Back to school, in style

Hello! Sorry its been a few days, but things have been crazy with school and everything... not that I'm complaining - I love it! My first week went so well! I love being in school, sitting in a classroom and taking notes.... does that make me weird? ;)

I'm thinking about taking my camera along with me sometime next week and snapping off a few pictures of the campus. Its really very nice - lots of trees, and flowers, and interesting sculptures.... let me see if I can find some pictures on the school's website...

Aha! Here is a wonderful Virtual Tour of the campus. I just love it. This is actually the first time in many, many years that I have expressed school spirit.... yay for me! ;)

Anyway, back to the point of this post: I refuse to (at this point, anyway) dress like the masses of 18 year old kids on campus - that is, gym shorts and rolled-up tshirts to class. Or pajamas - gasp! I know that its "normal" for college kids to dress like that, but...why? It just looks sloppy. College is a very important time in young peoples' lives, even if they don't realize it at the time. Maybe because I'm a little bit older, and I've already been out on my own in the world, I realize it better than they do. But either way - I simply refuse to look slobby in a (public) place, where my impression on my professors could mean the difference between getting references for a job, or getting my Masters, or whatever. I'm not saying I'm going to wear a suit to class, but at least let's try to look presentable!

Now, this is much easier said than done. Why? Well, for a couple of reasons:

1. It is hot as H-E-double-hockey-sticks lately! And humid!! Just walking from one building to the next leaves you sweaty and uncomfortable.
   
2. No air conditioning. Yes, that's right. Its a very old school, and many of the buildings are currently being refurbished. And many of the classrooms have absolutely no air conditioning. Miserable.
   
3. Shoes. Seriously. I never thought I would have a problem with finding the right pair of shoes to wear anywhere. As it turns out, I'm walking easily more than a mile a day, and in doing so, have acquired a great number of painful blisters, scrapes, bruises, and rashes on my feet. Isn't that pathetic? I know, I should like the Princess and the Pea (and that's what my mother calls me on account of the fact that I do acquire strange bruises in my sleep), but seriously - its almost like walking a marathon, the amount of walking/trudging around campus that students do every day!

So, with these factors in place, I have been frantically searching my closet for something suitable to wear. In short, I've come up with almost nothing. I actually did stoop so low as to wear soffee shorts and a Shippensburg tshirt yesterday, and was quite embarassed all day (though I'm sure no one thought anything of it, as I looked exactly like everyone else there). Desperate not to repeat that episode again, I've been....shopping!

This awesome dress is from Forever21.... and cheap, too!

I envision wearing it with a short-sleeved black turtleneck underneath, black tights, and my thrifted black knee-length boots.

My plaid Pumas came yesterday, but they were a little small, so I'm exchanging them for a bigger size. I was pretty disappointed. :(

I don't want to spend too much money at once, so I think that's all I'm ordering for now.... plus, I'm going to the Maryland Rennaissance Faire on Saturday, so I'll need some money for that, too!