Engagement- The Official Story

Dan and I got engaged! This is the official story of how it happened from my side:

If you haven't read 'The story of Han and Dan' in March 2009 that is the prequel. I will start this part of our life story on Monday 6th December, when we both had a day off work and went for a lovely walk on Winter Hill- which is a wintery hill with snow and horses near Bolton (I'm not sure what happens to it in the summer.) Dan had been acting suspiciously for months and we had talked about getting engaged quite a bit, although it was all a bit in code, we used the word 'marriage' very rarely but we'd quite often discuss issues that are further ahead than that such as: would we find out the sex of our potential baby before it was born?- this implied marriage but was a bit less scary because it was more hypothetical.

From my detective work I had worked out the probability of him proposing on the Winter Hill day to be around 70% and I have since discovered that he was planning on doing it then but the ring didn't arrive in time. So we had a lovely day but no proposal. I wondered after that day if it was ever going to happen, and then came the actual day that he proposed. (19th December.) This day was the last day before I went back home to the midlands to see my family and make a life sized elephant. Dan drove from southport to Liverpool to visit me and we had our pretend Christmas where we exchanged gifts. We decided it would be fun to dress up so Dan dressed as Santa and I dressed as a elf. What I didn't realise till afterwards was that he had to stop at the service station on the way to buy credit and then phone my Dad to ask his permission. It didn't go as well as it could of because Sarah picked up the phone (who sounds like me) so then Dan thought he had accidentally phoned me and started talking to her as if she was me before realising, then he introduced himself as Daniel not Dan which further confused my Dad who didn't know who he was.- he did all this dressed as Santa, only to arrive at mine and see me in my normal clothes coz I was too embarrassed to be a elf on my own in my house before he got there.

We swapped presents and stuff and then Dan for some unknow reason (now I know) wanted to go to my room, so we went up and I was tiding the room around him a bit and then he said 'I've got an extra little gift for you, close your eyes' so I did and when I opened then he was down on one knee saying 'will you marry me' holding a ring. I was very surprised but said yes straight away. I'm glad I thought about my answer before though, you can't really decide something like that on the spot, especially as in the moment their was so many weird emotions that if he'd have asked something less important like 'is a sausage dog a type of dog or a type of sausage?' I would have found that very had to answer. I really have no memory of what happend in the next 1o minutes or so, I know we talked and hugged but I don't think either of us made much sense because of all the adrenalin.

After that time we started telling people which was really fun. We phoned his parents first just to give me Dad an extra few minutes to digest the fact that Dan had asked permission, before he had to digest the fact that I'd said yes. Then we went to our church carol service and told people so there was this lovely scene of candles everywhere and the gospel choir singing and then someone would scream or jump up and down because we'd just told them. afterwards we went to a bit of a party at Tina's and Luke bought us some champagne to celebrate. That night I only got 1 hours sleep because I was so excited. Here is the ring, I love it! (even though my sister says it looks like a uterus)

p.s Some people might think it's weird that he proposed dressed as Santa, but I think that everybody who proposes should be dressed as an old fat man because it's easy to say yes to an attractive man in their 20's ...but you have to remember they will one day be old and fat so by agreeing to marry an old fat man anything else is a bonus.

My Made-up Curriculum

This week was my last week working in schools before the Christmas holidays...then my job will be making a life sized elephant for a protest. I love being an artist.

This week in school has been interesting. I'm more used to secondary school aged children I've forgotten how much little children don't know. They really don't know anything, there's no way they could function on their own without help, we should really come up with some kind of system by which they can learn all the things they need to know in life. Sometimes I forget that they have to learn stuff in stages and I can't just talk about art at university level to them, although I have tried.

I'm not into the whole 'lets talk to children in a different voice than our normal voice' thing. Do teacher's actually know they're doing that? I find it amusing when I walk into a classroom and teacher is talking in this very sing-songy patronizing way, and then I have a little bet with myself about whether they have a normal voice that they use for adults or not. So far I've only met one teacher who has no adult setting on their voice box. it creeps me out talking to them, I feel like I'm in trouble all the time.

My method is to just talk normally but try and change my vocabulary a little bit so they can understand, as I don't generally use long words this is an easy task for me. The curriculum for art is very vague I figured I can teach what I like, I do the usual school stuff like Picasso and Monet ect but I like to throw in the odd Mentally ill Japanese instillation artist or contemporary political Palestinian artist into the mix. My students may not know how to colour neaty in the lines but they are at least very socially and politically aware, which is what you need if you're going to be an artist. You don't go to see the turner prize to see very neat colouring in do you? It was yesterday when I used the phrase 'born in exile' when I realised I had gone to far. 'what's exile?' what's a refugee?' 'why are they refugees?' 'when did the artist make a Islamic prayer mat from a bed of nails?' I realised in that moment that you can explain why an artist would make a Islamic prayer mat from a bed of nails, to people who still believed in Santa.

Miss Marshall the Christmas Decoration

This week I taught a lesson where the class had to invent a new product and make a poster to advertise it. There were a lot of funny ones but this was by far my favorite if you can't read it it says:

'With the Miss Marshall Christmas decoration your home will never be dull on Christmas, she will brighten up your mood and melt out the sadness in you. Act now and get a free Miss Marshall doll. Miss Marshall Christmas decoration costs £1.50. Song: she is Miss Marshall the snow girl and she loves to play.'

How cool is that?! I know it's a bit big headed, but I'd buy one, in fact I might buy a few dozen and decorate my tree entirely in me dolls.

I love working in primary schools, it's kind of like being a celebrity, you walk into a room and all the kids are like 'Miss Marshall's here hoary.' I don't think that is just because they love me, I think it's got a lot to do with the fact I bring paint and glue guns and bags of sparkly bits with me wherever I go. Children are like magpies when you get out shinny things.

But I do love it, some kids made me a christmas card this week, and because it was my last week in that school they were really sad. I like it when they say they enjoyed the lesson or they tryed something I taught them at home, but there's a couple of girls that take it a bit too far and say that I'm pretty or I smell nice, all nice things but a little weird coming from a random 10 year old. It does make a change from my old job where I got two bikes vandalised by students I taught, and death threats, and one student was overheard plotting to 'bang me' (which by the way means beat me up, not get it on with.) I love this new freedom of going into work with a spot, and knowing that it probably won't be pointed out.

My Family

I have recently decided to diss-own my sister Sarah. But before doing that I thought I owe her a little explanation. If you don't know me because you're just a weird internet stalker, I'm going to tell you about my family maybe you can stalk them too. I have two little sister's that are attually bigger than me, Sarah (age 16) and Jo (age 21) and then I have the regular relatives that most people have ie parents. In my extended family (which I accedentally called my 'pretend family' the other day) I have 3 aunties and 2.5 uncals, 66.66 reacuring % of my aunties are auntie Jills/Gills and 33.33reacuring % of my aunties are non Jills/Gills, don't worry I won't put a maths question at the end of this. I have no grandparents, but Dan has 4 so he said I could borrow at least 1 of his- I think I'll probabley go for the accordian playing french grandad. I have 6 cousins, 2 of the long lost variety and 4 of the regular kind. 50% of the non-long lost kind live in a very different culture to most people I know, they are very 'londonny' and by this I mean:

They are not in constant awe of technology everytime they ride the tube.
They think £4 in an acceptable price for a sandwidge.
They have never seen a real life tree.

But back to my sister...I'm pretty much the reson she's alive in the first place, when I was 7 or 8 I kept asking for a dog and then I changed tac and started asking for a baby sister. and when she was between the ages of newborn and 2 I was a very lovely big sister:


Awww. but you can't really blame me for not spending a load of time with her after that, I asked for a baby sister, not an atual person who can argue back. Over the years since I left home I felt that we have bonded over our shared intrest in art. I've always fancied being that nice carring supportive big sister role where she would look up to me and appreciate my artistic acheivements, and go to see exhabitions with me ect. My other sister Jo was never going to forfill this role...she's studing medcine now-how will that ever help society?! So Sarah is doing art GCSE and she always shows me her sketch books and stuff, she a far more talented at art than I was at her age. But last time I went home she droped a bombshell on me....her A level choices - French, Biology, Psychology and Maths. MATHS MATHS! why oh why would you do MATHS! and to add insult to indury she's even considering doing further maths! Her art teacher attually said to her that 'she'd broken her heart' I personally think that this teacher needs to get out more. I'm not attually heart broken I just need to find a new aprentice now that I'm the only member of my family that hasn't done maths for A level.

I'm thinking of getting one of my cousins I'll probably go for the youngest one Joshusa who is about 6 the younger they are the more impressionalable they are. So in 20 years time if your watching the tunner prize- look out for him.