Editor's Note: Now that Maricha has graduated, she will continue to blog while she starts her new job and prepares for her state board exam. Our plan for this blog is to have more than one student blogger at a time. So we'd like you to meet Karyn Lenhart. She just started nail school this week, and she'll be offering her perspective on what it's like to be a nail student.

For the last six and a half years I have been working in and around the Sacramento, Calif., area as an esthetician and certified massage therapist. I have loved my job since day one! I have been fortunate enough to have spent the last two years renting space from a wonderful woman who owns a salon in Roseville, Calif. We have a strong and faithful clientele base that has been desperate for a great, reliable manicurist. During the last six months the owner of the salon has unsuccessfully been trying to find someone to come join our team and offer quality nail services.

In August, as I was preparing to go back to the local community college where I was taking music classes, it occurred to me that there was no good reason as to why I couldn’t go back to beauty college and get my manicuring license instead. The state of California requires a 400-hour program to get a manicuring license, and if you can go full time, this can be accomplished in approximately 10 weeks. Ten weeks?! I was crazy to not do it at this point in my life.

I promptly went over to Citrus Heights Beauty College, where I had attended the Esthetic program almost seven years earlier, and looked into when I could start classes. I was told that I could have a start date of October 19^th. Well that was all I needed to hear. With that I dropped my 14-unit class load at the community college and started telling everyone that I knew that I was planning to get my manicuring license. I couldn’t wait to be able to have new services to offer to my existing clients, and I still can’t wait to have new clients to introduce my talents and services to. I had to prepare my current client load for the drastic change to my schedule, but I told them if I can do this for 10 short weeks, that they wouldn’t even notice the difference!

So far everyone has been very supportive and I am so looking forward to being back in beauty college again. It was such an amazing experience the first time that I am excited to be able to do it again.

Oh, and that “Manicurist Wanted” ad that the salon owner had in the paper? Let’s just say that the position has been filled.

— Karyn Lenhart