Beauty is in the wallet of the beholder

Every now and then I get bored of being me and decide to change how I look. If I actually spend money on it, it normally turns out good. If I am poor and want to save some money, it normally turns out terribly, but I never seem to learn my lesson.

When I was 16 I wanted a haircut I'd seen in a magazine, but I'd lost the magazine so I had to try to explain it to the hairdresser myself. It's a "scene" haircut, but "scene" wasn't really a thing back then, so I wouldn't have known how to google it (but if you google scene hair now there's heaps of results showing the haircut I wanted). So I tried my best to explain it. "It's like two different haircuts, a short one and a long one" and I drew a little picture.

Because I was poor at the time, I got one of the trainee hairdressers to do it for me, because they were a lot cheaper. As she was brushing my hair I should have realised it was a bad idea to go the cheap way. The brush got caught in the butterfly at the back of my newly pierced ear; she yanked it and my earring came out.

But no, I was determined not to pay heaps of my haircut, so I let her continue. When she was finished, instead of having beautifully layered scene hair, I had a short bob with long hair underneath.

I wanted to cry. It took a few months to grow out, but in teenage time that feels like five years. People at school even thought I was wearing a wig. But seriously, why on earth would I wear a wig that ugly?

But did I learn my lesson?

Around Easter this year I decided to put a red streak back in my hair. I'd had red streaks in my hair on and off since I was 17. Usually I got them done at the hairdressers, but that was back in Taupo where hairdressers are a LOT cheaper than they are in Wellington. Here, it's about $80 for a "student" haircut. What kind of student can afford that? So I decided to do it myself, because it would be much cheaper. And how hard could it be?

It had been a while since I'd dyed my hair, so I had a lot of regrowth.

I went to the supermarket and stocked up on hair dye. One packet of blonde, two packets of black and one packet of red. It cost around $50. Much cheaper than a hair dresser!

I started off with the blonde.

The regrowth went ginger, and the rest stayed black. This was on Thursday night. The next day was Easter Friday, so all the shops were closed so I couldn't buy more hair dye to fix my mistake. I had work too, so I decided to wear a hat to cover up the ugliness. And just to add to my misery, I chipped my tooth on some toast at breakfast. It was just a tiny chip, but it felt huge and horrible to me. I felt like a hideous swamp beast.

So off I went to work, with my confidence shattered. I told some of my workmates about what had happened, and they all said the same thing "you're so dumb, you should have used colour stripper first. Duh!". As soon as the shops were open the next day, I went out and got some colour stripper. It cost about $40. I put it in my hair, and it made my hair smell like Rotorua (ie. rotten eggs).

It didn't work.

So now I was smelly, and ugly, with a chipped tooth.

The next day I decided that I might as well just try putting blonde in my hair again. I bought another packet of blonde hair dye - $15. I used it, and the roots turned very blonde, and the rest turned dark brown.

By then I was sick of wearing my hat and looking like a monster, so I just decided to give up and put the red and black in.

It didn't turn out anywhere near as good as a hairdresser would have made it look, and for those keeping score at home - it cost me $105. So for the same price I could either do it at home, take three days, and feel ugly, or I could get it done at a salon, take one hour, and look hot.

But did I learn my lesson?

Today I decided that I wanted a fringe. I had a fringe when I was 18, and it was cute. A few of my friends have been getting fringes lately, and they all look hot, so I was jealous. Now I could have paid my friend Yen who is a hairdresser (an amazing one actually - he managed to give me the scene haircut I wanted, but four years later) to do it for me, but nooo I wanted to save money and decided to do it myself. And now I'm sitting here, looking like this.

The lighting is a bit weird, so I've drawn the outline of my fringe for you. Hopefully Roxanna will come home soon to fix it.


Did I learn my lesson?

Probably not.

(You may have noticed the IWAGIATT tag. It stands for It Was A Good Idea At The Time. There will be many, many more posts with this tag)

How I spent last weekend

Normally when someone asks "so, what did you do this weekend?" I have a little freakout. My memory is weird, I can remember very specific unimportant details about something that happened ages ago, but ask me what I did last weekend/yesterday/earlier today and I'll draw a complete blank.

Anyway, this is how I spent last weekend, and hopefully this'll explain why I haven't updated lately.

This is my last semester of uni. So far I have:

Had concussion.

Had the flu for two weeks.

Had lots of problems with my asthma.

Had a cold.

I was finally all better! Yay!!

Off to work I went. I couldn't decide what I wanted for dinner, after whining to everyone I settled on curry.

It was the most delicious curry I've ever had. Perfect chicken, perfect spicyness, perfect naan. I decided to keep half to have at work the next night. Om nom nom.

Woke up the next morning at 6am.

And so it began.

WARNING! You do not want to read this if you're eating.
Also, I'm pretty sure that we should rename this "the classiest blog ever"

Eco warrior princess

As a biology student, I'm passionate about the environment. I like to do my bit to help save the planet. Unfortunately, since it's me, I fail quite a lot.

After going to Tasmania for a holiday and eating more KFC in those two weeks than I'd eaten in my whole life, I discovered that it was actually quite delicious. One day at work, I decided to get some for dinner.

So I went on a crusade to stop palm oil

Until a few weeks later when...

I got a craving. Now I get cravings every now and then, and when I get them, it feels like I have to eat it right then or I will die. Sometimes I will crave things I don't even like, like avocado, or random things that nobody would even think to eat, like peanut butter and salami sandwiches. And I think about them and think about them and think about them until the point where I feel like I'm about to explode if I don't eat/drink it RIGHT NOW!

Palm oil? What palm oil?

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I like to try and save on petrol. Not because of petrol prices, but because I want to save the environment.

I actually got to the end of the street before I realised. I'm so awesome.

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You always hear about overfishing, and how bottom trawling is bad, blah blah blah, but I never realised how bad commercial fishing is until I took a paper about it at uni. I decided not to eat any commercially caught fish, because I don't want to support the industry at all. I'm also going to do masters in fisheries management, so that I can help save the world! Yay!!

Anyway, because I wasn't eating fish, I decided to buy some omega-3 capsules so that I would still be healthy.

Pictured above: Someone who is smart and healthy.

One day I was telling Sara about how smart and healthy I am...

As soon as I got home, I found the packet and had a good look at it.

The packet CLEARLY said fish oil capsules, and even had pictures of fish on it! FML.

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I just like to think that it's the thought that counts... right?

Pictured above: Planetsaver.

Hospital

So the other night at work I smacked my head pretty hard on the fridge door, and that + really low blood sugar = a trip to the hospital. I'm ok, I only had mild concussion and I got to go home that night, but it's still pretty embarrassing.

It seems that whenever I injure myself I never have cool stories to tell, only embarrassing ones. I wish I had cool ones, like.....

"I bailed in the terrain park after getting some sweet air"

"I was the victim of a hit and run as I tried to stop some bank robbers getting away"

"I was fighting a tiger"

But no, instead it's:

"I hit a small bump and fell over" = possible fractured wrist, turned out it was only a bad sprain (but the doctors didn't bother telling me that until I'd already had the cast on for ten days)

"My mother accidentally ran me over with the car" = sprained ankle and squished foot

Pictured above: Exactly what I said. There's no way I would have just grunted "bye" as I ran from the car, cos I'm such an awesome child and all that.

"I was playing with my dog and got his paw in my eye" = scratched eye, leading to the discovery that I'd pretty much been blind in one eye for my whole life anyway.

Some other injuries I've had:

"I dropped a pot lid on my toe" = broken toe

"I got angry and in my rage I tripped over the vacuum cleaner" = broken toe

Pictured above: Pure rage

"I hit my head on the roof" = concussion

I wish I could say "I was saving a bunch of orphans from a burning building"

but really I stepped on my hair straightener. I was getting ready for a fancy dress birthday party, and I'd decided to dress as a ladybug.

Pictured above: Awesomeness

So there I was, looking SUPER cute in my ladybug costume, had just finished straightening my hair, turned the straightener off, put it on the floor, and stepped on it. Keep in mind that GHDs get up to around 200°C . I now had a burn on the bottom of my foot, about 1 inch by 4 inches. It hurt soo bad and I couldn't walk, so I needed crutches, so off I went to the hospital.

Dressed as a ladybug.

Pictured above: Shame

The nurses assumed that I'd been to a party, got drunk and hurt myself. I had to explain to them that no, I was getting ready for the party, I wasn't drunk, just clumsy. They bandaged me up, gave me some crutches, and I rocked up to the party an hour late, on crutches, and in an awesome ladybug outfit.