Gilmore Girls Gems *Pilot episode*

1) A girl can never have too many lip glosses in an eclectic sample of flavours 'resembling a breakfast cereal.' Inclusive of - vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and toasted marshmallow. 

2) The need for caffeine and the loss/Mom theft of your Macy Gray CD is a licit cause for crabbiness. Don't let mothers near your CD collection :D

3) Plumbers come, do nothing and that's 100 bucks down the drain. I know, it's 'great' (!)

4) With parents who still get upset at the obscene portion sizes of American food, it is doubted that you'll get any inroads with Eminem or the evil rock music that has musically redefined your universe. 

5) Hayrides: the world over is 'still fuzzy on what's fun about sitting out in the cold for 2 hours with a bundle of sticks up your butt.' And being glumly sandwiched between 2 future Korean doctors on one as a date set up by your mother, is somewhat unbearable. 

6) There's no way Mark Twain could compete with nail polish that has sparkles in and smells of bubblegum when dried. 

7) Too much maple syrup in peach sauce strangles the fruit. Once fixed, it's so incredible you will want to take a bath in it and diabetics will line up to taste it. 

8) Consequent to your beautiful and charismatic daughter getting to do all the things you never did (due to her excellent credentials) you can resent her for it and finally have a normal mother/daughter relationship. 

9)  There are several chapters of a Steven King novel some would reenact, before resorting to that option of calling your parents for financial help when you are too proud to accept anything from anyone. Either way, it's still as painful as a blow to the head. 

10)Using money as leverage to get back into the lives of your estranged family is not an automatic magic fix to all your matters of contention. But it's not like you are now obliged to be present at a weekly family dinner or anything..oh wait, you ARE. 

11) Men name their sons after themselves all the time so why couldn't women? Women get expressly angry when in labour and feminism can take over. 

12) Just because you're pretty it doesn't mean you know how to chat up cute guys, who have just moved to the area, have been watching you but not in a creepy way and chivalrously carry your box for you. 'So do you like cake? They make really good cakes here..they're very round.' Because boys 'wouldn't want to forget where the round cakes are.'

13) You have incredible concentration when you are so engrossed in the novel you're reading, that you don't even notice when the dumbest guy is nailed in the face with a ball. Or the blood.. or the nurse coming.. or the place in chaos.. OR the girlfriend freaking out. 

14) Warnings that 'red meat can kill you. Enjoy!' are wasted on those that LOVE big beefy burgers, hold the salad.  

15) Of course it's about a boy when your studious offspring is prepared to give up on important life experiences. He probably has 'dark hair, romantic eyes, looks a little dangerous? Tattoos are good too.' It's flummoxing that these things are unbeknownst to the parent. 

16)  If you're gonna throw your life away he better have a motor cycle. We'll all think you and he are really lame if he doesn't! *rolls eyes*

17) Guys are great. We are a huge fan of guys, 'you don't get knocked up at 16 being indifferent to guys. But guys are always going to be there.' Do the mum thing and lay down the law that school has to be more important. 

18) Mothers and daughters fight - especially over male friends. We get mad and they're not so crazy about us either. But adolescents won't give the 'Mommy Dearest treatment forever.' Your feelings will be pretty beat up, but you'll forgive and won't hate each other anymore once your points of views are understood. 

19) 5'7 is tall for a teen girl 'it's freakish, thinking of having her studied at MIT.' You know you're tall but you didn't know you were INSANELY tall - it's not like you're a tree trunk. 

20) An education is the most important thing in the world, next to family. 'And pie.' *sigh* Pie is the little pixie from pastry paradise. 

21) 'The minute the strip turns pink', you stop being a child.. because you are bearing a child. Once you figure out how to be a parent, you can build and live a lovely life. 

22)  Can't let a perfectly good plaid skirt go to waist. T'will totally accentuate your pins! 

23) A bath has healing powers and can transform a baseball capped bellyaching bachelor into a dashing diner owner with collars on his shirt. You've noticed how cute he can look now and one day you'll see him as soooo hot that you'll want to be his wife. 

24) The unhealthy cravings for coffee and chilli fries make for quite a refined palate. Nutritionally, well it kinda sucks. 

25) Deliberating on whether or not a guy is dreamy is 'so Nick at Nite'. And when it is your mother asking, you won't get off the hook because they will find out anyway by spying. Spying is famously inaccurate :) 

Hart of Dixie Wisdom (Gumbo and Glory)

1) Things haven't started off well in your new town if you've sabotaged the parade, made an arch-enemy of a friend's fiancee and misdiagnosed a tick bite..thus tumbling down the societal ladder. Particularly when they are quick to distrust strangers as it is. For your safety, get your breakfast to go if the townsfolk hate you. 

2) A girl parading in front of the Mayor without a stitch of make up first thing in morning, is eyerolled as a 'walking menace'!

3) There's nothing a little Ask Jeeves-ing cannot fix. Anyhow a doc shouldn't need to use a search engine to determine how to cure a snake bite. 

4) No need to look up, when trying to locate a snakey as the poisonous ones don't climb. 'Well cottonmouths sometimes, but not in these parts. Usually.' These are not words of comfort on a serpent search by an honest and gorgeous jackass.  

5) It might be humiliating that you are 'so city' when you are scared and tumble over the rope you've mistaken for a copperhead. 

6) First rule of a snakebite: you can't let the victim overexert themselves. 'What's the second rule, apply pressure to the boob?' (for clarity - it is not unless this is amateur hour) 

7) Proving someone wrong shall make it all the more delicious when you conquer the King of his own castle in a cooking contest. If you beat your business rival - that will just be 'the cherry on the gumbo!'

8) Gumbo pots can be banged on to scare off a possum. Not that possums are the scariest thing in the world or anything. 

9) Historically speaking, 'you're supposed to treat everyone kindly..I think it's in the Bible.' Even those who are so obviously out to destroy your partner. 

10) Alabaman shrimp smiting: Use a butcher block to de-vein *they do have veins even if the recipe says it shouldn't* them by pretending you're doing surgery on a teeny, tiny little shrimpy patient. 

11) 'Any dumbo can make some gumbo.' The secret to a good gumbo is the base - you've got to use fresh tomatoes. 

11) Don't sneak around, pulling a Good Samaritan to help out an attractive doctor, who is not one of your truly terrifying, fiance's favourite people without their permission.  

12) How to woo women when you're a little out of shape at laying on the lady charm: 'Ignore her. Freeze her out.' Men know for a fact chicks dig that from their fancy man. THIS WILL IN FACT MAKE US VERY SAD OR FEEL LIKE WE WANT TO MURDER SOMEONE AND EAT A TUB OR TWENTY OF BEN AND JERRY'S. Really a woman wants 'a romantic gesture. Do that.' If it's important to you not to screw up what you have with your prospective girlfriend. 

13) Get your Alabaman woman on when your Daddy hires a new receptionist; 'you just have to bring that girl a covered dish.' 

14) Wait before calling to thank a man for the flowers, because they enjoy the chase. This will make you even hotter in their eyes and they can't resist you. 

15) The radial artery is connected to the thumb, which you would know if you went to medical school. 

16) Standing and watching while the phony proxy who took all the credit for saving a life *without acknowledging your starring role in it*, whilst making it sound much more heroic than it was, while you're ankle-deep in manure sucks. 

17) It's a dumb thing to advocate that a moral victory is good too to a loser of a contest... 'Nope, moral victories bite.' 

18) There's no point getting involved and opening yourself up to love with the gent you like if you're moving away. 

19)  A 'prideful Southern man can't admit that he had to defer to a woman' in order to be titled the local hero. Sometimes it can work more in your favour to offer your personal congratulations to the champ instead of marching up to the all time worst mongrel and displaying spite. 

20) Upon forewarning your betrothed, that you are about to do something that will make them really angry involving the one they are hating on so much, remind them of your love. It may anesthetise the betrayal an itty bitty bit.

21) Admitting that you went behind your beau's back, (subsequent to her ultimatum where she specifically told you not to speak to that woman) to see another babe, is bound to bring on a barney.

22) When you stay up all night cooking for a girl to do them a solid, (despite them insisting that they 'do not need your advice, help or Alabama lovin') you're a GOOD guy. And one whom is not feeling only pure unadulterated friendship towards said girlo. 

Hart of Dixie Wisdom (Parades and Pariahs)

1) You know you're living in Alabama when you're woken and greeted by a bullfrog croaking on your stomach. Only to realise that you have more in common with the creature because you're both unwelcome nuisances. 

2) All small towns have those gossipy grannies, who look on in horrification and gasp viciously about you being an illegitimate love child and how that explains the brazen shorts you're wearing!  

3) Communities are not animal shelters and as such they don't have to accept every stray that comes their way. Two strapping men should be able to figure out how to chase away one yippy, little 'mongrel'/woman when bid by one of those freakish, hellish daughters/fiances. 

4) Grits taste exactly like you thought they would..DELICIOUS *sarcasm splatted* It's as though it wants every spoonful to be as painful and bleurkky as humanly possible. 

5) Your top tottie neighbour is totes trying to get the sex on with you, when sweetly offering a cup of sugar. If that line ever works on a poor girl, go to the nearest Doctor's office to be dispensed with penicillin pronto. 

6) You'd think treating warts with duct tape would be a real bonehead move, but 'sometimes the old ways are the best ways.' 

7) 'Being fourteen isn't easy for anyone.' Particularly when the crush that hasn't noticed you is a stupid, Southern man 'stuck in the antiquated notion of the female ideal.' WWCBD? (What would Carrie Bradshaw do? for the non SATC watchers like myself) Even with age, we continue to fall for the wrong men - the ones that are mean, hurtful and despicable. When will we learn?

8) In deer-hunting season, you may suffer from tick paralysis. But if you 'wouldn't know a tick from a taxi cab'.. how are you supposed to distinguish that?? 

9) If you speak like a martian and almost break your head on linoleum on a bathroom floor at a bar, you are not fine. When you're sick, you can't pretend like nothing's wrong. Jeopardising your health is not worth it - ever. 

10) Generic beer breath is a big turn off - such is the tragedy of many kissing choices. 

11) Is there ANYTHING you can't construct with chicken wire? 

12) You have no right to be filled with moral outrage, regarding what is highly inappropriate and disrespectful of a former paramour (with whom you cheated on your faithful fiancee) only to lambaste them in a phone call.

13) A stunt pulled by the most irresponsible person you've ever met, is always going to be seen as selfish and obnoxious. Sometimes there's a life or death reason for the lunacy. 

14) Don't ruin your beloved dead father's legacy when he was such a saint and pillar to the community. You owe it to him to walk a mile in his shoes and not hide away after sacrificing your social standing once again. 

15) To snap a girl out of it when she's freaking, lock lips with the lass! It's the gallant thing to do, so she fears not. 

16) Teenagers cannot count on a deviously charming man to have an I-Carly sense of romance, without threats of having their lips hotglued together. 

17) Carbo-loading before a big day with take out pancakes is practically a requirement. (Hence why I stuff my face on such occasions til my teeth bleed!!) 

18) Riding on the mayor's float is 'a big honour. BIG honour.' Apparently it is the key to legitimacy, it demonstrates that you want to fit in and thenceforth people desiring to kill or sue you - will be willing to forgive you anything. 

19) The need to create a diversion culminates in crashing floats, mental distress, attempted negligence/murder.  

20) 'We all do stupid things to fit in.' Wearing a football costume (she means UNIFORM) is one of the mildest. Just be thankful you're not parading around in some ridiculous outfit dressed as a bird. 

21) Sooner or later we all must face the music.. 'the weird, old timey, banjoey music.' Sorry is not going to cut it with the angry out of towner haters, who feel you are mocking them and their traditions. 

22) Even a person who doesn't look like they eat peach pie - if you put a peach pie in front of them, they WILL eat it. Obvs - it's bliss on a dish. 

Hart of Dixie wisdom (Pilot episode)

1) 4 years after your plans to follow in your disappointment of a father's footsteps don't turn out as you hope, you'll be sat on a bus next to someone who smells like cheese. What sort of hell has life brought you to??

2) Turns out being lovable, pretty and wise is not enough. The man you love will dump you, if you like talking about surgery more than discussing his day. 

3) Patients are people to help - not puzzles to solve. This is going to revolutionise the Doctor bedside manner that everyone is so obsessed with. 

4) Not getting the job you have your heart set on is a sign that you're destined to be a hand model instead, according to the Mama. This is actually your crossroads moment to find a new route. 

5) Lugging all your luggage 3 miles in your cute, adorable little heels would be STUPID.  

6) Prior to accepting a ride from an attractive attorney, ensure he's not an ax murderer if you have a strong policy against being chopped up into a million pieces!! 

7) Clearly the man who has been sending you postcards since your Graduation is an avocado short of a Cobb salad. 

8) You are nutballs if you're expecting sous vide grouper with a mint julep in the Gulf. They've got Catfish and it's fried. You could not be less excited about that..

9) There is some news you just shouldn't tell an Alabaman while he's hunting and has his rifle locked and loaded. 

10) Mock elite young ladies all you want no holds barred, only not out loud as they're meaner than they look. The Sopranos have got nothing on them. 

11) If your career hasn't already been killed by your mother, then it certainly won't be by some Southern xenophobe dressed up like a stick of butter! 

12) You will put on half a ton when boyfriend dumps you - that's all the permission we need to pile on the pounds via self-pity scoffing. 

13) That thing about potato chips - how you can't just eat one. Yeah *that!!* Who caresssss? We live but once. 

14) If your new digs is not your loft in Soho simply order some stuff from Barneys online to make the place more homey. New is always better. 

15) You can deny that your hottie with a body, neighbour's smile might make all the girls at the church social swoon but it won't work on you.. ALL you like. Later on that same night, you will you be blitzed out and making out with the electricity stealing buffoon in his car. In the hottest possible way. 

16) Alligators are classified as friendly pets down in the 'Bama. So if you stumble across one in your path, simply tell them to 'Beat it!' Though if you ever see a hungry face - RUN. 

17) Small towns have their perks, when the nightly jog of a handsome face is interrupted to climb into mud and save our well-toned ass. We say thank you. 

18) You should be able to tell a legally blind man when he's in front of your face before he runs over and maims the town golden boy. 

19) Morphine is the easy part of a dislocated shoulder. 

20) SATC DVD's teach us that New York has everything. Why would anyone ever leave? 

21) Chasing away the girl who nearly killed 2 people, is a breeze for a town that's survived Katrina and BP by boarding up windows with sandbags, to keep the rot outside from fouling their community.

22) You've sunk to your lowest point when you get drunk as a boiled owl from wine in a box, you're alone in the woods and have got the guy you kinda liked, who turns out is engaged - run over!! 

23) Although you're tired and in pain you need to be stronger than you've ever been in your entire life for the final push of labour. All of which will be worth it, when you meet the beautiful, perfect person you've made. 

24) The most popular parental lies are choices they've made using deceitful means, apparently for the child's 'protection', but really it's just to hide their seedy affair with an older man on a Greek cruise that resulted in your conception. It doesn't matter if you love that person, if you don't belong in their world. You can discuss it in therapy like normal people. 

25) Wrestling in poison oak is ill-advised!! 

What now? Where next?

Answers on a postcard please. I implore you. Is she melting down, you wonder?? Um YUH. I'm making myself ccccccrazyyyy.

N.B - Just a heads up to those hoping for some light, cheery reading .. you may wanna give this one a miss!

This is something that I have been giving great thought to since my time here is coming to a rapid end. I've often gone with the philosophy - 'JUMP IN, BE SCARED, STICK WITH IT TIL IT GETS FUN'.. which by the way was not a rousing success this time around. I've been secretly waiting for that one moment that might make this all worth it. Obviously I love and adore all my kiddies to bits and they've got me through the loooong days but the truth is that Valladolid is just NOT the most wonderful place in the world. I know lots of the townsfolk have lived here all their life and have relatively few or no complaints, but is that just because they've never known any different? The wide world of flamin' hot Monster Munch and Nandos is unknown to them. I have come to the conclusion, that the ones who find it so spiffingly splendiferous should absolutely have their heads examined! As should I for coming here in the first place. 

Ok so it's not a cess pool which is the way I know I am making it sound ..and true there have been some beautifully sunshiney days of late (ALERT THE MEDIA! Valladolid isn't always the city of wind and winter that I believed it to be) but it has never felt like a home away from home. You know what hits me the hardest? That I could have been elsewhere all along. I've been fortunate enough to have journeyed to some small slices of heaven here on Earth. Yet I can't shake the feeling that I have achieved nothing of substance.

I thought I was a self-sufficient woman.. but who am I kidding? I can't even reach to get a glass down from the shelf above our sink. And I'm not too hot on cleanliness either, sorry to any prospective hubbies out there. Date me at your own PERIL.

  

And so I sit here staring at my jaffa cake, contemplating the dire situation I find myself in. The Secret would have me visualise the reality I want but when you don't know what that is - where do you begin? I have just not recognised myself at all here and spent too much time feeling all 'woe is me' and pitiful. As the weeks and months crawl by it became glaringly obvious that I made a massive (more like MORONIC) error in judgment agreeing to take this job in Spain. 

My life, I willingly turned upside down to come to Spain.. so much so that I don't think I even appreciated how good I had it back home. Though, I wasn't all that happy back there either as I just felt like I was stunted and couldn't progress anymore which is why I jumped at the chance when this challenge abroad came my way. I was reeeeeeally excited to leave England and move abroad to be the 'cool' teacher. 

I credit myself generally on being somewhat of an excellent silver lining finder and the only one I can come up with for my latest predicament is that at least I will get out of this 3rd rate crap factory. As I have declined to continue as a teacher at the Academy next year, I need to get my roller skates on to line something else up. I have to return home to England in July for a short time at least but then who knows ?? I understand the gravity of the situation all too ardently but am not getting any closer to reaching a decision. 

It is made all the more difficult due to my heart tugging me in all different directions: back to Hawaii, Australia, Americaaa, somewhere else in Spain or even South America. They all seem like possibilities as good as any but the notion that in 3 months I'll be out of work is frightening. In what scenario could that be construed as positive? Ideally I intend to venture to some darling little place that will always be dear to my heart.

Let's face it, I'm  on the wrong side of 20 so it's high time to BE A BIG GIRL (short though I may be) and look into all my options carefully. Weigh up all the positives against the negatives and then put it to prayer. I might not be Rianne of rainbows wherever I end up but at least I'll know I'm in the right place at the right time for whatever the reason. Even if it takes me a lifetime to figure out what that is. And although I haven't had a whale of a time day in, day out in Valladolid.. there are lots of precious memories that will stay with me. I'm sure that one day it will be clear why I was supposed to come to this city that isn't so pretty. All experiences are for our gain and I'm grateful for even these ones where I haven't been at my jolliest.