Fashion Show Fever

In Women's Wear, everyone had to design from a theme. This term the theme was travel. It was a great theme and everyone took it down a different road. I chose to create a work about love and distance to help deal with my emotional turmoil. My piece focuses on the romanticized Pigeon Post. All the textual components are related to my love for Jake. The envelope cloak has his address and all the post stamps have dates that have importance to us. The dress is actually a love letter I wrote to him. I designed the entire garment -- my first time draping a form. On the cloak, I applied all the feathers, created the large stamps, hand lettered the address, and created all the stencils for the post office stamps. I Also hand wrote the text on the dress and created the seal from a concoction of Silicone and some other materials




Overall, I think it was a success and my model was awesome.

Conquered.

YAH!!!

After weeks of misery, I have finished my first term here at AIU. It all ended with a fashion show. As a surprise to me, my piece was the finale (best of show) piece. I was walking on air afterwards and it made it all worth it. I wish you all could have seen it and partied with me afterward. Instead, I walked home alone and finished up some last class work before heading to bed early (a luxury for me).

Since classes have ended, I feel like a world of hell has been lifted from my shoulder. I feel calm and collected, energetic and normalized. I am so excited about taking a break from this to come home and see everyone I love.

Also, with this new time I have on my hands, yesterday I decided to go to Stonehenge. It was great to be out in the country with the sheep and grass. It smelled honey sweet and clean. It was also a sunny 68 degrees out so I was getting my healthy dose of Vitamin D. We also stopped up in Bath for the afternoon. It was gorgeous out and the Roman baths were beautiful. The water was a warm algae color and the sun casting down on the golden hued bath stones and pools – serene. After the baths, we walked to get some lunch. I had a kangaroo burger. Then we hopped the bus home. The best part was seeing the amazing English country side. Hills of crop hills and small woods hiding tiny ancient villages with clay-tile roofed houses and stucco walls. So romantic and surreal. I have a weeks to chill out and relax before I head to tour France and Italy then home. I will see you all very soon.

Pause, Paris, Resume

At the beginning of the term, I bought a trip through the school to Paris for a Textile trade show called Premier Vision. I did not realize at the time the amount of work I have now and how I would rather work on it and not leave my apartment but I can't just not go. So Friday morning we (a large obnoxious group of American Sorostitutes and a few people I am friends with) boarded the chunnel train and headed south. After settling into our hotel rooms, I headed out to the first place we all do when in Paris; the cemetery. After wandering around for a good while we learned the Catacomes were closed until may. The actual cemetery was fantastic though.

After the cemetery, we grabbed a beer, and then a kir (I don't really know how to spell it but it sounds like that). It is a glass of white wine with a shot of currant liquor. Then we had some yummy dinner and two bottles of wine.. mind you my teachers are buying all the liquor and in effect are getting me trashed. Then we headed to the Eiffel Tower. While in line a pick-pocket behind me became 20 euro richer. Breathtakingly touristy for sure but what a view.

Later it was finally my favorite part of the trip (not because the trip was bad -- because I love them that much), BATH TIME!! If you know me well you know I cannot relax without a bathtub. Thats 2.5 months of pent-up stress from not having bathtub soothed away in a foamy warm Megan soup. The next day we went to Premier Vision. This is a trade show for all designers from Haute Couture to those of Walmart. Very informational and interesting. After that was shopping and a walk in the Artists quarter; my favorite part of Paris.

I tried some Mussels for dinner and had another bath. The next day we visited the Louve and Notre Dame and hopped back on the train. Back to the Chaos.

In a pinch

One of the greatest things about living in London is learning to use a fun discriptive words.

School has been a hellish nightmare here. The end of term is in sight but I have to walk barefoot on hot coals carrying an elephant to get there. I thought I was all on track then my instructor started talking about all these other side projects we were supposed to be working on. I couldn't believe it. I thought he must have been mistaken but a quick look in the syllabus and there they are. Oh well, best to get crackin'. I will need a huge pot of coffee and maybe a couple caffeine pills.

The View

Something that struck me when I arrived here were their eyes. There are so many familar and old eyes.
First are My stolen eyes: It has always seemed to me that I have a slightly less-than-usual shade of blue eyes. However, every so often I will come up on someone along the street here with the same shade and it stops me dead in my tracks, mouth agape. It seems like I am looking right into my own eyes in the mirror. It is the strangest feeling; I can't explain it exactly; unsettling, curious, like being reminiscient about something that I never experienced in the first place.
Then there are familiar eyes. Eyes that I feel like I know and have known forever. Today I was watching TV and I saw these eyes that looked just exactly like my dad's, exactly. It struck me so that I had to post about it immediately. It makes me seriously think about heritage, lineage, and familial connection. I see them everyday on the street; Eyes that I recognize and that seem to recognize me back but it is impossible. Am I historically connected to these eyes? Have I known them generations before now? or is it strictly coincidence?
I also see so many people that could be siblings of kalamazoo kids. I have never been around such a mass of people who were so eerily familiar but total strangers. Has anyone who has been to Europe felt this way?

A closed door at the end of the tunnel

Well, after a day of bureaucratic visits, my hopes of escaping my current situation were squashed. Not just squashed, trampled by a stampeding herd of academic advisors. So can I go home? Leave this aweful place? (response: not if you want to graduate). Ok, so now that option was no longer, I tried many many ways to ease my troubles here such as... maybe taking fewer classes (That was a big no on WMU side). Or take one of the classes I had this semester again next semester for practice (also a big no). Or talking to the dean of AIU about offering the classes I need.. (ah.... no). Or maybe I could do an internship? (AH HA HA NO). What about transfering to another AIU branch near to home (OH you mean Los Angeles... yeah... actually no). Ok, so I guess I will just stay here, load up in classes and loans, then suffer suffer suffer. Who knows, maybe I will grow to like it second term. I apparently have no choice. I have resolved to enjoy myself and try to get out to do the things I really want to do here like visit the country side, head out to Ireland for a few days and see stonehenge. I will make the best of it. The thing I am most looking forward to right now is coming home for spring break. YAY!

Four weeks and counting...

This week.
Thanksgivin' with the girls
Wayne and Danielle popped up in London
Saw The Kills
School work, school work, school work.
Then came a decision. One that you all have heard before...

"Should I stay or should I go" (duh duh di duh dah duh doh)

Here it is. I came to London because it is required by WMU. WMU does not have upper level fashion classes and so they send us all off and we foot the bill. Smart of WMU. So..do they have advanced fashion classes here, you bet, but do they offer them when I am studying here? I was told "Why, yes, those classes will definitely be offered". GREAT! Then came registration time. Uh oh, where are all those needed classes? Not available this semester, sorry! There are a whole lot of 3 classes offered that I can take and one would be a repeat of something I have had at western and the other two are subjects I am not particularly interested in. I am paying out GOBS of money to come out here and I am getting disappointed. What is up with study abroad being so lame this year? I don't know if I should draw my losses come home to the fashion capital that is KALAMZOO (echo echo echo) or if I should spend the 15,000 it would cost to stay here to take classes I could just as easily do at home or live without. A conundrum indeed.