Lessons, Puzzlements, and Praises

Lessons: So, after 9 months without a haircut, I decided it was time for a change. And when you go that long between trims, you have a lot of blank canvass to work with. Part of the reason for the delay, was financial--haircuts in Oxford are expensive. My parents graciously offered to pay for a haircut for my birthday and I set out to do something dramatic. Despite the significant ammount of canvass with which to work, the cut just didn't capture the dramatic change I was going for. Also, despite the fact that I had finally invested a pretty-penny in a decent haircut, I decided that the best way to rectify this situation was to cut my hair myself. Now, that's what I call drama.

So, I chopped a bit more "fringe" just to make myself committed to the idea and then called a friend to come over and salvage/straighten my commitment. It's been a while since I have had traditional "bangs", and there are a few things that I forgot. (I should clarify that these bangs are significantly different than the last time that I had them. There is probably 80% less of them and thus I cannot style them with a curling iron and stack them one on top of the other of tight curls (or use one big curling iron to create the uni-bang). I would say that this is a good thing.) But here were my oversights....

Lesson 1: With "fringe", you can't wash your hair at night and then do it in the morning. This is just asking for a bad hair day.

Lesson 2: If you are going to experiment with new fringe, I would not recommend cutting your hair in May. Summer is just around the corner and these suckers are hot. Thank goodness that headbands are acceptable, but let's be realistic. That kind of counters the point of getting a hair cut.

Puzzlements: Before the last break, our course had a series of assignments due that collectively make-up the methods portion of our final mark. You may remember that I was unclear as to why I had to turn in these multiple components at different geographic locations throughout Oxford. Well, the mysteries around this process continue. Now, we have received two (of the 7 components) back, will receive four more on Tuesday and then we will resubmit them on Friday. Why?

I know what you are thinking (well, maybe...you might just be thinking, "Lindsay, I don't really care how ridiculous this is..."), and no, we don't get to revise these assignments. And no, there aren't even any useful comments on these that would help us perform better on exams or even to just learn from our mistakes. There is just a number in the top right-hand corner. (I also think that I can see a slight penciled circle around one of the words. I have spent hours....ok, minutes, trying to figure out what that means.) I am pretty sure that these scores could have just been e-mailed to us and then we wouldn't have to do all of this paper shuffling. But maybe this is a test of our organizational abilities. Or maybe this is just intended to give me something other than exams to think about.

Praises: After all of the thinly-veiled complaining that I did yesterday, I thought that a good dose of thankfulness would be appropriate. The weather is beatiful and the days are long. I don't get up early enough to tell you when the sun comes up, but I know that it is light out until after 9 pm. It is amazing how much the daylight improves my mood. Being outside is a real treat these days (as opposed to the several months were I turned hermit-ish and never left my room). Yippee!