Last Thursday at Penrose Academy

Here is my first videoblog. I had to be at school at 8am, which meant I had to be up at 6am. You can probably tell how tired I am in this video because this was around 9pm when I got home from school.

Lunch with Yolly ten Koppel

I'm going to go ahead and tell you how to pronounce her name before I get into today's post: Yo-lee Ten Kah-pull. "Who is Yolly ten Koppel?," you may ask. Yolly is Pivot Point International's Creative and Technical Director (according to pivotpoint.com). She came all the way from the Netherlands to visit us at Penrose Academy before going on to NAHA in Las Vegas. While she was visiting, we had to opportunity to watch a presentation by Yolly on trends in fashion and finding inspiration that we can translate into hairstyles. One thing she mentioned was creating textiles from previously-used materials, otherwise known as trash, like old magazines and newspapers. Another trend is environmental awareness and incorporating that into design. She also discussed the “faux real” trend and how bloggers are leading the way in helping spread trends much faster than they spread in the past. After the presentation, Yolly followed up with a demo. In her demo, she spoke about new techniques and one lucky student was treated to a haircut. The haircut was done completely with a razor and Yolly even address the issue of making sure you have enough hair to cover the nape area between the hairline and the ear. Good stuff, for sure. After the haircut, Yolly followed up, but demonstrating a technique for forming hair by backcombing and flatironing the hair. At the end of assembly, all of us students were dismissed for lunch, but members of Penrose Academy Student Council (which includes me) and Jill Kohler joined Yolly for lunch where we were able to take some photos and ask questions. Some of the questions included how Yolly approaches product sales and how she became a trendsetter internationally. I later ran into Yolly as she was preparing to leave and thanked her for an opportunity I may not have until after some years in the industry. Now, I can't finish my blog without mentioning the fact that she is FIERCE. She wore some really cool, studded knee-high white boots and wore a white coat and had some orange hair. Far be it from me to compare myself to Yolly, but she did kind of remind me of myself when I was younger. I always wanted to wear clothes that would make me stand out and sometimes I was made fun of for it. I remember once instance in high school when a friend of mine told me I wore the most bizarre shoes. My mom worked long hours at the salon to support us, and my stepfather worked long hours outdoors. She didn't always have the time to take us shopping so around the time of junior high, myself and my older brother would get a budget with which to do our shopping. It was usually kind of a tight budget. My brother would buy the first thing he found, but I would stretch that money as far as I could and get the most for my money. Sometimes, the best deal was clothes that some people would thing were strange, but this worked out in my favor because they were usually the ones that were on clearance. Seeing Yolly showed me that people who want to stand out and aren't afraid to do so may be the people who are making decisions about what everyone else wears by setting the trends. I still like wearing the most bizarre shoes.

A closed mouth collects no foot

That is a saying I once read in a fortune cookie and I can't tell you how many times I have been a victim of my own mouth. Most recently, a client who sees me on a weekly basis mentioned an article she read. Now before I go on, I want to say that this particular client of mine seems to be very interested in my opinion on things (DANGER! DANGER!) and many times tells me about her experiences with some very colorful people she happens to come across. Anyway, she tells me that she read an article saying that over 50% of Americans now have tattoos. Well, this is when the mistake occurred. I opened my mouth and ended up hurting the feeling of people at school who I very much appreciate knowing. Mind you, I have nothing against tattoos, I even think some are really cool. They're just not for me. I said something about how ever time I've considered getting a tattoo, I think about how its going to look when I'm 80. Considering how much trends change and much a person can grow within the course of a year and that tattoo that once had so much meaning, may have become not only an eyesore, but a painful reminder of things that have since passed. That would have been bad enough, but I had to go on. And on. And on. And on. Well, I ended up upsetting someone who I have the pleasure of knowing as a result of my cosmetology education. I've even gone so far as to say that I would love to work whereever this particular person is working when we graduate. I spent the next four days going over and over in my head what I said and I how I went way too far and should have just responded to my client by saying, "that doesn't surprise me." I SHOULD have changed the subject and not ran my mouth like a train with no brakes. But I didn't. What I did do was quickly apologize once I knew I'd upset this particular person. Rather than walk around with my tail between my legs for the next five months, I've realized that this is part of my human experience. I may be in my mid-30's, but that doesn't mean I don't still have a lot of growing to do. I know that even though something isn't for me, it doesn't mean I can't respect the same thing about someone else. I also learned that in our industry, sometimes its best to not have a opinion that you are willing to share with your client. Even if they agree with you, the person in the next chair may not, or even the person styling said person's hair.

Perhaps a new facebook page is in order

I'm starting to become at-peace with the idea that my facebook page may be long gone. Maybe this is a good thing, I'll tell you why. In the last 2-3 years my life has slowly been changing. Not good or bad (ok, probably good), but there are quite a few people who I don't talk to much anymore. Maybe I should say they don't talk to me anymore. I very seldom go out and most recently, I'm either at home, at school or at work. The only days when I would be able to get out and do something are Sunday night and Thursday after I get out school. Mind you, that when I get out of school (www.penroseacademy.com) on Thursday nights, its after having been there from 11-12 hours. Yeah, so you could say that I may not be in the mood to be out. Anyway, back to the loss of my beloved facebook page. That last statement probably says why I needed to get rid of it. Let me rephrase that, a hacker got rid of it for me. I had 1,200 "friends," many of whom I didn't even know. Many other people on my "friends" list didnt' really speak to me anymore and I was starting to wonder if others were stalkers. Creepfest...ok!?! I think I'll beging to look at it as a blessing that facebook hasn't been very helpful in getting back to me about why their site isn't letting me access my account. Maybe its time to let the old me die so that the new me can grow. I think I'm going to start a new page soon.

Halfway through school and I WAS HACKED!

This wee k was the last week of zone 3 at Penrose Academy, which means I am halfway through with my cosmetology school education. Even better is that my attendence and my GPA not only qualifies me for National Technical Honor Society, but means that my school will pay for my membership. YAY! I'm so proud of myself. On to the bad news, my facebook and email account were hacked on Monday when I was at work. GRRRR!!!! Making the situation even more challenging is the face that the person who hacked my account changed the email connected with the account. Well, I go through the trouble of getting a new email account created, have emails sent to three people I know and get the codes from them. Once I do this, I get stuck on the page where I am asked to enter a new password. Well, fortunately, or unfortunately, the same thing happened to my best friend and he actually had an email for someone at facebook I could contact. I've sent them the email. Here's hoping it works.

Spread the Love!

Some of you may have begun to believe that my blog has become little more than an abandoned wasteland of former thoughts, ideas and strange happenings in my life. You’d be right if you did, but now that is going change. My blog is officially on life support and I have removed the DNR designation. Without going through the rigmarole of explaining how I got here, I’ll just come out and say that I really want to be part of Matrix Spread the Love for 2013. A little background on that: I first found out of Matrix Spread the Love when I was going through the process of getting accepted into Penrose (Kohler, at the time) Academy. I heard that out of six students nationwide, two of the students selected were from Penrose. Not only did this give me an idea of what a good decision (praise Jesus) I made an deciding this was the school I wanted to attend, I thought to myself, “I REALLY want to do this.” And why shouldn’t it be me, they have to select someone and I know that by the time the decision is made for who will represent Matrix for 2013, I will have had the education and proficiency they look for in students, in addition to my hard-earned maturity and desire to help others improve their quality of life. I was reminded of my desire to participate in Spread the Love when Natalie Fox (a Penrose Graduate) and Meredith Tye visited my school last Thursday. They answered my biggest concern (how do you support yourself during your time on Spread the Love?) as well as a few other questions I had that lead me to believe that it would be a perfect opportunity for me. I love social media and am ADDICTED to my iPhone. I also like blogging, so I’m pretty excited about having a very high goal for when I graduate from Penrose Academy. On a side note, I’m really hoping to inspire people with the title of my blog: Getting Better Every Day. I would also like to point out that I chose that name for my blog a few years ago. And last I’m going to leave you with something I posted on Facebook in the last week: Demand joy from yourself every day. To find out more about Matrix Spread The Love visit wwww.mymatrixfamily.com/love

Waiting on some very good news

So we're at work hoping the days runs by a little faster because I'm expecting some very big news today. I can really say what it is, but I can say that it can change EVERYTHING for the better. More visibility, more sales, more publicity, more money. Hooray! If this goes as I expect, I will be very grateful that I stuck around and through everything and it will totally have been worth it.

If this deal does not happen, I'll just know that something even better is on its way Update: I don't even remember what this was about, but its all good becuase I don't work at that job anymore. Life goes on.