I did my own hair!!! Take a look

I have been wanting a major hair color change for a while now, but the reason it took so long for me to make the change was because I knew with my dark hair I would have to bleach it out first so a lighter color would show up on my hair. I didn't want just highlights in my hair, I wanted an overall hair color change. So here is a picture of my beautiful virgin hair before I bleached it all by myself.



I bleached it with 3oz of Wella powder bleach with 40 volume developer. I know I'm not supposed to use bleach with a 40 v developer, but that's all I had and I didn't want to go buy another bottle. I did a test strip first to see how long I needed to leave it on, then I did the whole thing... it was so scary to do it myself. I couldn't see if it was even or if I got all of it. So when I rinsed it out my hair was a variety of colors of YELLOW/BRONZE/ORANGE!!! I couldn't stand to have the bleach on any longer because my scalp was burning (no wonder the girls cry on the show America's top Model.)
I forgot to take a picture of my hair after the bleach, but believe me it was horrendous! but not unexpected.
Then I put the color on my hair. It was 6/03 Natural Brown color, which should have lightened my hair a few shades lighter than the picture above. So let's review
Dark Hair + Bleached out Hair + 6/03 color = Final Product
TaDa!! You're gonna laugh!!




It went to almost EXACTLY the same color as it was before! There is a tiny hint of a reddish tone to my hair now, but that's it. LOL! Not exactly the change I was going for, but I guess it is much better than it could have been. My hair could have fallen out, but it didn't. I'm just gonna go get some highlights or something now, then I'll feel like I accomplished something. At least my hair is still pretty and shiny, the bleach didn't seem to damage it much.

Where Technology Meets Mayhem

Okay, so I know that you will think I am insane, but this is the neatest thing ever that I get to experience. In May 2010 I get to participate in a mock prison riot. http://mockprisonriot.org/MPR/INDEX.ASPX This is something that is done every year to test out the latest and most innovative ideas of technology made for controlling people. I am participating as an inmate, not an officer, so yes I will probably be shot at with some sort of non-deadly/less-lethal rounds during scenarios. I might be tazed and/or pepper sprayed with my consent in various workshops that I choose to attend. I'll most likely come back with some battle wounds and maybe some scars. Also, I am paying for the privilege. It sounds dangerous, it is dangerous, but it sounds nothing but exciting to me. I am so stoked to be offered this opportunity as a post graduate. It is normally only offered to current students, but one of the professors knew that I have wanted to do this for the past several years but it wouldn't fit into my schedule, this year it does. Again, I know this sounds rather bizarre to you, but this is the stuff I live for. It makes me happy.

Sisters? NO!

A girl that I don't necessarily care to be associated with keeps popping into my life in various ways. When I was in high school people would tell me that we looked alike, or people would call me her name thinking that I was her, or vice-versa, I suppose. Today, while at work a teenage boy asked me if I had a sister with this girl's name. I said no and then I asked him what her last name was. He didn't know her last name, but began to describe her life and I knew immediately who he was talking about. I said that I had never heard of anyone by that name. My stupid smile that I do when I lie gave it away that I knew her. He said "whatever, she is too your sister, I'm going to ask her about you when I get out of here." I was so annoyed. I hate being compared to this girl. I do not think we look at all alike, but it is very odd that out of all of the female Hispanic people in my city he would associate her with me even though he has never met me before and is simply a neighbor to her. WE DO NOT LOOK ALIKE! I would put a picture of her and me side-by-side on here, but I don't want her getting onto my blog for some odd reason and reading that I was talking about her.

I just swore for the first time in my entire life yesterday, it just came out in the middle of my sentence. Why would I even do that? I don't even think swear words in my head and it just came out as if I had been doing it my whole life. Don't give me the "you're only human and everyone makes mistakes" argument, because I refuse to believe that because swearing just is not in me. I've been so proud of being able to say that I had never sworn even though no one ever believed me, but I was satisfied with knowing that I knew the truth. I can no longer say that ever again. I never even swore when it said a swear word in the Scriptures because I thought that once my mouth said it then it might get used to saying it.
So now what? Do I just swear now? The reason that I had never sworn was because I liked saying that I had never done it before and was not about to start now, but now it's over. What am I going to say now... I haven't sworn since yesterday. Wow, big woop. The sentence that destroyed my language skills was "Yes, you are going to clean the d@#n bathroom."
I had a look of shock and horror on my face as the sentence exited my mouth, and the person I was talking to thought that he was the one who had done something wrong. He did not even notice my Freudian slip. Why is swearing such common behavior that it has absolutely no shock value to people who hear it?

Life and death

What good is a life if it leaves nothing behind but pain? Death is stupid. I know it is a necessary part of life, but how can anyone be done? I do not plan on dying unless it helps someone else. Although I am alone, my life is valuable to me and I know that I'm worth something big in life. There has got to be a purpose to this life. I am trying to accomplish everything in my power before I die so that a lot of people will try to help other people as well. I can teach people how to help other people, how to care about people other than themselves. I hope to have children to teach, so they can teach others.

Reading is important, let a teenager read to you for a while. Its okay if they struggle, help them, they want to know how to read, and they adore the one-on-one attention, even if they pretend to hate it.

Invite people to church and go with them to their church even if it isn't your religion. You can learn a lot from someone else's faith. It doesn't mean you have to convert to their religion, but the knowledge won't hurt you. Religion is a beautiful thing. Don't close your mind to other faiths.

Wake people up nicely. Everyone has a better day if they are woken up to a loving voice rather than yelling or a harsh alarm. Let them know you care, even if you had a bad day with them the day before. Its a new day, don't hold it against them, it will only continue bad feelings.

Give a hug. It might be the last time you hold them in your arms.

Teenagers die too, be nice to them. Don't say mean things about them or to them until you know what they are going through. I doubt you will still want to say the mean things.

Love you all.

I hope we all live long and prosperous lives. (Yes, I just saw Star Trek. It was fantastic)

The Cruise

It went rather well. I enjoyed the shows, the people I met, the time I spent with family and the country of Mexico. I didn't get kidnapped, nor did anyone I know. There was an individual who I met on the cruise who I would have been okay with getting kidnapped after an incident on the second to last day of the cruise, but we can't have everything we want. We met some entertaining people. There was an older couple who's company we very much enjoyed. We met them while we had our safety drill on the first day. They were hilarious with all sorts of very comical dramatized explanations of life experiences they have had. Who knows if they were telling the truth, but they were funny.
I bought some purses, they are really cute. One of the purses I didn't have enough money for, and I had gotten the price down as far as I possibly could. I needed 8 more dollars, but I didn't have anything more. I even tried dazzling the guy, but he wouldn't budge, he said his boss would literally murder him if he went any lower on the price. I wouldn't want to cause his death, and we were in Mexico, so it is very likely that he was being honest about having his life be threatened if he didn't meet his quota. I still was determined about the purse but was very nearly going to leave it, but then a man asked me how much I needed, and I told him, and he said he would pay the difference so I could get the purse. It was so nice of him to offer that and I said that I was okay with leaving the purse, but he insisted that I take it. His wife who was also trying to get a good deal on the purse she had her eye on, but the guy also wouldn't go down any further on her purse. So instead of buying her purse, she insisted that I get the one I wanted when she wouldn't even pay $20 for the purse she wanted. They were very nice people and I promised them I'd buy them a drink if I ran into them on the ship, I never did see them again, but they took a picture of me and my purse.
I thought that it would be warm because being a cruise in and of itself, sounds like a warm activity. Alas, I was wrong, oh so wrong. It was very cold the entire time on the ship. There was a very fun-looking pool and water slides on the deck, but we never got to try it, because it was so cold. There were quite a few hot tubs, but they were always constantly filled with screaming drunk teenagers, which I didn't really think looked very appealing to join.
The massive amounts of food was great. Endless pasta which Shayna and I both thoroughly took full advantage of, the constant bowl of pineapple was my pleasure. There were an array of tiny-sized deserts, which were perfectly sized for sampling and immediately discarding, because they were much better looking than tasting. I tried a small bite of nearly all of them by the end of the cruise. I only found 1 or 2 that I could tolerate. I usually just resorted to the ice-cream bar to cleanse my pallet of all the foul tasting fine deserts.

Going on a cruise

I've been a bit of a pessimist lately so it shouldn't surprise you to hear that I am nervous for this cruise. I will be leaving in about 7 hours from now, but I feel no excitement, only worry. I hope I will come back and write grand stories of the marvelous time I had, but for now, I will keep my eyes open and my purse close...I wish I could take my gun. I hear there have been a lot of kidnappings in Mexico lately.