naturally selected hair

Years ago I used to do my own hair cutting, because I didn't like most haircuts at salons. Most haircutting people types are too wussy, they don't do anything exciting. I always say--do what you want! And the result is death by boredom.

But I returned to Cheap Salon Land the last 3 times (that is, one haircut per year, because that's all I had time for), and the first two times went pretty okay--the cuts weren't exciting, but they had nice shape, they fell well. But the last time threw me back into Hmph!-land. I didn't like the way it hung, or the shape of it or her technique. To me, a good haircut means your hair looks decent even when you roll out of bed, or it dries funny. That last cut was very hit or miss, as far as Boring Hair Days go.

Meanwhile in Hair Colour land... I had gone as blondie as I could with bleach, but that meant leaving the bleach on for 2 hours, which brought my hair to the consistency of straw. So, like, vegan... but straw.

So now I've decided to leave the bleach on less long, and go back to darker yellow, which is where my roots are now; but in the meantime I have all this bright blonde hair leftover. And of course, what's the real purpose of bright blonde hair? Well, to die funky colours, of course!

Yesterday I chopped up my hair so that it has a better shape/wider bangs/more choppy uneven bits; and today I dyed the bottom layer an orangey red. I originally wanted pink, but it's Fall now, so I thought a more autumnal colour would be appropriate. And it will better match the orangeness of my blonde hair.

There's actually three colours (four if you count the two shades of blonde, five if you count the gray), because I'm also letting my natural hair colour grow out in the underlayer. I think I'm only allowed two-tone hair at work, but ummm... hopefully the dark underlayer will just seem like a trick of the light. Heh heh.

Anyway, so you can go to Facebook to see The Evolution of My Hair 2006-07.

countrified & satisfied

Alright, I'm reading A Town Like Alice again. After finishing the 7th Stephanie Plum novel, I finally reached my breaking point. --> I never usually read past 3-4 books in a row of one author, because no matter how great they are, you get tired of their style; but I was trying to read all the Plum books in a row just for A Lark. Doesn't work.

I'm studying Southeast Asia this semester, and Alice takes place in Malaysia during the Japanese invasion of WWII, so I'm in the right mooood.

I must say I'm quite enjoying my Asia class. While I'm a bit tired, after 4 years of McGill, of talking about civil society, and the state, and authoritarianism, and democracy and the economy, etc. etc. etc. (a bit like reading 7 Stephanie Plums in a row), the prof spends a lot of time telling us about the countries. And the readings are very case studyish, and historical. I LOVE learning about countries.

If I look at a map of Europe, the countries all look like Individual Countries--because I've known people who are Swiss, Greek, Italian, Polish etc. You grow up just naturally knowing more about these places, and studying European history, and seeing European-set movies. But I hate it when I look at another region of the map, and it's just a big Blank. When I first studied the Middle East, it was just land with lines drawn over it; and I loved how, as I studied the region, it took shape in my mind. It started to mean something.

Studying sub-Saharan Africa last year was a bit tough, because most of the readings were so broad (eg. covering 6 countries at a time), so it's hard for me to Say Something about these places now. What's Chad? What do I know about Chad?? Or Benin? Or the Central African Republic? Or Guinea-Buissau? Ah well, I'll have to get there on my own.