Adoration: Umbrella-less

I WANNA SEE DISNEY'S PRINCESS ON ICE!

So I will.

So my Ginseng presentation is all over and done with thank goodness. It went well! Yes... my whole 3 minutes of talking. I got my GIS and Nutrition midterms back today too and I'm pretty satisfied with my marks (hey anything over average is good enough for me!). I just have my Jap Oral (which is an 1 on 1 interview with my Sensei -- 5 minutes long and worth 15%!!!!!!) and my BUS 251 midterm on Thursday. RATS. I really need to start studying my Japanese. It seems like almost everyone (well, the ones who talk a lot) know so much and they sound pretty much authentic (darn Koreans). A lot of them seem to have self-taught themselves before this class... which was a very smart idea. I think the hardest part is listening right now. My ears aren't trained to listen to languages spoken really quickly - there's so many syllables and it somtimes sounds like one big mess. If I'm lucky, I can pick out a few words here and there to get the gist of what he's talking about. I feel a bit behind and I'm pretty sure Olga is with me. I'm probably the only one in the class that's not fluent in another language. Everyone else, well, except probably this brown guy named Snead, knows at least one other language. I hear the girls in front of me switch back and forth from Mandarin to Cantonese all the time and they're getting one of the Korean girls to teach them Korean too. I still really enjoy Jap class though and I cannot wait to try out what I learned next year in Japan!
Last week I learned that "tokidoki" means sometimes in Japanese.

Now onto the fashion segment.

Oh gosh.. what am I doing. I need to do well this term and should be studying! Oh well - I'll do something quick.

Forever 21.
Who doesn't like that store? Or should the question be "who knows about that store?".
It's basically a clothes store that (in my opinion is only for people aged 16-28) sells young, trendy clothes for basically every occasion (darn it I always spell occasion wrong and BlogSpot always underlines it with a red squiggly) at ridiculously cheap prices. Anyway, when I say cheap, I mean CHEAP! Like $3.70-for-a-basic-t-shirt-cheap. Forever21 (originally called Fashion 21) was actually founded by Korean Americans and the clothes are designed in Korea (I wiki-ed it). Forever21 is also related to For Love 21 that just sells accessories and cosmetics, Heritage 1981, and Forever XXI which is the largest kind of Forever21 store that sells both Men's and Woman's fashion and everything else under the Forever21 roof. Unfortunately (and fortunately because of our strong dollar), the closest Forever21 is in Alderwood Mall in Washington... or one in the West Edmonton Mall. I believe they're trying to spread the chain all across Canada soon (so yay!).
I read an article about a month ago that couture designers want to sue this chain because they (Forever21) come out with rip-offs and have them on their shelves before the the designers do! How they do that I cannot tell you but I do notice very similar designs from Gwen Stefani's Harajuku line and from the red carpet when I'm browsing through this store. Oh I just noticed wiki has something on this: "Designer Diane von Fürstenberg has recently filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 for duplicating her dress designs.//Singer and designer Gwen Stefani has filed a federal lawsuit against the fashion megachain, claiming the retailer illegally ripped off her Harajuku Lovers designs.//Designer Anna Sui has also filed a lawsuit against Forever 21 alleging that Forever 21 sold and offered for sale numerous women's clothing items bearing a striking similarity to her products featured at the most recent New York Fashion Week shows."
OK so very interesting indeed. I quite like clicking through Forever 21's website once in a while because they come out with new things practically every week. What I like about them is that they have a different (meaning better) quality to their clothes than stores that sell clothes in the same price range such as Urban Planet, Sirens, Stitches, and Urban Behavior... and their selection is a lot better and less trashy.
I'm not entirely impressed by their causal/dressy/graphic tops right now (I love their summer collection) so I'll just go onto their dresses, accessories, and Heritage collection.

This one is called Heathered Knit Tunic ($28USD) from their Heritage 1981 collection. What caught my attention was its square neck line. It's a cute throw on shirt.

Wow I'm surprised I can't find anything else in the clothes department that I'd want. This is rare.