www [bad word] English as a Second Language Podcast
Day in the Life of Lucy
Episode 4 – Doing Hair and Getting Dressed [bad word] TRANSCRIPT
This is [bad word] s "Day in the Life of Lucy," episode four: Doing Hair and
Getting Dressed.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from the Center for Educational Development in
beautiful Los Angeles, California. In episode three, Lucy ate breakfast; in this
episode, she does her hair and gets dressed. Let's start.
[Start of story]
I go back into the bathroom to finish doing my hair. Before I put the hot curlers
in, I had put a little gel in my hair to give it some volume. I also like to use my
hairdryer to give my bangs a little more shape. I take out the curlers one by one
and [bad word] through them into the style I like. I finish it off with a little hairspray
and I’m ready to get dressed.
In my bedroom, I look in my closet for a skirt and blouse to match. The office I
work in is pretty casual so I don’t need to wear a suit to work. On Fridays, we’re
allowed to be even more casual so most people wear jeans and sweaters to the
office, but no one dares to show up in t-shirts and shorts. I put on the skirt and
blouse and open the top dresser drawer to get some pantyhose. I wish I could
wear my tennis shoes to work, but I pick out a pair of heels and put them on. I
was ready to go.
[End of story]
Episode four is entitled "Doing Hair and Getting Dressed." Lucy begins by going
"into the bathroom to finish doing" her "hair." To do your hair means to make
your hair look nice. We may also say, "to fix your hair," but the [bad word] expression is "to do your hair." Well, if you remember from a previous episode,
Lucy had put hot curlers, or hot rollers. roller, "roller," is another name for a
curler, and those are things that women put in their hair so that their hair is not
straight, it has curls in it.
Lucy now needs "to finish doing" her "hair." She says that "Before" she "put the
hot rollers," or the hot curlers, "in," she "had put a little gel in" her "hair to give it
some extra volume." Gel, "gel," is a thick liquid that you put on your hair.
Sometimes you put it on your hair because you want your hair to go in a certain
way - you want it to be flat, for example, you put the gel on top. It's a thick liquid.
When I was in high school, back in the 1950s, it was very popular for high school
students to have gel - a type of gel in their hair. Maybe one of the more famous
movies in the United States about 1950s and 1960s in high school was called
Grease, "Grease." And in Grease, which starred, I think, Olivia Newton-John and
John Travolta - I'm not sure, I, as a man, have not watched it as much as most
American girls and women have - but in the movie, I remember that the boys had
gel - a type of gel on their hair to make it very flat on their head.
Getting back to Lucy, she says that she "put a little gel in" her "hair to give it
some" extra "volume." Volume, "volume," means she made it thicker, or fuller, or
bigger. To add volume to your hair means to make it thicker.
She also likes "to use" her "hair dryer to give" her "bangs a little more shape."
Bangs, "bangs," (always plural) is the hair that is on the part of your head above
your eyes, between your eyes and the top of your head. We call that part of your
head your forehead, "forehead." So, bangs are hair that goes over your
forehead.
Lucy is trying "to give" her "bangs little more shape," that is she doesn't want
them just flat; she wants to give them a different shape than what they have right
now. So, she takes "out the curlers," meaning she removes the curlers from her
h