SPRING. F’N. BREAK.
FINALLY.
Ok homiez, if you have me on snapchat/instagram/whatever you will know that I have been complaining about how much crap I’ve had to get done this past week before spring break. I have no idea why everything had to be crammed into that one week (isn’t it always?!), but it was, and now I’ve finally gotten through it. While everyone was finalising spring break plans and packing, I was working on two assignments (one of which was due even after spring break started), had two class trips, and this past weekend I had two full days of leadership training for an internship I’ll be taking up in the summer. Craziness. Even though there were definitely moments when I felt so stressed I thought I was gonna explode, I just wanted to share what I’ve been up to this past week, because there have been some really cool things that I’ve experienced, and it’s given me a whole new appreciation for our privileged positioning and just how much there is in the world for us to engage in.
1. Met the CEO of ALLSAINTS
YA. IT’S TRUE I DID. The management society here in St Andrews has been so ballin’ this year and they arranged for William Kim, the CEO of ALLSAINTS to come up to St Andrews with a small team to talk about the business and its prospects. There was even a team from Korean broadcasting channel KBS present filming for a documentary that will be released in the first week of May!! So catch me on TV–I’m famous. 😉 The talk was super finance-business heavy, so a lot of the jargon went over my head, but even so I learnt some crucial things about the fashion industry, and how forward-thinking you have to be as an individual in order to stand out from the crowd and succeed in this business. We got to chat with him over tea and coffee after the talk and I managed to cop a business card. #NETWORKING amirite. Everyone hates networking, but it has to be done. O YA AND I GOT A FREE ALLSAINTS T-SHIRT SO THERE’S THAT.
2. Met a couple of really cool contemporary artists
So I mentioned that I went on two school trips this week. The first was a performance art display featuring three generations of women performance artists in central and eastern Europe. The event was held in conjunction with International Women’s Day, and it was such a lovely evening of art, tea and coffee, biscuits and wine. The performance artworks ranged from topics of immigration, rape, and sexism/sexuality/the male gaze. There was nudity, there was stalking, there was borderline soft-porn. It was great.
The second artist I met was Calum Colvin, a contemporary mixed-media artist who primarily uses the medium of photography in his artworks. He staged an intervention in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, and I loved the contrasting juxtaposition of his glaring contemporary aesthetic with the old-fashioned 17th century portraits his works were scattered amongst. He was a hilarious man, and it’s so amazing hearing an artist talk about his/her work first hand.
3. Had a crazy packed weekend at a leadership training conference
Some of you may be aware that this summer I’ve been so lucky to have been selected to be a Laidlaw Intern in Research and Leadership. I’ll be writing about performance art in the catwalk shows of Alexander McQueen, AND I AM BEYOND EXCITED for everything this will entail. A part of the programme is to attend an intense two-day leadership weekend. It was a nice weekend, and I was so well-fed (SO. MUCH. FREE. FOOD.), but more than anything the thought just struck me over and over that I am so so lucky to be able to attend such a wonderful university and be a part of such an amazing programme, surrounded by like-minded individuals who are ambitious and passionate about what they want to do with their lives. I love being surrounded by ambitious individuals who are excited about life and actually implement action to get to where they want to be. And I love the feeling that finally (finally, finally) I’m starting to do the same.
So now it’s spring break. This is the moment I have been waiting for ’cause let me tell you I have some crazay things planned. Amongst reading tons of books and eating loads of food, I’ll be in Paris for a week, and there are several exciting things I’ve organised to do there. The first day I arrive, I have arranged to attend a dinner party hosted by a man named Jim Haynes. Now 83 years old, back in the 60s Jim was a HUGE contributor to the underground arts scene in Edinburgh. He started up Britain’s first paperback bookshop, helped establish the Traverse Theatre, and met a ton of famous and influential people along the way. Now he hosts public dinner parties of about 50-60 people every Sunday in his apartment in Paris and GUESS WHAT I sent him an email and four friends and I will be joining him for dinner later on this month lolz. Which is really useful for me, I guess, because I’ll be writing a research paper about the avant-garde arts scene in Edinburgh in the 60s after I return from spring break. So. 😎
ALSO ON THE TO DO LIST IN PARIS: potentially go on a road trip in a rented-out Mercedes (to be confirmed), and attend an awards ceremony for my lovely friend Yeji, who landed a bomb-az internship and gets a prize and a shit ton of money for it or sth. Cool.
EXCITING THINGS COMING UP LATER THIS YEAR:
- Kygo Concert in April (I sacrificed blood to get these tickets)
- POTENTIAL TRIP TO BARCELONA?! we’ll see depends on the cash monay $$
- HILLSONG CONFERENCE EUROPE 2016 o my daze I am so excited
I know this was a longer post than usual, but all this to say that life is so amazing, guys. I am floored over and over these days by how lucky/blessed/privileged whatever I am so have all these opportunities. Sometimes you just gotta go out and buy the fuckin’ ticket. Sometimes you have to shoot out a tentative email for that thing that you want, and see where it goes. Because you never know?! And when it ends up working out, what an amazing feeling that is! So grab life by tha ballz and show it who da queen.
Kick ass today and go out and do the thing.
God bless you and stay trippy xoxo
∙ vienna ∙
benna 