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May 25, 2018 – Flower Clocks and Frankfort (OOTD #291)

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You ever have one of those experiences where you think something exists, but you aren’t positive if it’s real or if you imagined it?

For me, that was this flower clock in Frankfort, Kentucky. I thought I remembered reading about it a long time ago while doing research into things to do in Kentucky (spoiler alert: there’s not a lot), but no one I ever mentioned it to knew what I was talking about.

It was never something I cared enough about to Google to confirm its existence, so for many years, I pretty much just forgot about it. I figured I’d made it up, or otherwise, it was somewhere other than Kentucky, and since I never had any reason to go to Frankfort, I never bothered to search for it.

That was until I began my internship in Frankfort — now, I’m there every week, so the mysterious elusive flower clock was on my mind again. I figured, maybe I’d come across it one day, or otherwise, go searching for it sometime after work — you know, not really something I would actively search for or think about, but if it happened to be convenient to check out sometime, I would.

Interestingly, it wasn’t even me who found it. It was my dad. He came to pick me up from work, and I asked him to take some OOTD pictures for me before we left for home. I suggested some potted flowers outside of the Capitol building to serve as the background, but my dad said he had something better in mind. We got out of the car, walked about two minutes away from the Capitol building, and…

There it was! The mystical flower clock of my dreams!

Truth be told, it wasn’t that great. It’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, but there were a lot less…flowers than I thought there would be. There were really only one kind of purple ones concentrated around the middle. It was cooler as a giant raised clock than as a floral arrangement.

Mostly, though, I was just excited to find out that the flower clock was real. Now, on to prove the existence of Sasquatch.

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!

Jacket & skirt: Forever21

Top: H&M

May 23, 2018 – Sweet Southern Heat (OOTD #289)

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iPhone X photos are weird.

Sometimes, the image quality and lighting is gorgeous — all those ads that show amateur photographers taking beautiful portrait-mode works of art are perfectly accurate to how it actually works. And sometimes, the images are grainy and barely any better than what I got on my old iPhone 4.

I’m exaggerating a little, of course — the worst iPhone X photos are still much better than my iPhone 4 photos. It is interesting though, how much variation there is in the photos I get. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re so-so.

Anyway, I feel like these are a little more so-so, which is too bad, given how much I like the outfit. It’s bright and colorful and cheery, just like a good summer (spring, technically, I guess — though it doesn’t much feel like it with how hot it is) outfit should be.

Speaking of which, this weather is not making me cheery. I complain about this every summer I spend in Kentucky, but it’s horrifically humid here, and I am not a fan. It makes me miss the Notre Dame snow, which I probably also complained about.

I’ll be interested to see how I handle the heat of Nepal later this summer when I go with my school. Apparently it’s monsoon season, which sounds to me like even more hot and even more humid.  It’s amazing that I’m from southern China and grew up in the southern United States, because I cannot handle the humidity at all.

I’m a wimp, what can I say.

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!

Jacket: Zara

Dress: Lilly Pulitzer

May 18, 2018 – That’s Capital, Governor (OOTD #284)

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I’m very proud of this title.

See, because I’m visiting the Capitol building in Kentucky (capital? capitol? I’m pretty sure it’s an “o” because it’s a legislative building, but I could be wrong) and that’s also where the Governor’s office is. And it’s a play on “capita,” as a adjective, and “governor” as…a thing that old timey people say in movies.

Anyway, I visited the Capitol building in Frankfort the other day in order to begin orientation for my internship at the Secretary of State’s office. Or, I was supposed to — they ended up pushing my orientation until the next week, but I was already all prepared to go, so I ended up driving there anyway to make sure I knew where I was going.

I hadn’t been there since I was in 5th grade as a part of a field trip, but I’m pretty sure that’s just about every Kentucky student’s experience. Frankfort’s cool, but there’s no reason really to go unless you’re touring the government buildings.

Anyway, my dad and I wound up in Frankfort with nothing in particular to do after we found where the building I was going to be working was, so I got some pictures and then we went to lunch. It was a nice, relaxing day.

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!

Coat: Juicy Couture

Shirt: Forever21

Pants: The LOFT

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

March 3, 2018 – Farmers’ Market Fashion (OOTD #237)

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Oops…so it’s been a while.

Ironically, in my last blog post (well…not the last — but the second-to-last) , I said something along the lines of, “don’t worry, I’ll have a nice long blog post for you tomorrow!” And then, not only did I not have a long blog post, but I didn’t post a blog at all!

For three days.

I don’t typically have long periods of time between blog posts, so I guess three days isn’t the worst. I’m usually pretty good at posting consistently here, so here’s to hoping that I’m able to keep up my schedule for the rest of the year?

The other day, about a week before I left for spring break (so, a week before this blog was posted) some people in my section from my dorm all went on an outing to the South Bend Farmers’ Market. I don’t believe I’ve ever gone to a farmers’ market, but after what I saw on Saturday, I would 100% go again.

Maybe I was just really excited to see things that were for sale for money other than Flex Points or Domer Dollars, but it seemed like a nice little market they had set up. If I were rich enough to buy my produce locally every week, I could definitely see myself going with some friends on a Saturday morning, picking up our groceries, and then stopping somewhere for brunch.

Like I said, if I were rich. As it is, I bought one pound of grapes and that about wiped out my bank account, so I’m going to have to stick to every once in a while for now.

It was fun to get off campus, though. I think I’d been stuck at Notre Dame for about eight straight weeks when I finally got out for this little field trip, and I was definitely craving it.

We came across this little tea and spices shop, and the colors were just so delightful I couldn’t help but ask to get some pictures with it. I love a good background, so even on days where I don’t usually do OOTDs, like Saturdays, I’ll make an exception if I see a colorful, well-lit environnement. Lord knows I don’t always get those at school.

Top: Zara

Jeans: Abercrombie

Scarf: American Eagle

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

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

September 9, 2017 – One Point (OOTD #108)

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Since these blogs are on like, a week delay, I guess you already know – we lost to Georgia by one point.

It’s fine, like, I don’t even mind. I hadn’t even necessarily expected us to win. It hurt I guess, since we were winning there, up until the final quarter…but it’s fine. I don’t get invested in football.

It was a little unfortunate, though, because I have a friend at UGA, and I told her with conviction that the Irish were going to win. Of course, when that didn’t happen, she took every opportunity to rub it in my face….but it’s fine.

Anyway! My outfit: I didn’t crawl out of my my cave until about 5:00 in the evening because I had so much work to do, so I didn’t have a ton of time to get ready. In the end, I went for m’y ND football jersey (which I’ve worn on two separate occasions already during the time I’ve had this blog), and my new ND baseball hat. And if you’re wondering, yes, I did have pants on – they were running shorts that were covered by the jersey.

In the end, I didn’t have much time for tailgating, but I didn’t mind. I had tried the whole tailgating scene the last home game, and it just wasn’t my style. Maybe it was because I don’t have any family who tailgates here, but mostly, “tailgating” for me just involved walking around and looking at the people tailgating.

As for the homework I was doing that took so long, I didn’t even have that much work, actually – I was just really enjoying having the entire 7th floor of the library to myself. I spread out all my crap over the table, opened a bag of potato chips without being embarrassed, and sneezed loudly and as frequently as I wanted. It was heaven.

The game on the other hand, was not heaven. It was a lot of fun, yes, but of course, we lost. Not even the cheeseburger I ate afterwards could make me feel better.And now, we have a few weeks until the next game. Personally, I’m grateful – I’ve had quite enough of Notre Dame’s football culture for a while. My last few weekends have been absolutely exhausting, and I’m looking forward to actually being able to relax for once on Saturday.

Ah, who am I kidding? I never get to relax. What college student ever relaxes?

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: Notre Dame bookstore

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

August 3, 2017 – Schoolhouse Rock (OOTD #81)

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Guess what? There’s only one outfit in this blog post!

That doesn’t, however, mean that there are going to be any less photos for this one. Why?

Well, after a nice, long day hanging out with Jane involving walking around not one, but two separate malls and having Starbucks iced coffees at both of them like the basic (practically) white girl that I am, we decided to drop by my old elementary school, Liberty.

Some history about Liberty Elementary – it was constructed back in 1923 as a little one room schoolhouse, and was, if I’m not mistaken, the oldest school in the Oldham County school district until its 2015 closing. In fact, Jane’s grandmother even attended there, and of course, I did as well, from 2005-2010.

It was a nice little school, and I have a lot of fond memories from there, including winning a dance-off against a girl I didn’t like in first grade, accidentally breaking the finger of a boy I had a crush on while playing four square, and pretending to be a cat for like, a solid week in kindergarten.

So it was very nice when Jane agreed to hang out at the now abandoned Liberty Elementary that evening, even though she doesn’t really have the nostalgia for it that I do. It’s getting a little creepy and run down-looking, and the fact that it was getting dark by the time we got there didn’t help.

But you can’t really be afraid of the school that you went to as a kid, can you? Sure, the random hallways that still lit (emergency lights I guess?) and the giant X over the door of the playground entrance were kinda spooky, but I knew this place, and so the spookiness didn’t hit me that hard.

You could say that we weren’t exactly supposed to be there…especially given the signs that said “No trespassing” (in both English and Spanish, as Jane pointed out to me), but we caused no harm, and we didn’t even go in. There was no way to, actually, even if we’d really wanted to – the doors and windows were all locked.

How do I know that? I might’ve checked a few…or something. Not because I wanted to see inside, of course – just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any rain getting in, right?

Eventually, Jane got tired of me walking in circles and snapping photos of every other door and peering in every third window, so she went off to sit in the car. And since she was kind enough to entertain me for even that long, walking around some creepy old building that she probably didn’t care about, I soon followed.

I would definitely go back though! Maybe in daylight, for some clearer photos…and maybe with a crowbar…

I’m kidding, of course.

I’ll see you in the next one! 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!