snakey

'but i saved you?' cried the woman, 'and you bit me! tell me, why?
..and you know your bite is poisonous and now i'm gona die..'
'aaahhhhh shut up, silly woman' said that reptile with a grin
'now you knew darn well i was a snake before you took me in.'

yeah

well done me

i'm so happy. so so happy.

after just under 4 months of teaching I've been asked if it's OK for the newest student teachers to come and watch some of my lessons.. can't really believe it? (terrified. must plan the SHIT out of next week's classes :/)

i just spent a fortune on stationery to finally get started on keeping my teaching resources organised, it feels really good to start building up a bank of useful and interesting lesson ideas.

stew and dumplings at sam's last night was blissful, she is living my absolute dream with her flat full of enormous bookshelves, gorgeous little kitchen and even a tiffany lamp! perfect.

love that one of my new students is 85 years old! she's called Lilya, is super fiesty and it's her first time ever in the UK! life idol.

liking the rain and the cats cuddled on my bed.

really need to sort my laundry, hoover and plan but instead i'm just casually watching hundreds of nicki minaj videos. oh life.

h3h3

i love my job. i do wonder why arabic men always take such a shine to me. i love my babies. i love how hard they work and how happy they are when they (eventually) get things right. i love that they still don't quite understand the difference between an adjective and a verb. i love photocopying everything for next week on a friday afternoon. i love being asked to do one-to-one classes. i love being given masses of cover work. i love earning a sexy wage. i love that the kind of people who used to seem to cool or too awesome for me are now my good friends. i love realising that actually i'm an adult too, and that in fact i'm another awesome person completely worthy of their company. i love wearing a t shirt with wolves on and cleaning the entire house on a friday night. i love cutting my own hair and listening to belle and sebastian in my newly hoovered, scrubbed and dusted bedroom. i love sexy boys. i love tall skinny arabic boys with massive smiles and the cutest sense of humour and excellent facial hair. (i don't love the idea of being beheaded, followed by crucifixion, for voting without permission from a male guardian.....but whatev) i love pumpkin ravioli. i love finally understanding how grim the meat industry is, and knowing i don't want to be a part of it anymore... i love having friends like sam to lend me books about food and dvds about sustainable living, and friends like rosie to lend me ones about female monarchs and fabric printing. i love RESTING mmmm lying down, i love getting up for work, i love breakfast i love painting my nails and dancing and feeling fucking fantastic.

i love knowing myself and knowing i am amazing and knowing how lucky i am.

BLAR BLAR

...it was the best sex that she ever had.

bliss

such a lovely easter break.

cava in the living room with sam on thurs, she's my life idol, i just want to do loads of coke and ask her to be my mum like in boogie nights. somehow got roped into dancing with perolls, cem, dan and their sexy friends.. such an unexpectedly good night considering it was me and 5 boys surrounded by sweaty chavs grinding eachother into walls. lots of excellent dancing, no jagerbombs for me though.. dan had 22.. i couldnt manage to fake an impressed face sadly, but he was possibly too drunk to observe this.

sushi for breakfast on friday, followed by sunbathing and photography classes in the secret empty stretch of grass behind the pavilion with james, then nap time, a film and fajitas at his. then the 3 and 10 with andrew, kathy and kelly, sneaking secret gin into our drinks in the loos.

saturday morning gym sesh followed by shopping and my intense house clean-up. more sushi with tamaz and jess, and then some tea while we all watched The Voice in my living room. false eyelashes, cava and Showgirl at jess's flat (jessie from saved by the bell in a sequinned leotard with her boobs out; magical) then some glorious dancing at the shitty haunt, so many beautiful men! did some awkward dancing with rodrigo (who we decided is simply not fit despite the tremendous beard). nice cheeky man offered to buy me a drink but while he was fumbling in his wallet i paid for both.. whoops! was nice to see kelly, perolls, max etc

massively hung over so curled up under my duvet on the sofa with frida purring on my chest and watched human planet, followed by mary poppins (it's so awful?) the boys dragged me from my bed of pain for Come Dine with Us (andrew made sushi, a lot of which mike spilled on the floor, i did my paella, kelly made gorgeous salmon with a tomato and citrus sauce, kathy forgot and had to bring shop bought apple pie... she made up for it with a kinder egg hunt round the living room)

such a lovely four and a half days... my perfect easter weekend and (especially last night) just what i've been wanting for so long. yaaay.

now i'm curled up in my room, just about to tuck into a massive mug of tea, biscuits and twin peaks. life is good.

na na niiii

so glad tulisa posted another video to talk about her cheeky blowie, yes women can enjoy sex and no it doesn't make them a grim slutty slut bag.....mmmm sex. although she can't really call herself a feminist if she's ever actually heard any of dappy's lyrics, but still. YAY TULISA LIFE IDOL FOREVS. sort of.

loves

secret garden costume planning/making party

listening to daughter on repeat forever

everything nicki minaj touches

gold and black crackle effect nail varnish

sunnnnnnny brighton

living beside the seaside

mature, wise people who know what the fuck is going on

paris trip mmhmm

my favourite students

muscat as recommended by charlotte & alizee (i am clearly a french-swiss 16 year old at heart)

first step on my career ladder

real wages

flirting with boys

belleville rendezvous

millie the willy/annie the fanny LOL

various other hilarious shit that children come out with

various other hilarious shit that non-english speakers come out with

kitten cuddles every day

hoovering mm so satisfying

how beautiful allll the men are in the north lane

real patisserie croissants for breakfast

arm toning

blitz party ticket!

feeling as though i fit in <3

slowy

how has it taken me two hours to write a lesson plan?

oh i know, it's because i've been clicking repeatedly on to tumblr/facebook/youtube ('funniest nicki minaj lip synching ever'), using paint to edit together some before and after pictures of professor green's teeth, singing the 'jar of hearts' song to the cats but with appropriate hungry kitty lyrics, texting matthew a list of insults, running downstairs for 3 cups of lavender tea in 2 hours ('for a peaceful night's sleep..'), clicking back on to tumblr, clicking back on to facebook, clicking on to spotify to check i'm still on 'private session' so no one knows i'm listening to dappy's album on repeat.

SHAME.

so excited about my week away from the text book, my new t shirts from the rag freak closing down sale (massive lions head/wolves baying at the moon) also dancing (in a skirt) in two weeks with sam, ed and anna, and my new herbally orange hair. dreamz.

i like to trip at the weekends

i keep harping on about this to anyone who will listen, but i do rather love my job.

i just get so happy and excited when a lesson is going well and everyone's all into it and talking and laughing and caring and making notes and making jokes and being all good at english. yay.

and when my students look super happy to see me outside of class, or they tell me i have nice clothes or that i'm a good teacher, or even that I'm their favourite teacher (the clothes bit does take priority though, but don't tell Niall.) today i was telling my lesson 4 class that they are cute for doing all their homework so neatly and luca said 'you're really cute and really funny, it's incredible'...i think the meaning may have been massively distorted by 1) his avvers english skillz and 2) my intense creepy lust for his tall, cheesy, swiss/italian/austrian ways (still can't work out his confusing heritage, blatantly FIT LAND SEX-GOD-VILLE lololololol etc.............. :/) BUT STILL.

this whole post is a bucket of cringey awfulness whyyyy brain... (didn't sleep properly cause Yoko woke me up by being a fat purry shit)

ANYWAY.

i love teaching yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy i never thought it would make me this happy/that i could even contemplate teaching adults, let alone 'adults' who are actually mainly 16 - 35 year olds THE MOST TERRIFYING AGE GROUP SURELY. and actually be quite good at it, sort of. although i fear that letting luca play his dvd of 'Friends with Benefits' (JT's most thought provoking acting role to date.........) for the last 20 minutes of class today was not really a professional masterstroke...

other things i love:

staff meetings

how half the staff are top sexy handsome/beautiful exciting dynamic adventurous young men and women who are warm, engaging, stylish, hilarious, liberal, extroverted, passionate BABES (with a strong knowledge of english grammar) and how the other half are top glamorous/hippy/vaguely middle class (or slightly socially awkward) handsome/beautiful exciting dynamic adventurous middle aged men and women with an even more immaculate knowledge of english grammar.

THE BEST PART IS PAUL (fave man evs, clearly dreamy back in the day, he has floppy brown fireworks for hair, a tiny japanese wife and brings his lunch to work wrapped in a red and white lebanese handkerchief everyday like puss in boots) . anyway i love him and i love that he photocopies the guardian crossword every day for everyone to do during break time OHHHHH DREAM LIFE.

also my fave babes luca and aziz (best smile in the business and defo in brighton to come out as a cheeky lovely gay, post-oppressive muslim upbringing in da UEA.... ) POSSIBLY BUT DAT IS JUST SPECULATION.

i sincerely hope no one reads this.

unprofesh

staff training just makes me realise: 1)how secretly unprofessional i am 2)how much i love everyone who works at st giles 3)how much i fancy everyone who works at st giles 4)how much i love cocktail sausages.

monster

you could be the king but watch the queen conquer

best week.

this week i was given my own class at last (including steve the swiss transsexual, my new life idol). also: sloe gin & tonics, 3 course pancake bonanza and mad men with sam for shrove tuesday. I love her so much. because as rachel says, she sees all my wonderfulness but hasn't got to know me well enough to notice the grim reality of my actual persona. cheers mate.

mullholland drive at midnight in duke of york's, bread picnic on the beach with emily, lucie and boo, mojitos and beer in the crampest living room ever, learning to whistle, excellent dancing/iffiest child-men trying to seduce kathy, 3 in a bed, hangover scones at the tea cosy, nandos for 'CHICKEN WRAP? oh no...' followed by the campest night ever, free drinks and painful jokes about various people rubbing their own rings :(

i'd been thinking over and over about seeing affair with his girlfriend, and guess who strolled past tonight while we were outside the theatre during the interval. luckily i looked really fucking hot...................... OR DID I. anyway, i'd also been thinking about how i wanted to have more male friends, and today both Ed and James got in touch with me over facey, neither of whom I've heard from in ages. Me and Emily also saw lovely Matt on our way to the tea cosy who reminded me how much I miss the Dome (sort of) and how much I like Buddy Holly. ALSO Stu served me loads of cheapy/free drinks in the Pav before the gay panto/disco/orgy, and sitting in between Andrew (who was clapping along like a joyful andrex puppy) and Mike (staring bleakly forward and shaking his head in disbelief) I realised I actually do have loads of lovely male friends, none of whom are ever likely to try and do a cheeky awkward fondle of my bottom. yay.

girls can't win

'A phenomenon that has plagued women since the beginning of time: women are not independent creatures. Our love lives exist only in the context of a man’s desire. When we make independent decisions, we are subject to a host of derogatory terms. “Slut” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “yes”. “Friendzone” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “no”.'

something I read today that articulated perfectly the feeling I've had for a while. have had some long (occasionally boozy) chats with sam, hannah and holly about what it means to be a woman. I feel like I'm repeatedly asking so many questions.. this touched on an answer to one of them. we are constantly made to feel as though we owe something to the world, or more specifically, to men.

BOO-URNS.

It does feel good to have discovered a couple of men recently who can appreciate my piss-take sense of humour. after so many texts from The (last) One, sounding like a little wounded puppy because i was A BIT mean about his sex face and A BIT too quick to mock him from time to time (IN AN AFFECTIONATE WAY, OBVERS) it's cool to find the odd chap with whom my rubbish flirting technique is actually a vague success. or at least doesn't result in loads of confused-face smileys or the popular conclusion 'you're evil'. no i'm not, you just need to man up, that's all.

gin in teacups

Thank-you

The euphoric sense of belonging, safety and comfort, the sigh of enormous relief. When I step past the ceramic head of jack-in-the-green and the colourful Friends of the Earth sticker which adorn the rainforest porch at 11 Arthur Road. Best feeling in the world.

My dad crunches in from the allotment and settles himself among the mountains of books - borrowed and bought. I do a crossword and ask his help with 6 across, 13 across, 21 down.... He knows all the answers. We hesitate for a moment over the president of Syria. I should know this. Dad gets it, frustrated by the delay. He knows the name for a wobbling fleet of boats and a flat-topped hill in the USA. I recall the greek goddess of marriage. Happiness in a bottle. I love home.

A sing-song hello as my mum crashes through the door. Laden with shopping, bursting with joy - as she always is - to see my face. We all drink tea. I ramble. Throughout my monologue, littered with un-neccessary detail (bit like my writing then..) I see both sets of eyes glaze over, not really listening, just contemplating. Lovely to have her back, skin's clearing up, hair needs a trim, she looks just like..

We clean up. Mum tidies her hair, I dab on lipstick, Dad manages a smart shirt. April's house is a palace, all overgrown trees and feral cats let in to warm by the roaring stove, antique china and enormous portraits of exotic birds, porcelain cats stare back at the real ones, an eclectic crowd. Nicola and Hugo are the young couple in the fading frame, he with a Spanish bullfighter's tassled jacket, her with a victorian bonnet. It's a strong look, I tell them. The seventies. A long time ago, they say. Hugo definitely isn't quite as sexy anymore. I talk with their children, they like me. I like them. The oldest is 17, not too cool to chat though, he tells jokes in between his little sister's eager list of teachers' names. My old secondary school. I recognise a single name, ealry in the list.. no others. She chatters on, undeterred. She wants to be an actress and playwright. A just-remembered dream.

I drift away. April is glamorous in satin with an african sort of print. Bright red hair and flawless foundation at seventy-who-knows-what. I tell her I want to be like her. How nice to be admired by the young she trills. I meet a half chinese baby. His name is Ivan. His mother tells me he likes all the girls, especially pretty ones. I swell with pride. Get over it I think, but it's so much fun, prosecco in one hand, snow falling in the lamplight outside, chubby little Ivan on my lap, dropping whatever he can find into the glass. I drink up anyway.

Me a bit drunk by the fire with Tiger on my lap.

i.....am.......in.......the.......slow......read....ers......group

have decided to briefly review the last few books i have read (at a painful pace of roughly a quarter of a chapter per month)

1) Haruki Murakami - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

I read it because: Well, a bit because my old house-mate Daphne recommended it, and she was really arty and wise, but also because this really sexy/awful man i was boning said it was the best book he'd ever read (and I thought we needed something else to talk about in between him biting his lip and leaving abruptly at 9am).

I enjoyed it because: The main character had given his cat a surname, and spent a week living down a well. There was also an awesome woman in it who wore sixties makeup, false eyelashes and little pillbox hats that matched her handbags. I was really into her. In addition to this, there were loads of creepy bits where the man had saucy sex dreams about various hot babes including matchies hat lady, and he would wake up and have to wash jizz of himself. Quite grim but definitely a highlight.

To sum up: I never finished it, because my brain can't seem to handle books over 2 chapters long. Also I moved out of Daphne's and I stopped boning the lip-biter, so what would have really been the point anyway?

2) Perfume by Patrick Süskind
I read it because: My friend Rosie (who is also arty and wise, my main criteria for book recommenders) lent it to me.

I enjoyed it because: The description is delicious (and grim/gross/vivid/vile), and the main character is a creepy genius 'with no personal odour' (human equivalent of Oust). I much prefer a soulless, murderous, eerie protagonist (like Pinkie from Brighton Rock or Capote's Perry Smith - even better cause he was real) to the kinds of gushing girlie characters I am supposed to relate to, but ultimately wish to stab in the tits.

ALSO - back to perfume, but Spoiler Alert!! Everyone gets involved in a cheeky orgy at the end. If someone hasn't made this into a musical, they really should..

To sum up: It made me a bit depressed thinking about the world's (and my personal) fight to smell all minty and flowery, when really humans have rotten-pond-weed-mouth in the mornings, and stale beery barfly breath on fridays. And how festivals smell like armpit after half a morning/half a pill, and how children's mouths smell of sour milk and their feet of wendsleydale. And how buses stink of vomit and piss and nightclubs of miaow miaow and boozy farts. And how kittens teeth reek of catfood (and their bums of that same meaty slush, a few hours later). And how foreign people seem to somehow have a foreign smell, but how on stuffy, sweaty days we all unite in the international scent of Bleurgh....

...Awesome book though.

2) House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

I judged it by it's cover but it was actually well good, a latin american family saga full of magic realism, which mainly made me want to speak more spanish, understand the communist revolution, dye my hair mermaid green and practice moving plates with my mind.

Stand-out moments were the blood-drenched dog Barrabas staggering into Rosa's engagement party with a knife in his back, a car journey into a forest to find a severed head, and a saucy prozzy wiggling her hips to make a snake tattoo dance around her navel. Need to lose about 10 stone and then I'm so getting on that party trick.

So there we go. Having ploughed my way through these three (not a chore at all, but certainly a challenge for my little brain) I am now LOVING Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. So much suspense, and with my favourite breed of chilling, grey eyed, vitriol-swilling killer in the starring role. The best part for me is the frequent mention of local spots like the Palace Pier, Old Steyne (spelt the 1930s way), the viaduct, Lewes and Queens Road, meaning that my wide eyes and shuddering are nicely punctuated with the squeeze of recognition and a satisfied 'yay' of 'that's

my city!'

gratitude 2012

happy new year..

new job teaching english at st giles!

lovely, courteous students.

warm, helpful colleagues

(and some sexy ones which always helps..)

plans

(visit emily in london

lucie's birthday)

beautiful wintery skies in brighton

handsome men

willy mason

hair looking thicker

fruit smoothies (you are what you eat)

electric guitar finger picking

planning ahead

improvising in the moment

dancing on tables

making new friends

being a strong woman

reading

snoozing

beautiful kitten scarf in the morning

snow fairy shower gel

cleanse/tone/moisturise

thankyou.

m a n i f e s t

i was picturing a pound and found a plastic toy version on the playground floor at breakfast club. that evening serving drinks at the theatre i was given a one pound tip.

idol

i am in love with claudia winkleman. must channel claudia winkleman. that is all.