winter – Page 4 – L'ensemble du jour

December 20, 2019 – Punk Goes Christmas (OOTD #591)

Published on February 14, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

You know someone loves you when they agree they do something they hate with you.

My mother hates the mall at Christmastime. In general, she’s not really a mall person during the regular season because she doesn’t like the crowds — so you can imagine why she avoids them when they’re packed with last-minute Christmas shoppers.

But I do like the mall at Chirstmastime. I like crowds, to a certain extent — I don’t like being packed like sardines on a hot summer day on the subway, but most crowds, like concerts or busy streets or malls at Christmastime, I’m actually rather fond of. I think they’re energizing, and I like people-watching, I like thinking about where all of the people are going and what they’re doing with their lives.

A few days before Christmas, my mother agreed to take a Friday off from work to spend time with me and do some shopping. I had a few Christmas gifts still to pick up, as well as an Express gift card to spend for a collaboration. She wanted to spend time with me, so she was lovely enough to come along — and also to drive me, since I don’t have a car to go on my own.

Mothers are nice like that. She didn’t even mind being seen in public with me with my ripped jeans and fishnets. I really looked the part of a rebellious teenager (though I guess I’m two years removed from my teenage years) dragging her mom along with her to the mall.

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 winter break in Kentucky. 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: Thrift

Turtleneck: Express

Jeans: Hot Topic

December 18, 2019 – Friendship is Magic (OOTD #590)

Published on February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Not to be all sentimental, but the 2010 children’s series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was truly worthy of its status as a cultural phenomenon.

Oh, and my friends are cool too.

Every year after we’ve all finished with classes and exams, my friends and I have a tradition of going out to see all of the neighborhood Christmas lights in Lexington. It’s a really great way to catch up after we’ve all been spread out across the country (or sometimes, across the world) because it gives us a reason to just drive around, play music, and talk about how much the city’s changed since we were last there.

Despite all of the new housing developments and buildings that seem to be being constructed, one thing that never seems to change in Lexington is this “God Bless America” house. Every year, this one particular household with a lot of money and a lot of time puts up a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-worthy display of decorations. It’s one we’ve visited in the past — in fact, if you want to see the blog from 2019 when we visited the same house, you can check it out here. Look how short my hair was back then!

It’s always nice to have people I can return to back in Lexington to hang out with. We don’t get to see each other every single break (and I won’t be getting to see them for several months this spring, seeing as I’ll be studying abroad in Paris and not coming back to the States), but we make an effort to try to meet up — usually at a Waffle House — when we can. Each time, someone has a new story to tell, which means we can talk for hours without running out of things to say.

I love my friends on campus whom I get to say every day (or, I used to get to see every day — not so much anymore since I’ve decided to spend all of junior year off campus), but I think there’s something special about friends you only get to see once in a while. Since your time together is more limited, you tend to make the time you do have more significant.

Jacket: A vintage shop in Budapest

Sweater: Talbot’s (thrifted, Goodwill)

Skirt: The LOFT (thrifted, Goodwill)

December 8, 2019 – And It Was All Yellow (OOTD #589)

Published on February 11, 2020March 4, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Hey, have I told you about my favorite color yet?

If you couldn’t guess from literally everything about this outfit, it’s yellow. My favorite color is yellow.

Yellow is such a powerful color. It’s the least saturated of the primary colors, making it one of the most difficult to mix with (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to make a form of orange and wound up with tomato red because of how saturated red is), but it’s also the brightest. Yellow makes a statement.

I’m so glad yellow is in style again. I don’t know the last time in my life I owned this much yellow clothing; I used to hate it as a color. For a while, I thought I couldn’t wear it because I was Asian, and then I thought it was too bright and baby-ish for me as a teenager.

Now I realize the error of my ways, and I’m happy to wear as much yellow as possible to make up for all of those yeaKatrs of refusing to wear it. Do you think this outfit gets the point across?

After I got home from Washington DC, my family had several celebrations all in a row — the first, my birthday, which took place on November 1, and which I’d not been home for. Then, there was Thanksgiving, which I celebrated in Philadelphia with my uncles just one weekend before I flew back home to Kentucky. Then, there was Christmas.

These photos are from the very first of our celebrations — my birthday. In DC, I went out to dinner with the other students from my program and then I went clubbing with one of my Berkeley roommates, but none of those are the same as just getting a nice Sunday lunch with my parents and grandmother.

For one, none of the people in DC gave me any gifts — and from my parents, I got this lovely Kate Spade tote bag with a map of New York City, which, guess what, has yellow accents!

Dress: A boutique on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem

Bag: Kate Spade

December 6, 2019 – Farewell, DC (OOTD #588)

Published on February 10, 2020February 27, 2020 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

My semester in DC felt like my shortest semester of university yet.

To be fair, I think it literally was — because it was administered through the University of California and not Notre Dame, my schedule turned out a little differently than a regular ND semester, and I wound up finishing classes and my internship about two weeks before everyone back on campus.

But the actual timing aside, in terms of personal lived experience, this semester just flew by, especially the second half. I’ve discussed this a little already, but after my 21st birthday weekend, the whole semester really picked up, and things improved exponentially. The first half of the semester, from September to October, was kind of a drag. It was hot and miserable and I felt like I hadn’t made any good friends to do things with. Then, come mid-late October, the weather cooled down, I finished up my domestic violence liaison trainings at the MPD that had been taking up several hours each week, and I finally established a solid group of friends. After that, everything turned around.

I think each weekend after my 21st birthday, I had something fun to do — the following weekend, Jane visited, then Mariana visited, then it was Thanksgiving, then the semester was over. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun.

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file under: photos that almost make me look like i have black hair again

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on Feb 23, 2020 at 5:47am PST

The Friday of my last day of work and my last day of the semester, my friends and I treated ourselves to a nice dinner to celebrate the end of it all. In preparation for my upcoming semester in Paris, I chose a French restaurant called Le Diplomate. Then, we headed to the Smithsonian National Zoo for their Christmas lights show.

The zoo was one of the sites in DC that I had wanted to visit all semester, but that I hadn’t gotten around to. And in an almost poetic manner, when I finally did visit, it was my last night in DC.

It was a nice way to say goodbye to the city. I got to spend time with my friends, enjoy the lights, and relax knowing that all of my work for the semester was done. Even though it was a short semester, it was a productive one. It was my first time working a full-time politics-related job, my first time living in an apartment, my first time cooking for myself every day, and my first time living in a real American city. I know what I experienced in DC wasn’t full-blown independent adult life — I still had the help of my family and university to support me — but I think it was the closest I’d been up until that point.

And you know what? I think I did an okay job.

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 Washington, DC. 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!

Cape: Vintage (thrifted, Street Scene Vintage)

Blouse: A boutique at a mall in Kathmandu, Nepal

Skirt: Abercrombie

December 2, 2019 – Legally Blonde (OOTD #587)

Published on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by lensembledujour1 Comment

I guess dreams really do come true, sometimes.

Attending a session of Supreme Court oral arguments has always been on my bucket list. I attribute it to the Schoolhouse Rock song about the three branches of US government, “Three Ring Government.” I had a DVD box set of all of the old School House Rock songs, and that, along with “No More Kings” and “Telegraph Line,” (and probably a dozen more songs whose titles I can’t remember right now), I would play on repeat. This was before I had YouTube or Spotify — or even an iPod or MP3 player — so the only way I could listen to the songs was by playing the DVDs on my big square television in my room.

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let it be known to the world that we saw rbg with our own eyes and she is alive and well

A post shared by Meilin Scanish (@meilin_scanish) on Dec 8, 2019 at 11:51am PST

Just describing that makes me feel old. I know I’m not even that old, but the fact that I am now able to describe how life “used to be” makes me feel like my parents.

Anyway, I attribute my early interest in politics and government (and to a slightly lesser extent, US history) to Schoolhouse Rock. I loved that box set — in fact, I bet I still have it in a drawer somewhere in my parents’ house. I got a weird sense of superiority from knowing the three branches of government and basic early US history before all of my other classmates. I was never one to raise my hand much in class, but just knowing that I knew how the balance of power at the federal level worked while other kids didn’t made me feel special.

That’s not to say those feelings of superiority were good feelings, or that I still have them. But they did inspire me to take more interest in government and politics — an interest that died off in middle and high school and was really only renewed after the 2016 election. And just as importantly, they inspired me to consider a career in law for the first time.

I never dreamt of being president — I’m not a natural born citizen, so that’s never been an option for me. I did take some smug satisfaction from telling adults who tried to be inspiring with that even YOU could become President one day propaganda that I literally could not due to centuries-old irrelevant laws, but that’s beside the point. What I did dream of becoming was a Supreme Court Justice.

And no — the dream I referenced in the opening sentence of this blog that came true was not becoming a Supreme Court Justice (yet) — it was simply getting to visit the Supreme Court and observe oral arguments. I had visited the building earlier in the semester for a tour, but the season hadn’t yet begun, so we didn’t get to watch a case unfold.

My friend, Joanna, and I got there at 6AM for doors that weren’t due to open until 10AM. By the time we had gotten there, there was already a line snaking halfway down the street. From our online research, we’d found that they typically only allow in around 50-60 people; from a preliminary headcount, we were in spaces 55 and 56.

We had a mini-panic attack around 8 or 9am when they let in the first round of people to get out of the cold, and they cut off at fives spaces ahead of us — at number 50 exactly. We knew the number of people they let in each session varied, but we were afraid that maybe they would just cut it off at 50, and we were going to have been literally a few people away from being let in. We decided to stick it out though, hoping that they would let more people in just before 10am.

Turns out, they did. There was some speculation for that first case we went to hear (New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs the City of New York) might end up being a landmark 2nd amendment ruling. Though it became fairly clear that, due to the law that was up for debate being revoked before the appeal made it to the Supreme Court, there’d be no guns rights showdown like some people hoped, I still think they knew it would be a case that a lot of people would want to hear, so perhaps that’s why we got in even after the first round cutoff.

Despite the fact that the case didn’t end up being a big deal in the gun control vs. gun rights debate (protesters showed up anyway — some with free coffee, which Joanna and I much appreciated after standing outside for four hours) it was still fun to watch. I’ll admit, I was a little starstruck seeing the Justices in person, even from the very back of the room. I wasn’t allowed to take any photos inside the chamber, but even if I could, you’d probably only be able to see a blurry image of RBG scowling and Clarence Thomas slumping in his seat, bored out of his mind.

The second case — something about copyright law — was less exciting. Justice Thomas and I definitely nodded off a few times.

I’m so glad I got to go though. Getting no sleep the night before, waiting outside for four hours, panicking when we thought we had just missed the cutoff, and then going to work after it all for three hours in the afternoon — it was all worth it, in my opinion. Honestly, it was possibly one of my favorite things I did the whole DC semester.

Jacket: Banana Republic

Blouse: Banana Republic

Sweater: Aeropostale

Trousers: The LOFT

March 7, 2019 – Out of My League (OOTD #467)

Published on April 22, 2019August 12, 2019 by lensembledujour2 Comments

I’m not really a baseball hat person, but I’m willing to reconsider.

For one, I’ve never played baseball in my entire life. No, I’m not kidding — I’ve just literally never played it, not even in gym class.

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A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour)

Softball, sure — once or twice in high school P.E. Kickball, absolutely — all through elementary, middle, and high school. I actually twisted my ankle once playing kickball, and I hate it now for it. But baseball, with an actual baseball and a baseball bat and a full team — nope.

I imagine though that a lot of women are in the same place as me. Girls typically play on softball teams, and it’s softball that’s taught in gym class. Baseball is a sport you really have to seek out. Given how much specific equipment is needed for a game, at least in comparison to other games that kids like to play, like basketball or soccer, for me growing up, baseball was a rare game to see played outside of actual Little League teams.

And you know what? I really don’t regret it. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything in my childhood or my experience of American culture by having not played baseball. I played softball once or twice, and I hated that (nothing ever happens! You spend the majority of your time either sitting in the dugout or standing in the outfield!), so I can’t imagine that baseball would truly be any different.

So I feel kind of fake whenever I wear a baseball hat, which is funny, because I don’t have the same experience when I wear a football jersey or a military jacket. Baseball hats feel somehow different though, and I’m not sure why.

This isn’t even my own baseball hat. It’s my friend, Lan Anh’s. Ironically, she never wears baseball hats either, despite owning many. Perhaps she shares my baseball hat complex.

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!

Top: Lan Anh’s closet

Hat: Also Lan Anh’s closet (thanks Lan Anh)

Jeans: J. Crew (thrifted, Clothes Mentor)

March 6, 2019 – By The Lockers (OOTD #466)

Published on April 21, 2019September 6, 2019 by lensembledujour3 Comments

Oh look, I’m two months behind now.

Will my blog ever get caught back up again? Maybe not, as long as I’m a stressed college student trying to balance her multitude of assignments that for some reason, all seem to be due at the same time. I’m normally pretty good for a few weeks at a time, and then school life hits me like a truck and I find that that’s all I can focus on for a period.

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everyone needs a turquoise blazer

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on Apr 20, 2019 at 5:18am PDT

But it’s finally Easter break, and so I have a little time to relax. A little. Easter falls late in the academic year this year, and so once school is back in session on Tuesday, we have only two weeks left of class before finals. The school year’s almost over. I’m almost a junior; I can’t believe it.

These pictures go so far back that they were taken before spring break, which fell in mid-March. Funnily, I think I was in basically the same headspace back in early March as I am now in late-April. The time right before spring break and right before Easter break tends to be super busy, and so I’m not uncomfortable saying that the Meilin of March 5 isn’t really all that different from the one of April 21 — which is to say, they’re both kind of tired and in need of a break.

Not to jinx things (knock on wood), but I’m hoping I won’t have an awful finals week this year. Last spring finals week was pretty painful (I spent nine hours in a basement one day, it was awful). This time, though, it looks like the weeks leading up to finals will be awful, but then actual finals week itself will be okay. I only have one final to sit for and a short reflection paper due during that actual week; here’s to hoping that that means my suffering will be over relatively soon.

Jacket: Banana Republic

Blouse: Anthropologie

Skirt: Abercrombie

March 5, 2019 – Sporty (OOTD #465)

Published on April 4, 2019August 12, 2019 by lensembledujourLeave a comment

What’s up with the recent sports-themed posts on this blog?

I swear, I’m not going through a sports phase, or anything of the sort. This isn’t going to transform into a health blog all of a sudden. I think it’s just been a coincidence.

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if i wear bright colors, maybe i can convince the sun to come out in south bend for once

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on Mar 23, 2019 at 8:00am PDT

Ironically, for how sporty this outfit looks, it would actually be horrible to work out in. The shirt I think it like a boys’ medium, so it’s a little tight around my neck and and my chest. And the skirt is…well, a skirt. You can’t really do much in those.

I mean, that’s how athleisure works, though, right? It’s supposedly able to be worn either to the gym or in casual life — but I’m pretty sure that’s not what happens 90% of the time. I have leggings that look sporty, but that I definitely wouldn’t actually work out in.

You’ll also notice that I’m bringing the yellow motif back again! I’m serious about trying to get more yellow into my wardrobe. After my realization that I can actually wear yellow — after years of thinking I couldn’t — I’ve been making an effort to wear it more now. I think this outfit accomplishes that goal, no?

Though the astute observer will notice that something’s off — the three yellows I’m wearing are all different shades! I think they’re far enough apart that they don’t clash, so I let it slide. Ideally, however I probably would not have worn three different versions of yellow.

This is also an example of The Formula 2.0 — the basic skirt-blouse combination that I seem to be favoring a lot recently. I guess this shirt doesn’t really qualify as a blouse, but I think it fits the pattern anyway. I’m getting really predictable now, aren’t I? I have a signature color and a go-to outfit configuration. Next, you’ll be able to predict where I take my photos or what my hair will look like.

Top: Thrifted (Goodwill)

Skirt: Thrifted (Goodwill)

Boots: Ralph Lauren

March 3, 2019 – Il Fait Froid (OOTD #464)

Published on April 3, 2019April 21, 2019 by lensembledujour1 Comment

I’m not going to sit here and complain about the cold — I know it’s annoying — but I will say once that it was snowing while I was taking these photos, and I was not happy about it.

For as cold and windy as winter can be in South Bend, the one good thing is that it makes the spring all the more pleasant. When the snow finally melts and the temperature peaks above 32 degrees, it feels like heaven on Earth. They’ve planted the tulip bulbs on God Quad now; the shoots are just beginning to come up through the soil. I can’t wait.

I think what I miss most during the winter is the plant life. Everything can be so grey and dull during the winter — it’s not really that I miss the sun so much, but that I miss the color. You can kind of see it in these pictures. The grass is visible, but it’s far from vibrant.

I never thought spring fever was real until I went to the Midwest. I used to feel sad when the winter ended; it meant no more snow days and that I’d have to go to school every day until the end of the year (that was, until my senior year, when I started leaving early). Now, I have to go to class every day regardless of the weather (except for that one time this year when windchill hit -45 degrees), so there’s no reason to hope for the winter to drag on. Spring means spring break, Easter, and plants. That’s all I want anymore.

Jacket: Thrifted

Sweater: Forever21

Jeans: Hot Topic

March 2, 2019 – Markets and Mixups (#463)

Published on April 2, 2019October 6, 2019 by lensembledujour3 Comments

It’s been nearly a year since I last went to the South Bend Farmers’ Market.

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A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour)

It’s honestly one of my favorite places to go in South Bend. I mean, farmers’ markets in general are cool, and though I don’t have a lot of other ones that I’ve been to to compare it to, but I think the South Bend Farmers’ Market is something special. For one, it has its own little building by the river, and so vendors are able to actually have permanent booths and displays year-round.

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It also feels more like a flea market more than a farmers’ market — and that’s a good thing! I like flea markets. There are vendors who sell more than just produce — they have vintage books, houseplants, homemade jewelry, and eclectic goods of that nature. It’s my favorite kind of market (excepting, perhaps, a vintage market or an art fair).

Unfortunately, I don’t get to go often. It’s not really within walking or biking distance to campus (and let’s be honest — campus is basically the only thing in walking distance to campus), and so I only ever go when someone else drives me. It was Dads’ Weekend for my dorm, and so one of my friends’ dads offered to take anyone who wanted to go to the market one Saturday morning. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity. Any chance I get to leave campus (especially with an adult who will pay for my food), I take.

Now, I don’t really feel any deep resentment for what I’m about to describe next — I’m sure my friend’s dad didn’t mean to do it. Granted, I don’t think people typically mean to do it, unless they’re purposefully trying to be assholes, but I haven’t really had to deal with that since my 9th grade Civics teacher, who was all kinds of problematic anyway. Nonetheless, it gets under my skin.

While we were loitering around, waiting for my friend to finish looking at a display of organic tea, he asked me how I liked Vietnam.

In case anyone here doesn’t know, I’m not from Vietnam. I’m from China, actually but my other Asian roommate, Lan Anh, is Vietnamese. He’d confused the two of us, something that seems to happen quite often. You can see Lan Anh in this batch of pictures, so you can decide if we really look a like or not, but I’m of the opinion that we don’t. Not enough to justify people constantly confusing us.

For one, she has dark hair and mine is bleach blonde. Like, you’d think that would make things easy for people. How many blonde Asians do you see a day?

What made the difference for me with my friend’s dad — why I’m perturbed but not really with him directly — was how apologetic he was afterwards. I could tell he felt badly, and that he recognized why his mistaking me for Lan Anh implied more than just that he was bad with names. I mind that he confused us, of course — I’m really tired of the all Asians look the same thing — but I appreciate that he was able to acknowledge his mistake. That’s all I want out of people . It’s okay if someone confuses Asian faces or names once or twice — we’re a minority, and people will be less attuned to facial differences if they don’t see us much — but I hope that they make an effort to do better afterwards. There are people I’ve known who have never bothered with that second step — with doing better after they make the initial mistake — and that’s what’s discouraging.

On a side note, I saw Pete Buttigieg and his husband at the breakfast café we went to. I didn’t go up and say hi because I didn’t want to bother him, but it’s cool to see a presidential candidate out and about living life like a normal person.

Top: Forever21

Jacket: Hollister

Skirt: J. Crew (thrifted)