Story Time

As of last week my class and I have graduated from Freshman to Sophomores. We now have 450 hours give or take and are on a rotating schedule for clients. A few things have changed: new teacher, new time frames, etc. but we still have classes with Carmelo on some mornings.

Every time we have a Carmelo Cutting Class we always end up hearing some sort of story. This morning was no different. We heard about how he started cutting hair in a shop his father had bought him in Argentina when he was around 14 years old. How he went to school and eventually started competing.(Apparently he lost his first competition then won every single one he entered after that, and by "won", I mean came in 1st.) This eventually took us to him opening his first shop here in America down on Franklin Ave. in Hartford. We even got to hear about accidental dealing with mob members....

When he was finished( "OK, can we talk about this hair cut now?" he says) One girl raises her eyebrows and said, "Was that story for real?". Both the teacher and a student reply that the story was way to intricate to have been made up on the spot.

It's interesting the things one can learn at hair school.

A smile at NYC and beautiful weather

Early this month IIC took it's students to the IBCNY - International Beauty Convention New York - in New York City. We were all up early getting ready, after all, we were going to be seeing professionals at this thing, it's not like we could just roll out of bed and look like crap.
7:15 - Every one's at school, getting their tickets, and loading onto the bus.
7:30 - pulling out of the school parking lot. Not an easy task for a coach bus to do on the Silas Dean in a very narrow lot.
A few short hours later we were driving through the ever moving streets of NYC. At some point in my life I'm going to go there and walk around all day just taking pictures of the architecture - I liked some of it more than some of the hair styles I saw :/.

I walked around for a couple hours but left at the request of my grumbling stomach. At first my group and I were just going to walk a couple of blocks to a little pizza parlor someone had told us about, but once outside we met up with a few more people from school who were walking to Time Square for and early lunch. My feet did not want to walk for twenty minutes just to find food and come back, but the rest of my group was going and I had no idea how to get anywhere - and it's not like I was about to take off by myself...- so I went with them....and was glad. The weather was beautiful. Temperature somewhere in the sixties, sun shining brightly, not a cloud in the sky. I was able to tromp around in flipflops all day long! I can't wait till the weather is gorgeous like this all the time because I am SO done with winter...as of 4 months ago.

There is something really surreal about New York. The business of the streets, the architecture of the buildings, the characteristics of the people you meet, the high-end stores filled with millions of dollars of merchandise tucked away in the midst of grungy, sketchy areas. We found a place to eat lunch - I was surprised how bland my pizza tasted for being New York Pizza!!! That should've been illegal - and wandered around for a little bit more before heading back to the show.

The show itself was too overwhelming. I didn't know what I should be looking for, or looking at.I saw SO MUCH, but it all just went over my head.

Anyways, here's a couple pics from the show and other places...
enjoy :)


The weird thing around her head changed color according to her mood...?

right outside where we had lunch. Chevy's Villa.

Yes, Arrojo, as in What Not To Wear man. He was there...somewhere. probably popped up while i was out at lunch tho.

I'm old enough to know that time doesn't move slow enough...

It feels like just a couple weeks ago that my class and I reached the fabled '200 HOURS' mark. When an individual reaches 200 hours of training they are allowed to have their friends and family come in to have services done. It's also a little more than half way until we are allowed to take normal people (i.e: walk-ins, scheduled clients, absolute strangers, the bum on the corner) as clients. 450 hours is the next "milestone"

[If any of you are interested in visiting me I strongly encourage you to come in! Let me know a day or two in advance or something tho, but if you're interested in something other than a hair cut I advise you look at the Salon's Menu http://studyhair.com/services.shtml first. I'm more than willing to come help you with something - if I can - outside the Salon to help you save your mula.]

Only three of us have actually taken advantage of that, I brought my mom in for a cut :), the advantage being that we are actually performing services on live individuals that move, talk, and have to go out in public with the hair on their heads instead of being stuffed into plastic bags and then jammed into a locker in a backroom somewhere(not that my seven friends don't enjoy that, then again they don't talk much so I wouldn't know ;) ).

But today I recieved my progress report, a sheet of paper that has on it how many hours you have to date, and how many hours you should have if you came everyday, clocked in on time, didn't clock out for unalotted breaks, and clocked out exactly at 3:00. Somehow...I've reached 300 hours. Not quite sure how that happened so quickly. It really is quite amazing how time goes by so quickly. The older I get, the faster it goes. On one hand this is in my favor - this year of school will go by fast! On the other though....I don't want it to go by so quickly! On the 15th of March the new freshman class will come in and I will graduate to the sophmore class. *un-be-liev-able* I'm 1/4 of the way through and its flown by.

We're currently working on our Floor Exams. These are also known as Practical Tests. We have been given a list of the most popular services performed on the Clinic Floor and are required to do them all in a somewhat timed environment and get a passing grade. This list must be completed before we are allowed to be unleashed on the unsuspecting public. The thing is, they're giving us this exam early. It appears that the teachers feel that the Freshman class of Dec. '09 are ready a bit before the normal time. It also appears the the Freshman class of Dec. '09 do not feel ready before, or maybe even at, the normal time....but we have to do this at some point and none of us are failing, so why not?

Guess you'll be seeing a semi-professional hairstylist on the Floor in a week or two ;)

"the algebra had a devil for a sidekick eeeeeeeeee..." Wait...what did you say?

While I was doing hair on Sunday - for my very first paying client ;), we kinda make it a "party" - there was a discussion on misunderstandings.

Have you ever been in the car with someone, both singing along with the song flowing through the speakers, when you sing one thing and they sing another? You both look at each other and maybe an eyebrow is raised and confused looks are shared.

"What did you say?" they ask. "You've stolen my horse." you reply, "Why? what did you say?" "You're rollin' the course...." they say. *silent pause* You both laugh and continue singing. Eventually one of you looks up the real lyrics and another good laugh is shared over how very wrong you both were.

Well, we were all curious about misunderstood lyrics and actually found a good web site - http://www.kistthisguy.com - with maybe the top 20+ misunderstood lyrics, along with what they're supposed to be. Caveat: this is a slightly sketchy sight, hilarious yes, but a little sketch. but I think you'll enjoy what you find. Some of my top favorites were:

Bohemian Rhapsody:

The algebra has a devil for a sidekick eeeeeeeeee....

Real Lyric
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me...

Losing My Religion - REM

Let's pee in the corner, Let's pee in the spotlight.

Real Lyric
That's me in the corner, That's me in the spotlight.

To late to apologize - one republic

It's too late to order fries

Real Lyric

It's too late to 'pologize

Summersong - The Decemberists

My girl, linen and curls, lips all parted like a fraggle unfurled.

Real Lyric
My girl, linen and curls, lips parting like a flag all unfurled

Dancing Queen - ABBA

See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen
Real Lyric
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen

Oh Canada - the national anthem

Oh Canada, we stand on cars and freeze...
Real Lyric
Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee...

anyways, these were just a few that gave us all a good chuckle. :D