Okay, third day in a row that I'm posting something. So far so good. Hopefully this will once again become a regular habit.

Hair--Had some problems styling it before I left for work. At first I had it in a regular braid, but one part was tugging too much so I decided to try loop it around my head like a crown braid. After I pinned it, I thought it felt off balance because one side was a lot heavier than the other. Took out all the pins, redid the braid and it was even worse than before. Ended up going to school with my hair in a claw clip bun.

Natural recipes--Put in my first order from Mountain Rose Herbs. With my renewed interest in hair care and the scarcity of natural hair products in this country, I decided to try my hand at making my own stuff. Hopefully in two weeks I'll receive the following:
Coltsfoot
Fenugreek powder
Nettle
Rosemary
Cocoa butter
Kokum butter
Rose hip seed oil
Assorted muslin bags and tins

The coltsfoot, nettle, and rosemary are going to go into herbal rinses, and I want to try combining the fenugreek with coconut milk soaks. My hands get really chapped during winter (i.e. they crack and bleed) so I'm going to try making my own hand cream with the butters and rose hip oil. I originally wanted to get the seabuckthorn oil, but the 4oz bottle was a little more than I wanted to spend on something I've never tried before. I can't wait until my order arrives and I get to try things out.

"We both have the same taste in clothes"--Today during the lunch break I was looking at this particular jacket and bustle skirt combo (scroll down a bit to see the skirt paired with the jacket) from a Japanese goth brand and sighed. The English teacher who sits next to me--I'll call her Coach sensei because that's her favorite brand and she once bought a Coach bag that cost $435--looked at me and I showed her the web page. She said, "That dress is very cute! We both have the same taste in clothes!" I looked at her and asked, "Expensive?" Coach sensei laughed and replied, "We both like cute clothes." Anyway, I thought that was extremely, er, cute.

Other than ordering from the website via email, the only other way to get the Mille Fleurs brand is to go to the shops that carry them. Unfortunately, the closest shop is a three hour bullet train ride away. But luckily, Coach sensei offered to help me order directly from the website. Woohoo! I really want to get that outfit, plus this corset, but the cost! On the other hand, I've wanted Victorian style clothes and and a corset for most my life and a custom made outfit like that would be even more expensive. What to do, what to do. Knowing me, I'll most likely order those things and mentally kick myself afterwards, but still be weirdly happy that I finally have a Victorian ensemble. I guess the only real question is, where exactly would I wear all that? I mean, I can wear the jacket to work, but the skirt? 

Okay, I think I've got everything squared away for tomorrow. It's sad, but I had to look back at that last entry to make sure I did everything I was supposed to. Is a failing short term memory something I have to look forward to as I get older?

Hair--Used the Brazilian nut mask pre-treatment, CWC'd, and combined some ACV with the leftovers of the last herbal rinse. If that herb-ACV rinse works, I'll do it more often so I can save some time on the days I need to use ACV.

Time permitting, I'm going to put my hair in a braided bun tomorrow. Since the claw clip buns I've been doing don't hold up too well during my elementary school visits, I usually put my hair in a regular braid, but I need to stop doing that because the younger kids are getting a little too grabby. While it's nice that they feel comfortable enough with me to touch my hair, the boys aren't that gentle with it. 

Speech contest--Practiced with the three girls today and they've shown improvement since I last heard them. But there's one speech where I'm not sure if I'm giving the right advice on how to read a particular section. This isn't the actual text, but it has the same feeling:

She wore a brown jacket over her brown shirt. The shirt matched her brown eyes. She loved brown

So when I worked with the student before, she read it normally, but today when she read that part, she said, "She wore a BROWN jacket over her BROWN shirt. The shirt matched her BROWN eyes. She loved BROWN." I was like, "Whoa, brown is important, but you don't need to stress it so much." and told her that because brown is used four times, she doesn't have to emphasize it like that. A little more emphasis is okay, but not to go overboard.

Afterward when I was talking to the 3rd year English teacher (don't have a nickname for him yet), I told him she didn't have to emphasize brown like that. He said that was his fault because when he did that speech a student several years ago, the ALT at the time told him that because brown is mentioned so often, it should really be stressed. I replied that the audience does get the importance of brown from hearing it four times, so practically shouting it is a little overkill.

Anyway, now I'm wondering if the other ALT was right and I'm wrong. Before I left today, I said that there can be some emphasis on brown, but not to say like "she loved BROWN." I told him I'd go back to the school after work tomorrow to help the kids again. I guess I can listen to that part of the speech once more and decide which way is better. 

Oh boy, five or six elementary school classes, then rushing to the junior high school, and speech contest practice until 6:10pm. Fun.  >_>

The speech contest was today, and WOOOOOOOOOOO, my students did great! There were two categories: original composition and recitation. E got 2nd place for recitation while M got 2nd for original comp. and A got 1st place! The 3rd year English teacher, I"ll just call him K sensei for now, and I were really happy and super surprised that they all placed. K sensei was the most surprised because he'd never been to a speech competition where all of his students placed. I think he and I were the happiest about M because she was the one who was having the most problems. The difference between when she first started and how she did today was like night and day.

Now since A got 1st place, she'll go to the prefectural speech contest on the 26th. I'm so proud of her (all of them, actually) that I don't really care if she places in the next competition or not. The students have been working over a month on their speeches and I'm so thrilled that their efforts paid off. 

When we got back to the school, the teachers who were in the office were really happy when they were told the news. One of them joked that since the students did so well this year, what's going to happen next year. The students, K sensei, and myself took pictures for the school newsletter, and we met with the principal for a few minutes. He congratulated the girls on their achievement and shook our hands. I'm sorry if the following will be  extremely conceited, but I couldn't cheer and whoop it up when my kids' names were called. Anyway, N- Junior High kicks speech contest butt!

Hair--The Kara coconut milk is fantastic. It left my hair really soft and conditioned. Even at the end of second day hair, it's still soft. The only down side is that the day after, my hair was so slippery, that I had a difficult time doing anything with it. All things considered, though, it wasn't a huge issue. Since dryness is a problem for me, I'd rather have overly conditioned hair than the opposite.

I'm not entirely sure if the herbal rinses actually do anything for my hair, but I've decided to do them every time I wash it. On Sunday I let it sit for a few minutes while I cleaned my bathtub. Hooray for multi-tasking.