The term is taking a heavy toll on minds and bodies - and OMG, do stop saying that.
The summer holiday is now a distant memory as talk on the TES forums turns to the physical signs of being back at work. For tassiegirl, it is her fingernails that are the windows to the soul.
“Whenever I’m at work, my nails go to pot. They tear, split, peel and go very thin and weak,” she says. “Whenever the Easter or summer holidays come around, my nails sort themselves out and become strong and grow and look ‘normal’.”
Pinkflipflop sympathises. However much stress she is under during the holidays, her nails stay strong. Back at school, they turn to a quivering mass of jelly - or at least a jelly that splits and cracks. And that’s not all: “I also itch all over and my hair keeps falling out!”
For buntycat, however, work gives her nails a break. “My nails get much longer when I am at work,” she says. “I don’t have time to bite them.”
Plymouthmaid also reports an itchy scalp, while spots break out over Burneshunter’s chin and forehead. There is an upside though, reports Burneshunter: “The fact that I still get spots makes me appear younger. Doesn’t it?” How nice it is to encounter an optimist before half term.
From grated fingers to the phrases that really grate, Bobvincent’s pet hate is “OMG”, as drawled by a woman he encountered at the supermarket. “She would have (used) the same amount of breath saying the full words.”
Chilliexx nominates that phrase suddenly beloved of managers everywhere, “going forward”, while Middlemarch goes for, “So I’m like ... and she’s like ...” Rihlana cites, “To be perfectly honest” - presumably said by those who spend the rest of the time lying.
Coffeekid anticipates that these phrases will be seen as part of the development of language, but Lilyofthefield has the perfect riposte to such objections: “When I look in the mirror, I can see the point past which ‘development’ becomes ‘deterioration’,” she says. “I’m sure the same thing applies to language.”
It’s a seamless transition from the bastardisation of language to men wearing mascara. Apparently, it is very now and you can even buy mascara in the men’s section of HM. Whatever next? Nail polish for pandas?
Lapinrose asks if any men would actually wear mascara, and while no one has the front to admit it, grunwald has a “friend” who sometimes wears foundation - but only when he is drinking wine, “as it makes his complexion florid”. Shifter reports that Johnny Depp wears it, although as that was in a film perhaps it doesn’t count. But polli kills the conversation dead with the observation: “Make-up is full of animals’ testicles and the like, in any case, so it could hardly be more macho.” Nice. Very nice.
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