hmm, God you're funny

 Today's clothes cravings:

cute trousers very suitable for work~
I'm really in need of buying some work clothes.
and luckily, Zara is going on Summer Sale!! Oh yes you read that right. This is finally happening. I feel like this time Lady Luck is really giving me a break 'cause why else does she have to put summer sale at the same time I need work clothes, right? 
Without shame I must admit, there's only two times of the year when I could afford to buy stuff from them, that being Christmas and Summer Sales. Normally, I would browse an infinite amount of time every-time I go to Zara (making boyfriend want to shoot himself in the foot), flipping madly through all the racks in hopes to find a lucky break somewhere, bring a bunch of stuff to try on stuff just for kicks, and come out holding an imaginary shopping bag.
But NOW, it's finally that glorious time of the year!! I can finally go there and come out with not air, but actual stuff!! I'm so excited I serious feel like there should be a holiday for this, I want to throw confetti all over my room.
Okay~ haha, maybe that's too extreme. But you get what I mean, right? If you feel similar, I hope to see you there, let's have fun at the sale together soon!

On a less lucky note however, today I found out I might be teaching senior high-school kids (boo).

It's great that God decided to let me go to Japan and I have ever so grateful about that. But, sometimes it seems like he likes to play a bit of a game. You see, when I ask him for something, he gives me the furthest possible thing from it.
First I told him I wanted to be in Kansai, because the temperature is much warmer! you can wear all the cute clothes, and also I wanted to listen to people speak Kansai dialect. I thought that was not much of a request 'cause honestly Kansai is such a huge part of Japan, it's so big, that God could've just randomly waved his hand around that area and I would've ended up there. But lo and behold, he put me in Kanto, where it's cold and the exact opposite direction.

Then I told him I wanted to teach elementary school kids. I have the most experience with them, and you have to admit, although they can be annoying as hell, they are most times cute and innocent, with hissy-fits that don't even last more than ten minutes then it's back to all smiles. Besides, it is a lot lighter in terms of workload to teach elementary school 'cause you have a textbook to go by (that means more time to browse the shops and have fun!) But maybe God thinks that's not fun, 'cause he decided to make me teach senior high-school instead, something that I have no experience with, and the kids are not even anywhere close to elementary kids age.

Now, I want to wish for an all-girl school, 'cause girls are so much more obedient and easy to teach. And that's honestly not too bad of a request, 'cause Japanese schools are often either all-boy or all-girl, and even if I get in a mixed-school that's not so bad either. But now I'm afraid he's just gonna go ahead and put me in an all-boy school, which would be my worst nightmare! Thinking of all their loud voices and shit thrown all over the classroom is making me have a headache.

so, maybe I should just wish for an all-boy school, so I can get the opposite? I'm gonna behave extra good so hopefully Lady luck can be on my side again!

packing doom

Hi dears, sorry I've been neglecting this blog. I've encountered some major life changes in the past month. I said a few blog posts before that I was going to work in Toronto, but long story short, it turns out that I'm going to go work in Japan (for a year) in the upcoming fall. I've always wanted to go work in Japan so I'm super excited, but even I have to admit it will take some time to mentally adjust to it so I'm going through this over and over in my head.

On a lighter note, here's today's clothes craving:

i love one-pieces, they're great for summer and you can just forget about matching skirts or tops, just throw on the OP and you're set. perfect for lazy people like me. but sadly, it is already sold out on w closet 's website. I've been eyeing and drooling at a lot of stuff on site for a while lately, but stupid Canada Post has to be unreliable and go on strike. Anyway, I hope I can find a similar one in Japan.

When people go live in a different place, the first thing they think about is how to get there in one piece without loosing any body parts, and the next thing is what they are going to bring. Packing hasn't started since I still don't know what province I'm going to yet. I'm allowed to bring two suitcases totalling 40 kg in weight. Looking at my closet and roomful of stuff, a realization sneakily came to my mind: this may very well possibly be the hardest thing I'd ever have to do in my life.
I have vowed to bring as little stuff as possible. But oh God why me t_t. almost 30 pairs of shoes, has to somehow be cut down to 10, or maybe even less. I truly hope that when the time comes, the God of prioritization and willpower will be on my side!

Cheapness Spectrum

Recently, I encountered something called the "cheapness spectrum".  Cheapness, in terms of spending habits, is a relative thing, and it can be formed on a spectrum that goes from least cheap to most cheap, like this: Free-minded spending, reasonable-spending, thrift, cheap, dirt cheap, and cheap-ass cheap.

A free-minded spender would be someone who spends money mostly for convenience, doesn't think about the amount they're spending and whether the product was worth it. A free-minded spender would very likely go in to a store and grab whatever they needed, pay, and leave. (I used to be like this a long, long time ago. looking at my life now, I'm not sure how i feel about the change -3-)

The biggest difference between reasonable-spending and thrift is that, the reasonable-spender would buy things from department stores, they would think about the price and the worth but will most likely still pay the full price for something they truly loved or really needed. Thrift people do this way less, and they like thrift-stores like Value Village and Salvation Army. This is understandable, why settle for the full price when it might go on sale later, or you could find something similarly attractive for less? And another difference is that, thrift people like the word "Sale", very much.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty and talk about cheap. You might be wondering why there are so many different kinds of cheap, aren't all cheap people just cheap? During my 24 years of living with Asians and encountering all sorts of cheap, let me assure you there are differences. If a thrift person goes shopping for a hundred times, once he will buy something he loves despite a too-high price, a cheap person would do that only once in three hundred shopping trips. The cheap person may consider sale prices, but they would not instantly drop their cash just 'cause a shirt went down from $70 to $35, if they see a red tag that says "additional 30% on top of sales", then maybe. If there's another tag that says "special day, everything 50% off on top of the additional 30% on top of sales", even better. A cheap person is way more likely to bargain (even if the seller didn't post any signs that says 'reasonable-offers accepted' or whatever), they do it, 'cause why not?
Also, don't wanna sound racist but, eight out of ten cheap people are Asians.

Now here's dirt-cheap (Are you still reading this? Geez you must be really cheap~ ) How do I sum up dirt-cheap.... hmm, I guess you could say, cheap people are everywhere, but dirt cheap people can only be found dwelling in a few unexpected corners. Places such as gotten-from-lying-to-the-government-about-income government houses. These people have gotten so cheap to the point they abandoned some of their morals. These people have spent every single second of their lives thinking about how to get the most out of their money. It's actually kind of painful to live with them if you're not one of them, 'cause that's all they ever talk about. I once went out to eat fried chicken with a dirt-cheap family, and they sat down in this tiny KFC getting into a fiery argument on whether they want ten drumsticks with two dollars, or seven chicken thighs with three dollars. Then they came up with a bunch of other theories about how they could save money if they bought this one combo of just chicken thighs with another one with just drumsticks or whatever. What seemed like an infinite amount of time had past. I don't even remember how everything worked out, but only that after coming out of KFC smelling like I worked there for a whole day.

It might be hard to believe, but there is a level that's even beyond dirt-cheap, and that's cheap-ass cheap. In a way, you could say that cheap-ass and dirt-cheap are equally cheap. If dirt-cheap people cheated for their cheap, then cheap-ass people worked for their cheap. Cheap-ass cheap people are life-style cheaps. They pretty much do everything and anything that's even remotely possibly done by themselves, by themselves. They mill their own rice, grow their own weed (the medicinal kind. only the dirt-cheaps grow the other kind [so they can sell it]), make their own fabric, knit their own socks, built their own bed, and sometimes even their own house. They don't care if they're dead-tired from worked an entire day or night. Basically to them, money is more important than health.

OK. I think I wrote everything I wanted to about this cheap spectrum. Man, why'd I spend so much time doing this? Is anybody even reading? Anyways.... I'm sure we all have diff opinions on what we define as cheap so, if you're super bored and 无聊, you could make your own spectrum! You could send me your spectrum and we could put them together and even write a book about this: "The Science of Cheap".
On this spectrum, I fall mostly under thrift, with occasional drifts to cheap, where do you fall?

30 days down!

I feel almost guilty that Lady Luck gave me so much attention recently. I'm so not used to it 'cause my luck is normally pretty bad, but lately I feel like I'm on a roll! So many good news~ First, I got hired from a job position that I wanted for a super long time (the same job that made me feel super poopy before 'cause I thought I was gonna wait for 7 more months to hear back from them), two this blog has officially started for 30 days and I didn't give up on it! And three, I officially completed the 30 days challenge of not buying any clothes!! I feel like this calls for some sort of celebration~

I'm in the mood for something with a little celebratory atmosphere to it, like this bunny piece by Emily Temple Cute

The bunnies are sort of Easter, and this might be a bit too fancy to casually walk on the street in. But its' polka-dot with purple combination and whimsical feeling puts me under a spell~
Emily Temple Cute is a Japanese brand. Originally, the creators made children's clothes with vintage-inspired prints, and named their brand after the adorable 1930s child icon Shirley Temple. After the Shirley Temple clothes came out, a lot of big girls loved them and fought-after the few biggest sized (made for girls 12 to 14 years old) items available. So the creators decided they might as well make a whole other brand just for these girls, and there came Emily Temple Cute. Don't quote me on this though 'cause I'm just suspecting since Shirley Temple and Emily Temple are under the same Shirley Temple Corporation.

Sadly, Emily Temple Cute, like a lot of other stuff that I talk about on this blog, falls into the stuff-I'll-never-afford category. As a form of comfort I remind myself that their sizes are made for girls under 165cm and aren't suitable for my body type (I'm 173cm). I think being restricted by your body-type when shopping is a really great thing, because it can stop you from spending so much! For example, if every pair of shoes you see has one in your size, sure your choices would triple, but so would your debt! Same goes for clothes. If I was the right shape to wear Emily Temple Cute stuff, it's quite possible I'd be in 100000 dollar debt (yes death by dresses). When you put it that way I really think it's a good thing that we have variety in body-shapes and we can't wear everything we see. So, don't be sad if you're too tall, too short, too fat or skinny by today's standards, it's really the God's way of protecting you from financial disaster : P. Sometimes what appears unlucky is actually a blessing in disguise.

today's craving

24/30 days!
 I'm itching to buy some new clothes. Only 6 days more~~~

I want this dress badly:

from zara
Saw it in the store and it's actually a bit longer than how it appears in the picture. I think the stripes are so cute and versatile, it'll look cute with a blazer, or tshirts underneath and sneakers for everyday wear. I also really want a pair of Keds.
I also have a big want for a beige trenchcoat but that'll have to wait 'til the fall or next year.. (I know it's sad I bookemarked them justleavemealoneokay?)
 
so many wants, so little money~  starting in the upcoming few months, I will be finding a job in Toronto and going to live there. That gets me very excited!!! I've lived in Toronto for short summers before, but this time, it's going to be for real! (speaking of which, I irrationally feel like that city is calling me, 'cause often when I go there,  something's left behind, like I've lost a binder, a book, a hat on different occasions. I'd like to think that's the city's way of saying "don't go Moo don't go!" hahaha.) But, just when I'm doing a happy dance in my head, the little logic fairy tells me: "Don't forget there's rent and other necessities, girl. So even when you do, you won't be able to afford all these things." (what a party pooper, I know right?)

Maybe it's a good thing though, British Philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

forbidden fruit

Last night when we talked about the self-contradicting Chinese Marie Claire magazines, my boyfriend said, "Maybe they just wanted to mess with the little girls."

We always like things that we shouldn't have. Humans are really self-contradicting creatures. Marie Claire took advantage of that.

Presenting the huge collection of ads and glamorous photoshopped pictures, tempting us with all those shiny, pretty, expensive objects, and then telling us in the last page, "material things are bad for you", is like showing a little kid a big bag of M&Ms and then telling him "You know, you really shouldn't be eating this!"

The forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter. Why did Eve bite the apple? Why did Pandora open the box? They are not evil, only human. Where's the fun of things if we just did everything as we should?
Marie Claire has reverse-psychology all figured out, she is one clever lady.

*sigh* On a different note, it IS hard to resist those damn forbidden fruits!! I am trying to not buy clothes for 30 days. I'm on 23 days and it has been harrrd x.x. I still browsed shopping websites everyday, filled the imaginary online shopping cart with all sorts of must-have stuff, and even started gluing magazine cut-outs of wanted items in my sketchbook. I wonder what's going to happen when this challenge ends. Am I going to go crazy and blow all my money? God of Willpower, I need you!

Chinese Marie Claire

The Chinese Marie Claire is REALLY heavy. I mean, it's physically humongous, carrying it in your arms is like holding a baby. I feel so cheated because after all the trouble of flipping through that encyclopedia, I was only reading 10 pages of it.

First, there are hundreds of pages of advertisement, printed on very massive thick paper, and then followed by a ton of articles on what the latest fashion trend is, what clothes you should buy, how to do your make-up, what kind of make-up you should buy, what kind of new gadget you should buy, the newest LV or Hermez bag, etc. Then, a few columns on sex therapy. And then, a teeny tiny 5 page section is dedicated to editorials. Oftentimes these things emphasize on the insignificance of material things, like "how to save your money", "spiritual life vs. the material life", "Why taking a higher earning job may not be good for you".

 I am really confused by these authors... because it seems like after all that effort of making you carry a magazine the size of a 2-year-old and flipping through all those pages, they in the end just wanted to tell me "Hey, all the stuff you just read was crap, don't buy anything. In fact, don't even buy this magazine anymore."

So, what do they really want??
I'm going to sound totally random, but this kind of reminds me of the concept of 本音と建前 (concept from Japanese psychologist Takeo Doi, that society or people often have a visade, covering up the truth).
At first, it seems as though the tatemae (visade) of Marie Claire is the colourful pages of ads, and honne (true intention) is a the message for people to have substance and not attached to material things. But really, I think those hidden articles are the tatemae, they are there to give an impression of substance. This might a sort of strategy to attract more readers, and oftentimes those readers might just be the ones who make enough to afford the LV bags.

lash paint

A few days ago, I was infected with the "couldn't-move-feet" syndrome at a shop display while shopping with mom. And out of the kindness in her heart, mommy dearest got me this treasure:

I'm going sound like a salesman, haha. This sweet-looking little lady is so talented, she makes your eyelashes look longer while smiling like roses.
I find good mascara quite hard to come by these days. Because I have Asian eyelashes, which means no eyelashes! So I need mascaras that cling on to any bit of eyelash you have. If you are like me, you might find this a good mascara. This mascara to your eyelash is like magnets to steel.

I really enjoy painting eyelashes, as soon as I have them on, I instantly feel 100x more feminine ~!

The other Dolly girls on display

--
Today was Mom's Day. I made curry for my mom, and watched Coraline together. I hope you all enjoyed your day with mom!

100 days without new clothes

Since school ended, I suddenly had a bunch of free time on my hands. So much free time, that I almost feel like I should help the other busy people in this world take some load off.
A couple days ago I was so free I decided to flip around my mom's collection of Chinese women's health magazines. Surprisingly, I came across an interesting article, it was titled "The Challenge: Not Buying Clothes for 100 Days". 
The writer mentioned a point about the value of clothes. She said that, cheap and expensive are relative things. To use a exaggerated example, a dress that costs $100 which you wore for a thousand times, on average only costs $0.10 per wear. Comparatively, that's actually a lot cheaper than a $15 one that you only wore once.

That reminds me, I have this pair of pants in my closet, I got them from Urban Outfitters on sale. The colour and the fit were both mediocre at best, but it was presented to me at such a ridiculously good price, I felt like not buying them was like missing out on some really great one-in-a-life-time big chance. When I debated about it in the store, my friend said: "Girlfriend, are you for real??" In the end, I bought them. And I felt like a clever thief.
However, those pants did not even get worn once. Many times I had considered them, but I always put them down in the last minute, sometimes due to "Oh it's not the right fit with this outfit", or "the colour doesn't go", or "it's too short", or some other kind of dissatisfaction. Those poor pants, ever since last Christmas, they've been sitting in my closet collecting dust. Now, that clever thief quite a few months ago wasn't so clever after all.

The sad thing is, I have quite a few items like this in my closet, added together their value can probably afford one very nice coat, or ten something visits to my favourite drink and snack bar! It's amazing how much money one can save, if she could just resist a few temporary urges.
Oh boy, when I think of all those delicious foods and the good times I can have with my friends perving on the stylish hosts, I'm so determined to not buy clothes. I might just take up that 100 Days challenge one day!

No stress

It's been almost two weeks since I started this blog, and during this time, I never bought any clothes. Although two weeks is a short time, for me that's a pretty good record. Thank you to the readers! In a hidden way, you helped me : )

I do have one confession to make, I indulged and bought this guy over the weekend. He is a stressball, and pretty much useless except you could squeeze him in your hand when you are stressed out. The character's name is Barbabeau. He belongs to a series of toys based on a very old cartoon show called Barbapapa. Barbapapa and his children are basically characters whose bodies resemble lumps of play-do, and could shape-shift into anything they want. You could watch the French Barbapapa clips here.

I saw Barbabeau in an indie toy store in Parkdale, Toronto (whose name unfortunately, I for the life of me can't remember :/). The store had a lot of merchandises from vintage cartoon shows, like Tintin, Moomin, and others. When I saw a Barbapapa figurine, I was so excited my heart actually started beating faster. The feelings of childhood instantly came, I was reminded of a time when I used to flip back and forth my Barbapapa book, until it was totally beaten and fallen apart at the seams. I was also in a state of disblief, because one, Barbapapa was never aired in America or Canada, and two, Barbapapa is so old that even if there were toys for it, they should have gone into extinction by now. But nonetheless, there it was!

The place was like my dream come true. They had so many things, like Barbapapa lunchboxes, puzzles, plates, soap dishes, toy carts, and even a clothing hanger shaped in Barbapapa creatures.Being collector's items, they were of course, all well out of my price-range. The Barbabeau stressball was the only thing that I could afford, it was around $20 with taxes added. I spent a ridiculous amount of time in the store debating whether it is worth it, it took so long I think my friends probably wanted to shoot me in the foot. In the end, I thought, the cartoon does have a special place in my heart, and this was a pretty rare occasion to see an "extinct" toy of your childhood, so I bought it! Even though I'm trying to be thrift, I still believe that, when you see something that's that precious, you should just go for it, guiltlessly~.

Now, when I feel stressed out and want to buy more stuff, I plan to squeeze Barbabeau instead.

fleeting romances

Today's clothes craving:

darling little coat from Victorian Maiden (I think 2010 collection?).  Most of the stuff I own are straight up and down 'cause I find that more comfortable, but I love things with a waist these days!

While I was waiting for the bus, I thought about the impermanence of material things.
Even though I find almost everything pretty and want too many things, I rarely experience times when I could not stop thinking about something that I couldn't have. There are always other different pretty things to distract me, although I love clothes, I not a faithful lover. A typical fixation oftentimes don't even last more than a week. I have a closet full of stuff, but  realistically, if my house got burnt down, my life would go on just the same.
Maybe when you want clothes, it's not actually the clothes that you want, but that feeling of instant gratification. Could such feeling be achieved in other non-financially-disastrous ways? Probably. And it if you tried hard enough, you could probably even nip it in the bud. But, giving into those desires is so much easier than resisting them. Often times, people would just rather not do it, and in the end they're the ones to carry the debt. There's a Chinese saying, which literally translates as "Carrying it on your back or your arms, it's still the same weight", I think it describes that very well.

On a different note, today I got mad at boyfriend for a stupid selfish reason. Sometimes I just can't help but be selfish, being selfish requires sooo little effort. But in the end, it's still me who has to bear the consequences. It's just like giving in to buy clothes. Chunchun if you read this, Moomoo is sorry :. <, I was wrong.

comfort pants

Hi darlings, welcome to the first official post on this blog!

I hate to write something stupidly down-putting on here, especially on the very first post, so please forgive me for the tale of doom and gloom you're about to receive. Long story short, after waiting for an interview result for two gruelling months, I finally found out today, that I have to wait not one, not two, but seven months more! Have you ever heard of interviews that take 9 months to get a result? What poop! And also, I have to write a ridiculous psychology final tomorrow. =3= just what I needed, more poop on top of poop.

I often find myself getting a dangerous urge to buy clothes at times like these. Right now, I am experiencing mad craving for a jumpsuit made of jersey material. Like this one:

Isn't it cute? If you're a student in your finals week, I want you to know that it's PERFECTLY okay to want to be a slob. But if you're going to be a slob, you'd better be a cute slob. And this jumpsuit does that perfectly.
I imagine you could wear it with sneakers or tom's, or even moccasins. Add a cute sports jacket, and some ice-cream, and you're just about ready to cram for those finals.
The feeling it gives kind of reminds me of what the girls wore in this Tegan and Sarah video.

Though I have a hard time justifying spending $50 on a dinky little jumpsuit (though this is actually one of the less ridiculously priced items on their website), I still really want it.
Haha, I guess comfort clothes is kinda like comfort food, great stress relieve, but bad for your (financial) health.

Hell.O

Hi boys and girls, I'm Mousse. a 24 year old female living in Canada. I guess you could refer to me as what is known as a shopaholic, I love, love, LOVE clothes. It's not the deepest intellectual thing to obsess over, and being a student I'm poor as fuck, but I just can't help it. I'm sure many of you out there could relate, it's like those evil darling things in the display cases have an electric pull on you, when you see them, you just can't move your feet!

I've had my share of credit card debt in the past, and I used to feel super guilty over spending hundreds of dollars on one measly item when the average money spent on clothes for a three-person family is just a little over a hundred. After working my ass off begging strangers to do surveys in the mall, I was finally able to recover from the credit card sins that I committed. However, even after many futile attempts to terminate it, my love-affair with clothes still persists. The more I want to stop wanting them, the more I want them, it's basically the classic case of reverse psychology. What can I say, clothes are undeniably my soul-mate.

So, I've been thinking of writing a blog about clothes for quite some time. Today, I finally got off my lazy ass to do it. From now on I'll be posting my rants about clothes, fashion and whatnot. However this is by no means a hip fashion blog. You know those alcoholic-anonymous blogs where people talk about quitting drinking? This will be more like that than say, the Sartorialist. I hope you'll find some enjoyment from my writing, and may we collect our ransoms together!