Short Nail Salon Visit

This is going to be really short because I have nothing better to do haha.

So this morning, or yesterday morning since it's 12:24 AM now..., my mom woke me up suddenly saying that we had to go to her friend's nail salon store. I asked why we had to go and apparently, this other women needed some extra hands to practice on for some professional thing and my mom and I both were going to provide that extra practice. And even though I only had about 5 hours of sleep, I was excited because I had never gotten my nails done before at a salon.

While we were driving, my mom and I were talking about nail salons in general. You know how stereotype about how all nail salon businesses are owned by Vietnamese families? Like how all laundromats are basically owned my Koreans? Anyway we were so curious as to how that nail salon thing happened. This is a fairly 'new' stereotype because it is only recent that many Vietnamese families have been immigrating into the U.S. compared to Chinese and Koreans. According to my mom's past memories, the nail salon businesses were all owned by Koreans before the Vietnamese. When she visited New York when she was younger, there were Korean people everywhere working in the nail salons. But now they're all pretty much gone and have moved on to laundromats. Our conclusion, the Vietnamese stereotype appeared as they bought those businesses. And Koreans must have sold their businesses and decided to move on to laundromats because they like clothes more than nails. Just a funny thought.

When we got there it was just my me, my mom, my mom's friend, and the other Korean lady who was practicing her skills. My mom's friend showed us a new color that she got and it was a pretty dark grey color. It was gel nail polish too. And of course because my mom have similar tastes, we got the same nail color.

I was embarrassed to get my nails done because I had my pinky fingernail in yellow, and ring fingernail also in yellow with the smiliey face like in the movie 아저씨/Ahjushsi/Man from Nowhere because I recently watched it for the first time and thought it was amazing, so I copied it, and my thumb nail had two different shades of green from trying on different nail polish in Sephora. And the my mom's friend, the owner, the 'more professional' one did my nails (hahaha I was special). But she commented on my nail shape and said that they were neither rounded nor square. I was embarrassed because she's the professional one and she made it sound like the way I cut my nails are really ugly or something.... I thought they were pretty. But then she shaped them rounded square and they actually looked really good.

Yeah, I had this....

I even told my sister that she could write on my other hand 아저씨. I seriously loved this damn movie. Everyone MUST watch it.

Then she put on the base coat, the gel polish, and top coat so freaking fast. I was amazed. Why do I suck at putting on nail polish on myself :(

Anyway, I'm really happy with my nails now. I think they look really good and I LOVE the color. And it's even better because mine were for FREE.

And my mom's friend also does eyebrows... I'm considering it. I mean, I like the shape of my eyebrows because it's like that Korean styled, flat and full shape. But she says that she can make it better and prettier and the reason why I don't want to change them is because I haven't tried out different styles that may be better suited for my face.... hmmm....

Short Christmas

My previous post was a depressing one and I want to MOVE ON!

I'll just briefly talk about my Christmas.

December 23, My family decided to go to New York for a Christmas mini vacation for two nights. We stayed in the famous Waldorf Astoria hotel, which was really nice by the way, especially since we got two rooms and I didn't have to sleep sideways on a bed or on a couch. We met up with my cousins at the restaurant that they work at. Then we met up with my mom's friend's family and I got to meet their two sons who were really nice. We went Chealsea's Market, then to some nice bridge walkway thing, ate at a noisy Chinese restaurant, went to Rockefeller's Center (Christmas tree was UGLY!), and that was basically it. I was sick during the whole time, but it was good. Anyway, pretty good Christmas.

Waldorf Astoria main entrance

We ate at the famous Carnegie Deli Restaurant. There's a big picture of Obama eating one of their deli sandwiches in the front of the store. Honestly, I thought the place was nasty since I don't really eat a ton of meat. And the waiters and waitresses were SHITTY. thatsjustmyopinion...

Family picture!

I should've been at that ice rink...

Everything Is Connected

This is just a quick update of what's been going on and what future posts there will be....

Basically, there are a bunch of posts that I haven't done yet because it's finals week and I just don't have the time to write about it.

And of course I'm going t o write about.... HOW THIS WEEK SUCKED DRAGON BALLS.

I've just been having a really depressing week. I've been feeling lonely, sad, jealous, excited, and even angry. Yeah. Really, really angry. What's been making  me feel that way is a mixture of many, many things...

And the funny thing is that.... If I actually posted up the things I wanted to right after they happened, you can probably notice my depression and anger building up.

The things that happened this week just all... MADE SENSE.

Everything is connected to each other. The people I met, the things that happened to me, the things that I noticed, how I felt about certain things at those times... It just all came together this week and I'm just ready to blow up at someone and go on a crazy rampage and start throwing dishes at people.

I literally feel like this on the inside about EVERYTHING. I can't even focus on typing this stuff because it's reminding me of the shitty things and iuhsanwedsbfzjncuwinjk23rjwnekfnsdf.

*BREATHES*

OKAY. So it's the beginning of December. The Advent Season. The month when snow begins to fall, lights are decorating the streets, people have long vacations, gifts are being bought here and there. Trips are being planned among families and friends. Everyone is happy about the Christmas season or Hanukkah or whatever the hell people celebrate. The same month when people are jolly and fat pieces of shit that just sdfsdfsdfHGGFAGEF. *BREATHES AGAIN*

Why aren't I excited about the holidays? The beginnings of a new year? The only thing I'm excited is to get away from people... I need to be alone and strapped down in a white room for a month.

So yeah. After tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to be typing away with the blog posts right up until what happened this week. Hopefully it'll get more of my stress out, and you will enjoy reading how stupid people are and how stupid I am...

Stay angry this season guys.

(you know I'm kidding, right? ho...ho... hoe.)

Palty Hair Dye: Jewelry Ash Review

The first thing I do when I get back from for the wonderful Thanksgiving break: DYE MY HAIR.

Jewelry Ash

I ordered two boxes of the famous Daryiya Palty hair dye in Jewelry Ash. For those that don't know, Daryiya is a Japanese brand that is most well known for their Palty hair dye collection since they have a really nice range of different hair colors.

Some boxes, I believe these are a new line of colors since the application style is different

These are just SOME of their available colors! SO PRETTY

Anyway. I was attracted to use this brand for a few reasons.

FIRST! I wanted to dye my hair a darker and a slight purple undertone. I hate orange hair now.

Second, I've heard of this brand for so long, I just had to try it. And the jewelry ash color is so freakin' pretty

Thrid, I read a lot of shitty reviews and I want to make one that actually has truth in it MUAHAHA thasright

So I got home and opened up my package right away!

You can compare the lighting quality with the picture of the jewelry ash above lol

Okay, first of all, the colors don't even match the color on the model on the front of the box. And from the looks of it, it just seems like it makes your hair lighter than what it is now. I mean, why would you get some funny color if you had blonde hair? Usually if you have blonde hair, the color is even MORE like the color on the box.... So that's my first sketch feeling about this.

The things inside the box :) I love how it's all pinkk

Instructions all in Japanese... I had to look online to find an English translation haha.
But it looks cute!

There's a cut out on the back of the box to put in the bottle so you can mix the chemicals easier or something...
People must have been really stupid to have to make this little invention... lol
you can see the twix I ate

SO! Let me show you what my hair looked like before I started to dye it! And yes, I know my hair is pretty damaged. I had a digital perm a while back and it's still growing out and I refuse to chop it off all at once because I like my hair long. I've been trimming it bit by bit, so it's really not that bad compared to when I first got it. Honestly, I like my hair. #leavemealone

My hair is orange-brown as I explained here.

Hair up really close. You can kinda see in the upper right side that it's really light.. I have this like random streak of blond hair because of the effects of being the sunlight haha

*no changing in lighting and I just used my old sony digital camera*

*next few pictures are taken with my shitty 4Gen ipod touch just to show different lighting*

Looks SUPER orange!

BYE BYE ORANGE HAIR!!! 

Just to let you guys know, I'm not one of those people who don't wash their hair for like two or more days before dying it. I honestly don't care about that shit. I take showers every night, so before I would normally take a shower, that's the time I would dye my hair. So yeah, the last time I washed my hair before dying it was the night before.

I had to find a trash bag so that the formula wouldn't get on my awesome shirt.

Anyway, I put the good stuff on my roots first since the gross dark brown was growing in. I left it in for about 5 minutes. Normally I would leave it in about 5 more minutes, but because this brand apparently has a bit of bleach in it, it doesn't take long for the coloring to work.

Oh and one thing I noticed immediately was that IT DOES NOT SMELL. Okay, it was a VERY VERY VERY VERY FAINT smell, but seriously, if you compare it to other hair dye products, this is AMAZING!

Another thing is that one box was perfectly enough for me. A lot of people said that they would recommend two boxes... But I mean, I have long, but kind of thin, hair and it was enough. I don't know, up to you. If you have thick and long hair, then yeah, you should have two just in case.

It took me about another 10 minutes to evenly put in it in the rest of my hair. By then I could already see a bit of a color change in my roots!

The instructions said to leave it in for 20 minutes after and then wash it out. To be honest, I never follow the times in the instructions because I just follow by how my hair looks. Asian hair is usually thicker and if you have dyed hair like me, it just changes everything. My advice, go by your own instincts on how long or short you should leave the dye in... Don't leave it in too long cuz your hair will be all fucked up and then you'll blame people like me :)

I wiped some of the stuff off and you can kind of see the grey/light purple colors of the hair dye. excittinggg

So yeah, after 20 minutes, my hair looked strangely... Not jewelry ash or purple. In fact it didn't really look dark at all, which was what I was going for. Even my roots seemed... light.

I washed everything out and blow dried my hair to see the results!

And GUESS WHAT?!?!





It just made my hair a few shades darker.... -______-

FUCK.

Here are some before&after pictures to show you the amazing difference...

*nostrils flaring* OH MY GOD. REALLY? I should've expected this since the past reviews I've read and seen didn't seem to favor Palty too, too much.

BUT! Here are the pros to using this:
1. My roots are all gone!
2. My hair actually dyed really evenly. That random streak of blonde is pretty much gone and is the same color as the rest of my hair.
3. The product doesn't smell bad at all compared to every other hair dye out there!
4. Damage-wise, my hair is in the same exact condition as it was before. So healthy on the top and gross on the bottom because of my stupid perm.
5. The orange tints are all gone - so I guess it does has that "ashy" undertone to it even though it's basically a brown shade instead of purple/red.

cons:
1. No where near the color I've been wanting. I know that this has worked for some people, it does seem that it doesn't for most people, including me... And I've been dying my hair for so long - I know what I'm doing. But this is my conclusion to why this jewelry ash color failed me... This product apparently has bleach as I mentioned before. Therefore, it will only make you hair lighter and lighter and the effects of actually making it a purple color like the one showed on the box is not as strong as the bleach. Which is why the box shows that if you have blond hair, the end result isn't a more vibrant jewelry ash color, but a weird ashy brown color. My hair is an orange... So yeah. And I feel like I should've shortened the time... Maybe it wouldn't have been as light as it is now so that the bleach didn't keep on doing its thing.

Will I use Palty's Jewelry Ash again?

Probably not. But my final conclusion about this color is: DON'T USE IT UNLESS YOU START OUT WITH DARK HAIR. If you have hair color that's like mine or lighter, you probably won't get that ashy purple color that is so pretty :'(

BUT I will like to try out other colors by Palty! I feel like if I tried a might brighter color, it would've come out really nice. But I'm not the type of asian that will dye their hair blonde... Actually, maybe it might happen... I only have one life and I want to try it out before I need to get interviewed for some amazing job or something lol




SO OVERALL!!!!!!!.........



it's aiight


HAHAHA That's my review! I hope you found it much more helpful than the other shitty ones I've seen! 

Did you really have to tell me that?

Ok, so this is a continuation of the previous blog post I had about how I feel really lonely. The reason why I’m continuing this depressing post is because MORE things added on to my issue, as life usually does.

So remember how I mentioned how I have this girl friend that was making me feel all depressed? The one that thought I was stupid in picking guys and the same one that wants to be super popular and slyly use me to get more friends? WELL GUESS WHAT?!?! That same girl is contributing even more to my loneliness and doubtfulness of who my real friends are or not.

This past weekend I had an AMAZING TIME – which I will post about with nice pictures probably right after this one. I had planned to leave and I told all of my friends that I was leaving to see my family and to see my middle/high school friend of 6+ years to party at Harvard or MIT. I told them this because I wanted them to know that I was going home because of pre-plans and not because I didn’t want to hang out with them or anything. In fact, a part of me really wanted to stay that weekend because my friends were hanging out together for the first time in a while and partying together.

And I happened to tell that girl my plans for the weekend. So she knew the basic, overall details of my weekend plans.

That same weekend also happened to be the same weekend when my friend was going to bring her hometown friends over to our school to celebrate one of her friend’s 21^st birthday. And my friend was invited me, our group, and a few other of her close friends. But obviously I couldn’t go because of my pre-plans. I even felt terrible for not being able to hand out with my friends – AGAIN – so I took the last bottle of rice wine that I was saving for all of us to drink together and wrote a long note and taped them together to let them know much I actually DO care about them and how I really wish that I could stay. I gave them the bottle to kinda make it seem as if I was drinking with them since rice wine is my favorite drink – and they know that too. So it was all good!

At least that was what I thought….

Basically this is what happened when I got back from my amazing Veteran’s Day weekend, which I will again talk about soon. So the Monday after I got back, I was so busy with work that I had to do that I wasn’t able to eat with my friends for dinner. So I go into the dining commons to eat quickly by myself, but I saw my Korean friend A, and that girl that I’m talking about in this post let’s call her B. They were eating together and of course I joined in like a normal person. A had to leave because she had to go to the gym – I should’ve joined since I’m getting fat and lazy haha.

So it was just me and B together. And she was saying those typical lines to me again. The “Oh, this weekend felt SO EMPTY without you”, “I missed you soo much home-girl”, and “Oh my god, I want to know EVERYTHING about your weekend!”. Personally I didn’t want to tell her EVERYTHING that happened during my weekend since there were things that I really wanted to just keep to myself. Seriously, she has to be in EVERY aspect of my life. So I told her the bare minimal… And again, the stupid things like, “Oh I hope you were careful with the MIT boys” blah blah blah shit since she thinks I’m super stupid with boys.

Then in turn, I asked her how her weekend was. And BOOM she went crazy and started to laugh and went straight into telling me her weekend.

This is the story that really pissed me off / mad / sad / depressed / confused / jealous too…

On Thursday night, which was the night that my friend threw that 21^st birthday for her friend, B went too because she was invited. Okay, I don’t really care about the invitation because what probably happened was that she bumped into my friend and since she is trying so hard to meet all of my friends and kind of sucks up to them, my friend invited her. Okay, maybe it does get on my nerves. Anyway, B did end up going and she partied with them.

She met and got to know ALL of my close friends. ALL OF THEM. And B told me that she had a ton of fun playing beer pong with them and drinking and hanging out with them. So she met all of them. Had a lot of fun with them. Really, REALLY liked them.

She also got the number of one of the guys (at least I think she only got one…. For all I know she probably has all of their numbers already). Anyway that one guy happens to be the same guy that I was talking about in my previous post I HATE BEING LAST TO KNOW. The same guy that liked me for so long. And I HAVE told her about that too and her reply to all of that was something like, “oh he sounds like a weird guy” sort of thing. But now that she actually met him her reply was, “OH MY GOD STEPH THAT’S THE SAME GUY AS BEFORE! HAHAHA I think he’s soooooooo freakin’ cute. I don’t know, I just fall for guys like him. Ahhh I got his number and everything, but Steph I can so tell how he’s not your type. Yeah help me get to know him and stuff!”.

As a friend I said okay. WhyamIsonicewtf

Then she continued. “Yeah Steph, He’s so interesting. I actually went smoking with him and ___” (my other friend of mine). And this is what kind of got me mad about this. First off, I’m not too sure what kind of smoking it is, but it was probably cigarettes. This got me a little mad because my friends and I have been trying to make ___ not smoke cigarettes, and I have a feeling that she wanted to smoke and kinda got him tempted to smoke too. Second, this girl has a thing about smoking. She always tells me how she doesn’t want to smoke, blah blah. And then the next thing I know, she starts smoking for the first time this semester and smokes every time she drinks too. Honestly, I really do believe she started smoking, not to relieve stress, but to fit in with the cool, party crazy kids.

And last but not least, this is what got me really thinking about everything I’ve been depressed about. She continued talking and finally said this…

“Steph, I hope you’re not getting the idea that I’m like… intruding or hanging out with your friends all the time. Like, when I was there I was thinking things like, ‘ooohhh so these are Steph’s close friends, no wonder why she wants to hang out with them all the time’. I really like them, but I was thinking how I was hanging out with them without you being there because you know, I was hanging out with them and you weren’t there hahahhaa. But yeah, I love how you and S have your own group of friends that’s like totally separate. I want one too haha.”

Okay. Okay? Okay. At first I thought, okay this is typical. But then it just hit me and I started to feel sad all of a sudden. Why did she have to tell me that? It made me feel like she WANTED to hang out with them really bad, with or without me being there, because she couldn’t stop talking about them. And what was with the having your own separate group of friends shit? Yeah I have my own, but STOP INTRUDING. I don’t give a shit if you want to have your own, but do you have to come into mine?

Okay, okay I sound like a total bitch right now. I sound exclusive and all, but when I say that she is literally wanting to be in EVERY aspect of my life and doesn’t want to me to be in any of her personal “groups” of friends, I mean it and it DOES BOTHER ME.

It made me feel like she was using me to get to know more people. And since my friends happen to party pretty well, she wants to be with them every time we throw something – and funny how there is another story about that that happened this past weekend…  And guess what, even though our friend S also has her own group, I don’t think B hangs out with them because they’re not “cool” party kids. She just has all of their numbers and texts them like a crazy cat lady.

I just know it. She just wants to be fucking popular as shit. I mean, it just makes sense of all of the things she’s said to me and how she acts. I just don’t like it. It’s making me feel like I have no group anymore to go to, especially with the fact that my friends are accepting her!

It just all hurts to think all of this. I really don’t want to be a bitch by being like “NO THEY’RE MY FRIENDS” type of childish shit. Just… Why… Why do people just want to know everything? Be friends with everyone? Take away something that is special to you? In my case, the group of friends that I have are the special to me in my college life. Why does she just HAVE to be a part of that too and take that specialness away?

Really Quick Rant on my Hair

I just want to share what I've been thinking about lately...

I WANT TO DYE MY HAIR.

Ok, not even. I NEED to dye my hair.

I'm JUST SICK OF IT ALREADY. that's not a good thing..

My roots are growing... They're already a bit more than an inch and, ugh, it looks narsty. Especially since my natrual hair color is really dark brown and my dyed hair looks orange-brown.

And I put my hair up a lot, so when you look at me, you can see them.

Usually I clip my bangs back like that so you see my hair gradually change color lol
Btw. That's my sister, Sarah with me :)

It's been bothering me so much that I can't freaking focus on studying for my two exams that I have coming up. dontknowwhattodowhatthefreak

So I dyed my hair back in the beginning of September. I used the brand that I usually use, 꽃을든 남자 - don't know how to translate that... Man of flowers? I don't know haha.

And since it was kind of summer, I really wanted brighter, orange-er hair. So instead of usually dying it cappuccino brown (CN7), I used something else. I can't remember if it was N6 or N8. And I should've taken a picture, but too lazy. 

That was really stupid, because that's a summer color and before I knew it, it was fall already. And fall clothing always looks better with darker hair. NOW I WANT DARK HAIR!

BUT I AM CONFLICTED! I want to dye my hair, but my bottom half of my hair is still damaged due to that shitty digital perm I got earlier this year. Effin' regret it. You can read about that here and see why I am against perms. Seriously... Just learn how to blow dry your hair well and use a curling iron. That's all you need. I'm serious.

The new color that is attracting me is a darker color. Last year I had wine-red/purple hair that only lasted a month before the color faded to brown (fml) and you can actually read how I wanted orange hair... 

I WANT SOMETHING LIKE THESE:

Palty's Mauve

Palty's Jewelry Ash 

Okay, so it's not that dark. But you get what I mean... I'm loving that purple tone in hair and I really want to try out the Japanese brand Palty that every girl probably knows about. I can already imagine my hair that color and ahhh I would look so much better in my fall and winter clothes. Seriously, if I could get that jewelry ash color... It looks so damn beautiful.

I am scared that my hair will die because of the chemicals... And since I've never used this before, I have no personal experience on how well the color comes out and how LONG it lasts. That's why I hate american brands- on asian hair at least - because the color fades so fast. I'm also scared of bleaching. I WILL NOT BLEACH.

I found this picture on google that shows the results of using the jewelry ash or mauve color.
Seems somewhat promising of getting that purple/gray color that I want.

I just want to dye it soon.... Thanksgiving break is coming soon, so maybe then. Shit that means I have to order it right now. 

That's it.

My hair is too orange. I mean... look at like blonde streak too! 

I'm going to do it.

Going to order it right now.

End of blog. - PEACE

Hopefully I'll have a new post about dyed hair soon!