sciences po – L'ensemble du jour

March 5, 2020 – Meilin’s Day Off (OOTD #617)

Published on December 21, 2020December 20, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

You ever have your classes cancelled because of a massive strike taking place outside your school’s main classroom building?

I hadn’t either, until this year. In truth, I don’t even know what the strike was about — as much as I could gather, it wasn’t actually connected to the transport strike that was going on when I first arrived in Paris. I think it may have had something to do with Sciences Po’s student government?

At any rate, when I woke up on March 5, I found an email in my inbox from Sciences Po announcing that classes had been cancelled for the day. I hadn’t been planning on doing anything that day (other than school), so I was pleasantly surprised to have a day to myself.

At this point, I’d been in Paris for going on two months, but I still didn’t feel as though I’d really had time to explore the city, at least since January. Most of February was spent trying to get accustomed to life as a Sciences Po student and the rest of my time was spent backpacking through Central Europe, so I hadn’t had a chance to simply hang out in Paris.

I texted my friends to see if they wanted to hang out, since we hadn’t really had a chance to see each other since our winter break trip. We had become so close during our travels, but we mostly didn’t really have classes together, so this day off was exactly what we needed in order to catch up.

We decided to visit the Musée de l’Orangerie, one of Paris’s many famous art museums. It’s not the Louvre, and it’s not the Musée d’Orsay, so if you only have a few days in Paris, I can understand why you’d skip it. In terms of famous, well-known pieces, it really only has a few of Monet’s “Water Lilies.” In fact, while we were there, it was free admission for everyone because they were doing construction on half of the building, and “Water Lilies” was literally the only exhibit that was open.

After the museum, we stopped into the Angelina pâtisserie, one of the famous pastry shops of Paris. I’ll admit — I hadn’t really made any effort to try out very many pastry or bakery shops while I was in Paris, even though I knew that’s one of the most famous elements of French cuisine and culture. For one, I’m just not really much of a fan of bakery goods, like cakes or breads. And secondly, I thought — like I thought about many things I hadn’t seen in Paris in early March — that I had two months still in Paris. If I hadn’t yet tried every famous pastry shop according to TripAdvisor, I figured I had time.

Perhaps ironically, one of the main subjects of discussion among my friends and I while we were enjoying our cakes at the Angelina was COVID-19. At this point, the first outbreaks in Italy had made their way into the news. We all remarked on how lucky we were to have visited Venice during Carnevale, where the first outbreak in Europe had occurred, and that none of us had gotten sick. We shared theories that perhaps the bad cold that a few of us had come down with after we got home was really coronavirus, before laughing it off and agreeing that it was probably just exhaustion.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this was actually the second-to-last time I went out in Paris and took pictures for my blog. That’s right — there’s only one more Paris post to go (and a few posts about a short weekend trip) to Luxembourg. A little over a week later from this little outing with my friends to the Musée de l’Orangerie and the Angelina, I received the email from my university president that I was being evacuated and sent home — but that’s another story.

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

Dress: Thrifted (A Buffalo Exchange in Washington DC)

March 3, 2020 – Chez Moi (OOTD #616)

Published on December 16, 2020December 15, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

It sure felt good to be back in Paris after traveling Europe for a week.

It was definitely weird to have only gone to school for about a week (two, if you count the Welcome Programme as “school”) before going on vacation. In total, I’d been in Europe for well over a month at this point, but I’d actually only attended classes for a small fraction at that point. I figured, though, I would have 2-3 months still to get into a routine of going to class and coming home and maybe going out sometimes or traveling during the weekends. Even if my life up until early March hadn’t been terribly “normal” I thought it soon would be. Jokes on me, I guess.

By March, coronavirus had become a relatively big story in both Europe and the US, and I was beginning to consider the possibility of getting sent home. Still, it seemed like a pretty far-fetched option at that point. Worst case scenario, I thought maybe I’d get stuck in Paris and be unable to travel on the weekends anymore.

Early March (or at least what was left of March until I eventually got sent home) was devoted to getting accustomed to life in Paris. Despite having lived in my apartment there on the 14e arrondissement, it hadn’t felt like I’d actually spent much time there.

So I set about trying to fix that. One day, after class, I took the reading I’d been assigned for school with me to a small park about a five minute walk from my apartment. It was late afternoon, so the light began fading earlier than I might’ve liked, but it was nice to study somewhere other than my apartment or the cramped Sciences Po library (never thought I’d miss Hesburgh Library) for a little while. The weather was mild enough that I was comfortable in just this light leather jacket.

As I was leaving to go home for dinner, I had what I think might’ve been my first instance of coronavirus-related racism. There was a (white) woman who’d parked herself at the entrance of the park and was asking people for money as they left, and as I was packing up, I dreaded having to walk by and ignore her. Weirdly though, as I approached, she took one look at me and crossed to the opposite end of the street. I distinctly remember making eye contact with her before she did so.

Microaggressions are stupid and awful for many reasons, but one of the worst is that you can never really know if what just happened actually had anything to do with race. It’s like being gaslit by yourself. By March, I’d already heard stories about Asian people being mistreated because of coronavirus-related fears, and I felt as though I got a few lingering glances on the metro when I coughed, so that’s what I wondered immediately had been going through the woman’s mind — but I’ll never know.

Turtleneck: Express

Skirt: Thrifted (Poshmark)

Jacket: Thrifted (Free’p’star Paris)

Tuesday Musings – February 2020 Bullet Journal Spread

Published on December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I promise, I’m really making an effort to get caught up on these blog posts.

It’s pretty difficult actually trying to wrack my brain to remember how I was thinking/feeling months ago. February 2020 was a vastly different world from December 2020. For context, in case you’re reading this later, in February 2020 the coronavirus was mostly just a far-off news story from China, and in December 2020, the first batches of the coronavirus vaccine have just started being distributed in the US. Lots has changed.

I’m really quite happy with how my February bullet journal spread turned out. Can you believe I actually brought it (and my art supplies — including a small pouch of markers and my erasable pens) along with me all through my winter break travels? I probably didn’t need to do that — in truth, I likely only worked on it once in my AirBnB in Prague. Mostly, it was just extra weight I lugged around.

Unfortunately, I’m at home right now, and I left the bullet journal which contains February, March, and April’s spreads back at my apartment at school, and I have no pictures of my February spread saved. I thought I was smart — I’d learnt my lesson from having unnecessarily carried around my mostly-unused bullet journal through 8 countries! I guess I misjudged again.

I debated whether I should make this post or not without pictures, but having my blog in chronological order is pretty important to me (which is part of the reason why I’m writing about February in December). I figured I’d rather have something incomplete go live in the correct order than wait a month until I’m able to go back to my apartment and then write this blog, messing up the chronological nature of my site.

I’ll go back and add pictures of my February spread later, when I’m able to photograph it, but for now, I’ll describe it: since February 2020 for me was mostly characterized by my Sciences Po winter break travels, I themed it after the places I visited: Frankfurt, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Ljubljana, Venice, and Toledo. Ironically, what visually ties each of these cities together on my title page — and I never once took a train during my travels! We pretty much only took buses, with some Ubers and shuttles and a plane ride or two thrown in. I guess if you count metros or cable cars as trains, then I rode in a few trains?

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

Bullet Journal Supplies (with Amazon links)

Bullet journal: The Scribbles that Matter Pro, A5,

Pens: Pilot Frixion

Markers:Prismacolor Brush Tip and Copic Brush Tip

February 3, 2020 – A Hill to Die On (OOTD #606)

Published on December 1, 2020December 3, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

Montmartre rivals the Great Wall of China I think in the amount of steps I had to climb at a tourist spot.

Well, actually, come to think of it, there was a temple in Nepal that was supposedly 1000 steps to the top that I tried to climb, but it ended up getting dark before we made it up more than a few hundred. To be honest, I’m not sure I could’ve made it up all 1000, so I was grateful for the sunset giving me a valid excuse to bow out from the hike.

This was actually the second time I visited Montmartre within my first week or two in Paris — the first time, though, it was dark and I was there with my Welcome Programme group to visit a bar. I didn’t even bother trying to see Sacré Coeur, the grand church atop the hill, because I figured there wasn’t anything to see in the night.

The second time, though, I visited in the day — a much more appropriate time to visit, in my opinion. For one, you’re at much less risk of tripping and twisting your ankle as you climb up the steps. And secondly, you can actually see the beautiful surrounding neighborhood.

I wouldn’t call Montmartre the most spectacular view of Paris, as you can’t clearly see the Eiffel Tower, which is, of course, the most famous landmark of the Parisian skyline. Unfortunately, however, since my time in Paris was cut short due to COVID and I wasn’t able to make it to all of the tourist spots I’d wanted to visit (including the top of the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower, where some of the best skyline views of the city can supposedly be had), Montmartre ended up being the only skyline view I got.

More impressive than the skyline view (or the Sacré Coeur Basilica, in my opinion — Sacré Coeur seemed to be more spectacular from the outside than I think it really was inside), was the cute little artist community that the neighborhood is known for. People talk about the Montmartre area of Paris for its small town feel in the middle of a big city, and I think that description is deserved.

I wouldn’t call Paris a “hustle and bustle” kind of a city — not like New York — but it certainly can be overwhelming at times. It can be crowded and dirty in places and full of tourists. That was what I liked best probably about my short visit to Bordeaux the previous weekend — that I was away from the business of the city. While Montmartre was certainly still busy and full of tourists (what a world pre-COVID times were), it still felt a little more charming and cozy than downtown Paris. Paris is beautiful and elegant and glamorous — but “cozy” it really is not, save for a few places like Montmartre.

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

Top: Amazon

Jacket: Thrifted (Free’p’star Paris)

Skirt: Forever21

Sunday Musings – January 2020 Bullet Journal Spread

Published on August 16, 2020December 15, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

Ah yes, of course, the most relevant time to be writing about my January bullet journal spread — mid-August.

I’ve vacillated a bit on what to do with my bullet journal posts on this blog — if I should post them more in line with the actual time of year they correspond to, or if I should post them at the same time as my OOTD posts from that month go up — ultimately, I’ve opted for the latter. Hence, this post going up at the same time as my January 2020 OOTD posts, despite the publication date now being August 2020. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I’m going to work with until I get caught up again in my blogs.

January 2020’s theme was an idyllic French kitchen. I drew it up before I left for Paris, so unfortunately, it does not match the actual kitchen I had in my Parisian apartment (though they honestly share the same aesthetic).

I had originally wanted the theme of January 2020’s bullet journal to be Paris in general (think drawings of the Eiffel Tower, cafés, les Champs-Elysées, etc.), but I decided to go with something a little less “on the nose.” I figured that I’d probably get enough of Paris in my daily life; maybe I didn’t need it to feature so prominently in my stationery as well.

I was also afraid to make my bullet journal theme Paris before I’d even arrived in the city in case I didn’t like it after all. That fear, of course, ended up being unwarranted — Paris was a lovely city, and though it took me a little bit to warm up to (as do most places in the world), I was getting to be fairly comfortable in it by the end of January, after I’d been there for about two weeks.

There’s also the chance my opinion is a little tinted by nostalgia now, seven months later, because I miss Paris so much. Looking back at my bullet journal from January literally feels like a lifetime ago. Even though now, as of writing this post, I’m back at Notre Dame again and life feels like it’s slowly picking up the pace into a steady rhythm after several months of semi-isolation at home, it still seems so foreign to me and look at my January calendar spread and see all the trips and meetings I had planned. Pre-COVID Meilin really was .

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

Bullet Journal Supplies (with Amazon links)

Bullet journal: The Scribbles that Matter Pro, A5,

Pens: Pilot Frixion

Markers: Prismacolor Brush Tip and Copic Brush Tip

January 25, 2020 – Bus Tour de France (OOTD #602)

Published on July 26, 2020December 1, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I really wouldn’t say that a tour bus is the best way to experience Paris.

I almost didn’t even go because even before I took the bus tour, I was pretty certain that it wasn’t the sort of thing for me. I was also absolutely exhausted from the night before — Friday had been the last day of the Welcome Programme (well, technically, the bus tour was the final event, but it was optional), and I was out late the previous evening at a club.

What ultimately convinced me to go was that I figured that, as a bus tour, I could sit there and look out the window most of the time. I love long train rides, and I thought, if nothing else, a bus tour of Paris would allow me to see some of the tourist sites without moving my feet. I just needed a big sun hat and plastic sunglasses and I could be a proper Asian tourist lady.

What I didn’t count on with this tour, though, was that the bus was mostly just a vessel for us to get from site to site — from there, there was actually quite a bit of walking. It was hardly a hike — honestly, I walked more on my first day in Paris and in Versailles — but I think when combined with how tired I was from the previous day (and the whole week in general), it ended up being a lot.

My social battery was also running out. I’m truly still shocked that I managed to be so extroverted during the whole of Welcome Weekend. I went to almost event, I accepted every invitation, I made an effort to be friendly and outgoing even after I was semi-comfortable in my established group of friends. I don’t normally subscribe to fomo — that is, the “fear of missing out” — but this time, I did.

And I’m glad I did. Though by the end of the week, that bus tour (followed by going to a café with friends later in the afternoon, and then going to a friend’s apartment after that, and then to dinner that night with even more friends) was absolutely draining, I think it was necessary. Compared to my semester in Washington DC, where I ended up regretting turning down a few early invitations because it meant it took me a bit longer to establish a group of friends, I started the semester in Paris with a pretty strong group. I mean, I’m sure there was also luck involved — sometimes, groups just don’t clique and there’s nothing you can do about it — but, given how my time in Paris was ultimately cut short, I’m so grateful that I spent as much time as I could early on with such a great group of people.

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

Jacket: A vintage shop in Budapest (thrifted)

Sweater: Forever21

Skirt: Pitaya

January 24, 2020 – Seine It All Before (OOTD #601)

Published on July 25, 2020December 3, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I’m going to run out of French-related puns soon. It seems like the time hasn’t come quite yet though.

The Friday before the start of classes was essentially the final day of the Sciences Po Welcome Programme. The ~official~ final day was actually Saturday, in that it was the day of the very last event, but Friday felt like the true end. It was the last day when I met with my Programme group for our méthodologie class, for one, which had been a defining element of orientation. We gave presentations in groups to show how much we’d learnt about French pedagogy (spoiler alert: my group didn’t learn much), and an instructor gave us feedback (spoiler alert: our instructor wasn’t very nice).

After that somewhat harrowing experience, Friday culminated in a Seine river tour and a party at a local club, which made it feel like a true conclusion. While Saturday still held one more event (a bus tour of the city), it was mostly optional, and so not everyone I had gotten to know from my Programme group showed up — and it was really the people who defined the whole Welcome Programme experience anyway.

Like I said in my last blog, I actually really enjoyed my experience during the Sciences Po Welcome Programme. There were about two-ish weeks in between my arrival in Paris and the actual start of classes, one of which was taken up by the Welcome Programme. Though I was afraid it would just be another hokey ice breaker-filled orientation, it was actually a really fun way to get acquainted with my new city and make new friends. It allowed me to get some more tourist-y activities out of the way (taking a Seine river tour, pour exemple) while also getting to know other exchange students.

If any of you reading this blog happen to be aspiring Sciences Po students, I’d actually highly recommend coughing up the extra 200 euro or whatever it is to participate. The friends I made during the Welcome Programme ended up being the friends I stuck with for the rest of the semester (or at least however much of the semester was in-person), and I don’t know how I would’ve made friends without it.

Sweater: Thrifted (Goodwill)

Trousers: Express

Jacket: Thrifted (Goodwill)

January 23, 2020 – L’Assemblée du jour (OOTD #600)

Published on July 23, 2020December 3, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

(Unrelated to the rest of this post: this is my 600th OOTD blog! I can’t even believe that. Thanks to everyone who’s read my stories over the last four years — it really means a lot).

I’m really proud of this blog title: L’Assemblée du jour. Because…I’m standing in front of l’Assemblée nationale. And because…my blog is called L’ensemble du jour. I thought I was clever.

I mentioned this briefly in my last blog, but before the start of classes at Sciences Po, I participated in a Welcome Programme for international exchange students. I was initially hesitant about the idea — I remembered how awkward and horrible Welcome Weekend before the start of my freshman year at Notre Dame was, and I was not eager to go through that again.

But the one upside of Notre Dame’s Welcome Weekend — and it’s a major, important upside — was that it helped me make friends. I met some of my best friends during Welcome Weekend. It was a harrowing, exhausting experience, but I think the trauma of nonstop manufactured socialization brings people together.

Sciences Po’s Welcome Programme also helped me make friends. But it did so in a way that was not…traumatic? Is that even possible?

Sciences Po’s Welcome Programme was, dare I say, legitimately fun. Yeah, the first day was pretty stressful getting to know people and navigate my way around the buildings. But after that, the events and activities they put together for us were things I actually wanted to do — it wasn’t a chore to convince myself to go to the wine and cheese tasting or the Seine river tour or happy hour drinks at Montmartre. Making friends came naturally because they put together a schedule of programming where socializing didn’t feel forced. No offense to Welcome Weekend 2017 at Notre Dame, but “go stand there in an open field with 500 other kids while we blast loud music at you and 18 year-old boys have all been tasked by their Welcome Weekend leaders with getting you and other girls’ numbers — also you can’t have alcohol” really wasn’t an event that made making friends feel natural.

And I’m so grateful that I made friends so quickly and naturally at Sciences Po. It made saying goodbye to them suddenly in mid-March significantly harder, but it made the two months that I did have all the better.

Sweater: H&M

Blouse: H&M

Trousers: Banana Republic

January 22, 2020 – Parisian Uniform (OOTD #599)

Published on July 22, 2020December 3, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

I wish I had worn this blazer more while I was in Paris.

Okay, there are a lot of things I wish I had done more of while I was in Paris. I’ll try not to harp on that too much. But after I’ve had a look through the photos on my phone, I believe this is the only set of pictures I have in which I’m wearing this beautiful yellow blazer — and that’s really quite a crime.

I also don’t think I wore this scarf much while I was in Paris either — another terrible offense. It was a Christmas gift from my Uncle Tim (yes, the one who has gotten referenced a few times before in this blog — for example, as my tour guide on my day-long layover in Philadelphia before I headed off to Rome last summer or as the giver of some of my name tag shirts), and I’m very fond of it. I also think its well-suited to France — the scarf is a depiction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and, while Van Gogh isn’t French and while The Starry Night is housed in the MOMA rather than the Louvre, the painting itself depicts Van Gogh’s view from his asylum room in the South of France. Plus, the painting is pretty heavily inspired by the Impressionists, a movement which began in France.

This outfit is a pretty good example of what my day-to-day uniform in Paris was like. These pictures are from pretty early on in my semester, long before I had fully masted of the “Parisian look” (if I ever really did master it) but I was beginning to get a grasp of it.

Here’s the formula: Blazer or jacket of some kind, turtleneck sweater, trousers (see, the jeans here are much too casual for a French woman — especially with the tears, which are a dead giveaway that I’m American), and round wire-frame glasses. A cigarette à la main can’t hurt your chances of being mistaken for an authentic Parisian either.

I wore this outfit out to a club after the Welcome Programme activities at Sciences Po were over for the day, and I think it held up pretty well. This was actually one of my only nights out properly clubbing — as you’ll find out later, I spend most of my subsequent weekends traveling out of the city (and sometimes out of the country) so I really didn’t to go out dancing much.

(Don’t worry — I’ll stop myself before I end that paragraph with “I wish I had”).

Still, I think this night was one of the best ones I spent in Paris. The club, a place called La Rive Gauche, was pretty small, and the only people there were other Sciences Po exchange students. The DJ played a mix of international music because of the diverse crowd — I think they even played “Party in the USA” once.

I think one of the reasons why this night stands out so much in my mind as well as that it ended up being some of my first meaningful encounters with the people who became my closest friends over the course of the semester. I’d been getting to know them a little during our Welcome Programme activities, but it’s hard to really get to know anyone until you interact with them outside of the formal classroom setting. I was hesitant about the Welcome Programme at first — I thought it was silly to show up literally 2-3 weeks earlier than the first day of classes just to go through orientation — but I’m so glad I did it. It helped me make friends beyond the few Notre Dame girls I shared an apartment with, and making friends outside of that bubble was what really made the whole “study abroad” semester special to me. Wherever I go, I want to feel as much as I can like a true local, like someone who’s at home in the city she’s in — and you can’t feel at home in a city without friends who live there too.