Day: July 17, 2012

This hairbrush was a present in either high school or early college.  My friend Sara had a brush like it and I loved how good it felt on my scalp.  Before this brush I had been using a tight-bristled brush with a blue handle that came from Avon.  Except for periods of short hair, I’ve used this brush daily for a very long time.

But it’s a bit worse for wear.  In college, I tried to use it as a hammer and discovered that wood, when pounded on a steel dowel, yields to the steel dowel and you get splinters.  The side you can’t see has been ragged for 16 years now.  It’s also losing bristles slowly but surely.  They fly off at random moments during the morning brush and Sentinel goes after them followed quickly by me, so he can’t attempt to swallow them.

Getting rid of things like this is very hard for me to do.  Despite its ragged appearance and decades of hair oil buildup on the bristles, this brush still works, so I feel like I’m casting away a slightly crippled child.  On top of that, I can’t donate it, because who wants a broken, crusty brush?  After I took this picture, I left the brush on the table for a good week or so, before taking it to the trash bin, thanking it for its service and tossing it in.  I feel guilty every time I drop another bag of garbage on it.

I was in the observation phase of my graduate degree in education.  This meant I took the train and bus an hour each way to Aloha High School and wandered between several Social Studies classes for an entire day, never really feeling like I should be anywhere.  The Social Studies teachers (all coaches, fulfilling my history teacher stereotype*) hung out in a shared office–no one seemed to venture into the staff room.

Due to the lack of access to drinking fountains and running water, I quickly became dehydrated.  My solution?  Buy two Nalgene bottles, fill them in the morning at home and drag them with me every day.

But then the whole BPA thing came about.  I’m pretty sure these are old enough to be BPA bottles, but I can’t tell because the symbol on the bottom has rubbed off.  So I finally got a new fancy glass water bottle and am retiring this one.  Matt has just adopted it for rolling out his foot.  The second water bottle I still use at school. I’ll look to replacing that one soon.

*Why are US residents so incredibly ignorant of their own country’s history?  Because a lot of people hated history in high school.  Every time I encounter someone who professes such hatred I ask them if their history teacher was a coach.  There is always an amazed pause and they say, “How did you know that?”  I know that because a lot of high schools fill their social studies positions with coaches.  In fact, sometimes they advertise them this way.  I couldn’t apply for a Social Studies position in the David Douglas school district because I could not also coach boys’ JV basketball.  Hiring this way ensures all the coaching positions are filled, but are the best Social Studies teachers being hired?  I think we have evidence that in most cases they are not.