Gifted

Academia: Today, things were pretty chill. The highlight of my day was having lunch with my friend and colleague Melina. Melina and I have worked together since we were in grad school and both on teaching assistantships, and we both stuck around as adjuncts after graduation because we liked being here so much. And we were both just hired as core faculty members in our department, hooray!

Melina and I were officemates for years, which is how we got to be friends, bonding over our mutual students and our mutual dorkiness (girlfriend's master's thesis was a linguistic analysis of the special features on the Lord of the Rings DVDs, and I read those books/saw those movies approximately 700 times in college. Just call me Eowyn, y'all). This is one of the best things about working in academia: there's probably someone you work with who is dorky in the same ways you are, and if you work in a small department, you're probably going to become friends. It's basically every high school nerd's dream come true: a whole university full of smart coworkers with slightly non-mainstream interests, and you're together all. the. time. Okay, I can't speak for all high school nerds. But it was definitely this high school nerd's dream.

Another reason Melina is awesome is that she a secondhand shopping heroine. Everything she buys is adorable and she always pays like $3 for it. I wish she had a blog so y'all could see her fabulosity first hand. On our way to lunch, we were discussing where she got today's cute outfit (which, again, was a steal), and I realized...

Sartorial:... that almost everything I'm wearing today was a gift from someone. Hence the title of this post, which is a reference to the freebie nature of my wardrobe and not my super-intellect. I'm sure my super-intellect is so obvious that further discussion of it is unnecessary. My blouse and skirt were both gifts from my parents. My necklace was a gift from Cary's mom. My bracelet was a gift from my aunt Melissa. My earrings, which you can't see in the pictures, were a gift from Brian. The only things I'm wearing that I actually purchased myself are my shoes, my watch, and my bra. I didn't even buy my underwear, because for years and years I always got underwear in my Christmas stocking. TMI? I feel like these little confessions are bringing us closer together, but maybe that's just me...

 So, what have I learned today? First, I need to make Melina my secondhand shopping sensei. Second, I have very generous friends and relatives. Third, it's probably time to start buying my own underwear. Especially since the last stocking that my mom Santa Claus brought was two Christmases ago... when I was 25. Don't judge. My mom Santa Claus is just that awesome.