Marley and Me Spoilers

Being as sick as a small hospital for the beginning of my study leave meant that I was in a darned good position to reflect on all the things I found adverse to my being in this world (aside from earaches and influenza symptoms). Please note that I am speaking from an impassioned viewpoint.

0.5 bowls of cereal

Luckily I can evade this here because we are subject to communal dumps of cereal but at home when I lift up the packet of Raisin Wheat I can quite often tell if there is not the recommended 35g serving left. I would so much rather Mr. Penultimate Cereal Manbeast went the whole hog and had 52.5g of cereal for breakfast than raised my hopes only to dash them to the ground.

Your iTunes

If it looks like this:

Red Hot Chili Pepper
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Red Hot Chilly Peppers
RHCP
RHCPeppers

Please do not get me started on the various uses of "&", "and" and even (god forbid) "+". Drake and Jay-Z should not collaborate so often if it turns your iTunes into the wreck I so often see.

Also if you skip songs. This irks me so much that even on my own iPod if I must skip I will first phase out the song I am currently listening to in order to play the next one. Besides, aside from that Pulled Apart By Horses album (which I regret deeply) all the other music on my iPod is quality.

>8 people at a canteen table

In the morning, the canteen ladies put the chairs around the tables in a nice four sided arrangement. Let me tell you 9, 10 and 11 are not multiples of four. 8 is. 8 is the optimal number of chairs around tables to ensure that you can eat your dinner without being compromised. I am trying valiantly to teach everyone this practice before I have to return to my sister (she of large elbows), whereby I know that no matter if it was just me at the table and her in the same room I would still have to eat from my lap.

Sraith Pictúirz

I haven't even been exposed to the latest attempt by the Ministry of education to get people to appreciate their cultural heritage effectively but I'm already bréan bailithe of it. It seems to me that thing that's getting increased is not love of the Irish language but entropy, as hundreds of leaving certs burn and eat theirs with fiery passion. Wouldn't it be excellent if after 14 years we could understand more than a third of this gem.

Owen Wilson (Americans)

Marley and Me was doomed to fail before my discerning eye regardless (lo and behold his stomach is upside down) but Owen Wilson rose spectacularly to the challenge. Though there are many things I can't stand about him (nose nose nose - his face is a caricature of itself for chrissakes), he says "dawwwg" one too many times in this film. I brought this hatred upon myself, I know, I shouldn't have watched a film about Owen Wilson and a dawg. Morgan has told me that this irrational hatred of Mr. Wilson comes from an inner dislike for Americans. I don't want to elaborate. Too many truths will come. American spelling, and how all internet sites have fallen into the pit of despair that is inappropriate Zs, comes under this category.

Women complaining about the toilet seat being left up

Perhaps a little misogynistic of me but why is down the right way? Men should stand up for themselves and complain about it being left down.

Shop Etiquette

In an ideal world (read: ideal shop) I enter, am greeted with a friendly but passive "Hello" - one must remember that this greeting does not insinuate the beginning of a friendship, but merely lays out certain customer-salesperson formalities. Following this, I proceed to browse at leisure. If, perchance, I have a query about a certain product, I expect that after a sharp glance upward and a pause of approximately 2 seconds, eye contact with aforementioned salesperson will be made, I shall proceed with my query and get an unobtrusive answer. 

Black books sums it up well.

Other interesting pet hates I have come across when researching for this blog were: green pens, rimless glasses, people squirting toothpaste incorrectly, people bragging about being on diets and not losing weight, iTV, and when people upload bad res photos of their skype conversations.

Digressing through Cows

For some reason (most likely the alignment of the stars) I have had many run ins with cows lately. 

To start with, in the boglands of Hong Kong where I currently reside, cows roam free, terrorising neighbourhoods derping around. I bumped into one the other day milling about in Sai Kung around a BBQ site licking a disgruntled dog. Warned as ever by the adverts on the 299 bus from Sha Tin to Sai Kung not to interfere, I was unable to have as interesting an interaction as the dog was having but merely enjoyed the presence of such an ethereal beast. To say they reminded me of home (or at least every second journey down the Grovine East road) would be a lie as they're not fresian.

My second incident occured one night in the common room as the motley crew of myself, Shira, Morgan, Sam tried and failed to load School Of Rock and were treated instead to Shira's very own personal youtube favourites. This has snuck into my top 10 at least, following two camels in a tiny car (best use of 17 seconds of one's life).

The third was at the art exhibition last week when Jayla made all this funky art with cows like turning Jason into a cow and stuff. I'm not any good at reworking candidate statements but the theme was totes deep and made me appreciate Hong Kong cows on a more contemplative level. I bought a 1x2m Andy Warhol-y wallpaper on foam for 100HKD before worrying about how to transport it home or how to utilise it at home. Arnett outbid me the maggot. O wel it was cool (and deep ofc).

dis is another one of jayla lai's (credits: Fernanda)

Three bovine incidents may be too few to justify naming a blog post after but alas I can think of no more. I might talk about more important matters at hand, like the fact that I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL EVER AGAIN. An incredibly pleasant thought rest assured. Sentiments summed up in this here sound clip, which some of you may recognize from the infamous Potter Puppet Pals meets Eragon MS Paint Youtube series.. Only one more hump to get over now before I properly graduate but we shan't dwell on that to much. At least I succeeded in getting Dilene to wear a pink dress. #trololol #shaniwewin

Spirit of Dragon (and Feargal Sharkey)

In the beginning of time there was a man who did not beget nor was begotten. He lived at one with nature and was in command of all of the four great elements. His strength was second to none, his voice silenced all. He could run through forests without snapping a single twig, hear the beats of insects wings from kilometres away and tell the time to the nearest minute by glancing at the sun. A man of great wisdom, great humility; his leadership was not only respected, but revered. In these thousands of years he never aged, and at some point in late 2012 he became the great leader of the LPC dragon boat team. His name (but a label on such a great entity) is Hong. 

Without making this too much of a Quan Cai reflection (though that's not to say that I won't just copy paste this whole thing to Managebac) I may just spam part of this blog with appreciation for this thing. It's a form of stress relief for some, physical exertion for others but I recks I just get a kick out of being in a grey and stormy Tolo Harbour on a Tuesday afternoon murmering the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack in my head (dundundundun dundundundun dundun dundudn dundundun). Tis probs the one thing I will genuinely miss next year (plastic plates can go die) and with only 2 sessions left I'm already feeling the pangs. Hong shook my hand today it was tha bestest. ps this is us paddling lol pps we have a competition plz come 2 repulse bay on sunday kthnxbai. 



On another note, this week (following a harsh telling off by Morgan for whining too much and plenty of exposure to her whining about people whining) I am making the most of my clothes swap returns (namely gwen stefani crop top, inoffensive jumper and lime green bag of death) for solely my own enjoyment. Today I rather enjoyed channeling my inner 1970s Belfast punk look (think stabbing my ear and a dusty khaki parka with safety pins at 7am) after Morgan and myself became unintentionally enamoured with the trailer for Good Vibrations. Now at a critical stage of emotional attachment, Stiff Little Fingers have become the epitome of all things great and cultured. The hunt for a place to illegally download the film continues.

gwen stefani c. 2002 crop topsucking in so hard y'all cant comprehend

u hav not been blocked lol

yeah i disabled my bookface. cause i was refreshing permanently in order to recieve a candy crush invitation from xyz and their mother. whilst i do miss uploading old Bluetones songs (LOSING A LOVERRR//GAINING A FRIEND) for little recognition but the likes of a couple of people i did a summer camp with 4 years ago and checking out how hawt i am in recently uploaded photos and wondering if the nipple-piercing cat as my cover photo needs replacing (or reinstating for that matter) here are some things i have been up to as y'all worried about why i didnt like you anymore.

1) leaving fb has given me more time to google things such as "pattern for a mint green faux fur cape", "how to wash silk" and "bad prom outfits"

2) clodagh (my dearest darlingest sister) made me get kik so now i send her ugly selfies of me in awkward clothes and spam her with things about my life and she sits around being embarrassed. normality restoring itself

3) i have been dropping my ipod in the canteen toilets. luckily the apple store peeps threw a brand new shiny one my way for a nominal fee after i withdrew it from my portable bag of rice failsafe

4) finishing high school AW YISS PENULTIMATE FRIDAY IS OVER one week of school left ever in the whole history of ever. to prove it here is my yearbook square

5) tidying my room and studying at my desk. that happened once. there are no photos.

so all of you sad peeps with nada to do you can catch me on le skype (hannahcantread) or kik (lol i'm so hip i cant even remember my username) or bum a letter my way cause that would be nice tho in fairness by the time it comes i will have probably returned to facebook in order to post this to boost pageviews.

Explaining the Last 8 Photos on my Ipod

Heather and Jason came for a visit. I happened to have Morgan's tartan corset skirt and fab bathrobe handy so they made the most of that. I think they went to Wellcome dressed as such later though I'm not entirely sure.

I made purple lipstick out of eyeshadow and vaseline and thought I was the shit. Enough so to take a selfie.

We went on a dive and I wore my reindeer beanie. In March. O wel. 

I went to the 10,000 buddhas monastery with me Granny/Mum's friend Sheila who was in Hong Kong for a few days. C'est le pagoda ici. 

This guy was one of these 10,000 Buddhas.

Leila and I are attempting to learn how to do maths. It's not working very well.

I went to Lamma Island to visit Anna on me Easter break and this was it in the morning. I'm not entirely sure whether we'd slept or not by this stage. 

I went to Pao's house after Anna's to get me some r&r and ended up being rudely awakened 3 hours after settling in for me comfy sleep and kicked out of the house. I escaped the gaggle and got the night bus back from causeway...to Nick Drake.

They call it stormy Monday (but Tuesday's just as bad)

A thundery day and no dragon boat means that I feel obliged to provide you all with a nugget of my life as of late.

Saturday got off to a bad start. 6 hours of extended coral monitoring service planning with Linda congealed-coffee-n-toast-in-the-bottom-of-a-stainless-steel-industrial-sink-breath was enough to have me despairing. Luckily Paolina had asked me over to dinner at her house so there was at least something worth living for. I set off a few hours early to central to give myself time to bum around and get lost somewhere, which I did very well, after tramming from Wanchai to the Sheung Wan side of Central I ended up a few hours later in a small park behind a rehabilitation hospital watching french kids on a climbing frame and gorging myself on mangosteens that I'd found someone selling in one of those alleyway fruit stalls. The sun was setting and there feck tons of bauhinia around and it was just generally nice. I took photos but because I'm a blatant non-conformist I will have to get them developed at a later date rather than zap them online when required. I then had to run back to central in my slightly too small boots and borrow someone's phone. Fairly hard to do, but after nervously asking my 5th older-white-woman-mother-type (nabbed outside Baby Gap) I was handed one of those Samsung tablet things which I had to hold with two hands. Eventually I met Pao and Ana in the bus terminus and we headed all the way out and played too much Dance Dance Revolution (Ana and I won) and ate muchos deliciouso Brazilian food. At 9ish I pulled a Cinderella to go back to campus for an epic St Paddy's celebration and ended up being 40 minutes late to my own party but bearing a bottle of Guinness and 6 cans of Breda (all of which cost less than the Guinness...) to make up for it. Greened out and occupying Laura's double bed we listened to Wallis until Dilene's superior music taste won over (hem hem). Shortly before the laptop was taken there were some excellent selfies taken. A few hours of acting the maggot on campus later and all of us ending up on the road outside block four, we bid each other adieu and got some kip.

Sunday started off slowly, and was consequently interspersed with apathy, attempts at study, disgusting chicken pies, painstaking journeys to Wellcome to feed Colombians grapefruit, and an existential debate on Wu Kai Sha beach with Heather - not forgetting the existential selfies and existential chocolate milk to go along with it. Following beach time was an angry dinner - surprised by lack of fries I had about 2 forkfuls of a dreadful carbonara before hosting Voice Jeopardy with Campbell. Less dreadful than imagined and Chris (that sweet  nonthreatening passive Canadian kid) was there and squirming about not being a coral monitor so that was enjoyable to watch. Tar éis é sin I collected a few vagabonds to film the promo video for the 80s café this weekend. Kids in America, Take On Me, Physical + the greatest selection of mine and Morgan's fabulous clothes led to this piece of cinematic genius. 

Monday I woke up feeling miserable, went to class feeling miserable, wore miserable clothes, had a miserable rage n' Nirvana filled free block, had poisonous classes and generally felt miserable. In such instances I often turn to the pool for comfort, and ended up staying for 2 hours bombing up and down. Only 5 seconds off my pb in 50 free and hoping to reach it again before summer. Service planning was painful, Steve's quan cai leadership workshop was enough to make me top myself, and then peer support was fairly nice in Michele's flat with choccy biccies. After check in I had unmiserablefying cake with Glenda 'cause she's an angel and then did some Chinese oral stuff with Mia "Zhongguo" Thayer following which we both plonked ourselves in blk 4 dayroom for a bit. Parker was overexcited about it becoming the place to be again so maybe we should crush those hopes. I went back to my room and got reading Ulysses on the Kindle (ta daddy), though I'm at a Stephan Dedalus consciousness part and that is no where near as fun as when it's Bloom's consciousness (#bloom4lyf).

Tuesday began slightly better, perhaps because I forwent my angsty get up of sweatpants and an ugly jumper and wore a 2pac headband (as well as clothes). My practice chinese oral went fairly well despite me dwindling down to "我的...eh...房间...是红色...ehhh...因此....我.....我...喜欢看书?" at one point. Watching Food Inc. in Geography meant that I was unable to eat anything in the canteen that may have been meat, corn or homogenised. I had a glass of water. And eventually gave in to some mashed potato. Got a parcel after school, had a guilt free entire easter egg (guilt free because of the promise of intense dragon boat training) and then set off to dragon boat. Once all 7 (!) of us had arrived at the beach the thunder and lightening started and so we were turned away. 

And so I chilled out to The National and Jape and the T-Bone Walker song which lends its name to this blog title and ate Creme Eggs and drank out of my new Shamrock mug and read the Sunday Times Style magazine. 

And I wrote this. Huzzah.

Portrait of a Tuesday

Woke up at 6:40 to the sound of Farai tripping over the scales.
Fell asleep again and woke up at 8:30.
Got up and revelled in triple morning free delight.
Having run out of knickers and put on a pair of bikini bottoms I figured it was time to do my laundry so I lugged the basket to block 3, used the tablets mo dhaidí had sent in his last parcel and shuffled back to my room in my fuschia pj bumbums and oversized Nirvana t-shirt.
Cleaned the atrocity of a corner that I call home, did the recommended 40 minutes of chemistry homework, listened to too much Jape (no such thing) and that song by Gist. 
Headed to chemistry with Morgan's glasses on (in my room from exciting block 1 adventures the night previous) and my black boots. Trevor wasn't there so I stole some of Dilene's answers and all her gossip.
Then I had geo and got back my mock paper it was acceptable and I said nothing wrong about Africa.
After school I didn't have much lunch but the apple was like a pink lady apple. I painted a mural with Laurita. Ella se ve muy guapa recientemente. 
Dragon boat was at 3:30. Only Sam and I showed up, Michi a bit later. A shame, it was a nice day. Hong put us in kayaks and sent us into Tolo Harbour. He's the greatest man, if only for his skill in knowing exactly what time it is by looking at the sky. .
After dragon boat I had a good long shower and put on a crop top cause I felt good about myself and I lay on my bed feeling good about myself. 
Oliver sent out a basketball e-mail. FREE FOR ALL. It was fun for a time. I was on the Loreto A team in first year after all.
Left and ranted idontneednomanbutitwouldbeniceifonceinawhileimetonewhowasnotamisogynisticfuck
Someone's listening to One Direction and I'm going to study maths soon.
My copy of Ulysses is on a bus in Bangkok somewhere and I miss it. That's why I'm writing funny. I was going to get mango from Morgan if I finished it by mid March and I was almost there.

Farai and a cockroach. Farai.