In Mae and Jane’s family education is very important. This weekend was very exciting as we celebrated Jane’s graduation from college. Now that was a festival of interesting (from the fashion perspective).
The academic regalia worn was in reflection of tradition dating back to the 13th century. According to the program, the traditional robe serves two functions as it indicates rank and it keeps the wearer warm. Seriously, part of this long standing tradition comes from people going to school and being cold? In the future academic regalia should involve a hoodie and jeans since that’s what we don these days to keep warm in our drafty classrooms. I guess we should all be glad this tradition didn’t start in a more tropical region and we don’t have to wear shorts or swimsuits depending on our cumulative GPA. (You may only pierce your bellybutton if you're in the top 3% of your class....) The program failed to delve very far into the origins of the mortarboard. Apparently, though, it was worn by bald people (most of whom were probably men). It is unclear whether or not it was worn just for the purpose of keeping the head warm. The mortarboard seems, to graduates, the very last hurdle that college has to offer. There is not a cute way to wear a mortarboard. And don’t forget that bangs are in this season… (Take this advice: if you’re graduating in the next couple of years, stay away from bangs!) The mortarboard flattens bangs and makes it look like your hair line starts at your ears. And doesn’t everyone want to look like their hair dresser had a freak razor accident and accidentally shaved just the front of their head? There is one way you can wear your hair for the ceremony and it is dictated by the mortarboard (at least your photos will be timeless!) And the tassel has so much meaning but mostly it is just this annoying thing that dances around just out of your line of sight so you think you’re about to be attacked by a bee or something and you keep turning your head quickly as it catches your eye which just makes you look like you’re missing some parts of a chromosome and the wiggling tassel just gets worse. While none of this dress is very becoming on anyone, we’d like to note that Jane didn’t care what she was wearing when she finally got her chance to walk across the stage to receive her diploma cover. (And she didn’t trip! But she almost did when her row stood up to walk to the stage…)
Now since everyone who is on the stage is in the same boat with the interesting looking regalia, we should hit on something else that isn’t cool at graduations: the majority of the speeches. (Honestly, Jane would rather listen to a lecture in class than some of the speeches). Apparently when you ride a bike there is a headwind and a tailwind and you notice the headwinds more than the tailwinds. We assume that this is a metaphor for life but there was a lot of rambling about biking and headwinds and tailwinds and different kinds of winds (seriously, this lady wasn’t a meteorologist, but by the end of her speech she probably was qualified to give windy weather forecasts and announce for the Tour de France. But we’d decline if we were ever given the chance to listen to her deliver another commencement address.) And seriously, if she’d taken as much time to ride her bike in Fort Collins as she said she did, she would have spoken more about the crosswinds which are, in Jane’s opinion, the most annoying kinds of winds. We took this in stride because it was the commencement address and we were still excited for the distribution of the diplomas. But after the diplomas had been doled out (during which time we could have completed another bachelor’s degree) we were addressed by a man who probably should have received the “most boring voice in the world” award. The closing remarks he gave really closed some eyelids. Every time Jane tuned out and back in, she would have sworn he was saying exactly the same thing he was saying when she tuned out. It seems that professors need to be pulled aside and someone needs to tell them that commencement isn’t about them. And it’s not about students donating to the alumni committee. It’s about the group of students sitting in front of them for the last time who reverted back to kindergarten and couldn’t figure out how to put their silly hats on that morning. Students who are restless. Students who know they will not be tested on the speeches the professors are giving.
Congrats to the class of 2009!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Fashion Yearbook
It’s been a while since Mae and Jane have sat down to the keyboard and blogged. This is because we are finishing up our school years and could not justify writing a blog instead of writing the paper that we had coming up. Mae still has some time left in school. But Jane just finished her last finals, papers, and homework assignments before she will graduate. So we thought we’d commemorate some of Jane’s more horrendous achievements in fashion as an undergraduate. (We’d also like to take a moment to be cliché and say we’re looking forward to all of her fashion endeavors!)
Now, Jane was fortunate enough to have a roommate who was thirteen gazillion times cooler than she was when she entered college. We’ll call this roommate “Lynn”. Also lucky for Jane, Lynn was forward. It took about one week for Lynn to say “Hey, stop parting your hair in the middle!” If you ask Jane today she will tell you that’s the best advice she’s ever been given in college. But at the time, she was a little hesitant to try it. She was so hesitant, in fact, that Lynn helped her do her hair for the next week. Seriously. She saw people with side-parted hair in magazines, but she thought “who am I to part my hair like that?” Well there is a quote “Be the change you want to see in the world” and Jane lives by a quote that is similar (in that it is totally a parody of the quote); “Part your hair like the person you want to be in the world”. Sheer poetic genius…
Mae and Jane believe that tanning is a slippery slope. It is also a blotchy, streaky, skin-cancery slope. But one wintery night before Lynn was to go to a formal or something important, Lynn and Jane decided to try self tanner. The kind that you spray and it tans you all at once…. We entered college way before the days of the lotion that you put on every day and it darkens your skin gradually (that statement makes us sound old so we'll clarify "way before" means approximately "1 year before". But that's a long time when you're talking about sunless tanner.) Lynn finally decided it was a bad idea and went to get her tan professionally done but offered to spray the tan on for Jane. First of all, if you’re going to spray tan someone, read the bottle (and then go get a psych consult if you still think the stuff that Banana Boat thinks you can spray on will do anything for you… Seriously! The directions are so detailed with the occasional bolded print and ALL CAPS and sometimes BOTH, they seem to indicate that self tanning is as complicated as launching a team to the moon. Jane will tell you it’s harder than that, even.) When it recommends holding the bottle 10 inches away, do not spray from less than 10 inches away (ie: do not spray from 1 inch away… The failure will be greater than that of Apollo 13.) So Jane ended up looking like she had been prepped for surgery. Her torso looked as if someone had wiped iodine all over it to disinfect the area. Also, the tan was dripping and streaking. So of course Lynn and Jane invited everyone in to see… Jane may never live that down.
Every few years the ponytail comes back into style (as if it ever goes out of style).... But this means that the ponytail can be worn everywhere! It can be worn to the gym, to school, to parties. This happened during a particularly busy year for Jane, who likes to multitask and "kill two birds with one stone" and all of that. She could wear the same ponytail all day and save some time! Well, we’ll just tell you right now that the gym ponytail is tremendously different than the party ponytail. It’s like night and day. (Okay, it’s still a ponytail so it’s like night and later that night…) And people can often tell if you wore your ponytail to class all day and didn’t even attempt to refresh it before you came to their party.
Jane is fearful of bad haircuts (it even rivals her fear of certain arthropods). And near the end of her junior year, the unthinkable happened. She was on the receiving end of some seriously terrible layers (seriously). Some of her close friends offered encouragement but she could not shake the feeling that her hair looked a little like a mullet. So she walked around with her new haircut for a couple of days until she was mentioning her concerns to a friend before class. A girl who she would call more of an “acquaintance” than a “friend” (only because they didn’t know each other very well) burst in with “Oh, don’t worry! It can be fixed!” That was exactly what Jane needed to hear. Two lessons were learned here. Do not let a friend walk around with a bad haircut that can be fixed! And if you think you’ve received a hideous trim, don’t take your friends’ word for it… go get it fixed! You don’t need their permission and they don’t have to slouch under the weight of silly hairdo (seriously, have “Atlas” come talk to Jane the next time he thinks he has a lot to hold….)
If we had a nickel for every time Jane fell victim to a terrible fashion choice, well, we’d probably go have lunch… The point is that none of these terrible fashion decisions became habits… because her friends and classmates were there to push her back into line. But it really does take a village….
Now, Jane was fortunate enough to have a roommate who was thirteen gazillion times cooler than she was when she entered college. We’ll call this roommate “Lynn”. Also lucky for Jane, Lynn was forward. It took about one week for Lynn to say “Hey, stop parting your hair in the middle!” If you ask Jane today she will tell you that’s the best advice she’s ever been given in college. But at the time, she was a little hesitant to try it. She was so hesitant, in fact, that Lynn helped her do her hair for the next week. Seriously. She saw people with side-parted hair in magazines, but she thought “who am I to part my hair like that?” Well there is a quote “Be the change you want to see in the world” and Jane lives by a quote that is similar (in that it is totally a parody of the quote); “Part your hair like the person you want to be in the world”. Sheer poetic genius…
Mae and Jane believe that tanning is a slippery slope. It is also a blotchy, streaky, skin-cancery slope. But one wintery night before Lynn was to go to a formal or something important, Lynn and Jane decided to try self tanner. The kind that you spray and it tans you all at once…. We entered college way before the days of the lotion that you put on every day and it darkens your skin gradually (that statement makes us sound old so we'll clarify "way before" means approximately "1 year before". But that's a long time when you're talking about sunless tanner.) Lynn finally decided it was a bad idea and went to get her tan professionally done but offered to spray the tan on for Jane. First of all, if you’re going to spray tan someone, read the bottle (and then go get a psych consult if you still think the stuff that Banana Boat thinks you can spray on will do anything for you… Seriously! The directions are so detailed with the occasional bolded print and ALL CAPS and sometimes BOTH, they seem to indicate that self tanning is as complicated as launching a team to the moon. Jane will tell you it’s harder than that, even.) When it recommends holding the bottle 10 inches away, do not spray from less than 10 inches away (ie: do not spray from 1 inch away… The failure will be greater than that of Apollo 13.) So Jane ended up looking like she had been prepped for surgery. Her torso looked as if someone had wiped iodine all over it to disinfect the area. Also, the tan was dripping and streaking. So of course Lynn and Jane invited everyone in to see… Jane may never live that down.
Every few years the ponytail comes back into style (as if it ever goes out of style).... But this means that the ponytail can be worn everywhere! It can be worn to the gym, to school, to parties. This happened during a particularly busy year for Jane, who likes to multitask and "kill two birds with one stone" and all of that. She could wear the same ponytail all day and save some time! Well, we’ll just tell you right now that the gym ponytail is tremendously different than the party ponytail. It’s like night and day. (Okay, it’s still a ponytail so it’s like night and later that night…) And people can often tell if you wore your ponytail to class all day and didn’t even attempt to refresh it before you came to their party.
Jane is fearful of bad haircuts (it even rivals her fear of certain arthropods). And near the end of her junior year, the unthinkable happened. She was on the receiving end of some seriously terrible layers (seriously). Some of her close friends offered encouragement but she could not shake the feeling that her hair looked a little like a mullet. So she walked around with her new haircut for a couple of days until she was mentioning her concerns to a friend before class. A girl who she would call more of an “acquaintance” than a “friend” (only because they didn’t know each other very well) burst in with “Oh, don’t worry! It can be fixed!” That was exactly what Jane needed to hear. Two lessons were learned here. Do not let a friend walk around with a bad haircut that can be fixed! And if you think you’ve received a hideous trim, don’t take your friends’ word for it… go get it fixed! You don’t need their permission and they don’t have to slouch under the weight of silly hairdo (seriously, have “Atlas” come talk to Jane the next time he thinks he has a lot to hold….)
If we had a nickel for every time Jane fell victim to a terrible fashion choice, well, we’d probably go have lunch… The point is that none of these terrible fashion decisions became habits… because her friends and classmates were there to push her back into line. But it really does take a village….
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