How To Dye Your Hair Purple

This wasn't actually my idea. Most people assumed, when I told them I stayed up until four AM Saturday night streaking my hair, that I was drunk. Even my little sister assumed that, which is frightening, because when I was twelve years old, I'm pretty sure I didn't know what drunk was. So let me just remind those people that I don't need alcohol to make impulsive decisions. Furthermore, it wasn't actually my idea.

I'm not quite sure how a straight shooter like Xinting got the idea that we should all dye our hair, but I know why we started a three hour process at one in the morning. Java. Xinting and my roommate Ayesha are in the same computer science class. Introduction to Java. Engineers have computer sciences classes the way that liberal arts students have language classes. Ayesha, who speaks four languages, is about as proficient in Java as I am in Spanish (no language ever needs more than three verb tenses, far as I'm concerned). She and Xinting spend hours every night, camped out in the community center working on their programming projects.

Or so I thought. Until I decided to get out of the house for a bit and go do some work with them. Turns out, they're actually watching YouTube videos, reading manga, and playing Words With Friends. I tried to play Words With Friends with them, but after I beat Ayesha by 253 points in one round, they've stopped wanting to play. To be fair, if I hadn't played 'queued' on a triple word score (and gotten the 'Q' on a double letter score), I would have won by less than a hundred and fifty points. Also, using a dictionary is so cheating.

I played box. And then I made it inbox

Ayesha was also particularly upset when I played 'Java', which aside from containing both a J and a V, happens to be the current bane of her existence.

So there I was Saturday night while they struggled to finish their project, pouting because no one would play with me. Xinting pointed out that I'd been ribbing them all week to just do their work, but, as I rightly told her, anyone who doesn't play Words With Friends with you isn't a true friend. I still didn't convince anyone to start another game with me, which is a pity, as I like seeing how much I can crush the competition by.

But eventually, they finish their project. Xinting had conceived of the purple hair idea weeks ago, and Audrey had bought the dye last weekend. We had absolutely no clue how long it would take, but me, Xinting,
Audrey, Ayesha, and Sarah (one of the five billion Sarahs in my circle of friends) crowded into my dorm room. Upon reading in the directions that bleaching my hair would take half an hour,  I jokingly suggested watching a movie.

So we started Office Space and went into the bathroom to tie up our hair.

Fitting five girls into a bathroom that can't even comfortably fit one is a challenge. Everyone else put their streaks in the back of their hair, but not me. I wanted mine in the front. Audrey told me that I should put it in the back so I could hide it if I had a job interview, but I pointed out that the only jobs I have left to interview for are waitressing jobs, who don't care what color your hair is.

So we start rubbing bleach in our hair. It makes your hair very stiff. Sarah suggested I put a paper towel on my head so I didn't accidentally bleach anything else, but I couldn't get it to stay up, so I had to duct tape it there. I load up the movie on Amazon Prime Instant Video, proclaiming it to be far superior to Netflix, Itunes, or the ever favorite, piracy. The movie then fails to load for a good ten minutes and everyone gives me shit about it. But we start watching, and then it's time to re-bleach everyone's hair.

Xinting forces Ayesha's head down in the sink and meticulously shampoos the bleach out of her hair. This is probably the first time that sink has ever had anything resembling a cleaning agent down it. Seriously, all the purple splatters we left made it look cleaner. And Xinting got to learn first hand what's it like being a blond, which, I would like to tell my little sister, is not actually that much fun.

No, it's not

Then we squirted the purple stuff into our hair. In fact, we were having a pretty good time. This is probably why a boy came walking over (despite the fact our side of the building is all girls) and asked us if we could keep it down. Since the people on our hall regularly come through at two AM yelling and screaming, this takes some nerve. We continued until something amazing happened--the Second Coming of Steve, our RA.

Steve's kind of a myth on our floor. We know he's technically in charge, but nobody's seen him since orientation. This is probably because he lives most of the time at his frat. So he had some nerve telling us to quiet down. Sure, it was three in the morning, but he has never enforced a rule once this year, despite the many times I have asked him to get the people on our floor to quiet down. I can only assume he was nursing a hangover.

Ayesha made us all  quiet down, though, and we even went to use her quiet little hairdryer instead of the industrial strength handdryer in our bathroom--the crappy one that goes off every time you so much as look at it and kept scattering hairdye across the counter. It was four AM by the time we finally dried our hair and saw the awesome streaks. In fact, losing sleep was probably worth it. Sure, my sister and Taylor think I had a wild, drunken night, but I just had a wild night without alcohol.

Artsy bus pic!