Day 3: Dressing for the Job You Want

One of the events that the commerce school at my college annually held was called "Dressing for the Job You Want". It was always hosted by the local Banana Republic in the evening hours when everyone hypothetically didn't have those hour long discussion classes where participation accounted for 10% of your overall grade. Male and female students alike would show up, grab a mocktail, and wave their measly 15% discounts as if they were proud flags of an oncoming revolution. I remember going to one of these events and walking away with the impression that in order to succeed in life, one must dress like the stuffy neutral colored section of a Banana Republic advertisement. A jacket is required always, accompanied by a smart shirt (blouse for women, because obviously women don't just wear shirts *cough*), and a skirt or well tailored trousers with sensible shoes. Prints and bright colors were reserved for the people with fun, creative jobs in advertising or at non-profits. Hence, I walked into 92% of my interviews dressed as such (except I couldn't afford Banana Republic, so my clearance priced TJ Maxx suit would have to do).

Three years and some credit card bills later, I've found myself draping the likes of J.Crew, Anthropologie, Ann Taylor LOFT, and Marshall's finds on my slightly hunched shoulders. My work wardrobe probably isn't as serious as it should be since I model a lot of my outfits after magazine and television suggestions (bless  Zooey Deschanel, Jayma Mays, and the cast of Mad Men) but I think it clearly defines me as a working professional. There's an edge of seriousness, we are still talking about standard pieces like a work dress or shirt and skirt pairings, but with punches of color and print for an added whimsical effect. Black may be my best color, but it doesn't always represent the way I feel.


Of course, the caveat to my view is that I work outside of the beltway. I know not everyone can do this and sometimes it is absolutely necessary to look put together every single freaking day. I give immense props to bloggers like CapHillStyle and ExtraPetite who maintain that level of polish. Whatever your office dress code may be, just dress for your environment and level of comfort. Don't think you have to look a certain way because some television show says that you should show up to your job in a three piece Italian suit (although I'm sure many would enjoy the exquisite sartorial view). Some federal offices and investment banks require you to be in full professional dress. Blouses with cute little animal prints and neon should maintain a 500 yard distance from those places at all times and some offices may even require the use of *gasp* pantyhose. I think the key thing is to remember that when dressing for work and for life, it's good to dress for the setting but you should never lose who you are.

Day 2: Teaching a dog new tricks

Because of my racial background, most people would look at me and assume that my mother was one of those "tiger moms" who pushed me into grueling practice sessions in front of a piano when I was younger. Don't get me wrong, I do have a tiger mom but when your father is the head cook of a local Chinese restaurant in the not so nice part of town, music lessons cost more than we could afford. Not to mention the two older siblings who were heading to college and had to buy all of those fancy nice smelling textbooks.

Truth is, I've always really wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument. I'm actually one of those sick twisted Asian children who secretly kind of wished my mom had pushed me into doing all of those things. But because my family's financial standings were far from those of Amy Chua, tiger mom or Amy Tan, I never got to go to the piano lessons or the fancy summer advancement camps. I suppose it's only natural now that when I hear a piece on the violin (my string of choice), I kind of wish I could pick up one of them and sway along, to literally pull the strings of my extended heart. It's one thing to hear a song with words and be able to sing them out and another to listen to a beautifully crafted piece of music and not be able to express everything it makes you feel.

In my attempts to be a more well-rounded person and to achieve a life of no regrets, I spent a good part of my evening and morning looking up beginner's violin classes around the DC metro area for adults. You would think that in an area that has the Kennedy Center and celebrates musicians from all around the country, that the options would go on to at least page 3 of Google. But to my surprise, there were only 4 or 5 actual hits for private lessons and Joshua Bell's wikipedia article on his L'Enfant Plaza experiment. I don't know how well I would do in a private lessons setting, I generally like to learn as part of a group. I'm also afraid my debilitating social awkwardness might be the end of me in a one-on-one environment. So far, the place that looks the most promising is the Capitol Hills Art Workshop however, it doesn't look like they have any classes available at the moment. My search continues, but this is one of the things I would really like to do in my life. Perhaps I'll start with that online Guitar class on coursera for now.

166 Days and Counting

Summer vacations in my life meant one of three things, yard work, a trip to Washington D.C., and innumerable hours spent in front of the television in the living room. Fast forward about 18 years, past the rest of the lazy summer days and endless hours of heat and humidity, I am now a 24 year old federal employee working and living in Washington D.C. with no yard to call my own and innumerable hours spent in front of a television set.

When you watch as much television as I do, you start to notice the little scripts in life. Things we should and shouldn't do, the sort of unwritten social code that every seems to follow. It's just as scandalous to abandon a life with a stable paying job to live as a street performer as it is to be romantically entangled with an older man in a symbiotic relationship where one party gets financial assistance and the other gets a fine piece of ass. Things rarely experience drastic changes and if they do, the aftermath lasts just long enough to make people wish for the things they once had.

To be honest, I once scoffed at the idea of a quarter life crisis. For one, it assumes that most of us will live to 100 (which isn't as farfetched as it once was) and two, it assumes that for the past 20-something years, we have been wandering listlessly waiting for things to finally shake up. Will things really change as much as people say? Or will it just be another birthday where I won't even remember to correct myself when I tell someone how old I was last year? Perhaps I'll know by day 167.