Nails 101: A Student Blog

Week 5: Showing Progress

by NAILS Magazine | November 22, 2010 | Bookmark +

Wow, this was an easy week. Even though I had long days every day due to my self-inflicted work schedule after school and an emergency run to the AT&T store to replace a non-functioning cell phone, I got a lot done and didn’t feel exhausted. I had two days of no clients at school, which allowed me to finish the test booklet that compliments our textbook and to nearly complete my work book. This week in theory we covered nail disorders and infections. Despite being completely disgusting at times, I found it to be very fascinating. Nearly every disease has the prefix “ony-” since that is the technical name for the nail. I had a list of words that all sounded the same and I was going to be tested on what the diseases did or how they were caused.

 

Onychophagia is the formal word for nail biting, one of the instructors told us that an easy way to remember this is that the word “chop” is in the middle of the word, you chop or bite your nails off. A very easy mental trick and I will never forget it. Another one was the medical name for an ingrown nail, onychocryptosis. The word “crypt” is in the middle of this word and the memory trick was that you go under or into a crypt when you die like a nail goes under/into the skin. I got a 98% on the test; I missed one question because I just didn’t read it correctly. I hate it when that happens.

 

The school does these progress reports for the students at certain intervals to see where we are with missed hours or our grade point average. They also check to make sure that we are getting enough operations to satisfy state board requirements. We have to maintain at least a 75% GPA and have to be attending at least 80% of the time. At the end of last week we hit 160 hours — or we where supposed to. Due to my sick day and the time I have taken on Saturdays to go into the salon to do clients, I am about 15 hours short. My GPA is at 90% overall and that is satisfactory for me. I was able to maintain the same in the esthetic course seven years ago. We get to pre-apply to the state board at 240 hours so we can have a state board test date before we graduate. It is hard to believe that we are almost halfway done with school. Right now my graduation date will probably be January 5th due to the time I have missed and the time I predict I will miss for work in the future.

 

This past week I had two fills and I was really happy to get them. I wanted to be able to work on my filling technique. I was concerned that I was having a hard time getting the fill line done correctly. I kept having this obvious lip that I was creating that added a lot of extra time because I had to file. I seemed to have finally figured it out, I just needed to concentrate and take my time since the school gives us two hours to complete a fill anyway. I was booked solid on Friday and Saturday with manicures and pedicures. I have a new regular client who is 9 years old and loves the nail art that I paint on her. This week we did a glitter from the Burlesque collection by OPI that she was in love with. I had another client who was on her way to her high school’s winter formal so we did some shooting stars on her fingers with star-shaped glitter and a glitter striper. I don’t know why I didn’t take pictures of these, but I will try to see if I have time to recreate the shooting stars on just one hand because they came out so cute!

 

This coming week we only have two days of classes because of the upcoming holiday. My regular Lauren, who came in for a pedicure on Saturday, is bringing her sister in this week to get manicures. This is especially helpful to me because I have to complete 40 manicures before school is done and I have only gotten in 17 so far. My husband is also coming in for a mani/pedi since he is off and he wants to help me out. As of this coming Tuesday I will hit the halfway mark for my required hours. I cannot believe I am already halfway done.

 

— Karyn

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