the creature

it's really late at night here and i can't fall asleep; i've always been an insomniac- i blame my night thoughts. i always seem to solve the mysteries of the universe at night when i'm laying in my bed and should be sleeping. and there's a lot to think about right now. everyone that i've spent the last 3 months with is going home tomorrow and i'm just remembering all the crazy stuff we did together. but i'm not going to blog about my sad feelings right now. i'm going to blog about the creature.

what is the creature, you may ask? remember when i tried to dye my bangs purple and they turned out bright orange? the given name of the bright orange streak (courtesy of kindra) is the creature. when i went to a more credible salon and got it fixed, i didn't realize that it could only be fixed as bangs in china can be fixed, and lo and behold, the creature came back the very next day (no, wait....it was the cat that came back the very next day.) well, the creature came back a few weeks later, albeit not as bright and creature-ish.

but you'd have to know my hair to know why the creature is so ridiculous. think of the movie heidi...that is my natural hair without the frizz. so one day right after the c-word incident, i was straightening my hair, and right in the middle of it, the power went out. and the water was turned off that whole week, too. so i couldn't shower. i couldn't finish my hair. i had a newly nested creature in my hair. i had to walk around with half of my hair pin straight and the other half curling and frizzing in every direction it was able. my new motto is: a tamed creature is better than a frizzy creature.

one day the creature actually looked kind of cool. it was just last week when we were invited to a chinese wedding. i thought i would shake things up a bit and braid my bangs back. i walked outside and kindra exlaimed "rachael...today is a good creature day!"

you could say i'm somewhat of a fashion plate in china. it seems to be that the trend for girls here is to creature their whole head. their whole head! can you imagine?! all you have to do is take a dark brown/black head of hair and apply permanent, cheap bleach in it. i have so many issues concerning this. isn't one creature bad enough? should that be legal? how can you tame so many of them?

so even though i am killing the creature in infamy right when i get back to the land of sensible hair cuts, colors, and salons, i'm a little bit sad because the end of the creature signifies the end of china. we've been through so much together. i guess all creatures must come to an end. goodbye, creature. goodbye, china.

p.s. are you surprised that i just wrote that much about a streak of color in my hair? me too.

a few things on my mind...

1) i've done some stupid things in my life. the half-brained-teenage syndrome was not lost on me. when i was fourteen, my friends and i suffered from a bout of dim wit and thought it would be funny to “have feminine problems, so could i sit out please?” and draw PERMANENT MARKER∗ on the giant $250 crab soccer ball in gym class. our tracks weren’t well covered. when i was eighteen, i took a long flight from korea to america and after the doctor said to take half an ambien, i decided (being the smart high school student i was) that if i took a WHOLE AMBIEN, i'd sleep twice as long. well….that was the worst episode of transpacific hallucinatory, drugged-up hell I think anyone has ever experienced. When I was nineteen and living in china, I decided on a whim to lose my hair virginity (aka color my hair for the first time) with a streak of RED in my bangs in a FOREIGN COUNTRY with a language I don’t understand in not a credible salon, but a STINKY HOLE IN THE WALL. an hour later, i walked out with bright orange bangs and to endless laughs from the locals. well, ok. we went to a more legitimate salon to get it fixed and my bangs turned from bright orange to bright orange and dark blue spotted. back to work. i came home the way i left only a few bucks poorer, but let this be a lesson to all those who are contemplating getting their hair done in a foreign country where you can’t understand the language: just don’t do it. my roommate decided to get bangs and came home looking like lady gaga. out with the walmart scissors.

∗caps inserted to emphasize stupidity.


2) i just finished reading “life of pi” and absolutely loved it. i can’t believe i hadn’t read it till now. it’s incredibly captivating. i even read it on the bus the other day and missed my stop. it is fantastic. read it, if you haven’t already. it’s not just a regular novel; it had different dimensions to it and the way it’s written is so interesting. yann martel is freaking awesome. he writes the most amazing tale that makes you laugh, cry, ponder, underline, and overall, it makes you sad when it’s over…and then- and i love books like this- he challenges the reader at the end and lets you use your imagination. it wasn’t one of those books that i read and say “well, that was good.” i spent a good two hours after i finished researching, reading interviews with martel, and finding out more about this book. and then i stayed awake for hours after i turned the lights out just thinking about it. definitely a must read. and now i’m dying to go to the zoo.


3) lastly and of the utmost importance, my shower has been broken for two days.