Hello, welcome, hi, so good to see you here! Lovelies, it's been a while. Last time we talked, I was still figuring out my hair and freezing in my nylons, now I am on my second round of tapes and cannot bear to wear anything other than a bikini because my Gosh it's hot. So we got a lot of catching up to do....

I am sososo close to being done with university altogether - I have handed in my dissertation yesterday (and found a spelling mistake on the very front page two hours before the deadline, so we swerved that bump in the road that would've haunted me for the rest of my life; by the way, the title is '"I choose my choice" - Portrayals of "The Housewife" and "The Working Girl" in "Sex and the City" versus "The Best of Everything"', if you wanna add me on researchgate or whatever) and the only thing left for me to overcome is the viva voce in two weeks. I'm very pleased with myself, thank you very much - getting my BA is sort of a passion project of mine (I know, I have wild passions) in order for me to feel better about myself, and I need to capture that feeling, because....

Now I am job hunting and I hate it already. Please refrain from telling me how lucky I am that my parents aren't throwing me out as soon as the ink on my diploma has dried. If that wasn't the case, I would've started freaking out in January, okay? So far, I am waiting for five feedbacks, four of which are unsolicited applications to publishing houses that have a bunch of magazines each, so technically it's many, many offices I've covered. The problem with unsolicited applications is that no one wants you to call and ask, since they didn't ask you to apply in the first place (which is probably already bothering them, so pestering everyone answering the phone with my fear of failure = not bound to be helpful). It's just that the sheer uncertainty of whatever is gonna happen within the next few months - will I move somewhere? get a job? an unpaid internship that'll force me to live at home and take the train everyday? - is bothering ME very, very much. So the bottom line is, if you know someone who'd pay me a living wage to write stuff for them, you got my email.

Let's not think of that too much, though, 'cause it is summer, after all! I went to Rome to see my bestest friend and it was wonderful and way too short - I didn't even eat any pasta, there was just too much to devour in such little time. The weather! The sights! The scenic streets with bars in front of which you can drink! No Italians for me though; their curly hair and general tendency to be short in height rules out most of the locals for me. My friend, however, is basically in a country filled with her type, and the fact that she can speak more Italian than my "Ciao, studio giornalismo di moda, e tu?" and is obviously gorgeous should rev up her chances pretty high.

This just to get you up to speed - since I have loads of free time now, between scanning job offers and crying about them, I'll talk to you very soon about the truly exciting stuff.

Stay tuned!

Love,

Rosy Smith

I'm watching a video by Safiya Nygaard about the ZozoSuit and I wrote about that thing in my trend forecasting class this year and now I feel really advanced.

Anyways, there's one thing on my mind basically at all times these days, and to the surprise of many, it's not a hopeless scheme to get a guy to text me back but something of way more existential substance: My hair.

It's new, I bought it about two months ago, and I'm still absolutely fascinated by it. As you can probably see, it's not like I got a full-on Baywatch weave now, but it's the little things about it that make me so happy:

I can feel it in other places than my face. Recently, I used to only ever really consciously notice my hair when a) it was so windy it clung to my face like a climbing plant or b) when I breathed in too powerfully and almost choked on a strand being vacuumed into my mouth with the air. At all other times, it was just floating around my head like a lightweight ball of cotton candy. Now, right this moment as I am writing this, some of it is stuck in the back of my sweater, covering my neck and the place between my shoulder blades, while some of it - yes, there is so much that there is still something left - hangs down over my shoulders and upper arms. When I wore a sleeveless top the other day for the first time in a while, I could feel it graze my back and elbows constantly. I remember that sensation from back when I was a child, leaning forward with my knees pulled to my chest and covering my legs with my hair. This probably reads really creepily, but you have to understand that I almost forgot what that feels like.

Consequently, I don't freeze my head off anymore. One fun fact about having really thin hair that gets lifted off into space as soon as there is the echo of a breeze is that it does not have any warming function whatsoever, and that is actually the whole purpose of having hair on your body. Now, I don't get a burning pain in my ear everytime I have to spend time in the cold anymore, which is lovely. However, I've been out dancing the other day and I gotta say this is gonna be interesting when it gets hot outside, because I can't just throw all this up in a bun as casually as I could - I have to flip the tapes over and try to hide them with my own material because there's nothing less attractive than what looks like ten sticky tapes exposed all over your scalp. Oh well, you pay a price for everything.

When it gets tangled (and it likes to do that a lot), I can brush it thoroughly and feel like a princess. Do you know what happens when you brush my natural hair? It basically blow up into a cloud of nothingness that goes absolutely electric as soon as touched. New hair? Falls into soft, big waves that fan out over my shoulders. I still can't quite grasp the magic here.

When I wear a hoodie, (which I don't, but think early Nicole Scherzinger in PCD) I can actually pull out some hair from underneath it. When I look at pictures, I'm not shocked by the ends of my hair resembling a frayed carpet. When I lean forward, it actually hides my face (like in that scene in Twilight when Bella watched Edward in Biology class in secret, the book, not the movie, don't ask why that's on my mind). If a guy was ever to romantically tuck a strand of my hair back, he could do so without suddenly holding half of it (by the way, I have a lot to say about the whole "living with extentions while talking to guys"-topic so let me know if you'd like to hear it).

What I'm saying is, it gives me so much and asks for so little (leave-in conditioner, half an hour of blowdrying, some gorgeously smooth oil and a ponytail to bed, what a sacrifice. Oh and money, right, almost forgot about that) - what's not to love?

Love,

Rosy Smith

Photographs were actually not allowed, oh well, here's my dress

Okay, so two lovely friends had gifted me a visit to the theatre for my birthday and since my bestest friend was off to Rome a couple days ago, we had to squeeze the visit in before she had to go, and this is how it went down....

I have literally JUST stepped out of my car and I can feel my nylons loosen around my thighs. Not because I miracously lost a few pounds, but because these are the ones I've worn on Friday that already got holes in them and are, apparently, not made out to be worn again. On the one day that I'm actually supposed to overdress a little. I text my friends if they can bring me some spare ones, but it's too late. I miserably sit on the platform and take a few pictures of my berry colored heels against the mud colored stone floor and post it to my newly beloved story.



I'm supposed to change trains now and I don't know which way to leave the platform. Oh and I look like a hooker, because I am constantly walking from side to side, holding my furry coat together at the front, my hand stuck between it trying to pull up my tights while in motion. Oh, and my heels are a bit big (for comfort, just like they royals have them) and I could walk a whole lot better in them if I wasn't hunched over like Quasimodo, so now I strut like him, too. It's my fourth round up here and running out of time, so I hide behind a pole (very uneffective if you were wondering) and gracefully step out of one heel at a time and roll my stockings down (not rouging my knees and all that jazz), pretending to be totally unfazed by literally undressing on a public train platform (this is a reoccuring technique throughout the whole story).

On I go, now barefoot in my heels meaning I'll also get blisters, schlepping myself into the subway and following the masses. I can practically feel the looks on my bare legs (even though honestly, a) it wasn't even that cold because I am wearing a BIG coat and have already lost all feeling in my legs due to wearing thights and sandals year-round, and b), in Britain, everyone is going around bare-legged until mid-November kicks in. People should educate themselves on their Victoria Beckham streetstyle), black fur and dark red lipstick. Not lusty ones, mind you, just disapproving/confused vibes.

Oh for God's sake, I'm on the wrong side, aren't I. I guess that means ten more minutes of having to silently defend myself for my goosebumpy legs and trying to remember when I last shaved them. Recording a voice memo for my loveliest friend to use the time wisely and inform all bystanders of the unfortunate circumstances that led to my dressing decisions. Maybe I can stop at a drugstore and buy some new ones, and three emergency packs, just to be safe.

Okay, so I finally met my friends and we do not have time to maybe stop at a drugstore and buy anything, so I'll just have to woman up until we're at the theatre. We do however manage to get a vegan kebap which I'm stuffing my dolled up face with while recounting the sad tale of Airbnb booking with college friends (oh yeah, that's why I was so late that I could not bother putting on freshly unpacked tights, I remember - a whole different saga, but hey, Hamburg's calling!).

The theatre is packed with high schoolers who are definitely being forced to write a report on this thing over the weekend. We're feeling very debonair with our drinks in hand and about the fact that we didn't get carded at the bar (wait does this mean we look old?). Since you can't take those inside and we're, who'd have thought, late for entrance, we chug 'em down in a very non-debonair fashion though, and I attempt to put my stockings back on without flashing a bunch of 16-year olds. Think I got by.

We're watching "Romeo and Juliet", by the way. Good old classic. Except it's a modern production and we're still emotionally scarred by the last one we saw, when we were in high school ourselves and took in some Schiller (it involved a lot of screaming, mud and black light). The costumes look....interesting. One guy's dressed as a frog and I am mentioning this only because he turns out to have the best body in this play. It's Mercutio, apparently, a slurring and swearing version of him. Romeo has tattoos all over and too many curls for my taste but he's taken, anyway, by an anemic Juliet who likes to break out into high-pitched screaming (there we go again) every once in a while.

This Mercutio sure has great muscle control. But he spits a lot, too, as they all do I should say, and I lean over to thank my bestest friend for anticipatorily booking second row because I bet the first got to share some of his saliva, and not in the good way.

The thing about these modern interpretations is, sometimes they're outright funny, as Shakespeare's supposed to be, and sometimes you're laughing because you just don't know how to react to the trauma you're experiencing.

Now poor Mercutio's dead at the hand of a very convincing sociopathic Tybalt and I'm honestly bummed about it. He's been my favorite in this crazy bunch. Romeo and Juliet are too sappy for my taste (not just these particular ones, the mere thought of them).

My friend seriously fell asleep when Juliet did and awoke to Romeo throwing himself on the floor. She missed, like, the whole tragedy. But that's okay, it's old news, really.

Except to the train security guy who attempted to hit on me on my way home (he saw me at the platform, bare-legged again, but I managed to scrape up my tights before he came to sit by me and chat instead of securing the wagon). I would have much rather listened to music but didn't want to be rude (he wasn't creepy, just really not my type) so I educated him on the bard until he tried to convince me that there was another Shakespeare play that had to do with experimental sex, and even though I am by no means familiar with all of them, I'm pretty sure he was making this up. So when he asked if I was single not only did I decline (little white lie), I also held up my beringed hand (it's a weird reflex I have) and let him believe I was engaged (ridiculously big lie). I even smiled in a bewitched gaze when talking about how yes, he is also still studying and no, the wedding isn't until we both get jobs. I almost bought it myself until I stumbled back to my car with my tights riding down and keys in my hand ready to stab a man if necessary (or at least give him a minor scratch to buy myself some running time, I'm no Tybalt).

So yeah, pretty eventful night - I'll have you know that Mercutio isn't as enticing when google-searched as he is when wishing a plague on both your houses, but that's already something, isn't it?

Love,

Rosy Smith

LinkedIn is the new Instastalking. For reasons I'd rather not mention, I avoid Facebook and Instagram pages of boys that I talk to (oh screw it, it's because I don't like seeing the lovey-dovey couple shots the fitness guy posted while texting me about his morning, um, cravings), but since having been to Cambridge, I love checking out their LinkedIn profiles. Instead of mood-killing pictures of beer pong tournaments back in 2014 and bad skin phases, the profile pic on here usually entails a suit (good), a fresh haircut (good) and a neutral expression that doesn't make me uncomfortable (what else could you ask for?). Instead of a list of the stupid games they play on their phone, there's one of actually useful, maybe even impressing skills that they have (or are confident about being able to fake in case an employer asks to see them). Instead of the vacation they've been on with their parents and the club they hit every weekend, you get a nice rundown of the schools they went to, and, very essential, where they work(ed). Not saying this in a gold-digging kinda way, but it never hurts to look at education/ambition/situation, does it? I find this a million times more interesting than shirtless pictures, because honestly, I can get that view other ways. Also, I think it's pretty neat when a guy has his professional presence down, but that might be my personal thing (though I'm too superficial to be a true sapiosexual, I want it all: The looks and the brains).

What the hell happened to taking it slow? I think we all got into a grand misunderstanding, relationship-definition-wise, because lately, it either seems to be "Totally unattached, plainly sexual, but still hurtful if ended" or "Let's get married a month from the first day we kissed and don't you dare reject one of my calls while you are having friends over or I'll think you hate me now". I don't know about you, but if that's the options, I'm choosing the hurtful sex thing because honestly, at least that's drama free until you really have something to be crushed about. Have people forgotten about the wonderful, carefree, first few weeks or even months of not having to worry about next summer, but not having to worry about one of you sleeping with your best mate on the side, either? The magical time when yes, you can be completely sure of one another at the moment because you are in a blissful state of getting to know each other during long sofa talks and weekends of staying in bed and getting yourself the best muscle ache ever, but do not yet have to figure out the logistics of your job abroad and his family hating you for not wanting kids or whatever, because why the hell would you do that at this point? I get it, we're all getting older and those topics gotta come up sooner rather than later nowadays because screwing around for two years before thinking about maybe sometime moving in together isn't so cute anymore when you're nearing the end of your twenties, but give it a few weeks before naming your children, goddammit.

Last but not least, Instagram is so much fun - I know that I'm probably the last person on earth to discover my Insta-vibe, but see, the app is always crashing on me and I have not photo-artistic talent whatsoever, so I've always been more of a stalker-y bystander in this game. However, after getting my geek on and researching sneaky ways to keep it running smoothly, I am now happily annoying people with overexposed pictures of pasta and dirty mirror selfies. And I've started to get DMs -not those icky ones from strangers who are trying to sell blue pills, but from people I actually know in that weird state of not exactly being friends but apparently still having a reason to talk to each other. Now me, being relatively new to this conversation style, I wonder: Is this just a messaging service you use on the side for your "we would probably never see each other in real life"-friends, like tumblr messages? Or is it the wagon to WhatsApp, testing out if the other person is worth putting into your phone book, just as Facebook Messenger? I would actually prefer the latter, because the DMs are still regularly making my phone kill itself and it's exhausting.

I'm currently stuck at home avoiding writing what I actually have to write, but fun times lie ahead next week!

Love,

Rosy Smith

Lovelies, hold your Cosmos and have a sip, 'cause it finally happened: I got to take my diploma and a rose and turn my back on fashion school! Anyone who's been here since 2015 has heard me moan, gossip and exaggerate about it for so long, they probably feel like they went there, too. But sometimes even I had something nice to say about it all, as I do tonight:

There was a nostalgic "through-the-years"-power point presentation and I'm a sucker for that. Sure, the pictures of the first and last days of school were simply horrifying, but there was a clip of me being editor of a project and scribbling away into my notebook, wearing a green pinafore dress and feeling très important, and I think I went "aww" pretty audibly (audible? Language's caving in on me already).

Also, who cares about those dumb old photos, I got great hair now. And by that I literally mean now, since I've only had it for half a week - college made my hair fall out (at least that's one of my top five theories, allergic reaction to artsy neon light), so to mark this new glorious chapter of my life, I blew on all supplements, lentil stews and head massages and got tape extensions. I'm touching my head every five minutes to check if they're still there and not peaking through like in the nightmare I had the night before I got them done, but I'm irrevocably hooked on them. Everyone at graduation went "Oh my GOD your HAIR" and tucked at the strands; it's very sweet how much they emphasize.



Some of us were so hyped we didn't want to leave yet, after all canapés were munched up and the fizzy wine called for real food, so we relocated to the one restaurant that took us in (spontanously needing a table for ten on a friday night in the city isn't the brightest idea, but we're not known for our thorough planning anyways) and I had baked mozarella - a homage to my Hamburg days and the fact that I a) can't cook and b) have questionable food cravings.



Anyways, I posted some pictures to show the fitness guy what an amazing weekend I'm having, or rather, how amazing my hair looks. That's the main purpose here as well, actually, so did you take a good look?

I'll stop being this obnoxious sooner or later, I think. Maybe.

Love,

Rosy Smith

Me Shamelessly Cropping People Out Of Photos

Is it just me or does this month feel like it is never ever ending? Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, 'cause I have spent the last week doing absolutely nothing productive whatsoever and have a deadline coming up in February, so I could use a little timelapse, because lately I have been....

If you know me you'll know that I like to talk about myself a lot, hence me being on here devoting an entire space of the web to that pasttime. And I like to wallow and blow things out of proportion and generally drag my current states of emotion into the spotlight. But sometimes, it's actually other people's life changes that make you feel things. Seeing your friends mourn, for instance, is one of the strangest experiences of that kind and definitely on the worse side. Or watching them go through break-ups, seeing it coming, witnessing the aftermath. And see, now we're back at my point of view and my own baggage that's only waiting to be triggered by such an unwelcome echo of extra-bubbly-texting-to-check-in-conversation and late-night phone calls with heartwrenching tears on one end and desperately-searching-for-something-soothing-to-say-silence on the other. I remind myself that no part I play in this is going to earn me time-traveling points. That my focus this time is that of an innocent bystander providing first aid, that I'm not stuck in the burning wreck. But still, there's the same sense of sadness and hovering smoke in the air and my fingers are getting itchy again, still holding my phone.

Ha, I bet you're thinking that I'm doing something really stupid now, but before you get mad, let me explain. I told someone I'm probably not gonna see anytime soon, if there's no incredible coincidence, what the time I spent with them made me feel like. In a non-romantic way. I paid them a compliment, like you would in a thank-you-note. It doesn't matter if they're not gonna reply, it doesn't matter if they didn't have the same experience. It doesn't matter that they're highly unlikely to whisk me away and solve all my outstanding life decisions for me, because truthfully, that was highly unlikely before as well. But maybe they're gonna be flattered, or glad that their presence had that effect on me, or relieved because they weren't the only ones feeling some type of way. And I think anyone would like to hear something like that, so why not tell them? It's not gonna change anything in retrospective, neither in a good nor in a bad way. There's no shame in having had a nice time with someone.

So if you ever feel a bit sad and delusional and helpless, tell them. Tell your friend that you are thankful to have them in your life. Tell you parents you love them. Tell a stranger you like their dress. Write a letter to your favorite author, they might read it. Tell me to shut up with the emotional outbreaks already, but also tell me if you liked them.

Love,

Rosy Smith

Let's not even talk about ghosting in (sorta-)relationships. That's unnecessary, childish demeanour and we all know it. But I'm afraid that this sort of misbehavior has latched over to plain, platonic, friendly conversations, and to that I quote the great Stephanie Tanner: How RUDE!

See, sometimes in a girl's life, one feels a bit lonely, especially on certain holidays that are otherwise known as "celebration of love". And in that case, one evaluates their possibilities: Whom to text to get a little pick-me-up? Not every guy in the phone book is suitable for this occasion. The ones with real emotional attachment are too dangerous, as that might lead to further confusion of the heart and a great big case of the Christmas blues. The ones who have ghosted before simply do not deserve to be honored with an outreach at this mushy time of the year. Which leaves us with the one category you hadn't managed to screw up yet: The Friendly Platonic.

The Friendly Platonic is someone who maybe sorta likes you in a non-platonic way but never did anything about it, and whom you like enough to not be totally appaled by the thought of him doing so sometime in the future. It is totally innocently fine to text him first, 'cause you haven't become involved in any texting games yet, and it provides just the dash of excitement and attention you need during this gloomy patch of yours.

It's nice. It's harmless. It's a bit awkward, for that matter, but it's only smalltalk.
Until he asks a nice, harmless, slightly awkward question and then fails to respond to your answer. He reads it, but the day goes by without a follow-up, and then another day, and by now the conversation is basically slandered forever and you are fuming and cursing this poor, friendly guy. And that's because basic rules of common courtesy have been set out of works by all the millenial-textinggame-crap that's out there. It has clogged our natural reaction pipes and fogged our minds and tricked us into thinking we have to have the upper hand in every last two-line exchange. I hate it with passion and fury and at the same time I know that it only affects me so much because I'm getting such a kick out of it myself, when it's playing out nicely for me, that is.

So here I am, a week or so later, in my kid's pyjama's at eleven pm, reading Dolly Alderton's "Everything I know about love" (which, by the way, is another work I'll add to the names I confusingly drop when trying to paint a picture of what I want to do with my newfound graduate status, all while talking so fast no one can follow along so they just assume I have a plan), annoyed with all guys and myself while I'm at it. See, New Year's went by as of today, and I am pausing my read to reevaluate the "Whom can I text on Christmas Day"-question that has turned into the "All the boys who did not wish me a happy new year and why"-saga. Obviously, I did not worry about that at the appropriate time of midnight on the 31st because I was in lovely company in a velvet nineties dress and sparkly tights, looking forward to mousse au chocolat. No, this is for the gloomy first days of January when your new year new me plan is not exactly kicking off to a quick start because you're still binging Christmas candy.

Anyways, see, now, not only do the "attached emotion" and the "currently not talking to me" options fail to surprise. The Friendly Platonic has not redeemed himself by saying "oh wow I got sidetracked, but happy new year doll, maybe we shall meet again soon, would certainly hope so" (please note my oh so visible attempt of a British accent). Well, his loss. I would have dead-on swooned about that for weeks to come.

Get this, lovelies. After getting worked up about the swooning I missed out on I was just over here scrolling through particularly nice messages from the "currently not talking to me" guy, reminiscing about a time when I would stay up until two chatting, get up at six, not eat all day and then meet him in my skimpiest workout clothes to make him text me again after hours (honestly, I know how that sounds, but I assure you it was fun), and whose name pops up as soon as I switch back into online mode (I don't like to see people online while I'm stalking my own conversation with them)? Yeah, indeed.

Am I supposed to wish him a happy new year back or call him out on how firstly, it's the second day of the year so really, it's old news to me, and secondly, how dare he ignore my "you up" text for the whole of  December and then try and slide that past me with a half-effed smiley face and a little fireworks emoji? Or does he want to make a move on me again?

Okay, maybe it isn't a clear indication that he wants to make a move on me again. It's not the "you have every right to be mad" speech he pulled off last time. But it's not like you have to wish someone you ghosted a happy new year. I certainly wouldn't do that. It's a bit much on the false sense of moral, even for him. Also, today is probably the last day you could use new year's wishes as an excuse to randomly contact someone (and ignoring their "you up" text in an elegant fashion): Not doing it around midnight could be due to heavy drinking and other people priorities, not doing it on the 1st due to the hangover and other people priorities still being at your place. So.

 It's been 45 minutes and I still haven't decided if/when/what to text him. Two of my friends are dealing with January troubles of sorts that do not call for unsolicited screenshots and me retelling my whole tale of why I still think it's a good idea to talk to someone they repeatedly claimed to despise. My loveliest friend is probably working and not looking at her phone; also, she very definitely despises him as well. Still, I can't be left unsupervised with this.

I hope you've had lots of cute texts from people you actually love, and if not, here's mine to you: Have a magical new year!!

Love,

Rosy Smith