Remember when Abercrombie&Fitch approached me to be a store model? It was during my last few weeks of Tokyo, and I didn’t have a work permit, so I sadly had to turn them down.
Well, it looks like I didn’t miss out. The pricey Ivy-League brand didn’t do so hot after opening their first store in the Ginza district of Tokyo! I’m not surprised…
In Tokyo, Abercrombie Misses Its Mark
It’s a really interesting read and definitely reassures my obsession with Forever21 and Uniqlo!
Today I had an interview with a big clothing company…it turned out to be a group interview, which wasn’t that bad. But after seeing how all my business-school friends stressed and strained over what to wear for meeting companies, what to say, how to act…I felt kind of bad that the required attire for this interview was torn jeans and flipflops.
Did I mention it was held in the food court?
Yes, the group interview was not held in a quiet room separate from the store, but instead the large, echoing food court in the mall. Maybe it’s just me, but even though it maintained that casual, easy-going setting…it was pretty hard to hear, and at times I was worried that I wasn’t being heard.
I’m not too worried about how the interview went, except for one thing. The other people in the interview were either fresh out of high school or recently graduated, and they all answered the questions really similarly. I tried to make sure my answers were different – instead of calling myself “friendly, outgoing, relaxed”, I said I was “dedicated” – but I’m worried that I came off as phony or rehearsed.
I’m becoming a youtube fanatic.
To explain, I submitted my portfolio to a small t-shirt company because they were looking for a new spokesmodel. Out of over 450 submissions, I was selected as one of the finalists, and had an interview with the owner on the phone. In the end, I didn’t get it, and I was kind of bummed out, but I did what I could for myself to feel better, and friends chipped in too.
Today, however, I have an interview, and I must say, I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity again to interview with a company where casual clothes is recommended as proper interview attire. Let’s cross our fingers, shall we?
Random “Japan” moment: Last night my boyfriend and I tried a new restaurant that I had heard about from my friend. She said they had just opened last month and their ramen was pretty tasty, so we gave it a shot. I can usually tell who on the staff is Japanese, and most of the people working there definitely said IRASSHAIMASE~ with perfect and natural tone, so I thought to myself, “Well, at least I can order in Japanese here.”
When the waitress – a typical Japanese young woman, slender and cute with hair dyed brown – came to take our order, I asked for two of the special house ramen in Japanese.
You should have seen the look on her face. Her eyes shot up from her notepad to my face, as if to double check where the Japanese-speaking voice was coming from. It was quite hilarious.
It’s been a pretty hectic quarter, and I’m half way done. When I realize I have five weeks left, I don’t know whether to say “still five weeks” or “only five weeks”…
I’m finding a lot of little things to do to keep my stress low, although I never really have time to do any of it for long periods. Now that I have two knitting projects – a very special scarf and an experimental hooded scarf – I can keep my hands busy and away from the fridge (I have a terrible habit of eating when I’m stressed).
I want to exercise very badly. But lately I have very little energy or time, and soon the cultural shows will start their dance practices and I’ll be moving almost every night of the week. Still, I really want to try something I saw called Kettlenetics…I see sets for it, and the appeal to me is that it helps strengthen and tone without bulking up because it’s designed with dance-like motions.
The most helpful – and most surprising – thing I can do is paint; despite the worry of coming up with new painting ideas and finishing all my paintings on time, I really enjoy my 5-hour class and I think I’m learning a lot more about different techniques with this professor. He doesn’t like us to be fiddling with our cell phones in class, but I think he knows that I only take my own to record the steps of my work:
This is just the underpainting for my latest piece, “Bluebells and Lily of the Valley”. I’ve added more to it since I took this picture, but I thought it’d be fun for you all to see the steps. And sometimes, sadly, the underpainting looks really really good and I hate to continue painting over it knowing I might mess it up.
For two nights in a row, I’ve dreamt of going to Japan/being in Japan/meeting old friends in Japan.
Last night’s dream involved me waking up really late, two people barging into my room, getting lost in a huge but pretty office building, getting dragged by a strange lady to get a manicure only to be very late to art class, to which my male manicurist started calling me “worthless”. Then, I left and found a Japanese style 7-11, and looked for the bread that I used to buy all the time because I was late to class and needed some sort of breakfast.
I continued to wander, having an unusual intuition about which direction the train station was, when I ran into my New Zealand friend Ben and my California friend Morgan in an American sized parking lot. I definitely cried when I saw them in my dream.
This is really strange for me. For two nights, my dreams reflect a lot about what’s going on in my life (my friend was painting her nails earlier, I do have art class today, etc) but somehow there’s this random, strong element of Japan in there that I can’t quite understand how it got triggered. I know dreams aren’t predictions of the future, but I do believe that you can look at them and see what your subconscious is doing to sort out the events and thoughts that clutter your mind.
Maybe, despite all the distractions and duties that I have to focus on here, there’s something that always keeps Tokyo and my friends in my thoughts. I wouldn’t be surprised if, compared to the stressful life I’m currently living, my life in Japan is like an escape away from that.
During spring last year in Tokyo, I had to throw away my rainboots.
They were plaid, and adorable, and I loved them. But oddly enough, they split and cracked at the toe (can rain boots do that?) and I knew it wouldn’t be long before those slickers would fail me on a rainy day.
Fast-forward to last weekend, and I happened to pass by a shoe outlet, and remembered that I needed to buy a new pair. I walked in and didn’t see any, but then they were pointed out to me in a section along the back wall. And among all the patterns and colors and styles, I saw my old pair.
Well….not the SAME old pair. But same maker, and same blue-cream plaid. None of the other patterns appealed to me either, so it had to be destiny. I walked out the store with those size 7’s and a satisfied but somewhat creeped out feeling that I had found the exact same pair two years after I had originally bought them (did the manufacturers never come up with a new pattern?).
And with this week-long storm, I’m so happy my rainboots came back to me.
Rainy Days I like you
You sing me to slumber
You wake me with whispers
You surprise me with a
FLASH!
Then leave me anticipating more…
(one one thousand)
(two one thousand)
(three one thousand)
…until you growl and rumble at me
Rainy Days I like you
But you bring out worms and snails
Walking carefully in rainboots
Ain’t that easy
And you make my hair frizzy.
But
Rainy Days
I still like you
I’ve never wanted to be a freshman again so badly.
School is kind of kicking my butt. There’s just not enough hours in the day for me to get things done; when I resolve to focus and power through a project or a painting or a personal assignment, I either run out of time or burn myself out. Working as one of the directors for the cultural show for CSA this year isn’t helping either…I’ve been butting heads with my fellow board members and don’t have anymore time to keep hearing their suggestions and complaints about the script when it’s already planned out and being written.
But some pleasant things can come from a week like this.
My script writer, I discovered, is just as much of a Disney fanatic as I am, and we can quote movies back and forth without skipping a beat. Choreographers from other clubs are letting me watch their practices and talk to them, which helps me learn about how to be a better choreographer for my own dancing. During brief moments where I can’t stand being in the studio anymore, I end up running into people and having short but fulfilling chats with them.
I just have to remember my mindset from freshman year and keep looking for the silver lining.
But barely. I thought I’d follow up and make sure you readers know that all my classes have been settled, and now I am carrying a full load and get to keep my health insurance! Rejoice!
To be honest, I’m rather excited about this double-painting class…at first, five hours is very daunting, but looking at how little I accomplished when I would paint for just two hours and then stop, I know that forcing myself to do five hours is probably the best thing. And the much heavier requirements for number of paintings is also a good way to keep me motivated and moving, even when I can’t lift my paint brushes any more.
I’m also taking Studio Seminar, which is designed for junior and senior Art majors like myself to help us figure out what the heck we’re going to do with our lives. We get to meet and work with artists, build a portfolio, Artist Statement, etc…while all other students get special help in writing resumes and such, we’re being taught how to arrange our work to make sure we’re really optimizing. I’m really thankful they’re doing that; the resume writing courses and interview workshops are no doubt helpful, but none of them could show me the art world version.
For this class, I have to take photos of what work I have…but since I only have three paintings done for my show, I have to resort to other work that reflects my style and trend. The syllabus said I have to have a camera of AT LEAST 7 megapixels, but I just checked my digi-cam model online and realized it’s only 6.1
Looks like I’ll be borrowing my friend’s super fancy camera for a bit!
…just so they could go wrong and screw me over.
Again.
So to recap, my independent figure drawing class was dropped the first day of school, and on Wednesday I was at last able to take a suitable replacement and double-up on painting classes.
There I was. Still in the studio, working on my new painting after 4 and a half hours, happily making a fair amount of progress. Then my professor starts to speak to me, telling me that he just found out that the university didn’t allow students taking the same course twice in the same quarter, and that I’d have to actually jump through the “independent study” hoops to get proper credit. He told me this at 5:25 pm.
The academic center closes at 5 pm.
Oh, and did I mention, the forms are due tomorrow afternoon, and my professor won’t be on campus again until Tuesday.
Basically, I’m stuck. I can still try to work things out, but I have very VERY little hope.
It’s not something worth crying over. But I am just so damned stressed out (and dear god, it’s only the first week) that honestly, crying really really hard is the only way I can let it out at this point.
Will update later, hopefully with good news.
