Summer clothes in Boston

The psychedelic floral dress returns

This time last year, I made a post of the outfits I wore to Germany. With the exception of two new tank tops -- for school organizations that I belong to -- and two shirts from Uniqlo, I have made no changes to my summer wardrobe.

Which is not to say that I will not buy anything on my return to Boston (currently escaping the humidity by going back to SF). I've evaded much of the heat by staying in the hospital freezing under the AC or burning up under lead in the OR.

linen shirt - Uniqlo | linen shorts - GAP | boat shoes - Sperry | watch - Casio

I finally bought this dark blue linen shirt from Uniqlo. I originally thought I would venture for something light-colored, but I am a creature of habit and hate the way light colors look on me. It's perfectly comfortable on even the most hellishly hot (and humid) days in Boston. The loose fit is very airy and helps the fabric not stick to my skin, and generally makes the thought of summer a bit more bearable. I wear an XS here, and generally use shoulder width to determine XXS, XS, or S in shirts.

Linen dresses in Muji

My hunt for the linen dress continues, though I will probably buy the second one (middle and right images) if it goes on sale. Sometimes I have to go places and do things where short shorts are not appropriate, even on unbearably hot days. Despite all the time I spent looking online for a good linen dress, this Muji one may be the most accessible. Granted, it does look like a dark blue potato sack unless I tie something around my waist (drawstring from my shorts shown above), but I was generally very impressed with it in the fitting room.

Hospital scrubs

A very, very kind chief resident gave me three pairs of scrubs in my size when I told her I had gotten mine from Goodwill. I won't be regularly in the hospital (much less the OR) this semester unless I have specific shadowing arrangements, so these scrubs will just have to wait until M3. But I would be remiss to leave this post without acknowledging that I spent most of my summer thus far wearing these. Not particularly flattering, but very comfortable.

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I completely neglected this blog in the past few weeks. This post was kind of a cop-out because the posts that I had planned involved me going through tons and tons of photos (Germany posts from last summer, more gardens, more hiking). I also recently had an inexplicable hankering to write something more about personal style, wardrobe building, and fashion-related. One factor may be a pretty black dress that I basically impulse-bought off Poshmark. It hasn't arrived yet, but I hope it suits me.

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The other thing that I wanted to examine was this notion of practicing minimalism or living with less or low/zero waste. I don't necessarily categorize myself as a "minimalist," but I have drunk more and more of the Kool-aid, read more and more of the "discourse" around it on Reddit/Instagram/blogs, and feel more equipped to use it as a tool to construct my own ethics about consumption, ownership, and...other stuff. If there's one thing I loathe about minimalism blogs, it's when they get preachy and take the moral super-high ground.

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And my last thought of the night is that I had a conversation with some of my friends about shopping. None of us "go shopping" as a hobby, but we were having some premature worries about having to build up a professional wardrobe in time for clerkships. I'm still sticking to my guns about wardrobe planning and restricting the number of clothes that I'll buy, but I am planning ahead now.

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And that's it. My next post will probably be a photographic summary of one year in Boston. One year already! Time really does fly.