I was trying hard to fit in to my new life as an American high school student. As I was walking away from school with a group of girls, a police officer stopped to talk to one of them. “Hey girl, I see you’re growing your brioches!” the officer said. A wave of emotions overcame me. First, I cringed slightly at his efforts to appear super cool. Then I wondered how did he know the term ‘brioche’? And what was the proper plural of ‘brioche’?

‘Brioche’ was the word we used to describe the awkward stage our hair went through when we were growing out a fringe. Which I now knew to call ‘bangs’.