Experiments in Hair Care

Hi everyone!

Firstly, let's disregard the fact that it's been a really long time since I last blogged. I'm sorry, okay!! Anyways, now that that's over...

What I'm about to tell you may seem shocking. Not shocking in an "oh a surprise party!" way, more like shocking in an "eww stinky" kind of way.

So here it is: up until yesterday, I had gone 2 months without washing my hair.

...

Before you freak out, that statement is more shocking than it really needs to be because I'm being fussy with my definition of "washing."

Have I treated my hair in a way that removes dirt? Yes.

Have I treated my hair in a way that removes oils? Yes.

Have I treated my hair in a way that makes it softer and easier to brush, etc.? Yes.

Have I put chemical-based shampoo and/or conditioner on my hair? NO.

So now that I've clarified how I actually was not completely disgusting throughout this hair care routine, let me tell you all about it. And just for the record, when I say "wash" the implication is that it involves shampoo, unless I specify otherwise.

A number of things led me to decide to (temporarily) join the No-Shampoo movement. First and foremost was the fact that, before I did this, I used to have to wash my hair all the damn time! Usually I washed my hair every second day, or every third day if I was being lazy, or occasionally every day if that's what it took to keep it looking nice. The second reason is that I used to use a lot of shampoo and so I went through it really quickly, and it doesn't exactly grow on trees. The third reason is that the shampoo I use, Herbal Essences, contains sodium laureth sulfates (as do most shampoos) which are really bad for the environment. The last reason definitely impacted me less than the other reason but I guess it contributed: I started thinking about how people treated their hair before all these chemical products were around to strip them of oils.

Anyway, I did a whole bunch of research before I started. I read lots of websites about the No-Shampoo movement, I read a lot about natural hair care and hair care on a budget. I read testimonials from people who had tried it. And then I jumped right in.

How do you take care of your hair without chemicals? Well, I "washed" my hair once a week using these household products:

* bicarbonate of soda

* apple cider vinegar

I used about a tablespoon of each.

The bicarb functions as a shampoo replacement and if you remember your high school chemistry then I'm sure you can work out why - it's a mildly alkaline substance and alkaline substances are cool because they help to break down lipids (that's fats and oils). So when it comes to oily hair, bicarb is actually pretty good at "washing" it. I tried two different methods. The first was to make up a paste of bicarb and water and gloop it all over my hair and then rub it all in. Bicarb isn't sudsy so you can't really work it in a lather the way you do with shampoo. That way probably the weirdest part for me - the lack of bubbles. The other way I tried was just to dampen my hair and then rub dry bicarb into it in the same way. This was the method that I stuck to, just because it was quicker and going for an easier hair care routine was half the point of doing this crazy hair care experiment!

I thought of the apple cider vinegar as a conditioner replacement but really what it did was more like clarifying than conditioning, I think. It's a subtle difference. It's also mildly acidic so I figure it probably balanced out the alkaline bicarb, which was probably good for my skin or something. Using apple cider vinegar on my hair was actually pretty easy - I had it in a bowl and I just dipped my hair into it. It didn't need to go on the top of my head, just like the bicarb didn't need to go down the lengths of my hair. In case you're wondering: no, I didn't smell like vinegar all the time. I was really careful about rinsing my hair and when it was dry it didn't smell at all.

Even if you accept that baking soda and vinegar did a good job of "washing" my hair (which, to be honest, they actually did) there's still the problem that I only did this once a week. Through the rest of the week, I did two things to take care of my hair and keep it looking nice:

1. rinsing my hair with warm water - sure, it doesn't make it oil-free or give it that just-washed look, but it gets any dirt out and it spreads out the oils so that my hair didn't look disgusting at the roots. I did this nearly every day and it actually worked pretty well.

2. brushing my hair with a natural bristle brush - these brushes are made specifically to redistribute whatever dirt and oils might be in the hair. I brushed my hair from roots to tips with a bristle brush and it kept it looking nicer a bit longer.

So what were the results of this crazy regime?

Well, for the first couple of weeks, my hair was pretty gross. I kept it tied back all the time and really tried my best not to just give in and shampoo it. But over that first week I noticed my first hair change: I was losing less hair!! This point will become more important a little later. At the time, it was just enough to inspire me to keep going - at least until I hit the 6 week mark, which the internet told me was the maximum time it would take for my hair to adjust.

At about the 2.5 week mark, Pencampwr happened. In case you don't know, Pencampwr is a really big camping weekend with the SCA. I "washed" (with baking soda & vinegar) my hair on the Friday morning and then went camping. My hair looked pretty good after the "wash" but I knew that by Monday when we went home it would be really oily and gross. But, in the end, I was wrong! I kept it tied up in a plait and during the day I wore a hat - this helped to keep the dirt off so that was pretty good. On Saturday afternoon, Aimee and Alana sewing my hair to my head in braids, which might sound insane but it actually looks really cool and it made my hat stay on, so that was awesome. Now I don't really know if my hairstyle and keeping my hat on all weekend made a difference to how my hair looked later, but I figure it's worth mentioning anyway. It might have been the hairstyle. It might have been the hat. It might have been that my hair was actually adjusting to not having the oils brutally stripped from it every two days...

Whatever the reason, when I got home on Monday, my hair still looked pretty good. Ideally I would have given it a water-only wash on Monday, but I decided that was too much effort. I didn't even untape my braids from my head! And because I didn't have to go out anywhere on Tuesday, I didn't touch them then, either! Admittedly, by the time Wednesday came around my hair was looking pretty oily. It didn't look dirty - there is a difference between dirt and oil, that's something I learned through this experiment - but it was way shinier than I usually like my hair. So I bicarb-and-vinegar washed it, and it was fine again.

But can you believe that? I went all through Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday with my hair looking great and Tuesday with it looking pretty okay before I had to "wash" it on Wednesday. That's at least 4 whole days. I could never have gone 4 days without shampoo before! My hair had started to adjust.

After that the whole routine got easier. That is, until I got lazy. I decided that putting vinegar on my hair was just too much trouble so I stopped using it. BAD IDEA. I can't tell you for sure what the vinegar actually did to my hair, but the result of leaving it out was that my hair got really really dry. Sure, it looked neat and clean and non-oily on top. But the lengths of my hair (which are usually very soft and conditioned) were all gross and stringy and dry.

Before I went back to using the vinegar like I should have been, I decided to try a different hair treatment. After all, if this had happened during my previous hair care routine, I would have done a deep-conditioning treatment (I have a good one from Dove that I highly recommend). In keeping to my all-natural hair care thing, I bought a jar of coconut oil from the health food store. Coconut oil is pretty cool in that it's a solid in the jar, but the heat of your hands is enough to melt it. What that means is that I just had to scoop out a chunk of oil and then I could smooth it all through the lengths of my hair. I tried to use just a little bit, so that my hair wouldn't look too oily or smell too coconutty. And then I braided up my hair and went about my day.

Firstly, coconut oil does work well as a deep conditioning treatment. My hair was immediately softer and smoother and easier to brush - just as if I had used a chemical-filled conditioner like I used to. I spent that day obsessed with touching the ends of my plait because it was just so damn soft!! But coconut oil as a hair care product does have it's obvious downside: it's an oil. So yes, it made my hair look oily, which is gross.

Because coconut oil is so soft and melty, I had hoped I'd be able to rinse it straight out with just water. It mostly worked, but my hair really didn't look as good as it should have so the next day I bicarb-and-vinegar washed it. That worked perfectly! My hair was all conditioned from the oil, it was de-oiled by the bicarb and the vinegar had done it's thing so that it wasn't all dry and stringy or whatever.

For the remainder of my hair care experiment, I stuck to bicarb-and-vinegar washing my hair once a week and only-water washing it every day or second day. And you know what? It worked pretty well.

Here's the main downside: in a No-Shampoo regime you're only meant to treat your hair with chemicals once a week. More than that, and your scalp gets dry and irritated which leads to excess oil production (No-Shampoo fans will tell you that that's why you have to shampoo your hair so often, and in general I guess they're right about that). But for my hair, which seems to LOVE producing oil, bicarb-and-vinegar once a week just isn't enough. Bicarb-and-vinegar every 5 days might have been okay, but then it's harder to get into a routine and washing my hair more often would have defeated the goal of the experiment, which was to find a hair care routine that was easy and less work.

After about 9 weeks in total, I decided to go back to a normal hair care routine. My reasons for this are quite diverse. Firstly, you've gotta admit that it's a little weird to wash your hair with food products - normality was calling me back into its fold. Secondly, I keep my shampoo and conditioner in the shower but when I wanted to bicarb-and-vinegar my hair I had to go fetch some from the kitchen, which meant that it wasn't really quicker or easier at all. And thirdly, using bicarb-and-vinegar to wash my hair eliminated all the dirt and thus all the smells, which was a good thing. My hair just smelt like... hair, I guess, which really smells like nothing... for the whole time. But when I wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner, my hair smells all exciting and fruity! :D that's why I use Herbal Essences products, because they smell good.

Before I washed my hair, I decided to do one last natural treatment - I coconut oiled my hair again. This time I used way more because I was just hanging out at home. I oiled my hair and let it sit for an hour while I watched a lecture (productivity, yay!)

Then I washed my hair.

The first thing that was different was something that I did on purpose: I used way less shampoo and conditioner than I used to. Measuring out my bicarb and vinegar has taught me something about portion control. I don't need a million litres of shampoo and bubbles to clean my hair. So I used just a small amount of shampoo, and then just a small amount of conditioner.

There was something really comforting about having bubbly hair again, so that is one thing that I am glad about washing my hair properly again.

This is going to sound crazy, but shampoo is actually not that good at cleaning hair. I shampooed my hair twice, to make sure that I got the coconut oil out. The next day: still looks oily D: seriously, I know for certain that if I'd used bicarb then all the oils would be gone. So that's weird and sucky :/

But I've resolved to keep doing one more thing from my crazy routine: I'm going to wash my hair less. So now, instead of washing my hair 4 times a week, I'm going to wash it twice. I'll keep doing water-only washes because I found that it's actually a good way to refresh my hair without plastering it with chemicals. So my hair will just have to stay tied up now and wait for its next wash lol.

Another difference is the feel of conditioner as compared to vinegar and/or coconut oil. It's a really weird feeling. Conditioning my hair, even after I washed it out, didn't make my hair feel clean, it made it feel slimy. I've heard people talk about Pantene saying that it coats the hair, so I wonder if Herbal Essences does that too. I don't think I want my hair coated :( and the slimy feeling was not sexy at all. :( But something that is a huge improvement using conditioner rather than anything else is that my hair became infinitely easier to brush. So nice!

The other big difference I noticed going back to shampoo is the one that I am the most upset about. I actually mentioned it before - way less of my hair came out while I was washing it with baking soda. But from that very first shampoo wash, I lost SO MUCH hair. D: Seriously there was just an insane amount of hair falling right out of my head. Over the last 2 months, I have washed my hair with much gentler chemicals but the way I've been treating it physically has been a lot rougher - I was rougher when I was bicarb-ing my hair and I was rougher in that I was brushing it extra because I used a normal brush to detangle and a natural bristle brush to make it smooth and shiny. If anything, I should have had more hair coming out of my head. But I swear, I lost more hair in the 2 months of my No-Shampoo routine than in that one first shampoo wash. NOT HAPPY. I really hope that it's just because of the sudden difference in treatment, and not because shampoo is actually that bad for my hair...

Anyway, something that I thought all through this experiment and still believe now is that the best thing you can do for your hair is a) avoid mistreating it and b) be consistent. My experiment focussed on that first point - avoiding mistreating hair. But I don't really think that shampoo and conditioner are bad for your hair, even though they're definitely harsher on the hair and scalp than bicarbonate of soda and apple cider vinegar are. I think that mistreating your hair is a bit more extreme, like always using products in it or straightening and/or blowdrying it too often. I'm not really going to damage my hair by washing it, anyway. And while it might struggle a little as I go back to a Yes-Shampoo regime, I think in a few weeks it will be the better for it.

In the end, this was a really interesting experiment. I tried some new things, I learnt some things and I went back to my old ways making a few informed differences.

Not shampooing your hair isn't as gross as it sounds - it's just different. It definitely works, I can vouch for that, but it's not for everyone.

I'm currently still using my Herbal Essences shampoo & conditioner because I had some left, but when I use it up I'm planning to use a more environment friendly product - hopefully something that doesn't contain sodium laureth sulfates, but still lathers well and smells great. After all, it's always good to help the environment and all that stuff.

I'm also going to go back to my Dove deep conditioning treatment. Coconut oil works pretty well but it's hard to wash out with shampoo :(

And in other news: coconut oil makes a surprisingly good moisturising face mask. (You gotta experiment with the products you have available, right?)

Hope you found this to be an interesting read :) - I welcome any comments or questions.

♥Nancy♬

"Always"

This blog post, you may have noticed, is called "Always." I do not "Always" blog about really sad sucky occurrences but today I am. :(

A month or so ago, I submitted a story to Trove. Trove is a university Creative Writing Journal. It's pretty great. You can (and should) read it here: http://www.trove.arts.uwa.edu.au/

Today I got an email from Trove submissions, in which they shattered my fragile ego (and my heart) into tiny pieces. I'm kidding (mostly). But yeah, they rejected my story submission.

I'm not surprised, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the story that I submitted is about Robot Unicorn Attack. So... but also I rushed the editing etc. so I guess it's not really that good.

Nevertheless, I promised to post the story here on my blog, so today you guys finally get to read it.

Would you have published it? Let me know in the comments or whatevs?

Enjoy! ♥Nancy♬

"Always" - Nancy Elizabeth White, 2012

Gwed stood calmly in his stall. He heard the other horses snorting in fright, but he stayed quiet. Just yesterday they’d seen a horse - just a normal horse - dragged kicking and screaming out of its musty stall and out of the barn doors. He was not sure why they took away the horses like that. Sometimes they were nags but he’d seen a fresh young colt dragged away once. It broke his heart to think about it. Gwed knew that he had never felt as sad as he did in here, in this barn. But at least he was safe: he was special. A slice of purple-tinged light came through the barn door. The sound of footsteps on grass preceded the appearance of two humans in the doorway. One was wearing a fancy suit and dark glasses; the other wore a white coat and carried a clipboard. As they walked by his stall, Gwed heard the low murmur of human voices float up to his sensitive ears.

 “Another horse dead after only one trial? This is simply unacceptable,” said the one in the suit. Gwed didn’t speak human but he could still hear their voices.

 “We’ll get it right. The serum should work. When it does, we can carry about the procedure on the beast,” the one in the white coat spoke next. The suited human was silent until the white coat one spoke again. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter what we call it. It’s never going to get any manlier! Ha...! Ha...”

 “Put it this way,” said the one in the suit, “if this last horse doesn’t perform, we’ll bring in the Percheron and the - what did you call it? - the beast. And then we’ll see some action.”

Gwed tried to look elegant as he stood in his stall. He was sure that the humans were talking about him and he wanted to look worthy of their attention. A nagging voice in the back of his head told him to keep a low profile, that he wouldn’t want to be chosen for this test... but Gwed often ignored the voice in the back of his head, so that was no hardship.

His heart skipped a beat when the two humans stopped outside the stall next to his. He knew the stallion who was kept there, they were friends. And he had hoped, hoped desperately, that perhaps they could be more than friends. Not that he’d really had a chance - who had time for love in a place like this?

Gwed’s heart broke all over again as he heard the screams of his beautiful friend. When they had first brought in Apache Sunrise he’d been fit and strong. Now, he barely even had the strength to struggle. The two humans managed to subdue him and before long he was being dragged out of the barn. The barn door slammed, and the only sound that remained were the echoes of the stallion’s screams. Gwed almost cried.

Two weeks ago, Gwed had been racing through the purple cliffs near his home. He had been wild and free and had loved every moment of his life. Now, in a tiny barn, he struggled to remember the feeling of his pure white mane and tail streaming behind him as he jumped and dashed. He hadn’t even known that the government research facility - which was where he was - had been there amongst the purple cliffs. That was until he’d bumped into their unique weapon, a huge five-pointed explosive, and woken up in the barn with only horses for company.

It was hours before the remaining horses calmed down. Gwed smiled; he was so fortunate, to be so special. He never had to cower and scream and worry the way the horses did. No one would dare to harm him, after all.

A mare said, “is everyone okay?”

 “I’m a little sad,” said Gwed. He spoke horse with a strong accent.

 “We’re all sad, Gwed,” said Pierre Courir, the dapple-grey Percheron stallion with a thick French-horse accent. “Apache Sunrise was a fine stallion.”

 “I liked him,” Gwed said. He heard a nearby stallion snort and felt Pierre Courir’s mysterious gaze on his back.

 “If only we could get out of here, non?” asked Pierre Courir.

 “Don’t get your hopes up, love,” the mare said.

 “Perhaps they will let us out tomorrow?” Gwed suggested.

The mare said, “don’t you get your hopes up either.”

Gwed felt a little awkward. He knew that he was safe here, even though he’d been locked in this smelly barn with all these horses. Horses were such inferior creatures! And yet... Gwed wasn’t quite sure what to think. A part of him, deep down inside, had actually started to care for the horses. He realised that maybe he wasn’t so different from them. After all, they were all locked up together. And he’d had a real connection with Apache Sunrise, one that he hadn’t felt for any other creature in too long a time.

 “Gwed,” whispered Pierre Courir. His French-horse accent was loud in the silent barn.

 “Pierre Courir?” Gwed said. He liked the way the Percheron’s name rolled off his tongue. Apparently French-horse was a little easier to speak than normal horse. Although of course he would have preferred his native tongue, it was just so much more... magical than the crude language of mere horses.

 “Yourself and Apache Sunrise were... close, non?”

 “Yes, we were.” Gwed closed his eyes and continued to talk. “He was taken from me all too soon.”

 “I do not think that I will be taken so soon,” Pierre Courir said, softly. “I think it will be the mare first, and then the other stallion. And then me and perhaps one day you too, Gwed. But I will be here with you for a while, oui?”

 “I hope so,” Gwed said, and raised his head to look over the wall of his stall. And there was Pierre Courir, staring right into his eyes. Pierre Courir had big brown eyes, so much bigger and browner than Apache Sunrise’s eyes. Gwed realised that what he had felt for Apache Sunrise had been nothing more than a foal’s love.

 “Good night, mon cher.” Pierre Courir said. He lowered his head and turned away.

Gwed felt his breath catch in his throat. Perhaps these days locked away wouldn’t be so bad after all. And he knew how special he was - he would surely be rescued soon.

Morning came, and musty light filtered through the barn roof to wake the horses, and Gwed.

 “Think we’ll get fed today?” the mare asked.

The other stallion said, “Gwed will.”

 “Of course I will,” Gwed said. He was confused. He was fed every day. These humans wouldn’t dare deprive him!

 “Gay freak,” muttered the stallion.

 “Homophobe,” muttered Pierre Courir.

 “Don’t even start,” said the mare, “we all need our energy for whatever is coming today.”

Outside, birds began to squawk as the light brightened. The horses fell silent, shuffling their feet or trembling in fear. At one point there had been nearly ten horses in this barn. Now there were only four.

 “What is that noise?” asked Pierre Courir, suddenly. They all strained their ears to hear what he heard.

Everything that happened next seemed to happen all at once, in a flurry of activity. The doors of the barn burst open, wider than the horses had ever seen them. They admitted a stream of purple sunlight so bright that the three horses had to close their eyes and turn against the light. Gwed squinted to see what was coming. The human in the fancy suit was back, wearing dark sunglasses and a permanent scowl. He strode through the barn, followed by a gaggle of humans in two groups: those in overalls and those in white coats. They stopped in unison in front of the first occupied stall: it belonged to the other stallion.

Suit man said, “glue factory. This one will never be strong enough.”

Two of the overalled humans opened the stall and dragged the stallion out of the barn. The suited man and his companions ignored the screams of the terrified horses and walked to the next occupied stall, that of the remaining mare.

 “No!” she cried, desperately backing up against the far wall of her stall.

 “This one too. Tests with mares have been inconclusive.”

She screamed the entire way down the barn. Gwed snorted in fear and knew that the whites of his eyes were showing again.

 “Do not be afraid, mon cher,” cried Pierre Courir to Gwed, “I am still here for you!”

But Pierre Courir’s stall was next in line. The suited man paused outside his stall for a long time, seemingly undisturbed by the fact that the stallion in question was panicking.

 “Take this one to the lab. He may just be the horse we needed to prove that the serum will work as expected.”

 “No!” cried Gwed, as a set of humans in white coats opened Pierre Courir’s stall.

 “Gwed!” cried Pierre Courir. He reared up in fear, trying as hard as he could to avoid the hands and ropes and electric prods that the humans were using to capture him.

As they dragged Pierre Courir down the length of the barn, the man in the fancy suit stopped outside Gwed’s stall. Gwed reared up, screaming in rage. How dare they take away Pierre Courir!

 “Watch out!” said one of the white-coated humans, and they all stepped back. Gwed felt a surge of pride and victory. The horses could only kick or rear or nip or bite. He had an inbuilt weapon!

 “Tranquillise him.” The suit man turned away, pausing only to call back, “I want him in the lab within an hour, conscious or not.”

Gwed rushed at the stall door, head down. He hit the wood with a crash, splintering it, then wrenched himself back so he lift his head to see.

 “Pierre Courir!” he screamed, as his friend was dragged out the barn doors, growing limper by the second.

He felt a sharp prick in his shoulder.

 “Pierre Courir!” he screamed again. “Pierrrrrr Courrrrr...” Gwed found that he couldn’t prevent his voice from slurring. “What’ssssss haaaaaappening to me?” he screeched in utter terror.

As everything went black he thought he heard human voices. “Keep his head tied down. We don’t want him brandishing that horn as soon as he wakes up.”

 “The treatment had better work on the other stallion.”

 “Can’t waste our only unicorn...”

And then the blackness was joined by silence.

Pierre Courir woke first. If he understood human speech, it would have been clear that he had been given a normal horse tranquilliser and was recovering as expected.

Pierre Courir ached with sadness. “Gwed,” he whispered, “je t’aime. Toujours, je veux etre avec toi.”

Gwed awoke with aches in body parts he wasn’t even sure were really his own. Worst of all was the aching in his heart, for poor Pierre Courir. He wasn’t worried about his own safety, of course. He was special; they wouldn’t dare hurt him. But Pierre Courir... he was merely a horse!

 “Pierre Courir!” he cried.

Human voices said, “he’s awake” and “check his vitals.” But Gwed didn’t understand human speak. He heard their brash tones and struggled widely against the bonds that held him to...

 “This is an outrage!” he screamed, but the humans didn’t seem to respond.

Gwed’s vision slowly cleared. He was in some sort of white room, on a metal table. It wasn’t the barn. It wasn’t the meadow or the purple cliffs of his homeland. It was a human paradise: clean and clinical and entirely alien; it was a unicorn’s nightmare.

 “Watch that horn,” said a human, as Gwed thrashed under his bonds. Although he couldn’t understand human speech, Gwed knew exactly what the human was trying to say. He thrashed more, trying to scratch someone, anyone, with his horn. He knew the magical properties that it had and was eager to inflict some unexpected consequences on a human! They stepped out of range and proceeded to have a conversation while Gwed flailed futilely.

 “This is ridiculous, we’ll just have to carry on with the data we already have.”

 “But we have no results from the other stallion yet.”

 “Is he ready yet?”

 “Not yet, we’re running low on the serum so we’ll need another horn sample. Hurry it up!”

 “Secure the specimen-”

 “-Unicorn,” a different human interrupted.

 “Just do it.”

Gwed heard the tone in the last speakers voice and felt his whole body tense. It was so final. For the first time in this horrible ordeal, he felt worried. He had always been proud of his optimism. Even in the direst situation, not that a unicorn faced many of those, Gwed had remained calm and happy. So happy. But now, tied to a metal table, separated from Pierre Courir who, he was pretty sure, was the love of his life... Gwed did not feel happy.

 “I just want to live in harmony,” he moaned.

He felt more ropes slither across his body, dragged by these awful humans. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t struggle when a needle pricked him and stole his silvery blood. He didn’t struggle as they scraped his horn with a diamond blade, collecting unicorn horn-flakes in a sterile jar. When another needle pricked his skin, he found that he couldn’t have struggled even if he’d wanted to. The world went black.

Pierre Courir felt groggy and tired, but those feelings were secondary to the intense torture his body was currently under.

 “What’s happening to me?” he cried out. It was as if nobody heard him.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around the Percheron.

 “Heart rate is high, as expected,” one reported.

Pierre Courir could not, of course, understand what the scientist had said, but he knew that it wasn’t words of comfort. He thought about struggling against the bonds that kept him pinned to the cold metal table, but each twitch of a nerve was pure agony.

 “Neural activity normal,” another human said.

 “Serum administered and absorbed: begin preparation for trial one,” said another.

Pierre Courir saw the room spin as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He cried out in shock as his bonds were tightened. He found himself unable to lift his head from the cold table.

 “Horse status: alive.”

 “Gwed!” he cried out. He latched onto a dim hope: Gwed was special, maybe even special enough that he could rescue him from whatever was going on here.

 “Prepare the mini-star explosive.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

In the split second before pain completely overwhelmed him, Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

Gwed found himself slipping into consciousness again, grasping onto human voices as if those sounds might pull him from the dark.

 “Trial one is complete. The results are due to arrive in an hour.”

 “They’re moving quickly.”

 “The boss is pushing. He wants the procedure done on the unicorn as soon as possible.”

 “What is he hoping to achieve?”

 “New weaponry- woah! There’s a spike in the heart-rate, sedate him again, quick!”

Gwed didn’t feel the needle slide in. He barely felt himself slide back out of consciousness.

Pierre Courir still felt groggy and tired, but again he was preoccupied by the intense torture his body was currently under.

 “Why am I still here?” he cried out. But of course, there was no reaction: again, it was as if nobody had heard him.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around the Percheron.

 “Heart rate is within a normal range. Higher than last time,” one reported.

Pierre Courir knew that those were not words of comfort. He took a breath and gathered all of his strength to try to wrench himself from the cold metal table. Even the thought of that much movement was pure agony.

 “Neural activity is stable, but unusual,” another human said, “have a look at this chart.”

 “Not a problem, we expected that. The unicorn is likely to react differently, according to the analysis on the horn. Begin preparation for trial two.”

Pierre Courir felt movement around him as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He cried out in shock as his bonds were tightened. He found himself unable to lift his head from the cold surface.

 “Serum re-administered. Horse status: alive.”

 “Gwed!” he cried out. He latched onto a dim hope: maybe Gwed would rescue him from what was happening here.

 “Prepare the mini-star explosive.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

In the split second before pain completely overwhelmed him, Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

Pierre Courir awoke once more, feeling groggy and tired. Through a haze of intense pain, he wondered if he could escape.

A team of white-coated humans crowded around him.

 “Heart rate is normal,” one reported. “The horse seems much calmer this time.”

Pierre Courir ignored the human voices and concentrated. He was about to enact an escape plan. He was in pure agony, but somehow he felt strong.

 “Hmm, look at this.”

 “Re-administer the serum and prepare to record all results.”

Pierre Courir barely felt the needle prick his skin, but he definitely felt the result! A tingling feeling rushed through his body, making him shiver under his bonds. He felt strong and powerful and special. He felt as though he could fly, or dance through the air, or jump as high as a rainbow. The pain was gone.

 “Get the print out. Good, results are as expected. Unicorn horn serum one hundred per cent absorbed. Prepare for the final trial.”

Pierre Courir felt movement around him as the metal table upon which he lay was moved. He stayed calm as his bonds were tightened, secretly confident that he could escape. In just a moment he would leap into action, leave this place and find Gwed.

 “Horse status: alive.”

 “I’m coming, Gwed!” Pierre Courir whinnied.

 “Prepare the mini-star.”

 “Three. Two. One.”

Pierre Courir heard a loud bang.

 “Horse status: dead.”

“It’s time. Carry out the procedure on the unicorn.”

Gwed jerked awake. As he struggled to raise his head from the metal table, he heard the creaking and groaning of metal plates, felt the slide of oiled metal inside his neck and quickly realised that something wasn’t right. He thrashed wildly and heard the sound of metal grating as he moved his legs.

 “What is this?” he cried, and then his eyes rolled in fear as he heard the metallic timbre in his voice.

He swished his tail agitatedly and felt it tingle. That’s when he noticed that he could, in fact, see his forelock. It had grown long while he’d been kept captive - usually he kept it perfectly groomed. And usually it was white. But now it tingled and pulsed in rainbow colours.

 “My hair!” Gwed shrieked!

The shock of seeing what had happened to his beautiful mane and tail hit him deeply. But all that faded when his eyes focussed enough to see what had been done to his body. His fine hairs were gone, his once pure-white skin was no longer... well, it was no longer even skin. Gwed stared in horror at the metal plates that now made up his legs.

 “Vitals are normal, brain activity as expected,” said a scientist.

Gwed slowly started to focus on the room around him. It was sterile in white and silver, and he was still tied down to the metal table. Next to him, there was another metal table.

At first, Gwed could barely make out the shape of the creature that lay on the operating table beside him. Something about it tugged on his heartstrings and he stared and stared. The details slowly crystallised. It was a horse. He liked horses; they were almost as lovely as unicorns like himself. Not as special, of course, but this one was holding his attention. It was a Percheron, he realised. Such a majestic creature, the Percheron. They usually spoke horse-French; it was such a sexy dialect. He even knew this Percheron’s name, what was it...

 “Pierre Courir,” whispered Gwed, and finally woke up.

 “There’s a spike in heart rate and neural activity, can we sedate him?” said a scientist.

 “The plates are going to make that difficult,” said another.

 “Pierre Courir,” screamed Gwed, trying to wish his lover into life again. But Pierre Courir didn’t stir, and Gwed felt something deep and primal snap inside him.

He strained against his bonds and made up his mind to take the last available course of action.

He took a deep breath. He felt his metal organs pumping away inside his new metal body. His mane and tail tingled as rainbow colours washed through the fibre optic hairs.

 “Pierre Courir,” he said, in the ancient language of the unicorns.

And then he dashed.

At the peak of a unicorn’s health and life, its dash can crash through small trees, through soft rocks, through human constructions with wooden walls and fabric banners. But when a robot unicorn attacks, with its powerful dash, that is a very different thing.

When Gwed dashed, he broke through the bonds that held him to the operating table. He dashed through the walls of the high security government science facility that housed him. He burst out into a new world, a place tinted with purple and full of fear and danger.

All the while he was spurred on by one thought, “Pierre Courir.”

Of course, the science facility weren’t going to let their unicorn go that easily. Although Gwed seemed to be unstoppable, they managed to contain him in a maze. They set up five-pointed explosives in the hopes of defeating the robot unicorn that they had created. Still, Gwed had three lives to use - three chances to wish and wish again for his beloved Pierre Courir to return.

And maybe one day, if Gwed runs fast enough and far enough, he will get his revenge and be reunited with Pierre Courir when, eventually, he runs out of wishes.

Acknowledgement: this story was inspired by Adult Swim TM’s computer game “Robot Unicorn Attack.”

A Story About a Prince or Something

Soooooooooo... I maybe failed at my New Year's Resolution. Did I tell you about that resolution, devoted blog-readers who will remember these things? Well, maybe. Anyway, the resolution was to blog at least twice a month.

How many times did I blog during March? Yeah, none. FAIL.

But anyway, I figure if I just keep on keeping on then maybe people will still love me even though I'm a massive failure at New Year's Resolutions? (Please love me :3 )

So here, I am, sharing some substandard writing with you, just like always!

I wrote this one during work. I challenged my student to write a page-long story in 15 minutes. He didn't do very well. Maybe because I told him that he had to include a train in the story, so that was a bit tricky.

So... read this:

Once upon a time, a prince sat in a train as it rushed along the tracks on its way to the castle. It was an old train, with a steam engine and a high-pitched whistle. The carriages were wood-panelled and carpeted and furnished in rich colours, just right for a prince. The prince sat in an armchair, his sword laying across his knees, with a glass of whiskey resting lightly in his hand.

 “Your Highness,” said an attendant, dressed in crisp white, who stood beside the prince, “the train is about to arrive at our destination.”

The prince sighed deeply and drained the whiskey from his glass in a single mouthful.

 “Perhaps you ought to start calling me Your Majesty,” he said, with a voice full of sadness and regrets.

With a shrill whistle, the train arrived at the castle and, in a great procession of attendants and courtiers, the prince disembarked. Up on a high balcony of the castle he saw his mother, adorned in black, weeping as her son made his entrance. Though it took much determination, he steadfastly ignored her.

A golden throne stood before the gleaming marble castle. With movements slow and dignified, the prince knelt before the golden throne.

 “As the father passes,” a priest intoned, “so does the crown pass to the son. Arise, Your Majesty, and take your crown.”

The prince stood slowly, then bent his head again to take the crown. It was wrought of gold and encrusted with rubies; it was the heaviest thing he had ever worn. Inside, he ached for the crown to be replaced again with his shining silver helm: even the clamour of battle would be preferable to the weighty silence of this coronation.

 “I pronounce you king of the realm. All hail the new king!” cried the priest.

Out of duty alone, the prince-made-king stood tall and faced the populace. His mouth smiled, his arms went wide as if to embrace his people. While they cheered, the new king’s heart wept bitterly for his father.

Aaaaaaaaaaand that's it. It's not great or anything but, hey, at least I'm writing, right? :P Also, while I was typing it I really wanted to add the word "dais". But I couldn't be bothered actually improving the work at all, so... yeah. #lazy

As always I'd appreciate some comments. I kinda feel like there’s more of a story behind this prince and his family and stuff. What do you think? Do you think it’s a story worth telling? Anyway, feedback yes plz?

Also, if you've read this far you get some AWESOME NEWS which is that I submitted a story to Trove, which is a creative writing journal. Here is the journal: http://www.trove.arts.uwa.edu.au/ I'm not on there or anything, because a) I have no idea yet if they're actually going to use my work and b) the issue that I submitted to has not been released yet. But *fingers crossed* they might possibly like my story and *even more fingers crossed* they might think it's worth publishing. So that would rock.

The story is my Robot Unicorn Attack origins story. I'm going to put it up here on this blog but I won't be doing that until I know whether or not they want to publish it in Trove. Either way, you'll get to read it.

Thanks for reading! :)

♥Nancy♬

Valentine's Poem

Hello there everyone!

So I've already blogged three times this month, making today the fourth blog post of the month. Which is pretty great, don't you think? I thought about pushing this post back until tomorrow, which would make it the first post of March, but I've been thinking about posting this since mid-February, so it kinda feels like that would be cheating.

It's 5 minutes until midnight; I'd better hurry.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting tonight is that I really wanted to post on Leap Year Day. It's February 29th, wooooooooo! :D

That's all I really have to say, so here's the important part: it's a poem that I wrote to my best friends, Dylan and Alana, for Valentine's Day.

Enjoy!

♥Nancy♬

Dear Dylan and Alana

Valentine’s Day is

pretty dumb, but you’re my best

friends, so here’s a poem.

I don’t know if you

can use enjambment in a

haiku, but I did.

Love Nancy

Writing From At Work

Last year one of my students was in year 8. He was a year 8 boy. A year 8 boy who likes sports. And who doesn't like reading.

It was a bit of a problem. I found it really hard to relate to this kid and really hard to talk to him, but worst of all was the fact that I didn't really know what to teach him. In general I was working on getting him to read more and improving his levels of comprehension, and working on introducing him to critical analysis of texts where I could. But really, basic essay structure was a little bit tough for him, based on the level he was at and the level of work he was doing in class. I really struggled to find things to teach him and things to say to him.

So what I did is this: I designed writing activities for him. Sometimes they were simple creative writing tasks, sometimes the task was to produce a piece of writing in a specific genre, sometimes there was more of a comprehension element.

During our 1-hour-per-week sessions, I would talk to him about his week and what he'd been reading and doing in class. And then I'd outline the writing task that I'd designed, and set him to it. I usually got him to spend at least 15 minutes writing. Sometimes 20, sometimes 5, but more often than not he wrote for 15 minutes. Which meant, of course, that for 15 minutes I had absolutely nothing to do.

I mean, it would have been kinda rude to pick up a book and chill out while he wrote. So what I started doing, while he was writing, was joining in with the writing activities. Sometimes I wrote on different things but usually I did the activities.

And now, you guys get to read the product of these sessions. On a couple of occasions I branched out and wrote different stuff and on a couple of times the activity actually did involve some analysis, so there are a couple of pieces I wrote that are less fiction and more academic. I'm going to include those in this post, but I'll put them at the end because they're less interesting than the other activities.

Detailed Writing Activity

Joe stretched his arms up and heard his spine go click click click. He must have been sitting down for way too long! He stood up from his black computer chair and dropped his pencil to the wooden desk. The pencil was a HB and it had teeth marks all up the side where Joe had been chewing it. He turned away from his wooden desk. The floor was awash with books and papers, haphazardly stacked in pules and arranged according to a system only Joe could understand. Around the walls there were many tall, wooden bookshelves, with their shelves double-stacked with old books. The whole room smelt dusty. Joe’s bare feet made no sound on the carpeted study floor, but the legs of his jeans swished as they brushed together while he walked. He went out of the study, down the green-painted hall and came out into the silver-and-marble kitchen. His footsteps on the wooden floorboards sounded very loud in the empty house. The kitchen was open plan with a long glass dining table right in the middle of the room. Joe walked straight past it, striding purposefully into the kitchen. In the far right corner, on the black marble bench-top, was a silver kettle. Joe picked it up from its heating element and sloshed it around. It was practically empty.

 “Must have forgotten to fill it last time,” he mumbled, even though there was no one there to hear him say it. He carried the kettle to the sink.

Poems

SAD

Down, unhappy, hurt, depressed,

All because I wasn’t my best.

COLD

Icy, chilly, cool, freezing.

It’s colder than I expect for spring.

FELINE

Tiger, panther, lion, cat.

They all look silly wearing a hat.

GREAT

Excellent, good, brilliant and fine,

I want all the glory to be mine.

THINGS THAT HAPPENS IN THE MORNING

Wake up,

Get my cup.

Brew the tea,

Spread my toast with honey.

Then to eat

(Can’t put up my feet)

Quickly get dressed

Brush my teeth and the rest

Did I grab my book?

Time to have a quick look.

Got all my things,

Hope the phone doesn’t ring!

Rush out to the car

Drive really far

The crowds I will beat

To get a good seat

But the lecture’s so boring

Mustn’t start snoring!

It’s always the same

Every morning.

This is a concrete poem about rats. Sorry about the scan quality!!

Analysis of Macbeth’s monologue from Act V Scene 5 of Macbeth

“SEYTON

The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

Macbeth delivers this monologue to his servant, Seyton, after being informed that Lady Macbeth has died, when Seyton says, “the Queen, my lord, is dead.” Macbeth then presents an analogy in his monologue, describing life as meaningless through repetition and a number of metaphors. The monologue culminates in Macbeth’s conclusion that life is “full of sound and fury [and signifies] nothing.”

His journey to this conclusion begins when he says “there would have been a time for such a word.” Saying, “there would have been a time,” implies that there is not time now. This is foreshadowing a point Macbeth reiterates later in the monologue: that life is brief, as well as being meaningless.

Analytical Paragraph about "The Clockwork Wizard"

(Yep, that's the story I wrote for a creative writing unit haha!)

The short story “The Clockwork Wizard” (2010) uses allegory in order to present its idea. This idea is that divorce can harm a family. The allegory is established in the second scene of the story, when the protagonist, ten-year-old Mary, is playing with her toys. By play-acting a voice for her favourite toy, Wizard, Mary constructs the allegory: Wizard is her “family.” Evil Sorcerer takes on the role of “Divorce Monster” who is “coming to get” Wizard - just like divorce threatens Mary’s family in reality. After establishing the allegory, Mary’s story continues in parallel with the allegorical story, in which the toys come to life and act out the roles defined by their names.This story culminates in a battle between Wizard and Evil Sorcerer. This is matched with the moment in Mary’s story when she learns that her parents’ divorce is inevitable and that she can’t “make them stay together.” With a “bolt of lightning” Evil Sorcerer kills Wizard. While the reality is that Wizard has something “broke[n] inside him,” his allegorical death suggests that Mary’s family is now dead or broken as well, due to divorce. Thus, through the construction of an allegory in which the character representing divorce murders the character representing Mary’s family, “The Clockwork Wizard” presents the idea that divorce can be extremely harmful to families - to the point that it might even kill them!

Hope you enjoyed!!

Comments plz?

♥Nancy♬