The Big 2 – 5 (Final Part) : Getting Over Myself

June 3, 2015December 4, 20161 Comment

As of today it has been a month since I have turned 25. During the past month I have taken the time to catch up on work I had fallen behind on as well as outline some future posts for the blog, but it also got me thinking about things that I hadn’t for a while. Like most people I have a list of goals I had to get done with a specific (age) time-frame. I believed that by having a set deadline to meet I would be motivated to complete everything. Originally the deadline was my 21st birthday but since I was a senior in college desperately trying to keep my sanity under the pressure of having all writing intensive courses, I cut myself some slack and decided to push the deadline back to my 25th birthday. Needless to say only one thing came to be from that list and that was graduating from college on time. Continue reading →

8 Self Love Lessons My Mother Taught Me

May 6, 2015May 12, 20193 Comments

Abraham Lincoln once said, ” All that I am or hope to be I owe to my mother.” This is especially true in my case as I was raised by an “old school” single mother who worked tirelessly to ensure that my brother and I had a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and every opportunity for academic advancement. Everything I ever needed to know about believing and loving myself I learned from her. I am and forever will be grateful for her sacrifices and encouragement which is why I celebrate the woman who have raised, inspired and nurtured me by sharing some of the things she taught me about self love. I hope that this inspires anyone reading to practice self love, which contrary to popular belief, is not based on vanity or pride.

Note: Some of these lessons were not directly imparted to me by my mother but rather were learnt based on what I observed of her experience. Continue reading →

The Big 2 – 5 (Part 1)

May 2, 2015April 17, 2016Leave a comment

So this weekend I turn 25 and I figured it would be fitting to have some fun with my pre-birthday church outfit. For a while now I have been on the hunt for a white top for a “en blanc” event this month and found this body suit from Fashion to Figure. Since its ivory it doesn’t fit the bill for that event but I bought it anyway because I loved the style and fit. This is the first time I have ever worn a body suit and I can say that having tried it, I will definitely be wearing another one very soon. (I can’t begin to explain how comfortable and stylish this piece is!) Continue reading →

PCA/ACA National Conference 2015

April 20, 2015September 14, 20163 Comments

In addition to this blog, I am actually a design and art history historian as well as a cultural anthropologist. It’s a quite a mouthful I know. Though much of my academic writing and research has taken a back seat since receiving my masters last spring, I have made some efforts in the final months of last year to expand on some projects I had started in graduate school, including my paper on Target, its designer collaboration collections and plus size blogging– a paper I submitted last October to be considered as a possible presentation for the Fashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption and Design area of the 2015 Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association’s National Conference.

I was told that once you send in your abstract for consideration it takes approximately a minimum of two weeks to hear back from the area chair, I heard back in two days. From that day I was in crowd-funding and paper editing mode. It was an intensely stressful time given the the other responsibilities I had to deal with such as work, looking for another job, apartment hunting, eventually moving, and starting this blog. It should come to no surprise then that I did my final edits to the paper and accompanying PowerPoint the week before I was set to present. Yet even with all the anxiety fueled by the craziness that is my life, I was very excited to spend Easter weekend in New Orleans for my first (national) conference.

I think my abstract is the longest in history; there was so much to cover in such a little space.

I arrived the day before I was scheduled to present which gave me a chance to sit in other panels for different academic areas, such as Film Adaption, Fat Studies, Tolkien Studies, Material Culture, as well as Libraries, Archives and Museums, to name a few. Admittedly the experience did shake my confidence as I started to question the significance of my paper as the work by my fellow scholars was not only impressive, but presented in such a way that kept the audience engaged for the entire panel. I was in awe of these scholars who clearly have had much more practice than I. Continue reading →

I Am Not THAT Big!

March 29, 2015March 26, 20169 Comments

For most of my life my family influenced my negative view of my body and my fashion choices. Though I have begun to love my body, I suffered with insecurities linked to my size and body type which stemmed from microaggression. Through no longer direct, they are now akin to passive-aggressive implications than are directed at me via gifts, both store bought and hand made. Allow me to elaborate with some recent examples.

Back in 2013 I lent my voice for the third time for my church’s rendition of G.F. Handel’s Messiah. The then director decided (at the last minute mind you) in a white top and black ankle length bottoms as the dress code for the night of the performance. As a rule I really didn’t own much white and due to the fact that I am a petite woman I (still) don’t own many things that are too long. I complained to my mother and my aunt, both who were also part of the choir, and said that I would be sitting out this year since I had nothing to wear. They both then took it upon themselves to go shopping for me. Being that I was in my third semester of graduate school and had a crazy finals schedule, I let them. Needless to say I was surprised when one weekend my aunt came over with a measuring tape declaring that she would be making my skirt. The only reason I agreed to this was because the concert was a week away and the fabric was gorgeous.