Where HAS she been?

Well hi there! It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Probably something like… five months? I’m not going to check that, so let’s just agree, that it’s been around five months. In that time I’ve been going through some personal changes and coming to some realisations that have prevented me from cultivating the desire to publish anything publicly. But then last night I had very little sleep and found myself unable to concentrate on anything else that needs my focus today. So I decided to sit down and write out a long-winded post about where I’ve been lately.

The most exciting thing that I’ve done since I last posted here, was travel to the US and Europe over Christmas and New Year. I have a lot of family in California, so they had my attention for the first half of my travel (including a nine mile hike on Boxing day to Point Reyes – I kind of died). The second half of my travel took place in Europe, a place I’ve never been to up until this year. If you follow me on Instagram (remember: @asteriskthat), you’ll see that I’ve been slowly adding pictures from the trip. One of my bad habits is not sharing my experiences. It’s a habit I’m trying to break – but it’s hard, I don’t like talking about myself unless it comes up naturally in conversation (and even then, I get uncomfortable if I notice I’ve been talking about myself for too long). The point being: I loved Europe! Especially Madrid. And I will keep putting up photos until I reach the end of my trip – great sources for #throwbackthursday and #flashbackfriday 😉

Another huge thing – not as exciting but probably more momentous – is that I decided not to continue with my pursuit of a career in hairdressing. It took a while for me to figure this out – you might remember me referring to bouts of anxiety last year – but once I realised what I really wanted for myself, I felt much better.

This decision was the main reason that I steered clear of this blog for so long. It’s supposed to be about hair after all! But for the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about getting back into posting regularly again. I still love hair – just on a personal and hobbyist level. And having stepped away from training formally, I can get back to what I really enjoy helping people with: curly hair! I’m going to continue focusing on products that are easily accessible in Australia, but I’m going to take a break from my Aussie spotlight series; my hair was drying out, even from the gentle and sulfate free shampoos. But as I said, I will try to be informative about the products readily available in Australia, even if they’re not Aussie owned or made.

I’d also like to start posting hairstyle tutorials. I’ve loved braiding since I was a little girl, so I may try and get myself in front of a camera and do a video tutorial! One of my New Year’s resolutions was to film at least ONE (yes, aiming low here) YouTube video. So telling you guys about it will hopefully hold me accountable.

Another thing I’d like to do with the blog is to make it more interactive: more comments! I’m going to try not get into how many page hits, follows and likes I get, but I do want to be more interactive with you guys: my readers 🙂 So, if you have any advice on how to make a more interactive space, please help me get started with this new goal and leave a comment!

Thank you so much for reading this to the end! I can’t wait to continue with this blogging journey and to see how it evolves.

Love and waves,

Astrid

First Post In Reverse: My Freewriting Response

Well this is the start of a freewriting exercise. It’s more difficult to do these on the computer as opposed to handwriting (my preferred way of freewriting – I do that all the time), because the backspace key is just there.
However, it is actually easier because typing is closer to the speed of my thoughts than handwriting.
So I realised that I wasn’t seeing things backward – I just missed yesterday’s assignment for Writing 101. It doesn’t really matter. I know that the purpose of Blogging U is to get us writing everyday. That’s what makes this better than a uni course – there isn’t that dread of a final grade. If I get more readers or page views out of this course – awesome! If not, at least I got a chance to practice my writing.

Sometimes I wonder at my writing, and now I’m wondering at what people will think of this. I often wonder that kind of thing when I’m writing in my journal – just getting thoughts out and the satisfaction of seeing the loops of my handwritten words on the page. It’s so wonderfully tactile.

I just stopped to read that last paragraph – that’s not what I’m supposed to do in this exercise is it? Oops.
In the freewriting assignment (which was actually yesterday’s assignment, so now I’m doing two posts in one day), they mentioned Natalie Goldberg, and Writing Down the Bones. I love that book so much. In it, Goldberg equates this kind of writing – and the practice of writing in general – with meditation. And that is so true – to just write and let the words flow. It’s an amazing thing and I notice that when I don’t write for a while, my anxiety tends to heighten. It’s kind of a chicken/egg thing – am I anxious because I’m not writing or am I not writing because I’m anxious? I think Natalie Goldberg would say it’s because I’m a writer who’s not writing.

This is going to feel weird to let people read this. You’d be surprised how much of my ‘writing’ is this inane kind of natter.

Now I think I should try and veer away from that kind of negativity. Writing makes me happy, so it doesn’t really matter whether it’s good or not. Of course once I get to a point where I produce content people like to read, of course that would be great. But I really just enjoy writing for writing’s sake. It’s very much a private kind of hobby.
Which brings me around to wanting to pursue a career as a hairdresser – it isn’t quite so private. Hairdressing is something that I can share with people and will be able to help people. With writing, of course all that is true too, but so much of it is subjective. Not so say that hairstyling isn’t subjective – there’s always new ways to do things in any creative field – but… I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say.
Okay, I think I know what I was trying to say – hairdressing is about people. There is always at least two people involved in the profession of hairdressing: the stylist and the client. There is no way that it can become private – unless you work on mannequin heads but really, what’s the point of that?
With writing, the sharing is optional. So I like that with hairdressing (aside from it just being plain fun) I have to share my creativity for there to be a purpose to it.
It’s weird that for me the two – professions, careers, hobbies, activities (there are just too many darn words in my brain) – are kind of complementary. I don’t think I’m unique – but it is unusual.

After writing in those parentheses, I now have actually run out of words. I wonder how much time is left? Less than a minute! If you’ve read this all though, throw me a comment or a like – I’ll get a kick out of knowing people have read this blabber 😀

Love and waves,
Astrid

Choices and Pop Music

Good morning readers. I’m taking a detour from Monday Memes this week for two reasons: I haven’t found any memes that made me laugh this week; I had a bit of rough weekend with anxiety and wanted to write about it here.
If you read my blog last week, you know I had my first day as a salon assistant at a new salon on Saturday. The six hours passed and after the shift I found myself sitting in the back office filling out the employment form. And there was that little section at the bottom of the form that I’ve seen on every employment form in my working life: Ailments/Illness. I had a choice to make.
In the past I’ve never put anything there. Although I’ve had asthma my entire life, it’s never affected my ability to work and I’ve got it managed. But there’s another thing that I had to decide whether to put down – anxiety. My anxiety has never affected my work either, but it affects my private life and personal projects. I take medication for it.
I stared at the lines on the page with the pen gripped in my hand. I put the pen to the paper, hesitated, and lifted it away again. After this went on for a few minutes, I wrote down asthma and anxiety. The reason behind this decision was that I want to start at this new workplace completely open place. My anxiety is something that of course I could have kept private. But I would much rather have the option to talk to my new boss without springing something like this on her as a prelude to whatever else I might need to discuss. I wrote asthma more because I decided that if I was putting anxiety, I supposed I should put asthma (it’s a more understandable ailment after all).
For the rest of the weekend my mind would wander to what might come of this admission. The most likely scenario is that my boss won’t even bring it up and I’ll continue working there like normal. However, I couldn’t help thinking about cases where people were discriminated against for their mental illness (it’s weird to think of my anxiety and depression as a ‘mental illness’ but I guess if I’m taking medication for it and it affects my well being then…). The latest one that comes to mind is mentioned in the September issue of Women’s Health Australia, page eighteen if you’re curious. It says a woman was not hired in the UK because she told her employer about her history of depression. However Australia is not the same as the UK and the same article says that some people actually have more support and find it helpful when they are up front. So, we’ll see.

And what have I been doing to distract myself? Listening to pop music! I’m never up to date on music, especially pop, but I was drawn to Taylor Swift’s new single Shake It Off by blogger and YouTuber Rebecca Kelsey. And I love it! Not only is it a catchy tune, but I’m always down for some daggy dancing (go watch the video, you’ll know what I mean :D). So I’ve been listening to the playlist mix for Shake It Off all weekend. There’s some great upbeat tunes to dance and sing along to there.

What do you do to make yourself feel better my lovely readers? Let me know in the comments.

Love and waves,
Astrid

Weekend Inspiration: Lean In

Last year I made the decision to pursue a career in the hairdressing industry. It had been something that I’d been daydreaming about since leaving uni; but having a university degree and a family full of academics, teachers and those with careers in the humanities in general, I didn’t entertain it seriously. Until my hairdresser told me I’d make a good hairdresser – unprompted but after telling her about how much time I spend reading articles and watching tutorials about haircare online.

Shortly after that I picked up Lean In, a book I’d been wanting to read for a while. If you haven’t read it, especially if your a woman (regardless of career goal), I recommend it.

It was this book that made me realise that I can be whatever I want to be. And Sandberg’s argument is structured in such a way as not to make anyone feel like their goal is too small. While part of her purpose might be to encourage women to take roles of leadership, especially in large corporations, it is also to help women lean in to their dreams and not hide from their potential. My dream was to become a hairdresser – the best hairdresser. And who was to say that I couldn’t be a hairdresser and also publish a novel? Most novelists have a day career, and why shouldn’t I have a day job that was something I loved doing and that inspired me?

And so my journey into this stage of my life began. Almost a year later, I’m still going ahead with my goal, despite the bumps along the way. I’m sure there will be more obstacles, but I don’t plan on giving up any time soon.

What books have you read that have inspired you? Or maybe it was a movie or a work of art. Let me know in the comments.

Love and waves,
Astrid

Weekend Inspiration – Warning: a teeny bit of profanity.

I like YouTube. Probably too much. Or maybe just enough? I KNOW I’m not the only person who spends more hours of the night than is healthy going down the rabbit warren that is YouTube.
So this past week I stumbled upon this video by Anna Akana and thought: yes, this is fun and a little bit true. As you can imagine, I watch a lot of hair tutorials – so many! And in the territory of hair tutorials is makeup tutorials. I don’t watch them that much, but occasionally I need a little inspiration or some different ideas when I want to change things up.
BUT, Anna has a point. Outward appearances may occupy a lot of our time, but it’s important to look after what’s inside and remember to cultivate those intangible things that make a person beautiful. So, while I really love the creativity and self-expression that hair and makeup give me, here’s a funny woman to give you her take on the request ‘to show her makeup routine’.

Anna is partial to the F-bomb in this video, so if you don’t like that, maybe skip this video.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Love and waves,
Astrid

Hair Product Storage: DIY

After the post about my iHerb.com haul, I decided to use the box packaging as storage for some of my hair products and tools. I’d been wanting to pick up a box or basket for this purpose for awhile, but then I decided that up-cycling a cardboard shipping box was a better idea – money-wise and environment-wise.
First I just threw in everything like this:

But after a few days, I started to get sick of the thing looking so utilitarian. So I decided to personalise it.
Here’s what I did:

I used: scissors, glue, magazines, old paperback books and the brown paper that iHerb used to package the products in.

Method:
1. Cut off the top flaps and holes on each of the narrower ends as handles. I ended up with this:

2. Gather pictures from the magazines and pages of the old books (or any pretty paper you wish to use), and glue them onto the four outside surfaces. I used the brown paper to line the inside and bottom of the box, just to cover the tape and folds of the cardboard box.

So when I started this DIY post, I thought the method would be a little longer than that. But I guess most of the effort is in time rather than multiple steps. One thing I’d like to add is a coat of glue to varnish and protect the slap-dash job I did. But for now, here is the finished product being put to use on my shelf:

Yes, that’s a picture of Kristen Stewart from the latest Chanel campaign. Her hair in it is fantastic!

I hope this gives you guys some ideas for personalised product storage.

Love and waves,
Astrid

Another writing…

Hi guys, how are you? I’m doing alright today, thanks for asking 🙂

For today’s post, I’m going to take a detour from hair stuff, and I’m going to tell you guys about something I’m hoping to do in about ten days. The tagline for this blog is ‘Hair and Other Writings‘ after all 😉
I, like many of you WordPressies, follow The Daily Post. Yesterday (I think, Internet time tends to expand and contract strangely), they posted about an upcoming workshop, Writing 201: Finding Your Story. The idea of the workshop is to be able to rewrite and edit your writing to get a story out of your posts – or at the very least, readable and engaging content.
Now, if you’ve checked my About page, you’ll know that I have a degree in Creative Writing – so writing is something I love doing. This is not to say that I’m a good writer (who’s to say what a ‘good writer’ is anyway?), but it’s something I’ll always do to some extent – and I’ll always want to improve.
However, this does come back to hair and the central theme of this blog because hopefully this workshop will help me to communicate my ideas, tutorials and reviews in a clear and engaging way.
Another thing that I want to do with this blog is to document my journey to becoming a professional hairdresser, especially being a little bit older and with some previous experience in other fields of study/work. Writing 201 will be useful to this end because I want my journey to be something that my readers can relate to, enjoy reading and maybe find some inspiration to do something a little unexpected.

Are any of you guys planning on doing Writing 201: Finding Your Story? If so, how are you going to apply it to your blog? If not, do you have any feedback for me? I’m always open to ways to improve or make my content more interesting.

Love and waves,
Astrid

Weekend Inspiration. Or should I say ‘hairspiration’?

So it’s Friday. I’ve made it through a working week of blogging about one of the things I like best: hair, specifically curly hair.
But something else I’m passionate about is body positivity and self acceptance. ShamelessMaya is a YouTuber whose main message is self acceptance – she’s an inspiring woman who decided to live her life without shame and from what I can see on her channel and other social media websites, she’s living that goal daily.

So without further ado, here’s a cheeky tune to get you loving yourself, frizz and all 😀

Love, waves and frizz,
Astrid