Beauty Queen of Only 18

Flowers blooming, bees buzzing, and finals right around the corner; let me welcome you to the spring semester of my freshman year. During that time, Nicole and I were bored out of our minds studying for midterms and trying to cram everything into our brains. All of the things that we were learning started to sound like "blah, blah, blah, blah". And like usual, I came into Nicole's room to bother her as she clicked away at her Tumblr. I had this grand announcement of a contest that I wanted us to enter where the grand prize was an Ipad. She was like, "Ipad!?" and I nodded a satisfied "yes!!!" We were totally in. 

The contest was for an up and coming online clothing store. The only rules for the contest were to take a photo of yourself with a product from their store or to dress fashionable with the store in mind. And of course, harass your dorm building mates to vote for you.  I thought to myself, "How hard could that be?" 

So with a borrowed camera and with amateur camera-woman/stylist skills, we crammed a photo shoot on our campus within a span of 3 hours. Not too shabby for beginners at all! 

The next step was pleading and begging for votes, which we did for a month straight. Constantly parading around each dorm that we had access too and asking (forcing) our fellow freshman to vote for us.

So you're probably wondering if we won or not. We didn't. BUT my excuse is that we had finals to study for and got super lazy about asking for votes. But nonetheless, here are the leftovers from the days that we were 18 years old. 

Making Hips Stir Since 2010

I basically took my inner hipster and threw it up on Nicole. That poor girl. But here were the results of what I would like to call "not appropriate for school or work"; complete with the hipster trademark at the time, the beanie, while paired with upcoming trend of corsets.

Child's Play
I aimed for something a little more whimsical with this outfit. I wanted a touch of childhood with an Alice in Wonderland feel and a dash of a modern touch. Thinking about it now, it would be a perfect outfit for a music festival or a carnival! 

Sasha Not-So-Fierce
I believe this is when I started to experiment more with more "hardcore" & "edgy" pieces. Me? Hardcore? Ha! The pleather jacket definitely toughens up the look, along with Nicole's expressions of "take me seriously."With the tank top and heels, the outfit still remains girly and feminine. 

The Starlet
This has to be my absolutely favorite look. The lighting was awesome. The poses were awesome. The entire composition, I feel like, really draws you in. And of course, the awkwardness of taking these photos were awesome as well.

For you guys that attend the same university as Nicole and I, you may recognize the location to be the bathroom of the cafeteria. I have no shame in picking this place, seeing that it is the most beautiful bathroom in the entire campus. I have no doubts that the mood lighting, clean stalls, fancy sinks are all apart of the university's scheme to lure naive potential students and parents alike to pay thousands of dollars for an education here. 

I hope that you guys enjoyed this throwback into our past of when we thought we were so cool for being the dynamic duo that strutted around campus, lugging around accessories and clothes with a huge camera; cause nothing says "cool freshman" like two science majors running around like we worked for Vogue.

Fall Break

Because school is obviously so painful, 

my university gives us an extra Friday off called Fall Break. 

Usually I mope around my apartment and eat copious amounts of fish sticks, but this year I took advantage of the three day weekend to visit Los Angeles (where Helena lives) & my hometown (to see my family). It was a nice breather from the intense overload of studying I had to do for weeks. Plus I was super sick of being stuck within a 1 mile radius of the school. Those brick buildings can only be "breathtaking" for ever so long. 

So, at the butt-crack of dawn, Joseph dropped me off at the super sketchy train station. He waited around with me until the station opened and made sure that I boarded safely (what a good friend). And from there, my mini vacation began. 

The train is probably one of my favorite ways to travel. I get internet. I get food. The only downfall is how shaky the train can be. It makes my academic productivity go down by 5 notches. 

I always forget how beautiful the Union Station in LA is. My favorite part is watching a diverse and eclectic group of people waiting around for their train to come, ordering food, falling asleep, meeting with lovers & friends, and looking disheveled.

I had some time to take pictures while I was waiting for Helena to pick me up. I asked this dude if I could take his picture since he looked so interesting to me. And thankfully, he agreed. He probably thought I was a wierdo, but whatever!

Helena finally came and we went on our cat-dog friend date at The Grove. I was so excited to see her! We have been separated for months to the point where I felt like she was just my internet friend that I talked to via Facebook and text. But seeing her again reminded me that she is actually real!

So us being us,

[1]we window-shopped

[2] ate delicious food

[3] took discrete outfit pictures

[4] crashed on the last 5 minutes of happy hour

&

[5] enjoyed the warm southern California weather and each others' company

Where's the food?

Eff it.

Food was bomb.

Drinks were bomb.

Helena is bomb dot com.

Feeling all sorts of sads leaving one of my good friends after a great day.

For the rest of the weekend, I practically just ate myself into a food coma and studied away. But it was really nice to see my mom, sister, best friend from home (Kristen), and my other mother (Cat). Although I didn't take anymore pictures during this trip, I figured this bowl of homemade pho summarizes the rest of my travels!

Pharmacy White Coat Ceremony

Today, some of my friends have "officially" entered graduate school (even though their classes started 2 weeks ago). And to welcome them into their stressful nights of cramming and future lack of social life, the school holds a ceremony for every single new pharmacy class in which the faculty presents the students with the prestigious white coat (insert the "oOoOoh's & the AaAaAh's)

So congratulations to my friends and I hope you guys survive to graduation in 3 years!

1st Week of School

And where it starts again...

My last semester as a undergraduate student, 

and (hopefully) on my way to obtaining a doctorate of pharmacy.

So here is to studying hard, getting good grades, working out, learning how to break dance, seeing old friends & meeting new ones, and to future grand adventures. 

This will seriously be the only week of the school year in which the library is dead empty. I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts.

All the necessary gadgets & things to keep this year.

The month doesn't look too painful... for now anyways. 

Taking my study break as Beeta slaves away over her 20 emails from pharmacy school. 

Look at how concentrated she is!

My best friend and worst enemy wrapped up in floral.

Sketchy City. Cute School.

Posters for Katrina's white coat ceremony. Mine is the Heisenberg-looking one & Nicole's is the comic book inspired piece. Both are still works-in-progress till next weekend!

5 minute fish taco. My comfort food of the month.

Surviving school for 5 days calls for a sushi buffet celebration with Beeta and Joseph.

I "mustache" you to quench your thirst.

I'm a senior already!?