Come Sunday, and another perfect day for soaking up the vibrant sun either shopping, listening to music, or just chilling somewhere…

But instead, I didn’t know what I was doing in the morning (okay, I do know; I threw the laundry into the machine and then bludged my morning away), was almost late to my pole lesson at 1 PM (which is quite a poor effort considering I couldn’t sleep after getting up at 7 AM), and just didn’t know what was going on after pole.

I did meet up to Mr AG in the City afterwards though, and he was really good at steering me in the right direction (rushing me when I lagged… just in case shops close and all).

First stop was to the Alannah Hill boutique at the Strand Arcade. I was served by a very sweet and patient lady there, carefully helping me with this and that even though the store was busy with customers waiting pay for their items (which she excused herself politely to do so before coming back).

I wanted these boots in the black in size 7, but she told me she only had that size in the pale pink (which was super cute as well). I asked her to let me try the pink for size, and if it fits well, I’ll hop online to buy the black pair if it fitted well. She did not hesitate to continue her great service, and didn’t judge, seeing that I was dressed in semi-workout clothes (for pole).

After trying it on, walking around to try for comfort, and doing random things, the lady came back apologetically and told me she has found a few more boxes of the boots, and that she’ll check for my size. She returned with a pair of size 7.5, and asked if I wanted to try them on. I was really wanting to get the boots in store, so I gave it a shot.

At the end, because of her brilliant service, and also because I really like the boots, I ended up getting them from her =]

Oh, Perfect Star boot

And then there was food! I was starved but content… but starved. So before my haircut, I had to get some food! Ahh, sweet food! We had some Japanese “fast food” at Ton ton (since we didn’t want to go to restaurants for a while…).

Ton Ton: My spicy miso ramen, Mr AG’s vegetarian udon, and a drink

And the last stop of the day was to Takeshi and Team for my long overdue haircut. I was served by Takeshi himself, and he was very pleasant, polite, and skilled. At first, I asked him for ideas, but he was giving me ideas for a normal kind of cut, so Mr AG told him to do something “weird” with my hair. At that point, he chuckled, and got the point, and told me his plans.

After I was happy, he proceeded to dry cut my hair until I was happy with it, gave me a wash and blow dry, and fixed little things here and there (and he did so for quite a while, being meticulous about every strand). The end result I was very happy with; it was exactly what I wanted a hairdresser to do – do something different/borderline drastic that suits my needs, and without having to shave half my head off (I’m daring but not THAT daring!).

So once again, I ended up with another asymmetric haircut!

So my fringe had been bothering me lately… it is overgrown, and a bit of a pain when it gets into my eyes/face, etc. Looks ok, but I was quite desperate for a shorter fringe.

Went to two places on Thursday… Fully booked. And not having an opportunity made me want to walk into any okay-looking salon for a side fringe cut… I mean, how bad can it be, right? And plus, this is only temporary for when I feel the need for a proper cut.

So I popped into a salon in Burwood yesterday for a quick one before going to the Sydney Royal Easter show… K** *** *****, asked for the price ($10) and decided to go for it.

Before I knew it, the ‘hairdresser’ had completely RUINED my fringe!

No shape or style, uneven, and just horrible. It wasn’t even a side fringe.

And so I asked why it looked so strange with a bit poking out, and so very unlike a side fringe. And she gave me the stupidest excuse I’ve ever heard: “because it is so short”.

Firstly, who said this short? Secondly, I stated “SIDE FRINGE”, which part of SIDE FRINGE did you not understand, lady?

So I said just to make it a little more even (not a big ask, right?), to which she cut some random strand EVEN SHORTER. It was horrible to begin with, now it is seriously HORRIBLE!!!

I mean, LOOK AT THIS THING!

Gruntled, I paid my $10 and walked out, and the owner (or something) told me the generic “it looks cute”.

Yeah, cute for a 5 year old with an uneven haircut?

Not happy, and I have never felt this self conscious for a long time now, which isn’t good! I felt many people stare, and not in a good way.

I mean, WHAT IS THIS PIECE OF CR*P?

Even mum said it looks hideous! So upset!

Lesson learnt: I should have waited.

I met up with the uni gang last night at a Korean BBQ place to have catch up dinner as we haven’t had a proper one all summer!

I wore my new flats and brought a change of sandals, but when I got off the train, the shoes were cutting me so deeply I had to change almost straight away. Walking was fine after that, was I ended up being the first one to get there (most of us knew where it was). So I took a table for 8, and the waiter showed me to the outside area (some of us liked that, while others hated it).

Whilst on my iphone and ipod, feeling a little bored, DZ and KW turned up. Then it was GT. Another while, AG called to ask where it was (371 and 371 on the opposite sides were quite far away from one another, and that confused both AG and AT, the latter whom I went to collect after many phone calls!). KW went to get AT, GT went to get money and offered to look for AT, and after not returning, I went to look for AT and saw HL and LC were outside looking for AT. Needless to say, all was confusing until we all got to the table.

Next confusing thing was the ordering. W e had 8 people, 2 BBQ cookers, so we splitted into 2 groups of 4′s. We settled on ordering double of each dish, but I wanted to try more stuff (without the repeat cos I figured we could’ve shared), and it was all too confusing until we agreed on ordering for ourselves separately. I don’t know how, but we ended up with mostly the same dishes anyway *sweatdrops* I didn’t get to take individual photos cos the guys wanted badly to dig in! haha typical!

Madang, Pitt street, City

Marinated chicken, Beef ribs, Dumplings

Ox tongue, Pork brisket, Korean “gyoza”?

A repeat! Haha

Side dishes, Soft shell crab

Cooking (I didn’t do it haha), conversing and eating was a joy! Many high times (how I missed them!), many current affairs, many memories brought back while eating a whole week’s serve of meat! And how we finished it, I do not know. But we did without any to spare! It was satisfying =]

Walking out wih a full stomach, we walked to Darling Harbour where we were to play bowling. Couple of people didn’t want to, and since there was laser tag there, we decided to play that instead. So, I was in sandals and a dress, the other girls were in uncomfy shoes… but what the heck! We all did. 3 games worth! Since it was my first time, I was naturally unequipped, and lost miserably. I improved the next two rounds; in fact, we girls team (with Mr AG) won the 2nd round and took victory photos (and defeat photos of the boys) as proof! Ah that was fun!

After that, we parted ways. It’s been fun, and hopefully have a repeat of the amount of fun some time soon!

Yumei, City.

Ramune

Takoyaki

• 17.01.09

Morning/afternoon: Haircut at Armandi, Burwood.

Evening: Dinner with friends at Hooters, Parrmatta.

Getting my Hooters tee signed ^_^

Night to late: Rock club at Trash Saturdays, Agincourt Hotel.

• 18.01.09

Morning: Ritual birthday breakfast (clear vermicelli with hard boiled eggs). Vermicelli symbolising long life… don’t know what the egg is for, but I love eggs in all forms, so I enjoyed it immensely

Evening: Dinner at Hurstville Chinese seafood restaurant, Hurstville.

• 19.01.09

Morning: Coffee with the lab for my birthday

To all of you who are wondering, no, I haven’t died yet. But almost.

Stress… Long hours of painful studying, assignmenting, researching, revising… Lack of sleep… Look what uni’s doing to me!! I’m sick again…

That’s right, second time in one month (last time was about 3 weeks ago)!

NOOOoooOO!!

Funnily/coincidentally enough, a friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for a while caught something a week before me last time and got it again last week! He suspects a second bug, but I’m not too sure. But whatever it is, please go awaaaaay!!

Anyway… To cheer myself up, I decided and insisted on a haircut today (I was browsing for a lot of alternative/indie/emo/punk/gothic hairstyle last night). Not feeling up for more violation, AG drove me to Strathfield and looked for a hairdressing place called “Zio” (opposite plaza), recommended from my friend Daph.

I walked into the place, and a man came and sat me down. Krystal, the Korean hairstylist that was going to cut my hair, came and asked me which style I wanted. So I explained it to her:

• Straight and short fringe
• Longer front bits
• Short and very layered back (similar to the last haircut)

She motioned me to the seat and started washing my hair and unlike the last lady, she didn’t rip my hair out!! So I decided to enjoy it, and she was really good/gentle!

After that, she asked if I trusted her and hearing my reply, got started on the cutting. We made small talk, and learned that she started out in Korea and has been a hairdresser for 10 years.

Some while later, she finished. And I looked at the new me.

Hilarious!!
Different!!
Non-alternative (as I had planned the night before)

But I really liked it, and Krystal looked please with herself. So I went to pay for her services: $35 – waaaaay cheaper than the one at Market City (yes, the violation one)! The man who originally served me appropriately added, “Next time, the messy hair look will be charged $45, because this is the first time, it’s $35″ and promptly handed me a loyalty card. Cool, didn’t know any hairdressing place have this system.

Feeling pleased, different and refreshed, I headed home. When dad saw me, he (sorta) flipped! And when mum saw me, the first thing she said was “Ohhh! My Korean daughter” …How did she know? O_o It seriously didn’t look like it to me… But I don’t know.

What a peculiar day, I must say! I thought so, my friends knew so, and Tim (the one whom I described the “incidents” to) said so.

But first, some “normal” things.

At uni
Normality

So my 2 week summer course ends today with a 40% website presentation and a 30% final exam. Of course, even though it was a general education course, I was still pretty worried about the whole day.

So I got to class, ready yet nervous for the presentation, thinking that we had to explain every code that we used for the website and all. Turned out I had nothing to worry about at all! -_- He told groups of four to log into the school computers, load our sites and kicked us out of the room. Literally. After marking, he told us to come inside, grab our medium if we used one and then kicked us out of the room once again. Easy.

So we went to the law library, into the seminar rooms so we could “study”. As all study sessions proceed, we ended up cracking Russell Peters jokes, talking about some really random stuff, snacking, reading the papers (uni offers round 1 out today, how exciting!)… and towards the end of the “study session”, realised that we were all screwed! Well, not Andy, but the rest of us were!

Because the class was pretty big, the teacher decided to split the group into 2 to take the test. LC, HCl, Sharon and I barely made the last 4 spots for the first test session! Phew!

Skip skip skip.

The test was pretty hard >.< Yep, a gen ed final exam was actually hard! I mean, what the hell? Some of the stuff we didn’t even learn about! -_- GAH!

Outing: Food
Weird incident 1

Meanwhile, outside was raining. Rats, why did it have to rain on my birthday? It hasn’t in how long? I don’t know. But longtime!

But seeing that it was my birthday, we decided to double date with LC and HCl.

So first off, to eat!
Ichiban boshi!

We arrived and there was a huge line. Huy wanted to go somewhere else to eat but I didn’t want to because:

• I was too bothered
• It was raining: hard to get around
• I like eating at Ichiban Boshi~~

So we asked one of the waitresses (who looked European but spoke fluent Japanese!) how long it would be till we get to go in. 20 minutes. Ok, 20 it is!

So after checking out Kinokuniya (a huge bookshop), we came out to wait with the guys. Then… something weird happened.

Some girl and her friends walked past our group, and she kind of stared straight at me, talking to her friend and all. All of us took notice of this but decided to ignore that.

AG: It might be because she thought she knew you from somewhere.

And still, the staring continued.

LC: Could she make it anymore obvious?!

And then suddenly, I saw her eyes make a dart to my chest area, staring ever so intently.

HCl: Maybe she’s looking at your badges…

So again, this was ignored, and her head stuck out a tiny bit, eyes still at my chest. At this stage, I was starting to feel a bit… uncomfortable.

AG: Maybe she has bad eyesight…?

Her eyes wandered up and down a tiny, then fixes on my chest.

HCl: Man, if I wanted to check out your badges, I wouldn’t full stare or anything!

…

Waitress: Number 68.
Me: That’s us!

And I took my things and hurried the heck out of there. Okay, that was “Incident #1″. The meal was great, with AG drinking a lot of water while finishing up my “very hot ramen”.

Outing: Shopping
Weird Incident 2

We got out of the building, and still it was raining. LC said to go Myer, so we did. Somehow, we ended up at the lingerie section. HCl wanted to go to the games section so I shoo-ed AG to go with him while we girls had some “alone time”. We did actually, but with one more person… And this is the beginning of “Incident #2″…

Me and LC were checking out hot hot bras when a saleslady came around and started introducing all the products to us, telling us what they are made of and how “spectacular” and “stunning” they all are.

Saleslady: The change rooms have very long lines so when you both are ready, I’ll pop you into our special change room.

So LC and I must’ve grabbed 6 items each, giggling about how to escape from the saleslady because man, have you seen the price tags on some of these? And I know I definitely can’t afford things this much!

Ready!

Saleslady: So I’ll pop you in first, Wendy (she got my name wrong but oh well, I’ll be Wendy for a while)
Me: Oh it’s a single change room?
Saleslady: Yeah.
Me: How about we go in together Julie?
LC: *drags me into the room, pulls the curtain close*

Inside…

Me: Man, this one costs $190!
LC: Yeah, but they’re hot. I’m going to try this one first.
Me: Maybe I’ll try this one. *Whispers in her ears* How are we gonna escape?!
LC: Don’t worry. Hey, reckon she thinks we’re lesbians?
Me: *looks in mirror* Yeah actually.

Curtain opens.
Shock.
Covers up.

Saleslady: Oh WOW, this one really pushes up your breast, LC. See how it gives you that lift?
Me: Yeah, it really does LC. Looks good.
LC: Yeah shite!
Saleslady: And the red looks absolutely spectacular on you, Wendy.
Me: I like it actually.
Saleslady: Now hurry and try these one on, girls. *points to see-through red lace bra, disappears out of room*

Me: That was weird!
LC: Mm. *starts changing* Can you turn around while I change into this one?
Me: Yeah. *hangs around, too embarrassed to try anything*
Saleslady: *pops in* Hi Julie and Wendy, how are you girls doing?
LC: *covers*
Saleslady: Wendy, why aren’t you changed? Oh wow! Look at you LC. Oh come on, don’t be shy, we all have breasts.
Julie: But my nipples are showing. *uncovers* Oh wait, you can’t see them much.
Saleslady: So what do you think?
LC: Yeah I like it.
Saleslady: Now hurry and change into this *indicates to the see-through black lace one and disappears behind curtain*

By the looks of this, makes me wonder if we had a choice anymore? So anyway, by now, we started changing quickly and freely in front of one another before she pays an early visit…

Saleslady: Oh WOW, you both look very stunning! BOTH of you should be advertising for this! So what do you think?
LC: Definitely like the black more then the red.
Me: Yeah, I agree with her. And I like this too.

Okay, this goes on for at least another 15 minutes with many “you look stunning” or “this is so HOT on you” (and the like) before we both finished changing into all the clothes we took in. AG called to see where we were so I told them to wait for us outside the lingerie section. So much for being lesbians now…!

Saleslady: So what do you think, girls?
LC: I like the black, not the other. *sees the boyfriends coming back*
Me: Me too, I’m just showing him.

Man, she seems either quite:

1. Keen on checking out breasts, or
2. A very persistent (read: pushy) salesperson.

But they most likely don’t get commission, so I don’t see what they point was.

And we just hung around, the four of us. I think the saleslady must’ve took the hint because she went into the change rooms to serve another lady, leaving us to decide.

Plonk.
RUN!!!

And that was how we escaped.
That was fun!

Evening
Dinner

After, I got home and freshened up a bit before going to have family dinner to celebrate our birthdays (Brother and I have birthdays on the same day and month). We had some very delicious seafood, took some photos and then went home feeling satisfied.

That night…
Chatting online

I explained the whole story to AG. “I think she’s a lesbian.” he says.

And then I repeated the story to Tim to have this said, “Yep, definitely a lesbian. You could have asked her for an orgy and got her fired!”

After all, I thought it was because of my new hairstyle… or the outfit I was wearing… Which led Tim to one conclusion, “You’re attracting the wrong gender with that haircut.”

Sounds flattering, Tim…

So there you have it, my very interesting 20th birthday.

So summer school started today… well not really, it started yesterday (Monday) but I only got a call from my friend telling me to enrol yesterday (long story)! So hence I skipped the first day of a 2-week course… -_- But yet, I’m glad I was able to enrol in this course! Takes some load off semester 2, and every bit helps seeing the subjects I’m going to take.

Everything was so fuzzy and confusing, the teacher was slightly hard to understand, the lectures go on for 2 hours… and I have a short attention span >< So to say the least, I didn’t pay much attention at all. Great start ay? And I just know it will continue to be this way…

So afterwards, I was desperate to butcher my hair (I mean, have you seen it lately, before the cut? It looked so hectic!) so I went to BON1 to look for Bon, only to find out that he’s still on holidays! Man, that man sure knows how to enjoy life, I mean, how long has it been?

So disappointed but still desperate, I went to Market City and peeked into this hairdressing place, making sure they didn’t charge an arm and a leg. I went in and they sat me down, giving me some magazines. Nup, none right for me. Then they introduced me to my hairdresser, Ansia.

“Can I loosen your hair?”
“Sure.”

SHAT!
Ow ow ow ow ow!
How am I supposed to endure this whole haircut?

Because her hair (cut by herself) was pretty funky, I made her help me with what I want. I wanted something different from convention, but didn’t know exactly how I wanted it. After deciding on a rough hairstyle by description…

“Can I wash your hair?”
“Yeah, sure.”

SHAT!
Ow ow ow ow ow!!

Man was she rough. I was cringing through the whole thing, squinting my eyes and all! She even noticed!

“Am I going too hard? you look stressed.”
“Oh, just a tiny bit.”
“Because you don’t look too relaxed.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sensitive.”

I was starting to feel my scalp peel on the right side so I mentally prayed for her to focus on the left side a bit more. But she didn’t and kept “massaging” (translation: scratching) it. >< Man, had I longed for the hair washing session to end. Fast!

After what seemed like a decade, I sat back down as she combed (quickly) through my long long hair with knots in various places. Can you imagine the pain?! ><

So anyway, because the style of my cut was supposed to be in the “messy-look” category, she used this pair of scissors to “slice” off my hair. Hard and fast, like tugging/pulling on my hair in a cat fight. Again, she noticed this and tried to be more gentle with me, but commented that the less-painful way was “too slow”. I mean, what’s the rush? I’m the only customer in here!

Sighing, I looked over to AG with a puppy pout that said “help me”.

So the torment continues, until she’s finished a “draft” of what the style looked like. She had cut and suggested a side fringe for me because it looked better, but asked if I wanted a straight fringe. I think she didn’t hear me and started chopping off hair and all, as if my hair was some sort of “practice”, and I was scared because after chopping, it can’t miraculously grow back!!

But I decided to trust her on that one and focus my anxiety on something else as her scissors were right on my face, pointing right towards my eye! Thankfully, she didn’t end up popping my eyes, and everything on my face was as original, perhaps a few small hair bits here and there, but it was all good.

So the cutting finished, and she reached over for the hair straightener and fed some hair in, pulling it to the ends. And yep, that hurt too. Some hair get caught and when she pull, tug tug. Ouch ouch!!!! I wanted this to end as well! -_-;

…And she finished.
Thank GOD!

Overall, the haircut looked pretty good (AG loved it heaps!), especially with the way she styled it with putty (which I didn’t buy cos it costs a ridiculous $33!). And she looked pretty skilled and had put a lot of effort (into violating me).

We went to pay for the service.
$60? GAH! My mum would kill me if she found out!
Mental note: Must keep it away from her!!!

And that’s what I did when I got home.
Even when I was greeted with a very exuberant “Oh wow, I love the haircut! I think it’s the best yet! It looks great! And it’s so different!”

So will I go back to her despite the price and pain?

My answer is: I don’t think so.
Unless I’m up for some more S&M.