Against the grain

Yeah, three blogs in one day. I really should shut up.

But I'm obviously not, I just want to address a couple of things about my agenda which probably won't flow because Ant and Dec's Saturday night Takeaway is on and it's amazeballs. Plus my son keeps telling me just how rubbish he's doing on Angry Birds on my iPad, bless him. I know what happens when you don't destroy the pigs, but thank you.

Basically, it's about the idea of an Essex person, particularly Essex Girls. I hate how we're meant to be peroxide blonde's with fake tans, fake nails, fake hair, and fake brain cells. I have never seen a white boot stiletto we're meant to be famous for wearing. Most people I walk past wear saggy-bummed jeans, baggy hoodies and their hair (if they're female) being in a high ponytail. So they get the hairstyle right (although, my hair is peroxide, since I wanted to prelighten it to dye it another colour but I have red, raspberry-pink and bright orange to choose from and I am shit at making decisions). We kind of see people who emulate the Essex stereotype as alien beings. Seriously, some girl was in my store all dressed up in Typical Essex Girl Wear a few months ago and the amount of bitching I heard from the crew about the state of this girl was unbelievable.

So yeah, you look like Amy Childs and fast food employees look down on you. I can't believe I've just mentioned TOWIE by proxy, but they're currently responsible for upholding the 'Essex people are pretty and dumb' stereotype so they can do one already, however relevant they are for this blog post.

Do you know who I know from Essex?

-A girl with a Masters in clinical Psychology. I've known her since I was four and she was three. She's my son's Godmother.

-A producer on national television. If you watch This Morning, that girl with the light brown/dark blonde hair was one of my best friends in high school. I made her dance to 5,6,7,8 by steps on the school stage in a talent competition. Strangely, she was the English class genius and I wanted to work in television, we seem to have swapped roles.

-Two girls who are writing their own novels.

-A girl who breeds mini-lop rabbits.

-A lawyer.

-Someone who's grade eight at the Oboe. She played drums in a band at school too.

That's not including my family, who are teachers, doctors, and lawyers as well. That's not including the ten other people I can hold conversations with about books, which no one else can get. Or the girl studying Chemistry at Uni, or the fact when I was getting my bachelors, in one of my study groups of 15, 5 of us were from Essex.

I just really hate that wherever I go, people have this impression that we're uncultured. Seriously, in a twilight topic someone mentioned I was from Essex because she saw it on my profile (good ol' Goodreads again) and she condescended to the fact that she didn't think we knew how to read. I seriously wanted to tell her where to shove it, since Essex has more grammar schools than any other county in England, one of which I attended. Yeah, you read that right, I passed an exam to attend my high school. Actually, three. One of which you can either do, or not, since it's all about logically thinking through word and letter patterns and problems. Speaking of which, I am really into Hanjie and Logic puzzles, which are amazing when you know how to do them (and Hanjie is so pretty once you get the jist of it) ... I really hope, if this blog achieves nothing else, it at least proves that this girl on Goodreads deserves a punch in the face, because Essex people are articulate, and smart, and have oodles of self-confidence. There are more celebrities and lottery winners from Essex than anywhere else in England as well ... I just fucking love Essex. But not for the stereotype.