Progress

So I am four months away from graduating, and I gotta say, it has been a long and interesting road. But I came across a picture of my from my first year that helps more to explain what happened to me; so here's a retrospective of my wacked-out face with sometimes stupid hair over the past four years, complete with my rating of it on a 1-10 scale:

First Semester, First Year (September 2005)
Rating: 2/10. The HIGHLIGHTS. The stupid Myspace angle. The shirt. What shirt is that? Did I own that? why does one eye look like it's being sucked into my brain?

Second Semester, First Year (March 2006)
Rating: 7/10. This is actually a decently hot picture of me, despite the lip ring, the auburn hair dye, and the off-the-shoulders shirt. And my paleness, which doesn't go away. Actually, you know what, 6/10.

End of Second Semester/Summer, First Year (May 2006)
Rating: 6/10. Okay, so again we have the shirt thing going on, plus my over-decorated first-year dorm room. But then again, it is Sally Bowles hair, which was a fun, if short-lived time spent on my head. And someone else did my makeup, so it wasn't that bad.

First Semester, Second Year (September 2006)
Rating: 4/10. By this point I should have realized that this was an awful angle for my eyes, as the right one seems to be gravitating into my nose. My skin looks horrible, and my hair is the kind of limp that means that, when this picture had been taken, it had been more than 18 hours since I'd showered, and there's a good inch of forehead that seems blank and afraid and alone. Makeup, Meg. Wear it.

Second Semester, Second Year (February 2007)
Rating: 7/10. True, I've got Boston in the background, but as far as the mop top look goes, I didn't look that bad... the bangs are a decent length, the color doesn't look like a sad version of red-violet, and I'd finally learned how to put makeup on my face. Also, I'm starting to look older than the high school version of myself.

End of Second Semseter, Second Year (April 2007)
Rating: 5/10. Here's a perfect example of when the mop top look goes wrong: my hair naturally parts on the left, which means that all that hair goes falling down over my right eye, and I look very, very destitute. Also: cap sleeves? No, thank you. And no points for being in black and white.

First Semester, Third Year (October 2007):
Rating: 7/10. I think that it was shortly after this that I stopped wearing the lip stud. Ok, so my hair is short but even, and though I've got high bangs they don't look as bad as they did earlier. Also, my faceis painted, which means that I was a Cool Person.

Second Semester, Third Year (March, 2008):
Rating: 7/10. Well, this is a step in the right direction: I'm in Paris, I'm wearing a beret-type hat, I'm sketching and drinking wine in a café. Hell yeah. Of course, I look sort of old-lesbian-y as well, but not so much that it's terrible. This is evidence of something rather garish: how my bangs, having gotten long and heavy, tend to fall in pieces, making my hair look thin and unhealty. I still deal with this today.

First Semester, Fourth Year (November, 2008):
Rating: 8/10 Finally, I'm facing the other direction!! It seems that I have finally mastered what a pixie cut should look like on me. Short, layered, not too long around the ears. Also, it's my birthday and I have a Manhattan! It should be pointed out at this point that, with the exception of two pictures, all of these haircuts I did myself. Propers.

Second Semester, Fourth Year (January 2009):
Rating: 9/10. Well hello, confident. I think that I've reached a good in-between for the longish hair and the pixie hair, and along the way I accidentally dyed it black, which turned out better than I expected it to. My makeup looks pretty nice now, my skin was really good then (it got worse in the past week), and I'm thinner and more fit than I was first year. How can that girl at the top possibly be the same as this person here?

The answer to that is the mystery that everyone must ponder when they leave their University.