Busy Week(s)

Hey there, I know, I'm late again.
The good news is that I'm late because I have been hard at work!
Let's start with all of the fun that was last week...
(LAST) SUNDAY: I did the COLOR RUN in Philly. It was completely ridiculous. I couldn't breath or see for some of it (the color cloud of doom was a little much) but it was completely worth it! I had signed up back when I was home with some of my friends so I got to see the ones I love that I haven't seen since being in Philly. The run was only 1.6 miles away from where I live but it still took me 10 minutes to get there and then another 10 to find a parking spot. I got there at about 6:15am and met up with my friends who were already there. We went through registration, we were the Double Rainbow Brites and we got a shirt and some color dust to throw around later. This was the largest organized run in history (I think that's what they said) with 23,000 people in one place! We got in line to start around 7:15 and probably didn't actually get to the start line until around 7:45. Then we were off! We danced, we ran, we walked and we turned multicolored all within about 30 minutes. It was also one of the hottest days of the year so they said they were adding more water stations. There was one. And it was .5 miles (of the 3.1mi) into the race so anyone without a water bottle (me) was kind of fucked. Once we finished we joined the giant color cloud and got a ton of water. Once in the cloud it was madness, you couldn't see or hear of really breath. There were people on people's shoulders, breakdance fighting and even a woman waving around a rubber chicken. She smeared green color all over my left arm because "I didn't look green enough." It was completely crazy we we took pictures of ourselves as the hot messes we were on the Rocky stairs and this was all done before 10am! I said bye to my friends, went home and after two showers, there were still parts of me that were blue and pink.
I then met up with another friend from home who actually goes to school and works here in Philly and she showed me around Center and Old City. We are the kind of friends that just talks about anything and everything regardless of how long it's been or how often we talk in between. I haven't seen this girl in at least three years and we don't keep in touch but we spent 5 hours just joking and walking around with each other and it was so much fun. I love that girl. She took me to her favorite tappas restaurant and then we went our separate ways.

(LAST) MONDAY: This was really great because by boss for Free People sent me over to the sweaters department in a different building and I got to hang out with a whole new set of people. While I didn't do what I would call actual work, I got to see another side of the industry that really fascinates me: knitwear. I have been knitting since I was younger and took knitwear while I was in Italy last Fall where I took a knitting class and working both by hand and on a machine. I knew enough that I could ask smart questions and understand the answers and so my boss for the day and I got along really well. I did go on a small rant about my evil teachers, but I knew how I was presenting myself and was able to stop before I caused too much damage. But she did end the day saying that I was very smart and she was glad she got to meet me. I hope that I can spend another day or two over there, it was really fun to see her do....everything! She also let me keep a bunch of old color cards that they were going to throw out, so while I can't really use them (1 because they;re last seasons, and 2 because they probable only work in large quantities and will not send to a student), I now have a really great catalog of color references!

(LAST) TUESDAY: I went to the Barnes Foundation with work and it was phenomenal. I love these intern activities they have for us, they're always spectacular. I love art and so getting to see so many paintings by so many artists was amazing. Dr. Barnes (I have no idea what he was a Dr. of but he was clearly loaded), started collecting art and his collection grew so much that he created a new building off his house to house it. After his death, his only wish was that his collection never be moved. So of course it was moved. People were coming to see his collection and paying entries like it was a museum (it basically was) but his house was in the suberbs of nowhere, so the city replicated his house down to every last detail in the art district of Philly and put every painting exactly where is was originally in the set up. That way it is exactly the same as how he had left it (kind of) but more people could access it. So many great artists were housed there such as Rousseau, Picasso, Rodin, and Sauret, as well as lesser known like Modigliani and Glackens (who was actually a friend of Barnes's and the only one he trusted to buy art for him). It was a gorgeous collection and I was getting paid to see it. Amazing.

(LAST) WEDNESDAY: I got up early to go get breakfast with a bunch of interns at one of the original stores in the city. We got free food and listened to a presentation about all of the different managers and jobs that are available and what it takes to run a store. It was really interesting, we got to see all of the set up and visual art books and meet some of the men that were actually putting up all of the crazy displays. The one in charge of that was my favorite because he was just so funny and comfortable with himself. He also had piercings, tattoos, and a teddy bear T-shirt so I'm sure you can see the appeal. We also got a tour of the store and did an activity where we split into groups and we each had to create a style for an assigned customer based on what we had learned that day. Our groups customer was "The Beautiful and the Damned" so we went for a lace dress, a cut up tank top to put over it, a studded cross shoulder bag, a crystal necklace and some clunky Jeffrey Campbell heels to finish it off. We didn't win the design contest but they did say that we knew our customer well and that it was a good job. After that we got on a bus back to work.

Hmm...I went home this last weekend and then let's see....
This week was actually quite slow, which was disappointing. I feel like neither team remembers which days it gets me so they don't really have anything for me to do. I am however getting very close with my Market team. They are the one's that I thought might have an interest in hiring me, so I'm really glad about that.  Our conversations are getting goofier and we joke and talk and they're all so nice. Oh! I also moved desks. It;s just one back (where the other intern, Natalie, used to sit-she got moved closer to her team) and an older Russian woman took my seat. She's really very nice but I think that sometimes she sounds really rude because she has some broken English and a heavy accent. I actually saw one of my coworkers make a na-na-na-na-boo face behind her back because she was forced to move all of her work because it was "in the way." I don't know if the face was just for my benefit but I do know that she enjoyed it regardless. We were actually supposed to have our huge company party yesterday but it was moved to next Wednesday because it was supposed to rain both yesterday and today (it didn't yesterday, it already has today) but I heard it's a great time! I went to another meeting with Kathy yesterday just to catch up and even she said "They had a margarita machine last year...Don't worry, there will be alcohol." Apparently they go all out. Last year there was a mechanical bull and a bouncy slide and all kinds of crazy. A few years ago she said they made their own ice skating rink! But they never have the party on a Friday to stop people from being too crazy at a company party, especially since apparently parts of it always end up on Youtube. Kathy also asked if I wanted to shadow the design team at some point, I said I would but I was also like to be in the Pattern Making room at some point if we could swing it. She said she would do what she could and I asked if she's hear dof any problems since our last talk and she said there haven't been any! I'm so happy! And today I am actually writing this in the middle of the day (which is probably why it's so long) because I had to call out sick :( I think something bit me in my sleep because I woke up with a puffy, itchy face and red eyes so I stayed home. At least after this post I can work on my collection. I am almost down with collection number 1, but there are still 2 more collections and 2 more projects to go and I'm down to I think 5 weeks! Yikes! I guess it's time to sign off and get to it, til next time!