Hen Night

I've got a backlog of blogs queueing up in my head, and 6:46 am 2 days before my wedding seems as good a time as any to write about my hen night which happened a few weeks ago. My head bridesmaid Bex organised it and did a flipping good job! she knows me too well.

This is me and Bex back in the day, LOVE that photo! we were born next door neighbours then when I was 6 they moved a few miles away, and then 6 months later we followed them to the same street. We started a new primary school together and pretended we were sisters. There was a few years when we were teenagers where bex had become 'cool' and I was still in that annoying 'boys are smelly' phase of life. But it's all good now and I'm learning like boys too, one particular boy especially.

Bex came up with a totally awesome theme of where's wally, and we had a lot of fun doing silly things dressed as wallys. I love running after a stranger in a park that are wearing red and white stripy t-shirt and shouting 'WALLY!' until they turn around.

We had a girly sleepover and I had to answer questions that they had previously asked Dan, by guessing what he answered. I'm not sure why my mum was allowed to be in the room at the time, because she now knows one of Dan's most embarrassing moments. The time when I was telling mum infront of Dan about all the personally questions in the frontline marriage prep questionnaire. For some reason the first example question that came to my head was 'What's the worst thing about your future parents in law?' ...... to which mum asked Dan what he had written. Dan repleyed 'I haven't done that one yet.'

And everyone now knows about the strawberry yogurt thing.... sorry Dan.

Lava Land

6 year olds have messed up brains...or adults do I'm not sure, but I might right a book called adults are from Neptune and six year olds are from Uranus.

This thought occurred to me during a conversation with several 6 year olds which went like this:

a 6 year old: Where do you live?
me: Liverpool
a six year old: ooooh I want to live in liverpool because they have purple bins there.
me: They do have purple bins there, but that's a funny reason to want to live somewhere.

(Then I explained why they have purple bins which is because liverpool fc is red and everton is blue and so the council decided on purple to make it fair.)

a six year old: So do you support everton or liverpool?
Me: neither really, I'm not really from liverpool.
a six year old: Where are you from?
Me: near Birmingham.
a six year old: where is that?
Me: in the center of England.
a six year old: wooooow!! you lived in lava in the center of the world?!

I remember thinking loads of weird stuff when I was that age, like:
-if you dreamed about someone, then they were having the same dream at the same time but from their perspective,

- if you dig far enough in the sand you can get to Australia.

-I thought that a bit of dirt I found in my belly button was my umbilical cord.

-I poured my lemoaid on the grass because I felt sorry for the grass that it always had to drink borring water.

-I also remember thinking when I was about 6 that by the time someone reaches 8 years old they are capable of being totally independent and they could run away and easily live without any help from anyone.

Sometimes I think kids are more intelligent though, like the time I asked a kid why he drew arms coming out of his head, and he just held out his arms and looked at them and I realised that from the perspective of yourself, your arms do come out your head because you can't really see shoulders. And I think it is far more sensible to draw yourself from your own perspective that someone else's.

Who shall I bleed on?

I used to get nose bleeds a lot as a kid, and I really enjoyed it. I loved the attention, and the amount of disruption and mess you could cause in a school assembly without any pain at all. I especially enjoyed taking a big sniff, so a ball of flem and blood formed in my mouth and then dramatically spitting it out. I was an odd child...and now I'm an odd adult. Occasionally I had a nose bleed in a really annoying place like once when I was cycling and I had to wipe my nose on leaves. I don't hardly get them anymore, but last week I was driving to Manchester and I really thought I was about to get one.

I quickly went through all the possible things I could use to absorb blood in my head, I didn't have any tissues and I decided I wasn't wearing any clothes that I wanted to sacrifice to the cause. My options were really limited to maps. I discounted my Liverpool an Manchester A to Zs as they're important (although if I had to bleed on one it would of course be Manchester.) I concluded that the British atlas was the way to go but obviously there's some important bits you wouldn't want to bled on. I decided on Scotland as the place to do most of my bleeding as I've only been there once and it's not the kind of place that you just end up driving through by accident like wales. I wonder if it's racist to choose to bleed on one nation over another? Then I thought about where I would bleed in England and Wales to best preserve my map for future use, and I thought probably mid wales because there's nothing there, and Norwich. I did consider Milton kenes because it sounds boring but it's on the way to other places so I wouldn't want to mess it up.

The best way would be if I had statistics about gun crime and I could make a political map with more blood on cities with more gun crime. Maybe it could be "art" although it would probably mean bleeding on the most useful parts of the map. Anyway I never ended up having a nose bleed in the end, but at least I know what I'm doing if I do ever get a car nose bleed.

I guess I could be one of those women who carries tissues with her wherever she goes...but I don't think I'm really 'in that place' yet. I'm getting there slowly, I've got a plastic bag where I keep other plastic bags and I've nearly got a mortgage so a guess carrying tissues will be inevitable some day, but not just yet.

My Vows Init

Welcome to the 100th blog post of Hannah Marshall. For this post I would like to document a recent text message conversation between me and my future husband. We sometimes enjoy a bit of comedy in our texting, we often speak in either over the top radio 4 language or we go ghetto. In this most recent conversation we came up with ghetto wedding vows:

'Yo bruv, howabouts we say our vows in dis totally wicked styleley? I think da vic and our hommies would proper respect dat, init'

'I Dan Jonesy, do proper promise to av a crack at dis marring lark and try to, like, keep havin a job but also fun wid ma main lady Da end, does da mean we can snog now?'

'The wibster proper respects Jonesy boy and I promise I ain't gonna dis his face, or his mum, or his mum's face. Infact I iz gonna big him up to our crew and in da club n everywhere coz he is ma man.'

'Word. Are we, like, married now or do I need to text dis to da vic?'

What do normal people do?

In other wedding related news I had a funny dream about our wedding night! It involved me cleaning the inside of Dan's belly button with a baby wipe which came out all green. What does this mean?!

My Unoffical Dissertation

I have to write a 20,000 word dissertation for my MA, I had an idea for it but it was publicly rubbished as 'loaded with assumptions' and 'impossible to prove' so here is my unofficial MA dissertation:

'Dyslexics are actually secret geniuses at arty fun stuff'
Introduction
Get ready for my mind blowing research project it's going to rock your world.

Abstract
I know it's true dyslexics are secret geniuses and at arty stuff and I'm going to try and prove it.

Literature review
I didn't really read any books on this because I don't like reading but I did find a book called 'In the mind's eye- gifted people with dyslexia and other learning disabilities' This title suggests that someone else more qualified than me thinks something along the same lines as me, and if two people think something it is true. Fact. (Although if no one else thinks that it makes it not a fact)

Also there probably would be a million more books about this, but the only people who would write this kind of book are dyslexicsw and they don't like writing books.

Ethics
Nobody was killed in the making of this unofficial dissertation.

Research methods
I will collect data from my head, this stuff is made up from things I've overheard, conversations I've had and stuff I just know.

Analysis and findings
My hypothesis has been proved to be 100% true for the following reasons:

-I'm dyslexic and I'm arty.

-About half the people on my art degree course were dyslexic.

-My friend Josh is dyslexic and he got a first in art at uni.

-I'm sure other people have made this link before me.

Conclusion and Recommendations

-stop pestering dyslexic kids with spelling tests and buy them some proper good oil paints.

-get rid of grammar and dictionaries they destroy the soul.

Bibliography

Heat magazine.

The back of a packet of coco pops.

My great auntie Dorothy's facebook status.

Comments written in a petrol station toilets.

The Urban Cheese Awards

A work of fiction by Hannah Marshall. Dedicated to Grace Snow my number one blog fan and blog evangelist.

Everyone gathered around the fire in their hoodies chanting aggressively, two stocky men were starring each other out across the fire. One had a beard and a tattoo of his favorite cheese (edam) on his arm. This was extreme street fondue at it's most exhilarating! The eight mystery cheeses were grated into the giant fondue by an independent adjudicator. Who would be the ultimate extreme street fondue champion 2011?

Both contestants etched their initials into the side of a babybel which was tossed by the ref to decide who goes first. 'BB' Barry Bennet. 'Wooo' his supporters cheered as he steped up to the giant fondue pot that was sizzling over the fire. He got his infamous lucky spoon dipped it in and then dolloped a load in to his mouth. It tricked into his beard but Barry was concentrating to hard on the flavour to notice. 'Emmental' he shouted, there was compleat silence all eyes were on the ref, 'correct' he announced and the crowd roared. Ralph went next, 'wensleydale' 'correct' the crowd leaned in closer for Barry's turn, it continued 'Saint Agur' 'Roquefort' 'Ricotta' 'Double Gloucester'...it continued until there were only two cheeses left unidentified. Ralph took the spoon 'Brie?' he said hesitantly, 'incorrect' the ref said. 'Ooooh' growled the crowed.

The Ball was in Barry's court now four years of training could finally be paid off. Would he be crowned extreme street fondue champion? He had one guess left and there were two possible cheeses, Barry took another spoon fun and smelt it before shoveling it into his mouth. A silence fell upon the crowd, Barry licked his lips and braced himself for the moment he had been dreaming of for so long. 'Camembert' he shouted confidently. 'Correct!' yelled the ref, and everybody cheered. Barry punched the air several times while Ralph held back the tears. The crowd started stamping their feet and shouting 'cheese him! cheese him!' the ref lifted the giant fondue bowl away from the fire (as is the custom in all extreme street fondue finals) and poured the entire contence of the pot over Ralph's head. Barry chuckled to himself as he thought of his prize, a solid gold cheese grater, a solar powered cheese tostie machine and a life sized statue of himself made from a cheese of his choosing by the most incredible cheese sculptor.

The rowdy crowd shuffled away. The 'urban cheese paraphernalia of the year award' was soon to be announced. It was rumored to be another win for European champion Florence Twidle with her multi award winning cheese gun, which she invented when she accidental put a cheese string in a glue gun.

The End.

p.s I would like to thank www.cheese.com for their help with the cheese spellings in this story.

The golden rule of teaching

If the golden rule of teaching is don't let children draw nazi swastikas on their art, I've broken it. Whoops. I was teaching about indian art at the time and showing a slideshow of pretty indian patterns one of which had the swastika in the background which I didn't notice until a child said 'isn't that a Nazi sign?' I explained that it was a Hindu sign before it was a Nazi Sign according to wikkipedia where all truth is found 'it is one of 108 symbols of the Hindu deity vishnu and represents the suns rays' Then they asked if they could do swastikas in their collage, and I thought in my head 'yeah lets bring it back for the Hindus' when I should have thought 'would the headmistress want to display this work in school' and so I said yes. I hoped that my 'yes' came accross as 'yes but it's fround upon' but I don't think it did. Oh well, sorry teachers, sorry parents sorry Jews.

On a more positive note I tried to start a little revolution in a school yesterday. I heard some kids complaining that they couldn't paint very well because their brushes we're too thick. This is one the things that annoys me most in life, when children are given rubbish materials and therefore create rubbish art and get fustrated. I overheard one year 3 girl say that they could write to the school council about it, so I encouraged them to do 2 peices of art one with a good thin brush and one with a thick brush and give it to the school council explaining their case. They got really excited and wanted everyone in the class to sign a letter about it. I'm well up for petitions and protests, (in secondary school I once got in a lot of trouble for my protest against our lesbian PE teacher and the lack of shower curtains.) They didn't have a really thin good brush so I gave them my best one for the cause.