I have been reading these things a lot so I figured I should start one.

Yesterday I oiled my hair for the first time since I got back and I washed it out this morning.  I rinsed the conditioner out in the sink and kept rinsing and rinsing and more and more kept coming out!  I did that for about 15 minutes before I decided I ought to comb it out before continuing- more always comes out of my hair after I comb.
So, I combed it and then kept rinsing and rinsing.  It took FOREVER for it to stop coming out... must have been building up there for a while.  Next time I take a bath I am doing a vinegar rinse first.

In the rest of my life, I am moving up in math classes in school so I have to learn a semesters worth of math over the summer.  I started today but luckily it is not that difficult.
I am happy though because I didn't dust at all while I was away, so I thought I would have a lot of split ends now--I don't!  The regular oiling seems to really be helping.
I'm going through one of my phases where I wish my hair was straight.  I try not to, since it's counterproductive and just makes me miserable, but it's hard when I think about the fact that if I had straight hair, it would be tailbone length by now.  Still, there's nothing I can do about my curly hair.  Besides, most of the time I like it.  I wish it was growing a bit faster though-- it seems not to be at the moment, which isn't helping.

I found this balm my mom and I bought at the craft market in Santa Fe a while back.  I've used it on my lips before, and I thought I might try it on my hair as an alternative to shea butter.
Here are the ingredients, I think all of them are fine for use on hair, but I thought I'd check with you guys:
Herbal infused olive oil, almond, apricot and rosehip seed oils, shea butter, beeswax, meadowfoam and jojoba oils, tocopherol and blended essential oils.
Unfortunately I don't have very much of it...

I went swimming again yesterday, but I brought conditioner with me this time and put it in right after I was done.  I also oiled it with my usual shea butter, but also tried the balm.  It seems to have worked well, and it also smells nice.
I want to see if I can get to Whole Foods today to see if I can find a different type of oil to use on my hair.  I like this balm, but I don't have enough of it to use it for a while.  Shea butter is nice but is difficult to apply. 

Well, the new oil has turned out well.  My hair is as calm as is possible for my hair in the summertime.  Luckily it doesn't get very humid where I live.

I'm taking a programming class in the evenings for my robotics team.  It's very interesting but a little tedious as it is similar to what I've done before.  I'm glad just to be doing something, though.  I've been sitting around since I got back to from my trip.  Later this summer I'm going on a backpacking trip and then heading to Oregon to look at colleges.  I'm also happy that I'll have a chance to see some of my friends from my old school.  I haven't seen most of them for almost a year now, so it'll be nice to catch up.

Culrgirl64: I'm very happy with it!  I'm glad a bought it instead of trying to mix something up by myself.  Though that might have been fun...  I always have liked chemistry...
I tried something different when I washed my hair yesterday-- I used my Jason shampoo and my Pantene conditioner.  I don't like the Pantene shampoo because it has ammonium laureth sulfate and I think it was drying out my scalp.  My Jason conditioner also seems too light for my hair- I've found thicker and richer conditioners work best for me.  So I tried it, and it seems to have worked pretty well!  My second day hair is as nice as the first, which is rare for my hair- it always seems to mess itself up overnight.  Today it didn't, which I'm pleased about.

My heart goes out to you love.  I use to bite my nails to the quick.  One thing I can suggest if you want to try it is Sally Hansen Diamond Strenght Instant Nail Hardener.  It helped me grow my nails back.  I still use it! Good luck!

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Lisabelle: I will see if I can find that...
Jerry:  What I'm doing has worked so far!  I normally don't bite my nails so much in the summer but I have been lately (blame it on the self-inflicted math homework) so I thought I'd try it!
Trisha: It is nice to know you're not putting nasty stuff on/in your body!  A lot of people are vegetarian/vegan where I live (I am almost vegan-- don't eat meat or cheese, and eggs only in certain things) so there is more of a market.  Which means more awesome stores like Elephant Pharm.

French braided my hair today-- I am happy with the results.  Each time I do it it gets smoother.  I haven't tried doing a multi-strand or a crown braid on myself yet, though.  I think if I had straight hair I would have tried it already but my hair is difficult enough to work with and if I mess up I can't just comb it out flat and it will be fine.  I hope I get up the courage to try sometime.  Meanwhile, I am happy with this.

My hair is still braided today, though I rebraided the bottom of it too keep it neater.   I worked in some commercial gel though because I was too lazy to go outside and get some aloe (we actually have an aloe plant, so I don't bother to buy it from a store).  So I am definitely going to do an ACV rinse when my hair does come down.
Today I am going to a Girl Scout camp thingy to lecture younger girls on why they should be interested in science and robotics, and why they should join our team.  It is going to be cold and foggy there (It's up by SF, where the weather is strange and colder in July than it is in March ) which is going to be annoying.

Well, my nail polish experiment seems to have worked, mostly because instead of biting my nails I chip at the polish!  Still, it is summer so I am mostly relaxing and having a good time, which is nice.  This last year was very busy for me so I am glad I basically have the summer off.
In a couple of weeks I am going backpacking with my dad up north before heading to a couple of colleges with my mom.  It'll be nice to get out of the house and do some fun stuff.  My dad and I usually go on one backpacking trip a year but last year we went to Europe instead, so I'm glad we're doing that again.

Then after I get back from that I only have a week before school starts!  It seems like summer always goes by so fast.... But it will be nice to see some of my friends again and get back in touch.

callisto wrote on Jul 21^st, 2008 at 11:00pm:



How unfair!
We'll miss you!
I wish you the best of luck,I always like reading you stuff.Hope things work out with your dad.

oh bummer!! I'll miss you!  Hope you can get your own computer or laptop soon!

Welcome back Callisto!

Hair is  today.  Mostly because I didn't do anything to it yet today  , but also I don't think I like this new conditioner very well.  When I was away I bought some Aveda conditioner that was supposed to work pretty well.  It also had more oils and humectants and that sort of thing in it.  But I don't like the way it's making my hair.

I keep trying all these different conditioners because the Pantene Anti-frizz (I love how it makes my hair, but it...) doesn't have enough emolients and humectants in it.  Or at least not many that I can recognize.... But I suppose I should just ignore that and use it.  The problem is that some of the ones I have been trying are kinda expensive  , so I don't feel like I can just throw them away and use the pantene one again.

Sick today and kinda miserable.  Managed to make it to a discount art store with my mom this morning but for once didn't get anything. 

Tomorrow I am going on a bus trip for my bonsai club, which should be entertaining.  Sunday I have two reunions, one for my old school and one for my trip.  Both should be fun although it would be miserable if I were still sick.  Hopefully I will be better.  Monday my mom and I are doing our traditional disastrous day before school adventure.  Then Tuesday school starts!

Hopefully somewhere in there I'll have the time to wash my hair... It's currently a mess so I just have it in a bun.  It definitely seems like it's longer, but I haven't measured it so I don't have a number.

Well, my hair seems to have gone a little spastic again.  I'm not sure what it was, and I'm kind of sad-it was behaving so nicely!  But I figured with my hair it probably wouldn't last, so I'm not that surprised.

The only thing I have done differently was that I blended some of my other conditioners in with my Pantene one to try and use them up and still get better results on my hair.  The first time it worked fine, but then I added another one in and my hair didn't like it.  The back is acting courser again like it used too.  So either it was an ingredient in the second condish it didn't like, or it's the eternal hot weather making trouble.  The only other thing it might have been was that I used my old shea butter the other day instead of my usual oil.

In the rest of my life, school is hectic.  I had a big presentation in my Government class today and quizzes in my math and chem h classes on thursday.  Luckily they weren't that difficult.

I went out to lunch today with my friends because it was a minimum day.  We went to an all-you-can-eat pizza place and it was really good!  I was surprised because there usually isn't anything I can eat at those places but they had veggie pizza.  Afterwards I went to a park with my friends where they taught me one of their cancan dances (I'm joining the school cancan troupe since it is currently mostly people who don't really dance, except for my friends) and we did some lifts and fun acrobatic stuff.  They then worked on their choir skit and we laughed our heads off at some of their ideas.  All in all, a good day.

Tomorrow however I have to go to two dance classes.   Normally I would be happy about this but it's supposed to be hot again and the studio isn't air conditioned.

Hair is french braided today-- I didn't feel like dealing with it.  However, I am happy because I braided it when it was damper than I usually do, so even though I didn't use any aloe or gel, it's smoother than it's ever been.

I'm definitely happier about my hair now than I have been for a while.  With the exception of Friday (where I'm pretty sure the annoying weather just dried it out) it's better behaved and the curls are being individual little spirals instead of twisting around themselves into these strange sausage things like they used too.

I still wish it were longer, but I think maybe I was so obsessed with that for a while because I wasn't happy with how it was behaving.  It wasn't so much that it wasn't ever behaving, just that some days it would be nice and the next go nuts.  It's not doing that so much anymore.

I was on the web reading the advice on another long hair site this afternoon.  The person who wrote it basically said that you have to always wear long hair up otherwise it will break, and if you leave your hair down on a regular basis it would never get long.

This made me feel guilty because I've been wearing my hair down alot (though I haven't seen very many splits at all- I think my near-constant oiling is helping).

Then I realized that if I wear my hair up I don't feel as happy about myself.  So maybe wearing her hair up all the time helped this person, but it makes me less happy about my hair, and therefore less enthusiastic in general.  My hair doesn't break that easily, and I am going to keep wearing it down.  I don't do anything else damaging to it, and it makes me happy.  If that means my hair only gets to tailbone instead of classic, then fine.

Besides, I wore my hair down everyday for years and ignored it, and it was fine.  So I'm going to keep myself happy.

Hair is now covered in an epic amount of conditioner mixed with oil for overnight.  I'll see how it turns out tomorrow-- hopefully hair will be soft!

Hair was braided at school today but is now drying.  I found a bottle of L'Occitane (sp probably but I don't feel like going and looking it up) perfume that my aunt got me a while back that I never used.  My dad doesn't like perfume (I's surprised that he hasn't objected to my hair oil, but after all that isn't very smelly) so I usually don't use it.  But I've had it for a while and I figure I should use it up.  So I started spraying some of it in my hair to make it smell nice.  I like it! 

Besides, I don't think my dad will be able to object.  It's a very light scent (a soft rose with an undertone that reminds me of fruit) and doesn't give me a headache so I don't think it'll bug him.

Well, I am badly in need of an ACV rinse.  However, I didn't do one this morning because I had first period math and my teacher is a nutcase who always has the AC on.  And I didn't want to freeze.  However, I'm going to do one tomorrow morning when I have innocuous first period English.

Unfortunately my dad doesn't like doctors so I still don't know what I did to my foot.  At least it's getting better.  However, I have to run the mile on Friday because my dad's note expires today and I don't have a doctor's note.  That should be fun....

My mom is back, without kanzashi sadly,  , but she got me a kimono and obi, which I wasn't expecting.  She also took over 700 photos.  I haven't been able to see any yet though.

I don't use degunkifying (sp) shampoo, mostly because I don't want to ask my parents to let me buy more products .  I just use ACV, and it works fine. 

I think if I put more stuff in my hair I might want to use a degunkifying shampoo, but I'm one of the few people with curly hair who don't use gel, so I don't get build-up very fast. 

I know Angel Spun uses both, so she'd probably know more about this than me.

The ACV made my hair happy.  The arrival of my first pair of LL hairsticks made me even happier!

Sorry about the shortness of my last post, I had to run off to the lab for my robotics team.

Jilayne: I always do a rinse or wet my hair first thing in the morning, so then it's pretty for school  .  So, to keep it easy for myself at 6:30 when I'm not quite awake, I mix it up the night before in a waterbottle.  I almost fill it up with water, then add enough ACV so that it's a very pale yellowish.  Maybe... a tablespoon, maybe less? I don't really measure.  Others here can probably give you a more accurate recipe.

HAIR STICKS CAME!!!  I was waiting for so long I was worried they wouldn't come!  They're REALLY PRETTY!!!! I got green ones (Daylilly Dreaming GlimmerStix) and they're GORGEOUS!  I opened them up and laughed because they matched my shirt (light green with peach and orange and darker green accents)!  I'll put up photos of them in my hair sometime when I don't feel as lazy.

Okay, thanks Callisto! I'll have to try that soon!

Still no photo...  the main problem is that if my hair looks good, I don't want to put it up, and then if it is a mess, I don't really want to remember it by taking a photo.  I'll get it done sometime....

My hair is happy- I've been wearing it oiled and braided a lot to keep down on tangling.  I've also been doing S&D's.  I think I've made it official-- Tuesday nights during House is official split end DEATH TIME. 

It's pretty funny- we're playing football in gym and I am QB for our team.  Even though there are a ton of guys in our team, I'm the best at throwing a football. 
Just goes to show them....

We got to burn things today in my chem class.  Pretty colors.... The girl who worked across from us was a bit of a pyromaniac... so she used these massive salt samples and wanted to take photos of all the flames (we were testing the individual line emission spectra of element salts and using them to identify unknown salts.  Just quantum Bohr stuff, though not Bohr-ing.  Sorry, bad pun, couldn't resist ).

Tanai: Yeah, I actually prefer the junior size ones (instead of just the mini ones) because my hands are too small.  But I can use both.

I like my chem class. I kinda have a reputation for actually knowing what's going on, and it's rather funny....  One of the people who sits at my table is the JV waterpolo captain, and he's always asking me to explain things and shouting, punching the air and high-fiving me once he understands it.  Guys are weird.

Yeah... um... if you watch the TV show House, and know the character Chase (the australian) that's what my chem teacher looks like..... Could also be described as a surfer guy. He's a good teacher, but.... when a bunch of girls in your grade think your chem teacher is cute.... it's mildly awkward.  Thankfully, I'm NOT one of them; I have more sense than that....

hair is drying down, I've had it braided and oiled all week.  I'm going to braid it tonight for bed, as usual.

Tanai: .  We seem to be having two simultaneous cyberspace conversations. 

For some reason, I am incredibly sore today.  I don't know why, as I only had one of my usual two dance classes yesterday.  Probably the lack of sleep from the stupid PSAT is catching up with me.

Hair is reasonably happy, braided and out of my way.  Later tonight I'll probably unbraid it and put some oil on it as I left it be yesterday when I washed it.

Despite the PSAT I've had a pretty lazy weekend, and I'm feeling kinda bad about it.  I keep snacking on chocolate chips... Oh, well, at least tomorrow I have ballet class, and I won't feel lazy after that... More along the lines of ugghhh.  But I love the class, and I wish my dad would let me take more classes.  But my aunt (his sister) was a professional ballet dancer, which means classes for an hour and a half every day, at the least, starting at age 14.  Since he saw all the bad of ballet from the outside when he was a kid, and none of the power and beauty of it that you feel, he disapproves.

I wouldn't mind as much except my school requires a minimum of three classes a week for two years before going on pointe.  And I really want to go on pointe!  But, again, dad has forbidden me from doing pointe, as well as making it impossible.  My only hope is to take pointe in college, when he can stop controlling my life. 

Yeah, the body type thing is a little ridiculous.  I'm lucky, though, because I'm pretty close to the right body type and I look right.  It has something to do with the proportion of the head size to the length of the limbs, and having the right lines the shape of the head and length of the neck helps.  Also, as I'm NOT planning on making ballet my career, it's OK if I'm not quite right. 

Hair is braided bun again, well coated with oil.  I need to put it in a high bun for ballet tonight then I'll braid it for sleeping.

It's homecoming (also called spirit) week at school so people are wearing weird clothes.  A friend of mine ( a guy) wore a kilt over pinstriped pants today and wore the kilt to gym class!  It wouldn't have been so funny except he was playing center in football and when he tried to hike the ball it got stuck in his kilt! 

Tomorrow we're supposed to be 'public service' so my friends and I are going to be secret service agents.   .  Hair'll be in a bun, when black dress pants, black leather shoes, white button-down shirts, sunglasses and optional trench coats/ suit jackets.  Another friend is finding us earwires and we're going to pretend to patrol around the quad at brunch and lunch. 

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lmao!  I'd pay to see something like that!  One guy back when I was in school wore a kilt one day, and it wasn't even during spirit week. Then again he was also the same guy who for ID card pictures teased his bleached hair really big and the camera guy kept yelling at him to take his "wig" off.  So that probably explains a lot.

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I remember spirit week. I didn't really do anything till my senior year. We needed the points, it looks pretty stupid if the senior class doesn't win spirit week.  We always had color day, where each grade wears a different color. But the other days varied. There was trick-or-treat day. One time two guys, wore sumo suits.  My senior year I went as a hippie which also happened to be the day we took our choir picture.  We also had country western day, almost always twin day, retro day, Pirates of the Caribbean day, our mascot was a pirate. *sigh* Strange times. 

Today I am an alien.  I looked it up and it's supposed to be some place called Sonic that I've never heard of.  But everyone thinks it's alien so I'm an alien.

Hair is up in a ponytail right on the top of my head.  When it dries the curls will hang around my face and down the back.  It's sort-of like Grecian style but updated

Actually, everything I'm wearing is like that.  I guess I'm a Greco-Roman alien....
I'm wearing a cornflower blue chiton over a yellow cami and purple capri leggings (you can't really see these).  Then some kid's silk fairy wings that look kinda like a cloak.

I actually did make-up, which I don't normally.  I put a lot of face makeup on so my face looks really smooth and kind-of fake, then painted on dramatic purple eyebrows. 

I think it's pretty cool, and I'll try to get some pictures of me and the crazy things my friends will be doing. You need some teenage lunatics to do crazy things once in a while.    The person who came up with Spirit Week is a genius-- we all get our crazy out! 

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It sure is because the older you get the harder it is to convince everyone that you're not just "acting" nuts. 

Today was the last day of homecoming.   .  No more crazyness.

I'm really not looking forward to this weekend.  I have to be at the robotics competition (40 minute drive) at 7:30 and it goes all day.  A lot of my friends are going to the Homecoming Dance but I'm either going to collapse or go to a kimono viewing ceremony with my mom.

Then on Sunday I have a meeting for this thing that some of my friends and I do-- we dance around the part of the school where the freshmen hang out and scare them.  It's rather fun.....

After that I have bookgroup, which goes until 6, and after that homework.  Normally I'd wish that it was still the school week, but this week was incredibly hectic because of homecoming and robotics. 

On a lighter note, I took my chem test on Wednesday and got a 37/41 on the multiple choice.   I don't know about the short answer though.

I will try not to squeak too much, but I was just on TV!!!  A few people who were on a science thing I went to 2 summers ago were on it too, but for some reason they shot me more, and I was the only one who answered a question. 
Gtg watch house now....

Well my hair has been annoying me lately so.... I braided it.  In about 15 little braids all over my head.  It took about an hour and a half, and actually turned out pretty well given that I'd never done it before.  I'll get photos up at some point.  I'm hoping it'll last a couple days, but we'll see.

Trisha:  Yeah, they were fun.  Too much of a pain to do every day though.

Ok.... please ignore my insanities for one moment while I relieve myself of a stressful and and prepare for the amazingness of tomorrow made more amazing by.......
   
NO SCHOOL!!!!!

For some reason our schedule is very strange this year, and we had school today but no school tomorrow.  I am very happy about this.  Today was not a good day.

It started with me not wanting to wear the braids to school, and spending a lot of time undoing them, thus forgetting my gym clothes.  First non-suit in gym in two years.

Then I just couldn't keep my thoughts straight in math, and kept messing up on stuff that I normally can do perfectly.  luckily we didn't have a test or a quiz, but it was still annoying.

Then I COMPLETELY forgot that we had a vocab test in Spanish.  Luckily I snuck some studying in and did ok.

The long and the short of it is,
I'm glad I get a day off.
My mom and I are going to the city to a museum, and then going shopping.  Should be fun!