A change would do you good . . .

. . . as my friend Sheryl Crow likes to say. So I got a big haircut and it has, as a matter of fact, done me good. I feel like a new woman.

Before:

And after:

Here are my four 10-inch pontytails (mailed off to Locks of Love) -- and also Simone's foot.

I was curious about how much all that hair weighed (I felt tons lighter), so I put it on my little kitchen scale:

6 ounces!

This was my third donation to Locks of Love, which means that I've now grown and cut off nearly 3 feet of hair (donations have been 10-12 inches each). Weird, huh? That's a lot of hair.

Taste of CU, summer school, and bangs

Many of you know that food is a major source of entertainment for Mike and me. Luckily for us, the Champaign City Park district sponsors a yearly festival that fits our main interest. We attended Taste of CU last night, and for twenty bucks we tried some of the best food Chambana has to offer and rode our bikes home with very full stomachs. We had:

• pad thai and basil chicken,
• a reuben sandwich,
• humus,
• baklava,
• pizza,
• a meatball sandwich,
• kettle corn,
• peach pie,
• and ice cream!

(Don't worry -- these were mostly just "tastes" and not full servings. But still . . . we ate a lot.) Everything we tried was very delicious and it was in a really fun atmosphere -- a downtown park with two music tents and lots of art booths. We had beautiful weather -- as I mentioned, we were able to ride our bikes to and from the festival.

We've been riding our bikes to and from school/work most days for the past two weeks. $4 gas is a big motivator! I'm taking two classes this summer, and they're very fast paced, but going well.

• Web design and construction for organizations: I'm already learning a lot in this class. Our major project for the summer is to redesign a university website -- bring it up to date, make it accessible, usable, and easy to maintain. My group has taken on Student Legal Services and we're hoping to bring the site into the 21st century. (It currently resides in 1999.) I'll post the redesign here when we're done.
  
• Administration and management: I want to recommend one of the books I read for this class, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Blurb about the book: "When we make decisions we think we're in control, making rational choices. But are we? Entertaining and surprising, Ariely unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us." This class is focusing on understanding human behavior (particularly our own behavior) and learning to manage ourselves. Good stuff.

And the last bit of news is that I have a slightly altered hairstyle. I got a haircut last week after soliciting salon recommendations from friends on Facebook. I wanted it to look like Reese Witherspoon's hair and unfortunately I still don't look just like her, but I am pleased with the results.





















I went in to Michael's place of work right after the haircut and he said, "Wow. Your hair was really . . . big . . . before." He's right. It was.