Flat as a doorknob.

Things have become more routine. I mean, of course they have, that's what they do, but I think that's the most notable thing about the last couple of weeks. And I mean it in a few different ways. One example is that at the end of each of the first three days of school, I managed to leave the parking lot & then go the wrong way three different ways. It takes a very special person to do that & I am that person. Only one wrong route was so drastic & confusing that it entailed a phone call to Adam for guidance. Today I noticed another thing that I guess falls under the heading of more routine: I was combing my mannequin's hair & spraying it with water so I could roll it on a roller & what I noticed was that I wasn't having to think so hard about the little things. I was combing it & smoothing it, etc, etc, & it didn't feel funny, it wasn't noticeable. I was spraying water all over my hands & they were all slippery with this industrial pink gel we use for anything & I just wasn't really noticing it. A week ago I would have had to think harder about every little thing. Now I was able to concentrate on the task at hand. I thought, "I'm combing this hair like a person who does hair!" At least sorta. So I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

I still feel a bit apart, though I like & get along with pretty much everyone (with the exception of one girl, who I'll refer to only as Bitchy Bitch, & no one really likes her). It's not actually a lonely feeling, nor is it unfamiliar. It's just less of a shared experience in some ways. I mean, we share everything, in that all the students in class are doing pretty much the same thing at the same time. My favorite example of what I mean, what I might be looking for & not finding is this: we were discussing styling products & the teacher said, "You wouldn't want to put a heavy gel on fine hair because that would weigh it down. It would be as flat as a doorknob." Flat as a doorknob? I looked around the room to see if there was anyone who, like me, was thinking that doorknobs are not, in fact, at all flat. And...no. No one else was fighting back a smile or rolling their eyes.
We've moved from finger waves (which I finally got, but never got good at), to pin curls (which I got, kinda liked, & got pretty good at), to roller setting (which I'm liking). The picture up there is of one my mannequins after I combed out & styled her roller set (I may make it a practice, when I cut people's hair, to write my name on pieces of scotch tape & put it on their foreheads while scrawling "Steve" across their necks). I liked how that one turned out & I hated having to wash it out & start all over again. I don't know if we started with finger waves, which I think most people found most difficult, as some kind of weeding out strategy or if there was some deeper reasoning. I'm glad we're done with them, though I know we're not really done with them. Oh, they'll be back, I know they will.
There was a lot of drama one day. Our uniforms are all black, shirt & pants, & we are required to wear black shoes & socks with it. The shoes & socks have to be all black. Why is this? I don't know. Nor do I really care. It's what we have to do & ok, it's not very hard, I'll just do it. Right? All the sudden one morning they started pointing out to people that their shoes & socks were not acceptable, they were black but had white stitching or designs or whatever. People were told that they either had to take a Sharpie & blacken the white parts of their shoes or go home. So most people started coloring their shoes. Sunshine was one of the ones who had white on her shoes. She'd also just been told that she had to cover up her eyebrow piercing, which I think they'd gone back & forth on originally. Sunshine, feeling beleaguered & put-upon, said that she thought her shoes were fine. The teacher said that she could plead her case to the director, which she had told a couple of other people who had gone & done so, only to return & sit down with a Sharpie & start coloring their shoes. Sunshine left the room & then came back about three minutes later saying, "I have to go home now," & started gathering up her things. My seat is closest to the door & the teacher had a conversation with Sunshine by the door, so I was ideally placed to overhear.
Teacher: Why do you have to leave?
Sunshine: I don't know!
Teacher: Can't you just color in the white parts of your shoes?
Sunshine: I don't know! I went in to ask her & as I walked in, I said to myself, "Why does everyone have to be such a bitch today?"
Teacher: Oh. That wasn't a good thing to say.
Sunshine: I was just saying it to myself!
Teacher: But out loud? As you walked in the director's office?
Sunshine: Yeah.
So Sunshine went home for the day.

Finger waves & gossip.

The first week is done. For those of you keeping a countdown calendar, I'll be in school for about 44 weeks.

I struggle with getting there on time. I thought the commute might be awful, but it's turned out to be way less onerous than I feared: twenty to twenty-five minutes each way & not too much traffic. I have to be there by 8:30, so if I leave by 8am, I'm fine. If I leave at 8:06, I go over 90 mph on I-40 & then I get there by the skin of my teeth. They're really strict about getting there on time. If you're late & didn't call to say you would be, you get sent home for the day, which means you have to add another day onto the end (you can't graduate until you've completed 1500 hours of school). This theoretically means if you're even one minute late, you get sent home. If you call in late, you have until 9:30, but no later. If you have a doctor's appointment or need to go to court ("A lot of students have to go to court," the teacher said the first day), you can arrange to come in later.
We worked on a couple of things this week: finger waves & pin curls. Finger waves were hard hard hard & we worked on them for pretty much two days. If you don't know what they are, that's a picture of a finished head of them up at the top. Those aren't the ones I did, mind you. I didn't have a camera with me, but I can tell you that mine weren't nearly that nice. You make them using just a comb, your fingers, & a lot of hair goo. I had more trouble with them than a lot of people did, but less than some. The girl beside me, who struggles with English (she's from Korea) & therefore with answering questions & taking tests, seems to be an amazing natural at actually doing hair. Her first attempt looked a lot like those in that picture. And then everything she did after that looked even better.
Next up was pin curls. All I can say about these is that you pin them in a way that defies logic, but it actually does work. I had a much easier time with these. I was walking around the room when I got done with mine & stopped to talk to Ashley, who said she couldn't get hers to be right. I noticed that she was pinning them wrong, so I told her how to do it right. And then she got it! That's the first time I got to help someone & I felt really good about it. She went around telling everyone that I had made her day.
Ashley is the person I talk to the most & we've been eating lunch together most days. She's the one who raised her hand about being a convicted felon. It turns out she got arrested on some kind of drug charges & her boyfriend is still in prison. She's only 25 & seems determined to make her life better. I hope it works out. She's smart & funny & I feel like she could do well if she wanted to. I guess some of it depends on what happens when her boyfriend gets out, whether he decides to do better &, if he doesn't, whether she decides to stay with him. I'm definitely pulling for her. She told me a little bit about the fight in the previous class & then I got the rest out of the teacher when we were washing a mannequin head together...
There were two girls in the class who hadn't been getting along since the very beginning. I guess there had been some unpleasantness all along & they'd been told to cut it out. One day, one of them was in the bathroom & the other one knocked on the door to see if it was occupied, not knowing who was in there. Then the girl came out of the bathroom & started yelling about how the other girl should never knock on the bathroom door while she was in there, etc. The yelling one was sent to the director's office & was probably going to be kicked out & then suddenly! she came back into the classroom! pulling off her fake nails! tearing off her wig! Yes, you heard me right: pulling off her fake nails & tearing off her wig. She said, "If I'm going to get thrown out anyhow, I'm gonna kick your ass!" They started fighting & the female teachers tried to pull them apart, but someone got hit with a pair of shoes (I'm not too clear on this part) & then two of the male teachers came in & pulled the fighters apart, but not before getting a little beat up themselves. While I enjoy watching a good drama as much as anyone else, I'm glad my class isn't like this. It's pretty peaceful so far & everyone seems to at least get along.
I was really tired at the end of every day. I think that's always the way when I start something new, I imagine some of that will go away. It's a relief not to be sitting all day anymore, which is something I never liked at my last job.
I have more Sunshine stories & a few other things, but they'll have to wait until next time.

The First Day.

Today was the first real day of class. Somehow I managed to leave home later than I intended & I pulled into the parking lot with only about 3 minutes to spare. It was just like high school: everyone flying into parking spaces at the last possible minute & hurrying into the building together. Unlike high school, I was wearing a uniform & a nametag (which identifies me as a "freshman"). Also unlike high school, I hadn't teased my bangs.
The day started off with a lot of information about rules & the structure of the course. My favorite moment of the entire day (possibly my favorite moment of 2010) was when Sunshine interrupted an explanation about absences or lateness or something to ask, "Do the machines here have Coke or Pepsi products?" She was audibly disappointed to hear that the answer was Coke. She's growing on me, though. She is so nervous, already, about flunking tests or not doing well. It kinda broke my heart, she kept asking questions about whether you could re-take tests if you failed & what happened if you messed up. She was very excited to hear that we need to make a sort-of a scrapbook type thing with pictures of hairstyles in it. Being an avid scrapbooker, she is totally prepared for this assignment. She was so excited that she couldn't stop herself from occasionally interrupting the teacher to say that she was ready for this assignment, she couldn't wait, she had everything she needed already. It was nice to see someone who was so anxious about the work she was going to have to do get excited & feel confident.
At least one or two people didn't show up today. The Marine was there but the other guy wasn't. Everyone seems pretty nice, though I'm still feeling like the odd girl. That feeling may never go away. I got a text from a friend today saying things will be easier once I "find my people." That's true & I hope it happens. The other person I really warmed up to today was the girl who said she'd been convicted of a felony. She seems really nice & funny & like she has a big personality. Unfortunately, she sits all the way across the room from me, but maybe I can talk to her when we have our breaks.
There were more veiled references to the previous class & what hellions they'd been. I plan to get the details on this as soon as possible. The teacher also mentioned that that class had been nearly twice the size of this one, almost 40 to our 20. Maybe they were fighting because it was just so crowded. It was also all women, no men, & that seems to have been part of the problem. I promise you, Reader, as soon as I know, you'll know!
After a little while, we got our mannequin heads to work on. I made my girl crush, Lucinda, laugh by slowly turning my mannequin's head to look at her (YES!). I was struggling a bit to do what we were asked to do, but then so was everyone. I mean, mostly we were just parting the mannequin hair & trying to comb it in this particular way. I can't explain exactly what we were trying to do, except to say that it was the first step in finger waves, which we're apparently starting work on tomorrow. They seem incredibly hard to do & everyone is nervous.
We also had our "theory" class for the first time. It's called theory, but that just seems to mean using a textbook & not doing anything hands-on. I imagine that sometimes has its uses, though today it felt like we were trying to understand a physical object without looking at it & I kept thinking, "Can't you just grab some hair & show me what you're talking about?" We have theory homework tonight, which in this case just means reading some of our textbook.
I feel like the first nine or ten weeks, which are spent in the classroom not working on actual humans, will go kind-of slowly & then things will pick up once we're working on real people. I'm sure most everyone in there feels the way I do: I just want to be handed a pair of scissors & shown how to cut hair. I understand that we have to get through some preliminaries first, but all I want to do is get started.

Orient yourselves, please.

Today was orientation day. I woke up nervous & early & to the sound of pouring rain. I was glad to hear that it was only raining outside the apartment, which means that the patch job the landlord did on the roof might be working. Adam very sweetly got up out of bed (on a morning when anyone would want to stay in it), made me breakfast, wrote out driving directions (I have no sense of direction, none; I only know one person who might be worse than I am & she knows who she is, we have gotten lost together), & saw me off in the rain. By the time I left, I wasn't really feeling all that nervous. That's partly due to Adam, who has that effect on me, he makes me feel calmer. He's also the one who somehow made me feel like this entire endeavor was possible so that now I'm actually doing it after so many years of just dithering about it. I'm lucky just to know him & so very incredibly lucky to have him as my fella. I could go on & on, but then he'd blush.
So, orientation day. We were only there a few hours. There are about 20 of us in the class, with only two men (one of whom just got out of the Marine Corps, a stranger trajectory than mine from scholarly publishing). I had feared/suspected that I would be the oldest person in class, but there's one woman who looks to be at least several years older than I am & a few others around my age. There's a woman named Sunshine (she says it's her real name) & another named Mercedes & then a Jasmine & a Crystal & at least one Ashley. There's a very pretty girl named Lucinda who drives a big pick-up; I kinda like her already. The girl sitting beside me said she loves reptiles & mentioned that she had a bearded dragon at home. There were a few people with good hair & a few more with super-bleached out or over-processed hair. Only one girl raised her hand when we were asked if we'd been convicted of any felonies. We were told that because of the class that had come just before us, fighting on the premises was strictly forbidden. This led me to wonder what the hell they had done & also, had it not been forbidden before that? I also tried to imagine myself getting into a fight with any of my classmates, perhaps by dissing reptiles or making fun of the Marines or saying that I didn't believe that her name really was Sunshine.
We got our uniforms & they are...well, they're uniform, I'll say that for them. I guess in the whole scheme of things, they're ok. I'm sure I'll be thoroughly tired of wearing it before the year is up. I wore a really bright-colored skirt & red sandals today because for the rest of my time there, I'll be in all black (it's like 1990 all over again!): shirt, pants, & closed-in shoes.
I went into today knowing that I might be the odd girl in class, an experience I have certainly had before, but not in a long time. Not in a long time because for some time now, I have been working in places made up almost entirely of just the odd girls. Pretty wonderful, really, & I think you know that I miss you all. Adam said I'd be fine & that I'd find at least one good friend; look for the guy with the eyeshadow on & the Nina Simone button pinned to his shirt, he said. No luck so far, but it's hard to tell yet. I know that having at least one person I felt really friendly with, somebody I can roll my eyes at, would really help. Ashley? Jasmine? Lucinda? Well, we'll see.
Now I have the rest of the week off & start for real next Tuesday! Squee!