Is it too much to ask for a decent haircut here, people??!!
Here is the deal:
I have a head covered with lots and lots of curly hair. I have no problem with hair volume. As a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. My hair has too much volume. I always ask for debulking when I get a haircut.
If you have curly hair or you have lived with someone with curly hair, you probably know that it’s not always easy to manage such hair, especially if the hair has a mind of its own, like mine! And a good haircut is probably the first, most important step in order to be able to manage curly hair.
But you see, the problem is that not everyone can cut curly hair. It’s extremely hard. You know why? Because curly hair looks and acts very differently when it’s wet and being cut, from when it’s dry. So the hairdresser has to know this and take it into consideration when cutting the hair. And he/she should know that when curly hair dries, it looks much shorter than when it’s wet. At the same time, a good hairdresser should know that combing curly hair over and over during cutting results in a disaster, involving a huge round head, about 3 times bigger than usual. So combing hair without using any product is like strictly prohibited.
Since I came here, I have tried stylists in different salons with different price range. I have been to a salon in a mall and I got a haircut for $30, which is quite cheap, done by a very young stylist. I was probably her 10′th customer overall. The result of this cheap haircut was one side shorter than the other side in the back!
I wasn’t that upset, cause I chose to get a cheap haircut and I had to face the consequences!
The next time, I went to a big, famous salon in downtown and asked for a stylist who was expert in cutting curly hair. I was quite confident and I was willing to pay about $70 for a great Christmas look! The stylist started by combing my hair. When she finished cutting one side, my head was so big that she wasn’t able to see the mirror!! As a result of that expensive haircut, my hair was ridiculously long at the back and short at front. It was hideous. So bad that I asked my husband to take a photo of the back of my hair, so that the next time I was going for a haircut, I could show that picture to the stylist and warn her.
This time, as a back to school makeover, I went to another salon in downtown. I was going for a $70 haircut and $150 highlights. I talked to the stylist a lot before she started. I showed her the picture and let her laugh at my previous haircut. She seemed to know whet she was doing. The haircut turned out OK (thank god for that!!) But the highlights…!
She used three different colors for my highlights. My hair was getting more and more volume, as she added each foil. At the end when she got to the right side of my head, she was confused about the order in which she used the colors on the left side. After about 1.5 hours, she simply forgot. So I ended up with more blond highlights on the left side and more brown ones on the right, around my face. And you know what? It doesn’t look that natural anymore!
So I am wondering, is it really too much to ask for a decent haircut and even highlights, in exchange for $270 (after taxes and tip) of my student budget? Is it? Really?
I should consider shaving my head then! At least it’s cheap.
Back to school, little girl!
What I like the most about being in school is that most of the times it makes me feel young.
There is less than a week left until school starts. Back to school, baby!
You would think that after going back to school 22 times, I should be used to it. It shouldn’t make any difference, especially because I have spent all the summer in school, working on a paper. But that’s not the case.
I am nervous and excited as I was 10 or 20 years ago. Unbelievable! I feel like a child again. I have made a list of the things I should do and prepare before September 1’st. I have spent all day today deep cleaning the house. I will reorganize all my drawers and my closet tomorrow. I want to make sure that everything is clean and where it is supposed to be for the next four months.
And I think about next week. About the new people who are coming to school this year. About my friends, whether we will have the same courses or not. About my thesis that I will seriously start working on, this semester. And about the course that I will TA for. About the new undergrad students that I’ll get to know, and torture for the next four months!! And about the instructors of that course who will probably torture me and them together!!
And it’s all so exciting. I am glad that I like my school and I like what I am doing here. It makes a whole lot difference.
It’s the little girl in me in charge these days. She is the one who used to want to have new backpack or new shoes for school. Who used to spend hours organising and reorganizing her new books and notebooks in her new backpack. Who used to go to sleep the night before the first day of school, thinking about her friends and teachers, excited about the new school year.
And I’ll let her be in charge for a few days. And I’ll enjoy it all, while I can.
Hotel beds!
I promised to write about my problem with hotels. It is my dirty secret. No one knows about it! Here it goes…
I have a problem with fabric. Fabric that is used by several people, strangers. You see, any other material, glass, wood, metal can easily be cleaned. You can even very easily disinfect them. Just spray some kind of cleaning product on them and wipe. Even toilet seat and shower can be cleaned. But fabric is different. The dirt can go inside the threads and stay there, and it’s usually harder to wash or clean. How many times a year do you think they clean the sofas in the hotel rooms? Or how often do they wash the quilt or the mattress? And yes, I know that the sheets are washed every time a guest leaves, but it feels weeeeyeee. You know? Imagine how many people have used these sheets and have put their heads on these pillowcases. Do you think they all have the same level of personal hygiene as you? Or how many couples have had sex on this same bed and have disposed body fluids on it? Or have puked on the pillow after a drunk night?
Disgusting I know. But those are the thoughts that go through my mind when I am lying on a hotel bed. I feel itchy all over my body. I try not to move much to touch the smallest area possible. And I am very well aware of my body, what my hands are touching and where my long hair is at all time during the night. I have the same feeling when I sit on the sofa. I feel much better in the bathroom though!! Everything is so clean and shiny. I can spend hours in there!
When I plan to go on a trip, I always have this worry that I might feel bad about the bed and not be able to sleep on it. Yes! It has happened to me once, in a family trip before I get married. I felt this way about the bed that I was supposed to sleep on at night and I spent the night in the my dad’s car!! So you can imagine why I am scared. Until I see the bed and lie down on it, I can’t be sure that I can sleep on it.
And showing the bed sheets under the microscope on Oprah definitely didn’t help! The dust mites and bed bugs are not very pretty from very close, you know! And this post in Badass Geek’s blog about fleas didn’t help either!! Go read for yourself.
I have been trying to overcome my problem with fabric. And I have changed a lot. Instead of bringing half of my house with me on a trip, now I only have to use my own towel and pillowcase. I bring a sheet too, just in case, but try not to use it. However, any activity that requires excessive movement on the bed is still banned from hotels, if you know what I mean!!
Our trip to Whistler
After weeks of thinking and talking about a vacation, we finally managed to get away this week, since our supervisor was on vacation too. Interestingly, it was our wedding anniversary as well. This is the 4′th year that we go on a trip on our anniversary. It is becoming a tradition!
We went to Whistler, BC. Although Whistler is a small village, as they call it, there are lots of activities one can do there. From nature and wildlife seeing walks, to canoeing on lakes and rivers, mountain biking and helicopter rides, to bungee jumping and zip trek, and of course skiing in winter. luckily the weather was good and we got to do some interesting things.
On our first day we took the gondola to the top of the mountain and from there took the lift all the way to the peak. You could see the spectacular view of the mountains and lakes from up there and see real glaciers on the way up. The next day we went canoeing with a guide on a lake and then down the river for about 3 hours. Because I was sitting in the middle of the boat, I didn’t get to paddle as much on the river. They called me The Princess! And on our third day, my husband went for a bungee jump. No I didn’t go. I chickened out. (Seriously, I am afraid of height. I can’t even climb a ladder!) It was a great trip and a much needed time off for both of us. I am glad we did it.
The Sea to Sky highway that connects Vancouver to Whistler is under construction in most parts, in preparation for 2010 winter Olympic games. The speed limit is 50 Km/h in those areas. One of the best road signs that I have ever seen was a picture of a female construction worker with her 3 kids around her. The sign read: “Slow down. Our mommy works here!” This, in my opinion, was the most effective way of encouraging drivers to slow down. Every time we reached a construction zone and my husband was driving above 50Km/h, I would say: “Our mommy works here.” And he would immediately slow down.
I will write more about our trip in my next post. I will talk about my thing with hotels!
“Dude, that’s enough!”
Imagine a food that you like, for example pasta, which is one of my favorite foods. Now imagine one day, you start your day by eating pasta for breakfast. Then you eat pasta for lunch. In the afternoon, you eat a snack made of pasta. For dinner, you also eat pasta. Oh, and after each of these meals, you eat a dessert that is made of pasta as well. So, pasta and pasta and pasta,… . Now imagine having the same diet for a week, or more. How do you think you feel then? You will end up seeing everything as pasta, seeing noodles everywhere. Your stomach will eventually reject any more pasta and simply deport any noodle that tries to get in. You know what I mean, right? You will throw up at the sight of pasta!!
This imaginary situation is not so imaginary here. But it is not about food. It’s about a beautiful thing. It’s about art. It’s about a hobby. Someone’s hobby.
It’s about photography. It’s my husband’s passion and his hobby.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I like photography. I actually try it sometimes myself. And especially because it’s my husband’s hobby, I am even more interested in it. I try to learn more about photography and be able to talk to him about it.
BUT…
Unfortunately, I have some stomach problems. Meaning that my stomach has a certain capacity for everything. I can handle about 20 photos being taken and talked about a day, to be model for almost 15 other pictures, and later, I am able to see more than 30 photos on the computer and discuss the cons and pros of each and digest new information about them. When I am asked to have more, I simply can’t. My stomach starts turning upside down and issuing alarms. I know that I have to see a doctor about it, to increase the capacity of my stomach, or to give me some pills to decrease the symptoms of photography intolerance. But in the meantime, I can only say: “Dude, that’s enough! I can have no more. Where is the bathroom?!“
And later, I feel bad about it. As a damage control technique and in an effort to make up for any hurt feelings that I might have caused, the next day, I would be even more interested!! And I would try very hard to swallow the noodles, if you know what I mean.
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P.S. No husband’s feelings have been hurt in the making of this story. … . OK!! That’s not true. He is very sensitive. We are having pasta for the rest of the year!!
An afternoon in the aquarium
Since the day we moved here, we have been planning to go and see the aquarium. Our local friends kept telling us how beautiful it was and that we should definitely see it. But you know how it is, right? Weekends would pass and we would say:” Next weekend!” And again next weekend….
This past weekend was a long weekend here in Canada. So we decided that that was it. We were going to the aquarium no matter what!!
And we did!
Wow!! It was amazing. It really was. I was mostly fascinated by the seahorses and the jellyfish. I couldn’t stop looking at them. We didn’t get to see the dolphins, but the rest was awesome. And my husband took a lot of photos, as always. As a matter of fact, I think he enjoyed taking photos of the aquarium more than the aquarium itself! Here, see for yourself.
The alligators, or whatever they are called, were still, like statues. They were the best models for photography. There was a poster near their cage that read: “Yes, they are real! And they are waiting!”
I don’t know what these birds are. They are tropical birds. The red color of their feathers were very bright and shiny.
These lovely creatures were dancing and mating, and changing color right in front of our eyes. After we finished seeing all the aquarium, I went back to the seahorses and watched them for a few more minutes. They were just moving a little too fast for the camera.
Look at all the starfish. I used to have one dead starfish when I was a kid. Here there were so many, in different colors and sizes. There were red, pink, orange, light and dark blue, and yellow!
And all the jellyfish. They were amazing. Just imagine that they are organisms, with no brain or heart. But they move around so gracefully, (with the wonderful lighting in the tank) that you could only think of them as tiny dancers.
If you haven’t seen the aquarium in your city, I encourage you to go. It’s so relaxing to watch the underwater world, and amusing at the same time.
And I interview people…
I am participating in this interview experiment at Citizen Of The Month blog. The way it works is that when I put my name down, the person before me gets to interview me and I interview the next person who participates. The idea behind it is that you don’t have to be ’somebody’ to be interviewed. Everyone is somebody! At the same time, it gives others a way to know you.
So I got to interview Mek from All Cheese Dinner. She is a college professor and lives with her husband and their daughter. Read her complete profile here.
And here is the interview
Hi Mek! Nice to meet you, online! Thanks for participating in this interview.
-So Mek, where did the name “All Cheese Dinner” come from?
I’ve always joked to my husband that the perfect dinner would be an all-cheese dinner – I mean, who doesn’t love cheese?!. I think the closest you can actually get is fondue – a traditional New Year’s dinner for us. There’s just something about the phrase I like. I’m not sure it would make a good band name, but I think it makes a pretty good blog name.
- How did you meet your husband in the first place?
We worked in the same independent bookstore in Santa Barbara , CA . He had just finished his undergraduate degree at UCSB and was taking a year off, and I was in my last year of my undergraduate degree. When he moved in the fall for grad school, I did too. One of my favorite things from our early dating times is that we both bought tickets to the Shakespeare film series the University was running – a Shakespeare film a month for the school year. We started going as friends, and by the spring it was a date.
- Are you in any way involved in your husband’s music writing? Does he ask your opinion about his music?
Yes – in fact, I’ve written a lot for him. His opera dissertation had a libretto that I wrote, and she’s set some of my poems to music, too. We used to try to do a new holiday song every December, but having a baby kind of derailed that.
- Do you give him honest feedback? What do you do if you don’t like his music? Is he open to negative/different feedback?
I do, from my layperson-listener’s point of view. There have definitely been pieces he’s written that I’ve liked more than others; sometimes this is because of instrumentation choice, sometimes another reason. Interestingly, it can also depend on the performance. Sometimes I’ll hear one person sing a song and I won’t like it. But then someone else sings it, and it totally works for me. It really highlights that collaborative aspect of music.
I suppose I try not to give “negative” feedback – I would never tell him something was bad or wrong in his music; I’d be more likely to say it doesn’t work for me, or I don’t understand the choices.
- What has been the hardest part of motherhood for you?
Time has been the hardest part. The way it is hard keeps changing, too. When she was an infant, it was the way time was cut up into little chunks that always changed and it seemed to take forever to get any division between night and day back. Now it is that she sleeps less – a nap in the afternoon means a later bedtime. That hour or two after lunch when I can relax and read or work instead of being constantly vigilant is still worth not having much of an evening. But, this is on the verge of changing, too. In a way, it will be nice to do away with the nap – to be able to do things after lunch or make plans with friends – but it will be another adjustment. Motherhood requires flexibility, perhaps more than almost any other quality, in my short experience so far.
- How comfortable are you with posting your daughter’s pictures on the internet? Are you concerned for her safety or your family’s privacy?
I originally started the blog partly for a place to do more writing and to record my daughter’s childhood, and partly for my parents, who live far away from us, so they could have more of a sense of their granddaughter’s daily life. I’ve thought about the safety and privacy questions. I don’t use our last names on my blog, or the names of the schools we teach at. In retrospect, if I were starting now I might choose a pseudonym for my daughter, or just use her initial. I have a friend who recently made this change on her blog. She mentioned that her main concern was that years from now high school mean girls might Google her daughter and discover a wealth of information on her potty training troubles. Yikes.
- You teach in college. How different do you think teaching college students is from high school, or graduate school?
Most of the classes I teach are also required classes that typically first-year students take. And not a lot of them want to be English majors or think they are any good at English. I like showing them what English is all about at the college level – pushing their reading, thinking, and writing skills up a level or two, and seeing that every semester a couple students get it. I love it when I see a former student a year or two later and learn they decided to add a second major in English or a minor. These students are still at a spot where they can expand their interests – their academics are really controlled in high school, and in grad school they asked to narrow down their interests. I’m more into expansion.
- What is the funniest memory that you have from inside the classroom that you teach? Or the saddest one?
Once, while giving a short lecture on a piece we’d just read and the way the structure of it mimicked the content, a young woman raised her hand. Thinking she had a sudden insight to share, I interrupted myself to call on her. Her question? “How long did it take you to grow your hair so long?” Funniest and saddest all in one.
- Please share with us the most recent books that you’ve read and the ones that are on your to-read list, fiction and non-fiction.
It’s an odd little list, because I’m in the transition month between fun summer reading and getting ready for the semester reading. So, recently read:
Tree Girl, by Ben Mikealsen, recommended by a friend, this tells the story of Gabriela, a girl from a small Quiche Indian village in Guatemala who is caught up in the war there. We know a couple little girls who were adopted from Guatemala ; this hard and terrible history is part of their heritage.
Eye Contact, by Cammie McGovern, a murder mystery; the only witness is an autistic boy who retreats into silence. His mother and a range of other characters try to find a way to know what he knows. The mystery part is good, but it was the cast of characters that really made this book for me.
When I Was a Slave, edited by Norman Yetman; a collection of first-person slave narratives, collected as a WPA project in the 1930s, when the ex-slaves interviewed were from 83-105 years old. The WPA collected hundreds; this is a small sampling, but it is just incredible to read.
Tender Hooks, by Beth Ann Fennelly, true, funny, heart-bursting poems on motherhood.
The “to read” list includes mainly books I am teaching this coming semester, including Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I am really excited about my book list and can’t wait to start talking about all these stories with the students!
