How to dress for an interview

At the age of 15 and 16,  not many of us are working blue-collar jobs in a cubical from 9 to 5. But, it is important to know how to dress for a job that requires a dress code, even if it

As I have mentioned in past blog posts, Lilliana Vazquez wrote a book called The Cheap Chica's Guide to Style, a book about how to save money and style yourself on a budget, something that applies to my age demographic due to being in high school. In a core section of the book, Vazquez mentions "More than 70 percent of your wardrobe should be office appropriate." (Vazquez 82). To apply to a younger age, office appropriate, would translate into being able to wear to school. Out of that 70 percent, I would recommend around 30 of that, you should be able to wear that for an interview or presentation. Dressing for the occasion is very important for job interviews and occupations, something we will be discussing throughout this post.

These are some outfit choices for an upscale job due to their classy and sleek look

If you work in a very upscale environment, dressing sleek and non-distracting. Black, grey and white are always easy and safe options to go with. They instantly give off a professional and business look to whoever you are talking to. Vazquez also states, "Mature Blazers add a major sophistication to my wardrobe." (Vazquez 133). Just like she said, blazers are always a nice touch to add to an outfit to automatically make you look sophisticated. You want to reflect yourself off as what the epitome of the job its self, be what they're looking for.

These are some outfit choices for a casual or laid back working environment 

If your work is a more laid back or street style job, you want to dress for the part. Such as if you worked at Pac Sun or American Eagle, they sell street style clothes, so you want to dress like what they sell. Now is when your ripped jeans, jean jackets, graphic tee shirts, and stylish hoodies all come into play. The customer wants to see that you are like them, you are both in this store or establishment because you are alike, which can be seen through clothing. Job-applications.com is a website that gives tips to those who wish to work at specific establishments and what they should do when applying, this one is a tip on what to wear to an American Eagle interview. "Interviewees should consider wearing an outfit made up of the dressier apparel sold in stores to show a personal connection with the brand." (Garcia). A customer wouldn't want to be sold a hoodie by someone in a blazer or slacks. They would want to buy that hoodie by someone who is wearing something in the same style category as that article of clothing.

Here, I am wearing a jean jacket, black sweater and black leggings. This would be an outfit for a very casual everyday job working as possibly a sales associate.

The overall message to take away from this is to dress the part in order to get the part. I'd love to hear what you think! Have you ever been on an interview? What job would you like to apply for? What would you for me to write about next under the subject of style?

Sources:
Vazquez, Lilliana. The Cheap Chica's Guide to Style: Secrets to Shopping Cheap and Looking Chic. Gotham Books, 2013.

Garcia, Maria Fernanda, et al. “American Eagle Interview Questions & How to Get a Job Tips.”Job-Applications.com, 26 Sept. 2017, www.job-applications.com/american-eagle-outfitters-job-interview-tips/.

Weird yet dope braids

For my last blog post I wanted to try some of the braids that I was scared to try before. I first tried the leave out braid, then the upside-down braid. Both of these styles actually took me a month to master, this is why I had to make it my last one. These two styles I tried out on my soccer team mates, on our trip to Spokane. First up was the leave out braid, it is a french braid, but you only take out a little piece of hair, then skip a few inches down and grab another. It is difficult to explain in words, but the point of it is to look like a cool pattern, rather than to pull your hair back. At first this braid is quite simple, you start of with just a normal braid, next from the book I read, "Carefully grab a small section of hair and bring it to the braid, repeat this like a french braid. It's pretty much the same except you  have to go down an inch before you take another piece, making a noticeable gap in the braid" (Smith 1222). At first when I read this I was very confused, but after I tried and looked at the pictures it made sense. It took me 17 tries, but finally I got what it is supposed to look like:

This is my good Friend Katherine, (our right mid) everyone say "Thanks for modeling Kat". OK Now that one wasn't too hard for me, it was time to do the scariest of all, the upside down braid. I have tried this before and failed. It is a french braid on the back of your head instead of the top, typically girls will do this when they have their hair in a pony-tail, for instance I have seen girls do this for soccer. I did not really know how to go about this braid, but my book had some suggestions for doing this on someone else. "Have the model lay on a bed or some sort of flat surface, you must be above them. Make sure they tuck their chin in, and have all of their hair forward" (Smith 1734). I combined this new technique with what I have already learned about French braiding from my first post. Surprisingly it turned out really cool! a big thank you to Taylor for modeling (her hair is colored and it makes it look cool) Well that is all for my blogs, I hope everyone learned some valuable tips on braids because I sure did! I challenge you ladies or dudes with long hair to try rocking some cool braids to school! Bye guys!

Recording the Drums - Tuning

When deciding what kind of book I should read for this project, I had trouble deciding on what new thing I should learn because I'm pretty much filthy at everything already.  I came to the conclusion that instead of learning something new, I should build on something I am already dope at. Once I realized this, it became clear what I should do. Since I've been drumming for so long, I think its time I learned how to get my drumming into recordings. That way I could give you all the gift of my tasty drum fills straight from my drumset to your earholes.

The book I choose to help me understand the subject of creating a home recording studio, was "Recording Drums: the Complete Guide" by Mike Major. The First thing the book tells me I should do before even getting the recording equipment out, is make sure my drums tuning's are top notch. Before reading this book I thought I had knew about everything needed to tune a drum and make it sound good, But apparently it is way more complicated than just tuning diagonally  across the head and  making sure everything is in the right pitch. My guy Mike Major  says that tuning a live set is very different than the what is needed to make a audio recording sound "phat"(his words not mine). To make you're toms sound good in a recording, they should be tuned to slightly match notes on a scale, " You can mix and match intervals. I find that you need a wider interval between the lower toms but you can get away with a closer interval between higher toms. for example on a kit ranging in 5 toms ( 8-10-12-14-16) [inches] try a tuning that goes (from bottom up) C-F-Bb-Eb-G." (Major 10)  By tuning the toms to these intervals it helps give them a good sound distinction between them without them sounding too dissonant when hit together or ringing out. after you get the basic tuning of the notes for each head, you've got to fine tune them to make them sound sexy.

"To start, multiply the frequency of the desired fundamental note by 1.75 and tune both top and bottom lug-pitches to that frequency. Then, measure the fundamental pitch of the drum and adjust the pitch of top and bottom heads accordingly"

After hours of fine tuning i have finally come to a sound that I believe gives that "phat" feeling Major was referring to. Of course because I am not using any recording equipment yet, it will sound really crappy when just heard through the microphone of an iphone so chill.

By the end of the book I'm hoping to do a drum cover of a popular song and post it, so if you want to you can comment any song I should do a drum cover for and hopefully i can do it!