Fashion// Chambray Chic

Currently, I am obsessed with this denim shirt from J. Crew. It is so versatile and can be worn no matter the mood I am in. Whether I am tying it around my waist for a casual night out or dressing it up with a maxi for a day full of meetings - this shirt can do no wrong. 

Romper: Abercrombie &Fitch

Denim Shirt: J.Crew

Shoes: Steve Madden 

I wore this look to a Dan + Shay concert in Old Town Scottsdale. I love how I add that little bit of country girl sass into my outfit with this shirt tied around my waist (btw, I am loving this trend as of late!). These Steve Madden wedges are my favorite to go out in not only because it adds heightage but also it is super comfortable at the same time. 

 Denim Shirt: J.Crew

Skirt: Forever 21

I like how easy it is to put this outfit together, yet (hopefully) it still looks like I put a lot of effort into the look. Whenever I feel lazy, I just throw on a dress or a maxi skirt and it just makes me feel as if I had put in enough effort that day to be seen in public. Throwing the chambray on top of that ties the outfit together and tying it as a crop top add some spunk to the outfit as well. 

I hope you guys give chambray shirts a try! I have always steered away because denim shirts in general remind me of my mother who constantly is wearing one... but who knows?! My mom actually might be ahead of the fashion curve all these years and didn't know it!

Medical School Interview Outfit

 So you finally got that precious email with "Blahh Blahh blahh INTERVIEW INVITE"! Now you're jumping for joy because you're one step closer to the dream that you have worked so hard toward. However, now you have to think about the next steps - interview prep, plane tickets or walk there to save money, host or hotel, pant suit or skirt suit, heels or flat... and the list goes on!

I am no means an expert, but fortunately one of my adviser is very knowledgeable regarding image/branding  and he has been a tremendous help in this whole process. Today, I will talk about my interview outfit and note this is just my opinion and personal preference. So for your interview outfit, take liberty do what you're comfortable with and feel confident in!

Suit: Express
Being on the shorter side... ok on the very short side I feel like pants in general and especially pant suits swallow me up. Therefore, I choose skirt over pants. I think it looks professional yet still shows my personality - girly and fun. I do wear stockings so that I'm not just shoving my bare legs out there :P

Hosiery: Donna Karen "The Nudes" Hosiery
If you do opt for a skirt over pants, wearing "hosiery" (that sounds soooo fancy and Upper East Side New York) or stockings is a must! No matter the length of your skirt, if you are showing even a tiniest hint of your ankle (which at that point might as well wear pants) you should definitely put a pair on to make your legs the best they can look. I like it when they match your skin tone as oppose to black stockings which can look harsh. Donna Karen "The Nudes" offers a wide variety of colors, so hopefully you can find one that matches your skin the best.

Top: Express
My top is actually a tank top. I found that tank tops looked better under my jacket because they didn't have sleeves that would fold into itself when I put my jacket on making me look like the Hulk. But this is a personal preference, I have seen others wear long sleeves and look really great as well. As for color, I really like the conservative idea of going with a neutral shade - in my case, blush. Instead of having your outfit make you stand out, which can be taken as flashy, I think that a conservative look with a neutral colored shirt can never go wrong. 

Shoes: Gianni Bini
YES! These are my favorite shoes I wear all the time. They are pointed-toe black suede pumps. I initially bought them for my class where I needed to dress up professional in and have fallen in love with them ever since. I wear them everywhere which have good and bad consequences. Good because they fit like a glove, yes admittedly after each interview I curse myself for wearing them but during the day portion I don't look funny walking in them at least. Bad because they do get dirty, but there are always techniques to properly clean them so I'm not too worried. 

Accessories:
I try to keep my accessories at a minimal. It's not pictured above, but I do wear my Dogeared "Free Bird" necklace to my interviews, it's very dainty and doesn't distract from the look. I also wear my Michael Kors Watch in rose-gold tone as well which further enhance the professional look in my opinion. I also wear my small dainty infinity ring as well to interviews. 

Express Skirt Suit

Donna Karen "The Nudes" Hosiery

Gianni Bini Pointed-Toe Pumps

Dogeared "Free Bird" Necklace

Michael Kors Watch 

Outfit of the Night// Black & White

Top: fashionnova.com

Skirt: fashionnova.com

Shoes: Gianni Bini

Watch: Michael Kors

Adventures // Exploring LA

My internship has been all I wanted and more, not only have I gained so much from class and my internship placement I also get to be in California for the entire summer! This has been super exciting for me to be able to explore LA and all it has to offer. 

We visited La Brea Tar Pits, this is a museum where there are dinosaur fossils. But since we got there late the museum was closed, so we contented ourselves with exploring the outside and climbing on random creatures. Attempting to get on top of this bear was not easy, my face may or may not have been squished into someone's butt during my attempt of climbing on... 

One of my favorite movie is No Strings Attached and part of the movie took place outside of the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). This is where they were fighting after their date, needless to say I was super excited to see all the lamp posts in person!

On the days that our internships would end early, my friends and I would drag our bums to the beach. Although there are a lot of gorgeous beaches, the most memorable would be Venice Beach for me. The vibes, the performers, the street vendors - this place has it all!

For 4th of July, some of my friends and I went to Downtown LA for a free event the city was holding. There were a bunch of artsy activities we got to partake in, this picture shows one of them where we painted the fence! We ate delicious food from food trucks and watched fireworks sprouting out of the trees. It was a really fun way to spend 4th of July with the other people from my program. 

One of my favorite places in LA is The Perch. There is a balcony overlooking what feels like all of LA... but in reality due to the smog only partial view of downtown LA.

Laguna beach! The drive from LA down to Laguna took foreverrrr, but it was soo worth it. I have an embarrassing confession... I am a huge junk TV addict. So going to Laguna Beach fulfilled all of my wild teenage dreams of being Lauren Conrad. 

Last but not least, one of my favorite part of the summer was having my friends coming to visit. I felt so bad because the weather was horrible the weekend they were in town so when we went to the beach we got rained out. But we did get a chance to go to Six Flags! And it was just really good to see some familiar faces. 

My Experience in Public Health this Summer!

The public health internship I am a part of is MCHC/RISE-UP placed me in Los Angeles with a group of other interns to study and work in this City of Angels. I really don't know how to sum this amazing experience I have had into words but I will try my best to. 

On Mondays and Fridays I am in "class" in the broadest sense. There could be people from different public health organizations coming in to talk to us about their work, leadership training which involves a game called "Starpower" which resembles the American socioeconomic struggles, or a field trip. And then on Tuesday through Thursday, I work at the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA). Yes, I bet you are wondering why does everything I am involved with this summer has such long names. Imagine trying to fit in these names with harsh character limits and you can just see a glimpse of my struggle haha. Anyways, at CCPHA I work in a multitude of realms to prevent childhood obesity. It has provided me with the incredible experience of working in a non-profit organization and seeing how passionate everyone in the organization is about the cause. 

One of my first assignments at CCPHA included giving a presentation to around 300 high school students on the importance of the beverages they are consuming. It was a really great public speaking experience since we really had to employ a plethora of tactics to keep the attention of the students because after all at that age I wasn't listening to anyone or anything either. 

A big aspect of my work at CCPHA includes working within the community to engage the citizens in these critical issues that are affecting their everyday health. This picture is of the Champions Summit and Recognition Ceremony which is an event I worked on. It was so much fun being involved with his event because I love working within the community and just being constantly busy throughout the day. There were over 200 attendees to this event so the whole day was just filled with various errands to do. ALSO, the keynote speaker for the event, Martha Gonzalez, is a BADASS. There is seriously no other words to describe her passion and achievements. Not only is she a Grammy winner (for the band Quetzal which is a rock band committed to use their art as a catalyst for change); she got her Ph.D. in Women Studies; AND she is a Fulbright Scholar! I was so moved by her talk, she is such a motivational individual! 

This is me at the Health Summit that I worked on!

All in all I have learned that working within public health every day is different. Just the other day I was assisting on a video shoot for a public service announcement. Then a couple of weeks ago I was meeting with City decision makers to discuss grant opportunity and garner support. I have had such a blast and couldn't have asked for a better internship placement coupled with the fact that I get to be in LA! I will post more on all of the fun things I've gotten the opportunity to do in LA!

Summer Internship // MCHC/RISE-UP!

First off, I would like to apologize for not posting for a while. A lot have been going on in my life and I just couldn't keep up with everything. That's always my excuse I know, but I was trying to balance my public health internship, being adventurous in LA, and working on my secondaries. I will post more about everything I promise, but today's post will focus on the summer internship I got accepted into and how everything is going. 

In another prior post, I talked about Summer Internships and my process of applying and which one I applied to. I did not realize it at the time, but the 3 programs I applied for were all part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Undergraduate Public Health Scholars program. I received acceptance into MCHC/RISE-UP which stands for Maternal Child Health Careers/ Research Initiative for Student Enhancement Undergraduate Program. Yup! It's a mouthful so I will just refer to it as RISE-UP from here on out. You know a program is impressive that you have to shorten their acronym ;)! Haha joking... but not really I've seriously changed so much for the better because of this program. 

Anyways, to kick off the internship we had orientation week in Baltimore since the program is through the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins. I have never met such an incredible group of individuals who are all super passionate about bettering the communities around them AND they were the funnest people I have been around. There is truly never a dull moment with them. 

Johns Hopkins hospital tour was amazing, it is incredible how much history has happened here!

During orientation week, we got to meet amazing people who are fighting health disparities and hear their stories. I loved being on Johns Hopkins' campus, the city, the people, just everything about Baltimore was perfect to me. This has definitely been a motivational force as I'm sitting here filling out the secondary for Johns Hopkins haha! 

Next up during orientation week was Atlanta to visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. I especially loved this week as it allowed everyone in the program to bond with one another and further enhanced my summer experience. HOWEVER! They do not call it "Hot-lanta" for no reasons! And I thought Arizona's heat was bad... Atlanta makes AZ weather feels like a walk to through the South Pole since the humidity killed me haha. 

Just the orientation week alone has made this such a loong post. I will post more this upcoming week about the work I am doing in the community through this internship! And I will also talk more about the med school application process as I am going through it right now! 

Summer Fashion // Casual Outfit

To me summer symbolizes freedom - the freedom from obligations and the freedom to shed those extra layers of clothing to truly express yourself (through fashion... don't make this dirty!). I love having the ability to wear cute clothes and having people actually seeing it and not having to hide it under the same sweatshirt for a week straight. Anyways, living in Arizona... summer is the majority of the year and winter is a rarity much like a unicorn. 

As the weather warms up, I love to pay more attention to the little details in an outfit like stacking bracelets or wearing multiple rings. For me summer has always been about wearing clothes that does not make you sweat more than you are already sweating haha. So I tend to always stay in my shorts and tank tops or shear tops (such as the one the picture). Hope you guys enjoy this typical summer outfit. Product details will be listed below!

Hat: Forever 21 

Top: Forever 21

Shorts: Abercrombie & Fitch

Shoes: Coach 

Here are some close-up shots of the arm candy and necklace. I really do love these little details of the necklace, rings, and bracelets. Summer is the perfect catalyst to motivate me to pay attention to these little details again!

Necklace: Forever 21

Bracelets: 

[left side] Forever 21

[right side] from Honduras :)

Watch: Michael Kors 

Spring Break - San Francisco

I had an interesting Spring Break to say the least. Instead of getting down with the rest of my friends in some questionable part of Mexico, this year I opted to do a service trip during my Spring Break to none other than San Francisco! Originally, I was super excited to go to San Francisco because it has been deemed the New York City of the West Coast. However, we stayed in a super sketchy part of San Francisco and I saw things that no one should ever see. Fortunately, all of my mishap adventures make for a really fun story to tell! 

I went with a group of 14 students through an organization we have on campus and each day we volunteered at a different place in San Francisco. It was such a fun trip overall, despite (or should I say because of) the things I saw in the Tenderloin District (you know it's a sketchy area when it's called the Tenderloin... should have seen that one coming)! Here are some pictures from the trip!

We packed a lot of fresh vegetables and food at the SF-Marin Foodbank on our first day!

Amateur photography while waiting for our bus to come pick us up! I am super into public transportation now, it's super convenient and environmental-friendly. 

At night, we decided to go down to the Fisherman's Wharf using the classic trolley. 

For the trolley you can stand the entire ride out the side, it's just up to your pole holding skills whether you stay on the trolley or not. After 5 minutes, my ass was down on a chair since I do not have the upper body capabilities to hold on for the whole ride and I didn't want to die. But this is a nice photo capture my 5 minutes of fame while standing! 

The swiggly street in San Francisco - Lombard Street - was the perfect near-death photo opportunity. It is an actual street despite what many might think, so cars are constantly driving through for fun. I almost died taking this picture, but super worth it!

One of my favorite areas in San Francisco is Clarion Alley. It is this small alley that has a lot of different graffiti murals that contains very meaningful message. Here are some of my favorites! 

Another one of our volunteering sites, Muttville. This organization is designed to help rescue older dogs and provide them with really great care, they have a crockpot to cook the food for the dogs since their food is made daily! These dogs were so adorable, in this picture is Kyla one of the older dogs she is completely blind due to cataract, but she is the sweetest dogs anyways regardless of that! 

Another one of our volunteering days! On this day we helped with the upkeep of Muir Woods National Monument. It was such a fun day getting to be away from the Tenderloin and being in nature and breathing fresh air. 

After volunteering we drove down near the Golden Gate Bridge. Even standing before the bridge, I still felt like I was looking at a post-card. It is super picturesque!

We hiked down a hidden trial to find Kirby Cove, one of the park rangers told us about this secretive place or else we'd never find it. It's a long hike down, but you get to be right at the beach super close to the Golden Gate Bridge! This is supposedly where all the photos of the Golden Gate Bridge is taken (heavy emphasis on the supposedly part). 

I also visited the University of California San Francisco Medical School while I was in San Francisco! It is in such a good area of San Francisco and their library game is on point. They are in a higher-up part of San Francisco so the windows to their library is looking out to the beautiful scenery below and it's definitely breath-taking. I didn't get any pictures out of respect for the library-goers but it's definitely worth a check out if you are in San Francisco! Next time when I'm back to San Fran I will definitely make sure to stay out of the Tenderloin, but other than that San Francisco is a beautiful place to visit and/or live!