Don't Touch The Hair!!!!!

(Bad Hair Day, and yes, I do wear sunglasses in my room, sue me!)

My hair is strange, well, not really, but it does require more care than I'm sometimes willing to give it. Basically, I can only comb it (without pain) when it's wet, which means straight after a shower. Of course I have days where I'm rushing for a lecture and don't have time to go through the process of combing so I just put on a beanie and go through my day.
The combination of hat and wet hair means when I take off the hat at the end of the day, my hair is compressed and pulled back, looking somewhat like a 'conk' from the 60s.
Other days, especially days when I don't have lectures, I take a shower and don't bother combing it, meaning my hair ends up looking like the picture above...not good at all.
Strangely though, when my hair is in what I consider a 'shambolic state' I have friends who insist it looks cool, or funky, or whatever derivative of good there is. I'll always beg to disagree, if I'm keeping an afro, then the only way it can be considered 'cool' or 'funky' is if its neatly combed and evenly spread, no valleys and peaks in the Afro-topography.
Another thing that keepers of afros (who live amongst an Afroless population) will have to deal with are people who feel the urge to run their fingers through your hair. I call them Compulsive Afro Destroyers. They destroy hair that you have spent about 5-10 mins combing and shaping. And they usually do it from behind you as well, accompanied with the exclamation 'Ooohh it feels like WOOL!'......and then I retort 'Get your fingers out of my hair FOOL!'
So let this serve as a warning to those (you know yourselves) who get excited when they see a round crisp Afro approaching them, 'Look, but please.....Please....Puhhh.LEASE!! do not touch' a well combed Afro is very hard to attain, and thus it must be treated like a work of art in the Louvre, admire from a safe distance, but keep your fingers (and pens/pencils and other small objects) away from the hair.

...you are very welcome to play with my beard tho, but don't put your finger in my mouth (that's unhygienic)

The Young and the Beardless

I possibly have to have a meeting at PR firm Robson Brown on Monday for my 2 week placement.
I know I normally look like Jonas Savimbi, so I decided to shave off the beard and mustache today. I feel naked without my facial accessories, that's why I shaved it today, so by Monday I'll have a thin film of beard.
Everytime I shave my beard off, I'm always surprised by the way my 'naked' face looks, I'm not accustomed to my beardless face.
Anyway, wish me luck for the informal interview.

My beardless face

Julian Obubo's Robinson Crusoe Challenge ends in failure

I had set myself a challenge, the challenge was that a razor would not touch my beard till the day I hand in my dissertation, I accepted this challenge so that my facial hair would be a constant reminder of the amount of work I need to do, this challenge was going on fine, and I last shaved way back in the second week of October. I am blessed with what I term 'follicular prolificacy' or the ability to grow hair really quickly.
This challenge was twofold, not only was it to be a reminder to work hard, but it was also a scientific study- to see how I looked with a long beard, or to see how long my beard would grow if I didn't shave it for 6 months.

Anyway....

The results are that I may never know. I was advised by both brother and sister to shave it, my good friend William Cunningham told me I looked younger without a full beard, it seems the world has suddenly turned averse to beard wearing. Also, I began to suffer from 'beard fatigue'- which is the restlessness a bearded person feels when their facial hair isn't 'going anywhere', there's the temptation to pull out a razor and style it, or there is the further temptation, like the one I had last night, to completely and utterly get rid of the beard and start all over again.
So razor in hand, I shaved my beard. My namesake, the last non-Christian Emperor of Rome, Julian The Apostate, was known for his rich beard, he even wrote an article called 'The Beard Hater' making fun of those who had mocked his hairy face (they considered him quite unkempt for a Roman Emperor)
So, the name Julian has a history of beardedness, and I intend to keep that tradition strong, the issue now is to find the right length at which I want my facial hair to constantly be, rather than letting it grow to a apostolic levels (by apostolic levels I mean, I start to look like on of Christ's apostles) and then shaving it off, I must find a sort of middle ground, a beard equilibrium, this is my new challenge.
So in the end, I could not achieve my Robinson Crusoe look, I frankly do not think I would have completed it, after a while getting food stuck in your beard, or eating your mustache is not fun. But at least I tried, below you will find pictures of me, before and after the beardotomy.


Me, during the Robinson Crusoe challenge


Me, in my new hairless state

NB- Both pictures taken on different days, I don't just put on my suit simply to take pictures of myself.