Miss Universe National Confusion Contest!

When I first started this blog, I thought that maybe it would be a mix of stories about my life, and funny commentary on various other things (in the vein of Go Fug Yourself and Project Rungay). As it turned out, there has been very little of the latter. But I'm going to change that right now. Why? Because this is one of my favorite times of the year: the week where the pictures are released for the Miss Universe National Costume contest.

The ridiculous awesomeness of these costumes cannot be overstated. No one knows how to interpret the assignment. Here are some highlights from this year.

First there is the "screw this, I'm going full on showgirl" route:

Aruba, Bahamas

Or the showgirl's ancient predecessor, the loincloth wearing warrior princess:

Columbia

I see your golden loincloth and raise you a cow head:

Kosovo

Or you can pick a relevant topic. Like...tennis:

Belgium

I don't know if I should run in fear from this, or put in on the top of my Christmas Tree:

Kazakhstan

You can cover yourself in bizarre crap: Angola , Guam , Panama

A bunch of countries got a memo about wings: Albania, Jamaica, U.S. Virgin Islands, USA

At first glance the headdress is all you notice, but on closer examination...is that a whip she is holding? What?

Dominican Republic

A few just heard "costume" and not "national." Here we have the pirate wench of Ireland and the Ren Faire maiden of Lebanon

Oh crap. We need a national costume? Ok, stay calm. I've got an extra bikini and a whole bunch of beads:

Croatia

Neutrality or Death! Switzerland

Fills me with inexplicable sadness: Slovenia

Fills me with an inexplicable urge for wheat. Sexy, sexy wheat: Ukraine

Battling it out in the Lady Gaga Category: Turkey and Venezuela

C'mon Finland, Norway, and Singapore! You can't just buy a pretty dress! That's cheating!

See, some of the Asian countries look fierce!

Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand

And a few of the African countries look damn fine as well:

Ghana, Nigeria

Never Mind: Zambia

One Year

On this day one year ago, I boarded a train bound for New York City. I've been thinking about this anniversary for weeks now and have had ideas for all sort of "one year assessment" posts for this blog. Maybe that will still happen, but at the moment I'm finding myself at a loss. One year ago I was frantically packing and trying not to let on that I was more nervous than excited about my big move. I feel like the best summary is to describe what I did today, one year later:

-In the morning I went to my internship at the Met

-When asked about my recent trip to Seattle, I glowed and told them that I had a wonderful time

-At lunch I chatted with a classmate and griped about all the drama that was already involved in our exhibition class for next year

-After the Met, I hurried over to FIT to squeeze in an hour of work

-At my library job at FIT, I met with my boss to catch up on what I had missed last week. She was particularly intrigued when I told her "I like New York, but I feel an incredible sense of place in Seattle."

-After work I headed upstairs to watch Pret-a-Porter, the last movie in my professor's Fashion in Film series

-I went to bed in my apartment in Brooklyn, and tried not to stress out about my move to Manhattan

Blind Item: Internship at the Met

I realized that other than posting a picture of my ID, I haven’t written anything about my internship at the Met. The thing is, I’ve been a little nervous to do so. On the first day we were told that some of what we do and see is confidential, and that past interns have gotten in trouble for posting things on the internet. The problem is, they weren’t very clear about what was off limits. I can sort of guess, but since I’m not sure, I’m going to do it like a gossip column. Sometimes a reporter has a really juicy piece of news, but can’t reveal it for whatever reason. So they post a frustratingly useless “blind item” that is something like “a famous married actor with a big summer movie was recently spotted smooching a certain famous blonde.”

So here is a totally un-informative rundown of my time at the Met:

- I’ve seen some really amazing objects

- One time, there was a famous photographer taking pictures of some clothes

- A designer from a well-known fashion house came to look at some pieces from the house’s history.

- Some of the work I do involves a typewriter, scotch tape, and an aerosol spray can.

- A separate task involves a heat gun, a letter opener, and some metal clamps

- The staff is nice and approachable instead of snobby like I expected

- The employee café is awesome

- Something I did involved this:

If you want to hear more, just ask me in person. So long as I sweep the room for recording devices, I think it will be safe to give you more details.