So it's been a week and a day since my last blog. It's been an eventful one.

My first new estrogen source arrived on Saturday last week, the day after my last blog... I started on it immediately at a fairly low dose...

Monday was my first day of Beauty School. Gosh was I sooooooo nervous. For the most part it was for nothing, though... Well. Really, it was for nothing really at all.

I mean, it's not all rainbows and teddy bear hugs and Hershey kisses... But everyone has been pretty accepting. More and more of the students are starting to correct themselves and use female pronouns for me. Some are already just doing so without thinking about it.

I have been getting bombarded with all kinds of questions, some sane, some a little less sane, and some reallllllllly out there. For me, it's just part of the deal. I could have chosen to run and hide, or, take it how it's meant, they're obviously curious and trying to understand. Some a little more than others.

There is only one guy in the class. And as far as I can tell, only one guy already out on the floor. I haven't had too much interaction with the guy on the floor, of course. The guy in the class is an ex-CO who decided it was time to make a change to his life and for whatever reasoning decided to go into cos. He's cool. I don't think he's quite entirely comfortable with me, even less than the other girls, strangely.

I'm still getting used to being back in school, and as a female now, and stuff. And geeeesh but is this stuff ever fast and uber condensed. I hope I can keep up!

There were some hiccups with the restroom situation. At first, no one was sure what the policy was on which restroom I should use, and for the first few days I used the men's while it was being figured out. The first day, the head manager of the campus at first said I could use either, then said I needed to get a special dispensation or something such to use the ladies, the second day I was still under that impression, and when I finally got a chance to look through the form she'd printed off, it said it was for disability... And I'd need a doctor and it'd need to have been known about 12 months prior and... yeah... I'd've never been able to get that OK'd. So I'd resigned myself to having to use the mens at school... Finally, I think it was on Wednesday, during first break when I took my name change order in, she told me that it was okay for me to just use the ladies. But only use it to go to the restroom, if I have to change, I have to go off-campus. Works for me! I don't know who, and it's not really any of my business, but apparently someone thought they saw me "adjusting" myself in front of the mirror in the restroom at some point... We all here are quite well aware how impossible that even is when wearing a gaff without literally stripping your bottom half... I can only suppose I was adjusting my jeans on jean day this Thursday... Since I have the aforementioned boney hips, and my jeans are hipsters, they sometimes like to ride down on me... The manager told me this is fine and she'd handle it, but I'm just going to have to be extra careful to do ANY outfit adjustments AT ALL, in the privacy of a toilet stall I guess. Just to avoid any confusion of any sort.

I slipped something into the previous paragraph quite innocently that deserves a paragraph of it's own. YES! MY NAME CHANGE! I can't presently afford to get my license taken care of, and I can't correct my bank account yet until I have my new SS card, but I have my court-ordered name change! I am now legally Abigail. It was interesting. I was all worked up about it, and then it was all kinda anti-climactic and over in like 15 minutes.

I go downtown and into the courthouse, go up to probate, go into the wrong room at first, get directed to return to where I'd filed, and talk to the same girl who I'd filed with, she tells me to wait outside and they'll call me back in in a bit. I sit there waiting, and eventually some guy walks by who I don't remember, but was apparently there when I'd filed and is like, I remember you! Name change right? I answer the affirmative and he talks to me for a minute like nothings up at all, then he leaves. A bit later, I get called back in and the girl notarizes my order of name change and runs a couple copies and off I go.

At the SSA I take a seat waiting my turn next to an older lady working a book of word search puzzles and she strikes up a conversation with me as just the girl sitting next to her in line. It was just so NORMAL that it was surreal. When it's finally my turn, it's all over in just a few minutes, they take my license, ss card, and name change order, do whatever it is they do, and give me back the license and name change order, telling me the new card should arrive in the mail within ten business days. She never once mentions my old name, it's just Abigail, and just a girl getting her name changed. Of course, I've still got that "M" but... one thing at a time. It'll be quite a while longer before I get that changed yet.

After SSA it's back to school for the remainder of the day. We were covering waxing, and one of the girls wanted to wax my legs, I'm like, OK by me, but I don't think I have enough... Once it's our turn, the instructor agrees I did not have enough hair to wax yet. I tell the girl who wanted to wax me that I should have enough grown back in the next day... cuz I'd last shaved them on Saturday... They weren't. Still weren't on Thurs... Still not on Fri... This morning, they're finally getting really stubbly again. Hopefully she can do them on Monday, it'll be the last day that we can do waxes on each other for free. That is only one of several effects I'm already noticing from the estrogen. My mood and energy is also so much better, and I've already gained a few more mm's in the bust probably. I haven't measured, but I can SEE a difference. I used to have to shave my entire body every other day most typically, and every four days was the absolute max. Weekly shaving will be such a relief in comparison. Obviously my beard is still a daily blood-letting. Literally...

Wednesday and Thursday we were on facials. Got my first ever facial done and did my first ever facial on someone else on Thursday. I'm awful at it at this point. Going to need to really work on that! As for my facial... I just wish I'd been on a bed instead of a table. ^^

Also on Wednesday the rest of my present HRT plan arrived from Swanson's. So far I think these dosing levels are working quite well for me.

Yesterday we did each others makeup and covered some basic color theory. I figured out an awesome new trick! OK... so... the instructor is all like, I'm going to intentionally try to use something not color matched in order to show you what to do... and then used too light of a concealer around this girls eyes. She's then like. Looks great right!? I'm done right!? and we all laugh and she's like, so here's what you do, and put a properly color matched foundation on top of it. The dark circles are covered, the too light concealer is covered, and viola, it actually is perfect! Suddenly a light bulb goes off in my head, and I'm like, to the instructor, what if we use this intentionally, on, like, my beard shadow? And she's like that could be interesting, who's your partner for later and yadda yadda.

So the same girl who wants to wax my legs is also the girl I'm partnered with for this. She does a full foundation first, then the too-light concealer into the shadow, and then foundation again, just as we'd talked about with the instructor. She then sets it with setting powder... And it worked! It actually does a better job than the crazy expensive cream and powder from Dermablend and the primer from TooFaced and I'm sure probably will cost me less! We used cream-to-powder products. Dermablend is just a straight up heavy cream and actually seems to melt on me more than this stuff. I never wanted to even consider the heavy grease stuff some girls resort to... So yeah. Very happy to figure this one out!

She took a really long time on me, and is like, "I took too long!", and I'm like, that's mostly because there's so much more to be done to my face... and she's like "No, I'm just too slow." *shrug*

Anyways, then it's my turn to do hers and we are indeed very crunched for time... So I try to work as quickly as I can while not messing it up, and I think I did a terrible job, but she seems to like it and other students seem to like it, so I dunno.