Personal Essay
Well, this is my personal essay for english. I figure I might as well post it, and if the hard copy gets eaten, then I can just tell Kutney to look up my livejournal.
Here goes, constructive critisism is welcome:
The Haircut
Have you ever thought of the futility of cutting your hair? I mean seriously, it’s just going to grow back. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. When it finally does stop growing, and you don’t need to get your hair cut anymore, people complain that they are bald, or are losing their hair, and they rush out and pay for expensive treatments to re-grow their hair, what’s up with that?
It all seems kind of pointless to me. What law says you have to have your hair cut? Why are we so fanatical about how dead protein looks dangling from our bodies? Maybe its how other people, who are more concerned about our looks than our personalities look at us.
Really, I think that how people respond to your “new haircut” is quite telling of their intelligence. You’ve got those people who think they are smart: “did you get in a fight with a lawnmower?” The people who aren’t very observant: “I just noticed you got a haircut.” And then you have the people that really need to get a clue, (a.k.a. Most of them) with the classic: “Did you get a haircut?” Whenever I hear this I’m thinking “NO, it’s always looked like this you dofus!”
I just got my hairs cut a few days ago, and I experienced all of this. Now, for me, it was a drastic change, you see I don’t usually bother getting my hairs cut very often, but I did need it this time, because of safety reasons, i.e. I couldn’t see. As you can guess my hair had been a little messy. Most people thought of it as a rather large blonde colored mushroom, which just happened to enjoy growing on my head. Not that I cared really, I kind of enjoyed my mushroom, but that didn’t stop my mother.
You have to know, that both my mother and I are usually indecisive and timid... Basically if it comes down to her and me, it ends up being a no-contest, due to the “I don’t cares” and uncomfortable silences that accompany them. So when she asked me if I wanted my hair cut, I told her the truth, “I don’t care.” My mom being the person she is, let it sit like that for a week before she decided that some kind of action had to be taken, maybe she thought she needed to curb my rebellious actions before they became more evolved... We’ll never know.
We went to “Fantastic Sams.” My question was, who is Sams, and why is he so fantastic, and how does that have anything even remotely to do with hair styling? Another one of life’s many unsolvable riddles I suppose. Have you ever really thought of what they are saying about their customers? They have rows and rows of different styles of shampoos, conditioners, gels and who knows what, all sitting there crying out: “I bet you can’t afford to wash your hair with me!” and “Did you even wash that mess before you came in, use me, use me!” It’s all together quite overwhelming, I bet there is a government committee working right now trying to figure out why we need fifty thousand brands of shampoo. Then you go into the “waiting room.” It’s like they aren’t just people who cut hair; they are hair stylist MD’s. They even have the magazines, like 50 different issues. Just like the doctor’s office. What do they expect? That people like waiting so much they’re going to just sit there and read all those magazines. Or maybe they want you to come back so you can read more. Heck, it worked with kids: Waiting room magazines read ‘em all!
So your sitting in this room, experiencing deja vu from your last physical, and not liking it, and you notice all the kiddy toys. Why do they have so many toys for the children? Shouldn’t parents who are taking the kids be able to keep them occupied for 10 minutes? I would hope that if you can’t keep you kid occupied, you wouldn’t bring them to a place that has scissors and shavers just lying around for some 5 year old to start playing with.
The best part is the drinks they offer. They have an entire pop machine just sitting in this tiny “waiting room”, and all the drinks are caffeinated. They even have a pot of coffee sitting there. I guess it’s a good thing, they probably don’t want people nodding off in the middle of a haircut. Picture this: Barber is cutting guy’s bangs, guy drifts off to sleep and his head falls forward, barber accidentally stabs guy in eyeball, scissors get stuck. It would just be a mess don’t you think? If you are that tired though, is it really necessary to get a haircut this instant?
I can just see where this trend is going. The next thing you know, we’ll have drive through haircut places, with names like “speedy-cut” and “Hair King” or “McSams”. You would drive up next to the window, and they’d ask you what you wanted, and added that you could supersize your order for only $1.50, though I’m not exactly sure what that would mean. Then you would go to the “Pick up order here” window, and they would put on that cool cape that they have, that’s supposed to keep hair off you, but never keeps it off your neck, and always ends up making it more irritated. The barber would lean out into your car and proceed to ask you how you wanted your hair cut, and then do the exact opposite of what you tell them, like normal. On the plus side, unlike other drive through’s, you don’t have to check to see if they jipped you, it’s not like your taking anything with you.
What is it with barbers anyway? You tell them you want it trimmed and they hack it all off! They must really love cutting hair. Maybe it’s a secret game all the barbers in the world play. After work they get together, all the barbers around a poker table, in someone’s smokefilled basement, and recall all the losers whose hair they screwed up. “Yah, I had this one guy, he was, like, totally a jerk, so when he asked me to cut his bangs, I cut ‘em all right, all the way to his forehead!”
Even after your hair’s been cut its a trial. After their done, the barber always gives you a mirror, and in a polite tone asks “How do you like it?” Isn’t just a little late? What are you going to say? “Actually, I’d like it a little longer in the back, could you, I don’t know, glue some back on or something?” Then of course, after being forced to look at your hideous lack of hair, they take that awesome cape off, and all your hair falls on the ground. It’s like, adding insult to injury. It just gets dumped on the ground and walked on, after spending how many months being meticulously cared for.
This is the story of our lives. We rush around trying to make ourselfs look better, and then end up finding out that it doesn’t really matter. It’s not what society thinks of you, of your looks, it’s what your friends, and family thinks, even if that means you don’t control that dead protien.
Here goes, constructive critisism is welcome:
The Haircut
Have you ever thought of the futility of cutting your hair? I mean seriously, it’s just going to grow back. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. When it finally does stop growing, and you don’t need to get your hair cut anymore, people complain that they are bald, or are losing their hair, and they rush out and pay for expensive treatments to re-grow their hair, what’s up with that?
It all seems kind of pointless to me. What law says you have to have your hair cut? Why are we so fanatical about how dead protein looks dangling from our bodies? Maybe its how other people, who are more concerned about our looks than our personalities look at us.
Really, I think that how people respond to your “new haircut” is quite telling of their intelligence. You’ve got those people who think they are smart: “did you get in a fight with a lawnmower?” The people who aren’t very observant: “I just noticed you got a haircut.” And then you have the people that really need to get a clue, (a.k.a. Most of them) with the classic: “Did you get a haircut?” Whenever I hear this I’m thinking “NO, it’s always looked like this you dofus!”
I just got my hairs cut a few days ago, and I experienced all of this. Now, for me, it was a drastic change, you see I don’t usually bother getting my hairs cut very often, but I did need it this time, because of safety reasons, i.e. I couldn’t see. As you can guess my hair had been a little messy. Most people thought of it as a rather large blonde colored mushroom, which just happened to enjoy growing on my head. Not that I cared really, I kind of enjoyed my mushroom, but that didn’t stop my mother.
You have to know, that both my mother and I are usually indecisive and timid... Basically if it comes down to her and me, it ends up being a no-contest, due to the “I don’t cares” and uncomfortable silences that accompany them. So when she asked me if I wanted my hair cut, I told her the truth, “I don’t care.” My mom being the person she is, let it sit like that for a week before she decided that some kind of action had to be taken, maybe she thought she needed to curb my rebellious actions before they became more evolved... We’ll never know.
We went to “Fantastic Sams.” My question was, who is Sams, and why is he so fantastic, and how does that have anything even remotely to do with hair styling? Another one of life’s many unsolvable riddles I suppose. Have you ever really thought of what they are saying about their customers? They have rows and rows of different styles of shampoos, conditioners, gels and who knows what, all sitting there crying out: “I bet you can’t afford to wash your hair with me!” and “Did you even wash that mess before you came in, use me, use me!” It’s all together quite overwhelming, I bet there is a government committee working right now trying to figure out why we need fifty thousand brands of shampoo. Then you go into the “waiting room.” It’s like they aren’t just people who cut hair; they are hair stylist MD’s. They even have the magazines, like 50 different issues. Just like the doctor’s office. What do they expect? That people like waiting so much they’re going to just sit there and read all those magazines. Or maybe they want you to come back so you can read more. Heck, it worked with kids: Waiting room magazines read ‘em all!
So your sitting in this room, experiencing deja vu from your last physical, and not liking it, and you notice all the kiddy toys. Why do they have so many toys for the children? Shouldn’t parents who are taking the kids be able to keep them occupied for 10 minutes? I would hope that if you can’t keep you kid occupied, you wouldn’t bring them to a place that has scissors and shavers just lying around for some 5 year old to start playing with.
The best part is the drinks they offer. They have an entire pop machine just sitting in this tiny “waiting room”, and all the drinks are caffeinated. They even have a pot of coffee sitting there. I guess it’s a good thing, they probably don’t want people nodding off in the middle of a haircut. Picture this: Barber is cutting guy’s bangs, guy drifts off to sleep and his head falls forward, barber accidentally stabs guy in eyeball, scissors get stuck. It would just be a mess don’t you think? If you are that tired though, is it really necessary to get a haircut this instant?
I can just see where this trend is going. The next thing you know, we’ll have drive through haircut places, with names like “speedy-cut” and “Hair King” or “McSams”. You would drive up next to the window, and they’d ask you what you wanted, and added that you could supersize your order for only $1.50, though I’m not exactly sure what that would mean. Then you would go to the “Pick up order here” window, and they would put on that cool cape that they have, that’s supposed to keep hair off you, but never keeps it off your neck, and always ends up making it more irritated. The barber would lean out into your car and proceed to ask you how you wanted your hair cut, and then do the exact opposite of what you tell them, like normal. On the plus side, unlike other drive through’s, you don’t have to check to see if they jipped you, it’s not like your taking anything with you.
What is it with barbers anyway? You tell them you want it trimmed and they hack it all off! They must really love cutting hair. Maybe it’s a secret game all the barbers in the world play. After work they get together, all the barbers around a poker table, in someone’s smokefilled basement, and recall all the losers whose hair they screwed up. “Yah, I had this one guy, he was, like, totally a jerk, so when he asked me to cut his bangs, I cut ‘em all right, all the way to his forehead!”
Even after your hair’s been cut its a trial. After their done, the barber always gives you a mirror, and in a polite tone asks “How do you like it?” Isn’t just a little late? What are you going to say? “Actually, I’d like it a little longer in the back, could you, I don’t know, glue some back on or something?” Then of course, after being forced to look at your hideous lack of hair, they take that awesome cape off, and all your hair falls on the ground. It’s like, adding insult to injury. It just gets dumped on the ground and walked on, after spending how many months being meticulously cared for.
This is the story of our lives. We rush around trying to make ourselfs look better, and then end up finding out that it doesn’t really matter. It’s not what society thinks of you, of your looks, it’s what your friends, and family thinks, even if that means you don’t control that dead protien.