkin Spice of the Season

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Call me basic, but there’s nothing more I love in the fall season than a good pumpkin spice coffee.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever got one – I was a freshman in high school, and I had just started using Twitter. I had followed one of those “Basic White Girl” humor accounts, and I started seeing a lot of mentions to the mythical pumpkin spice latte. At that time, I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker, but I liked it well enough, so, one day when I was out with my parents in early fall, hitting up some neighborhood yard sales, I decided to stop in Starbucks and give one a shot.

I even remember what I was wearing – an oversized knit sweater from Hollister, black leggings, and Uggs – that was how earth-shattering of an experience drinking this coffee was for me.

The thing is, I didn’t even like it that much. Like, it was good enough, but in terms of decadent Starbucks coffees, I still think their Christmastime salted caramel latte is 10 times better.

I think what was such a big deal to me, was that it was one of my first experiences buying into an image. I didn’t necessarily like the pumpkin spice lattes themselves, but I did like the image of a Starbucks-guzzling, PINK yoga pants-wearing, messy bun-sporting basic teenage girl. Maybe it had something to do with being a freshman in high school who was still enchanted with the concept of being in high school.

At any rate, pumpkin spice lattes have since become a staple in my fall lifestyle. I still don’t love them, but I like to have one or two before Thanksgiving rolls around.

Today, I had my first one of the season – though actually, it wasn’t a real latte…it was just a pumpkin spice-flavored black coffee from a café at Notre Dame called Waddick’s. It wasn’t quite as good as the legendary Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, but it it was half the price of  Starbucks, so it worked for me.

You know what else works for me? White backgrounds for photos. Seriously, I love them, so much so that I walked a whole extra 10 minutes after I got my coffee to the library so I could sit at a white table and take pictures of it. On the way, I picked some flower petals to add some color to my photos, and I had a nice little photoshoot right there in the library foyer. Call me extra.

Anyway, it’s probably time for me to get back to work now. We’ve got a home game tonight at five, which means that my entire evening is basically going to be consumed by football. You’d think my professors would let up on homework for football weekends, considering that this is a huge football school…but no.

Two weeks to fall break. I can do this.

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.