Dear Young Me: Your hair is on Fleek!

Whilst cleaning my room and going through my cupboards , I came across an IPOD. This IPOD was something I treasured when I was younger, I carried it everywhere and it  held the highest score on Temple Run.
I took so many photos on it. It had photos of my dogs as puppies (ADORABLE, they grow up to fast!) ,  photos of my Thai student during her stay in Australia, and an abundance amount of selfies.

I cringed so hard at these selfies.
I had so many pimples, a ring through my nose  (we all go through that phase), and ridiculous  braided hair.

and than it struck a memory...

So I wrote a post about it.

Just warning you, the photos throughout this post was taken years ago during my ninth year in high school. I had no self-awareness of what was bad or what was good,  all I had was confidence and ambition.
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When I was around 14-15 years old (8-9th grade) ,  I had a dream of becoming  a professional braider.  I went through a phrase where I made it my mission to learn how to do incredible, stunning, and tedious hairstyles. I had aspirations of one day braiding the hair of  famous celebrities for the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the  Grammys.

A fishtail braid.
This is my favourite! The creativity! Gosh, I am an artist!

 
How did it start?
As a young girl, the only way I could stay up past my bedtime was to sit down and braid my Mum's hair.
My Mum discovered that  if I played with her hair  she could easily de-stress from busy days parenting five children.
I would always do it because I wanted brag to my brothers that I got to stay up later then them.

When I first learnt how to braid I was ready to give up. I didn't know how to do the stitches and I became furious with myself.  I threw hissy fits and wanted to give up when I couldn't get the strands of hair to do what I wanted them to do . My mum would repeatedly  say 'divide it into three strands and go over than under, than over, and under' but I could never get it.
but I wanted to stay up and watch crime shows like Law and Order SVU and Bones, so I did not give up.
My first attempts with braiding was horrendous and poor, I thought that braiding possibly wasn't for me.
But when a child learns to walk and falls down 50 times, he never think 'Maybe this isn't for me?' NO,  he keeps standing up and trying until he can run.
And that is what I did.

A side French braid or a "Katniss Braid"

And then it just escalated... 
After years of braiding my Mum's hair, I wanted to show my knowledge on my own hair so I could wear my hairstyles proudly at school and around my town.

I made it my mission to learn how to do really amazing (and at times ridiculous) hairstyles on my own hair so I could proudly  demonstrate my knowledge to those around me.

To assist me on my mission  I watched the  YouTube channel Cute Girl Hairstyles, subscripted to their website, and  downloaded their app. I  made my own Instagram account dedicated to displaying the hairstyles I was learning. 'Jazz_does_hair' (I received up to 100 follows but I later deleted the account)         

Lace braided headband made out of  a Dutch and French plats

I dedicated myself.
I challenged myself to braid my hair every single day so that I would learn and get used to navigating my fingers to create art with my hair.
On a school day I would wake up at 6AM ( which is an achievement because now  I wake up at 6:30 and sometimes I hit my snooze button for 7:00  for a 7:30 bus) and braid my hair for an hour before having my breakfast and getting ready for school.
I will admit that some days I did get  a bit lazy and spend that hour in bed and wore my hair in a quick bow bun or classic braid, but on those days I did not get mad with myself. I did not tell myself that I should give up  or that I should be more dedicated. I was kind with myself and I just kept learning.

An attempt with a ribbon fishtail braid.

Then it became a passion
I started to love braiding, I mean I started to really, really, really love to braid. I was obsessed and it became a passion. I started to follow more hairstyle themed accounts on Instagram  (some I still follow, I love seeing their talent!) and I remember keeping a notebook (which I can not find!! :[ ) where I wrote step-by-step instructions to complicated hairstyles so I could  study and  remind myself.  

A braid integrated into a bun with a bow I made.

I started to experiment.
After a while I knew how to do all these cool braids that I saw on TV and on my Instagram feed, so I started to experiment with other types of braids.
I would sit down with my Mum's hair, or I could braid my own hair and see what I could do with my own imagination
I started to create my own hairstyles and braids.
My favourite was a braid I called "the Jazz Braid" (Named after me, of course! ) . It took 15-20 minutes (although it will take longer for somebody learning) and it was like a pancaked crown braid except it a combination of various other braids, such as fishtail, twists, four strand, and feather braids braided into the crown. It was beautiful and I wish I had a photo of it!

One of my "experiments". Four fishtails braided across the back of my head.

I was on a mission. 
I was the ambitious person who watched the Grammys for the hairstyles. 
I would study the celebrities hair and try my best to recreate them. That is how I learnt how to do waterfall braids and fishtail braids.
 It got to a point where I would be watching TV with my mother , and I would ruin intense moments when the audio was heightened and the faces were dramatic as  the killers were finally revealed after a long investigation, by proudly informing what type of braid the investigator was wearing.

After a while I developed a goal of one day standing behind Jennifer Lawrence, or Katy Perry, or Jennifer Aniston  and styling their hair. I wanted my braiding to find a place  on the  Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the  Grammys. 
And when I am on a mission I don't give up  easily!

Lightly crimped hair. I love crimped hair.

Because of my year practising braiding and researching different braids, by the end of the year I could do all different types of hairstyles; from reverse fishtails braids, ladders,  four strand braids, onion braids, an upside down braid with a bow bun (a high school favourite) ,  halos,  crowns (my little cousins favourite), zigzag braids, milkmaid, letter braids (That's right! I could braid an 'B', 'C', 'O', 'U' 'L' or an 'S' into your hair!) , and I can just look at a hairstyle and know how I would do it.
I know the difference between a 'braid' and a 'plat', and  'French braid' and a 'Dutch braid', and how to style my hair without a hair tie. (when worse comes to worse I stuck some pencils in it!! )

This took one hour, it looks like fishtail braids but it isn't.

Fast forward to the year 2016 .

Braiding comes to me like it is second nature. Braiding is not a skill that I have forgotten and a skill I hope to never forget. My braiding knowledge came in handy to get out of classes when I was in high school.

Although I do not want to be a professional braider anymore, I  still practise braiding and I love creating joy on people faces' when they discover that I have just made a masterpiece with their hair.

Braiding is my party trick, some people have shadow puppets and magic tricks, well, I have braiding!

Not many people expect me to know as much as I do about braiding and hairstyles but  and I love surprising people with my knowledge.

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When I first started my blog, the best piece of advice I received was that writing is one of those things were the more you write the better you will get at it.
and I believed it, because I knew from experience from my mission with braiding, that the more I practised braiding the better braider I became.

I know I am not the greatest writer but I know the more I practise the better I will become, just like braiding.