Hair

In class, we watched a video of another ESL class working on their writing skills. The teacher, Jeff Anderson, started his students off with a line from a book, "My hair wakes up stupid." The class in the video uses this quote as inspiration for their writing.

I decided to use the same line to start off my blog entry today. How does my hair wake up? I think my hair goes to bed, wakes up, and lives the entire day...rebellious! It never does what I want it to do. When I want it to be curly, my hair droops into straightness. When I'm trying for the straight look, it bounces and bends itself into curls as soon as it thinks I'm not looking. My hair can't even get itself together as a group and decide how it wants to be on any given day. The front and underside parts can be quite straight while at the very same moment the top and back are crazily curled. This is not a good look!

I've had long hair for most of my life. In 1990 a friend and I decided to get a permanent. I figured that a perm would tame my hair and force it to do what I wanted instead of what IT wanted. I thought I would walk out of the salon with lovely corkscrew-shaped ringlets. It turned out to be one of the worst ideas I've ever had. It was awful. It looked as if I'd stuck my finger into a light socket. And there was a big chunk of hair on the right side of my head that was now super straight and fried. All I could do was cry and wait until it grew.

Once it had grown a bit, I got it all the frizzy bits cut off. It was the only time in my life that I had short hair, and I didn't like it. It didn't feel like "me." But I started working in a new office just after I'd gotten my hair cut off. One day I happened to mention something to my new office friends about my long hair. They were all surprised to hear that I had had long hair my entire life. One girl said to me, "I just can't picture you with long hair. You're such a short-hair person." This was fascinating to me because I knew that of course I was NOT a short-hair person. Everyone else who had known me for years and years knew that the short hair was just a temporary situation; they thought of me as a long-hair person. This experience really made me think about perception. Other people can have a view of you that you may not expect or understand, based on what they see at the moment.

Some days, though, my hair wakes up pretty happy. It seems to have the same agenda as I do, and it mostly cooperates with me when I get ready for the day. I try to remember what I did on a day like this in order to repeat it, but this strategy usually fails.

The best days, however, are when my hair wakes up scared. Then it behaves like a small child who wants a lollipop. When do these scared days occur? The day I'm planning a trip to the hair salon, of course. This phenomenon is well-known to women. If you schedule a haircut, you will undoubtedly wake up on the day of the appointment with great hair. People will give you compliments all day, and you'll say, "What? This looks good? I'm getting it cut today." You may be tempted to cancel your appointment because your hair seems to have changed and suddenly looks fabulous. Don't do it! Your hair is playing a trick on you because it doesn't want to get cut off. It's planning on relaxing and looking bad again as soon as it knows the threat of a cut is removed. If you cancel your appointment, it will look awful when you try to style your hair the next day. Then you'll be stuck with it for 2 weeks until the next appointment is available. Hair should NOT be trusted!
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Vocabulary

• inspiration: something having the power to encourage or move a person
• rebellious: going against authority
• salon: a stylish business establishment or shop
• frizzy: tightly curled and fuzzy
• fascinating: extremely interesting or charming
• agenda: list of things to be considered or done
• strategy: a careful plan or method
• undoubtedly: surely
• cancel: call off
• threat: something intended to cause evil, injury, or damage

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Vocabulary Practice

1. The organizer of the conference sent an ____________ of events to the attendees.
2. I found the movie My Dinner With Andre to be __________, while many people thought it was boring.
3. When you stay up way past your bedtime, the next day you will _____________ feel tired and draggy.
4. If a skunk feels you are a __________ to him, he may spray you.
5. It's such a nice treat to go to the hair _____________ and get pampered for a day.
6. In order to avoid __________ hair, I spray on a little hairspray and smooth it down.
7. Gina had to __________ her doctor's appointment when her car had a flat tire.
8. Kyle is a good student, but he has a ____________ side that caused him to get his nose pierced.
9. My ___________ for avoiding long lines at the grocery store is to shop at 11:00 pm.
10. If you're running a long race, great music can be an ____________ to continue.

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Grammar Point
Adjectives

Adjectives are words that are used to describe nouns or pronouns. They are words that tell us color, size, shape, texture, number, appearance, and many other categories. They can help create a picture for the reader. In the sentence that Jeff Anderson gives his students to start them off on their writing, the word "stupid" is an adjective because it describes the speaker's hair:

My hair wakes up stupid.

We could change the adjective and change the meaning of the sentence.

My hair wakes up flat.
My hair wakes up curly.
My hair wakes up angry.
My hair wakes up blond.

In my blog entry above, I use many adjectives. Can you find any? I'll list several of them here:

rebellious
straight
curled
good
long
lovely
worst
fabulous
scared
temporary

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Grammar Practice

In the sentences below, find the adjectives. Each sentence has only one. The answers are below sentence #5.

1. The princess wore a silver gown to the dance.
2. When did you get that huge dog?
3. Five trees fell during the hurricane.
4. I love to go swimming in a warm pool.
5. Do you enjoy spicy food?

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Answers: 1 silver, 2 huge, 3 five, 4 warm, 5 spicy

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Cultural Link
If you're interesting in trying out different hairstyles before going to the salon, check out this virtual hairstyle website: http://www.thehairstyler.com/virtual-hairstyler You can upload a photo of yourself and see how hundreds of different styles would look on you. Have fun!