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.