Shikakai in my eye - not fun!

It's been a year and more since I went off shampoo.
Right now, my haircare routine is simple. Scalp massages as often as I feel like it - YAY short hair! - and combing as often as I feel like it. Shikakai in place of shampoo.

When I first used shikakai, I used a paste of shikakai powder and water, left it on for an hour, and then washed it off.
My hair came out dry, but i noticed that shikakai kept dandruff off my scalp longer than any goddamn shampoo did.

With liberal doses of impatience, the time spent with the shikakai paste on my scalp continued to decrease. I noticed, to my pleasant surprise, that the only side effect of washing off the paste quickly was that my hair felt nice and silky instead of stripped down. Note here that my hair used to be so silky that ponytails were out of the question - rubber bands would slip off. Right now, we're returning to that texture slowly but surely.

My latest experiment with shikakai consists of boiling the powder in water or soaking it overnight, then decanting the liquid and using it as shampoo. I am again pleasantly surprised to note that the liquid alone works equally well at eliminating dirt, while doing nothing to damage my hair as shampoo used to. Without the abrasive action of the powder, I do have to scrub my scalp a bit harder, but it sure is worth it!

My recommendation for shikakai use, therefore, stands as follows -
1. Soak shikakai in water to make an opaque but thin mixture
2. Let it sit overnight, decant.
3. Use the liquid a a shampoo
4. Use the solid as a face/body/foot scrub - it works MUCH better than soap, and I don't even need moisturizer after it.

I <3 this fruit, this shikakai.

Something begins to change, when you realize that the hole in your heart isn't everything you have anymore.

You begin to grow. You get bored of dwelling on the loss, and you tell yourself - sternly, repeatedly - that brooding is a no-win thing.

One day, you realize you can talk about most things that happened.

One day, you realize that even though you can talk about those things, you have been talking about them for years without being able to forget, forgive or accept.

Then you know why you chose your life's goal.

How short hair is WEIRD

1. It's in my face ALL the time! No more bundling into a clutch or braid and putting it out of the way
2. There's hair around my ears! :gasp: And I - Miss "Hair OUT of the Way!" - allowed it instead of pinning it severely back! :gaspandchoke:
3. The comb abruptly goes into nowhere halfway through a stroke
4. There's no damp hair clinging to my neck when I shower
5. Towelling dry, no turbans involved. Oh boy. 
6. Being able to wet my hair, whenever. Liberation!
   

Ok, last haircut post, I promise!

Well, how could I NOT put up these gorgeous snaps Solo took?

No, I don't look this good in real life. I swear.

I don't look like this either. Is it just me or do I look - what? - 10 years old here??

Now THIS? Absolutely spot-on accurate! :D

All we need is one of me licking my nose.

The after!

Okay, so this is how I looked - and felt - just before leaving for the haircut.

After some twenty minutes of the hairdresser tut-tutting about "the shampoo isn't right", "your hair is oily", "you have dandruff because you don't shampoo right and that's why your hair is falling out"... and then subsequently mellowing down a bit in the face of my innocently batted eyelashes, there was this.

Better pics to be edited into this post soon.

This is the first time I've had short hair since... 2001. I feel liberated :-).

EDIT: Will someone tell me how to get images to be opaque? Like... opaque and NOT translucent? ARGH!

One of my most coveted assets

used to be my hair. It has been shorter than shoulder-length only once since I was eight years old, typically falling somewhere around mid-back.

Through the years, I watched it fall out, bit by bit. It went from "wow, that's so THICK!" to "nice hair" to "looks good today".

I gave up on it about five years ago. The blue turtleneck pic was taken a year after that, ie in 2005.
It's a bit hard to believe I actually had those eyes. Or that chubby face. Oh well - I'm happier now :).

For the past three years, I've been thinking of shaving my head. I'd always think of doing it before the monsoon and its humidity hit, but the hair I enjoyed after winter was just too good to let go of.

Here's a specimen from exactly three springs ago (well, it's late March, but that is spring/summer in India). My best friend was playing around with my - very straight - hair, and this is what we ended up with.

Then, last year, I discovered no 'poo. I gave up shampoo last September, and used anything shampoo-like for the last time in November.
My hair has been much better, as long as I clean it regularly. At least it looks healthy and doesn't fall out as much.

Today, I've finally decided to chop it off and get something... short. Maybe I will shave my head when monsoon hits - let's see.
I don't know what to say. I've always gone to parlors and said "Trim. Straight. Remove the split ends, but that's all". At best, "U-cut".

We'll see what happens this afternoon.

Would you believe it? I'm actually misty-eyed and shaking slightly!

For the record, this is what my hair looks like now - right now, today. Yes, and that's the expression on my face when I think of cutting it off.

Oh, and the pic below?
That's my mom.
Apparently she cut her hair off during Masters too.

Fountainhead

The word has always made me think of a penis. There, I said it.

Right now, I'm reading Rand exactly as I read pornography - to satisfy the imaginary desires that are untenable to the point of obscenity in real life.

I should post again, very soon. Just so that this doesn't show up for too long as my most recent post. 

Application woes

Dear X University Abroad,

I had sent you an email asking for some very specific information, and supplying everything except my (Indian) telephone number, marital status and income level to help you answer the same.

When I got an automated reply the next day, I was mildly surprised. Few universities seem to bother with the automation.
But, TEN DAYS later, I got another automated reply, asking for information I had already sent. And conveying "kind regards."

That has pissed me off. You can say goodbye to at least one full fee-paying student for the session of 2010!

PS: I had sent the same mail to other universities. Who are ranked higher than you. If THEY managed to answer in three days, what the hell is keeping you?

With extremely kind regards,
 -

There I go... turn the page

It's official. My days of being a carefree student are over.

By now, everyone in uni knows that I decided not to do an MA. Different people have heard different facets of the story from me depending on who they are, how they approached me and what my mood was like at the time. There is no "the whole truth" of the story that I know myself, so why would I make up a nice complete framed and outlined story?

What am I doing now?
Working from home. Not like I'm making much just yet, but I can support myself. We'll see where I end up. Rather, somebody will. Goodness knows who.

Working from home means that I need to set up my room as an office. As a result, my room saw the first of a series of transformations this afternoon.

Old setup:

• Huge wooden writing desk, complete with three drawers on the right hand side. 
• Computer crammed onto the desk. 
• Me, on a wooden chair with armrests, built for my grandfather who was seven inches taller and twenty five kilos heavier than I am. 
• If I sat straight, my monitor would be at neck level. So I slouched - head on neck rest, feet up on desk, curled into something like an ab crunch but with my body sagging completely. Now you know why I have back problems - I'm just lucky they're mild.
• Keyboard on the desk, my elbows on armrests - a five-inch level difference between the two. This explains why my knuckles started aching like crazy a week after writing 2000 words a day(only!).
• Any reading or writing that involved paper would be done sprawled out on my bed. While scribbling for two hours last night, I realized that this could not go on.
  

Current setup:

•  I am sitting on a wooden stool, just the right height for me to sit up straight, rest my feet comfortably on the ground, and see my monitor with my back upright and my eyes nearly level. 
• My computer is still on the huge wooden writing desk.
• My two pillows are on my lap, so my keyboard is at elbow level. The mouse is still on the desk - I stretch my arm out to use it, or pull it onto my lap if I'm reading instead of writing.
  
• My butt will start aching in a few hours from the unforgiving wooden seat. 
• A long, wheeled table that came with a grandfather chair as a writing apparatus. The accompanying chair is in the living room... things are kept on it. I could sit in it cross-legged, but that is NOT my preferred posture for reading or writing. Well... it hasn't been since I was in middle school.
  

Setup that is being planned:

• A computer table, people! A computer table! Ok, wait. I also need a reading/writing table. Any ideas? I'm open to a L-shaped desk too.
  
• A laptop and a USB keyboard rather than this six-year old antique which still runs surprisingly well. 
• Less family heirlooms(from harmoniums to warm clothes to sarees to dressing tables to knick-knacks) and more things that I actually need. Why don't people do junk sales in India? I'd made a fuckin' fortune!
• A comfortable chair, an exercise ball, or both. I'll need it to be between 15 and 17 inches high. Yes, I'm short. Don't remind me. 

Whoah boy, i have work and purchases ahead of me!