Erika S. outfits

old faithfuls

Winter break is coming up in 2 more days.  Just in time too – I’m due for a serious break and I know my students need one also.  I pulled out an old faithful today, a striped sweater dress.  I bought this dress a couple years ago from H&M after I saw Anna from See Jane wear this version so beautifully.  It was inexpensive, has held up to many washings and can easily be a year round dress with a few additions.  And so, it’s become an old faithful with a bit nostalgia.  I wore this dress the first time B and I visited Brooklyn/New York City together after only dating for a month.  OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

circle scarf: topshop – dress and boots: h&m – leggings: target

Erika S. outfits

with a rebel yell

These pants make me feel like I’ve stepped out of a cheesy “nab the punk rock trend!” type fashion guide on a mega-clothing site like ASOS.  Not that it’s a bad thing really, but it makes me feel a bit odd.  Combine the pants with my “tough biker girl look” boots and I really feel uber trendy, young at heart like maybe I’m dressing too much like a teenager.  Whateves.  When I was in high school (and well into college…and even now), was was seriously into punk music — what I considered punk (there’s is a lot of debate over what is and isn’t punk and whether or not punk is dead) : No Use for a Name, Pennywise, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi and other mid 90’s-ish groups.  To me, plaid pants were for the 80’s type Haight street gutter punks that were trying to emulate Billy Idol and his ilk.  That was not me.  I was busy obsessing over Blake Schwarzenbach (my ultimate teenage crush, next to Rivers Cuomo), trying to bleach my hair in an effort to get Punky Color to stick.  Chesterfield King tore my teenage heart apart and glued it back together by the end — every. single. time.

Back to the pants: I like them, they’re comfy with an elastic waist, they were dirt cheap, and they’re plaid — which as we all know, I have a thing for plaid.  Even my students know I like plaid.  Today in class, I debriefed yesterday’s lab which centered around looking for patterns in self collected data.  I used my pants as an example is a repeating pattern, and this kid P was all, “You’re always wearing plaid, Miss.  You must like patterns.”  YES I DO, P!!!

In the spirit of the punk rock rebellious attitude, here are a few gems of teenage rebellion, true stories:

  • a kid once took a crap on the floor of the boy’s bathroom on purpose.
  • once, a couple of boys tried to flush large semi-automatic guns down the toilet at school to try and get rid of them.
  • a kid once urinated into the soap dispenser in the boys bathroom and it was a while before someone realized it.
  • a kid once took a large Crayola Crayon piggy bank, stuck it through the fly of his pants and went around to different classrooms, interupting them to bonk other kids in the head with the “penis crayon”.

rebellious3

rebellious4

rebellious

rebellious2

sweater and boots: h&m – pants: uniqlo – necklace: present from sunny, a couple years ago

Erika S. outfits, teaching

Hey, Miss! What can I do to raise my grade?

“So..Miss? What can I do to raise my grade?”
“Ummm….you can do your work for once because right now it’s too little too late buddy, you’re shit out of luck let’s see what you are missing and hopefully you can complete it by the end of today, which is when I have to turn in grades.”

It never fails: on the day grades are due, a full 3 days since my deadline for turning in late work, I always get some kid who tries to complete all their missing work in one fell swoop. It’s not going to happen buddy. What is going to happen now is bi-weekly progress reports.

This is me leaving school late in the evening, but not even close to being the last one out– head cut off because no one is ever cute after such a long day with teenagers.

necklace: unicorn crafts – scarf: who knows anymore, it’s hella old and actually pretty boring – dress: old madewell that is finally on sale (never mind, they’re sold out) – cardigan: j.crew – coats (that’s right, I’m wearing 2 now since it’s so cold): marmot and h&m (old)- tights and hidden heat tech shorts underneath: uniqlo – boots: boutique 9 – same old same old bag: freitag

Erika S. outfits

No really, what is this?

What the hell.  Seriously.  I knew I was in for winter weather, and I’ve been in winter weather –> snowboarding in Tahoe for the past decade-plus.  I’ve been in slush conditions so wet that boarding down the mountain it felt like the snow was grabbing onto my snowboard, sucking it down.  None of this has prepared me for my first nor’easter storm, hot on the heels of Hurricane Sandy.  What is up with this rain snow sleet wet-gloppy-masses-of-half-frozen-snow pelting me on my 20 min walk to the subway (thanks to Sandy cutting the D train short).  I swear, there was no direction you could head in where the snow-rain-slush was not coming at you head-on, sticking to every surface, drenching you underneath the new mounds of snow collecting on your half frozen body.  When I finally got in the door of the apartment, B ushered me to the bathroom to stand and drip while I peeled the layers off.  

Before all this I was at school, hugging my space heater, cozy as heck in my super warm sweater dress, wearing my “wtf” face.

jacket and boots: last year’s h&m – sweater dress: 3 years ago’s gap – tights: uniqlo – rain/snow/sleet/slush boots: hunter, on sale from nordstrom rack – rain coat: last year’s anthropologie, also here and here

Erika S. outfits, trips

Cold Weather Frolicking

New York is finally cooling down to weather I know and am comfortable with:  mid 50s and drizzly.  San Francisco weather!!!!!  It’s an insane switch – within 24 hours, it cooled down by about 20 degrees.  I never talked this much about the weather in SF –there was nothing to say.  Now I can’t help it but turn into a small talk machine and discuss the weather with everyone.

thermal and jeans: f21 – raincoat: anthropologie (seen here) – boots: boutique 9 (the cooper boot, also seen on this blog, a new favorite/SF girl blog!)- bag: freitag – mom’s coat: h&m – kris’s coat: urban outfitters (seen here)

My mom and sister Kris are in town for the long weekend, so I dressed them in my winter coats, dug out from storage underneath the bed.  My mom braided my hair like the old days of being a kid and we toured the rich nice parts of Manhattan.  We walked up 5th Ave, ogled the ridiculously reasonably expensive clothes at Barneys and admired the incredibly creative and mechanical visual displays.  After a stroll through Central Park, we played with Kris’s new iPhone 5 panorama feature and tricked it into including us 3 times within the same photo.  There was a lot of running in circles around the photog and curious stares from other tourists.  By the way, that’s my future niece in that uterus.  I’m going to be “cool auntie Erika”.  Yup.

Swimming shoes!!

Erika S. outfits

Hulk Out.

Some kid asked me during Living Environment (Bio) class today if the Hulk turns green because he has chloroplasts in his skin.

True story.  I think my faux-army jacket inspired him.

top: madewell – jacket: old h&m – jeans – f21 – flats: frye – necklaces: marc by marc jacobs and f21

I’ve been having a hard time with things to say lately.  Also, I haven’t been brave enough to ask my new coworkers to snap outfit photos for me.  You know, worries and all that they’ll think it’s stupid and vapid.  So thus there haven’t been many posts lately of my daily teaching armor.

But here’s a nugget of truth:  I work with some amazingly smart, deeply caring and empathetic people.  These fellow teachers (and teachers of the past but not forgotten) help keep you sane and they help quell the rage you feel when your day was mad crazy and a select few kids shit all over your lesson.  They help put things into perspective – my life is a cake walk compared to what our kids deal with at home.

Erika S. outfits

Go wan us

B has a walking plan for us.  We’re walking the grid in our area of Park Slope.  Eventually, by the time we’ve snaked up and down every street, we’ll have covered every single block north/south between 8th – 3rd ave, and east/west between Union st – 16th st. The idea is to cover everything and make note of interesting spots and places we like, a full-scale exploration of our hood.  Today we covered 3 miles of the walking plan.  There’s cool stuff out there!


glasses: warby parker – tee: mnkr – jeans: h&m – bag: freitag – sneakers: converse – belt: gap

These ‘boyfriend’ jeans were a $7 find at H&M.  I love them, but I seem to be the only one. My sister says they give me a flat butt (they do), my mom says they highlight my long torso/short leg proportions (it does – my height is all in my freakishly long torso) and B says they “don’t look like any kind of fashion, they just look like big old jeans” (the point exactly. duh).

Erika S. outfits

summer uniform

New York is HOT.  Today it was like 100˚F out (it’s now 11pm, and it’s 83˚ outside).  I’m used to 50˚-65˚F weather every single day in SF.  This whole summer/fall/winter/spring weather thing was foreign to me, till now.  So now I have a summer uniform.  Every morning, I throw on one of two pairs of denim cut-offs, a tank, sunnies, and I’m done. Granted it’s not very exciting, but it’s functional on my bike, maximizes ventilation, and provides enough surface area for sweat evaporation without making me feel like I’m a stripper too naked.

These jeans used to belong to B till I saved them from the Goodwill pile and chopped the legs off.  There is a hole in the back pocket created from years of packing his “daily carry” knife, so I almost lost my current favorite lipbalm the other day.  I’m planning on stealing patiently waiting for B to get rid of another pair of jeans so I can stop wearing these everyday.  

sunnies: f21 – tank: h&m – shorts: levis 501’s from b – bag: freitag – sandals: dv by dolce vita – watch: marc by marc

Erika S. outfits

the 4th

B is actually working today till 2pm.  So i’m heading to IKEA to buy yet some more stuff.  Our entire apartment is now IKEA, no joke.  It’s functional, actually decent looking and most importantly, it’s what we can afford.

It’s 84˚ F outside right now, so I’m trying to delay the sweaty mess that I’m inevitably going to become.  Party later tonight to watch the fireworks.  Looking forward to it.  Maybe I should patriot it up and change into some red/white/blue and sing “america, f— yeah!”  Then again, maybe not.  Happy birthday, America!

tank: hanes – skirt and sunnies: anthropologie (old) – belt: h&m – sandals: swedish hasbeens for h&m

Erika S. outfits, teaching

little victories

I have a student who is super shy.  So shy and unsure of herself that all year, she has barely said more than a few sentences in class.  I was also a very shy kid, so I can empathize with her.  Well, this shy kid had to do a solo power point presentation last week on the integumentary system.  She could have chosen to do a mini-book project instead, but alas, she opted to challenge herself and speak in front of the class, all by herself.  The day came, and she froze on the spot.   Really froze!

My class, as good as they are, kept encouraging her with “Don’t worry C__, you don’t have to be shy in front of us” and “you can do it C___, just pretend we’re not here at all” and other supportive things.  Still didn’t help.  She was still standing there frozen with large eyes.  I suggested that everyone in the class turn around so that C_____ wouldn’t feel like all the eyes were on her, every single student whipped around in their seats and stared at the wall.  After a 3 minutes of tortured silence, C____ began to speak, read her note cards and did her presentation, switching slides for the backs of heads.  It was a mini victory.  I wanted to hug each one of my 5th period students that day and stick them all in my pocket so that I could pull them out routinely and tell them how proud they make me.

On an outfit note, I bought these black jeans this past weekend at Uniqlo in NYC.  Love that store.  Cheap, good quality basics with a touch of designeyness (I just made up that word).  Just when I plan on moving to the only US city that has a Uniqlo, they announce that they’re opening one up in SF.  Bah.  I  have two paris of the same jeans, black and blue, mid-rise skinny tapered.  They are super stretchy, thick, super comfortable and holds its shape well for at least 3 wears.  All for $40.  Can’t beat it.  other than the jeans, my teaching outfit was pretty boring and basic.  T-shirt and jeans.

glasses: warby parker – jacket: h&m (old) – v-neck: thread for thought via nordstrom rack – belt: gap – jeans: uniqlo – shoes: bass – bag: j.crew