this song has been on various playlists of mine since fall. but this morning as i was fashion-blog hopping, it came on shuffle and i realized i could listen to it on repeat today. i'm not sure why it seems to fit my mood quite perfectly this morning -- strangely, as i am preparing to work the Kendrick Lamar show. it is definitely a pump-up song though. one of those songs i will specifically choose to give me confidence as i strut downtown on any given day. plus, it has a cool video to go with it. enjoy!

so today for SCOPE i am working artist hospitality for mac miller. an interesting job to say the least -- his rider consisted of various flavors of potato chips, dips, and lunchables. i don't like to admit this often, but i have a special place in my heart for mediocre, suburban rappers -- especially when they make videos like this: 

str33T arT

Paris, street art, abandoned buildings, installations, nightclubs: so many of my favorite things combined to create these masterpieces. check THIS out. It slightly reminds me of Voices and gets me SO stoked for this year! If you don't know anything about Voices, essentially a group of incredible artists come from all over the world and their work is showcased in an old, transformed warehouse in downtown Dubuque, IA. It's no abandoned nightclub in Paris, but it is very edgy and unique for Iowa. It provides an escape from small town life and makes you feel like you're in the city for the night. I highly recommend coming this year if you've never been.


to end today's post i will leave you with a little treat: a rarely seen contact sheet including the famous photograph "American Girl in Italy"

xx T 

two things need to be shared this morning:

young London-reigned trio, London Grammar.

and the true love of my life.

3:20 specifically reminds me of my experience. 

happy monday, bbs. 

after a wild weekend, i am now sitting down snacking on popcorn, sipping on chilled white wine, and listening to the london musician, SOHN. he is everything i love -- sexy, soulful, and a good mixture between upbeat and chill. i would recommend checking out everything on his soundcloud but it was SOHN's remix of one of my current favorites Rhye (who i am addicted to right now/they are the essence of sexy -- if you currently have a make out buddy or actual partner, i would HIGHLY recommend them as the soundtrack to your next hook-up) that first got me :

another thing, my girl mollie and i have to decided to start a fashion blog together that will be up within the next few days. on saturday, we put on some of our favorite articles of clothing and took a walk around a surprisingly and newly sunny iowa city, stopping only to take gulps of whiskey from my flask, pick up a coffee/thai take out, and take photos of each other in front of stone walls. so if you're one of the few that are actually reading this blog, here is a sneak peak of what is to come: 

This morning, I checked my email while drinking watery coffee and contemplating my strange dreams from last night. "TimeHop" sent me an email showing that a year ago today I updated this blog. I'd been thinking about starting up on another blog but decided in that moment: why not just continue with this one?

So that is what I am doing. Mostly because, if I don't, my posts on FB are constant and my friends probably get sick of seeing me pop up on their newsfeed. This past year my FB has been dedicated to promoting shows now that I work for SCOPE Productions in Iowa City (http://scope.uiowa.edu/), Julien International Film Festival which took place earlier this spring in Dubuque (http://www.jiffd.com/), my own event Seldom Seen Festival which will happen in Monmouth, IA this summer (http://seldomseenfest.com/), and soon I will be helping out a lot with events for Voices From the Warehouse District coming up this fall in Dubuque (http://www.voicesgallery.org/).  So my FB page has become overwhelmed with my daily postings on the shows/events that I am a part of and I want a place to post about those things in a bit more personal way as well as other things I want to share with the world: music, film, fashion, art, travel, etc...

Although my life is not as romantic/adventurous as it was a year ago, it's still exciting and crazy. Things are happening. I'm just at that stage in my life -- people are moving and graduating and getting cool jobs/internships in far away places and falling in love and getting engaged and married and coming to huge realizations about themselves. It's that time. I look around and I see all of my friends going through these massive transitions and it's so exciting and scary in such a beautiful, human way.

Since, I have nothing else specifically to post about right now, I will leave you with a song. My favorite thing happened the other day -- I like to keep my itunes on shuffle when I am in my room doing work just in case I discover something new (which, surprisingly, happens decently frequently because I own about 2 months worth of music on my itunes at this point). So, I discovered Phantogram -- a friend (actually, in Paris last year) recommended them to me and I downloaded their album and then never actually took the time to listen to them until now. I recommend using them to motivate you if you're feeling lazy today -- the other day their sound prompted me to clean my entire house. Enjoy!

xx

     ------->  (photo courtesy by my good buddy, evan) 

less than 2 weeks left here -- 1 week and 5 days exactly until i return home to dubuque, a little over 2 weeks until i move back to iowa city. naturally, my emotions are out of control and changing constantly. some moments i almost panic at the thought of leaving -- sitting at a cafe or pub drinking beers with friends, laying in the grass outside of the louvre, walking home along the seine -- those are some of the simple things i will miss the most. But then, i think about this summer and i would rather nothing else than to spend the summer months in iowa city with my friends, visiting my parents in dubuque, and planning seldom seen at my childhood farm. 

i have been a bit sick the past couple days but i've pushed through it and forced myself out of the apartment anyway. i have a feeling thats going to be happening a lot the next couple weeks -- despite how im feeling physically, i want to take advantage of every moment. i want to be outside walking around the city as much as i can, hanging out with my friends whom i will deeply miss, and enjoying my last few dance classes here. it's going to be strange taking these pictures off my walls and packing up my clothes, to move once again. 

last cours pratique on wednesday -- it will be nice to get the final over with but i'm also really nervous. many of us are i think. it's one thing trying to study while you're living abroad in paris, it's another thing trying to study while you only have a couple weeks left in paris.. it's clear that a majority of us have little to no motivation to focus on school work at this point but i think we'll be okay.