Miss Marshmallow

I've started my new job working in lots of different primary schools doing art workshops, I'm not used to cute kids, I'm used to scary scallies who threaten to burn down your house, so it's nice to walk into a class and not be instantly hated. It's pretty good for my genral moral to show an example of my work and here 'woooooow!' and 'when I grow up I want to be just like Monet' and 'Miss can I tell you something.....I just love your curly hair.'

I've discoved schools have changed since I was at school, they seem to have interactive white board in every class and they have banned rubbers from the classroom the idea behind that is to make children carry on working through their mistakes but in reality it means that every time they make a mistake they get a new sheat of paper....what a great way to waste time and trees! I felt quite old this week when I brought in some items for obsevational drawing one of which was a casset tape and year 5s didn't know what it was. They guessed it was a video! I'm not really expecting them to own tape but at least know what they are, I've never owned a record but I know what one looks like. This week I started with the question can anyone remember my name from last week.....hillarious, my best answer was 'Miss Marshmallow'

Peanut Butter

I've been going to a creative writing class....it shocked me at first that I would do something so educational and words based in my spare time, I guess people change. I once said I would never wear a skirt by choice and now I own 8....I once said my favorite colour was florescent pink and gold stripy.....and I once made a bet of £100 that I wouldn't snog a boy by the time I was 17, and Dad you are wrong £100 is still worth a lot even though we are living in the future now, thanks for letting me off though even though there was written evidence. but attually come to think of it what kind of father makes their 7 year daughter old sign a bet like that?!

I've been going to creative writting for a while...usually my writting stays around on my bedroom floor for a few days and then goes in the bin but this time I thought I'd share it, I'm not great at fiction really because I don't like lying but here goes...

I'm waiting in the isle nervously and then I see the worlds most beautiful woman smile as she walks towards me, I'm dressed in my finnist...well tesco's finnist...I am a jar of tesco's finnist peanut butter. 'she's never gonna pick you' a voice calls out it was Gary 'and why's that?' I ask 'she may be a fitty but she's deffo a student, so if she's going home with either of us it will most likely be me' he had a fair point, I thought at first that it would be the glamorous shopers who would want me but it's quite often the middle aged ugly ones.

The lady continued towards us, I tryed to hide my sell by date from her as there were other jars that would last longer than me, Jeffrey and Clive's gang were the new jars, orriginally put at the back but they managed to sneek forwards into prime position at the front of the shelf, it was so unjust! they had all the time in the world, I was best before 30th May 2011.

The lady stoped right in front of us, she had blond curly hair and perfectly applied lipstick, I imagined being on those delicious looking lips, she seemed to look me right in the eye as she reached out her hand and touched my lid. For a second I thought she would take me and I was ready to spend the rest of my life devoted to pleasing this beutiful woman.

Sadly it wasn't to be , she glanced up to the shelf above and picked out Tesco own brand chocolate and hazelnut spread, I caught a glimpse as he was placed in the trolly. It was steve, I don't know him that well he's a friend of a friend really, I'm happy for him of course but not as happy as I would have been for myself, I know I could have impressed that woman with my beutifully formed organic nuts, she would have found me tasty, I bet I could have even achived my ultimate ambition of being eaten straight off a finger.'

Driving

I now have a car! It's not technically mine right now but I'm hoping the more I scratch it the less the parents will want it back. I've found the world of real life driving quite different to being a learner. I never drove with someone carrying a fish tank in the pasenger seat as a learner, and this presents a whole new set of challenges. Also it's pretty weird to drive somewhere for an atual reason, not just for the sake of driving. I think even if I have a car now for the rest of my life I will still always be a cyclist deep down. but I need to remember when I'm driving that I am not a cyclist and that I should try and keep law breaking to a minimum, I'm trying to at least follow may friend Luke's personal rule of not breaking more than one law at once, it is quite a challenge though. I've moved house to a different area of Liverpool so getting into town is a bit more challenging because there's a lot of different options, it's easy enough to set of and just somewhere in town, but to get to somewhere specific it takes a bit of forward planning. On my bike I can just ride on any road that goes west and I'll end up where I want to be eventually, but in a car it's complecated, it's not so sociablely acceptable to go down one way roads the wrong way or drive through parks or go on the pavement when there's a red traffic light.

The one big bonus of driving I thought would be food shopping, I have this thought every time I'm turning right at a major junction with no lights or helmet and a million shoping bags on my handle bars, however I recently discovered the pros of driving your shopping home are almost outweighed by the cons of shopping with a trolly not a basket. I realised that when I had pushed my trolly though the isle where you go to pay and then tryed to squize back to the bit where you put your pin number in and I got traped for quite a long time in between the trolly and the isle. My housemate Amber has never laughed so hard.

Africa for Wimps

I've spent the last to weeks in Uganda, Uganda is like Africa for wimps:

It's hot but not actually too hot because it is mountainous. (a pleasant 25'c all year round)
It's poor but not too dangerous or corrupt because it is a very christian country.
There are other languages but the official main language is English.....see what I mean?

We crammed a lot of stuff into our two week trip, I got to see most the animals from the Lion King which is the best Disney film ever made- probably the best film ever made. We went rafting and body boarding in the Nile and I got to test out some myths about the equator. It turns out the thing about water going clockwise in the north and anti-clockwise in the south is actually true because there was an experiment set up at the equator. even though the bowls were only a few meter apart it was enough to make a difference and the water in the bowl on the equator goes straight down which was weird to watch. The other myth about people walking on there hands in the southern hemisphere turned out to be false.

If you work for channel 5 and want to produce a program entitled something like 'Extraordinary Genitalia' Uganda is the place to go:

Grown-up Stuff

A lot of things are changing for me at the moment....I don't mean like I'm going through puberty or the menopause or something....I mean like life stuff like moving jobs and moving house and getting a car that a few years ago was 'grown up stuff' and now is just stuff, but quite exciting stuff. Even though I am doing relitively grown up stuff now I still apparently look like a teanager, I'm kind of board of that now, I think people don't really look properly, they see I'm a bit shorter than average and think I must be not fully grown and therefore still a teenager and they don't look at my slightly wrinkerly 24 year old eyes.

This old man who was a volunteer in the gallery I work at insulted me by not looking at my 24 year old eyes today:

old man: are you on work experience?

me: no I work here.

old man: oh is this just a little job for you before you go to uni?

me: no I've been to uni

old man: oh! you must be older than 21!

me: I'm 24

old man: you must be able to get a better job than working here with your dergee what was it in?

me: Art

old man: oh well, nervermind.

he pretty much insulted me at every stage of the conversation. If he though it was such a bad job why was he volunteering? at least I was being paid.

So anyway my new job is being an art workshop leader in lots of schools all over the north west. (that is replacing my job with the naughty kids but I will still do causal gallery work as a top up job) This company that have taken me on only take people on recomendation, and my friend Roz recomended me which ment I had the easist interview ever because there was no compotition, I just had to not be a total weirdo which I nearly managed. The interview was not far from my house just the other side of sefton park but not on a bus route so I cycled, but the problem was-
A: rain makes everywhere muddy
B: if you cycle through the park it is easy to come out the wrong exit and get lost
C: riding as fast as you can because you are lost when it is muddy and you don't have mud gaurds on your bike is not sensible before an interview.

The place I was interviewed had no mirrors so I have no idea if I had mud on my face, I definatly had some splatterd up my jumper, and when I got home there was some on my neck which I'm hoping was from the ride home. The point is I still got the job.

I didn't really manage to get rid of that first impression a few days later when I went to their office to give in stuff for a CRB check, it was really really pouring down like - you have to change your underwear when you get home wet. I'd brought my 8 previous CRB check with me just to prove that if I'm a weirdo, it's the safe kind. I discoverd CRBs are not waterproof even if they're in a waterproof-ish bag. the the ink runs everwhere so I can't even prove I'm not a crimanal now.

So that is the story of my new job, I also have to get a car to do that job, (I hope I have more luck with cars than bikes, I'm currently on my 7th bike since I've been in liverpool, which is 5 years.) and also I'm moving house to a different area of liverpool I've never lived in before. Tonight is my last night in this house before I move to my new house via the exciting detinations of Uganda and Coventry.

Tattoos

I'm either going through soem late teanage rebellion or early midlife crisis but I feel like changing my image a bit, not because I don't like who I am or anything I'm just board. I was considering getting a tattoo or a peircing or changing my hair. I think I've ruled out a tattoo now because it's to permanate, as I said to Dan 'I don't thnk I can make a decision about something I want now and be happy with it for the rest of my life' which I've since discoved is not a very reasuring thing to say to someone your in a serious relationship with. If I was going to have a tattoo though I think I'd like to have something useful like the 7 times table or the london tube map or the periodic table tattooed on to me. I'm suprised more people don't do that, there's no point having information you already know tatooed to you, like your children's names or whatever, you might as well have a french verb table or something. unless people who have there kids names tattooed on them do it coz they can't remember their kids names.

So I'm thinking about having my nose peirced, and if I can get my hair braided well I'm in uganda I will definatly do that.

Posh Protesting

This week my family were involved in the poshist protest I've ever seen. If your village was about to be destroyed to make way for a high speed railway would you get a marching band? Or would you think 'I shall juggle my clubs in anger' like my sister. I saw the whole news item on midlands today and infront of the marching band was 3 or 4 tractors. I think the people of northen Ireland and Gaza could learn at lot from the people of Burton Green. There posh protesting might not get them anything but at least it is fun for all the family.