Progress Report

This has been an active week at school.

One of the barber instructer's is no longer with the school, and I might finally be getting some free time.

I wasn't the biggest fan of his method. We butted heads from time to time, and on Saturday we had words in the middle of Hailie's haircut because he was giving poor instruction. But in his abrasiveness he pushed me to get better, more efficient, and to view the areas I need improvement on more objectively. I'm genuinely bummed he's not at the school anymore.

Oh sweet merciful blood of Cthulu, I will be getting a day off each week! There has been a lot of conversation about mine and Karlo's upcoming schedule of events. We were originally slated to graduate in October, but because we were unaware of the timing required by the state, we wouldn't have been able to take the state board's exam until December. There was originally talk of staying an extra 3 hours a day to hit our 90% of hours by the deadline for the October test, but I honestly didn't know if I'd have the gas to be able to work 10 hour days 7 days a week. After looking at my progress reports at school that kept track of my hours, I realized there weren't enough hours in the day to get from the current status to the desired goal, so I backed off the extra hours. At this point, bringing my graduation date any closer than it already is would be the complete opposite of what I want.

The reason this is a big deal to me is because I'm finally getting to a point where I'm getting comfortable with my basic abilities. I'm not great by any means, but I have the confidence to start holding my own. I'm finding my guidelines and sectioning more consistently, I'm more relaxed, I can keep up with conversation, I'm having fun. I don't want to have two months of not keeping in practice to kick my ass.

Creative solutions were needed. Tuesdays have no theory hour, which is something that I need to have a certain amount of prior to taking boards. Outside of actual haircuts for experience, Tuesdays hold no value towards the benefit of state boards. It all works out within the policies of the school that I can take Tuesdays as a personal day, and those days will be added to the end of my current graduation date. This means I'm only going to have a small handful of weeks between graduation and time in an actual shop. This means I will have Tuesdays off to go down to the shop and start getting to know the practices and routines. This means day dates with Hailie. This means naps. This means I will start getting some Chris time!

All the happy.

Speaking of Chris time, Hailie went to Seattle this weekend for PAX Prime. We went last year and had planned on going again prior to my decision to go to school. I'm crazy jealous because I know how much fun she'll be having. She sent me this about an hour ago.

Tonight she's at the Microsoft campus with our best friends. Josh has been working for Xbox for a little over a year, and I haven't been able to see since he moved to Seattle and I was really disappointed when I wasn't able to get the time off from school or work, and it killed me even more to find out that this year he would actually be a speaker at a panel. I remember playing Halo 3 and the first Gears of War online with him almost a decade ago, and he had always dreamed about working for Xbox. This year has been great for Josh, and I love seeing it get better and better.

But now I really, really, REALLY, want Cuphead to come out already.