Rule No.82: You actually do learn something new everyday

In the past week I have learnt a number of things. This is the great thing about life, it teaches you valuable lessons: 

1) Never go for a wax in a salon where men get their hair cut. Apparently giving your name to the receptionist isn't enough... "oh yes, for a Brazilian?" Thanks. Now the two guys standing next to me know about it you stupid woman.

To add to this, when I was sitting on the sofa in the middle of the salon, the beautician appeared and shouted "Gina? For a Brazilian?" Now a total of nine men knew about it. Plus one woman. Why the salon had so many men get their hair cut there, I do not know. I blame valentines day. 

2) Don't write this story whilst you're on the tube. 

The guy next to me now knows about the wax. He also knows I'm writing about him and I feel awkward. STOP LOOKING AT MY PHONE. 

3) Drinking soft drinks instead of alcohol can actually be a good idea. 

I went to see Foals on Friday night. Aimee and I high fived each other after we got through security because we managed to sneak in an orange juice and coconut water. 

It was the first time I had ever been to a gig and not had my usual cider or Red Stripe. However, I liked waking up the next day without a hangover. Plus, I liked laughing with Aimee on the way home about how granny like we have become. 

Who high fives for sneaking in coconut water? Me apparently.

Oh god, I am pathetic.

4) Think before you speak. And listen carefully (yes, that's two things).

On my fourth date (yes, that's right FOURTH) on Saturday night the guy said during our conversation on the type of people living in different areas of London (I agree it doesn't sound thrilling), "yea, they're the class above". In my slightly gin intoxicated state I thought he said "they're class bruv". I therefore replied rather loudly in a rude boi voice "YES BRUV". To which baffled, he said "did you just call me bruv?" 

That's right, I called him bruv. 

I do have a fifth date though.

5) Making Moroccan food is expensive. 

I spent £36 on ingredients to make dinner for my housemates on Sunday. Mainly because I didn't own tahini, harissa, cinnamon, cumin, fresh ginger... This kind of stuff is EXPENSIVE. However, it was worth it and I proved to myself and my housemates that I can actually cook. I also know what tahini and harissa is now...as if you thought I knew before!?!

6) My brother shouldn't trust me (and I shouldn't trust myself) to take my nephew to the all you can eat Chinese buffet. 

My nephew got himself a plateful of chips, battered chicken and a poppadom (strange Chinese buffet I know). I did try to get him to put some broccoli on his plate, but he knew that I'm too soft and he just helped himself to some more chips. 

He then had three helpings of ice cream.

At least he doesn't think I'm like Miss Trunchbull I suppose...

7) If you're going to wear a long coat then make sure your skirt is longer than it. You may otherwise look like you forgot to put a skirt on. 

Yes, that is a Vietnamese style hat. No, I do not know why I bought it.

8) Don't 'swear on your life' when you're actually lying. I'm now scared I'm going to die after a random guy stopped me and asked if I had any money to buy one of his reggae CDs.

To be fair I only had £1, which I don't think he would have appreciated anyway... (I still might die)

Good bye.

x

Rule No.80: Don't bother trying to take a nice photo when it's windy

This week has been the week of the watering eye. It's just one eye and it won't stop. I've been on the way to work with fresh make up on and tears streaming down one cheek. It's been a massive pain in the arse and pretty embarrassing. Do you think it might be because something is happening? Like when your ear burns? I hope it means I'm going to become rich.

It has also been the week of the peeling lips. Generally my lips decide to peel once a week, which has always worried me a little. However, this week it has been EVERYDAY. The main reason I'm worrying is because snakes shed their skin so they can grow (and get rid of parasites). If my lips are doing the same then I am going to end up with each lip the same size as a banana. 

I think they've already grown.

I'm going to ignore the parasite bit as I'm pretty sure I don't have any parasites on my lips.

In other news, I sold Superman yesterday and I miss him already. He sold for £1 on eBay, but to be honest it wasn't about the money. I just wanted him to go to a good home. Yes, that's right he was like a pet to me. When I answered the door to the woman collecting Superman she said her five year old son was in the car. He didn't know what they were picking up and I could see him looking out of the car window, excited with anticipation. I felt like I'd done a very good deed. It would have been the equivalent to me getting a cardboard cut out of Stephen Gately when I was nine. That would have been INCREDIBLE.

Little did the woman know that underneath my zip up jumper was an 'I love porn tshirt', and underneath my jeans I was still wearing my pj bottoms. Sometimes I worry that my university student habits will never leave me. I even went to the post box with my slippers on when it was RAINING. Obviously my feet got completely soaked and the slippers had to go in the wash. Why was I such a lazy IDIOT? All I had to do was put some shoes on!

Once I was showered and finally out of my pyjamas I went on a third date. Then I went out for my friend Amy's birthday. We went to STK at the ME hotel, which was a surreal experience. It was like a scene out of TOWIE. I even witnessed a woman in a skin tight dress revealing a very large (fake) cleavage, and extremely tanned skin, dance around her husband like he was a pole. He just sat there drinking his champagne and eating his steak as he admired his wife. This was in the middle of a rather expensive restaurant.

I have never enjoyed watching people so much in my life. It was brilliant.

Later on we went to the Radio Rooftop Bar, where Aimee and I took this amazing picture.

I honestly don't understand why we haven't been snapped up as models yet.

Good bye x

Rule No.79: Don't completely lose faith in humanity

Let's start with the thing I know you'll be most eager to hear about.

The zoo was good.

Ten minutes after meeting my date (still to be left nameless) a photographer working at the zoo asked to take our photo, "smile you two". I could feel the awkwardness between us, but as I love awkwardness and as I am also a massive poser in photos I just smiled and did my 'Gina pose'. We didn't actually see the photo so who knows what it looked like, but I probably looked more like Susan Boyle than Kate Moss.

To sum up the day at zoo I've decided it's probably best to focus on both the good things and the embarrassing things that happened. I'll start with the good:

1) We saw every single animal possible
2) I stroked a goat

The embarrassing things:

1) We witnessed a big scary gorilla jump on top of a female gorilla and put his two fingers up her bum (this was both awkward and embarrassing to watch)
2) Immediately after this happened a man shouted to me "I'm sorry my daughter has her hand up your skirt"
3) A monkey jumped and nearly landed on my head so I screamed like an absolute drama queen and people genuinely laughed at me...including my date
4) A camel blew sawdust all over me and my date had to pick it out of my hair... a bit like an ape picking fleas
5) I saw a rat and freaked out. I screamed really loudly and did a really strange shuffle dance to get away. I genuinely don't think I've been that scared for years. My date found it hilarious, I did not
6) I tripped over, panicked and grabbed my dates hand by accident. Actually this wasn't too bad, but it was rather forward
7) I told my date the story of how happy I was to pick up my duvet from the dry cleaners on Saturday. I instantly regretted sharing the story

I think that's about it.

Anyway, I still haven't put him off as I have date two tonight. However, that's all I'm going to share with you for a while now I'm afraid. Mainly because a) I don't want to jinx it and b) I don't want him to find this and think I'm a freak writing about it. 

Moving on...

I'm not sure if you've seen the below already, it's one of those crappy things that always seem to get shared on Facebook. However, this one intrigued me:

When I first saw this I expected to see thousands of comments saying "Ryan Gosling", "George Clooney, "Kelly Brook"...you get the idea. However, not one comment (I probably read about 80) included a celebrity, instead they named a member of their family or a friend. It was so heartwarming to see how many people cherish their family and friends. I genuinely felt that my faith in humanity was lifted slightly. It seems One Direction aren't going to rule the world after all.

Just in case you were interested, I would sit with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Jokes, I would sit with my grandma of course.

I would share a bed with Joseph Gordon-Levitt though. 

In other news, I now have a tongue scraper...not sure why they exist to be honest, but my colleague got it from a press event and left it on my desk. She thought out of everyone on my team I'd be the one to actually want it. She was right.

I will carry on using it even though I'm not sure if I'm using it right and I'm not really sure what it does.

I'm going to leave you with what I came home to last night. I have great housemates. This was courtesy of Lucy. I LOVE PIE.

Apart from the pie I've actually stuck to eating healthily, even though I have had to hold back the tears whilst eating my homemade soup at lunch, WITHOUT bread. That's right, WITHOUT BREAD. 

good bye x

Rule No.78: Be mean to guys. It actually works

You are all going to be extremely proud of me, I WENT TO THE GYM! Yes, you read correctly. 

I wasn't very happy about it though... 

...but actually I was really happy afterwards, so I celebrated with half a bottle of red wine and some chips that I stole from my housemates dinner plate.

Then I had a jumbo sized bag of Wotsits. 

I have been reasonably healthy this week though and my lunches have mainly looked like this:

I know it looks disgusting, but it actually tastes alright when you dip a baguette covered in butter into it (not so healthy after all).

Anyway, I've stayed in tonight as I got a little bit too drunk last night, which of course is not like me... I weirdly spent most of my night telling people that my friend Jonny was thinking about me whilst holding his willy. This came from the fact that when I first saw him in the bar he said "Giinaaaa, I was just in the toilet and thought 'I wonder if Gina is coming?' and here you are!" I then asked if he was thinking this whilst weeing and he said yes. Now I'm not too sure why I thought I needed to tell everyone the slightly exaggerated story, but I think white wine was the main reason.

Say that, I'm now sober and I still find it funny. My inner child needs to calm down. 

On a less weird note, I met a guy last night. We randomly started talking to each other after he held a door open for me (gentleman). Most of the conversation revolved around me telling him that he looks like a chav. I also told him he talks like a chav and sounds like Professor Green, where really it was just an East London accent. At one point I said "I bet your favourite music is rap and I bet you take loads of photos of your torso and put them on Instagram'. He obviously fought his corner and it turns out he actually isn't a chav at all. Then again I could have had my wine goggles on. Surprisingly though, after all of this he offered to buy me a drink and asked for my number.

Therefore, the moral of the story is that being mean to guys actually works. He even phoned me today and we're going on a date to London Zoo tomorrow.

Baffling I know.

Let's not monkey around though (lol, dad joke) it is bound to go wrong so let's end with this.

Night x

Rule No. 39: Don't get your eyebrows tinted in a public place

I got told I look like Eva Mendes today. BOOM! What a great Friday. It was made even greater by eating a bacon sandwich and drinking red wine for most of the evening...I don't think I'm drunk yet.

I've not long arrived in Coventry as I'm staying at my parents house this weekend. I feel so relaxed already, I always seem to sleep better at my parents house. It's probably because I know I don't have to get up for work or do any washing or tidying the next day (no matter how much my dad tries to get me to do it).

I was also very excited to see this ugly thing.

He actually looks cute here, but trust me, he isn't.

Taz has always been a stupid dog, but now he's 13 he's REALLY STUPID. For example, tonight he spent a good ten minutes trying to use his paw and tongue (alternately) to get to a dog biscuit that was stuck underneath some drawers in the kitchen. I eventually thought I'd be a good mother and move the drawers so he could get to it. Any normal dog would be like 'YEEESSSS (woof) I can now get to the biscuit (woof)'. Nope, not my dog. He trotted away. YOU STUPID DOG. I then pointed to the biscuit and called him over, but he just stood there like I was telling him a really boring story about plants (or something equally as boring). What an idiot. He did eventually eat it...just to let you know.

It's funny how animals get so excited about food. Like the other day at work, my manager, Sarah (a human) was telling us how she was going to an American restaurant for dinner that night and couldn't wait to have a burger (don't blame her). It was then that she went on to describe how they have sticky toffee milkshakes, she got so excited talking about it that she did a fist pump.

Oh, I loved it. That's true passion for food.

On other work news, the majority of the girls in the office got their eyebrows tinted today. Sandra brought in her kit and treated us all to a free tint. Although, she jokingly told me that she was going to charge me £15. Therefore, with a mouthful of dumpling noodle soup I told her to f**k off. It is probably quite a risky thing to do when someone is holding a dye covered brush in their hand, that they could just smear across your face. Luckily she stayed professional.

However, at first I did look like a mime artist.

 

 

 

 

I look normal now though I promise (well as normal as I will ever look).

 

OK, so I'm sure you're dying to know...yes, I had my date last night. And, I therefore spent Wednesday night doing some last minute squats and sit ups. Well I had to something. I received another email from the gym the other day saying that 'they're worried about me'. Therefore, I thought a last minute attempt to tone up and lose some pounds might be a good idea. Not that I did tone up or lose any pounds.

 

I'm afraid (don't hate me) I'm not going to say much about my date. I'm sorry, I know you want juicy gossip, but let's be honest I'm already risking being single forever when I constantly talk about food, being hungover, being drunk and posting photos of me looking like a mime artist. However, I will tell you this...we have another date (and we kissed).

 

Right, I'm going to drink some more red wine (it's free wine from dad so may as well take advantage).

 

Good night x

 

Rule No.34: Don't try to take sneaky photos

The Scandinavian diet is still on hold.

I had sausage rolls and scotch eggs for dinner. It wasn't entirely my fault, I took a client out for afternoon tea at The Dean Street Townhouse. I'm pretty sure they were expecting me to order scones and mini sandwiches, so I'm hoping their excitement for the sausage rolls wasn't just to be polite. Everyone loves an sausage roll. Don't they?

I also created a new word during the meeting...

When I was telling them that I was looking forward to sorting my bedroom out, I explained that I currently have a lot of 'clatter'.

Fail.

IT'S CLUTTER, GINA!

Ah well, they found it funny and we decided to use the word a lot.

In other news, I had my last intermediate poi lesson last night. Next week I start the FIRE COURSE. Therefore, this could be the last week that I have a full head of hair. It could also be my last week that I am alive.

Talking about being alive, today I wore my Topshop top with lots of tassels on it. It nearly killed me. I got attached to EVERYTHING. The shop assistant had to even untangle me from my basket in Waitrose. (The people behind me in the checkout queue got rather impatient, I thought they were going to run at me like bulls).

On another Waitrose related note, when I was checking out the face wipes I heard a woman tell her kid off. It was the typical parent telling off, "if you don't stop doing that then..."

That's as far as the 'typical' went.

"...you won't be able to have a smoothie".

WHAT?! When I was kid I would have been like 'yea, that's fine I don't want a smoothie anyway". I mean, fair play if the kid likes smoothies, but give the poor kid some cake! (when he's not being a brat and running up and down the aisles).

On a different note, I saw Lee Mead on the tube this morning, I was sitting down and he was standing right in front of me. I could see his Calvin Klein boxers.  And, I am not going to lie, he is a pretty handsome chap. I wanted to take a picture of his boxers for you, but I was slightly worried my flash would accidentally go off, and as he was standing right above me he would have definitely been able to see my screen. I therefore decided to be safe and I just stared at the boxers instead.

The things is, I didn't want a repeat of the time I tried to take a sneaky picture of a monk in Thailand.

He turned around just as I took it.

Luckily he laughed, but I definitely looked like a crazy monk stalker. I mean, look at how close I had speedily walked up behind him so I could take it. The shame.


Date update: It was supposed to be tomorrow night, but unfortunately he needs to go to Liverpool now. Therefore, it is postponed until next week.

It's OK, I will get over it.

Night x

Rule No.33: Don't trust a hot dog man if he doesn't have onions

Well Reading Festival was pretty damn good. I now want to marry Eminem, the main guy from White Lies, the main guy from Foals, the main guy from Hadouken, and the guitarist from Fall Out Boy.

Afterall, I did win 'The Most Likely To Be A Serial Bigamist Award' in Sixth Form, so I think I should be allowed to marry them all.

I had a guest ticket for Reading courtesy of Sophie's amazing boyfriend. So we were very lucky. We had access to clean toilets, a bar with no queue, a nice seating area and access to backstage. The only problem was, my knowledge of what bands look like is TERRIBLE. I couldn't even tell you what most of my favourite bands look like (apart from Mcfly). Therefore, I was probably sharing a bench with someone from White Lies for example, and I wouldn't have known. The only people I actually recognised were Edith Bowman, Greg James and the guy from Hadouken (only because I had just watched him).

Greg James gave me a 'I know you, but can't think how' look when I was next to him at the bar. I decided not to say anything to save any embarrassment. Long story short, I met him at an awards last year...I was very drunk (I had taken advantage of the free cocktails) and kept telling him to grab my bum in a photo. He obviously declined, but I kept pestering him and he definitely thought I was pretty creepy. Therefore, last night I decided to act 'cool' and went to dance instead. Even though my dance moves were far from cool. Especially when Eminem came on, the wannabe rude girl dance moves came out.

On the Saturday we didn't eat after 3pm as we were too busy drinking wine and watching bands. Therefore, at 1am we decided to get a hot dog. First of the all the guy didn't have onions. What kind of hot dog man doesn't have onions??? Then, he put sweetcorn mayo on the hot dog (wtf?). It was odd, and the sausage was too small. Basically, I'm not sure I enjoyed it.

I was also not impressed to discover that the sweetcorn mayo contained bacon. I then moaned 'why didn't he warn us it had bacon in it? What if we were vegetarian?'. It then occurred to me that he had smothered it on a sausage.

To get back to Sophie's friends house that night we called the same taxi man that had dropped us off earlier on. He was an absolute legend, he just told us to call his mobile whenever we needed picking up on both nights, and he came within 15 minutes. The taxi queue was at least an hour long so he really did do us a favour. Therefore, you should always make friends with your taxi driver.

When we were watching Hadouken on Sunday we decided to be brave and go right near the front of the stage. OMG. What a mistake. During their first song they demanded "everyone...washing machines!". I was confused, Sophie was confused, but a load of 16 year olds knew exactly what he was on about. All of a sudden the crowd formed lots of massive circles and people were running around in them like wild boar, bashing into each other and making weird noises. Sophie and I held hands and prayed we weren't going to die. Luckily for us some teenage boys decided to look after us and therefore stopped us from getting crushed. A girl also put her arm round me to protect me. We obviously looked like very scared 'old and uncool people'.

Today I am exhausted. This burger helped though. We went to the Oakford Social Club for lunch before our journey back to London. I want to eat it AGAIN.

So good.

The Scandanavian diet is currently on hold.

I attempted to go to Notting Hill Carnival today, but I got there and it was absolutely crazy. I always forget how I actually don't really like it. I was supposed to be meeting Jade and Eve there, but due to lack of phone signal I ended up walking round on my own for an hour, so I decided to buy a curry from M&S and went home.

Luckily for me, Jade came over to mine to stay tonight, so I still got to see her anyway.

What a beauty.

Oh, I nearly forgot...I met a guy last night. I was dancing to a DJ in the guest area of Reading and I was making a bit of a tit out of myself (you can't attempt to dance like a cool person when Fatboy Slim comes on), but the guy seemed to find it funny. He's a music photographer and he's hot. Very hot. We already decided last night that we want to get married. However, looking back I'm pretty certain (hoping) that it was just drunken talk. Just like when we discussed that our babies would look South American...

Anyway, I think I have a date on Thursday.

Knowing me, it will all go wrong, but lets keep our fingers crossed.

Night x