What to Wear, Revisited

Don made an interesting comment on my Lavender Farm post that I thought I would go into some detail and elaborate on what I actually wore to my interview, and why. (I must also note that I get kind of paranoid when it comes to what-to-wear for important stuff. Also, I'm far from a rich woman, but I do know how to find -or wait for- some good discounts.)

I read somewhere that, at any one particular occasion, no matter how formal or casual, men tend to get the attire right and women don't. This is because men have fewer choices in regard to color and style to work with than women.

For a job interview, a man wears a suit (the blazer and slacks of which may or may not match in color, but usually do), a dress shirt (which is usually white or blue), dress shoes (which are probably black but could be brown and of a low heel) and sometimes a tie (which is probably striped and coordinates color-wise with the blazer and shirt). Men's hair is usually short and easily styled.

Women have it a little more complicated. I'll try to keep this short. I went with the suit, so I'm going to just cover those options. The suit may or may not match the slacks or skirt. The skirt could be of several different lengths, although for an interview I would probably go with a knee-length skirt, and several different styles. The pants can also be of varying lengths and styles, which usually determine the shoes she wears (of varying heel heights and styles). The top could be a menswear-type top, or could be just about any top she has in her wardrobe. (I tried on my suit wearing a black Young Dubliner's t-shirt, which I thought looked kind of cool if I was interviewing for something in the entertainment industry) Depending on the length of her hair, she could wear it up or down, and while I would suggest miminal makeup, she has to decide on that too.

The problem of women's wear is compounded by the high availability of cheap, low-quality, poor-fitting clothes, not to mention the heinous styles that tend to appear from time to time. Most women my age and near my geographic location tend to get their business suits from Maurices, whose suits are made out of a stretch polyesther blend material. I tend to have somewhat picky tastes, so I would never buy one of those on the basis of the material alone. I noticed most of the women at the interview event I went to wore tops that they would wear to a club, which I think is a bad idea.

I wore an Antonio Melani suit in oatmeal-colored linen (suits should be made from natural fibers) I found at Dillard's in Boise. Surprisingly, the jacket fit perfectly (I usually have to buy a size up and have the waist taken in; I have big shoulders), and the slacks were long enough to wear with heels. My top was a plain lilac tank top from some designer's business coordinates line (remember, we're in the middle of a heat wave!). I never took my jacket off, so no one would have known the top didn't have sleeves. I wore a string of pearls my aunt gave me for graduation. The reason why I wore lilac was because the pearls had purple beads interspersed with them. I received several compliments on my suit (one surprising compliment from one of the HR people at the interview), and let's say I got some unexpected, unwanted attention (long after I changed into something more casual) from one of the hotel guests as well. (It amazes me what men find sexually attractive - at least someone found my threads memorable!)

I'm definitely not against wearing skirts or dresses to interviews; I would have opted to get a knee-length circle skirt that matched my suit jacket (even a white skirt would have looked nice), but I couldn't find one. It took me hours to find the suit I did end up wearing (just ask my poor friend Dan, and he wasn't with me when I went looking for the suit in Twin Falls), and I believe that if I was looking for an appropriate dress to wear it would have taken longer. I was under the impression shopping was supposed to be fun. . . .

I do own a couple nice dresses (most of my dresses are traditional Chinese qi-pao, and too formal for an interview), but I don't think either of them would work. One is the brown silk dress I wore to a friend's wedding, and the other is a Ralph Lauren silk nude floral dress I got on sale. The dress I wore to my friend's wedding is way too low-cut for a job interview (it's not that kind of job, is it?) and the other dress is low-cut and a tad sheer (the same). I tend to think that the last things a woman should draw attention to at a job interview are her physical attributes (Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned?). It's one thing to look pretty and attractive, it's another to say "take me home tonight" with your clothes (save that for the dance floor!). I believe that the cost of high-quality clothes trumps the quantity of low-quality clothes. I've never done a cost analysis, but I would think one would spend less money on a few great items than lots of semi-good ones.

Most of the woman's business-dress problem stems from the problem of wanting to look both feminine and hard-working. Compound this with readily-available "bad clothes" ("larger" women in particular tend to have more "bad clothes" to sift through as well), and you have the problem Don describes.

Don, you wouldn't happen to have your set of prints from Men In Suits digitized, would you? I'd like to see them.

Lavender Farm!

Today I took a trip out to Valley View Lavender Farm in Buhl, Idaho. One of these days I'll get some decent internet access and I'll be able to post photos.

Anyway, I kind of got lost on my way there, and then Google Driving Directions (on my phone! I love technology!) got me more lost, so I ended up asking for directions at a gas station/restaurant.

The people who run the farm had a couple cute boxer terriers hanging out in their gift store, and I ended up buying some of that lotion bar stuff (they called it something else, but essentially it's lotion in solid form. It's great!) and some loose lavender buds because I know Mom will want to make sachets. I also ended up getting a lavender plant. I don't have a green thumb, so I have no idea why I bought one, but I digress.

Lavender is a funny scent for me. Most of the time it gives me a headache (I think it's because I'm smelling cheap purfumey imitations of the scent rather than real lavender), but I must agree with the traditional belief that the scent of lavender is soothing.

Mmmm. Makes me want to take a nap.

On my way back, I stopped at Smith's Diary shop and picked up some cheese curds. They had a wide ice cream selection as well, but I wasn't in the mood to drive and balance an ice cream cone. I can multitask, but there are just some things I'd rather not do.

The People You Meet. . . .In Airports!

It amazes me the interesting people you meet in airports. It's like a cross-section of American society, magnified and weirdified.
I was sitting in Salt Lake City International the other day, waiting the 5 hours for my connecting flight. Delta had given me $21.00 in meal vouchers that I could spend "anywhere in the airport". I ended up at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill. I was in a people-watching mood so I took a table (more like a tall cafe table) in their open-seating. A couple guys near me were chatting, and one mentioned that he lived in Butte. The Digger Green pride in me reared its head and I said, "Butte? I just graduated from Tech this May."
Butte Guy said, "Oh really? I'm class of '8-." (I forget the exact year) Maybe some people don't think this is a big coincedence but there are only about 100,000 Tech graduates. Some (probably around half) of those graduates are dead. Of all the places, a restaurant in the SLC International Airport was the last place I expected to run into an alum. Before he left for his flight he told me to stay in touch with the Tech Foundation, and to get involved with the industrial advisory board. His logic for this was that someday I would need to hire people, and that a good starting place for good people would be where I got my start. Makes sense, but then again, there were very few C.S. and S.E. geeks at Tech that I really liked. Hmm.
The guy that Butte Guy was chatting with worked for Pharmanex, and was, let's say, of the eccentric-entrepreneur type. While he's probably more interesting than I make him out to be, the scanner that Pharmanex sells is interesting. Apparently NASA will be sending a similar scanner to Mars (attached to a robot) to analyze the Martian soil and rocks.
There was also a girl there who lived in Provo and was a physical trainer. She was on her way to the Bahamas to vacation with her family. She had gone to BYU-Idaho for a short time, but left because she didn't like the honor code and felt that it was too wierd. While she had an opportunity to live and go to school in Southern Cali, she opted for Utah because "it's easier to abide by church standards here". But she's studying film at U of U next semester, which would lead one to believe she would probably end up in Cali or NYC anyway. Looking at her, she didn't really seem to abide by "church standards". She was wearing a low-cut top/vest, and short-shorts. The difference between what LDS church standards are and what LDS young people actually abide appears to be great. Or do they pick and choose what they think they can get away with? "I can wear these cute short-shorts and this cleavage-enhancing top because I'll look cute, but I won't drink tea, because that's bad for you."

A visit to the Monastery of the Ascension

My excitement for the day (because if I didn't have any excitement I wouldn't have anything to write about) was going to the local monastery. The Monastery of the Ascension is just a little North of Twin Falls; probably a 15-minute drive or so from the center of town. (Or maybe I was just a little spacey today and I have no idea how long I was driving) At any rate, it's not far.

While they didn't have what I was looking for (a breviary/Liturgy of the Hours cover), they do have a neat bookstore with all sorts of interesting books on different facets of Catholicism. Since it's a Benedictine monastery, they have a lot of books on the Benedictine order and St. Benedict in general. But they have a lot of other stuff, too, like the "Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius", for example (a copy of which I bought there).

Obviously, the monastery is much more modern than I care my religious places to be, but the people there were nice, and I like their bookstore. Call me picky, but maybe I'll need to move to Europe for consistantly old buildings. Or maybe I just don't like so-called new age Christian architecture.

As much as I didn't care for the building, a lot of care was taken to make the grounds seem isolated. Trees surrounded the building and lined the road into the monastery. For some reason, I totally dig isolation. I like people and being social, but I also like the idea of having a place in the middle of nowhere (but not too close to nowhere, if you know what I mean) with nothing but my thoughts. Having friends over to share them would be nice too.

Whoo Hoo! L.A. ROCKS!

In a nutshell, my interview went good.

The company I interviewed with had the most straight-forward and honest people there. The company presentation was devoid of bullshit (a first to see for me!) and I had such an awesome time. They also took us down for a tour of their manufacturing facility and that was also very incredible.

The company has a new hire group that gets together for all sorts of fun things, like beach volleyball, surfing, snowboarding, etc. This group invited all the interviewees out to Sharkeez in Manhattan Beach. I had a great time there (I was DD, so I didn't get to imbibe, but I had fun anyway!) and I give a big thumbs up to Sharkeez's lobster tacos!

After Sharkeez, the interviewees and I went down to the beach to play in the surf a little. Yup, I went in, completely clothed, and came out drenched and smelled like salt and seaweed! Seriously, what was I supposed to do? I was on the Pacific Coast and didn't bring a swimsuit because I thought I wouldn't get the opportunity to play in the water.

My flight out of L.A.X. was delayed an hour because the pilots were late to work. I ended up missing my flight back to Twin Falls and had to take the later flight back. (Maybe I should have opted to take Delta's $400 and waited for the next flight out of L.A.X. Hindsight's always 20/20) It was all right, though, because I wasn't in a hurry to get back and I met some really cool people on the plane and in the airport.

I also made a couple new friends when I was in California. I went down for "just an interview" and ended up making new friends! Who knew?

Meeting People

Quite a while ago, I overheard some professors and students discussing something very interesting in the Museum Lab (it happens).

Basically, our society has no real way for us to meet new people for the pure purpose of socializing. Think about it; most of the people you know, you've met in one of a couple ways: through school/work/church, or through other friends/family.

Breaking it down, all the people you've met through school or work are colleagues, who you may or may not want to hang out with. People you met through church were probably involved in some church function that you were also involved with.

Friends and family are where things get interesting. We don't choose our families, and I know we all have a few interesting characters in our family trees. Friends may have started out as colleagues at school or work, or maybe they were neighbors or roommates.

In our society, there's really only one socially acceptable place to meet new people: the bar/club/liquor-unleashing establishment. Since I've only been to a bar in Twin Falls twice, and that was with my cousin, I haven't met any new people there. Nor would I want to; I got way too many lecherous grins from scary-looking people there.

Meeting someone at church is pretty much out of the question; I don't plan on being here long enough to get involved with the music ministry there, or help out with RCIA. Both groups are where I met most the people I knew in the parish I belonged to in Butte.

I'm not in school anymore, I don't have a job (yet), and I haven't met one friend here yet. It's not that I'm living a complete hermit lifestyle; I go to town every day and log on the internet at the public library, and I visit Barnes & Noble at least twice a week. My neighbors look like families, with no Finished-and-Unemployed college graduates to talk to, or even 30-year-old kids living at home to talk to.

I would have thought by now I would have at least met someone new and interesting.

I don't have a gym membership (my outdoor running trail is quite nice, actually), and I definitely don't know where the other 20-somethings hang out.

If anyone has any ideas or comments, I'd like to hear them. After all, this is just a theory, and I would assume that there are lots of cool college grads in Twin Falls (or any town) to hang out with.

A Cold. . . In Summer

So I think I'm getting a cold. Yuck. Not a good time for one to strike, since my interview in Los Angeles is on Friday. F thinks I should try out some sympathy on my interviewers, but I'm of the opinion that business rarely falls for the sympathy plea. Maybe I'm cynical, but I think it's practical. If they even notice I have a cold, me saying nothing about it will say much more about me than whining about it to them.

It started yesterday morning when I woke up with a scratchy throat. It was followed in the afternoon with a severe case of the munchies. Today the throat has turned into a mild sore throat and I'm feeling kind of achy and fatigued. All the yuckies I feel are from the throat up, so maybe it won't be too bad.

My course of action is a lot of ColdEeze, sleep, and oranges. While I've never experienced the 4.4-day-cold that is the average for ColdEeze, at least I feel better.

My hope is that it doesn't turn into a full-blown cold. (Who the hell gets colds in the summer anyway? And I blame the public library for my initial exposure to this bug.) It's happened before; last Thanksgiving I spend almost the entire Thanksgiving weekend playing nurse to F, who had a throat infection so bad he had to go to the emergency room and take a lot of antibiotics. That Monday I had a funny-feeling throat, but I never did get sick.

The Long Goodbye

I've been spending a lot of my summer reading books (when I should just devote it all to looking for a job, but I digress), and spending too much money at Barnes & Noble. I've been reading books like it's going out of style. I think I've easily read 2000 pages in the last month or so, not including stuff I read on the internet and in magazines.

While I don't read mystery fiction too often, I have a weakness for detective novels. I really enjoyed some of Earl Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason books. I love the b&w series, too, but that just shows you how quirky and odd I am.

Right now I'm hooked on Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe books. The style and tone of his books are now cliche, but the originals don't seem to have suffered for that. At least the writing is fresh to me. I've read "The Long Goodbye" and "The Big Sleep", his last and first books, respectively. I enjoyed "The Long Goodbye" more than "The Big Sleep", and am working on "Farewell, My Lovely" right now.

I guess "The Maltese Falcon" will have to wait a few more weeks. I'd like to read Forester's Horatio Hornblower series, too, but 11 books is such a big commitment when I'm not sure I can get through them all. I did give up on the Dune series, but that was for more reasons than one. Herbert's Dune is one of my favorite books of all time, but I can't extend the love to the entire series.

Business Attire

For a professional job interview, the general idea is to wear business attire. Or rather, one step up from what you would wear to the job. I've been invited to a dinner "thing" the night before I interview with a company. At first I wasn't really concerned, but now I feel like I should wear "something" besides slacks and a dress shirt to the dinner.

I don't want to go out and buy a new suit. I had a hard enough time searching for the first one. What should I do? Wear the suit to the dinner and the interview? Wear the suit jacket with a skirt? The dinner is at a hotel, so I think a t-shirt and shorts are out of the picture. (It's going to be hot though! I thought we were supposed to be comfortable!)

On top of all this, I need to pick out another top to wear with the suit I already have. Ick. Whoever said getting a job was easy lied.

Massacre Rocks

So my family reunion was last weekend. That was interesting.

It was at Massacre Rocks this year, and it was very hot. (for me, anyway) Saturday we took a walk to the Oregon Trail ruts, which was a nice rock but you didn't see anything too exciting when you got there. We also went to a "program" put on by Ranger Dan, who was in buckskins for the evening.

I saw a couple lizards and rabbits, and spied one deermouse in our camp. That wasn't cool. The last time I saw a mouse was in my livingroom, and since I wasn't expecting it (I startle easily), I shrieked and the mouse jumped about two inches and apparently decided it didn't want to have anything to do with me. My mom found it had wandered onto a glue trap she had set a few days later.

The deermouse, however, crept around at night so you didn't know what it was until you put the flashlight on it. You couldn't even hear him scurrying on the dirt. This thing had a tail that was maybe 6-8" long. Cute ears, though.

Bimbos In Barnes & Noble? What Has The World Come To?

I was at the Barnes & Noble cafe the other day, and standing behind me in line was, let's say, someone who didn't belong there.
This woman was maybe 20, my height, with a petite body frame. Supermodels drink blood for this level of thinness. Her legs were at least a mile longer than mine (and men have told me on numerous occasions that they love my legs - maybe it's just a line to get in the sack), and completely tan all the way up to her almost-too-short denim shorts. Was this leggy blonde a stick? No. She probably wore a 32C or 32D size bra.
The barista taking her order asked, "Do you have a Member card to save 10%?"
"No"
So she wasn't too smart. Maybe I'm being judgemental, but if you spend any kind of money at all in Barnes & Noble and don't have a Member card, "get into it". It's something like $25 a year, and you save 10% on in-store purchases and 5% on online purchases. So if you spend maybe $250 a year there on anything, it would be worth it. I guess what I'm saying is if you're any kind of bibliophile at all, or just like to buy a lot of books for other people, it's well worth the money.
What was she doing in a Barnes & Noble cafe? I have no idea. But I wish I had clear skin.

Get Into It?

Last year, I filled out about three surveys regarding what I thought of Tech and how I would go about improving Tech, etc., so that Tech could research an advertising strategy. The fruits of all the marketing research labor have been reaped. Tech has a new website, complete with slogan: "Get Into It". Granted, it's better than "__________ empowers me to __________", which I think was supposed to turn into "Montana Tech empowers me to __________", but one of my favorite professors filled it in to create "toilet paper empowers me to wipe my ass".

After attending an engineering school for five years, my mind was lost to the gutter long ago. While it's a step from "LearnGrowSucceed", it's. . . yeah. Also, if you venture further into the site, you can still find pages with the old "LearnGrowSucceed" template.

Now, if I was a website developer, and I worked for Montana Tech, I would build the entire site how I wanted it and launch the whole thing on one day. I would not have parts of the old site lying around. Why would I want to "LearnGrowSucceed" when I could "Get Into It"?

"Get Into It". Makes me wonder what "it" I didn't "get into" when I was there. Trouble? A six-pack of beer daily? What? Have I missed out on some aspect of my college education? My God, do I need to go back to get "it"?!?