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.