It's Saturday morning. Norrin is doing a campus tour of DePaul University. I'm hanging in the student center one week into recovering from a stress-triggered gout flare-up. I wrapped a really solid first week of barber school yesterday. Everyday has been hitting the Milady Standard Barbering textbook, writing out terms and answering chapter summary questions; filling out worksheet packets on the chapters. I aced my first test on the History of Barbering. I received my equipment. Yesterday I finished the week with getting into Infection Control, which is required before I'm able to start on the shop floor. Next week should see me do just that :)
Notes from Week One
Leading up to school starting, wrapping things up for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) grant was stressful enough to trigger a gout flare-up in my knee the week before school. Every year I seem to be getting at least one flare-up and that it comes later and later each year means I must be doing a better and better job of managing stress and diet. Unfortunately, when gout hits, it hits fiercely and there's no much I can do but to rest, ice, compress and elevate what hurts until it doesn't. A week ago, yesterday, I finally received the WIOA grant from the American Jobs Center and in that very moment I could feel the size of my knee reduce swelling to half of what it was. Later that day, when I delivered the grant form to Erskine at the Erskine Reeves Barber Academy, he informed me there were three other people attempting to start barber school through a WIOA grant and with the shutdown last week, none of the other three candidates got their paperwork done. At that point, my sciatic nerve relaxed on my right side for the first time in months.
One perk I'm absolutely happy about is free haircuts. Since everyone is always practicing their skills at barber school, when the shop is slow it's prime time to get a haircut. That's almost worth my part in tuition alone ;)
I said I received my tools! One box is just the cosmetology stuff. The other is the barbering stuff. I had to verify I received the items on the packing list but otherwise I've not done any unboxing. I expect I'll be doing that early this next week.
What barbering history trivia would you like to know? I mean, I did ace that test...
