Elizabeth Jones sent me an email looking for an internship and I read it and saw she wanted to make  a name for herself in P.R. We were just beginning the work on the premiere of WAGING PEACE: The Peace Corps Experience. I immediately answered her and she was the perfect fit. She divides her time between WAGING PEACE and SOLE SISTERS.  She is smart, a good writer and has a calming influence in the office.  I love working with her. She returns to Austin in two weeks.

Monica Navarro graduated University of Texas this spring and wanted some work experience before she went off job hunting. She got it. She is busy the minute she walks in the door working on Social Media. She has chartered some new areas we would not have had time to explore. And she has made great connections with bloggers who are the new influencers.  She will soon be off to Chicago to follow her dream. And I know she will do well.

This summer has been way hot….but we have been blazing at SOLE SISTERS.  I hope to start filming in the fall. We are planning the  SOLE SISTERS Poetry Slam.  As Sarah, Elizabeth and Monica leave with new marketable experiences, I have taken many steps forward. Internships benefit everyone as long as you have the best fit.

This Wednesday’s story comes from our very own social media intern, Monica Navarro. 

I love making people laugh. It brings me joy to know I have made someone’s day with a simple comment or joke. I realized this when I was in the 6^th grade. It was kind of my thing. I never thought about pursuing it as a career, until I started college. There were many comedy shows at my school. I would go, meet the comedians, ask them how they started and became interested in the art.

Recently, a woman, a feminist and a philanthropist, told me that my logo looked like a prostitute’s shoes.  I wondered how she knew what prostitutes wear.  But I tried to be open minded…which is sometimes difficult for me.  I have been upset about this and tried to have a conversation with her about it and she physically moved away from me. I truly wanted to understand what she meant. I wasn’t making friends with her and I surely wasn’t getting any funding from her.  I have mulled this around, when I found a review of  Linda M. Scott’s FRESH LIPSTICK. Hugs to her….I felt normal, well sort of normal. Taken directly from the pages of Amazon here is the review.

“FRESH LIPSTICK” shakes feminist fashion down to its Birkenstocks.

Linda M. Scott wants to put an end to the belief that American women have to wear a colorless, shapeless uniform to achieve liberation and equality.

A pointed attack on feminism’s requisite style of dress, Fresh Lipstick argues that wearing high heels and using hair curlers does not deny you the right to seek advancement, empowerment, and equality. Scott asserts that judging someone on her fashion choices is as detrimental to advancement as judgments based on race, nationality, or social class. Fashion is an important mode of personal expression, not an indication of submission. She demonstrates that feminism’s dogged reduction of fashion to sexual objectification has been motivated by a desire to control other women, not free them. This push for power has produced endless conflict from the movement’s earliest days, hindering advances in women’s rights by promoting exclusion. It is time for the “plain Jane” dress code of the revolution to be lifted, allowing all women to lead, even those wearing makeup and Manolos.

I am a feminist and if I look like a Prostitute- so be it.  But please, please…show me the money. I have to get this film funded.

When I was little & heard the phrase ‘don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes’, it didn’t really affect me much.  As a grew older & faced my own struggles I often thought about what it would be like to be in other’s shoes.  Others who were different than me, others who seemed to have fewer struggles after college.  The others that seemed to somehow land good jobs or be fine with staying at their parent’s houses for a little while.  I wished I had their shoes.

As a recent post grad, I am faced with the struggles of attempting to make it on my own in this economy.  It wasn’t until a little while ago that I began to appreciate being in my own shoes & how far my own shoes & my own two feet have gotten me.

 

I have been out of school for over a year & for the majority of that year I’ve been working as a Office Manager for a small school.  I graduated with a BFA in ceramics & racked up a lot of student loan debt.    By the end of the summer of 2012 I am planing on packing up all of my things & heading up north on a new adventure: to meet my boyfriend and start a life together.

 

 I did some research into how much it would cost to move myself & found that I couldn’t afford to do it on my own.  This sent me into a whirlwind of emotions ranging from sadness, to dispair, to feelings of failure.  I spent a week or two feeling like I didn’t want to be in my own shoes.  How could I set such a high goal for myself & be met with such disappointment?  There is no way I could feel financially responsible assigning a chunk of my savings to moving expenses when I knew I’d have to find a job when I finally set foot in Indiana.  Also, I’d need to pay back the debt that I’d created pursing a degree that doesn’t seem to be worth that much.

 

 

Freshman year, when I started college, I walked across the gravel parking lot to the book store to pick up my books.  I remember that the parking lot was full of gavel because I could feel every rock poke up a bit into the thin sole of my sandals.  I was so nervous to be on my own, away from my family for the first time that this was all I could think about.  

 

 

Each step was so uncomfortable & hard that I wondered why I’d even thought to wear sandals.  The academic year passed, Summer came, & then Sophomore year came around.  As I made my way through campus, I headed back to the book store for another set of books.  I felt the gravel parking lot the way I had felt it Freshman year only I’d nearly missed it because I was so excited to be back.  This year I wasn’t nervous so the gravel didn’t poke me as much.  

 

 

Once I’d realized I was wearing the same exact shoes that I’d worn that first year, I decided to make a tradition of it.  This tradition was to remember where I’d come from & how I’d gotten to where I was.

 

 

Flash forward to now when I think I can’t make it on my own.  In those weeks where I felt like a failure, I looked back on my life this past year.  Each time I was faced with different challenge I discovered that I’d met it.  In the past year I’ve put on ugly yet comfortable loafers to stand all day checking guests as a Guest Services Associate at a hotel, I’ve traded those for black sneakers to work in a retail store shuffling boxes & filling shelves, & then finally I’ve upgraded to the cute shoes only those with office jobs can wear.

 

 

I did all this so I could come home & take off the shoes at a place to call my own.  I set a goal after college not to come back to my parent’s house no matter what & I succeeded.  These different sets of shoes have allowed me to meet my financial obligations on time, by myself, all year.  Looking back at the shoes of this past year as well as thinking of the shoes that brought me to the bookstore for 5 years has told me something about myself: I can do it. I’d step into any shoes necessary to help reach my goals.  

 

 

So, the goal of moving with little finances is something I take full speed, putting one foot in front of the other no matter what shoes I have on because I know I can do it. I still have the drive to put on a shoe that will get me where I need to go whether it be any old job or starting up my own small ceramics business.

Sole Sisters are so honored to be featured in this week’s round up. Make sure to check out the other brilliant ladies and their Soleful fashion blogs!

Good Reads

LINKS À LA MODE: THE IFB WEEKLY ROUND UP: JULY 5TH

My Mother Sent My Shoes to Shoe-Heaven. I parted ways with my most beloved pair of beige colored jeweled flats.