Goodbye (But not for Long)

What a busy past two weeks! I have finally entered the most dreaded time of the school year: finals. Although we have one last week before actual finals week, things could not be more stressful. To top things off, I finished my internship with Tommy last week (sadly). I know, I know. I should be happy that it is one less thing to worry about, but I'm already missing the people, environment, and experience! My last day was so incredible that I felt so appreciated; it was great! I came back to my desk after putting some items back into our storage closet and was surprised with cupcakes, a box of goodies, and a really sweet thank-you note. My supervisors were both watching me and giggling as I approached my desk in shock. They then took me to the head of our department's office so I could open my gifts and shove our faces with Baked by Melissa cupcakes! It felt so great not only to receive jewelry, a scarf, and wallet from Tommy Hilfiger as goodbye gifts, but also to read an extremely sincere thank-you note that almost made me want to cry! Each member of my team wrote such incredible notes and it really showed me that these past 10 weeks of hard work really paid off! I am super excited to know that upon approval from HR, I will returning in the spring for an additional internship with my same team! This has been by far one of the best experiences of my life and I have come to realize that making sacrifices for your future will always pay off in the long run.

TGITG (Thank God It's Thanksgiving!)

    I’m typing this at whirlwind speed because, duh-oh, I forgot to write my blog post again. (Sorry, Catherine!)

    I’ll be honest, though. I only had work one day this week – and I didn’t really do much that would be interesting to an external audience. Monday, I worked on some spreadsheets on the computer, wrote down some numbers…generally boring stuff. Tuesday, I was feeling under the weather and stayed home to sleep and fend off whatever was in my system. Wednesday, I had off.

    Having some time to dedicate purely to decompressing has really been wonderful, though. My boyfriend is a Culinary Arts major here, works at a restaurant in Center City, and didn’t go home for the holiday due to his schedule. I never go back to my hometown for Thanksgiving, so it worked out that we’d have someone to spend the holiday with. J We spent the day making food, eating, and Netflixing.

    I’ve got two more weeks until I leave for Winter Break. Frankly, it’s a little scary realizing that my Co-Op experience is pretty much half over. Where has the time gone?

New Hair

I finally decided to cut my hair into a long bob or a "Lob" as most people call it. I've been thinking about cutting my hair for a while but have been second guessing myself whether it'll look good and/or if my friends will like it. I had short hair my entire childhood so throughout high school and college I rebelled and had very long hair. The problem with having long hair is it takes forever to blow dry and gets tangled very easily. I was so done with my hair and wanted a change. The long bob is very on trend right now and I thought why not do it, because I needed a change. I'm absolutely obsessed with my new hair. I got ten inches off. It's so light and easy to maintain plus it looks very chic. Everyone at my office loved it and so did my friends! I'm so thrilled that I finally did it.

This past weekend was one of the best weekends I've had in NYC so far. I had so much fun going out with my friends. On Friday, Ashley and I went to Eataly, which is Mario Betali's Italian market. We had the best mozzarella and prosciutto along with other meats. It was an absolutely fantastic meal.

 

On Saturday our friend Naz visited. We went consignment shopping and then had an amazing meal at Rosa Mexicana. It was one of the best chips and guacamole I've ever had. Finally on Sunday, we saw the new Hunger Games movie. I thought it was very good but a little anticlimactic. I'm very Team Peeta and love the actor, Josh Hutcherson who plays him. I'm also obsessed with Jennifer Lawrence. I think she's so talented, beautiful and hilarious. I want to be her best friend. I can't wait for the las movie next year. All in all it was an amazing weekend.

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving. Nothing else has to be said. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I can barely contain my excitement. I have co-op today and Wednesday I am done at 3pm, and then I am free! The Office is closed and I don’t have to come back until next Wednesday! Seeing from all of my exclamation points, you can see I am extremely excited. I cannot wait for time off. I know that sounds like I had my co-op, but I don’t hate it, I am just exhausted. Working all day really does make you tired, even if you are sitting at a desk all day. I also miss my family. I don’t live far away at all, but I barely see them and it will be great to be able to be home.

After my short break from work, I will have to come back and work until December 24^th. Since I am not paid, my co-op is giving me from December 24^th to January 2^nd off, which I think is great. I will be the only intern here after December 15, so I will be very lonely and probably have to take out the trash by myself for a while. I am writing about all of this because last week was honestly very boring. Nothing happened in the office that was too exciting, except a birthday party that included wine and cheese. I hope everyone else’s week was a little more exciting than mine and I hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving!

In Transition

    This week has been a change of pace. Most of the things I talk about here deal with me actually handling acquisitions (finally I have the correct term for what our items are called), but this week has had me more involved in the office setting of the collection.

    Paperwork and data entry aren’t fun, but are necessary to keeping the collection organized and going. This week I spent a fair amount of time compiling contact info for a mailing list – you’d be surprised at the number of people on the list so far. There’s also a large amount of planning that occurs on a day-to-day basis at the collection. Because the number of donations we receive has grown over the years, we’re starting to have some issues with space. While inevitable, it means that our tasks need to be done in thought-out orders. For example, we may want to put away some donations, but need to find space for them first. In order to do that, we may have to do something else first to free up space, or try our hand at some shuffling. The hope is that at some point this won’t have to happen as often because we’ll have our organization down pat.

    I don’t mean to say that I didn’t do any handling of garments and such this week, though. One of the days this week, a Design & Merchandising class came in to look at shoes. Virginia and I got a list and went through the aisles to find what we were looking for. I had seen a couple pairs of the shoes included, but there were a good number that I hadn’t seen yet. (Check out the little embroidered Chinese shoe – yes, that is meant for a bound foot. It was pretty weird to see up close and personal!)

    We also started going through some of the boxes of acquisitions that are up for conservation to see if there were any deaccession candidates. We found a few odd pieces that didn’t seem to have a good chance at being restored, but also found a number of things that were most definitely worth keeping and repairing. The rust and black sequined coat/robe is one of my favorite garments in the collection that I’ve seen. It has a certain mix of opulence and edginess that I find myself attracted to.

It Never Hurt to Ask

Today I met with the HR woman who is in charge of all the interns at Michael Kors. She sets up meetings with each intern halfway through the term so that she can make sure that they are learning, getting a good experience, etc. I was a little nervous to have this interview because I am not too fond of my current internship at MK. I am obviously very lucky to have the opportunity to work at such a well known brand and everyone I work with is friendly, I just feel that I am not making the best of my time on co-op because I don't feel that I am learning much or applying the skills that I have learned at Drexel.

When meeting with Megan, I tried my best to be positive, but honest. Luckily, she asked a lot of questions to make this easier. I also asked if perhaps for the second half of my co-op I could try working in a completely different department such as Sales or Creative Services. If I have learned one thing at my MK co-op, it's that I don't really have a desire to work in footwear design for a large company, so at least there's that. I'm not sure how things will turn out, but she seemed to understand completely and be willing to work with me completely, so we will see!

At Galore last week we had a meeting about which articles are doing the best on our site, while most of the Top 25 were all interviews with celebrities, one of the pieces was mine! I was pretty excited about that being the only intern on the list. We are pushing to do a lot more interviews so this past week I have been reaching out to people and today at work I am going to be forming a lot of questions to send back to the PR people of those that I contacted.

More Sample Sale Madness

As I wrote about last week, this week is our sample sale at Shoshanna! While it goes until Thursday this week it is safe to say that the days working on the sample sale have been the busiest days I’ve had at Shoshanna. On Tuesday the sale was only open to friends and family so we didn’t open until 1pm. It was nice that the sale wasn’t all day but it meant we had to make sure all our other responsibilities in other areas of the office were all finished by 1pm. Cramming all our work into a shorter amount of time made for a very hectic day however I really enjoyed seeing how the sample sale came together. Everyone who has come so far (many of them regulars) said we had the best selection of merchandise they’ve ever seen at our sale. I can tell that all the employees at Shoshanna are happy with the way things turned out which is great because setting up took so much work.

While we are selling old stock at Shoshanna, we are on the other side of the retail cycle at Kate Spade. We have so much new merchandise in the store that has just come up for the holiday and this past week we have been trying to promote holiday sales by offering 25% off. Unfortunately despite the sale, I am told that our store has been much quieter this year then is was last year. Maybe it’s just because it is a little early to start Christmas shopping (in my opinion), but I’m hoping things start to pick up and become a little livelier in the store. For this week though, I’m okay with things being quite as it allows me to rest up for my next days at the sample sale. I’m told that things only get crazier after friends and family… wish me luck!

Where Has the Time Gone?

Who would have imagined that ten weeks would go by so fast? Starting back in September, I could not have imagined all the experience, connections, and fun I could gain in just a brief three months. As I begin my last week interning at Tommy Hilfiger, I can't help but feel nostalgic. Luckily, today I confirmed my spring internship in the same department starting in March! I couldn't be more thrilled to continue working until up to graduation.

 After much thought about whether or not I should apply for an internship in the winter back in Philly, I've decided to focus on working my part time job more often to save money for the spring when I won't be able to make money consistently. After all, living as a college student and an unpaid intern has been taking a toll on my funds! I'm happy to have experienced this dual-life and am now getting a second shot at it as well, hopefully leading me to better prepare myself! Although I'm going to miss everyone at Tommy for the next three months, I'm excited to not commute four hours, three days a week!

Stress Free

Last week was great week at my co-op as well. I hope this is a sign that all of the bad weeks are gone. Since my co-op is unpaid, I have been working a second job at a small children’s clothing boutique in center city, Born Yesterday, where I have worked since before college. Last week, working six days a week really hit me hard. I was extremely stressed out and had no time for myself. It didn’t help that I didn’t particularly like working at Born Yesterday. I was so unhappy and stressed out that I had four huge pimples on my face, which is insane because I never get pimples! After speaking to my friends and family, I decided that it is better to be happy and broke than to be unhappy and have some money in your pocket. So, I quit my job at Born Yesterday and my last day was this past Saturday. After quitting, my pimples immediately began to disappear! It feels like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Before co-op, I had a hostess job at the Dandelion in center city, which is a Steven Starr restaurant. Since I genuinely enjoyed that job, I have decided to go back to the Dandelion and my first day is tomorrow! I am so excited and nervous to go back. Wish me luck with that!

On a different note, the best part of my week was all of the free lunch! On Wednesday, one of our clients catered a lunch for us in the office. The food was amazing; quinoa with cranberries, grilled salmon, and pumpkin pie cake-pops! Oh yeah, you read that right, pumpkin pie cake-pops, which were delicious. On Friday, we all ordered Chinese food, the whole office. I was stuffed by the end of the week, but really enjoyed all of the food.