I am thankful for (semi) long weekends. And Emmett.

It's not been a bad day. The kids were okay. I had to teach them the 12 Days of Christmas song as the deputy head just realised the only day he will be able to record the tracks for the school Christmas CD is Monday! Yikes! It went okay though. All my lessons went pretty well today.

One little girl told me today about her trainers. How she'd got them because a lorry broke down and they fell off the back. Yes, she really believes that they fell off the back of a lorry. Interesting. And quite an insight into the kind of school I am in.

I went over to a friend's house tonight and had a good girly chat and watched a DVD. It was fun. Then her husband got back and we had a crazy random chat (the best kind, in my opinion) about various weird urban legends, like the fact that KFC is called KFC instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken because they now use genetically modified birds that are so far from being chickens they don't even have beaks. It was pretty fun.

I also had another cool bonding session with my class teacher after school. She came in once her course was finished so we could plan next week's numeracy and literacy lessons together. Once we finished we had a loooooong chat, about men mostly.

I have uni tomorrow. And then the afternoon off. Woohoo! I am meeting a friend for lunch. Should be cool. Although I am gonna have to do a lot of work on Saturday. Still, I feel a bit like the weekend's come early, which is always nice.

Written on Emmett's homework (by Emmett): This is hard. Too hard for Emmett.

Kid CRACKS me up!

"Emmett: Mishaps and Musings" will be out in hardback in the spring

Okay, I'm lying about the book. But it is a great idea. It would totally sell. Well, I'd buy it, haha.

It's been another long and exhausting day. My class teacher is on a course again tomorrow, which in a way feels quite a relief because she won't be there to watch me and I'm not feeling 100% inspired right now. I just want to get through the day. The Friday I have a university-based day, going over classroom layout and timetabling (woohoo! I know, can't you just feel the excitement bubbling up!) which still means leaving the house at the same time in the morning, but I finish at TWELVE, people. That gives me a whole afternoon to myself. Yay!

I am nearing the end of week four of my placement. I am now just over halfway through. You cannot believe the relief I am feeling thinking that. I know I want to be a teacher, and teachers generally are in school 5 days a week, however many weeks a year (39?) but it's all the ridiculously detailed planning and evaluating that is wearing me out so much, and that's not a prerequisite for teaching, only for learning to teach.

On the plus side, there is a school trip to the cinema in a couple of weeks and I get to go. So that should be fun. We're going to see Flushed Away, which does look quite amusing.

And I'll just leave you with the picture of Emmett, painstakingly copying out his joined up handwriting practice and failing to join up ANY of the letters. Not a single one!

From the mundane to the ridiculous

I got home at six today, same as yesterday. I think this is going to be the regular pattern now up til Christmas. Only 3 days til the weekend.

My observation went okay. The DVD didn't really work as for some reason the picture was really blue. Apparently this is because it was a region 1 DVD and the projector didn't like it, even though the DVD player it was being played on was multi-region. Hmm. Anyway, it was okay and now it's over. We have a final observation booked for 5th December - geography - should be all right, I hope.

And a quick update from the latest escapades of Emmett:
In RE today, lower ability had multiple choice questions based on scriptures. The learning objective was to think about what it means to be friends of God. One particular scripture they had was Jesus' commandment to love one another as he has loved us. The question was "What does John say about being friends with God?"
a) It doesn't make any difference to our lives.
b) We should love each other like He loves us.
c) We should love God but not be too bothered about other people.

Guess which Emmett picked? C!

He does make me laugh.

Something fishy going on....

So, today I met up with a friend of mine and we went for lunch at Bluewater. It was lovely, and my friend got a staff discount in La Tasca because she works in the one up at Canary Wharf. Woo!

We wandered around the shops afterwards and as we were walking around the upper level I looked over the balcony and saw a stand advertising Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil. They had a gigantic inflatable fish!

I had to go for a closer look. There was a bloke in a fish suit! My friend didn't want to be associated with a person taking photos of a guy in a fish suit - I'm not sure why, I thought it was hilarious! - so stood a little distance away while I snapped a couple of shots.

Man in a fish suit

Huge inflatable fish

We had fun. We went and tried on some dresses as I'm her bridesmaid and she wanted to get some ideas for her dress and mine. Found some gorgeous dresses. I saw one I so want for a black tie dinner I have coming up soon. But it's £145 and I really can't justify it, but it's sooooooooooo nice. *sigh*

Oh well, I better get to bed. Just wanted to share with you the crazy things you can see in an English shopping centre. Haha.

Emmett, you little genius!

So, I had this day of non-contact time today. Alongside the reams of lessons I had to plan and assessment records I had to fill out, I also had a hefty pile of marking of all the work the kids have done this week. Their geography topic this term is 'What's in the news' and on Tuesday I had them writing news reports in pairs, based on watching Monday's episode of News Round, the BBC's children's news programme.

So we watched the show, took notes and then I put them into pairs so that the lower ability children would be working with higher ability children. There was an odd number of children in the class that day as one little boy was off sick, so Emmett and Conrad (the boy with the mullet) were also working with Nick. Nick and Conrad are both quite able and Emmett (as I mentioned before) is not so able.

Emmett was having a bit of an off day (although clearly not as off as Wednesday, when he got the ball stuck on his finger). I'm sure it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, but the three of them would not co-operate and no matter how many times I told Emmett to work with the other two, he flatly refused and continued to work on his own. I got frustrated but ultimately left him to it.

I hadn't looked at the finished products until today. They were required to write the news report like a script, so they could perform it, with the best one being performed in their class assembly in a week and a half. This is how Emmett's went:

Emmett: Hello and welcome to News Round. A penguin was trapped in the ice in Antarctic.
Nick: Some film directors saved the penguin.
Conrad: Also, in Portugal there is a chocolate festival.
Emmett: Now we will be back after the break (NB, News Round is a BBC programme - there are no advert breaks on the BBC!)
Nick: Welcome back.
Emmett: There was a 'bird factor' (play on words used in News Round). Birds were singing in Colombia.
Conrad: I've got a small brain.

I laughed out loud to myself in the staff room when I read that. It actually said "I've got a smal bran" but I got the gist of it.

I was just so impressed that he had done something so funny. Of course, I didn't quite know how to mark it. Up to that point I'd been ticking each news item he mentioned, but then that....I was slightly speechless. It seems sometimes, despite appearances, the kid is very much on the planet!

I managed to get through the whole pile of marking and plan about 7 lessons, although I still have so much to do. Wah! I really hoped I'd get more done today and have the weekend to myself. Next week I'm going to stay later after school each day and get marking done as it happens.

But still. Weekend! Woooooohoooooo!

I am NOT talking about Christmas

So there Beka ;P
Let us speak of it no more...

Not that I have much of anything else to say. I am just so tired. Only one more day til the weekend. Woo!

My class defied the laws of physics in science today. Yes, a bunch of seven and eight year olds outwitted Einstein (or whoever it was that invented magnets, c'mon, I'm going to be a Primary school teacher, I don't need to know advanced stuff). They were testing the strength of different sized and shaped magnets by measuring at what distance they would attract a paperclip. They were circulating from table to table in their groups, testing different magnets at each station.

Halfway through the experiment some of the highest ability kids approached me with a pair of magnets. They were the red and blue plastic coated ones that we use for most magnet experiments. They are good because one end is red and one is blue, so they are excellent for demonstrating the principles of north and south poles. Or at least, they were.

"Look, Miss," one of the girls said, holding up the two magnets.

She then proceeded to press the two blue ends of the magnets together and let go. The magnets stuck. I took them off her and pulled them apart. Then I put them together again. I could feel the magnetic pull. I reversed them and pressed the red ends towards each other. I could feel the identical polarities pushing away from each other as they should. I tried the red end to the blue end. They attracted as they should. I put the blue end to the blue end again. They pulled towards each other.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Nothing!" They protested, then acquiesced, "Well, actually it came apart so Erica* put it back together but she must have put it back the wrong way round."

I then informed them that they had, in fact, defied the laws of physics because I had (and have) NO CLUE how they managed to reverse the polarity of one end of a magnet. It's all kinds of wrong. Talk about messing with the natural order of things!

*NB. From this point on, when I mention a kid by name, just assume it is not their real name. It will save me typing a little "not real name etc etc" every time :)

How many scary Google hits will I get for a post containing the words 'finger' and 'balls'?

I am exhausted and a little bit miserable. The horrible cold, grey weather doesn't help. Nor does the fact that I am in school for pretty much all the daylight hours at the moment. I left at 5 today. It was totally dark.

My class teacher observed me during literacy today. It went well. She wrote nice things. All in all, today was a lot better. The class responded much better and after taking on board the feedback from my class teacher, they responded even better than that. (Very useful piece of information: if the class is talking on the carpet when you are trying to talk, get them to discuss the point in question with the person next to them for a minute or so - totally gets it out of their system and then they shut up again)

I'm all planned for tomorrow. I will be very glad when tomorrow is over and I can spend all day Friday in the staff room (schweeeeeeet) planning for next week. I have realised the best way to deal with this is one day at a time. That way it's not too overwhelming. It's working.

I saw one of the kids laughing at my picture on the visual timetable today. Grrrr. He's gonna get it! (Joke!!) But still, not helpful to my battered self esteem.

There is this boy in my class, Emmett (not real name, you know the drill blah-de-blah-de-blah) who is the funniest little character. Poor thing gets bullied quite a lot, but unfortunately it is easy to see why. The minute someone does anything to him, no matter how tiny, he is telling on them VERY LOUDLY. Sorry, Emmett, but that is not how to win friends and influence people. The class teacher has a real soft spot for him, and so do I. He's a cutie. One of those kids that somehow manages to look more like a little man than a boy. He gets het up about anything and will actually shake his fists when he's angry. It's the cutest thing, although he probably wouldn't appreciate that we think that way. My class teacher is very good friends with his mum, so we have a bit of a giggle with her in the playground after school.

He's not the brightest button in the box and sometimes you feel like he's not quite on this planet. Today though..... I am supposed to be meeting these professional standards set by the government, and laughing at a child is probably not one of them, but I swear, it was the funniest thing. The class teacher laughed too. The whole class laughed, bless him. But he was quite good humoured about it.

It was during PE. I was teaching, but because of insurance students HAVE to have a qualified teacher with them, which isn't the case with other lessons (hence me being all alone with the class yesterday). I had them practising ball skills - batting and bowling - with plastic racquets and airtex balls - you know, the hollow plastic ones with holes in so the air whizzes through them. Holes that are almost the perfect size to accommodate a child's finger. I say 'almost' because, as we learned today, they are big enough to let in said child's finger, but not quite big enough to let it out again.

The kids had been practising bowling to each other and I called them back to the front of the hall to talk them through the next activity. Suddenly, there's a commotion and in the centre of it is Emmett, finger held out like ET, white airtex ball firmly wedged onto it. And I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was hilarious! The poor little thing eventually had to have the caretaker come and cut it off with a pair of wire cutters. That image will stay with me for a long time.

So it's not all bad! The kids are sweet and funny and I love every one of them.

Commercial Breakdown Part II

Apart from the fact that my televisual viewing is now swamped by irritatingly saccharine scenes of children rushing down the stairs on Christmas morning to gleefully tear the wrapping off some highly overrated toy and every shop promising the lowest prices, there are a couple of adverts that are irritating the snot out of me right now. And I just can't keep it in any more. Something has to be said:

Kerry. Kerry, Kerry, Kerry. Please get off my screen. You may have won I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but frankly, who cares? I would rather scratch my own eyes out with a pencil than have to witness another painful explanation of why "mums go to Iceland". I guess we all love a good trainwreck and you amply provided such after your split from Brian McFadden, but watching you exercise your somewhat limited acting abilities over a pack of buy-one-get-one-free spring rolls is like actually climbing inside said trainwreck and stepping dismissively over the strewn bodies.

It's fine for Jamie Oliver to promote Sainsbury's. It makes sense - he's a chef. And Prunella Scales did a good job for Tesco a few years back as that amusing yet slightly irritating mother-in-law. But Kerry, nothing puts me off shopping in Iceland more than your nasally whine and apparent orgasms over the stocky guy in overalls who delivers your weekly shop in his "cool van". (Just FYI, Kerry, a van that has Iceland emblazoned on the side - not exactly a hot set of wheels.)

Bottom line, Kerry, you just don't pull off the down-to-earth mum that Iceland seems to want to present. Instead you come across as a desperate wannabe who had her 15 minutes of fame, did her time in rehab and now will do anything to stay on TV. Please, just stop.

The other ad that makes my flesh want to crawl off my body is for Bisto's new cooking sauces. I get what they're trying to do. It's a fact that not nearly enough British families sit down for a meal together regularly. And I do believe that a lot of the problems in our society stem from the family. I don't believe, however, that coming together over a pot of chicken and Bisto sauce is going to cure society's ills. The various children's voiceovers talking about how they want "Dad home from werrrrk, on time" and "Our holideh in Majorceh" grate like nails on a blackboard and the whole thing comes across as completely patronising. Because we never realised that families were supposed to eat together. Thank you Bisto, we could never have figured that out on our own. Please tell us more. Any ideas on the war in Iraq?

When Doves cry

Today has been a bit of a non-day. I haven't really got anything productive done yet. I've mostly been curled up on the couch, watching my new Little Mermaid DVD and feeling sorry for myself because that sore throat I was talking about has developed into into full blown phlegm attack. I know, nice, right?

Still, I wanted to talk about that Dove ad that's doing the rounds. I've seen it linked a few places, but I can't actually remember where, so sorry to those people who have posted it, because I can't remember who to thank. Anyway, here it is:



I'm so pleased that a company like Dove is talking about the problem of body image, because it feels sometimes like the world is happy to sit back and watch us all try to attain a completely unachievable ideal.

I know I am constantly conscious of 1001 things I think are wrong with my appearance. Talking to some of my friends I wonder if there's a girl in all the Western world who is happy with how she looks and doesn't have a difficult relationship with food.

It feels like we are constantly being lied to just to sell products. This only has 90 calories, this has less than 5% fat, this will increase your metabolism and help you lose weight. But does that make any of those things actually good for us? I know somewhere deep inside me, that the best way to eat is to have a balanced diet, low in refined sugars and saturated fats, but with a balance of all the different food types. But I shy away from it, convinced that it can't be right to eat three meals a day, because surely 3 whole meals will make you fat.

Are carbs good or bad? Is meat beneficial or are we better off eating other subsitutes? Dairy is generally full of fat, but the calcium in it is very good for us. How did the women of the world survive before Ski Fat Free Yoghurts?

This panoply of ideas leaves me confused, hopping from one concept of healthy to another, standing in the aisle of the supermarket for 15 minutes staring at the variety of diet pills and wondering if any of them actually work. If I skip a few meals my body craves sugar and I end up pigging out on a variety of high fat, high sugar snacks. I have also yet to find a form of exercise I really enjoy, apart from dancing, but I feel intimated by the other girls at dance classes with their amazing co-ordination, perfect hair and svelte physiques.

Will we ever be satisfied with being bigger than a size six (US size 2)? (Which, by the way, I have never and will never be a size 6.) Because I see those Dove commercials and I love the message they're giving, but I look at all the curvy women in their underwear and think, "No, I don't want to look like that." Because straight afterwards Kate Moss parades across my screen reviving her skin with a simple application of the latest Rimmel foundation and she looks simply stunning and how can the rest of us ever compete?

So keep it up, Dove. And maybe one day you'll convince the rest of us of what we really, really need to know.

Talkin' 'bout procrastination

That whole efficiency thing I had going for a while? Yeah, that was just a phase. Regular service has been resumed. I am hopelessly inefficient.

I started my 7 week block placement today and realised I hadn't yet made contact with my Link Tutor - the guy who has to come in and observe me teaching 3 times over the next 7 weeks. We were told to make contact with our tutors over a week ago. Oops!

Also I was supposed to have read through the school's policies and medium-term plans. Yeah, didn't do that either. Also I need to purcahse some kind of sandwich filling this evening, otherwise my sandwiches are going to be pretty, well, empty and tasteless tomorrow. I feel so disorganised that I don't think I will ever get organised. It frustrates me so much.

But school was fun. One of the kids has this weird patch shaved out of the side of his head. The teacher and I were debating whether or not he'd had a lobotomy over the holidays, but it turns out his dad accidentally left the cover off the clippers and instead of giving the kid a number 2 all over, gave him a 0 in this one single stripe, but then the kid's mum wouldn't let the dad do 0 all over, so the rest was done as usual with the clippers on a number 2. But the poor kid has this practically bald patch. It does look funny.

I got to leave pretty early as my teacher had netball club after school so there wasn't much for me to stay for. Instead I got to deal with the crazy people who drive down the country lanes I have to take to get to school. It's insane. Most of the lanes have a 40mph limit, which personally I think is crazy as they are rarely wide enough for two cars to comfortably fit down side by side and are full of blind corners that are so sharp you have to take them in 3rd gear. And yet some maniacs still whizz down there at 40, practically taking my wing mirror with them. Not to mention the idiots who seemed to conveniently forget that when a car is parked on their side of the road I have right of way, but just continue bombing it down the road, swinging out around the parked car and nearly plowing into my front bumper. Get off the road, morons!

Well I'm going to sit down and have a cup of tea and then try and get something productive done (we'll see!) before I have to go out again. I've been going to a new church for a couple of months and one of the girls there invited me out for dinner. I'll check back in later if I have anything interesting to say.

A little something to make you smile...

I found this on Metrodad's blog. It made me smile so I thought I'd share it with you. Hope you're all having a good weekend.

Productivity down 50%, Amusement up 200%

Well, it has been a long couple of days. I haven't stopped and yet I really haven't got very much of anything done (story of my life!).

I met up with my friend J in London yesterday and we had breakfast in Cafe Rouge before heading across the river to the Tate Modern. It is often said that as a nation, we Brits like to queue. OMG, the queues! The slides on the lower floors had massively long queues to get on them (mostly children, flippin' half term holidays grrrrrrrrr) and the slides on the upper floors required a ticket, which was free, but there were none left. Wah! So we didn't get to go sliding after all. Which was so annoying because the slides looked so cool!


We went to the bookshop there because I wanted to see if I could find useful stuff for school, which I didn't. Again, totally unproductive. But there were these totally cute lego-type figures of artists with their artwork. They were available to buy for the bargain price of £325! But they were cute. Here is Dali with his lobster phone:

So we then decided to go to the Saatchi gallery. We considered getting a boat down the river, but ultimately decided a stroll down the South Bank would be quite pleasant, so we walked down to County Hall. Before we got there we decided we were quite hungry, so crossed the Hungerford bridge and ended up walking right up to Covent Garden and had lunch in Walkabout.

After this we walked back across the river and up to County Hall. Only the Saatchi isn't there any more! I can't believe we didn't know this. Again, totally unproductive. So we walked BACK across the river and headed up to Leicester Square. I did however manage to take some pretty cool pictures from the many bridges that we crossed.

These are the best I think, but I may well upload the rest to Flickr at some point in the near future.

Anyway, we went to Leicester Square and possibly the best place in the whole of London - the Haagen Dazs Cafe!

And we saw the pancakes and everything was good. Then we ate the pancakes. Oh, man was that good?! Then we walked back up to Covent Garden to meet another friend of ours.

I'd hoped to have had my car back and to go to the cinema with Ali last night, but my car was still at the garage, not being worked on but just sitting there whilst my mum and step dad tried to contact another mechanic they know of. So I was carless and figured I may as well stay in London.

The three of us went back to Walkabout and had some wine. Then we went to Victoria to meet some other friends - friends I hadn't seen in about 2 years. So it was proper reunion-styley! The wine did flow and J came back to stay at mine, being slightly the worse for wear.

This morning I had to go and pick up my car and book it back in for next Thursday. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to do for transport whilst it's in the garage. Ugh, so much to think about!

So then I dropped J at the station and then drove to another friend's house so we could go shopping. I spent the day with her and got home at like half ten this evening! Madness I tell you! But fun madness.

I leave you with a picture of me on Waterloo bridge. The wind is blowing my hair and has crafted it into a suspiciously mullet-like shape. I nearly wet myself laughing when I saw this picture. But as you can see from the picture below, I in no way shape or form have a mullet. Okay!

I don't do mornings....or afternoons....evenings I'm okay with!

It's been a busy weekend and I am still reeling from it. One day I will stop feeling tired. Don't know when that might be though. Maybe I am diabetic or have Chronic Fatigue. Or maybe I just need to get more sleep and stop being such a hypochondriac, haha.

I am so grateful to have most of this week off, although I still have lots to do. A huge backlog of housework being a major part of that. I also have to do a whistlestop tour of the London art galleries to do some background research for art. This may or may not be influenced by the fact that the Tate Modern currently has an exhibit consisting of actual slides that one can actually slide down.

WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

The weekend was okay. Being with my family is never exactly a walk in the park, but it was bearable and I was able to help my brother and cousin celebrate their birthdays, which is the important thing. They're 22 now - makes me feel so old! They were born on the same day, the two sisters (my mum and my aunt) being down the corridor from each other in the same ward of the same hospital. My brother is older by 9 hours. There was an article about them in a national paper when they were born.

I was supposed to go to a party when I got back last night, but after the two hour drive back I didn't feel much like getting dressed up and going out, so I caught up on all my blog reading instead. I know, I am the epitome of coolness.

However, I am about to go out tonight, so need to rush off in a minute to sort my hair out (cursed rain!) and reapply my makeup.

Portrait of the artist as Dorothy

Today has been a looooooong day. And I have been badly organised with my time and have just come home about half an hour ago and had to pack a bag because I'm going down to my mum's new house tomorrow straight from uni.

So I won't be around for a couple of days. I'll miss you guys!

Today was good, we had art and music. Both were fun. We had to take a photo of ourselves to art and as soon as our tutor started talking about self portraits I died a little inside, because, as you all witnessed yesterday, I am rubbish at drawing.

BUT, we weren't drawing, we were painting. And we had Van Gogh for inspiration and then had a variety of different paints to create different textures, eg. mixing with sand or sawdust or wallpaper paste and only the primary colours. It was brilliant and I was really pleased with the result, check it out!



So, I'm gonna be off for a couple of days now, but I'll see you all soon, hopefully with something interesting to say. Haha.

School Daze

So, I finished my first day of school. I have another placement day to do next Wednesday and then I start my block placement on 30th October and carry on until Christmas. I'm with a Year 3 class, which is nice, but I was with Year 2 last year, so it won't be that different, even though they're the next National Curriculum KeyStage up. The school is small - only one class per year group - but it's in an area where most of the kids have very disturbed home lives. A lot of them are Travellers.

Today during lunch, one of the Year 4 boys peed on another one. Right up his back so it can't possibly have been an accident.

During numeracy I sat with a girl who has a lot of problems focussing. Their task was to estimate and then measure straws of different lengths. Each straw was colour coded so they could colour code their answers on the worksheet. I held up a straw.

Me: Okay Sharon (not real name, could get in trouble otherwise!), how many centimetres do you think this is?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: Umm, okay, yes, it is a purple straw, but how LONG do you think it is? How many CENTIMETRES?

Sharon: Purple!

Me: *sigh*

To be fair, she did estimate a fair few and was pretty close to the mark, even when she wasn't, they were still reasonable estimates. But a few times she did just repeat the colour over and over.

At one point the teacher was asking the whole class about using different units of measurement. For example, what units of measurement would you use to measure a stamp (millimetres), a cup (centimetres), a garden (metres) and a journey (kilometres).

Teacher: So why wouldn't you use centimetres to measure from here to the moon?

Kid: Because there's no oxygen.

That kid's on the ball! I managed to learn all their names in one day, but I bet I forget most of them by next week. I'm still kind of ill, but not as bad as yesterday (thank goodness!). I got my dad the funniest card for his birthday. It's so apt.



Outside says: Here it is Dad - the latest breakthrough in birthday cards. Inside reads: You can read it without taking your eyes off the TV!

SO TRUE!

Maybe crusts do make your hair go curly

You know, when I was a baby, my hair had a subtle wave to it. It was never curly, but it might have been described as wavy. By the time I was three it was more or less straight. From 5 onwards it was dead straight. Poker straight. See exhibits 1 - 3:

Exhibit 1: Top infants school photo

Exhibit 2: Me playing twister aged 8

Exhibit 3: Me at New Year's aged 22

I was always a fussy child and refused to eat the crusts off my sandwiches, despite my mum telling me "They're the best bit!" No kid believes an adult when they tell them that. My friend used to tell me they make your hair go curly. I think that was supposed to encourage me to eat them, but it put me off even more. I didn't really believe it, but I thought well if it was true it gave me even more reason not to eat them, because I liked my straight hair thankyouverymuch!

The weird thing is that about a year or so ago, I noticed that my hair, which I usually tended to let air dry, wasn't exactly dead straight any more. Okay, so I'd usually tie it back when it was wet, but not always. I bought a hair dryer, but I just couldn't get it to really dry straight straight. In the end I bought hair straighteners, which I love and couldn't live without and for the most part I wash my hair, blow dry it and straighten it all at the same time (not literally at the same time, obviously, but one after the other when I wake up in the morning).

But from time to time I've let it just air dry after washing it and OMG. It is really quite curly now. How did that happen?

Exhibit 4: Me half an hour ago

On your doorstep

There is a park near me that I quite often walk through to get to the High Street. It takes about the same amount of time to get there, but it's a slightly more scenic route with the grass and the trees and the ducks and the pond (which hopefully doesn't stink, as it tends to do when it dries out!). During the summer it's really quite a pleasant walk.

But I don't know if I'll be making that particular trip for a while now, after this happened. It's scary. My area isn't the nicest area around. I live at the more chavvy end of town. But I don't think twice about walking for 15 minutes down to the late night garage just before midnight if I'm craving a milkshake or something (the 15 minute walk makes up for the calories consumed!).

It's so scary to think these things can happen so close to home, and even first thing in the morning you're not safe. What is the world coming to? Seriously?

**UPDATE: The guy who stabbed her has been arrested. So at least that's good news!

There's nothing like the bond between a father and his daughter!

It wasn't until I was filling out a form this afternoon and had to write the date that I realised, "Oh, CRAP! It's my dad's birthday!"

I'd remembered at the weekend and half-heartedly thought that I should 1) text him and find out what he wants (Sidenote: He is impossible to buy for because he buys himself all the latest DVDs, CDs, gadgets and gizmos and we always end up getting him something totally lame) and 2) actually go and get him a card and a present early this week. But then what with everything that's going on in my life right now, and the problem with my leaky brain, it TOTALLY went out of my head until this afternoon.

I'm not close to my dad at all. I usually see him about once every couple of months I suppose. He's usually pretty good with our birthdays - better than he used to be anyway - but it's kind of a bit, out of sight, out of mind. He's really not a big presence in my or my brothers' lives, so it is kind of hard to remember things like this. One year we all forgot Father's Day and he didn't speak to us for about a month. Ironically, we didn't realise for about three weeks, because it isn't like he rings us all the time anyway. And in the end, after I'd asked my brothers a few times if they'd heard from him and they'd said no, I eventually rang him and found out he hadn't been talking to us.

Well, that clearly worked.

Anyway, when I realised it was 2pm and I hadn't wished him happy birthday yet, I sent a speedy text message saying I was pretty busy this week, but if he wanted to do something to celebrate to let me know and I'd see what I could do.

This is the text I got back:

Thanks for your message. Am out in Thailand

at the moment. Back in UK on Sunday.

Perhaps we can do something next week.

This is the second time I've texted him on his birthday only discover he's not even on the same continent as me! This just shows how close we are. Thanks for letting me know, Dad!

Imaginary

I am feeling much better. Still not so much with the sleeping, but not sick anymore, so that's a bonus.

Have you seen that website I Used To Believe? It's an amusing read. People submit the crazy things they used to believe when they were little, like believing you could grow potatoes in your ears if you didn't wash behind them properly. (Anyone else's parents tell them that? No? Just me then!)

There are lots of funny and crazy things kids believe. I think it's because when we're little, we're so much better at the whole suspension of disbelief thing. Once we get older we need proof, but before the age of, what, 11 or 12 we take most things totally at face value.

I will never forget the day the 'Smiley Gang' was spotted near my school. I must have been 9 or 10. It was just a regular day at school. My junior school was huge so each year group had their own playground. I must have been in Year 5, because I have clear memories of the discussion taking place in the Year 5 playground.

It was morning break and we were all doing our thing, as kids do. The boys were living up to the stereotypical "jumpers-for-goalposts" scenario, with the goalie playing monkey rush because there were only 3 or 4 on each team, and us girls were dotted around in twos or threes walking and talking hand in hand, or playing clapping games, feeding into another cliche. I was with my friend who for this purpose I shall call Hannah.

Hannah and I were walking the perimeter of the playground, trying to avoid the stray footballs that resulted from the boys' poor aim. The twins came up to us looking scared. We asked them what was wrong.

"Have you heard of the Smiley Gang?" Asked twin number one.

"No," Hannah and I whispered, desperate and yet deathly afraid to hear more. The nature of this particular gang suggested by their name was not backed up by the tone of twin number one's voice.

"They're this gang that drives around in this blue van," said twin number two. "They wait around for kids and then if they catch you they get a knife and make tiny little cuts in the corners of your mouth. Then they put acid on it."

"Acid? On the cuts?" I was horrified.

"Yeah, but that's not the worst of it," said twin number one, relishing the moment. "Then they punch you in the stomach and it makes your face rip right along the cuts. That's why they're called the Smiley Gang, 'cause they give you this big huge smile for the rest of your life."

Hannah and I were frozen to the spot at the very thought. "Why are you telling us about them?" Hannah whispered, dreading the response.

"Charlee saw a blue van on her way to school this morning," said twin number one. "That means they're around."

Hannah and I glanced around at the alleyway that ran adjacent to the playground on one side and the woodlands that sprawled for miles behind us. If you visit my old school now the woodlands is all fenced off, but in the early nineties the world was obviously still considered safe enough to allow children to play near the woods with minimal risk. We were not allowed to play in them, but of course we did, never straying far from the school, but daring each other to jump back and forth across the tiny stream that marked the boundary of the woods and the school.

Suddenly the woods that held so many happy memories seemed full of danger, evil positively resonating from the very trees.

The whistle blew and we lined up for class, but how much work we actually got done, who can say? The classroom buzzed with talk of the Smiley Gang. Suddenly more sightings were coming out of the woodwork. Things that had seemed innocuous hours earlier suddenly reinforced Charlee's story. Someone had seen smiley face stickers stuck on trees and the fence all down one side of the alleyway. That was the Smiley Gang's symbol, their way of marking their territory - territory in which they would hunt little children in order to give them a permanent 'smile'.

Lunchtime came verging on hysteria. Suddenly kids were seeing clues everywhere. No one from any of the six Year 5 classes would pass an imaginary line that would place them too close to the woods. Hannah and I hung out as close to the woods as we could stand, whispering to each other, on the verge of tears from fear, but compelled to look out for clues or sightings.

Lunchtime passed without incident. No children were discovered hideously disfigured. After a few days the rumours died down and we got used to playing close to and even in the woods again. But it was a long time before I really believed that the whole incident was make believe, based on rumours and urban myths.

For children, the monster under the bed is real. The vampire outside the window exists. The sadistic gang of villains is truly parked a block away from their school.

Despite how scared I used to be of even getting out of bed in the middle of the night, part of me is nostalgic for that time, when my whole world was dependent on the heights and depths of my imagination.

The politics of friendship

My friends are nagging me to go out with them tomorrow night. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my friends and love spending time with them, but there are two major flaws in their plan.

First of all, I am broke. Seriously broke. They have offered to lend me money, but it's a bit dodgy borrowing from friends isn't it? Plus, I am a nightmare for impulse buying and spending beyond my means and it's about time I had a word with myself and only spent money I actually have. (It's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna try!)

Secondly, the are going to a town near me, that I wasn't going to name, until I realised that I've tagged my two nearest train stations at London Bloggers so my location is hardly a secret. Even less so now that I've just announced to the Internet where they can discover my nearest two stations...as if you'd want to anyway.

Okay, that was a bit of a crazy run on sentence wasn't it? I'll try to do better.

Anyway, so my friends are planning on going to Bromley. Ugh. Why? Why? Why? Would anyone want to go to Bromley on a Friday night? Bromley is the nearest town to us with anything vaguely resembling a club, although in this instance these premises are best referred to as "the fiery meat markets of Hell". The only reasonable alternative for a night out beyond sitting in a pub (which, by the way, I'm more than amenable to, pubs are good, if not too smoky!) is London, which, although it isn't far, does tend to cost the gross domestic product of a small country if you want a good night out.

Not improving much with the run on sentences. And I allege to be good at English. Pah!

So yeah, I love dancing. A good night out dancing is one of my favourite things. But I don't do it often because London is expensive and Bromley.....O Bromley, why must you be so wretched?

Maybe it's because I'm getting old now (or older at least), but Bromley on a Friday night just does not hold the appeal it used to. I don't know if I've changed or if it has. It's possibly a little bit of both. But these are some of the thrills you can look forward to on a night out in Bromley:

• Being groped, fondled or otherwise inappropriately touched on several many occasions
• Breathing air composed entirely of cigarette smoke and evaporated sweat
• Being surrounded by 14 year old girls in boob tubes and skirts that show their buttocks
• Being surrounded by chavs, as this is what the majority of the population of Bromley is comprised of
• Having at least one person drunkenly fall on you
• Wondering what would happen if someone committed a crime somewhere other than the High Street as the entire Metropolitan Police force of Bromley gathers to deal with the drunken fights.
• Having overpriced, greasy kebab-shop wares flung at you for no reason (yes this actually happened to me once)

Understandably I really have no desire to go, but I don't want to offend my friends or have them think that I look down on their choice of venue. If they want to go, they are welcome to and I won't judge them for it. I just don't have the temperament to stand it without getting irritated. I hope they can appreciate my feelings and not think I'm weird for preferring to spend my Friday night alone in front of the telly, than amongst drunken idiots (other patrons, not my friends - haha).