Nice To See You Again Stress, It's Been Awhile

Naturally in our lives everything ends up changing at some point or another. You make new friends, you change careers, you get married, you have a family, maybe get divorced, whatever the case, things are constantly changing.

What is astonishing to me though is how quickly everything has changed in my life in the last year. Especially in the last 7 months.

Can you believe that? I have been single for almost 7 months. Where has the time gone? It doesn't feel like it's been that long at all. For the most part it still feels like that all happened just a few weeks ago.

I've been too busy to really even stop and breathe until recently though and I think that's why it seems like it hasn't been that long. Everything is changing yet again and until everything is more solidified I am choosing not to go public about certain things, even though word has gotten out to a few people. This is probably the first time in my life where I haven't had my life be a complete open book. It seems unusual but the privacy is nice.

I am nearing the end of my course already and I don't even remotely feel ready yet. We have 9 weeks left. Nine frigging weeks. It's actually terrifying because just yesterday we were shown something we probably should have learned in the first week or two of class. Whenever that happens you get that initial feeling of "what the fuck, if we're only JUST learning this how in the hell are we going to be ready to find a job in 2 months?" The thought of entering a salon atmosphere as an apprentice is very intimidating even though I am one of the top students in my class. I know I am talented but I feel so inexperienced compared to all of those I'm about to start working along side of. I know they won't judge too incredibly much because there's always a learning curve, especially in this industry, but that doesn't make it any less nerve-wracking.

Fact of the matter is: you're never ready... not for anything in life. I don't care who you are or what anyone says, you are never fully prepared for anything life throws at you.

For the last month or two I haven't been worrying about much. I should be but for some reason I'm not. I'm not quite sure why my demeanor has all of a sudden changed like this but it has been nice to take a break from my typical stressed out self. But tonight it's ever so conveniently kicking me in the face and sending me that good old, "wake the fuck up," call. Nice to see you again stress, it's been awhile.

For the first time in a long time I can genuinely say I am very content with things for the most part. I feel much happier, I even think I look much happier. I see it in my pictures now where it was definitely absent for quite some time. I'm still working on finding a balance in my life and it's not something that's easy to do. It frustrates me that things seem to bounce from one extreme to the other, but perhaps that's just my Libra side coming into play. One day I will figure it out.

Originally, I resorted back to a lot of my old ways and my old self. I'm still figuring my shit out if I'm going to be honest. No I'm not perfect, not even close. I look in the mirror now and I see a completely different person though than I saw a year ago. I see a completely different person now than I saw even 6 months ago for that matter. I'm sure even all of you readers can see the change by now (if you've been reading long enough.) I feel as though when you go through such a significant change in your life you resort to what you know best (even if it's not a good thing) because it's what you know and what you are comfortable with. I definitely did that at first and am still coming around now. I've got more values than before, more morals, but I'm still doing some of the same old crap I used to and I need to get my shit together.

I've gone from my medium length blonde hair to short nearly black hair. I've made many new friends and don't see the people I used to see most nearly as often now. I've found my outgoing self again where I'll talk to just about anyone at any time. I even dress differently now.

The only thing that hasn't changed for me in the last year is where I live. Who I've lived with has changed 3 times now since June though and I have a feeling it will change again not far from now. I think my new roommate is great and we get along incredibly well... but she practically lives at her boyfriends house (she's probably spent one week of the month here so far) and so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she realizes its impractical to pay rent here when she's barely ever here.

Relationship status, jobs, roommates, transit, school, friends, and a great deal of my personality and values... those are all of the things that have changed quite drastically in the last year. There's few things that have stayed the same.

I guess I'm just having one of those nights where I for some reason am reflecting and realizing all of the differences. I think considering everything that's happened I have adapted quite well to my new life. Every so often though I get that "holy shit" feeling and I become overwhelmed by everything that's happened.

It's been a year for the books for sure. I think this has been the most difficult period of my life but I know it will also be the most rewarding. It is already shaping up to be that way.

William Fitzsimmons - Everything Has Changed

Another Day, Another Look

There isn't really any time to blog... but I thought I would at least upload a couple of pictures of my new haircut since well... I'm a hair whore.

I think I have a problem, I hadn't even cut this cut yet and I already have my next one picked out, then today I found another one I want to do. Dammit if only my hair grew faster!

The new cut is an asymmetrical soft edge bob combined with a womens vertical (pixie cut.) So it's super short on the right side and then jaw length on the other. The back goes from straight layers on one side to cascading bob layers on the other side to blend with the long side.

I've never actually cut my hair this short ever and I look SO much like my mom now, but I am quite in love with it. I think it's more me than the long hair and everything. I just feel like I can rock short hair a lot better than the long hair.





I'm probs gonna bleach out some panels soon to give it some dimension. Guess we'll see. Oh how it's never ending! Time for popcorn and bed.

The Olympics Are Here! (Quite The Original Title Right?)

I FINALLY have my computer up and running again. It's taking me awhile to re-install all of my programs but I've started with the most important - photo programs, internet, music programs, flash drives etc.

My computer is running great for the first time in years. Things work on it now that I forgot ever worked in the first place. Yes I'm a horrible computer owner.

Anyways, what this all means is that I can FINALLY get back to my internet life and do some blogging. I'm going to start with Sunday night since it needs to be documented somewhere incase I ever lose all of my pictures again.

Sunday was of course Valentines Day. I had a great day at school and it started off with cutting my TEACHERS hair. It was nerve wracking as hell but it was a very huge compliment seeing as how she trusted me enough to go at her with scissors. It turned out beautifully and I was really happy with it. She gave me a 10 too! Woohoo.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet but nice none the less. I am one of two single girls in my class, however other single girl (cough Lisa) happened to have a date that night, so that left me all alone on the single front. I was actually planning on having a quiet study night since we had a test the next day (and was quite looking forward to the quiet night at home) but that ended up changing. Kara and Tonya are both out-of-towners and they were husband-less and childless for the evening so they were going out for dinner. They invited me along. I figured dinner would be nice and then I could go home and study... boy was I wrong hah.

Since all of this Olympic stuff had started I hadn't quite had a chance to explore it yet even though I am right down in Gastown. I get to see a bit of whats happening there but still hadn't been downtown yet. We started off our night with a little shopping at Urban Outfitters and then headed down the street to Speakeasy for some drinks. We decided to have a couple drinks and some appies and then we were planning on going to Society's in Yaletown.



We ended up having our couple drinks at the bar but started making lots of friends and having way too much fun so when we left we all of a sudden realized that we didn't want to go to Society's anymore because apparently they're snobby bitches in that region. We decided to try to find some Olympic gear instead and for some reason ended up in Sears because there was no line and we thought they MIGHT have something we were looking for. Instead we ended up at the makeup counter touching up our makeup for a night out. Talk about ridiculous.




Kara happened to know the guy at the Estee Lauder counter because she buys stuff through him all the time via the phone. Small world. After our little makeup escapades we decided to head back to Tonya's truck so we could check to see how late she was allowed to park there until and to get changed. On the way there we were trying to get a cab that was seeming impossible but this really cute cop literally ran into traffic to stop a cab for us so that we could get back to the car. No jokes, he almost got run over.

By the time we got back to the parking lot Kara and I both really had to pee and being small town girls we decided to just pop a squat in the parkade. Her exact phrase was "You know when people walk in to parkades and go 'awe man it smells like pee in here! Who pees in a parkade?!' ... I PEE IN A PARKADE!" and pointed to herself hahaha. I nearly died laughing which really didn't help the pee situation. So we popped our squats and decided to have a race to see whos pee could make it down the hill first. I won. I'm not entirely proud of that fact, but it was entertaining none-the-less and sometimes it's fun to get a bit sloppy. It's been quite some time since I actually got sloppy but still funny drunk.


After peeing it led to this: ... I'm pretty sure this is self explanatory so I'm not sure this even requires a caption.


This picture however kills me, Tonya is just pissing herself laughing which makes the picture that much more hilarious.


After changing and going pee in the parkade we made our way back down to Granville where we ended up at the Roxy. The line wasn't all that bad (maybe 20 minute wait) and cover was 20 bucks. It was country night and it just seemed so fitting. I haven't had a country night in I don't know how long. It was like being back at the Caddy in PG except with less natives.

Things pretty much just continued on the sloppy route from there on.









This all ended up leading up to pretty much the coolest thing of my life. One of anyhow. I wouldn't be the first to admit that I was skeptical about this whole Olympic thing but ever since it's started I have become completely wrapped up in it. It is amazing being here and being a part of it all, but it became 10 billion times cooler when all of a sudden the mens Canadian curling team walked in and decided to hang out with us for a couple of hours! They came up and had a few drinks with us and then we asked where they were from and they ever so conveniently slipped in 'oh we're here for the olympics from such and such places, we're on the mens curling team."

I'd be lying if I said the words "fuck off" didn't come out of my mouth. I didn't believe them at first but they were quite right, it was a few of the men from the team, their coach, a tsn broadcaster, and a ctv broadcaster.

These guys were HUGE too. Their shoulders are at least two times the width of my body.

Tonya and I with John Morris.

CTV Broadcaster (sorry I can't remember the name!!) and the coach Paul Webster.

John Morris on the left, little old me in the middle (little compared to them anyhow,) and Ben Hebert on the right.

I was quite shocked that they were even allowed to go out and drink but their coach said they didn't have to play until Tuesday morning so they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. I suppose it is just curling too, as my brother said "Pretty sure that game was invented by drunk people" haha.







They were the nicest guys and we all had a blast hanging out. We even went out dancing and did a bunch of shots. It was so much fun. Finally we decided it was time we should leave and we exchanged numbers with the coach but I doubt they'll be going out again now that they're full blown into their games. Either way it was a night to remember.





Some random jumped in with Kara in the picture above, and then some other random gave Tonya wilted tulips for Valentines Day hahaha. It was almost cute.

It was definitely the best Valentines Day I could have had. It wasn't the least bit depressing and I had the time of my life! Thanks Tonya and Kara for coercing me into coming out for "dinner." (Which never happened by the way.)


It's been an incredible week with all of this Olympic stuff going on. I know everyone's probably getting sick of reading about it because we're all seeing the same things but I still have to blog about it because I want it recorded so I can one day look back on it and remember how exciting it all was.

Tonight I went and watched the hockey game downtown and then FINALLY went to see the torch/cauldron. Jeremy has a security pass so he took my camera inside the gate and got a few great shots for me. Thanks Jeremy! (Not that you read this anyways...)







This guy also has the sweetest idea ever. He's got it made I swear, he dresses up like batman and leaves a money bin in front of him, people PAY him to take their picture with him and he looks like the most badass mother fucker ever. Seriously why didn't I think of this??


Funny story though, if you can notice the bunny ears behind Batman, he was NOT impressed. This girl came and ruined the picture and he totally bitched her out, it was hilarious. She goes "OH MY GOD BATMAN JUST SWORE AT ME!!" ... then he came and shook Jeremy's hand and apologized for the "rude broad" and goes "I know she's a girl, but I really wanted to drop her for that." HAHAHA. Ohhh Batman, you are one classy son of a bitch.



Also wtf is this?? A yeti or the Abominable Snowman?? There were two girls dressed up like this.

Getting frustrated

Well my computer has royally shit the bed and the only way around it was to do the whole system recovery thing. Aka all of my shit is now gone and I have to reinstall everything gah. So frustrating but what can you do. I also had to buy a new monitor. I still have to figure out how to set up my Internet connection gaaah fucking pain in the ass. I'm not going to bother with it for tonight but I'm hoping I'll wake up to a computer nerd fixing everything for me so I don't have to. I don't know a fucking thing about computers. I have so many pictures to upload and a bunch of blogs to write. Le sigh.

Thiiiss suucks

Well I'm doing this all on my iPod which is pretty lame hah. My monitor has definitely kicked the bucket so I need to get a new one but before I do that I want to hook up a different monitor to it to see if my computer is still working. It was acting up a bit but I think it's more than salvagable. Guess I'll find out.

Tonight Jon came over to visit. I haven't seen him in a few weeks since he's been in Europe so we got all caught up. He showed me all of his pictures which were both cool and hilarious. He also came back with some extremely entertaining stories... For instance how he puked all over the floor of this really fancy palace hahahaha. Makes me laugh everytime.

Things have been crazy all week. I've felt Terrible all week. I'm finally starting to feel normal again.

This week is going to be an interesting week though seeing as how the city is going to be balls to the wall with Olympic activities. A lot of people are complaining about it all and yes truth be told I hate that transit to and from school is going to be a major pain in the ass... BUT I am incredibly excited to have the olympics here. It's a once in a lifetime event for us here and I think people should enjoy it! I am going to go dowtown as much as possible. I'll already be there on the weekends and Monday nights so it's going to be quite the experience.

On the 16th alexisonfire is playing a free show so I really want to go to that. I love Dallas green and I actually quite like alexisonfire so it's the one free show that I want to see. If anyone wants to go let me know cause Im looking for people to go with!

Alright well I suppose it's bed time now. I had this crazy urge today to want to cut my hair short on one side and layer the shit out of it hah. Ahhh once I start cutting my hair I just can't stop. We'll see about it though. I have my haircuts picked our for my grad presentation so next I'll start working on colours and finding models. Finding models is going to be tough cause I have two really edgy cuts in mind that will require two very willing and trusting girls. I think whenever i go out in the next couple of months I'm going to keep my eyes open for models that I can poach haha.

Alright NOW it's time for bed. I have a hair show to go to tomorrow night at JCI. It's going to be crazy getting down there since it's the opening ceremonies as well but I am so excited for the show and then the activities afterwards!

Inspired

I FINALLY figured out what my theme should be for my final grad presentation.

I feel so inspired now! I've already started thinking about all of the things I could do with this and I have some really fantastic ideas so far! I think it's going to turn out so perfectly. I honestly don't even know how I came up with this idea either. I was sitting here on google actually trying to google "theme ideas" when I came across a song for the 80's - "I wear my sunglasses at night" and then I started browsing 80's music to see if I might be inspired by a song.

Sadly I was not. Then out of nowhere I was like OH MY GOD I'VE GOT IT.

Now, I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag because well, I want to keep it somewhat secretive. There will be a few who are going to be in the know of course because how could I not share with those few special people?! but aside from them I would like to keep it hush hush. I just hope that no one else has the same idea but I really doubt that anyone does.

So fricking excited. Now that I have my theme I can finally start thinking about the hair aspect and what I want to do with it and what colours, as well as makeup and dress. AHH so fricking exciting! The best part about this theme is that it's incredibly broad, but no matter what I do everything will be cohesive.

I've got some work experience being set up currently as well. I'm going to do some work experience at Avant Garde hair with Jon Paul Holt which will be AMAZING and I am so excited about it.

Ahhh so now I'm going to look for some songs to go with my theme and then go to bed! I'm just waiting for my sheets to dry woohoo!

Also... I really want to see this movie. It looks friggen hilarious. Cheesier than shit, but hilarious.

Sick Fucks Should Be Shot

I would like to take a minute to rant about this sick fucking asshole who thought it was hilarious to throw his dog off of a fucking bridge so that it would hit the ground 40+ feet below and die a slow painful fucking death.

First off, for anyone who hasn't seen this video, I am not even going to link it because it is that disgusting and it will only ruin your fucking day and make you cry your friggen eyes out and throw up (if you're even the slightest bit human.)

This guy apparently was not. Neither were his two idiot friends with the video cameras that stood beside it all and laughed.

It is the most awful thing I've ever seen. I will even go so far as to say I think this is even worse than killing another human. At least humans have a clue of what's about to happen and can try to put up a fight, but this poor dog had no idea obviously until the second he was being hung over the railing and being let go of. This poor dog was trusting this man as his owner (or maybe not his owner, who knows who this dog really belonged to) and this guy fucking goes and throws it off a bridge.

Then, the dog hits the dirt road beneath the bridge and you see a blood splat and the dog starts to fucking howl and cry. It is the most painful fucking thing I have EVER seen in my entire life.

I actually want to kill this asshole. I wouldn't even second guess it. I would love to push him off a bridge so that he can break all of his fucking bones in his body and die a slow painful death. Fucking prick. Or perhaps put a few bullets into his knee caps just to fuck with him for a bit before pushing him off a bridge.

Fucking prick.

I hope you do actually go to jail but then get raped every single fucking night of your life when you're alive so that you know what it feels like to be brutalized and treated like shit. THEN I hope you die. You.fucking.sick.asshole.

This is a fucking house hold pet that you love and who loves you UNCONDITIONALLY back, it is NOT okay to treat any animal this way.

End rant.

I Call Shinanigans

I'm drunk as a fucking sklunk right now. I never do drunk posts so I thought now might be the perfect time . I just lost my ipod. I'm not pimpressed. I willl hpefuly find it in the morning. Fuck. I left school and instantly started on the drinks. I had 5 doubles and 3 shots... on an emptu stomach.

I am so fucked.

I was supposed to go to the biltmore/baltmore? with Lisa and Jamie but I fucked that one up.

Really hope I find my ipod. I'm going to bed. Goodnight world.

... ** Edit**

It's 5:30 in the morning and I just woke up. I all of a sudden realized I didn't remember paying my tab last night. How drunk was I to have walked out on a bar tab when they have my drivers license AND visa? BUT... I just looked in my purse and there was a withdrawl receipt from my account and both pieces of ID. WTF.

Seriously, where the hell is my ipod? UUUUUUUUUUUUUgh I am going to feel like death later today.

Don't you hate when you wake up super early still drunk and you just know that you're going to pay for this later in the morning.

Jesus Pieces Rescue Me, The More I Try The More It Gets Too Complicated

Since everything else in my life seems to look different or is different I figured I might as well update my internet life too with a new blog layout.

Simplified. I'd say that's a good theme for the time being. Even though my life doesn't really seem all that "simple" at this point in time, it still sort of is. It's basic I suppose, work, school, work, home, school, home, repeat. Throw in some "laundry" and "cleaning" in there and you've got my schedule to a T.



Don't you hate when you put your Ipod on random and it never seems to play the songs you feel like listening to? But you don't really know what you feel like listening to so you can't just put on whatever you want? Mostly I just need to download 10 million more songs to throw on my ipod so I can overplay each one of them till I'm sick of them. Hah. I have a horrible tendency for doing that, except I do always go back and listen to those songs later, just not for a good month or two.


A hairdresser I know suggested to my dad that I should work on a cruiseship after I graduate. Apparently it pays incredibly well (up to 4 grand a month) and they pay for your room and board. It could be fun I suppose but when I think cruise ships I think old people, which then immediately makes me think "ugh... curl set after curl set after curl set..." ... I would most likely be right but it is something worth looking into for sure. It's 50 bucks American just to send in an application. It helps keep their applicants a little more serious I suppose so they don't just get random joe blows sending in their shitty resumes. Doing curl sets wouldn't be such a bad thing but if that's all I was doing then it would get incredibly boring.

Meh, I'll look into it. It might even be worth doing just for a couple of months to bank some mad cash and see some shit while I'm at it! Life on a boat... hmm sounds interesting. Could I play "I'm on a boat" the entire time I was there? I don't think that's gotten old enough just yet.



I sent out my first email about work experience today. Woohoo. I hope that works out for me. I know all the girls are gunning for that salon though so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully it works out, it could be a great opportunity I think. :)

Well, back to the boring same old. I'm going to eat me some food and be boring for the rest of the afternoon. Sounds pretty liberating. Naht.

Santogold-Anne

Do You Wanna Be My Sidedish Friend?

Well it's February which means it's come time to start thinking about where I want to do my work experience at the end of the month. We were given a list of places on Monday and we can find our own places outside of that list if we'd like but there are a few on there that I wouldn't mind checking out.

It is also time to start thinking about my final grad presentation. I had a few ideas for themes before but I'm not so sure about them now. I need to find some inspiration somehow. I'm not quite sure how to go about this yet since this is the first time I've ever done something like this. I think I should spend a few evenings walking about the city and seeing what "inspires" me. I want to do a theme that's never been done before, they told us there's never been a repeat yet and I would hate to be the person that repeats something. It is tough though because we can't do any sort of crazy cuts. We have four specific cuts that we will showcase and they are the basic of all cuts. Here's to hoping I figure something out!

It's also finalized that I will be taking the insurance off of my car in 2 weeks. It seems crazy to think that I'll no longer have my car to just jump in at a whim. I think this will be a good thing though, both for my time management skills/laziness but also for my ass. I could use the extra calorie burn from walking to the skytrain station I'm sure. This will involve more effort than I'm even realizing yet. I've always had the convenience of a car. I am also very adamant on NOT taking buses. I don't think anyone understands my hatred for the bus but I will do everything in my power to not have to take the stupid bus. I just can't figure out their damn systems! :( Yes I am completely retarded when it comes to bus schedules, but for the most part I don't like them because they make me sick, smell bad, are full of icky people, and straight up suck.

I was incredibly sick yesterday morning when I woke up. I finally crossed that line where I went from "tired/overworked" to "fucking exhausted/drained/dead to the world." I was trying to fight it with everything in me and got up and went to the bathroom to start getting ready for work but as I heaved into the sink I decided to use my better judgement and take the day off. My body needed it. I slept until quarter after 3 in the afternoon. I woke up feeling like crap still and did all for the rest of the day but man did it ever feel good to sleep.

Such is my life. I went 30 days in a row though before taking a full day off so I don't even feel remotely guilty. Part of me really wants to just push myself and do the full 88 day stretch but I know my body and I know when it's time to relax too. It was definitely time.

I ordered my new glasses yesterday which I am suuuper excited about. I ordered these ones and they should be here tomorrow I believe. I can hardly wait. My other two pairs are completely thrashed. Both have been worn to the shop and have been covered in paint a time or 50. I got a great deal on these ones, the frames alone are about 400 bucks and I paid 102 total shipped to my doorstep. W00t!

This post is complete random banter so I thought I'd leave you on a cute note. I really REALLY want a bunny. I have always had bunnys growing up and they're so farking adorable I can't even handle it. I am seriously considering getting one. How cute are these?



Awwwwee. Don't you just want to kiss their little wiggly noses?! I always loved petting the spot behind their head that connects to their body, just behind their ears haha. It sounds really weird but it's the softest fur you could ever imagine and it puts them right to sleep. And what's cuter than a sleeping bunny? Nothing really.

Rachel Yamagata - Sidedish Friend