I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

H&M white pearl studded beret // Forever 21 lace dress // Ralph Lauren cable knit sweater (gift)

H&M 200 denier black tights // Mossimo black suede ankle boots //
Lancome red lipstick in Rouge Baroque //

Photography: self, tripod and remote

Today our a cappella group had a performance for some influential individuals of the med center, so I put together this ensemble with my white coat and black pumps. I layered my ivory cable knit sweater underneath to keep warm on the walk to campus - my white coat only shows a peep of the dress so as far as tops and sleeves go, you can be as wild as you want. After a pasta lunch though, this began to feel a little more frumpy and tight. To cozy up with some coffee at home, this pearl-studded white beret and red lips are perfect for a winter wonderland feel and prancing around in the snow. Au contraire, the weather outside was indeed frightful, drizzling in this relatively tepid rain nonstop. That didn't stop us from having a spontaneous girls' night at Cheesecake Factory after reading about how their system can teach us how to standardize and improve health care in surgeon/storyteller extraordinaire Atul Gawande's New Yorker article. Food for thought leads to thinking about food! By the way, their Fresh Banana cheesecake is heavenly - light, frothy, a perfect dessert.

It takes years to develop a sense of personal style, and that's still an ever-changing one. Being a style blogger makes that hard with trends and staying relevant, wandering around boutiques and malls for the sake of doing your research, sponsored pieces to incorporate. After brewing many sartorial concoctions, it seems like my life outfit is not complete without a pancake atop my head (one of 2 H&M new additions to my collection). Back to my true francophile roots - beret, flared dresses, streamlined black bottoms all the way down to my hallex (fancy Latin word for big toe). This forecast for this weekend is plenty of studying, since finals for the muscle & bone block are coming up and it's time to get down to business. Looking forward to a holiday potluck dinner tomorrow with good eats and jingling along with Christmas tunes. Best of luck on your exams/work and break is almost here!

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What's Black and White and Red All Over?

H&M black fitted blazer w/ red lining (Euro 4) // Rue 21 "Le Moustache" print tee (L) //
H&M black and white pleated mini skirt (Euro 4) //

Forever 21? black leggings // Wild Diva peep toe suede ankle booties w/ bow tie accent (5.5) //

Thrifted red knit beret // H&M red gems and baubles statement necklace //

Claires black faux shiny croc bag // From Taiwan black frame glasses //

Photography: JJ

WORK IT, QUIRK IT. Hello lovelies! Been off the web for a few days, spending time with family in hot-hot-hot (relatively) San Diego. Had my computer off, finished reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, started another page-turner on my Nook: Brandwashed. It reveals the psychology behind how companies fool us into buying, buying, buying and as a blogger, it's certainly pertinent. Since I started 2.5 years ago, my closet has rapidly divided and colonized my life like some unruly E.coli. The pressure to consume, to buy the newest hyped lipstick, to online-browse the incessant discount offers, to hand over that hard-earned money. There haven't been many times when I've come home and not felt guilty about purchasing something. Up until high school and even through some of college, I refrained from consuming materialistically and was all about saving. What happened? Btw Day 7 of 12 Days of Fabulous (need to catch up I do)

This was my outfit for a day of finals studying at Kayak's Coffee (12/17). I spent more time eating and enjoying my gingerbread latte than chugging through 400 pages of boring academia, books, and journal articles, but it all worked out. My never-ending obsession with all things that are magically (in my head, at least) French, including BLACK/WHITE/RED colour schemes. In fact, standing in front of my closet I meant to do an all black/white outfit but with the hint of red on my blazer cuff, the red just kept piling on in the form of accessories. Got the red beret for 50 cents I remember at a thrift shop. It gave off an aura of grandma-knitted-it and head lice, but still, it has been one of my favourite pieces conducive to playing Parisian dress-up. Black tights with ankle booties elongate the legs, a readers' favourite H&M pleated skirt that was only $10 not-on-sale, and a $6 snarky print tee that fed my moustache obsession starting all the way back in the sweltering summer at the Lake of the Ozarks. Can you believe it's a large? Yeah, makes no sense. 

Right now: attracting the bewildered attention of many a neighbor as I hurdle, jump, squat, pose, laugh in front of my tripod and remote/self-timer combo as the best boyfriend-photog in the world is on the other side of Cali. Also, forcing myself to finally get that blog shop running, which will include these booties :) Last but not least, making ambitious lists and resolutions as always. You can guess what's on there: get off my butt and exercise, stop being a hermit and enjoy college, stop picking my pimples. Realistically, let's aim to do at least one, mmkay self? 

To Peace. Love. And really long blog posts. Happy Holidays !

Readers - what's your favourite colour combo?

Enter my UNESTABLISH giveaway for TWO $50 gift cards!

Black and White Summer Work Outfit

Forever 21 sheer chiffon embroidered top (S) // Forever 21 white scoopneck tee worn underneath (S) //

Forever 21 black roses grey pencil skirt (S) // Wild Diva peep toe ankle bow tie booties (5.5) // H&M ultra skinny leopard belt (XS) // Forever 21 turquoise pendant gold long chain necklace //

Photography: Self-timer and tripod, JJ

Tuesday, a.k.a. Internet Day, has finally arrived! Whew, now that I have zippy fast internet at home, ironically I no longer have any desire to use it. This was my outfit for Tuesday (6/7), a black and white and unexpectedly floral-ish ensemble. As an orchestra dork, I used to avoid wearing black and white as much as possible on my own volition, but now a pop or two of colour brightens up a ho-hum work outfit. Hope for some sudden inspiration as I stare into the orderly and chaotic lineup of clothing in my closet - those are my first thoughts in the morning, besides, "WHERE'S MY (BEAVER) DAM COFFEE?" Yeah, I swear like a sailor in real life, thought I'd cover the children's ears on here :) 

This hodgepodge of photos in all sorts of different backgrounds means that at 6:30 PM, the sun is shifting fast and I must flee from the encroaching shadows. The more photos I took (66 today), the more time spent nitpicking and deciding on whether I like my face turned 45 or 43 degrees to the left. I was sweating more than just small stuff, the nice 83 degree respite St. Louis gave me was well over today. This light material plus a skirt seems to be the answer to keeping cool and baring some leg while I ... do literature search.

If you notice my intentional lack of creativity in the title, it's because I'm trying out this whole SEO business and seeing if page views skyrocket. It'd be nice if more people stumbled across this thing through the almighty Google. I care, but don't really care. A two-day experiment. Meanwhile, can someone tell me what the heck is wrong with my Feedburner? My pictures weren't showing up with new posts in Blogger Dashboard, so I deleted the feed redirect url and that solved the first problem. Then my Feedburner subscribers magically dropped from 398 to 204 overnight, then to 33. I went ahead and scrapped that old feed and made a new one. Now I stand at a big fat "0." Confusing, frustrating, no troubleshootizing.

Monday I felt generally insipid, so it was a royal blue tee and skinny jeans, simple to the bone. I remind myself that if I want to blog tomorrow, I'm going to have to finish my primaries for medical school. The pressure cooker is ON. There's nothing scary about the next 4 years of my life riding on a limited amount of characters and words to describe all that's happened in the past 3 years ... or is there? Yeah I admit, I'm pretty dern scared. Wish me good luck! (if you just write GL and nothing else in a comment, happy Angie I be). 

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