The Joys of Unemployment

I've neglected my blog for most of the summer, but I can't any longer. I feel bad about it, but then again, no one reads this stupid thing. Eh. What can you do?

I've stayed pretty active this summer, but it's not because of a job. No, Wal-Mart deemed me unworthy to work the registers. Perhaps it was because I decided to put pink streaks in my hair. Barbie pink. It was really cute and I don't regret it for a minute. In fact, I may get it done again and just wait to get a work study job at school.

I enrolled in two summer courses. I finished one already and am halfway done with my remaining class, which is online. So now I just sit at home. I do laundry and other chores for my parents-- oh yeah, I'm kind of living with my parents this summer because they buy me food and clothes and junk like that. I spend time with my friends. I babysit for the neighbors on occasion.

Surprisingly enough, I have been on my computer less and less the more free time I get. Most of my online time was at work (probably why I got fired, let's be honest), and now that I'm not working I feel no need to whip out my laptop any time I'm bored. Well, I do, and I get online, but most of my interwebz time is spent on Netflix now. I love Instant Queue! But I do have Twitter now, though it's mostly to keep in touch with a few friends than anything. I end up skimming over celeb Tweets half the time. But just so you know, Josh Groban is hilarious! Boom goes the dynamite!

One thing I'm trying to do with all of my free time is organize my life. I've slowly been cleaning my room at my parents house. I let it become such a pit in these past two years-- drawers full of junk, papers and dirty clothes lying everywhere, closets stuffed so full that the doors don't close. It was sad. I can now proudly say that my room is livable and acceptable, though it is nowhere near finished. I have dusted long-neglected shelves and knickknacks, reorganized dresser drawers, and even cleaned under the bed. All that remains to do is go through a box of stuff. I can have friends in my room again, and I'm very proud of this. Another "life organizing" thing that I've done is filed all of my important documents, something I'd been neglecting because of lack of free time.

My lack of money has been troubling (I will have to use savings to buy souvenirs when my parents take my sister and I to NYC; I also have to back out of plans to have a mini vacation with friends.), the good has far outweighed the bad. I got a 96% in my first summer class and I'm doing extremely well in my second. I've been able to help my parents with chores and eliminate stress in their lives. I've been able to apartment hunt and begin packing. I've started to get my life reorganized. I've reconnected with old friends and strengthened current friendships. And I'm learning (the hard way) how to manage money better.

Now I'm beginning to rant. But you get the idea. Being unemployed is actually *gasp* a good thing for me! Just don't say that to my parents. They'd probably slap you silly.

And So Life Changes

I got let go from my job.

It was surprising, to say the least. I was hoping to work through the summer, but I was planning on quitting. I'm not really sure why they did it. Then again, I'm pretty surprised that they didn't fire me at Christmas. I've been sick a lot this semester, and I've had a lot of stuff going on with school. And of course school comes first, so I have to take days off.

I was pretty upset about it yesterday. I'm still upset about it. I don't like having this feeling that they thought I sucked and wanted me gone. I know that's probably the truth, too, but they said it was because they wanted me to "focus on school." My boss even went as far to say he wished his kids were more like me because I'm so dedicated to my school work.

I guess the only reason I was even upset was because... well, I wish they had just fired me earlier. It feels like such a waste to have stuck with a job that I hated and that didn't work with my schedule for so long only to have it taken away from me WHEN I'M FINALLY AVAILABLE. And it doesn't help that I'm extra emotional this week for reasons that need not be said. Just thinking about this now makes my eyes water.

But employment will be easy to find. I can easily get a cashier job at Wal-Mart, and I'm eligible for a crap ton of work study this summer. Hell, I might do both. Why not? I won't be doing anything else all summer. But I'm going to enjoy unemployment for a while. I haven't been unemployed for nearly two years now. I miss being a kid and getting to hang out with friends in the summer. I've grown up too fast in the past two years. I need to have some fun!

And hopefully I'll get a letter in the mail soon about a scholarship that I applied for. If I got that then I'd be okay with all of this.

Going "No Poo": unhappy camper

Day 5. Most of the day I've had this uneasy feeling that sweat was collecting on my scalp. It just felt damp. It still does. I asked a few friends at school if they thought my hair looked ok and they said it did, but I wonder if they were lying to me. Well, it looks ok... But not my normal, fluffy, squeaky clean version of okay. But I'm very afraid that it's going to get worse tomorrow. I have a concert tomorrow that I need to look nice for. So I'm going to do it.

I'm going to wash my hair with shampoo.

I will use only a small quantity, I promise. Hopefully the past five days of oil build up will protect my hair from frizzing. The shampoo I have is relatively low lather (from my experience) and is promoted as "healthy". Who knows what their definition of healthy is.

Another thing that's pushing me to wash my hair is a smell. I smell something weird. I thought it was the bathroom, but I cleaned the bathroom, washed the dishes in our room, and even did some febreezing. I still smell this smell! I'm freaked out that it's my hair. My sister and I are both experiencing colds and have a hard time smelling things at the moment, so right now I'm the only one that can smell it. Hopefully shampoo will cure my phantom smell. :/

I'm wondering if my greasy/"damp" feeling isn't being affected by the weather. I live in Nebraska, and it's humid. Already it's beginning to feel like a sauna in Omaha. I also sweat a lot (thanks for passing that gene along, Dad). I'm going to post my problems on a LiveJournal community and see if I can get some help/suggestions.

Day 6. I did wash my hair with shampoo last night. It wasn't bad. My hair was very soft, not frazzled like it normally is. I ended up using liberal amounts of hairspray as well. My concert went well, too. :)

Day 7. My hair was looking a bit gross (mostly because of the product in my hair), but I didn't have enough time to shower so I used a bit of dry shampoo.

Day 8. Well, today's day 8 and I just woke up. I'll probably just do a vinegar rinse. We're out of baking soda and I'm too lazy to go buy some. Maybe I'll use lemon juice. I read somewhere to use that instead of baking soda. I'll do research.

Going "No Poo": on your mark, get set, go!

This all started back in the beginning of March. I was in a musical that required me to curl my hair pretty much for three weeks straight. It was a nightmare. I would shower at night (already I was out of my comfort zone-- I always shower in the morning) and then apply liberal amounts of mousse to my hair and put my long, thick tresses into foam rollers. I would go to bed praying that my hair would dry somewhat in the four hours I got for sleep and wake up disappointed with my soggy, sticky waves and have to leave work early and call my sister on the way home to make sure the curling irons were fired up and ready to go when I got home. By week two I had gotten better at rollers (starting earlier and skipping classes to let my hair dry helped) and was getting good curls, but I was sick of spending hours putting them in my hair. I love my hair, but I'm not that dedicated. So what was my solution?

I didn't wash my hair between shows.

We had four shows a weekend. I put my hair in rollers twice a weekend. I was surprised to find that the less mousse I used, the BETTER my curls were. And I still had a riot of curls in the morning after sleeping on them. I used liberal amounts of hairspray just in case, but I was ecstatic. I felt like I was cheating the system. I asked cast members if my hair looked fine and got a strange joy out of telling them "These are my curls from last night!" Weird, I know. But that's me.

Ever since then, I've been interested in the concept of not shampooing my hair. I'd heard about celebrities that ditched the 'poo, but most of them were people that I associated the words "greasy" and "gross" with, such as Robert Pattinson (so cute in Harry Potter... then he stopped washing his hair!). But natural green living has always been a secret interest of mine, and now that I'm in college I can actually do things like this. So last week I started researching during down time at work. Ibrought up the idea with my roommate Morgan that night. Her reaction was a little disappointing. I thought she would think it was a cool idea. Morgan is more of a natural healing kind of person and is fairly low maintenance, so I thought it would be up her alley. Instead she warned me not to believe what every website says and started preaching about pseudosciences. She's a wise woman and I appreciated her advice, but I think by this point I'd already decided that I was going to do it. Or at least try it.

So on Saturday, April 24th, I decided I was going to stop using shampoo.

I technically hadn't "washed" it since Thursday morning. I used a dry shampoo Friday morning because I woke up extremely late and didn't have time for a shower. And Saturday I wasn't going to shower because, well, I'm lazy on the weekends. But my dad kept insisting that I take a shower, so I decided I'd raid my parents' kitchen and try this stuff out.

Before we get started, I should say what my hair is like, I suppose. I've posted pictures of myself before, but my hair has changed a bit. I have monstrously thick hair. It goes about six inches past my shoulders. To give you an idea of just how much hair we're talking about, it takes two boxes of Natural Instincts hair dye to cover my hair. And yes, I dye my hair. I have bangs, too. I also have crazy layers. I have problems with dandruff, oiliness, and dry ends. And because of all this nonsense, I spend extreme amounts of money on beauty products. I'm tired of it. Anyway...

My first results? Amazing. I used a diluted baking soda rinse for cleaning and then diluted apple cider vinegar with some clover honey mixed in for a nice smell. I scrubbed my scalp with the baking soda and rinsed my hair, then soaked my hair in the vinegar mixture for conditioning. It still felt clean! There was a positive side! On the negative, my hair dried... funny. It was fluffy and a bit frizzy. But my mom liked the fluffiness and said it looked squeaky clean. That's when I grinned at her and told her I hadn't used shampoo. Later that night we were watching the newest episode of Doctor Who as a family when she said, "Oh, Whitney, did you tell Cheyenne what you did to your hair?" And so I got to tell them all about my research and how shampoo is just a scam to force you to buy more shampoo. And they were all fairly supportive! Another positive!

Day 2, Sunday. I didn't wash my hair in the morning, not even baking soda. And it wasn't greasy at all. The fluffiness had died down a bit, which was nice. It was good throughout the day. My only complaint was that it was feeling really dry at the ends. When I got back to the apartment, I searched the kitchen and sure enough we had ACV and BS! So I hopped in the shower and got to scrubbin'. I used a small amount of conditioner throughout my hair inbetween the BS and the ACV to combat the dry ends. And after my shower I killed everything. I found this little bottle of coconut milk... something. It was oily and was an anti-breakage serum of some sort that my sister had purchased. I had read things about putting oils in your hair being a good thing, so I slapped some in my palms and rubbed down my damp ends.

Day 3, Monday. I wake up and instantly know something is wrong. My hair feels... weird. The roots feel clean, but the ends feel greasy. I knew I had messed up with the serum. I wanted to shampoo it all out, but I didn't have time for that, so I threw my hair into pigtail braids and went to class. When I finally got home at 10:00 that night, I was too tired to care and went straight to bed. I figured the oil in my ends would probably be okay if I let them soak for a few more hours.

Day 4, Tuesday (Today!). I washed my hair this morning with the BS, conditioner, ACV regimen again. It felt a little greasy on the crown of my head all day, but I think that was just my imagination. I looked in the mirror and it LOOKED fine. I had some interesting things going on with my layers. I have a bit of natural wave to my hair, and my shorter layers are picking it up quicker than my longer layers, so I've got long bits of straight hair sticking out of wavy bits. I'll adjust. Right now my hair is pretty greasy feeling. I think touching my hair so much isn't helping the situation. I brushed my hair with a soft bristle brush 100 times on each side and in the back while I was watching Glee, hoping to maybe distribute the oils that are most likely collecting on the crown of my skull. I'm probably going to hop in the shower tonight, but who knows?

Conclusion? I don't know. I'll have to stick with it for a while longer. I may break down on Thursday morning/Wednesday night and wash my hair with shampoo because I have a recital the next day. But if what I read is true, that won't be so bad because I've already got a good coating of oils on my hair to protect it a little bit. I just don't want to be a frizz ball!

I'll keep updating. Hopefully my updates won't be so ridiculously long. :/

A Long-Awaited Post

Title inspired by Lord of the Rings. Why? Not sure.

So... I shouldn't start blogs if I'm going to forget about them, eh?

Iwas looking through my blog posts and found a draft that I'd never posted from April of last year. Apparently finals inspires me to do blog. Anyway, this is what my draft said:

I've recently been infected with the blogging bug again... I think I always quit blogging because it seems like there's just no one out there that cares about what I say.

OH WELLS.

But srsly. All of a sudden people are like "OMG BLOGGING RULZ!" They're even starting a blog for my college's choirs and vocal students. I'm kind of like "Um, yeah, duh. You should have done that three years ago when blogging was cooler. Now blogging is lame. Everyone uses Twitter and that junk." But whatever.

I'm not sure what the point of my blog was, but I'm including it because, well, I haven't kept this updated. At least I showed interest in posting a year ago...

Life has been intense this past year and a half. When I last posted, I was just starting my freshman year of college. I'm now finishing up my sophomore year. I didn't fail music theory (MCC I) like I said I was going to. I'm getting ready for my MCCIV final next week. There is little doubt in my mind that I will pass that class with at least a C+ (or hopefully a B!).

I did make friends at school. I have some truly wonderful friends that know just how to cheer me up. And my sister is now in the music program at the same school as me, so I get to see her every day. In fact, we share a room at my apartment. It's... interesting.

Speaking of apartments, I'm moving to a new one soon. My sister and I are going to get a three bedroom with my cousin. We've been having several problems at our current apartment (cleaning habits, food ownership, etc) and while I like my roommates very much, I think it's time we moved on. But mostly I want my own room. And we're helping my cousin out because she doesn't want to live on campus anymore. I can't say I blame her! I wouldn't like living with strangers. It's weird enough to live with friends. But living with family will be fun! I think.

Some sad news to add to this. Our dear Rozzy (pictured in previous posts) passed away earlier this month. She was a good rat, and I'm sad that she died so young. She had to live with Morgan's parents for the past few months because I developed an allergy to her (my eyes were swollen shut!). It was better for her to live with Morgan's parents anyway. Her younger siblings would play with her. Rozzy wasn't getting much exercise at our apartment-- Kitty, our foster cat, wouldn't allow it. And Rozzy was chewing on things. Rest in peace, Rozzy!

What else can I say? I spend most of my time working on homework, memorizing music, surfing the internet, or watching my shows. TV is my favorite way to relax. I can honestly say that last year I didn't watch much TV. My sister Cheyenne brought that habit with her. I like it, though! My only complaint is I don't like TV in the morning, but I can deal. We watch Glee, The Vampire Diaries, Dancing with the Stars, Castle, and LOST (thank goodness for Hulu, otherwise we wouldn't be able to watch all of our shows!). And then we go home on the weekends and watch The Pacific and reruns of True Blood. The Pacific is an amazing show. If you haven't watched it, I suggest you do!

I have other things I could talk about, but this post is getting ridiculously long. I'll save some for a more specific post, which I should be putting up tonight! I also have to figure out a topic for a commemorative speech due tomorrow. Hmmm. Hopefully I'll think of something!

It's freakin' me out, man!

SO. My new favorite show is True Blood. It's absolutely fantastic!!! (On HBO at 9 CST in case you're wondering... :D) Plus I'm a total vampire whore. <333 I'd say I blame Stephenie Meyer, but honestly, I've always loved vampires. I was a vampire princess for Halloween my freshman year of high school. I wanted to see Interview with the Vampire for THE LONGEST time. The list goes on and on. I guess I never really got into it because my parents would always freak out about that kind of thing. They freaked when I became friends with a goth girl and started reading manga and watching anime. But whatev.

Anywho, so I was driving back to my apartment after watching True Blood (we don't have cable at the apartment, so I watch it at my parents' before driving back... I still come home every weekend...) and this idea popped into my head. It's not like I made it up. It just hit me as I was speeding into Omaha. And before I knew it, the characters were forming in my mind. The basics of the plot were beginning to unfold. I had my main character, her background, and her appearance mapped out before I stepped into my apartment. And then I started writing details. I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning writing stuff, randomly researching different subjects for no apparent reason, etc.

This was last Sunday. Since then, I find my mind drifting back to my idea. More details about her hometown float through my mind and I find myself going "Ohhhh! Well, that makes sense." It's like I'm not even writing it; it's like someone is telling the story to me piece by piece.

And it gets WEIRDER. I was struggling with names. I wanted my main character to have a common name that's not used very often anymore... More of a grandmother's name, not a teenager's name. So I was toying around with stuff like Prudence, but I REALLY liked the name Iris. So I thought to myself, "Okay, she'll be Iris." Then I thought of the name Marjorie (btw... thanks, Marjorie Fair! XD). I was going to switch it. I promise you I was going to switch it to Marjorie. But on my way back to my parents' after work, I heard two songs on the radio that fit my characters EXACTLY. It was freaky. One was "Everywhere" by Michelle Branch. And the second one I didn't know the name of! It was bothering the crap out of me, so about ten minutes ago I googled the lyrics that I'd managed to scribble on my hand while at a stop light. What was the song? Get ready for this 'cause it's crazy.

Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls.

I was freaking out. This song fits my vampire (oh, did I mention it's a vampire story? lol) SO WELL. It's creeping me out. It's like this story WANTS to be written. I don't know. I'll have to tell my friend/roommate Morgan about this... She's writing her own story. I'm editing/illustrating for her... :D But she'll get a kick out of this. Or tell me to start writing NOW. Haha.

Fun fun fun.

I'm at work. As usual. I'm always at work or at school. And then I'm usually working on homework or organizing my music junk when I'm at my apartment. Until Morgan comes home and I talk to her for two hours... I love living with her. She's fantastic.

I've been in school for... nearly three full weeks now. O_O; It's crazy! My classes are all pretty fun... Or easy. My theatre class isn't as fun as I thought it'd be. We're already done with the acting portion because the teacher is a tech person. And my applied piano teacher is kind of a jerk to everyone EXCEPT me, which makes me feel really bad. Oh, and I'm probably going to fail music theory. But whatever. I'm going to the free tutoring sessions that the CMENC (College Music Educators National Conference... I think?) have on Wednesdays. It's sort of helping. I need more help with the written stuff, but they focus on ear training. But I shouldn't complain.

I've made friends, too! Well, I think they think I'm kind of... odd. I'm naturally just a touchy person. I touch people. I hug them. I high five them. I nudge, I pat them on the shoulder... And I'm kind of grabby, too. I can't help it. My one friends kind of got mad at me yesterday because he couldn't figure out how to read manga and I KINDA SORTA grabbed at the book to show him... He was a little dramatic about it, but I was out of line. I thought he was mad at me, but then he started talking about how he loved my shoes, so all was forgiven... I think.

I don't know. I think I'm too insecure with new people... I'm naturally outgoing, but I kind of question whether or not my company is wanted sometimes. I do the same thing with the friends that I've had for years.

Nothing else is really interesting about my life right now. I'm getting caught up with all of my appointments: dentist, eye doctor, physical, etc. I need to dye my hair again... I decided to keep with the dark red color rather than the strawberry blonde. I just loved the way my hair looked during Brigadoon... It was this rich red color, almost bright enough to be Little Mermaid hair! It looked really pretty against my pale skin. *sigh* I know my parents want me to go back to blonde, but whatever. I like my red hair. And it's not as hard to maintain as people claim it is. :/

Ugh. I don't want to work. Seriously, this is the worst day for work. I had to wake up super early because I had to shower in the morning. I fell asleep before I could take one and then when I woke up at 3 in the morning, I realized what had happened and just set my cellphone alarm for 6:15. Too earlyyyyyyy. And it doesn't help that it's freaky hurricane weather outside. Seriously. The rain is WEIRD today. It hasn't rained like this for a good long while.

I don't even have that much to do today. I wish I could clean today instead of tomorrow, but I'll probably have even LESS to do tomorrow...

Well, I'm off to find some random stuff to do. >_>