Tag: student life

Tuesday Musings – February 2019 Bullet Journal Spread!

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Hey look, I know I’m late — but at least this post is getting done before the end of the month.

Believe it or not, I actually finished the spread for this month at a decent time this month. I can’t tell you exactly when I finished the cover page, but it was toward the beginning of the month.

So why did it take me so long to share my designs on my blog? In truth, I just didn’t have a chance to do the photography. I also hadn’t finalized some fo the doodles for my calendar portion (like what you see under February 22 and 16, and I didn’t want to post pictures of my designs until I’d included those extra little drawings.

I like the spread I did for February, though I kind-of wish it were a little more representative of what February in South Bend is really like — that’s to say, while I like the flowers I drew, flowers aren’t exactly something I saw once this entire month. I saw a lot snow, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, snow is a little harder to draw, and not nearly as colorful.

And so I think the February spread represented more my hopes for what the month would be like, rather than my expectations. I mean, you’ll notice, I also included lots of Valentines Day-themed drawings, and it’s not like I actually did anything exciting for Valentines Day (more on that in the February 14 blog).

The winter is definitely wearing thin. At the time of writing this blog, it’s February 26, and I’m about a week and a half out from spring break. “Spring break” — that should imply that spring is around the corner, right? Not here. It’s still definitively winter here in beautiful Northern Indiana. I think it made it all the way up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit today — so basically, it was a scorcher.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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

 

January 21, 2019 – Unintentional Minion (OOTD #441)

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I’ll admit it — I thought the Minions from Despicable Me were cool when they first came out.

It’s a little hard to explain, but I’ve got this vague memory of being about 14 years old, scrolling through Pinterest at the height of the Minion craze, probably listening to Happy by Pharell Williams or whatever as cool back in 2013, and thinking that a Minion costume would be cute for Halloween. This was, of course, before I realized that I wasn’t cool enough for Halloween parties, and that I likely wouldn’t have the opportunity to wear a Halloween costume again until I was a junior in high school and actually had friends.

This was also, of course, before I realized how annoying Minions were.

Despicable Me was a good movie, and the Minions were cute side characters. Because that’s what they were meant to be — side characters — and not the obnoxious, Facebook meme-fueling evidence of how out-of-touch corporate America is with young people that the Minions have become. Illumination took something that was cute and funny and killed it by putting it everywhere. Minions were cute when you could buy little yellow Tic-Tacs shaped like them in 2013. They were not cute when they received their own feature-length movie in 2015.

So anyway, that’s all to say that I really didn’t mean to dress like a Minion here. In fact, I didn’t even realize how much like a Minion I looked until one of my friends pointed to me at lunch and said “you look like a Minion!”

To be honest, I was going more for an Arthur the Aardvark vibe with the blue and yellow, but as soon as my friend brought up the Minion comparison, I knew they were right. I looked just like the Minion costumes I saw all those years ago on Pinterest, from the denim dress to the yellow sweater down to the combat boots.

So what can you do when it’s 12 noon on a Monday, you have two more classes still to go, and you look like a Minion?

You own it, and then write a blog post about it later.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life at Notre Dame. 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!

Sweater: Forever21 (thrifted)

Dress: Vintage (thrifted)

Saturday Musings – January 2019 Bullet Journal Spread

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Today, I realized something that should have been obvious — “bujo” stands for “bullet journaling.

I’ve been seeing the bujo tag on Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr for ages to represent images of visually appealing, artistic, and cutesy journal pages. I’ve also been seeing bullet journals all over — which ultimately influenced my decision to purchase one for myself and try to get into it. However, of all of my years of consciously knowing that “bujo” and “bullet journaling” were aesthetic journal trends, I never realized that they were the same thing. Bujo = BUllet JOurnal. Shouldn’t that have even obvious?

In other news, you’ll notice that I’ve brought my Saturday Musings series back! I haven’t done one of these posts since mid-September. I initially took a break because I just felt like I didn’t have any new inspiration for posts — they were getting repetitive, just shots of my coffee and my laptop over and over again. I started the series to give me a break and take the pressure off from the OOTD posts, and yet, I found that the Saturday Musings posts were just putting pressure on me to produce flatly-style pictures even when I had no new ideas.

But now that I’ve gotten into bullet journaling (sort-of — I did kind of fall behind in November and December), I have a new source of inspiration for what I can show off in these Saturday Musings posts. So I’m brining it back — but I’m taking the pressure off of myself to do a post like this every week, and to do them only on Saturdays. Now, these “musings” style posts will come whenever I feel the inspiration for them — be that on a Saturday or no.

Anyway, I finally got around to doing a January bullet journal spread, and so I thought I’d  share it with you today. With all of the traveling I did at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019, I thought this image of the globe would be fitting. But then, of course, after the traveling was all over, it was time to return to university, so I combined the travel imagery with some study inspiration in the form of books. I guess you could say the general theme for the January spread is studying through cultural immersion.

Or maybe there’s no overarching theme — just some aesthetically-pleasing doodles and colors combined into a calendar spread. Going with the theme of minimal commitment and pressure that I’m adopting with my blog, I’m also not putting strict definitions or rules about what my bullet journal has to be. It’ll be whatever it ends up being.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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

December 15, 2018 – Rerouted (OOTD #423)

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Welp, that didn’t’t go as planned.

My semester had ended, I’d finished up all of my finals, and I thought I knew for certain what all of my grades were going to be. There shouldn’t have been anything else left to worry about — everything was supposed to be set for me to make it home by 7PM on Saturday night.

So why then did I not make it back until 10AM the following morning?

That’s an excellent question, and one I’m still asking myself. See, I was supposed to have two flights — one from Chicago Midway at 10AM to Atlanta, and another from Atlanta to Lexington at 5PM that would have gotten me home by early evening. Why not just one direct flight from Chicago to Lexington? Because money, that’s why — I basically always fly as cheaply as possible.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea this time, however, because after I made it to Atlanta, all of my troubles began. I shouldn’t have been surprised because I hate the Atlanta airport — the last time I was there, I got trapped for two days after a bad storm in the Southwest trapped the entire airport full of people, meaning that Amanda and I, as two sorry idiots who flew standby, were stuck there until two spots finally opened up for a flight to Lexington. This time, I made it out of Atlanta alive and on time, but my flight didn’t reach my destination. Instead, it got rerouted to Indianapolis 15 miles away from our destination.

Apparently, the runway lights were out or something. I don’t manage airports, so I can’t claim to know how everything works, but it strikes me that that’s not an issue that you should allow to happen. Anyway, my flight couldn’t land, and so they flew us all to Indianapolis at 10PM at night, three hours after we were supposed to have landed in Kentucky.

In Indianapolis, they made us sit there for an hour before they finally decided to cancel the flight, at which point, they shoved us all into the airport with some hotel vouchers. Unfortunately, the troubles didn’t end there.

They put us in a (crappy) hotel about 10 miles away from the airport. I felt so badly for the hotel staff — they clearly were not prepared for an airplane-load of people to show up at 10PM at night. They only had one shuttle, and the shuttle could only take 10 people at a time, which sucked for the airplane full of people who were stuck waiting out in the cold as the shuttle made the 30 minute trip back and forth from the airport to the hotel. Then, of course, when I finally made it to the hotel at about 11PM at night, the poor lone person standing there at the desk was still struggling to make it through the line of people waiting to get rooms.

I don’t think I made it up to my room until about midnight — and at that point, I only had five hours until it was time to get up again and catch the shuttle to get back to the airport for my 7:30AM flight. Resigned to my sad fate, I took some pictures of my outfit (because I figured this was too good of a story to not give it a proper blog post treatment — and also because I liked this outfit), and got a few hours of shut-eye before dragging myself back to the airport.

Thankfully, though, our flight departed on time, and I finally made it back home. It was over 12 hours later than I was supposed to be — and basically 24 hours after I departed from school on Saturday morning. Can you believe that? It took me 24 hours to make it from Chicago to Lexington, which, by plane, should have taken two hours — four if you count the bus ride from campus to Midway.

I don’t think it was my worst travel debacle, but it’s up there. Maybe #2, after the other Atlanta tragedy that I mentioned earlier. I do love to fly, don’t get me wrong — but I don’t love it when I get stranded at airports and bus stops and creepy hotels for 12 hours at a time.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life as a world traveler. 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: Thrifted

Sweater: Thrifted

Shirt: J.Crew

Dress: American Eagle

August 30, 2018 – Denim-Denim-Denim (OOTD #361)

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Hey, here’s a joke: what does Mario wear?

Denim-denim-denim…denim-denim-denim…get it? Like the tune of the Level 1-2 underground theme?

It’s okay if you don’t get it; it’s a joke that’s better suited to being told aloud.

For some reason, my blog has been full of Mario references recently. I’m not sure if there’s any meaning that can be derived from that — apparently I’m just super into mushrooms and denim outfits right now.

I do have a Luigi costume hat somewhere in my closet back home that I got back in 2013 during a Year of Luigi promotional event. One of these days, I’ve got to actually incorporate it into a Halloween costume. I’ve got all of the individual pieces — the hat, the overalls, the boots — I just need to put them together. Oh, and maybe find a friend who’d be willing to play Mario. That might be the more difficult part.

Today’s pictures were taken inside Bond Hall, which is notable in that I’ve only ever done the outside of Bond before. It actually took a surprising amount of effort to get these shots. I felt like every few seconds, someone was walking down the steps and getting in my way. Or rather, I was getting in theirs.

If there’s an alternate reality where I don’t feel awkward posing for photos in public, I’d sure like to discover the portal to it. I’m definitely getting better, and I’ve come a far way from where I was this time last year, when I felt anxious literally every time I had to take pictures for my blog. I’m still not quite shameless yet, though.

At least, in regards to photography. I am shameless with my jokes. Hey, you wanna hear another Mario one?

What did the green mushroom say to Mario? Get a life!

Top: The LOFT

Jeans: American Eagle

Scarf: American Eagle

Monday Musings + Coffee – Long, Short Weekend

Published on by lensembledujour2 Comments

Huh, somehow, I wound up doing another Musings + Coffee post on a Monday.

This weekend has been crazy, so you’ll have to excuse my lack of blogging. In the last 72 hours, I have experienced — in no particular order — a concert, a dead car battery, 24,000 steps worth of Chicago, and a missed mandatory class. Once I get to the OOTD posts from these last few days, I’ll go into more detail, but suffice to say, I’ve been busy.

Somehow, though, it seems I managed to fit in some flatlay photography for one of these posts. Keyword — some. This isn’t the most cohesive set of photos I’ve ever posted on this blog (save the first two, which are clearly from the same set of my bullet journal), but I like them all for their individual merits. And I did indeed get some really good photos this weekend; it’s just that they’re unrelated. I hope you can forgive me.

Apart from the bullet journal photos, I’ve also got this from picture from my plant class that I thought turned out really well. Our homework is to go out and collect and identify plant samples — how cool is that? It’s probably one of my favorite classes at the moment because it’s low-stress, it’s a subject that interests me, and it’s fun. Compare that to my Russian Lit class, which is high-stress, not interesting, and not much fun, and it’s easy to see how an outdoors botany class would speak to me for this semester.

Plus, I like plants. I’ll have to give you guys an update on my dorm plants soon — since I’m in a new dorm room this year, I guess you’ll have to see the updated configuration. We had some tragic losses (RIP my rose moss seedlings), but we’ve also had some new additions to the family.

The weekend concluded with this really lovely sunset over the Golden Dome, which I had the pleasure of watching out a library window. Sort-of. I wasn’t actually able to secure a coveted window seat myself to watch the whole thing, but I walked by the window multiple times so I could catch it — probably thoroughly annoying the person who was actually sitting by the window in the process.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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!

Monday Musings + Coffee – Rebranding and September 2018 Bullet Journal Spread

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This is it — Saturday Musings + Coffee is no more!

I’ve come to the conclusion that I just can’t be trusted to keep up with consistent slice-of-life flatlay posts. Believe it or not, I find flatlay photography much more difficult than fashion photography. For me, at least, it takes a lot more effort to hunt down enough cutesy “little things,” and then a good clean background (there are surprisingly few white tables at Notre Dame) for a flatlay post than the effort to put on a cute outfit and get someone to take a picture of it. I’m going to put on clothes anyway, so it doesn’t take much more to take some photos of the outfit, but I have to go out of my way to do flatlay pictures. Believe me, my life is never as well-organized or simplistic as these photos portray.

But don’t worry — I’m not getting rid of the Musings + Coffee lifestyle posts. I don’t think I can keep up with weekly Saturday posts, but I do want to continue the spirit of them. That’s why today’s post is called “Monday Musings” — because it’s Monday, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be restricted to an arbitrary weekly blog post system that revolves around one day. From now on, I’ll do Musings + Coffee posts when I feel like it, regardless of the day of the week.

What a novel concept.

Speaking of novel concepts, happy September! I can’t believe August is already over — this time last month, I was still living in Kentucky with my parents and going to work in Frankfort. Now I’m back in school, and life moves at a completely different pace and rhythm.

As for September’s bullet journal spread, I decided to focus it around Notre Dame fall football (with some Charlie Brown characters thrown in for added flavor), since we’ve got three home games this month. Honestly, the constant football is kind-of exhausting. Love thee Notre Dame and stuff, but I’ll be pretty relieved when I can finally have a Saturday to rest and just do homework.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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!

Saturday Musings + Coffee – Back At It and August 2018 Bullet Journal Spread

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Hoo boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve written one of these!

It’s not that these Saturday Musings posts are that hard to write, but the photography for them is a little more challenging, admittedly, than an OOTD post. I don’t want my flatlays to get repetitive, so I don’t want to keep using the same objects and backgrounds over and over again. But I only have so many objects that I can sit atop a white sheet and make them look cute, you know?

I do have new spread in my bullet journal to show off though, so I figured that was some solid content deserving of a post.

It took me a ridiculous number of hours to get this month’s spread looking like it does. Why did August take so much longer than usual? Well…because I never finished July.

A solid chunk of July for me was spent in Nepal, which meant a solid chunk of July was spent doing things like talking about religion and modernity and finding ancient temples and not doodling in my journal. I’m committed enough to my bullet journal that I want it to be pretty and complete, but not committed enough that I want to designate time necessarily every day in order to write in it so it can be pretty and complete. As a result, I often wind up having to fill in days and events that have already passed, which I guess you could argue defeats the purpose of even using it as a planner.

Okay, so maybe my bullet journal is more of a log of past events than a planner of future ones. Whatever, I’m going to make it look cute and aesthetic either way.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. 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!

May 7, 2018 – On The First Day of Finals (OOTD #280)

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My university gave to me…a week full of anxiety!

I hope I haven’t used that as an opening/blog title before. I know I definitely used it as a caption last year around Christmastime at winter finals, but I don’t think I’ve used it in a real blog. Apologies if I have.

Anyway, these shots are from the first day of finals week for spring semester, and I must say — this set was definitely worse than last. Last semester, I had a nice balance of papers and exams, and the only major term paper I had was due before finals even began, so I had plenty of time to prepare and even relax a little before dipping for the semester.

Not so much this time — I had plenty of stuff due before finals week, and then even more due during finals week. It was no fun.

I may look sunny and cheery here, but I definitely was not on that Monday. I had nothing due that day, and no exams to sit for, but an obscene amount of work to do. I spent all day in the basement of the student center, which is about as soul sucking as any location at ND is.

Add on the fact that everyone there was also preparing for finals, and it was even more soul sucking than usual.

I ended up hanging out in the basement for 9 hours. I am never doing that again. I was with a friend, so I kind of felt pressured to sit there in that booth for hour after hour, but like I said, it was awful. I like to move around a lot while I work and take breaks to stretch my legs, but I pretty much just sat there the whole time. I got some good work done, but it honestly wasn’t worth the headache.

#neveragain

jacket: Ralph Lauren

Top: H&M

Shorts: H&M

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

Published on by lensembledujour3 Comments

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