My latest adventure started out very innocently…
With one itsy, bitsy photo…
Well, okay.
It’s an ugly itsy bitsy photo, I’ll admit.
I’d had a rough start to the morning and had, unknowingly, donned two different earrings.
After Barb pointed this out to me, I laughed and figured it would be a good object lesson for the current unit I was teaching…making inferences.
I took that picture of myself and showed it to my students, asking them to make an observation, add it to what they already know, and make an inference.
I was looking for something along the lines of “I see two different earrings, and I know Mrs. AuburnChick stays up late working on lesson plans, so I can infer that she overslept and didn’t pay attention to what she was putting on.”
Yeah.
All good plans don’t mean a hill of beans when children are involved.
I’ll admit that in hindsight, I set myself up for what was about to occur.
I used my projector to show that picture on a BIG wall in my room.
The first thing that came out of my students’ mouths was “Ewww…whose face is that? It looks old.”
Um…not exactly the observation I was looking for.
Well, I got through the object lesson for that class but made the mistake of showing the picture to my 3rd period with the hopes that they would come through for me.
No such luck. Their reactions were the same.
I had also made the mistake of posting this on Facebook, where a friend of mine, when asked to make an inference, said, “You forgot to wear lipstick?”
Um…no…I never wear lipstick.
That was it. I was determined to change things.
That afternoon, I ran to CVS and bought two tubes of coloring for my lips…
I wore the pink gloss the next day, and all was well.
Things went a little differently the next day when I wore the lipstick in the second picture.
First period didn’t say anything, but then third period came in.
First of all, one sweet young guy said, very hesitantly, “Uh, Mrs. AuburnChick, I think you need to rub in your makeup. It’s a little heavy today.”
Uh oh.
I grabbed a paper towel and started rubbing in my blush, even looking at myself in the mirror.
The makeup didn’t look too bad.
Then, I began walking toward the door to finish greeting my students who were milling around.
My friend, Barb, had also come in.
Another one of my students said, “Mrs. AuburnChick, your lipstick is really dark today.”
And…I wanted to say…
He continued, “Mrs. AuburnChick, is it supposed to be…um…all over your face like that? It’s like you didn’t stay in the lines.”
Oh good gravy.
I still had the paper towel in my hand, so I dramatically wiped it off, telling my class, “All I wanted to do was wear a little bit of lipstick so my face wouldn’t look old any more. Sheesh.”
We all got a good laugh at that.
Well, on my way home, I stopped by Target, determined to “fix” the problem.
Oh my, but my jaw dropped when I took a look at one of the lipstick displays…
Now, please understand that I am a fairly simple girl who is only starting to come into her own.
I’m not that good at this makeup stuff.
Looking at that display was almost as overwhelming as walking into the reading resource room at school.
It was too much.
I couldn’t make up (get my pun?) my mind with all of the choices in front of me! I seriously needed Stacy from What Not to Wear.
I finally grabbed a few tubes and made my way to the register…
Oh yes, I did.
Four stinking tubes.
The guy who rang up my total…a whopping $31…gasped. That was all I purchased. After I told him the story, he laughed and wished me well.
My new tubes are various shades…all slightly different but not too dark…
The tube on the left is 8-hour “gloss.”
Honestly, I can say that after wearing it a couple of times, I don’t like it. It kind of hardens up and makes your lips tight. Plus, it’s not “glossy” enough. I want gloss like Jennifer Lopez’s. The one she was wearing on Thursday night’s American Idol SHINED!!
Here are the other two I bought…lip butter, as my bloggy friend, Mary, suggested…
I LOVE these!! I don’t eat butter anymore, but I will say that this stuff is moisturizing and smoooooth!!! I need to find it in slightly darker colors though.
Either way, I paired one of the new lipsticks with the eight-hour gloss, and I made a VERY big deal of it the next day at the beginning of third period, telling them how much I’d spent.
They gasped…”That’s a lot of lunch money!!”
heehee
I know I can’t live my life to please my students, but simply having this experience and laughing it up with my students has turned into another bonding time with them…especially the crew that has been rather difficult to manage since January.
They are coming around, starting to see that while I am strict, I am also human.
Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: lipstick, makeup, teaching | 2 Comments »
AuburnChick's Adventures 