The month of July has gone by in a flash with the ending of a visit with family in Oregon, work, an opportune job interview, my birthday, a weekend trip to Solvang, studying my French, and a Cottrell family get together just yesterday (they tend to be as draining as they are fun), I have had a lot to do. Je suis tres occupe. The old cliche 'time flies when you're having fun' comes to mind, and right now that feels bittersweet.
     I am 24, which feels pretty much the same as 23 (it just sounds older). I still get carded when I order a drink, I still wonder what I am going to do when I grow up, and I am still battling with acne (what the eff?!?!) It's the year of the Dragon, which happens to be my birth year (woot woot), and so far there's been no real turbulence... I was invited by United Airlines to fly to Houston, TX (the flight was paid for) to interview for a flight attendant position, and, though I did not get the job, the experience was enriching. Matt and I have been together for a really long time, and I realize that I have had very few independent adult experiences. That is what the interview really was for me. I really enjoyed my day of travel, people watching, and the chance to meet and speak with interesting strangers. Not getting the job is a little bit of a bummer, but I think that it was important for me to go for it.
     I really appreciate my current job right now actually. The summer has been slower than the usual, and I have been trying to absorb every peaceful moment knowing that the Fall semester is approaching. I have been working on my coffee art and getting to know some of our summer regulars. I see a lot of my old college professors, and it makes me want to go back to school (though I know it wouldn't be a walk in the park). It has been almost a month since I last blogged, but I have been writing a lot and picking up my French studies again. I have no idea where I am going, but I don't feel like that is such a bad thing. I hope everyday older is a day wiser.. and stronger. Ultimately, life is good even though it is one confusing and challenging adventure.

The Gamine Girl

     When I was at Pierce College, which now feels like it was part of a completely different world, I took a cinema class. It was in this class that I watched the film Bonjour Tristesse and first knowingly laid eyes on a gamine girl- Jean Seberg.
     


     To some, gamine is synonymous with a skinny chick sporting a pixie cut (typing gamine into a search engine will bring up many images of that sort)  However, the term 'gamine' has come to mean a lot more than short hair to me. 

The two reactions that I got when I went pixie were LOVE and HATE. 
The funny thing is that to me it was just hair,
hair grows back, and oh yeah, it's mine not yours anyway :) 

     Growing up, I was never a girly-girl. I actually considered myself a tomboy, but looking back I don't think I would use that term to describe myself as a child. After all, I liked playing with Barbies, dressing up with my friends, and playing house (all that good old stereotypical girl stuff). I also liked climbing trees, playing sports, and getting dirty which may be the reason I improperly classified myself as a tomboy. Also I wasn't as girly as my sister. 

Just a cool picture from the last camping
trip I was on that I felt like sharing. 

   When I would get dressed on the weekends (or any day that I was not in my Catholic school uniform), it wasn't so much about looks as it was about comfort to me. My girly-girl sister would comment on my inability to dress myself, and I would go back and try again. I never seemed to put on anything she would deem worthy of a public outing. My outfit choices probably weren't that great (maybe they were God awful. I can't remember. I've put a veil over those moments- probably because I felt deeply embarrassed and horribly un-girly) I have always envied my sister in her effortless ability to dress, act, and look feminine without showing any signs of discomfort. She's been able to wear high heels with ease since her eighth grade graduation, keeps up with her manis and pedis, stays away from all things dirty, and her hair is always done.
     Hair... maybe that's ultimately where my difficulty has always been. My hair used to be long.. and annoying. When I had it down it didn't make me feel pretty. I never knew what the heck to do with it. One irritating swish too many and it was back up in a ponytail (and guys never seem to realize that a ponytail over the course of a couple hours = headache. Take it down to relieve your headache = ugly bump). In high school, I decided to try bangs. I thought maybe that was the solution since so many of my female classmates with bangs looked effortlessly adorable... Well that was a mistake, and for some reason growing out a pixie cut seems a lot less painful than growing out those bangs.
     Before I went for it, I told my ______ (insert female family member) my plan and she voiced a few of her concerns that, not going to lie, were pretty irritating:
1.) There's a possibility it will look dykey 
2.) You won't be able to hide your acne
3.) It could make you look fat 
4.) You won't know how to style it. 
     I still don't know how I went through with it after hearing that stuff. I actually called my hair dresser and told her I did not want to be talked out of it. When I came in with pictures of Jean Seberg and Natalie Portman, she seemed slightly concerned, but after years of resenting my hair for continually failing me (or me failing it), I was not going to be talked out of the chop. To my relief she did not try to dissuade me from my decision, and I left the salon with a bad ass pixie cut and a smile that lasted all day. I have had absolutely No Regrets for that decision.

   After I cut my hair off, I felt more girly then I ever had with long bleach blonde hair. It was easier to style, and it didn't get in the way. But even though I felt like it was the best decision I could ever make hairwise, everyone and their mother let me know how they felt about it and a lot of that was negative (a lot of the comments I received weren't exactly nice-even though some were nicely stated insults and then some were genuine compliments which I really appreciated). I felt like people with long hair were in this weird long-hair-lovers cult and that chopping my hair off was breaking their most sacred hair law. Everyone wanted to know why I did it. My answers never seemed to be satisfactory. The truth is I have been in the process of growing out my hair for over half a year now, and I have come to realize that the longer it gets the less I seem to like it (I mean I want to like it, because I kind of thought it would be cool to donate it to Locks of Love). 
     This hair experience has really helped me come to realize what gamine means to me. It has become one of my favorite words, and what do you know, it's French. Pixie cut only scratches the surface. It's simple elegance, it's about feeling comfortable in my skin, it's about the essence of femininity rather than the image of it, and it is my choice (one that I felt drawn to despite the contrary opinions of others). My self-confidence is at it's peak when my hair is at its shortest, when I am the Gamine Girl.