QuinnFerno

This dog can do a better Parkour roll than I can ... http://drsophiayin.com/resources/video_full/shaping_behaviors_training_a_somersault

I feel a bit weird putting this in women's specific TRAINING, but it would have felt weirder to me to put it in the pub section. I sort of have a question and a vent, so I'll write the two separately so maybe you kind helpful folks can give me input on my question without having to read through my self-involved rant. I'd like to know if anyone here has had a perm, what is your hair type (thickness of hair overall and each strand), how damaged was your hair afterwards, all the pros/cons, maintenance involved, would it ever be something you'd do again? I've wanted a certain look with my hair for a really long time. As you may have guessed it is curls, but not the standard ringlet type curls. I think what I want is called a spiral perm. The best depiction I can find of what I'm after currently is probably Marion Raven's hair in m2m's "everything" music video (I know it would be helpful to embed a link here but I know I'll just stuff it up). See how the curls are sort of twisted and zigzaggy rather than just curling straight around? I know it's not a look that's in fashion at the moment but I've never given a stuff about that. I asked for similar curls fo my formal but the hairdresser said she couldn't do them and I ended up with ringlets. I have since tried many other things to jazz up my hair (different cuts and many different colours), but the trouble is I have an absolute lack of talent for hairstyling. I pretty much put it up in a ponytail for work or twist it up into a clip (like a really dumbed down french roll), or if I'm not at work I just brush it and leave it hanging. I have tried learning styling off youtube but I'm not co-ordinated enough. I won't say I don't have the time in the mornings but sleep is more of a priority for me because I work very long hours, and my work is not conducive to having styled hair because it's a bit physical. It's also not really something I want to spend all my free time practising and I don't want to always be using hairspray etc to keep in curls. Therefore I thought if I could have curls in place and just have to apply a smoothing serum and comb it or something it would give me a bit of a lift overall. My hair is quite thin, I don't have a lot of nice natural body to it, and each strand is quite fine, so it's a pretty flat look with straight hair. Anyway, long story still pretty long my family bought me a gift voucher for the hairdresser for Christmas so I could get this perm done. My mum talked to the hairdresser first and told her all about my hair and she said it wouldn't be a problem. I went there yesterday to get a cut and get my hair assessed for a perm and I was told it would be something that I really wouldn't want to have done, the hairdresser wouldn't want to do it, and she tried to sell me a flat iron instead. The reasons given were - a few years ago I had my hair lightened slightly and the ends of my hair are still light where it's growing out, so the perm chemicals would be too much for it where any bleach had been (fine I can understand this reason, and if this was it I can just wait yet another year until this has fully grown out with my hair still long - though of course the voucher will have expired), the hairdressers there don't do perms often and they couldn't guarantee the look I'd get, everyone's hair reacts differently so they couldn't guaranteee the look I'd get, the chemicals and the winding around the rods puts a lot of pressure on the hair and there'll be a lot of damage, it might look fluffy or frizzy in the mornings and I'd have to apply some product, the curls would drop out over time/it would last about 13 weeks, etc. Basically she wouldn't entertain the idea at all and instead wanted to show me how easy it was to curl your hair with a flat iron (not in the type of curls I wanted and because we didn't apply hairspray they'd dropped out in 2 hours). So I was pretty gutted, which is probably more to do with my existing baggage with hairdressers than the specific events yesterday. I was just really hoping to be able to get something nice done with my hair. I have permanent dark circles under my eyes and really just wanted a nice distraction from that on my head lol. Also I now have $200 to spend at the hairdresser and have no interest in their other services. My baggage with hairdressers comes from a much younger age when my sister and I went to the hairdressers and she told them I had "Pantene hair" cos she thought it looked like the nice hair in the shampoo ads. The hairdresser got an affronted look on her face and proceeded to insult me about my hair for the rest of the session. I took that to heart and never ever sought any compliments from a hairdresser about my hair since (not that I was then either), yet everywhere I go (including in different cities) the hairdressers keep making a point of telling me how awful they think my hair is. One hairdresser told me I was going to go bald if I didn't cut my hair short and buy all these special products to rub into my scalp (the products made no difference and many years later and not using the products I have no sign of going bald), another told me it looked like I had a pancake on my head and then the ends were all frizzy (that was before I learned about conditioner only care from this community which is working much better to stop my scalp getting greasy and the ends getting dry - I didn't get ANY care advice from the hairdresser to help with the problem, just the insults). Also when I was a bridesmaid the hairdresser couldn't stop going on about how much harder her job was than the other hairdresser because the other bridesmaid had much fuller thicker hair, and she was going to have to put so much effort into getting volume into my hair. The insults haven't been limited to my hair either. One time at the hairdressers the lady mentioned that one of the other clients there was a model for their photoshoots, and even though I wasn't interested anyway the hairdresser jumped in as if I'd then want to become a model for them and started telling me how I wasn't photogenic enough because my ears are unusually small for my face. I used to think they were one of my better features so you can imagine how I felt after that. I know I don't have fabulous hair, but it's really not so bad that I could understand the need for all these blows to my self esteem. Going to the hairdressers is now pretty traumatic for me. I'm not looking for everyone to tell me I can go and get a perm because it's what I want to hear but I'd like to hear about first-person experiences with perms - I don't understand how the damage could be much worse than chemical straightening and I know a few people who get that done without hairdressers kicking up a stink. I don't really see why it is such a big deal when the damage will grow out, and if my hair isn't great now anyway and looking awesome without this damage I don't see the harm in trying (except for the possible inexperience of the hairdressers that they mentioned themselves). Anyways thanks for reading, any input would be greatly appreciated, and have an awesome day

Hi Tocho, I'm from far north Qld, and my travel experience around Australia is mostly restricted to east coast, haven't been down as far as Victoria or over to WA. If you want to learn surfing you'd be best doing that down in NSW/Sydney area, up north the Great Barrier Reef blocks most of the surf and we have lots of dangerous jellyfish in summer. I'd suggest for tourist reasons spending the summer in NSW/southern end of east coast and then in spring or autumn coming up North, checking out the Great Barrier Reef, maybe the Whitsunday Islands (where I plan to take my next holidays, and fruit picking available in Bowen right nearby). BUT from a fruit-picking point of view summer is mango season up here so more fruit-picking jobs. I'd like to see Melbourne one day, not really sure why but lots of people seem to like the place so I'll have to find out why. Also they had cool tourist ads with big balls of yarn ... The only thing I'm keen to do in WA is camel riding on the beach watching the sun set over the ocean. Tasmania held no interest for me at all until I started looking at it from the perspective of all the naturally grown food down there, big apple trees, free range farms etc. It really depends on your main interests. I'm only interested in nature really, so Daintree Rainforest, snorkelling in the Whitsundays etc are the attractions I'd be interested in. If you're into big cities, architecture, history etc, then I'll probably have no clue how to help. It depends how much our country differs from yours and in what areas, so you make the most of the experience. I think a driver's licence would be wise, to open up job oppportunities as well as from a safety perspective. I'm probably going to ruffle some feathers here, but I see no point in visiting Brisbane. Hate that place. Lol. Though Highfields nearby (near Toowoomba) has a chocolate cottage with great homemade chocolates. But maybe that's not so special considering where you're from

The part I struggle with in getting my head around the form for pistol squats is - is your knee supposed to go forward over/past your toe? In basic 2-legged squats I thought the idea was not to let your knees go more forward than your toes to make sure the work was being done by the right muscles - does this get lost with pistol squats? Is it better to start by standing on a platform hanging one leg down as a progression to allow better form (maybe not allowing the knee to go too far forward) on a pistol squat? Or will your knee always need to go past your toe to keep balance?

I ****ing LOVE being single! And yes, this may be slightly off-topic since I am talking happiness rather than self-esteem, I just really wanted to snag the opportunity to put that out there at a time other than Valentine's Day so hopefully people wouldn't just look upon me with pity. I put my love life on hold for a really long time pursuing study, career etc, and recently started dating a guy (I've since broken up with). I was getting to a low point in my self esteem being single for a long time before this, wondering what the hell was wrong with me in that guys could ogle me and wink at me etc and never bother to actually ask me out, and all my friends were in relationships. Then I was with this guy, I was attracted to him, he seemed to be reading out of the 'good boyfriend book' and doing and saying all the right things, but holy shpadoinkle I missed my independence. He wanted to take up every spare minute of my time (dude, I have to do my laundry and walk my dog SOMETIME - and forget working out apparently), it was expensive going out all the time (though he did pay for most of it, which actually annoyed the hell out of me but that's another story), and he was trying to stop me being vegetarian. I also compromised a lot going to all the things he was interested in (and that to me is a big compromise when it means driving over 5 hours to see a REGGAE concert! omg). And he was so serious all the time, it was no fun at all. I was glad I was able to figure out on my own that I really didn't want to be with him while I thought he was a great guy, before I found out he was a giant liar and really was playing me with all the tips and tricks he must have picked up from previous dating experiences. I'm not sure where this has left my self esteem, other than having the knowledge that (all things included) there's nothing I can get from a relationship that I actually want or need, even when the person I'm with is being (or pretending to be) a model boyfriend. I hope that means I live a pretty full life (and doesn't just make me look selfish - because I don't think I handle non-romantic relationships in my life in a selfish way at all really). So if I was going to use outward things to base my self esteem on, I guess instead of using the status of having a boyfriend to base it on, I'll just have to base it on looking hot and turning heads. Since in my situation that promotes a healthier lifestyle (working out and eating well, the way I want to), I'm cool with that

I did neglect to check out Placebo's discography when searching for a theme song. Terrible oversight.

I'm still not 100% sure, cos I often need to listen to a song about 20x before liking it, but my current winner is looking like Three Days' Grace - Break. Good lyrics, interesting music. Maybe I'll find something a bit more epic once I've levelled up a bit and become worthy, lol, but for now I reckon this will grow on me. Thanks for your help everyone

Cool lyrics, thanks Garth! Very close to what I was after, really the lyrics are perfect, sadly just a little too screamy for my tastes. But thanks heaps, you've given me some new leads. Thanks everyone so far for sharing/indulging me!

A bit of a self-serving thread, but I really need help finding a theme song to help me transform my mindset into my nerd fitness alter-ego at the start of workouts. I've failed at googling and can't find anything appropriate from my usual bands. If you guys wouldn't mind sharing what you have chosen if anything, and how you chose it, that would be awesome. Even more awesome would be any song suggestions for me Lyrics-wise I guess I'd like something relevant to meeting a challenge, that maybe references fire given my username. Genre-wise I tend to prefer goth, rock, metal (not TOO heavy) even pop would do. Prefer to stay away from RnB/jazz/country (not all bad but doesn't really set the tone I'm after). Any help would be hugely appreciated and rewarded with many virtual diet-friendly cookies (they're virtual so their abilities are limitless). Thank you! QF

My most realistic superpower is finding bargains. Also the spelling errors thing. BUT I maintain that I can subconsciously summon cyclones/tornadoes. When I was in grade 10 my mum was in hospital with cancer and cos of family stuff there was no way I was going to be able to finish a geography assignment on time. A cyclone came and flooded the school, shutting it down for 3 days, which is exactly how long I needed to finish the assignment. A couple of months after buying a house a cyclone came and destroyed the crappy ugly fence and my shed. Insurance paid for brand new fence and shed plus fancy new letterbox (nice housewarming pressie). A few months ago my town had its first ever tornado, thankfully a weak one, but it impaled my car with roofing iron and did some damage to the house. Sadly there were some bad repercussions (one of my chooks was killed), but I had recently resigned from a really dreadful job and my boss was becoming very hostile. The abuse he dished out to me when I told him I couldn't come to work that day was the final straw, and it enabled me to seek action to get out of the situation faster. Also, insurance will eventually be doing extensive work on the house which should raise its value. Maybe that's just seeing the silver lining or making the best of bad situations (I'd like it noted that no humans died in these events), but the timing always makes me feel someone's really looking out for me

slightly off the pink and sparkly hello kitty road, but just had to share my super dorky idea I had when reading this post. Since I was more of a pokemon fangirl growing up (totally not still into it, *cough*) I pictured a dumbell or barbell set with pokemon painted on the side, eg a set may have charmander on the small one, then charmeleon on the medium one, then charizard on the big one. That way as you become a stronger trainer, you get a stronger pokemon! sorry, I've never grown up and I would totally buy that

I LOVE Sun Warrior, but it's expensive

It's been great for my weight loss, mostly because now I have an easy excuse to cook my own meals without offending anyone, and I have to put more thought into what I grab at work for lunch. I still eat eggs since I have my own chickens (now chicken singular, bastard tornado) and what I think has been the key to my success is avoiding traditional breakfast cereal in the morning. I use a microwave protein muffin (really fast to prepare) with 2 egg whites, a scoop of Vanilla Sun Warrior protein, 2 tbsp coconut flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 3tbsp apple sauce (no added sugar) - microwave on high 2.5-3min. Then I microwave half to one cup of frozen berries and mash them up for sauce. Others have used cocoa pwder and stevia for chocolate muffins, and added maple syrup and/or nut butter on top instead - have a google around for inspiration! I find this cuts out some grain and dairy, you feel like you're treating yourself with really good yummy food and you stay full for ages! much less likely to grab junk at work. Go vegos!

I'd also get a doctor to check your B12 levels. Intestinal absorption of B12 can easily get disrupted due to it being a very large molecule, and absorption via the sublingual vein as used by most supplements can be slow to replenish stores, especially if you're already tired. Eat a source of vitamin C with green leafy veges for better iron absorption. Watch that stress!

trick number one for me would be jumping for 10sec without twisting my ankle, lol