The Pledge

For a while now I've been fascinated by this phenomenon of The Wardrobe Refashion. People make a vow  to not buy new clothes for a certain period of time. Instead they buy clothes from charity shops, get them at clothing swaps or remake old clothes into new clothes. Since my job is still not present whatshowever, I decided that this would be a good thing for me to do. I had a go at an old skirt and dress and made them into a new dress (see pictures for proof of my great craftsmanship). and now I want to take it a step further. I want to take the actual vow. Of course, as a shopaholic, I will only choose the shortest contract they have on the website (2 months). But I think doing that would still be quite an achievement. So, here it is, my vow;

I Sabine pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months, starting on November 1st. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! 
Signed Sabine. 

 And here are the rules (and also important, the exceptions):

• 1.
  No buying new! (handmade is excepted; So this allows for Etsy purchases etc!!) All clothing must be Recycled, Renovated, Preloved or Thrifted, or Handmade only for the term. Employment related and special needs clothing (ie sports, school), shoes and undies are excepted from the rules, although you are encouraged to have a go at making these.
• 2.
  In extreme circumstances, maybe a special event, or the worlds greatest and most amazing never to be repeated sale that you simply can not pass up, you may use the Get out of Refashionista Jail Free card. You are able to use this card once during the 2 month part of your contract; ie 1 for 2 months, 2 for 4 months etc. Of course you need to fess up on the blog and display the button!
• 3.
  You need to be honest and admit when you've fallen off the Refashionista Wagon! Go directly to Refashionista Jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200! Apply for parole once there.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  So technically I have been doing this for over a week now, since all have have bought was from a charity shop, needed basics (socks & leggings) or special needs (my beloved tap shoes!). And I also might just allow myself to buy a dress for my graduation ceremony. After all, that is definitely a special event and therefore a good reason to break the rules. But to be honest, I would feel even better turning up in an absolutely fabulous outfit saying; "Well thank you for loving my outfit, I customized it myself!" Before you know it, I'm on Project Runway and Heidi Klum is telling me I get to show my collection at fashion week.
  
  XOXO
  
  

  

  The result

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  The skirt

  
  

  

  The dress

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Visitors

This was a weekend full of visitors. On Thursday evening, Michele came back from all her traveling around the UK to stay over a few nights before she went off for her diving course. On Friday Amie came up from Cambridge. And also on Friday, Sara's big surprise arrived. Everyone except for her knew that Leila was going to come to Leeds for a whole week. So Sara thought I was picking my friend up from the coach station, just before we would go out to dinner. Little did she know that I was bringing her sister back to her house. That was a very awesome surprise moment with lots of screaming. And it all ended up at a dinner at La Bella Italia with everyone. Good times!
On Saturday morning I was picking my friend up from the coach station for real, because Charlotte came over to visit me! We kicked of right away with an English breakfast. After that it was time for the clothing swap. A wonderful concept. Instead of just donating your old clothes you can get something back for them because all donated clothes form a little shop where you can buy things with the tokens you get for your own clothes. I found shoes, a belt, some dresses and a bag. It was great. i can't for the next one so I can turn more old clothes into new stuff! Charlotte and I ended the day with an opera, Queen of Spades (Thee cards!), which was, besides the uncomfortable chairs, absolutely great!
next day we had a lie in before we attacked town to see shops suck as Primark, Dorothy Perkins, H&M, some charity shops and Topshop. In the break we gave ourselves we had a chocolate fondue at a new desert place. This all made it a great day already. To make it even better we had a gigantic burger at GBK for dinner and cocktails at Slug and Lettuce after. We hoped to show of our performing skills at OK Karaoke, but unfortunately it seemed to be closed all evening. Shame!
On Monday we had too little time and energy to do much more than going to the coach station and having breakfast. After that, Charlotte already had to go back to the airport. Luckily I'll be back in the Netherlands in just over two weeks. Time for more fun!

Older picture - me Heide and Sara at Mook

Older picture - Michele and me at random pub

At Heidi's Birthday party

 

Gramm-ah!-r

Not studying and not working either allows me to have lots of fun in my life. Last Wednesday my accessorise course in the morning (I’m making my own bag!) and Opera soc. rehearsal in the evening (so great to see everyone again! I also will be singing Mozart, so artsy of me). Last Thursday Jamie Oliver Cooking Course (Thai Green Curry yummm) and Swing dance in the evening. Yesterday is was Light Night in Leeds, which means you get to go to a lot of free performances spread over Leeds City Centre and campus area. After that I want straight to a house party.

But it’s not all fun for me. I also have to work for my TEFL course, or else I will never get to go to all these warm and lovely countries to teach English. I started with a module about classroom management and teaching professional English. Great! Tacky example video’s and lots of games and exercises. But then I got to the second module - oh horror! – Elementary grammar. Immediately I got all these flashbacks to high school where the teacher was holding up a certain amount of fingers to show which type of verb was being used in the sentence he was reading out. I think we were supposed to follow him, but I never got my head wrapped around this system (or the names of all the types of verbs) so I spend most of my times just sitting there in confusion. I learned to accept that it’s easiest just to learn the verbs case by case, because remembering all the rules is fairly impossible. But now I will have to teach English to others. And I have the vague feeling that telling them  that they “just have to know it” is going to form quite a book class.  Perhaps we can fill the rest of our time with games? Hmm, maybe not. Maybe it’s best if I just write down all those weird little rules in my notebook so that by the time I’m teaching I can actually tell the students what they are. Why these rules apply? No idea. Just accept that English grammar sucks. But now that it could always have been worse, it could have been Dutch.

Some photo's from the last weeks:

Leprechaun museum

October fest

They know me here!

King of burgers

Welcome Team pre-party

Welcome Team party cake

Being ‘unemployed’

So... after coming back from Dublin (hopefully with many more trips to follow!) the real unemployed life starts. To entertain myself I signed up for a painting course and an accessorise course and joined many societies (five at the moment). This week I also start making up for all my missed cooking classes at Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food. This mean I will have lots of fabulous food ready whenever I come home (amazingness!). I had my first LUUMS choir rehearsal yesterday and found out I did not magically learn how to sight read sheet music over summer (shame!). But besides that it was lots of fun. I’m quite excited to have found this new society, especially since they have a big Christmas concert later in the year.

This morning, another first time in my oil painting class, where I got to feel young again (everyone else was at least ten years older than me). I managed to not only get the green paint we were using all over the paper, but also all over my hands and tights (the rest of my clothes got recued by the painters shirt I was wearing, phew!), which made me feel like a five year old playing with finger paint. But the class was fun and I took the first step towards becoming Picasso, so it was definitely worth it.

While doing all of this I am still looking for a job to change to an employed status. So far no luck, but I’ll keep trying!  

Postcards from all the places I've been this year

Dublin Part 3 – We art

After our overnight coach trip, two days in Dublin and Oktoberfest, we woke up (just in time for breakfast) pretty tired. Shame, because we had planned a trip to all the cultural deliciousness (not talking about food this time, but about actual art galleries and museums) on the other side of Dublin and it was quite a walk. Lucky for us it was very very sunny and we strolled along the river to the National Museum. We had to go in quickly, in order not to get caught in a huge group of screaming school children. In the museum we got more fascinated by arts students drawing the objects than the objects themselves since the museum basically was about all the many battles Ireland lost (and they were quite endless). We sat down on the grass in from of the museum for a bit while finding out how we would have to walk next. Nevertheless, we got lost. So we decided to buy a sandwich and have a picknick on another field of grass (there are many in Dublin). After this we managed to find the art galleries (with help of course) which were very nice, but the tiredness was stronger. So we ended up falling asleep in one of the rooms where a projection was shown (7 minutes long, looping endlessly). The people walking in might have thought that we were part of the art, at least the woman that was watching the movie when I woke up did not seem to find it strange that we were taking a nap there. Maybe it’s totally normal to sleep in museums in Ireland!

After our nap we certainly did not feel like walking all the way back, so we hopped on a tram to see if we could buy a ticket from the driver. We were told we did not need to buy a ticket, as long as we got off before one of the checking staff came on (free ride!). We got off without being checked and went back to The Chocolate Café for another delicious hot chocolate (with Bailey’s this time). After a quick shower it was time to return to Temple Bar for dinner and drinks with Michele’s course mate David after. But no late night for us, since we had to catch an early flight the next morning. Which sadly formed the end of our Dublin trip. This time I slept at every moment I was not moving so before I knew it we were back in good old Leeds.    

More grass

Lovely hot chocolate

Our 'view' at the river

Dublin Part 2 – Oktoberfest

Luckily we had some more sleep for our second day in Dublin and we were ready to go and explore some more. We started off with the leprechaun museum where we got told and shown all Irish leprechaun legends and got to be in a massive living room where we were midgets compared to the furniture. The tour was very probably meant for a slightly younger audience (the fact that everybody had to draw a leprechaun at the end sort or proved that), but I guess you are as old as you feel.

After lunch we went to see some more culture, just to yet again end up in a park and take a nap in the sun. After dinner we went to something called “The Chocolate Café” (best concept ever!) to eat a small version of a chocolate fondue. Just after I said to Michele that I could not have any more chocolate, the barman asked if we would like a free hot chocolate, because otherwise he had to throw it out anyway (win!). Of course we took it.

After the chocolate banter it was time for Oktoberfest. We, unoriginally, got lost on our way there and had to ask for directions. We were given them by a very drunk Irish man who we did not trust very much since he said he was almost blind and did not really seem to know what we were talking about. We decided to figure out our way ourselves and soon enough we could just follow the sound of music. We got very lucky while queuing, because two women handed us their wristbands so we could skip the waiting and walk right in. In there we met very... interesting people. Sjaloom (who walked here from Paris), Pablo (who did not like us eating his Pretzel) , a tiny Indian dancer (who made Michele look  like a tall person) and many randoms. On our way back we got lost once again (just a little bit!) so we had to consult our map. This resulted in the patrol guard giving us a ride to our hostel, including a lecture on the dangers of walking there at that time with a map. Thank you Mr. Officer!      

Midgets

chocolate fest!

leprechaun drawings

Dublin part 1 - Here we come

The good part of not being a student is that you can take time of whenever you want. So Michele and I finally managed to book our trip to Ireland to visit Dublin. Unfortunately we were so late that the flight’s from Leeds to Dublin were really expensive so we ended up booking a coach to Dublin. A horrifying twelve hour ride overnight. Luckily we had a marvelous city to look forward to.
We got on our coach at 6pm and all was well and good. The bad times came when we were trying to sleep. The roads were bumpy, the engine was loud, the man in the front wouldn’t stop talking to the girl next to him (the poor thing) and the boy in front of us really loved to sing along with his ipod.

So by the time we reached the sea (1am), we had only managed to  lie in uncomfortable positions for several hours. To improve this lovely ride, we got send of the coach to pass the border by making a circle-walk through a building and back to the second coach. Of course there is nothing more fun than walking around half-blind (no glasses nor contacts) in the middle of the night. As a bonus it turned out the second coach was even more uncomfortable than the first one. Luckily we were released from this horrible beast once we were on the ferry. We chose the most comfortable (read; the first ones we saw) couches and lie down to pass out within five seconds.  I must admit that was a good nap (if one ignored the staring passengers). After that we were at the coach station in no time and had to drag our half-sleeping bodies to the hostel (6.15am). For some reason the 24-hour hostel turned out to be closed. NOT AMUSING. So we carried on the dragging of half sleeping bodies and drank coffee in McDonalds, because it was the only thing that was open at that time. After this very sleepy cup of coffee we decided to try our luck on the hostel door again. Unfortunately it was still closed. But then we saw someone coming out of the door next to the hostel, which turned out to be the actual entrance. The door we tried to enter was an incognito fire exit. Very funny at 7am.

Luckily the nice receptionist gave us access to our room right away so we could sleep for a bit before exploring the town. After having breakfast we were ready to go and wandered through the Temple Bar area (I thought it was Buddha Bar, but well, close enough) until it was time for our tour. The very excited history student decided to include every single fact about Dublin that exists which made the tour more than three hours long. The most important facts;  Ireland lost every war or battle the ever started (quite sad) and traditional Irish food is awful (really sad). Slightly overwhelmed by the overload of information and walking, we decided to lay down for a while in the park that was the ending point of the tour. The park was famous for… something. I would say for its soft grass that’s perfect for a nap on a sunny day (after all, that is what we used it for). It was so good that only the thought of dinner wake us up and got us walking again. We found a Mongolian restaurant where you could put together your own dish and let it be grilled for you (yummy!). Next it was time for a shower and another nap at the hostel. After that we did a brave attempt on going out for drinks, which was a bit of a failure. By midnight we were back at our hostel again and fast asleep within five minutes.

The needle, it's said to be the tallest building in the world

In Temple Bar

Chilling at the park

Michele and me

And now what?

So I just handed in the thesis for your Masters. All courses are completed, all essays handed in. Now it’s just waiting for the results. What to do during all that waiting? I can’t do the “let’s do a Masters thing” – already done that. This means I now really have to enter the big and scary world of employment. Current status; unemployed. Current plans; none.

Right after hand-in there was the work for the International Welcome team; waiting for students to arrive at the train station to make sure  they get to their accommodation and playing tour guide of the city. A great way to exit student life!

Next to that Sara, Amie, Heidi and I finally did the thing we wanted to do for so long. Order a sushi platter and watch Pride and prejudice all night. With more sushi than we could have hoped for and a lot of Mr. Darcy, we made it a great night full of food comas to prove that you can also have fun when you’re not a student. The next day, it was time for Dublin...

Sooo much sushi!

Ready to dig in

The after part of before and after

death by food - After desert