Running with scissors

"It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."





Those were some of the words running through my head when I woke up the morning of December 15, 2009. I got up, put on black clothes (not knowing how sick of them I would get), and tried to eat something before I got into my father's car. We traveled about 20 minutes, passing over the Connecticut river and getting a magnificent view of Hartford's sunrise silhouette and arriving at our destination about 10 minutes earlier than planned. Finally, 8:30 rolled around. I took a deep breath, said goodbye to my dad, and stepped out of the car.

That was where it all started.

It's been 9 months since I first walked into that building, carrying nothing but a notebook and paper mate pen, and having hardly any knowledge of hair. Tomorrow, I walk into IIC with a head held high - and carrying about 50+ lbs. more than a notebook and pen. Tomorrow...

I. Am. SENIOR!

I am now over 1050 hours and will be doing practicals for the next 5 weeks. After that I will start studying for *dundundun* STATE BOARDS!!! They'll lock us in a room for six weeks and we'll study till our brains fall out.... Ok, maybe they won't lock us in a room. And maybe my brains won't fall out, but you never know, right? The point is: the end is near! I may have thought graduating high school and starting at IIC was the beginning of the adventure. No. It's part of the journey, definitely, but it was only training. Conditioning for all the exciting and very unusual experiences ahead. No my friends. This was just a taste, the real adventure begins when I take the state boards, and walk out of IIC knowing that I'm done, and hoping that I'm' ready for what comes next. I am chomping at the bit, and ready to run...with scissors in hand of course. ;)

Project run way, IIC style.

So, two weeks ago Teena, one of the admins and wife to Martin(son of Carmelo) came to the juniors with a proposition. In a couple weeks we were to have a photo shoot, designed, put together, and directed by the junior class. This activity is going to become a junior class project from now on.

We were given two weeks to come up with a theme, models, "costumes", makeup, and most importantly: HAIR. We started by choosing lead stylists from within our class. We had decided to have five or six models, therefore needing cfive or six stylists. After we figured out who would lead the groups we divied up the remaining juniors (all 3 of them) as either assistants, or models. Somehow I got volunteered to be a lead stylist...

So,our class sat down and thought together about a theme. We came up with "garden party", giving each team the flower of thier choice to draw inspiration from, I chose a gerber daisy, then went about finding models(all models were/are students at IIC).
Things were going great for my team, we had found the perfect 'gerber daisy', had a design nailed down, and found make up that was perfect! But then...our models attendance turned out to be sketchy, and Teena, coordinator and head honcho of the whole event, decided it was best if we found a different model...




















Pretty neat stuff, if I do say so myself.


But, as it just so happened, that same day as we lost our model, another model lost her team (due to their attendance rate - or lack there of) and Teena had her join us. We went from a blonde model with wicked long hair, to a Brunette model with hair to her shoulders.

Rather than coming up with a whole new hair design, I decided to keep what we had and just alter it where needed, as well as some how incorperate all the bright and colorful extensions this new model had.





In the end though, all the colors were perfect for individual gerber daisies, but, all together on the same head? No. It just didn't seem right. Then, the day before the shoot, put the pink extension used to create the daisy in our models hair, and I decided I really liked the flowy ness of it without having the petals all formed and pinned. My team agreed, and we all took a step back to look...





This, was no longer a simple, little, innocent gerber daisy. No. Our sweet little flower had bloomed into the form of a vibrant, bold, and exotic Bird of Paradise. A few other design elements were rearranged, et voilà!





She was ready.








I had a good time enjoying the challenges of a photoshoot. It was a lot of work, very stressful, but it stretched my mind, helped me with 'team leadership'(letting/telling others to do things I stead of doing it all myself) and brought out my inner Runway Designer.

light&summery

Today, I performed a service for one of the girls I know in the Sophomore class. Today's agenda: go lighter for summer...but how light? Blonde. Verrrryyyyy BLONDE! We started rounda'bout 10:15 this morning. When I first met this girl - it was outside of school a few years ago - her hair was like this: Since then she had a full highlight done. More or less, color was not in her hair, plenty of lightener though. With roots that went on for about two inches, our original thought was to just do a simple roots - to - ends process and hope that it was just that easy...pffft...yeah, no....

We set to work, and a teacher mixed up a level 9N w/ 30V developer with a sprinkle of lightening powder(bleach).
She pulled blonde alright, but it was so gold!!! (*gooaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllldennnnnnnnnnn* - ;)
In other words, her hair pulled to probably the warmest tone possible. Now, warmness is not a bad thing....but it's not a one-size-fits-all sort of thing, and for this girl, a blonde this warm was just NOT going to cut it. Her hair is normally what a stylist would call 'ashy', and as we sat there with her head in the sink the teacher who mixed the color is leaning over shaking her head.

"I just don't understand! Why did she pull SO gold!?"
"Well, " I decided to add my input to see if what I was thinking was right "we did put lightener in the color..."
Blank stare for halfa second from the teacher..."YES!"

My guess is that if we had simply used color, no lightener added, it would not have pulled to such a warm tone. If left to my own devices I would have just done all her roots with lightener, let her process, rinsed her out, and then maybe thrown a level 11, maybe 12N or a toner with a violet/blue base over the whole head...foiling out just a few strands to keep dimension. My thinking is, that if she's only ever used bleach...er...lightener on her head, then applying lightener all over her roots would have matched the existing color pretty much perfectly.

But that's not what we did, so that will forever be a "what if..."

With her being SO warm, I applied a level 10 toner to her roots...it toned it down, but just slightly. In the end we were kinda short on time, so I decided to simply take a mohawk section and do what I call a diagonal brick lay foil, touching only her roots, with lightener and 20Volume(teacher's suggestion, I would've used 30V...)and a very fine weave.

I'd say that did the trick. With her roots being so 'long', the color that was applied initially was completely solid, which looked funny compared to the rest of he hair that, having been highlighted, held various strands of color, bringing movement and dimension. By retouching the highlights for the roots at the top of her head we broke up that solid strip of color. :) At 3:00, we were done.

Going blonde is a process. If you're thinking of undergoing this venture, just know that it's complicated, long, and you most likely won't get there the first time around. Just take it in steps. Don't be discouraged. To preserve the strength and integrity of your hair, don't rush it. It may take a couple appointments, and some long hours in the chair to get you there, but bring a book, listen to your iPod, take a nap.
Your hair will thank you for being so patient.
And when your hair is happy, YOU are happy.
And when you are happy about your hair, we're happy too. :)


She took this with her laptop, so it's blurry...but there's the end result. B-L-O-N-D-E!

country roads take me home...

My tool belt. Sad not to be filled with nails, carrying a hammer, and roofing knife, and worn on a roof.

Wednesday evening. Pizza Hut. Fairmont 2009

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfi3SSJPG9Y&feature=related












"Country roads, take me home to the place I belong, West Virginia! Mountain Momma, take me home, country roads."

Yuppers, it's that time of year again. Yesterday morning I got up at 5:00 in the am and escorted my dad and brother to the PCM parking lot where we met with the 50 other members of the group who were going on this annual missions trip to good ole' Fairmont West Virginia.


What makes this year different than the other 6? Well...





July 2004, a small group of people consisting of about 12-14 youths, arranged themselves into a circular shape on the front porch of the parsonage of PCM (when it was still on Spruce(?) st.) getting ready to head to Camp Mar-Mac. We were one of the smallest groups going to Fairmont, dwarfed by the size of Stony Point(a group who's gone down every year, the same week we have). I was 11, probably about 75-80ish lbs., and barely 5 ft. tall. I'd only been in the group for about five or so months, so I was relatively green to the group, and new to the idea of being away from my family for a whole week. I remember being homesick, I remember being exhausted. I remember waking up at 4:00 am on Wednesday morning and making biscuits, and thinking it was awesome to be up so early, and I remember sitting on the T.V. remote 5 out of 10 hrs of the trip there and never being able to live it down - even though everyone from that 'era' is no longer in the group. I came home the next Saturday having experienced something that would keep me going back again, and again.



July 2005, I went back, now categorized as a "repeat offender", this time not worried so much about home, or projects, or being a tiny squirt. This year, God was continuing a work in my heart he had stirred up last year. A servant's heart. I came home again, sad it was over and SO ready for next year.





July 2006, this was the year I had the pleasure of introducing my little bro, Oli, to the group. He came on the trip and I found that having a family member with me made a world of difference. Like having a small piece of home with you. :)





July 2007, I had the privilege of adding my dad to the Fairmont family, as well as my best friend Bella. At this point in time we had developed a core group of Fairmonteers who formed the backbone of the Youth Group itself. Our group had grown in age, experience, and numbers, now having a friendly rivalry with Stony Point, we had gotten used to sharing the "stomping grounds" with them.





July 2008, "The people from CONNECTICUT are coming!!!" we're back again, but to nowhere any of us were familiar with.

Enter camp Dayspring.

For years we had all been hearing Pastor Kenny and the other MTW leaders talk about this camp that, someday, would house all the MTW Fairmont staff and teams, instead of Mar-Mac, the 4-H camp we had been staying at for the past four years. Now, it was finally time for us all to "move in", or so to speak. God had blessed us with a new campsite, and leaders who wanted to give the teams a camp to call their own.


We had also been blessed with keeping the same "stomping grounds" as far as work sites were concerned. We were holding a VBS in the same church now as when we first came five years earlier. Our relationships with these kids, as well as the home owners, weren't just growing anymore, they were beginning to blossom. The relationships we had with each other as a group had grown stronger as well, each year seeming more like a family.


On our drive home, the car driving in front of us ran over a freshly hit dear, splattering the contents of its stomach across our windshield and bringing an aweful stench in through our air vents. That was when I broke out the remainder of the Febreze I had brought with me and all was well...short of gagging till our abs hurt.





July 2009, 5:45 am, the driver's and their vans meet in the parking lot. 15 minutes later the group starts to arrive. Bella appears, somehow awake and alive after arrivng home, back in the U.S.A, after a mission trip to Costa Rica with Merge, her church's youth group, just a couple hours earlier. We travel to Fairmont, this time as high school graduates. In an awkward place of leadership, not a youth, not an 'adult', but given specific jobs and heavier responsibilities.





This year was the most emotionally draining out of all my adventures to this wild, and wonderful state. I don't know if 2009 was filled with more drama than before, or if I was simply just more aware of it this time. As always, there was the newbie drama, rumor drama, project drama...the usual...yet somehow amplified. At one point in the week a kitten, that was hanging around one of the work sites, was found behind the kitchen, smuggled by a group of girls who seemed to think the poor thing was being malnourished, and homeless.


Some really good relationships became stressed to the breaking point( a 3-is-very-crowded sort of thing), and friendships questioned as something more...


Of course living in a cabin full of girls on all different levels of emotional soundness was drama in and of itself, but that is all part of the experience.


But of all the memories I have with me from this trip, I wouldn't choose to get rid of any of them. Waking up to John Linville playing the bugle, and Sherry singing the 'good morning' song at 6:15, standing in line to shake Kenny's hand on your way to breakfast, eating mysterious, squishy objects they tell you are sandwiches ("Today we have: Peanut Butter, and ... MEAT!"),


playing ultimate frisbee in a field of mud, making a quick exit off of roofs in the middle of thunderstorms, worshipping in a tent with 200 other believers being lead by a man with an acoustic guitar and a heart for God - perhaps accompanied by a dude on the bongos - debrief meetings filled with group and individual highs and lows, and finally falling asleep, curled up in a sleeping bag, with notes from a friends guitar drifting through the air as the guys squeeze in a last song on the porch across the way before being ushered to bed themselves by John Linville playing taps on his bugle. (and of course a cabin corner smelling strongly of Febreze...after last year's incident, you really expect me to not bring any?)





July 2010, I wake up at 5:00 along with my dad and brother. I drive separately with my little sister in our Carola's back seat, following my dad and brother (in our van), into the PCM parking lot. A few minutes later, Oli rushed for the back seat of another van with the rest of his friends and passengers. I ran after him, shocked that he didn't say goodbye. His van left early, and the rest of us cirlced up for a quick prayer for our team's travels.


"Amen."


Everyone rushed to their assigned cars. I rushed after my dad, yelling the same things I did at Oliver. "Aren't you going to say goodbye?" They all must've been to caught up and excited... I got a hug and kiss from my daddy, then he ran to the van. In less than a minute the Fairmont caravan was loaded up and peeling out of the parking lot.


I stood there a moment later with two other families who had seen their kids off. Two of these people were friends of mine who had gone previous years and stayed behind this time.





"So this is what everyone does once we've left the lot..." I murmured. They all chuckled in response. We all lingered a few more minutes, but soon I had to leave. School, the reason I wasn't en route to West Virginia that very moment, was waiting. It finally set in. I wasn't going to fairmont this year. At least I have Bella - who didn't get back from Costa Rica until Sunday early a.m. - and Louise.





Some how, I will cope this week. Though my body remains here, in the state of Connecticut, my mind will be wandering the mountains and valleys of WVa. with my team, my friends...my family. Part of me...isn't here, but it gets back Saturday...


So, I'm not going this year. But there is a reason. God has a plan, and a purpose. Always. I believe this week He is going to use me for something here, at home. I believe this week He will do great thing, accomplish much, and bring glory to His name in Fairmont, through the servants He chose to send on this mission.

But from where I'm standing, I'll be counting down the days till Fairmont...2011. (That's right baby ;) There is NO WAY I'm putting myself through this misery next year...God willing.)

The Adventures of Emikel and J-ro (and Oli)

Circa. Sept. 28, '09

Cape Cod! Many memories here. On our most recent Fall retreat with SNAC someone remarked to me that any pictures I take with my brother are mostly awkward looking. So what did we do? We deliberately made an awkward pose.

And of course Bella jumped in. Why not? So this is our awkward family portrait...just one of many :)

Responsibility, what's that?

A couple weeks ago, my college friends started to come home. Now, more or less, they're all done and here. Next week is also my brother's last week as well as my two youngest siblings and pretty much everyone in the continental U. S.
Next week is also the start of my summer vacation. And the week after that? I go back to school. Just one week? Yuppers, that right. As much as I love cosmetology, I picked the wrong profession as far as summer vay-k's are concerned. See, all my friends who are in college right now get/got a four year transitional period into the shedule I call "real-life-adultness". Summers off from from school, but slowly wheening it away with a job here, some extra work there, maybe having a not so conenient work shift but still, summer.
I've seemed to have bipassed that. Sadly. After I've graduated, I'll be working, and apparently stylists have the tendency to become workaholics. I guess if you're loving what you're doing it's not really work right?

Now, if you know me, you've probably had your ear talked off about my school and the interesting people I've met there. I you have then you've heard me talk about the Guggliottis, the people who own a salon by the same name, as well as my school.
This Friday(6•11•10) I have a job interview with them. This is a pretty big deal. Although I'm only applying for a receptionist position, they almost always offer aspiring stylists in that position, an assuring position. After assisting(shadowing stylists and learning the ropes) you become a stylist.
Now this is a verrryyyy high end salon owned by THE WORLD DIRECTOR OF COMPETITION. if I get a receptionist job here, even if I decide not to go on to assisting, if that position is offered me, I've still got my foot in the door of hairworld, and made very good connections with people in high places.

I'm excited. Very much so, yes. But i'm nervous as a person could be. Never done an interview before. Don't know what to expect...

So those of you who will, pray for me? I'd really appreciate it. I'll keep y'all posted.


- Posted from emikel's iPhone -

- Posted from emikel's iPhone -