Today was 'ugly Christmas Sweater' day. It was soooo awesome. We all wore the ugliest Christmas sweater that we could find and had to act like it was no big deal when our clients came in. We weren't supposed to let them in on the joke but I couldn't help myself when this ultra chic client of mine came in. I was wearing a red sweatshirt with Christmas teddy bears surrounded in puffy paint. Oh the mutiny! I couldn't bare anyone in the world thinking I would wear such an atrocious beast on purpose. So when she asked if we were having some kind of a Christmas themed day, I let her in on the secret. One of the students actually complimented all of us on our sweaters and said she thought they were all cute and would actually like wearing one. There are just all kinds in the world...

I'm sorry my blog has been so boring. I just read back and wow--booooring.
I forgot to write this the other day. MJF came to teach a class the other day for the first time in months. I was sitting in the back near this girl and she leaned over and said, "Hey, don't you think he looks like Michael J Fox?" I froze--had she found my blog? Did she know everything I've written??? Had I written something about her? UH OH. So instead of giving myself up I started to ask her questions, "Have we talked about this before?" etc. After probing and discussing things I too realized as she had, MJF was wearing this one jacket that day and his hair was cut a different way and well, he really looked like Marty Mcfly more than ever. I felt a certain connection to my friend because she was the first person to see what I have seen all along.

Perms, perms, and more perms.
I had to perm this lady's hair the other day--she wanted a really tight curl so we used the white and grey rods for a spiral perm--fun. I was trying really hard to look at her in the eye during the consultation but it was painful because it was full of blood. Ya, ew. I didn't say anything about it but as I put the cape and towel on her she said, oh sorry about my eye, I poked it with a needle the other day. (what?) She wasn't sure how she had done it--she was walking down the hall and just poked herself in the eye. It was so hard to act like it wasn't a big deal and that I had people come in all of the time with bloody eyes from accidentaly poking themselves with needles. Then it was butts up when we went to rinse out her hair--she couldn't handle laying back with her head in the sink so she kneeled on the chair with her back side out in full view for the world...or at least phase two.
The week before I permed this other lady's hair who had dimentia. She repeated herself so many times that I decided to respond differently to each repeat so that I wouldn't feel like groundhogs day...wait that is what Bill Murray did. I really wanted to start saying totally insane things to her because I knew she wouldn't remember but there are other people around that can hear. It was cute because after we put in the perm solution she was so worried about her hair being wet and kept telling me that she couldn't leave with it wet. By the time we were finished, it was as if she had forgotten that her hair was wet and was mesmorized by the curls we had made that day. I really think that she forgot she was getting a perm.

This is my school's attempt in getting us excited about selling product. Sex sells baby.

Oh how I love to be a core mentor. Today I got two five minute mini scalp massages and a scalp treatment from the core students. They had to do it for their worksheets so I had to volunteer to be a model. Poor me. ha ha There is one girl that is particularly boy crazy and feels it necessary to remind us during any given topic. For example when the class was asked to name off positive things, most girls were saying things like laughter and puppies. This girl said really hot boys and sexy underwear. Oh and don't worry, she made sure we knew that she was in fact wearing sexy underwear today. Ordinarily this would be extremely obnoxious and irritating to me but she gave me one of the three scalp massages. For all I care, she can name off every color of bra and underwear she has and who has seen them so long as I get a scalp massage out of it.

Today we all fell apart for some reason or another. I think it has to do with women's cycles moving so that they fall at the same time every month. I've experienced this change many times having had so many different roommates and worked closely with many different women. It could be just me because my hormones get so out of wack, but it seems like everyone at school is extra sensitive and on edge at the same time. I think the big cycle migration is complete.
I walked up to a friend who had just finished doing an 'updo' on a guest and she was pissed. I pulled her aside to talk about it and she was so mad that she started crying. Too bad I did the exact same thing when I talked to a learning leader about something that was frustrating me like an hour before this. Awesome. So she was mad because her guest had dandruff really bad. Dandruff is contagious and we've been told a thousand times to send people requesting services away and to a doctor. The learning leader helping her told her to do this girl's hair anyway. She had to cornrow her hair--nothing will get you closer to a scalp than that. Ew. We're hoping that there won't be a dandruff epidemic at the school. I'll keep you posted.

One of my guests today wanted her hair dyed blonder. She demanded that we use color to do this and not bleach. I asked her if her hair had been colored previously and she said yes. Hmm let's see, how do I explain it so that everyone gets how nearly impossible her request was--She wants to get wet without using water? She wants to climb up stairs without bending her knees? Color can't lift color--at least not the color I was about to use. So I had to give her color class 101 so that she would understand that I had to use bleach to get where she wanted to go. I think she was ok with it. It turned out lovely.

Yesterday in our make up class, Kevin(gay instructor) made an announcement that we were having a make up artist from Ultimate Face come to teach a make up class on Thursday. Kevin rarely talks about his sexual orientation. He never says anything about anyone he's dating and he almost never talks about boys he's attracted to that come in to the salon. He might as well be straight--except that he runs around and dances and acts like a cheerleader most of the time. So when he does say something about boys it's almost shocking but then it's not. It's hard to describe. So we're sitting in class, about 30 of us girls, and he was talking about the guest artist and said,"I heard he is cute and single..." and then he paused for minute and looked at all of us giggling because he knew we were all thinking oh good then hook it up because a man in the beauty industry has a 80% chance of being gay. So he added in an irritated tone,"...and he plays for you guy's team...so good for you."

My cousin couldn't have said it better:

http://thedailykirk.blogs.com/the_daily_kirk/2006/09/luman_walker_gr.html

So I pretty much hate Wednesdays. We're in class ALL DAY long and it's really suffocating. Today during the first hour we had a 'guest speaker'. I say it in quotes because sometimes they actually are a guest speaker and other times they are solicitors: pepper spray vendors, people from banks, magazine clubs, gym membership people, etc. Then on the flip side we've had people share relevant information--I won't go too in to it. Today this guy came in to show us some massage techniques. He pulled out these wands with pokey round things on them that he would roll up and down your back and neck and legs. Some girls chuckled in the corner because it just really looked like, well not a massage toy I mean tool. As he continued on with his presentation I felt like I had been thrown in to the movie Pete's Dragon.

But after he started telling jokes about threesomes and pointing out the kinky nature of the massage tools he was using, I realized that this class was no longer a Disney movie in any way.

FIGHT! We had our first fight at school on Friday!!! And I was right there in the middle of it all! How fantastic is that??? So I'm sitting in class and we were all grouped around these tables. The new Madonna albumn was blairing from the speakers and everyone was talking as each table was deciding what block color to put on their doll head. There were two girls at the end of the table talking about something and they each started slamming their hands down on the table. It was really quite loud and I jumped the first time they did it. The girl next to me is pregnant so she yells hey! stop doing that, you're making the baby kick me in the crotch! One of the girls said Oh I'm sorry! and the other girl said, I'm not. So the pregnant girl looked at her and sneered, what did you say? The other came back at her, Don't talk to me! From there is just got worse. The pregnant girl kept murmuring things to her and the other girl kept saying things like, 'don't talk to me' , 'stop talking to me', or 'you always have to have the last word!' but the 'don't talk to me's' kept getting louder and louder to the point that she was yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs with a crazed look in her eye, 'DON'T TALK TO ME!!!!!!!!' The two girls were starting to stand up out of their chairs and get in to each other's faces when the teacher came over and kicked them out of the class. The rest of us that had been watching the exchange, had just sat there and watched, I think dumbfounded that this was actually happening. The last time I remember seeing a fight in class was in my 7th grade art class. So I guess you have to expect this kind of thing when you let girls leave highschool early.

Today this old lady came in and wanted her hair carrot top orange. I didn't have the pleasure of doing this but this 17 year old girl did. She applied the color and washed it out. Her roots ended up bright orange and her ends a yellow gold. She absolutely loved it. Somewhere in the service she told the student working on her, that if the student didn't wear lipstick, she would never get married. The wounded non lipstick wearing student crawled to the back of the clinic floor while the woman was under a dryer and told a couple of the instructors the tragic news that she would now need to wear lipstick. So they ran back and grabbed the school make up kit and this girl and one of the instructors put on bright nasty red and pink lipstick in defiance. Maybe you had to be there but it was pretty funny to watch them go back over to the client in all seriousness and finish out the service without cracking a smile.

They keep telling us that it's not how well you can do hair but how well you are with people. Creating good realtionships with people is what is going to keep them coming back in, not the fact that you gave them a good haircut. I can't imagine going back to someone that made me look like a crack whore no matter how I felt about them. Unless of course I wanted to look like a crack whore. I never thought I would want a rocker mullet and well here I am.

Whoa it's been forever since I've written. I'm having a hard time having a conversation with people I don't know this week. I think I've just been too tired to care for several reasons. I really don't care how many brothers and sisters they have or where they are from or where they work or go to school. I want them to just sit down and tell me fun stories like they entered a hot dog eating contest or how they rolled around in the mud in their church clothes. Most importantly, it's hard when you can't really hear what the person is saying because it's sooo loud in the school and it's hard to concentrate on the haircut if I'm chatting away. I need to find a balance or maybe I just need to get some sleep so I can be more alert.

We had a class on extensions today. This girl that came to teach had a thick Utah accent and a big coiffe of hair to go along with it. She claimed to do her hair different everyday--big and curled like today, straight, wavy, what have you. I am curious to see what she looks like with straight hair. Flat ironing hair is kind of a newer concept around here and somehow the Utah folks haven't quite completely grasped the idea. I really didn't know that straight hair could be manipulated into looking big but Utah has found a way through a little thing called back combing. There is one girl at school that has what we call the Utah poof. I had seen her go through her little hair styling ritual but in different parts, never all at once so I didn't really fully understand the process. It wasn't until I watched her style someone else's hair that I truly got how she did it. She starts by round brushing her hair with the largest size round brush. She then back combs all the areas she wants to have volume. Next comes the hairspray and finally the flat iron. She is able to have board straight hair that has an incredible amount of volume at the scalp. I would have to say that this girl has mastered the process. I have seen many other girls who try to achieve the same affect but fail massively. Their results are a ratted mess at the scalp with strings of hair trying to cover it. My personal favorite is when they try to have volume all around their head instead of just at the crown: it just looks like they have two horns coming out of the side of their head because they don't tease the back crown area enough. Ha Ha suckas!

Clocking In.
So we have to clock in and out in order to get credit for the hours we are at school. We were all assigned a number that corresponds to a card that we can punch in and out when we come and go. They decided to change things up a bit since there is a problem with students clocking each other in and out, getting each other hours for time they aren't actually there. We now use our hand print as our sign in. There is a machine with a hand print and we punch in a number and place our hand on the hand. This is not a time saving mechanism by any means. It now takes about ten minutes to clock in because we have to wait in line to get our hands scanned. You would think that we were working in some kind of a secret branch of the CIA. Once I scanned my hand, I was waiting for a hidden door to open that would lead down a long hallway to a series of other identification tests such as, say an eye scan. Perhaps we would be doing make up and hair for all of the agents that need to have an Alias for their secret missions. Oh maybe I would get to meet Jennifer Garner! But to my dismay, nothing happened and all that was waiting for me was class.

I'm starting to have mini panic attacks on where to go when I'm done with school. Do I stay here or do I move home or somewhere else? I don't know. I think about it constantly since I'm now in the last half of school. I happened to catch part of the show "Blow Out" on Bravo today and it totally stressed me out. The owner/manager Jonathan sat all of his employees down and basically threatened to fire all of them. The next day he cried and told them all that he didn't want to lose any of them. Then his assistant wanted to graduate to her own chair and she had to do a male haircut. So Jonathan said that he would cut one side of the guy's hair and she had to cut it exactly like he did on the other side. As she was cutting, he kept stopping her and correcting her every move. All I could think was oh crap she's totally not going to pass the test at this rate! Miraculously she did pass the test and graduated to a stylist. (She looked so unenthusiastic about it!) So I guess I was stressed out thinking about where I may end up and how I don't want to end up with a boss like that guy--so wishy washy and up and down. I don't want to be too picky about the salon I end up in but I want to like it! I can't write anymore--the ulcers are forming.

We had a class on resumes and interviews today. We asked each other mock interview questions. One that I got was, "What was your biggest challenge in school?" I couldn't think of anything. The girl asked me, "Well did you have any crazy color corrections or anything like that?" I said, "No...so far everything has gone great!" So then this afternoon I was doing my friend's hair. She had really light hair (level 9ish) and she wanted some highlights but she didn't want any bleach on it as her hair is very fine. So I used an HLP which is a highlift platinum with 30 volume. As I was applying it she asked if I had ever done someone's hair and they hated it. I said no and that so far everyone had liked what I had done. As I was taking out the foils in her hair at the sink, I noticed that the strands were looking a bit silver and purple. I kind of panicked but just hoped it was the color and it would rinse away. It didn't. I thought, oh no here it is...my biggest challenge in school and a client who would probably walk away hating their hair. I grabbed my instructor and we ended up counteracting the purple with a yellow toner and 5 volume. Magically the purple and silver dissappeared and her hair was a gorgeous blond. She loved it!
So word travelled fast around the school that I had turned someone's hair silver/purple. It is a rare instance to have to tone out purple. Usually we end up having to tone out orange or yellow. I am guessing that her hair didn't have the usual orange or yellow pigment that hair normally has. The highlift has a lot of purple in it to counteract those colors so if there is nothing to counteract, voila! purple!

This girl came in the other day for a haircut. We went through the usual questions of getting to know someone like where did you grow up, are you in school, how many kids do you have, bla bla bla. Sometimes it's really really hard for me to hear what my guests are saying because of the noise around me--blowdryers, music, other people talking. So she told me what she does for work and I couldn't really hear her so I said, what was that? And she said I am a sign language interpreter. I instantly felt awkward because in a situation with friends, I would have said what as if I didn't hear her whether I really heard her or not just as a deaf joke. So I wanted to say what over and over again until she got my lame joke but there are some people that may not think it's funny to make fun of deaf people. So in the process of stopping myself from making a total idiot out of--myself, I let out an "ooooh, okayyy". I'm not sure which would have been worse now.

So now that I'm a 'creative' student, my schedule has changed and I am in class all day on Wednesdays rather than out on the clinic floor. I'm sure most days are interesting and educational but today was my first day and it was anything but interesting. In the afternoon session, I had to highlight the sections of my book where answers could be found to future tests. Three and a half hours later, I thought I was going to stab myself in the eye with my highlighted! Ugh.
On a different note, I did learn something cool the other day. Back in the day, monks would do the 'bloodletting' on people when they were sick. You know, they would drain blood out of people in hopes that they would drain out the sickness. Soooo clever of them. Eventually the monks were banned from doing this so they would call in barbers to assist doctors to perform the bloodletting. The barbers would hang the bloody rags outside the door as a symbol that they did bloodletting or something so this is where the barber pole comes from. At some point they decided that it was better to just hang up something permanent, something that could be universaly recognized. So we have the barber pole which looks like those bloody rags. Someday when I open my own salon I'm going to take the authentic approach to my salon and hang bloody rags outside.

I figured out how to post pictures in here finally. I'm a little slow I guess. Thanks to Bek for the pic...

Dear PMTS,
I hate your school because I'm a sore loser and I can't win your stupid contests--contests that I believe will give me the opportunity to network in the industry and get me a killer job. I now have to choose between Super Cuts, Fantastic Sams, or Dollar Cuts.
Yours Truly,
Tracy

Today I wore a hat in shame. I wanted to be at school for the hours but I didn't want anyone to know I was there. So I hid under my little pink hat and stayed in a room where no one I talk to ever goes, for the better part of the morning. Pretty soon I got a text from someone wondering where I was. I was twenty feet away.
Pretty soon I realized that there were several other students feeling the same way as I am--that we were competing in a totally different contest based on who won.
I also realized today that I have been putting all of my energy into my hair life to the point that it is my relationship. Yes, I am dating my future career. So when I lost this contest, it was rejecting me, dumping me, breaking up with me. After doing three haircuts, two eyebrow waxes, and a hair color this afternoon, the devastating feelings eventually went away. If only I could get over getting dumped by a dude this fast and this easily.

I totally lost. I just cried in my room, sobbing cries, for an hour. How pathetic and sad am I? When it comes down to it, I feel like I was competing in a completely different contest based on who won. They picked three models that were totally wacked out all crazy with colorful hair. Last I checked, that isn't what people want when they want a make over. If they wanted us to do something creative and artistic, why couldn't they have just told us that? I'm also wondering why those that did do that, got one memo and me and the other make over people got another. I'm so pissed that I really want to quit school.

Today was totally nuts but the contest is over and we find out on Monday who won. I'm going to be in knots all weekend now. I'm actually not going to find out until Tuesday because I don't have school on Monday and I don't want to call the school or go all the way down there and find out that I lost. I don't think I could take the rejection like that. I would rather find out in a more subtle way where no one around knows when or how I'm finding out. I must say that my make over was incredible. She looked like a completely different person but in a good way. Everyone that saw the before picture was totally astounded at how good she looked. So I guess if I lose, I still won the satisfaction of making someone look more beautiful and to me that is a fantastic reward.

Ok so there is this contest at school to go to a hair convention in vegas at the end of july. They are picking three students to go. In order to win you have to do the best make over on a person. Initially I was told that we would have to cut, color, do makeup, and wardrobe in four hours. No problem. Now let's talk about how everything has gone wrong and then fixed itself at the last possible second.
My model cancelled on me. I have been scrambling to find someone that would allow me to do whatever I wanted on them. It's been really tough and very stressful but finally, today, two days before the contest, I have a model! You can't imagine the relief! I've been freaking out for 3 days, losing sleep even.
So I guess it would make sense that I almost broke down in to tears today when they told me that all Saturday students participating, would have to find a sub for them to cover the clients they would normally have to take on a Saturday. "We can't turn away paying clients for this contest." It's nearly impossible to find someone to sub for you on a Saturday...especially when you only have two days notice. Why didn't they tell us this earlier???? I told the front desk person that I was about to say the F word. I miraculously found a sub.
So they decided that we could do the color ahead of time if we wanted but there were no specifications on it. I found out today that the color had to be done ahead of time. I couldn't just do it earlier in the day, I had to do it at least one day ahead of time. Once again, it was a miracle that my model had a small window of time open in the day at the exact same time that I do tomorrow so we can color her hair then.
I am seriously on guard, wondering what horrible thing is going to happen next. I'm really worried that they are going to come up with something else that will prevent me from going forward on this.
I can't help but wonder if maybe I am not meant to be in this contest? Everything is going so wrong? Or maybe I need to look at the glass as half full and everything is going right and I need to relax now!

So the mentor graduated and moved back to Vegas. While passing through there, I stopped to have lunch with a friend that knows him. She decided it would be funny to text him and tell him that I was in town and wanted to make out with him. It actually was kind of funny but awkward at the same time. The other day he was doing her hair and he told her to text me and tell me hi. So it continues from afar. One day I'll move there and we'll have a torrid love affair.
I can't remember if I clarified this already so I'll do it again... There are two crushes that I have written about in this blog: The mentor is a student, one of several mentors I had when first starting school. MJF or Michael J Fox is a teacher that works at a nearby salon and teaches classes at our school once a month. So don't be confused--there are two and I go back and forth on having a crush on each of them.
School has been pretty slow lately: there haven't been very many guests in and a lot of the students are on leave for the summer. So I don't have very many stories because most days I sit at a station and roll perm rods on my doll head. I will say this, however: I hate it when new students come out on to the floor. They really don't know what they are doing and it's really obvious. I had to wait 40 minutes the other day to use the wax because this girl was doing an eyebrow and lip wax on someone. She kept stopping to look up at me and laugh like- I'm sorry I'm so nervous and retarded. I wanted to say just put on the wax and wrip out her hair already! Yes it's going to hurt her but she knows that! She put herself in this torturous position so just get it over with! But I didn't.

I did my first perm on a live human today and my fingernails wreak of perm solution still. She was an older woman--she had to be at least 85 and she tipped me $2. It took about three hours to do but it was fantastically curly in the end. She had me put on her 'fanciful rinse' in the end. Fanciful rinses are temporary hair colors for old ladies. They only stay in until you wash it again. These are the explanation for the old ladies with blue, silver, purple, or pink hair: colors that are very close to natural colors initially but look very fake and unattractive to the younger eye. They love it. They carry bottles of it around in their purses. It's funny how old ladies like permed, shampoo set, curled, unnaturally dyed hair. They have their own hair trend just like every other generation does. I can't help but wonder what they think when they look at younger women's board straight hair. I also wonder if they like 80's punk rock hair. What would they do if they had control of all of our hair? Would we be just a sea of greyish bluish pinkish teased out football helmets?

I keep having dreams about the mentor lately. In one dream, I flew to London in a car--kind of like the delorian--and I ended up in a bar somewhere with some people from school. There were magazines on the table we were sitting at and I began to flip through one. I found a really cool haircut in one and I started freaking out over it. The mentor was standing across the way and he wandered over and started singing the BeeGees to us. In the next dream, all I remember is him coming over to return something he borrowed. He was acting really wierd and shrugging his shoulders and lifting his arms up all funny. In the last dream, he came over to my station to help me with a hair cut. I had cut it like I wanted but I couldn't figure out how to style it so he came over to show me. He found some places that I had messed up on and so I all of a sudden blamed it on someone else and told them that it wasn't me that cut it and I was just trying to style it.
The end

I just realized that the mentor is like my own Jake Ryan(Sixteen Candles). Remember when they are at the dance in the highschool gym? She rehearses what she is going to say to him and walks over to talk to him. She is about to tap him on the shoulder but gets really embarrased so she turns around. After a couple of seconds she finds her courage to turn back around and he is looking at her with a friendly smile and he says hi. She just looks at him for a minute and then walks off. This is how I feel with every single encounter I have with the mentor. I'm so flustered by him that I just want to walk away. So far I haven't but I've gone through many red faces in fighting the fluster. I haven't felt like this since the 9th grade when I had a crush on Fred Brayton. I was with my friend Carrie and her mom at the video store and in walked Fred and his friends. I was still in my soccer gear from practice and I just looked a sight. I had to say hi though because we were friends. So I said hi Fred and looked down at some movies and played with my bangs before he even turned around. Carrie and her mom were trying desperately not to laugh because apparently since I had looked down so quickly, Fred was looking around all confused to see who had said hi. I'm starting to wonder if I'm reverting back to highschool me. The fact that I just compared this to a highschool crush is the reason why this is so lame.

Ok this is totally non beauty related but did I miss something? When did Carson Daly become a comedian? I'm sitting here playing my nightly solitaire marathon and there on the TV is Carson with a whole opening monologue full of lame lame jokes. He even has a desk with a mug and he is wearing a suit. I guess it's been a while since I watched his lame lame show. Last I watched he had a couple of modern looking chairs that were so low on the ground it was like they were sitting on the ground and he would wear jeans and a whatever shirt. He was never ever funny in his interviews--he was ALL business and his questions were almost always very surface and very boring. What is the world coming to when they put a radio dj turned vj turned late night talk show host into a comedic late night talk show host? Seriously, I don't get it. What is next?

I love it that my hot friend Jason came in for a haircut today. Everyone thought for sure that he was my boyfriend. Maybe they saw the incredible chemistry that we have. Now all we need to do is get rid of his sometimes x and sometimes girlfriend. Yeah, they are one of those couples that breaks up and gets back together everyday. Stupid!
On a different note, the Mentor and I have been head to head in service sales for the month of January. By service sales I mean how much people spent on us cutting, coloring, etc their hair. On Thursday I discovered that I was only $70 behind but unfortunately, I couldn't close the gap enough...I came in $30 behind. Dang.

Will someone please just let me shave lines on their head? I'm about to do it on myself just so everyone can see how cool it is. I was trying to convince one of my learning leaders today that he should let me shave lines on his head. I mean, he already has the perfect mohawk! The lines will add so much to it! He wasn't convinced and he was laughing and I buckled over in laughter just as someone was opening a drawer and I hit my head which made us all laugh even harder. Between that and the nasty pole dancing in the middle of the hair cutting floor, it was a good day.

Well, you just never know about people and what they do in their spare time. I was pretty thrown off today when I learned about my new gay friend's extra curricular activities. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it but it turns out, I am in love with the fact that I go to school with a gay male synchronized swimmer. He is a member of QUAC: Queer Utah Aquatic Club. This guy is so out of the closet that he is completely outside the house. He embodies the Jack of Will and Grace or the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy hosts. It's like they are gay but they aren't hiding it to any degree and they aren't afraid to joke around about it. There is a complete security in their sexual orientation and no matter how many times they are called a homo or a fag, they don't care. They will agree with you wholeheartedly! I find it fascinating and I can't wait to see my friend gracefully swimming to Michael Jackson in his designer synchronized swimming suit.

They keep telling us at that as a hairstylist, we will hear it all. We even had a professional counselor come in and talk to us about how to deal with this. A stylist's chair has the same powers as a couch in a psychologist's office; once a person sits in it, they will unleash all of their deepest innermost secrets. I have to admit that I have experienced this a couple of times but I had no idea how it could work to my advantage until today. I have been hanging out with this dude and no one knows about it. Someone that knows him and a girl that he recently dated, sat in my magical chair today. It's amazing how much you can find out when you play dumb. I am Satan.

The other day we had a guest from the corporate office. It was supposed to be a class about color which is weird because she isn't a licensed hairdresser. She ended up talking about a seriously intense issue. Ok well it wasn't at all serious or intense to me, it was totally wierd. Apparently professional hair products are only sold in salons and if you see them in other places like a grocery store or walmart or whatever, it's a counterfeit product. Part of her job is to stop the selling of these products in non salon retail stores. The thing that's so funny is that it's not so much that the shampoo may be counterfeit because a lot of times, it's not. The thing is that these places like Target and Walgreens, are more times than not, buying the products from salon retailers. The salon retailer sells it to them at just above cost so that they make a small profit. So why don't they sell directly to Target and the like? Because they want stylists to educate their clients on the right product to buy and make the profit. So this lady was standing up there talking about all of this, swearing, rolling her eyes. I've never seen anyone more pissed off about shampoo. It was brilliant.

The other day we had a guest from the corporate office. It was supposed to be a class about color which is weird because she isn't a licensed hairdresser. She ended up talking about a seriously intense issue. Ok well it wasn't at all serious or intense to me, it was totally wierd. Apparently professional hair products are only sold in salons and if you see them in other places like a grocery store or walmart or whatever, it's a counterfeit product. Part of her job is to stop the selling of these products in non salon retail stores. The thing that's so funny is that it's not so much that the shampoo may be counterfeit because a lot of times, it's not. The thing is that these places like Target and Walgreens, are more times than not, buying the products from salon retailers. The salon retailer sells it to them at just above cost so that they make a small profit. So why don't they sell directly to Target and the like? Because they want stylists to educate their clients on the right product to buy and make the profit. So this lady was standing up there talking about all of this, swearing, rolling her eyes. I've never seen anyone more pissed off about shampoo. It was brilliant.

Ok so yesterday was fantastic. It was a dream or something out of a movie. We found out that our favorite hot teacher was teaching our afternoon class. Over lunch the girls were all commenting that they hoped he would teach us something cool that day. I said, "I just hope that he makes out with me." They were all silent and staring at me like they had never heard me profess my love for him before. So I sheepishly said "Uh...did I just say that out loud?"
In class we split up in to groups with a dollhead and scizzors. We were to come up with something that inspires us and then create a haircut according to it. So the teacher--MJF--cruised around the room to observe our progress. I was cutting the dollhead's hair when he came over to our group. He walked up behind me and watched for minute. Then he got behind me oh so very close and put his left hand on my back and right hand on my arm and adjusted my cutting position. It was so erotic. Just kidding. It was right out of a movie though--like he was Patrick Swayze and I was Demi Moore and we were going to start making out any second. Only instead of clay, hair clippings. Ew. I hope he doesn't die and come back to me in Whoopi Goldberg.

My friend has super super fine hair and she decided to bleach it from the red that we had just put in it two weeks previous, to a platinum blond. I deep conditioned it and when we were all finished I felt it and it felt like mush--the kind of mush that we've been learning about in classes. It means that your hair is toast. So in order to restore it to something, our instructor went and found something special to put in it. When he brought out the bottles, I jokingly asked if it was V05 hot oil. He looked at me as if I had swore at him. It was funny. It was actually protein. I know what you are thinking and no we didn't rub ground beef all over her head. Although that is what we were pretending to do and so we were giggling the whole time we were at the shampoo bowl. So the stuff kind of worked. Her hair felt 150% better but unfortunately it still wasn't enough. The damage was so extensive that when we blow dryed it out, the ends of her hair were falling off! So the moral of the story is, kids, use bleach with care.

Suspensions. You would think that once you were out of highschool, the fear of suspension would be dead and gone. Somehow this institution of hair has managed to keep it all very much alive. There is a large binder that they keep with a suspension history card for each student inside. Anytime you break a rule and get caught, your time card is pulled so you can't clock in for hours and you have to see a teacher to get it back. The teacher pulls out this binder and reviews your suspension history and then decides whether or not to suspend you or give you a warning for the offense. Someone stole the binder so no one has been suspended for the last couple of weeks thus resulting--how can I describe it?--maybe in backorders of suspensions? Apparently the suspension book had been recovered or recreated so today nearly half of the school had their time cards pulled. There was a line of students that wrapped around the building. I had to wait for an hour and a half--turns out I was ten minutes late on a Saturday. They would have had no idea had I not called in but silly responsible me called in to say I was late and I was punished for it. Sweet huh. I wish I could go through all of the ridiculous reasons that you can get suspended but that would take all day. My favorite one was: Curling another students hair. What??? Aren't we in hair school? Shouldn't we be practicing? I guess I understand why we are forced to assist when we leave school. We aren't allowed to actually do hair until we leave school.

So this guy from Scotland came in the other day to get a haircut. He was seriously soooo cool. We talked all about Scottish people and Europe. It was fun. He is married so its not like our relationship can go beyond client status but he made it sound like he is a pretty good representation of the Scottish people so I decided that I want to move to Scotland. What do I have to lose? They have fantastic accents, funny sense of humor, good taste in fashion, and they are genuinely nice and friendly. My favorite thing that he told me about was how people don't date a lot of people at the same time. If I guy was to go out on dates with more that one girl in a week, he would be considered a player! ha ha. Imagine if BYU was in Scotland!

This girl is driving me nuts. She is the type of person that sounds nervous all of the time but she talks incessantly about nothing. Let me give you a prime example:
Me: "I asked someone how to do this haircut the other day"
Her: "Hahaha-you're all asking people how to cut hair--hahaha"
Me: "Yeah so I decided to diagram it so I could remember how to do it but I forgot my markers"
Her: "Hahaha--you're all trying to diagram without markers--hahaha"
Me: "So I looked through some magazines to find a picture of what I wanted to do"
Her: "Hahaha--you're all looking through magazines--hahaha"
What? Seriously why did you just repeat what I said like you made it in to a funny joke? It's seriously like hanging out with Rob Sneider on SNL and we're in the copy room. Conversations aren't funny when she's around because she repeats the jokes in her own language and I just want to look at her and say "Uh yeah I just said that."
I can usually deal with it but we don't have class this week so she is constantly around causing me grief. I feel bad because I am totally snubbing her and I think I would be totally nice to her if I didn't have to be around her 35 hours/ week. Seriously, what do I do?

When I got to school this morning there was a man waiting for a haircut in the front. He had long curly hair that was brushed out into a big fluffy rocker mullet main. It went perfectly with the studded belt, hard rock cafe t shirt, leather jacket, and sunglasses. He had a bunch of pictures with him. I wanted to be the one to do his hair but my sister in law was coming in so I knew that I was only going to get to watch. I knew that whatever he wanted was going to be good but I had no idea how good. The pictures he brought were all of Rod Stewart. Yeah, that's right....Rod Stewart. He's an impersonator in Las Vegas and he is going to be Rod for his next gig or something. Unfortunately there was no way he was going to get those lovely bleach Rod streaks in one day as his hair was very dark to begin with. So the final product won't be ready until he comes back for more bleaching on Monday. I can't wait!

There are only so many work stations at school and Saturdays are the only day where you might find all of those work stations being used but even then, you can usually find one open. They only schedule so many clients. Everyone usually tries to 'claim' a station once they get to school so that they will be ready for a client. However, it is common curtesy to give up your station if you don't have a client and someone else does. There is a student that has been on the floor maybe one or two weeks and apparently hasn't learned how things work. She came in to school twenty minutes early so that she could claim a specific station for a client that was coming at 1130am. Keep in mind that this is two hours into the day. Someone could have used that station for two clients and been out of her way by then. She left her stuff in the station drawer and on top and left for a break at about 10am. When she came back, someone had gotten a client and started working on her at this station. She completely freaked out. It was so funny. I wanted to ask her if she had OCD or something. Some of us were like, ok your client isn't coming for an hour and you can find another station by then you freak. Then some others were siding with her and telling her to go kick the other girl's A out of the station. The best was when one girl said to her, "I think you're acting really immature about this." I just about fell under the table laughing but I had to hold back. Oh how I love stupid 17 year olds.

What would you do if you were cutting someone's hair and someone walked up behind you and started puking all over the floor? That was the thrill of my Saturday: chunky orange and white puke at my feet. Nasty huh. Normally when put in that situation, I would start puking too but somehow I held it together, moved my client over to another station, and finished the haircut. The rest of the afternoon I felt shaky and sick from the sick smell that I got only a tiny wiff of. Why is it that throw up smells soooo nasty?

Ahhhh how I love MJF Thursdays. I am always sure to be on time to class and in the front row when he is teaching. Apparently there are several girls at the school with the same crush as myself. A few of us were discussing it before class and one of them said that she thought he looked like a hobbit. This sent me into uncontrollable fits of laughter and everytime I looked at MJF I had to bury my head in my hands. When he started talking about his love for Neil Diamond I didn't know what I was going to do. All I could picture was a chorus line of MJF's singing "We're coming to America!" in an elfin voice--you know the one where it sounds like you are fast forwarding?

When we go on breaks we usually walk across the street to a gas station and buy treats or get a drink or something. There is a crosswalk with bright orange flags at both ends to carry with you as you cross the street so that drivers are more aware of the peds. Most of the time walking all the way to the crosswalk is cumbersome so we do it like frogger or a mexican and make a run for it. Today however a girl went to the crosswalk and even pulled out a flag to cross the street. The irony of this is she was hit by a car and flew 50 feet. She broke both of her legs, a hip, her arm, and has a huge gash under her eye. She is five months pregnant and miraculously the baby is fine and in tact. What I want to know is what moron is out there driving and can't see a gigantic bright orange flag attached to a person in the middle of the street? What do you think it's like to be them? Do you think they can see street lights and other cars on the road? I have to wonder, are there people out there that just get in the car and push on the gas and hope that they get to their destination? Is there a secret day at the DMV where they just pass out licenses like free candy? Maybe there is a stack on table in some tucked away corner that says Take One above it. Why am I taking a test if I have that option?

A couple more things to add about Saturday. I cut my finger twice with the scizzors. Once so bad that I had to stop and find an instructor to get me a bandaid. To top off the day, this lady asked me if people tell me I look like 'someone'. Someone meaning someone famous. So I said yeah and named a few people. She said oh and didn't say anything else so I asked her who she thought I looked like. She said that she couldn't remember her name but she has a talk show. So I asked her, Ellen Degeneres? Yeah that's the one. Ok let's talk about this, people. I think Ellen is an attractive person but she dresses so masculine that to me she looks masculine. So in short, she basically told me that I look like a lesbian.

So we have substitutes right now because all of the instructors are in Mexico. You know how substitutes in school always suck? Well the same holds true in hair school. I was doing a hair cut on this little kid today and I had to have someone check it off before I could let him go. She was going through the cut and she totally shaved a hole the size of a nickel in the back of his head. The mom was ticked and I had to do the entire haircut over again to blend this hole in with the rest of the hair. This poor little kid had to sit in my chair for like an hour and a half. Dumb substitutes.

Today I walked up to the receptionist and said, "Hey my sister wants to get her eyebrows waxed so I'm just going to do it really quick before I cut this other girls hair." She glared at me and said, "Well you didn't ask nicely so I don't think so. You also have a request for a service right now." I looked at her completely puzzled and shocked. Shocked that she would say something so rude and puzzled because I had a request I didn't know about. So I said, "Did my request call and change her appointment because she isn't supposed to come in until 1pm." She replied in the same nasty tone, "Well contrary to popular belief, I am not here all of the time so I don't know. " She then added a very insincere "Sorry". Needless to say, I walked away pretty upset. Many bad words came to mind and may have even come out of my mouth. I decided that this was the last time that I was going to let her get away with this so I ratted on her to her supervisor. It felt really good to know that she was going to get her back section nailed to the wall by her boss later that day and I was going to get a full fledged apology. Later that day I got a note with an apology and some candy. ha ha.

J(19 years old): "Hey if anyone wants me to come in on a Monday for them, let me know. I really need hours!"

Me: "Why do you need hours?"

J: "I'm a slacker. I haven't been coming to school and I need to get my hours! If I don't get my act together, I won't be done with school until I'm 30!"

Me: "Hey! There's nothing wrong with that!"

Break Room Conversations:
"What? Your birthday is when? Oh so that makes you a Virgo! I'm a Pisces. Pisces and Virgos don't get along. You know, it would be interesting for us to sit down and have a conversation to see whether or not we get along. Pisces and Aquarius hate each other but my husband, well, he is an aquarius and we are married!"

My friend came in for a cut and color on Saturday. The learning leader came over and asked how old she was. I was thinking, Why is he asking her this? I know he's not hitting on her because he plays for the other team! She told him and he said OH! Well this will be flattering for you then! You have to be at least 18 to get your hair colored and so I was checking to make sure you were old enough! Luckily she is old enough--27--so I was able to color her hair and it turned out beautiful. Then there was the haircut. I can safely say that I've never really messed up on anyone's hair except for my brother's. He was my first haircut. He had a bowl cut--mind you this was like 1992. I started to cut off the long layer of hair on the top of his head and somehow I just cut it too much. Long story short, we had to shave it. So back to my friend: I cut the top layer of her hair too short and we had to shave her head. Just kidding...about the shaving part. It was rather nerve racking. My friend was sitting there, trusting that I would do a good job and I was screwing up. I think this is the first time I thought I need to find someone to fix this! But I stuck it out and I somehow managed to blend it into something and she looked hot in the end! Ya for me...

I cut and colored my cousin's hair today. It was quite fantastic and I will have to post pictures of her on here very soon. We are doing a photo shoot in a week and she is going to be my model. Her hair color turned out so pretty and the cut was very unique. I love that she let me do something different on her. Gotta love and appreciate the trust there!

MJF,
You are too sexy. I can't handle it and neither can my friend that should remain unnamed. When you cut hair, you look in the mirror at your creation with this look that makes us want to tackle you. You aren't normally on the floor with us but you were today. So my friend who should remain unnamed and I set up our station in your section. She wanted a scalp treatment so we called you over to sign the ticket so we could start. You looked at me in the eyes and smiled with this smile that said how you doin? --you were about a foot away from me which made it all the more affective or effective(?). It was heartstopping. I think I almost blushed.

Mentor,
You are totally killing me. A girl transfered from night to day school and you were on her like cheese on macaroni. Today you somehow conned her into giving you a stress relieving massage that lasted for what seemed like hours and also looked to be more than stress relieving. It seems that we are all on to your sparkly eyed nature except for this poor new girl.

Weird Girl,
I watched you cut that guy's hair today. It took an unnaturally long amount of time. I think that you must have gone over his head, scizzor over comb, at least 100 times--especially that back left side. You stuck around there for quite a while. I think my favorite part was when you stopped and put your arm up so you were leaning on his shoulder. You made eyes at each other in the mirror, smiling and laughing. The poor guy was either being really nice or had no idea that you are only 17.

Have you ever seen a homeless man dance and sing to the Jackson 5, ABC, playing outside of a gym? Well I did today and words cannot express how funny it was.
So by the way, I'm totally done with the mentor. Michael J Fox is way hotter and so funny. I am not talking about the actual Michael J Fox. I'm talking about an instructor that looks like him. He comes to the school and teaches a haircutting class once a month. I first wrote about him on December 13, 2005. He pulled up outside of the school in his new lexus wearing some hot sunglasses, window down and arm hanging out, fingers holding a cigarette. I've never been attracted to someone smoking---usually it totally turns me off--- but in this case, it was the opposite--kinda like the movie Thankyou For Smoking--http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/ .
It explores ways to make cigarette smoking more attractive to people.
I am starting to wonder about my obsession with short men named David that come and teach classes on Thursdays. David Rich used to come and teach a class at my last place of employment on Thursdays. I have no idea why but I had the biggest crush on him. It was to the point that I could barely say hi to him even though I knew him and he knew me and we had had several long conversations in the past. Everyone knew that I had this crush and they would all stare at me to see what I was going to do when he came around. This is why I am not going to tell people about my crushes anymore...

Today was officially white trash day. It all started when a fellow student complained about having to go check herself into prison. She had a DUI last summer and had to do 48 hours of community service or go to jail for three days. Since she hasn't done the community service and time is up, she is going to check herself in this weekend while her parents are out of town. So then the stories about prison and lesbians started flying around like...flies?
Yeah so that topped the morning off. Then in the afternoon we watched an instructor give a student a mullet. We had to take notes like this was going to be a haircut we would be doing on a lot of people. Who knows, maybe it will be helpful...especially for those who may be spending some time in prison.

I hate being called hun or sweetie by girls. I don't care if a grandma does it but when a person my age does it, it makes my blood boil. It makes me want to squeeze lemon juice into their eyes...or something. I think it's so incredibly demeaning. I'm not a child! Stop treating me like I'm five! So now that the front desk girl is a part of my life, I have to fight the urge to find citrus whenever I have an encounter. She looooves the sweetie and hun thing and is constantly using them when informing me on school policies. How can anyone use those words and not mean it in a belittling way? It's like she thinks I'm retarded! Either that or she thinks we're in a diner and she's a 48 year old waitress that chews a lot of gum.

I really don't know why this was funny to me but it was: This guy came walking by in his big snow boots and kicked the girl sitting next to me on accident. Now imagine the most feminine male voice or, if it helps, imagine Jack from Will and Grace but speaking very slowly and articulately:
'Oh my gosh! I just kicked you--that hurt! I'm sssoooo sorry! I am wearing my big snow boots. You can kick me in the nuts if you want to.'

I have a manequin dollhead that I practice perms, shampoo sets, weaves, etc on. I totally had a dream last night that there were hundreds of dollheads falling from the sky outside my window. I remember thinking it was a beautiful site--the heads floated softly down like snow against a blue sunny sky. If I would have had that dream a few months ago, it would have been very different. The dollheads used to totally freak me out kind of like how clowns do. I guess I'm used to them now because instead of screaming with terror, I scrambled to find my camera to run outside and take a picture.

You know those one guys that are gay and it's totally obvious that they are gay? It's like you are more surprised if they say they like girls. Yeah those ones....keep that in mind. We had to write down all of the questions we would ask if we were going to be taken on a boat to an island. We didn't know when we were going, why, what and who was on the island. So we began to share the questions we had come up with:
"When is the boat going to pick us up?"
"Will I have a bed when I get there?"
"How long will I be staying?"
Then one of the gay men in the class decided to speak up:
"Will there be an escort service and how much will it cost--oh and that is for a male escort." "Will there be a gay spa not a day spa but a gay spa?"
Yeah we heard gay and was it really necessary to say you want a male escort? You strut around shaking your hips when you walk and sit ever so daintily in your chair, legs ever so gently crossed. Whenever you comment in class, you sound more like a woman than anyone in there. Do you really think at this point that we are confused at what you want? We know you like boys--we all like boys. What if I ran around talking about how I have blond hair all of the time? Can we just get past stating the obvious from here on out? Even our gay instructor wanted to roll his eyes when you were talking but refrained because of your emotional instability--which is another story...
By the way, I saw two guys flirting with each other in the hall today. I have seen guys kiss, hold hands, etc but never flirt. It was weird and unnatural...more than the kissing even.

Sometimes I feel like beauty school is the place where burn outs end up to try and make something of themselves. If I have to hear about one more tattoo or piercing or how drunk or high someone got one more time, I'm going to to scream. I had to leave the room today because I couldn't deal with all of the post teen angst conversations going around me.
Dear Students,
Stop doing things to piss off your parents. I am done listening to you brag to your friends about the fights over the recent nose ring and tattoo on your forearm. We all get that you are recently independent but there really is no need to do anything further to prove this. Go away and live a responsible life and your parents will leave you alone. I realize that this might take the excitement out of your topics of conversation. Maybe if you did something meaningful with your time and money you would find something more interesting to talk about? Just a suggestion that will make all of our lives better.

Michael J Fox was there again today teaching us how to do haircuts. I'm crushing hard-- He is cute and funny. Whoa baby. We were talking about salons in the area--one of which MJF has worked at. He hadn't been there in a while and one of the students had so the student gave him an update. He described it like this- and this is a direct quote, "It's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory gone gay". Doesn't that just make your imagination go wild? A gay Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Brilliant.

There is a girl that sounds like Fran Drescher when she talks and I am about to shoot her in the head the next time she opens her mouth. It is honestly the most annoyingly loud nasal voice I've ever heard. Then there is the guy that she is always talking to who just sits and giggles and sounds like a total idiot. Ok I'm done complaining!
Today at lunch I was sitting with some girls, most of who are not mormon or very inactive. They started in a little bit on mormons they don't like and were talking a little about crazy fictional stories about Joseph Smith. I just kind of sat there and tried to slip in comments about how not everyone is like that and I'd never heard that, etc. After lunch, one of the girls pulled me aside. Her family is active in the church but she is not. She apologized for the conversation topic and hoped that I wasn't offended. I thanked her for the apology and explained that I was ok and it wasn't a big deal. My respect for this girl continually gets higher the more I get to know her. Never have I known someone like her. Most people that I have known that don't believe in the gospel anymore, tend to be extremely rude and badmouthing of the church. They have total disregard for any of the beliefs and are in turn very disrespectful to someone like me who holds those beliefs sacred. She refrains from so much out of respect for me. I'm just so impressed!
It is surprising to me that there are so many nonmembers and inactive members that go to this school. It is literally like walking into another dimension when I walk into school each day. I had no idea that it would be this way being in Utah and being so close to byu. Religion is a touchy subject there and so it's odd to not feel comfortable in bringing it up. Even in all of the places I worked before this around nonmembers, this is definitely where I've felt the most like I was walking on eggshells in that regard. I suppose it's a learning experience for me.

Dear Mentor,
It seems you found me on myspace. You came up to me today and went on about how you liked my picture and how you and your friends laughed really hard. You also announced my age which is ok because all that heard were in shock and went on about how good I look for my age. Let's back up though for one second. How did you 'happen' upon my page? We don't have any mutual friends that I know of. As far as I can tell, you would have had to go in and physically type in my name and search for me. That is all very interesting. Could it be that you sought me out? That is so cute.

This girl told me today that she graduated from Paul Mitchell four years ago and she works at super cuts and loves it. I don't get it. Why even go to school if you're going to get a job making minimum wage?