Day Four: Follow up Interview

I don't have a lot of time to write today, so I'm going to have to make this snappy. The main activity of yesterday was my follow up interview for Sak's Fifth Avenue off 5th. I was so jazzed about it ll day, I basically did nothing but get ready until I had to leave around one thirty. I ended up in a very 1930's secretarial look. Yeah, I DO mean Great Depression Era, but it still looked really good. It went pretty well in total, the woman seemed really impressed with all of my answers. I'm supposed to hear back from them in the next few days, but the look in her eyes said that I for sure WOULD be hearing back from them :DDD

Day Three: The Slight Exploration of Norman, Oklahoma

I'm starting to make this fantastic habit of waking up, making my bed, drinking orange juice, exercising, showering, and then blogging about the past day. I get all of the large things done by eleven and then I have more than enough day to do anything else I want/need to do. After completing my morning routine, and spending a good amount of time slacking online, I embarked on a journey to visit imagine- Paul Mitchell in Norman, Oklahoma. For some reason, everyone here thinks that ten-twenty miles of driving is really far, but it's really five-ten minutes to everything. So we'll call this a mini journey, a slight exploration.
When I first made my appointment to tour the school, I had told them Tuesday at Three P.M., but the day before I got an email from them saying that my appointment was at noon instead. Being me, I'd much rather be ridiculously early than ridiculously late, so I showed up at exactly 11:50. Of course, I was on the list for three o'clock, but they told me that if I waited for ten minutes that I'd be able to take my tour then (which means exactly at noon, isn't that funny?) I was greeted by a highly excitable blonde woman that was there to tell me ALL ABOUT HOW BAD ASS THEY ARE BECAUSE OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT! I will admit, the facility was gorgeous, there is no denying that, and everyone there really looked like they wanted to be there. I mean, they must REALLY want to be there if they're willing to fork out $15,000+ just to get licensed. Put now the question is pending: Am I really that willing to fork out $15,000+ just to get licensed? Does it really matter that much to be able to say some fancy name when people ask you where you went to school?
Fore-mentioned William Keohane brought up the point to me that regardless of where you go, it's not just about "beauty school", but the education afterwards that makes you into a great stylist. Nobody is going to be born straight into the beauty world an automatic badass, pulling off super awesome precision cuts and edgy shit out of nowhere. You, not matter what, have to have follow up education to fine tune your skills. So now it's a REAL question: Is the name worth $15,000+, or is it better to make your own name? I know which direction I'm leaning, but there is still a lot for me to contemplate.
After leaving the school with a head full of options, I decided to get my very first library card in a different state. The day before I had written down the names and addresses to libraries in my surrounding already, so I got out the trusty gps and typed in the one that was for Norman. I must pause and tell you, I really like Norman. They're this random cultural hub with art fairs and festivals and random go and do-s all the time. I will probably be posting about a lot more extensive adventures in this town. ANYWAYS, The library was only three minutes or so away, and is a straight shot to my house as well. SO I'm following the lefts and rights of the gps until I get to a certain right that should be my last stop, but it is one street before where I needed to turn. Normally, I'd be like, "Hey no biggie! I can just cut across some back road and get where I need to be". Here's the problem with that: I turned right onto a one way road STRAIGHT INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!! At first i was like, "what the fuck? This doesn't make any sense!" Until I remembered that I had just been on a one way road the other way. What's up with me thinking of parts instead of wholes?? THEN I was like "HOLY SHIT I'M DRIVING INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!!!!!!". As fast as I could, I swerved away from the car directly in front of me and pulled into a parking lot. I am STILL thanking God that the street wasn't as busy as the other one way street; there were only about three cars in view, and the road is pretty long. I'm also pretty thankful that there weren't any cops there to give me some huge ticket for being a dumb ass and not being able to follow really clear gps instructions.
Luckily, the library was basically right in front of me, so I quickly entered the parking lot and parked. Walking inside, it reminded me a lot of the library at home, just bigger. The blue signs hanging from the ceiling were a dead ringer for the ones in the Main Branch in St. Augustine. I walked up to the librarian and said, "Hey, I've lived here for about three days now, and I'm completely out of things to read. Could you possibly help a brother out?". She looked at me like I had just asked her to hold my cat as I skinned it, so I said, "I mean, I need a library card. If that's cool." She directed me to the blue application forms, which I promptly filled out, and then they got me set up. Since I have a Florida license and no proof of residency currently, they told me that they'd mail me my card, but I could check out two books that day. The coolest thing about this library is how freakishly high tech it is. You get two cards: One for your wallet, one for your key chain. You can also go online and log in with your card to see what books you have, how long you've had them, when you need to return them, request new books, and keep up to date on community events. How seriously cool is that? There are a couple other things that are lost in my current memory lapse, but I'm pretty sure you get the point. my first two books were: "Classic Feynman" which is the literary version of speeches give by the famed physicist (he worked on the atomic bomb, yo), and a book of post 9/11 political plays, which I checked out solely because I had never heard of anything like that before.
After returning home, I ate some food and chilled with my aunt, read for a while, and of course passed out on the couch. Upon waking, I decided to start applying for financial aid, which I promise you is something you never want to do ever. It lead to a really nice mini breakdown though, which Viktor managed to cure pretty quickly with this quote: You have within you all your true friends. The ones that really care about you. Let them give you the strength to move forward and never feel lost and without a destination. Your path in life is made every single day and at every single second. Don't think that you have to define yourself and know who you are to know what you want and where you're going. What you are and where you are going is shown to you at every single thought you have and at every new desire and with every new friend. You are what you experience everyday. and that's why you'll always have a chance to start again.

Day Two: The Job Hunt

Before I moved to Oklahoma, I had a part time job (with full time hours)at Calvin Klein. Though I only worked there for about two months, it was definitely a retail crash course. I learned how to do everything from POS to sincere customer service (not just saying hi, but actually being helpful). My trials and tribulations at Calvin Klein proven to be extremely beneficial on my second day in Oklahoma as I began what will now be call 'The Great Job Adventure' (TGJA for short). The beginning of TGJA began with our friendly neighborhood companion Craigslist.
Craigslist has always been my immediate go to in any of my job hunts, and I had started searching this website before I even started packing to move here. The only problem with Craigslist is that if you don't click on one section and just click on Part Time (which of course I'm not getting a full time job just yet), it is super generalized. In St. Augustine, this was never that much of a problem, but OKC is the 8th largest city in land mass! That's about eighty thousand more jobs than I need. I narrowed it down slowly by townships, and eventually found a job fair posting for a new Saks Fifth Avenue-Off 5th store that's opening right in the heart of downtown. All I had to do was get pretty, program the gps so that I could amble up there, and drive.
When I got to the job fair, which was at a Hampton Inn close to downtown, I had this strange calmness when I walked in. The only other person that was currently there to be interviewed was wearing a t-shirt, cut offs bedazzled flip flops, and about thirty ounces too much of fake gold jewelry. This is my competition? To give you a nice comparison, I was fresh faces, wearing only a little mascara and some lip stain, hair styled just like my dear friend and owner of Push Push salon, William Keohane, had taught me, a partially sheer long sleeved floral blouse, gray skinny pants cuffed and belted, and my absolute favorite wing tip heels that I just so happened to buy from Saks Fifth Avenue. I may not have bee business casual, but I was 100% dressed for success in this scenario. I Introduced myself, clearly naming my intentions, and they asked my to fill out an online personal survey since I was having a serious problem retrieving my resume from my flash drive (because Window's Office isn't standard to my cousin apparently).
The first section was a ten minute math portion that I'm pretty sure I failed. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved math and I used to be able to do intense long division in my head, but an out of practice mathematician is an out of practice mathematician. I finished about three fourths of the quiz, taking way too long to answer most questions. After that, it was a standard q and a about my past experience, and then a work ethic survey.
I come back into the room and give them my name and other info, and they asked me to take a seat and wait to be interviewed. I sat next to the chick with blingin' flip flops, and excitedly waited. As I'm sitting there, I notice a large brown spider slowly crawling towards me on the floor. Immediately, I decide that I must kill it. I MUST kill it, but not with my shoes because I really like my shoes and what will they think of me if I psychotically go after a spider and ohh there are tissues on the table over there I could get one of those stoop down and SMASH THE SHIT OUT OF IT but not psychotically just enough to kill it of course..... So I quickly and directly RUN across the room, grab a tissue, RUN back, and the spider is gone. I quietly, and accidentally may I add, say, "DAMN IT! I was going to kill that spider!", the spider that only I had seen. They look at me like I just bit the head off of a chicken, and I explain that there was in fact a large brown spider that I would be soon fighting to death as soon as it resurfaced. I then took my place, calm and collected, in my chair and continued to look for that FUCKING spider.
A moment later, the interviewer came to obtain the One Whose Shoes Shine Like the Sun, but she returned less than two minutes later without her in tow (big surprise, right?). It was MY turn to outshine the sun! We walked to a far off corner of the lobby, and she asked me all of the standard questions. For the first time ever, I felt 110% comfortable with every single answer. Usually I stumble over my words at least a little bit and have to pause to think, but this time I had the answer as soon as she had the question. Her face and body language showed that she was impressed with my background, drive, and confidence in myself. She kept her head up, arms open, and a smile intact at all times. At the end of the interview, she told me that she'd like to have me talk to one of the other officials there at the job fair for a second interview, and when she learned that the woman was on the phone, she set up an interview on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m.!! I thanked her, wished her luck on her journey for the rest of her crew, and left with the biggest smile!!
I got home without too much difficulty, and greeted my aunt with a grand, "Honey!! I'm HOME!" and told her all about how much I love my life right now. Then, I made us salads as she made seriously delicious homemade split pea soup that makes you want to slap your mother. More specifically MY mother because she has an unreasonable bias against split pea soup and had been holding out on my for WAY too long. The rest of my day consisted of watching the news and learning about Abraham Lincoln and his insane wife. Fun ending, right? I fell asleep at twelve thirty just like the good lil' old lady I am.

Oklahoma: Day One

You know that weird feeling you get the first night when you're in a different place when you wake up and you have no idea where you are or how to step out of the bed? Your eyes dart around the room for the first few seconds f half consciousness searching for all of the things you're so used to being near you on your first few seconds of consciousness: Closet door to the left next to bedroom door, huge bay window straight out front, comforting wall directly to your right that gets it's fair share of cuddling... But of course, none of it is there. In a moment of panic, you wildly smack your hands around searching for your glasses, searching for something that will help you give a name to this foreign place in front of you. After the initial haze of morning passes, you finally realize: This Is Not Where I Wake Up. This is Oklahoma.
The darkness of the room was the main thing that put so much confusion into my head. It was ten o'clock and my bedroom was pitch black. No, this is not like Alaska and they DO have regular daylight hours; my cousin has blinds, as well as thick black curtains, that void all potential light and indicators of life in "The Outside World". Opening these blinds proved to be a tedious, as well as blinding, task that I quickly abandoned. Light switches are far easier than undoing what an anti social Air Force man has spent years concealing. I threw on a few simple clothes and ventured into the house to experience my first Mid-Western morning.
The whole night before, I had had horrible dreams about the never ending bus ride that had brought me there, waking multiple time with violent joint pain that I still that morning had not overcome. My first order of business was to step outside and greet the world with sun salutations. After moving from sun salutations to legitimate yoga poses, I found that I would need to let my joints naturally unwind themselves as I couldn't even execute "high plank" (like a push up) without crying out in agony. I did a few more simple stretches and then allowed myself to lay out in the back yard for a bit for some all natural sun healing.
At around noon or so, my aunt woke up and we spent some quality around the house time together before embarking on the longest grocery shopping trip I have ever been on. The house was completely empty of food and other groceries, so we knew it would take us a good amount of time. Since I am new to the area and need my practice, I drove us to Oklahoma's equivalent to Publix: Homeland. I never would have realized that it was a grocery store if she hadn't told me honestly, as from the outside, especially with the title, you would assume that it is a home improvement store. This proved to be the most interesting part of the day as Oklahoma doesn't carry half of the things we do in Florida, so I had absolutely no idea what was a good brand and what was a knock-off brand. I don't think I've ever said, "I don't get it..." that many times in ANY store in my life. Produce, at least most of it, is a lot more expensive, their avocados were literally DUSTY, as were a lot of the more unique products. I'm pretty sure the thing that blew my mind the most was the IMPORTED orange juice. It was about six-seven dollars a carton if you weren't getting concentrated juice. I always thought that orange juice was pointlessly expensive IN Florida, but these people are being straight up ROBBED.
They've never had the pleasure of picking an orange straight off of the tree and eating it in the field. They've never even had the chance to take the beach for granted like everyone in Florida does. In this one day that I've been here, I already want to beat the crap out of my past self for not appreciating everything that I thought would always just BE there, because for most people? It's never even been there. They've never even considered it an option for it to just be there.
In the check out lane, I saw that the news paper here is called 'The Oklahoman'. I turned to the cashier and said, "So that's what you're called if you're from Oklahoma? Oklahoman? I'm sorry, I just moved here from Florida.. yesterday..." She looked at me like nobody had ever asked her that question before, and aptly answered, "I.. I have no idea. I've never even thought about it. I guess so, if that's what the news paper says, haha!". I told her that their orange juice is overpriced, smiled, and walked out.