Vanity Fair Social Club in Hollywood - Pre-Oscars events

I recently had the chance to be a part of the Vanity Fair Social Club (#VFSC)  Pre-Oscars week events for Social Influencers at @WeWork in Hollywood! There were week long festivities including panels with various speakers, Q&As, free things, free makeup, nails and hair styling, happy hour drinks, food, networking and more! 

Being a busy graduate student, I was having a crazy week at the lab, but I managed to sneak out of work early on Friday afternoon and took the bus from UCLA to Hollywood just in time for a panel, drinks, some food, fun with some great ladies! I also made it on Saturday, the last day of the the VFSC events, and it was a blast!

I got to see my friends and some Blogger Babes, (blogger babes represent!) and I got to take some really cute and funny pictures at the #VFSC photo booth! We all loved that thing, it was very amusing! Took some funny photos with Heidi from The Ambitionista, Alma from Practically Fashion, and Chantal from Boyajian Trend Gallery!

San Antonio river walk!

Ok ok this isn't a fashion post. BUT I wanted to share these beautiful pictures I took my first day/evening in San Antonio! I'm here for a recruitment for UCLA for a training grant I am on for the SACNAS 2013 conference. And OMG I am in love with this city! Our hotel is right on the river walk and the riverwalk is just so pretty! It reminds me of the venice canals! I even saw boat tours including a dinner boat tour where you can have dinner on a boat that floats along the river and there is someone playing violin! So cute! And as I sit in the hotel lobby to get Wifi to write this post, I can see White horse drawn carriages in the street! So CUTE and romantic. That's it. I'm getting my boyfriend to take me on one of those next time I'm in S.A. I'm making him come here hehehe.

Well, this picture is from the river walk. The next picture is a picture of the sunset from the Rooftop pool of the hotel (Beautiful!!!) and the last is a panorama I took of the sunset. AH I love it. Tomorrow starts the conference registration and talks! And more exploring of San Antonio! We are going to go see the Alamo too! A nice little mini vacation/break since I was going crazy with 10-12 hour days at work!

I promise I'll post an outfit pic at some point!

Enjoy the pics!

:) 

xoxo Andrea

Happy Happy June! Officially a PhD Candidate!!

Happy news everyone!
I passed my PhD Orals Qualifying Exam!
I am officially a PhD candidate! WooooHoo!
This was probably one of the most stressful academic experiences I have ever had!
I had to come up with a 10,000 word proposal on a topic I am not doing research on, and then do an oral presentation in front of a committee of 5 professors (thats 5 PhDs right there!) It was a little more than intimidating!!!! I was SUPER stressed this whole month of May leading up to my exam (which is why I have a lack of posts this past month). But now I AM BACK! Sorry for the slight break! I really needed it to keep focused and pass!