I think Jacob needs to borrow Marigold.

Everyone has particular things they do when they get bored in lessons. Lots of people doodle on their work, some (in the presence of a hole punch) punch holes in paper, others just count ceiling tiles (or some other equivalent!) Usually I can be found doodling over the back pages of my homework diary or drawing up the margin of my notes. However, recently, I decided to name the contents of my pencil case. Every bit of stationary has a name.

This can lead to some odd conversations:

Friend: Hey, Hannah. Can I borrow a pencil?
Me: Sure! Do you want Rachel, Claire or Jacob?
Friend: Urm... Jacob’s fine...
Me: Oh, hang on; I think Jacob needs to borrow Marigold.
Friend: Marigold?
Me: Yeah, sharpener!
Friend: Obviously... *surreptitiously switches places*

Amazingly, this ‘craze’ is spreading. Well, my friends have allowed me to name their stationary with my specially bought Sharpie. (Yes, I specifically bought my Sharpie for the purpose of naming my stationary... if you didn’t think I was mad before, I’m sure you do now!) Many pens, pencils, sharpeners and highlighters in the sixth form now have more ‘original’ names than “blue pen” and “black Biro”.

Four particular pens are called Chris, Charlie, Alex and Liam. I possess Chris and Charlie, my friend has Alex and Liam. These four pens are actually named after the Trock band Chameleon Circuit. My friend and I absolutely love their music and their Youtube Vlogs and she refused to let me own the whole band myself :(. Additionally, we unintentionally used colour to divide them by where they live. Charlie and Alex are our blue Biro’s and those two members live in England. However, the other two members (represented by our black pens) live in Scotland. This was - I assure you - completely and utterly unintentional! Although this did lead to the irony of Scotland being represented by black and then the question of whether there were actually any black people in Scotland by another friend. Sometimes you wonder how we all got into a grammar school!

In the process of naming, one of my pencils obtained the name Mundungus. Not being a Harry Potter fan, I did not realise this was not just a bundle of letters and sounds until someone in my history class pointed out that my pencil was named after a character in the books. Somehow, this pencil has now gained the corresponding surname and I am still none the wiser of quite who Mundungus Fletcher is.

There has also been a long debate over the gender of my stationary. I have four mini highlighters with (limited edition!) faces on them. Naturally, I gave them names: Blue – Luke; Orange – Stu.2 (Stu.1 unfortunately ran out of ink); Yellow - Marvin.2 (similar fate befell Marvin.1); Green – Fred; and Pink – Lucy. However, my friend insisted that Fred and Luke were girls. Apparently, the presence of eyelashes made them girls despite the colours (in my mind) suggesting otherwise. In response, I decided to rename them Fredica and Lukette. Nevertheless, friends in my history class said that they should be boys! Maybe highlighters were never designed to have a gender...



Right, for those of you who are wondering what Trock is:

Trock is short for Timelord Rock. Therefore, they are songs about the TV show Doctor Who. Simples :)