Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Mane-stream Hair

It's been brought to my attention in more forms than one,  Black hair care is getting some limelight. Imagine my surprise when on my relaxing Friday night - watching Grey's on abc.com -- there's a Black hair care lesson thrown into the show! For context, Derek (Dr. McDreamy) and Meredith (main character) adopt a Black baby girl, and Dr. Bailey (a Black female doctor on the show) has to teach Derek about his daughter's "kitchen". A kitchen, dear readers is the consistently "tangled" part at the nape of the neck. Why is it called a kitchen? Who knows ... Anyway I thought this was so interesting because there's all this revived interest in Black hair! If we could count the number of tweets for Viola Davis' hair -- "go ahead girl show your natural do..." or "I think it's so great she's showing her natural hair..." For mainstream media to talk like they understand Black hair is interesting considering I've been practicing and studying for a quarter of a century and research shows inconclusive findings.
I do have an update and a plug, in my quest for a hair dresser. I think I might have found a salon ... in the city. Reasonably priced (again for the city) Shag Hair Studio NYC. So, I made an appointment from a friend's recommendation blindly walked in ... If you are unfamiliar with Black hair care and reading this post, let me preface this with not just anyone can work with our challenging tresses. There's technique and sometimes personal experience that qualifies someone to work with this facet of hair. Regardless of my hair stylist roots he was great - he used great product and made me feel good about my hair. You know those stylists that talk about how poorly you treat your hair with the only motive to make you visit more? We'll he didn't do that and I appreciate it, in fact I will go back!

High School Drama

Dear Readers. This post serves as a plea to share, comment and post to those who need to read this.
I'm seven years out of high school and it's one place/time I would not like to repeat. Even with all my learnings high school was tough, but no matter how dramatic I became as I cried, "my life is over"  - I still woke up in the morning. Unfortunately, for three Chardon, Ohio students this is not the case. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Chardon families - it's an unimaginable tragedy, that for me as well hit really close to home.
For some perspective, I grew up about 45 minutes away from Chardon, but my parents now live about 5 minutes away -- they grocery shop, run errands, walk our dog in the same county. My brother was one year and one township away from attending Chardon, he could've been there...
There have been so many things in the news this last few weeks about teens acting out (the racist YouTube girls from Florida, for example), or even the last few years (school bullying) and it's amazing to me how different "high school" has become - it's really turning into a place you need to survive.
In my day (there goes my old soul) I did become an outcast and subject of ridicule for a good three months of my high school career, where in my most dramatic way I literally thought I would die of embarrassment. Here's the story.
Eleventh grade - I was going through a period of rebellion, hanging out with the a new crowd that I absolutely didn't fit in with. Picture a darker Hilary from Fresh Prince attempting to hang out with a female version of Bone Thugs 'n' Harmony ... Yea, that was bound to work out.
Anyway, if you made one of these girls mad they were all mad and I should've know then their value of friendship, but I digress... Inevitably as you can guess I made one of these girls mad and that's when the drama started. I was shunned at school, literally had to eat lunch by myself or skip it altogether and go home to eat, I was nervous to be in the hallway by myself, it got pretty bad. The biggest worry I had was that these girls would do something to damage or impact my future or mess with my early acceptance into college.
So I get it. I get what it's like to be bullied, picked on, and intimidated. One thing I never forgot was to stay motivated and that no matter what I was going to graduate, succeed and pursue any and all dreams that I had. So this message is two-fold, if you are bullying, it's not worth it - when you get to the workplace, there are bigger bullies that actually have leverage, or as bullies typically wind up: your high school wanna be thug life image will soon be merged with your real life, and while everyone around you is changing, you become static.

If you are being bullied, I can promise you, your insecurities don't run as deep as whoever is trying to stand in your way. I can't remember the last time I thought about that memory of feeling so alone and isolated and that's because I did so much more to never sink and stay persistent with my goals. I'm not perfect, no one is, but one thing I've learned is that "strength comes from an indomitable will" (Ghandi) and that is something you have to believe to make it through.
 High school is 6 parts a painful and 4 parts fun, you make mistakes, some people hang out with bone thug wannabes, but you grow up and you move on. Thank goodness because I do not look good in corn-rolls!
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