Stop and repeat

 

I apologize for the abrupt pause in my blogging. I have been trying to figure out what content I want to pull from my (normal) routine schedule of a life that I have been living. It's hard to find things to be relevant about when you go to work from 9 to 5 and come home to play catch up with school work. With that said, I have decided to be out and upright with everyone about what has been going on with my life.

The beginning of October marked my new internship at PacSun (Pacific Sunwear) HQ as the men's design intern. I have interned at a lot of places, but a corporate retailer like PacSun was definitely something different for me. At school I have been taught to design as if I was a high-end designer so to see designs being sent off to be made at various factories opened my eyes to the difficult processes that takes place in making thousands of garments. It has been about four weeks since I joined the team and it has been quite the rewarding experience. Although I can't share more than what I have said, I will drop a hint that if you love PacSun and if you love hip-hop, be on the look out by the end of this year for an amazing collection to come.

Every morning it gets more difficult to wake up since I go to bed around midnight or 1AM. I usually have to wake up around 6:30AM to get ready for a long drive to work so I don't have the time to make breakfast. I used to go to a Starbucks near PacSun HQ, but recently I found out about a small sandwich shop located next to Starbucks. From the outside, it looked like a fishy generic sandwich shop, but it isn't until you walk in that you realize that it's a legitimate restaurant. Not only do they make sandwiches of all sorts (I would even compare it to a Subway except better with a ton of more choices of ingredients), but they have fruit bowls, sushi, and more. It's called Sandwich Plus and the owners there are absolutely kind. I always get the vegetarian sandwich and for $6, you just can't beat it.

Just minutes before everyone was able to pre-order the new iPhone 5s, I was still in the middle of debating getting the iPhone 5c or the iPhone 5s. Although I loved the concept of the iPhone 5c, I didn't like the colors that were available. I just wanted a plain white phone all the way around without the black top face. With that as the deciding factor, I pre-ordered the iPhone 5s in white/silver and got rid of my iPhone 4S by trading it in at the Microsoft Store (how ironic) for a $200 gift card. I'm planning on using that $200 gift card to put down a deposit for the Xbox One later on in the year.

School has been going well, but I still have my doubts about my MFA program. I love the idea of being able to have a master's, but I know that it doesn't better my chances at getting a job in the fashion industry. As Amelia Diamond has written on The Man Repeller on unpaid internships:

"I had three completely unpaid internships, plus a grueling four months at a publication where I worked long hours for a small stipend. I was completely broke, always tired, had no social life and yet — I wouldn’t trade it. Textbooks can’t teach you experience, and the education I received (yes, even while lugging garment bags across town) was greater than I thought it could be."

Just as a boss at PacSun has reiterated to me after remembering that I am going to school full-time as I intern full-time, it's what you have on your resume that will get you the job and not so much where you went to school or what kind of degree you get.

With that said, I have very traditional parents who believe that a higher education will bear better job opportunities. While that may be relevant in some industries, it doesn't work the same way in the fashion industry. So until I finish school, I will be juggling my MFA program while tackling full-time internships at varying companies to keep my resume fresh and relevant.

Sometimes you have to sacrifice a lot to get little return and be grateful for the fact that there is even a return.