Ruby Granger #36 Pumpkin Bread Activity

[lesbean]

Erimentha Parker Chapter 11:

Plot -

- Ruby is lonely because she is not speaking to her friend Simone (because she is concerned Simone will suggest she reports the bullies again) so she starts having lunch break in the library
- Ruby finds a year 5 girl in the library and spends a page of the book basically describing how small and sad the girl looks
- Miss Soloman decides to go against her actual lesson plan so Ruby can present her PowerPoint on hurricanes
- Kimberly asks Ruby if she would ever go look for a hurricane, Ruby says no as you can die and Kimberly says that's a shame
- The bullies throw some paper at Ruby which she finds immature
- Ruby asks to go get a drink of water, Miss Solomon abandons her class to come check on her and gets her an orange from the staff room
- When she gets back to class Ruby realises her parker pen has leaked all over her worksheets and her pencil case. She investigates and finds that someone cut her ink cartridge in half. When Miss Soloman returns the bullies tell the teacher Ruby was trying to show off by doing a trick with her pen and it exploded
- Miss Solomon doesn't believe Ruby was messing around because she points out Ruby told off another student earlier for throwing her pen around
- Ruby is too upset and ashamed to eat the orange Miss Solomon gave her

Quotes -
- "Kimberley leans over and taps me on the forearm. Her fingers are cold and so her circulation is probably not very good. Maybe she doesn't get enough exercise" (I'm sorry but this quote killed me)
- "I try to concentrate on my worksheet but her comment is not eroding quite so quickly as the Holderness Coastline"
- "They throw little pieces of scrunched up paper my way, scattering my desk surface with snowflakes, each one torn of hastily and irregular. I see little raindrops of saliva, indebted with pathogens, land amongst them as they giggle"
- "I wash my hands well and turn off the tap with my sleeve, having read about just how many germs can be found on the handle"
- "True to my word, I take a long drink from the water fountain, feeling the cold water against and down the back of my throat. My stomach feels full after a few seconds and I wonder just how much water it takes to kill a person. I make myself a note on my Post-it pad to find out"
- "I go to say something but I feel my voice breaking. It catches in the back of my throat and pulls against my epiglottis"

Ugh I love it when he pulls against my epiglottis

 

[MissTomato]

yeah but imagine you are ruberta's sister, constantly subjugated to her hijinks. you want to go to the bathroom before bed - there is ruby, sitting on the toilet for the past hour, electric toothbrush buzzing in her mouth while she is reading, spraying her hardcover/ebook reader/ipad/whathever with toothpaste. you come downstairs to have breakfast and you find ruby mixing her gruel on the stovetop, banana smoothie concoction covers every surface, yet she has a book in her hand, flipping through it. you thought an evening stroll in the garden would be a good idea?? THINK AGAIN, because ruby of course decided it is a good idea to read by the candlelight when it's windy and below freezing. no place is safe from ruby and her reading.

 

[CatCafe234]

Fuck me, this reads like The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

You’ve finally made it obvious who Ruby reminds me of

“I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.”
― Adrian Mole; Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

Edited to add, this is one of my favourite quotes from the books and I can totally see Ruby saying something like this …

‘In my desperation I went to the Lake District on the train. I was struck down by the beauty of the place, although saddened to find that there were no daffodils flashing in my outer eye as in William Wordsworth the old Lake poet. I asked an ancient country yokel why there were no daffodils about. He said, "It's July, lad". I repeated loudly and clearly, (because he was obviously a halfwit) "Yes I know that, but why are there no daffodils about?"

"It's July," he roared. At that point I left the poor deranged soul. It's sad that nothing can be done for such pathetic geriatric cases...‘

 

[StatusWoe]

Yeah, I agree. She gives me the vibe that she has a mean temper. Not that this is an excuse to walk on eggshells around her but regardless of how much you love a family member, you can still be sick of their shit and frankly, I don't know how anyone can live with Ruby and not feel like punching a wall at least four times a day.
---

She's dropped all pretence now At least she's honest for once haha.

Oh no, is this the start of her ''we should normalise acting like 8-year olds'' phase?

 

[gossip_guy]

I just checked, my application outcome from Oxford came in the afternoon of 22nd February (so on this exact date) keep your eyes peeled for any "arson in Buckinghamshire"-related news, folks

If her next video is titled 'university is keeping us from learning' with her VARRY SYARIOSS face in the thumbnail and lots of rambling nonsense about how university isn't worth it and WEE SHUD AWL LAHHRN FOR OURSALVES BECAUSE THE ADDJUKAYSHONAL SYSTEM DOESN'T APPRECIATE US, we'll know what's up.

 

[gossip_guy]

Sadly if she does get into Oxford it appears/seems with the evidence we have that getting a first & spending time & money buying your lecturers presents is all it takes (obviously I allude hete to my perception that this is brown nosing). If she does get into Oxford my perception that it is a discriminating educational establishment will be forever smashed. Yet another preconceived notion will have bitten the dust.

If by some miracle she gets in, it'll be the worst thing that could happen to her.

She won't have the benefit of Exeter's grade inflation to boost her grades and she won't have Blakeney there to do half her work for her.

Exeter have set her up to expect an easy ride. At Oxford, she'll be held up to a much higher standard than she's used to and will have to be far more reliant on independent thought and critical ability, which she's completely incapable of.

This is someone who cries on the internet when she forgets to order one of the required textbooks and has to made so with a (gasp) audiobook version. She cries on the internet when she doesn't get the grades she thinks she deserves. She moans about how her mental health is suffering because she has to work 3 hours a day, 3 times a week. She'll cave under the pressure of Oxford almost instantly.

Failing at Oxford or having to drop out will be a far bigger blow to her ego than never getting in. At least if she's rejected she can just never mention it ever again.

 

[pineconez]

I honestly hope I'm not sounding rude or anything lmao, but why did she stop midway through the video to tell us she had a meeting to go to and that she'd be back later, only to like... transition immediately to her continuing with the next book? I'd assume a video like this would have cuts and stuff in it, why not just cut from one book to another? Idk it just struck me as an odd addition to the video lol

EDIT: oh no she read one of my favourite childhood books. I must not get protective and gatekeepy lol (It's King of Shadows... she called the a relationship in it unrealistic... my friend, it's a book about time travel and the part that's unrealistic.. is a friendship? )

 

[Deeznutslol]

Only Ruby could manage to crease a paper on which she barely wrote 20 words. (See the left edge)
View attachment 1980021
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Ruby supposedly turns on airplane mod every night, as if she will be disturbed by work calls mails or she will be sought by beloved friends while working on feeling relaxed... Girl I'm pretty sure your phone doesn't rang even during the day except when Mama Bones (or maybe Daddy Bones) calls to tell dinner is ready instead of shouting from downstairs.
View attachment 1980042
________________________________________________________________________

NEXT UP
Ruby makes me question the meaning of the word hygiene by suggesting drinking tea is related to hygiene

View attachment 1980055
View attachment 1980056
MEANWHILE Cambridge Dictionary definition; (Well I guess this explains her lack of hygiene, It's because she doesn't even know what it means)

View attachment 1980066
More things not related to hygiene categorized as hygiene
1. Cover Screen (could have been related if the goal was preventing dust accumulation but Ruby clearly explains that it is to signify that she is no longer working)
2. Water (nope not to clean but to drink)
3. Hot water bottle (Yes, Ruby I agree question mark indeed, why put that on a hygiene list?)
4. Strech (srsly?)
Oh turns out 80% of this list is NOT actually related to hygiene in anyway. (Well, that explains a lot for me)
View attachment 1980121
Also why not remove nail polish if its not covering your nail anymore? You should for the sake of nail health.
________________________________________________________________________

OH a space time continuity error:
Ruby's doing work (editing)
View attachment 1980173
Goes down for dinner
View attachment 1980170
When she goes back up stairs she quickly takes off her lenses
View attachment 1980180
Then wears her glasses
View attachment 1980186
WAIT GLASSES? Yes the ones she was wearing BEFORE dinner.
________________________________________________________________________

As a final note, something else that bothers me is how she tores off a paper while the back is untouched and completely blank. Just set it aside and use it for something random. Showes how small understanding she has about the real world. The way she brags about how satisfactory it was disgusts me.
View attachment 1980208

‘Sleep hygiene’ is a phrase referring to practices and behaviours which can influence how well you sleep. Doing things like switching off devices earlier on in the evening, practicing yoga before bedtime and drinking herbal tea are all things which can improve your sleep. Ruby has used this term correctly here (for once).

Good Sleep Habits

Good sleep habits can help you get a good night’s sleep.

www.cdc.gov

 

[gossip_guy]

I'm also left wondering why Ruby claims to like Sundays so much when all her days are identical.

Every single day's a 24 hour bubble of no work, no responsibility and a wide-open schedule of carefree privilege, so I don't know how she tells them apart.
---

Someone commented this on the Sunday tiktok

Read the room Roobee

Ruby: "School/uni is not the same as work"
Also Ruby, unemployed and sitting down to write an essay nobody asked for: "And now I'm dyooing some WAAHRK."

 

[Daredevil]

---

This ‘you know’ sounds so creepy!
---

 

[LostGhosts]

This is true - she edited the book to make Erimentha seem less disgustingly wealthy (didn't work) and less obnoxious (same). I think in the original, Erimentha was more vocal about her sneering rather than just thinking it.

Wait the version I am reading is the LESS obnoxious version. My god ...

 

[roobee]

Erientha Parker Chapters 22 and 23:

Plot -
- Once back home Ruby finds she has received a letter from grandmama. She tells Ruby about her time at school and how she found a friend so Ruby can find one two if she takes the time to look.
- Ruby writes a list of people at school who are similar to her. It contains Ella (the girl two years younger than her with the mouse face), Simone (who likes geography) and her teacher Miss Solomon. After thinking harder she can think of more things such as she is similar to Ally because they both have hand sanitiser, her and June both use Stabilo swing cool highlighters and both her and Izzy don't like ice cream. The only one she can't find similarities with is Kimberly
- After lunch mum drives Ruby to the beach and she takes some photos. Then they go to get scones and tea from the cafe. Ruby buys a badger shaped tea light holder
- Turns out Ruby's father does exist as he is mentioned in this chapter! Only because Ruby reminds him he needs to put up a wind turbine in the garden.
- In the evening Ruby wants to watch a documentary on Calvinism and forces her parents to watch it with her. To be ultra productive Ruby knits at the same time. Ruby's dad comments on how lucky they are to have Ruby because she wanted to watch a documentary. Nathan is not mentioned so either they forgot to pick him up from school or just decided to leave him in the shed as he didn't fit into their family aesthetic.
- When Ruby wakes up she makes some notes from a weather book and spends some time wishing Kimberly won't do anything nasty today.
- On the bus to school Ruby listens to a podcast on farming in the seventeenth century. Ally is sat behind her and asks Ruby if she is feeling better and says Kimberly shouldn't have hit the ball at her

Quotes -
- "The corners of the paper protrude slightly, like bubblegum, so I use my forefingers to smooth down the imperfections".
- "I sit down at my desk and take out a piece of faux-parchment paper to compose a list. In John Agard's 'Book', I read that real parament was actually the product of dried animal skin and since then I have always made sure to specify that my parchment is fake!"
- "I gaze out of the window at the thinning hedgerows, so barren of leaves now that there are large holes poking through the thicket. it is like a collection of sticks gathered for a campfire, arranged carefully into extensive, climbing rows".
- [The leaves] "have formed the most magnificent array of colour - crimson, canary and dijon holding each other tightly in an effort to keep warm."
- "I spot a particulalry charming alder tree, its translucent canary foliage almost completely intact"
- "They intertwine as tough fingertips, the spindly twigs crossing over each other in what appears to be a child's pinky promise"

So, reading these quotes LostGhosts so generously provides, I realized that she relied too heavily on similes (everything is like something) to make her sentences literary. And most of the time, those similes don't work because either the comparison is just weird or so very obvious that it borders on tautology. Now, her current writing is literally the same, except she avoids using like or as or whatever. So now she writes more ambiguously but with the same level of incompetence and unearned confidence. And I must admit I take her to be my inspiration for continuing to learn foreign languages. This girl is fighting for her life when she is using her native tongue, I am allowed to make mistakes with my English and German.

 

[Larancia]

What is that manicure

 

[DrinaM]

There should be a literary device named after Ruby, like Rubytition or Parubyism, to indicate that something contains absolutely unnecessary details just to make the writer seem smart and eloquent. Why 2B pencil? I have never seen a 4B or H or mechanical pencil that wasn't straight.

Why 2B, you ask?
Because:
Hello, its 2B!

 

[pinkmug]

Erimentha Parker Chapters 4 and 5:

- Just a random point, but this whole book highlights how privileged Ruby is and how she doesn't understand how people can essentially not have money. Erimentha is described as poor and needing a scholarship to afford the school. But there are just so many things in the book that contradict this. I'm only really writing this because Ruby had to mention that Erimentha's house has a mud room ...

Plot -

Honestly barely anything happens in these chapters
- Ruby goes to the library and is sad to find you can only take out two books at a time
- The librarian tells her the books she chose are quite tricky but Ruby essentially tells her to fuck off as she read A brief history of time, so this is nothing
- Back in form they rearrange the desks and Ruby sits next to the teacher
- We get some unnecessary descriptions of trees and stuff while Ruby goes on a walk
- They have pumpkin soup for dinner and Ruby has to go get her waste of space brother who was building lego instead of doing work
- She uses an out of date encyclopaedia to read up and make notes on Cambodia so she can harass her form tutor later
- Waffles on for three pages about different definitions of bullying

Quotes -

• “They don’t offer psychology in year 7 but I still made the GCSE teacher a pamphlet about the changes in mental health care, from Plath’s time in McLean Hospital up until the present day. The historical element means that I can also show Mr Aldridge – I expect that he’d find that interesting”
• “I am actually thrilled – sitting so close to the teacher means that we can converse about Cambodia and mental health care while my peers chatter seamlessly about lip gloss, social media and pop music”
• Unfortunately for me, and to the delight of my peers. We have not been given any homework apart from a brief account of how we found our first day
• "I will continue doing extension projects, even if it means sneaking them to my teachers in the dead of night as though I am part of some clandestine organisation"

The more I hear about Erimentha, the more I am shocked she didn't get bullied more.

 

[LostGhosts]

Erimentha Parker Chapter 20:

Plot -
- Ruby goes to a PE class. She arrives before the class and the teacher and praises Ruby because she can get dressed quickly and gives her a house point. Even though it is only September the girls are shivering and their fingers are frozen.
- The teacher tells them to play around the world tennis and Ruby loudly tells everyone she knows how to play. She gets to go first and does a near perfect serve (because why would she do anything other than perfect).
- Kimberly and Ally tease Ruby for acting better than them all by bragging for being the first dressed and knowing how to play the tennis game. They continue to tease her, saying she has no friends while Ruby has her second go which is a "particularly tricky back-hand" that gains her praise from the teacher who seems to hate all of the other students.
- Kimberly lets Ruby know she has her own internet fan page and offers to give Ruby the hyperlink on her post-it note pad.
- Kimberly jokes about being Ruby's best friend and grabbing her arm. Ruby tells her to leave her alone
- Ruby gets hit in the head by a tennis ball and dramatically lowers herself to the ground. Ruby asks for her Mum. Sister Lizzie the nurse tells her that her mum is coming to take her to A&E (clearly we went to different schools as in my secondary school you would be lucky if they gave you a wet paper towel. Would usually just get told to stop complaining and get on with it.
- Ruby gets taken to the infirmary in a wheelchair while June is used as her servant and asked to get her things from the changing room.
- Ruby goes to A&E (now you know why it takes hours to be seen) and her mum has managed to bring Ruby's "Emergency Hospital Supply Kit" which contains spare clothes, pyjamas, spare underwear, toiletries, Charlotte, Sometimes the book, The origins of species book ,a notepad and pen (If I was clerking someone in the ED who was reading the origins of species and had brought an entire box of hospital supplies I would tell them to go home)
- The doctor is very impressed with Ruby's medical knowledge and asks her if she wants to be a doctor. Ruby replies saying she is considering medicine, politics, environmental conservation or teaching English. (I would legit cry if I had to do a hospital ward round with Dr Ruby)

Quotes -
- "The sun is watery amongst Byron's "cloudless climes" (this has a footnote for some reason) and warms my scalp as though it were once again August"
- "It is queer that barely a month ago there was a hose pipe ban; that barely a month ago, I wasn't scared to walk down school corridors by myself"
"Melody's teeth are chattering as she tries to revert her body temperature back to thirty seven degrees Celsius".
- "I agree loudly, my voice momentarily piercing the birdsong"
- "I am first and my serve, if I do say so myself, is nearly perfect"
- "For a millisecond, my head feels heavy. Like someone has filled it with paperweights. And I wonder how I've managed to keep this weight propped up on my shoulders. And then everything goes white".
- "One middle-aged man seems to have a broken arm - at least that is what I can infer from the deep bruising around the ulna bone. I am tempted to ask but he looks as though he is in rather enough agony" (I really was not prepared for how much i would be reminded of working in Orthopaedic surgery by this book)
- When in A&E talking to the doctor - "I thank her and she thanks me, complimentarily telling me that I am one of the most medically informed children she's met"

 

[gossip_guy]

There was a news story in Finland last week about a 40-year-old woman who had been posing as a 13-year-old at a parish afternoon club. She wasn't prosecuted as apparently it was determined she had no sinister intentions, but Roobee definitely sprang to mind.

Definitely something Ruby is dangerously close to doing. Although, when caught on the first day, she'd just claim she was recruited by the local police to go undercover at the local primary school to foil an underage ethanol crime ring.

Spoiler

 

[braginskayas]

Thread #37 title: Lean Mean Magenta Green Machine

 

[laynelo_]

Erimentha Parker Chapter 11:

Plot -

- Ruby is lonely because she is not speaking to her friend Simone (because she is concerned Simone will suggest she reports the bullies again) so she starts having lunch break in the library
- Ruby finds a year 5 girl in the library and spends a page of the book basically describing how small and sad the girl looks
- Miss Soloman decides to go against her actual lesson plan so Ruby can present her PowerPoint on hurricanes
- Kimberly asks Ruby if she would ever go look for a hurricane, Ruby says no as you can die and Kimberly says that's a shame
- The bullies throw some paper at Ruby which she finds immature
- Ruby asks to go get a drink of water, Miss Solomon abandons her class to come check on her and gets her an orange from the staff room
- When she gets back to class Ruby realises her parker pen has leaked all over her worksheets and her pencil case. She investigates and finds that someone cut her ink cartridge in half. When Miss Soloman returns the bullies tell the teacher Ruby was trying to show off by doing a trick with her pen and it exploded
- Miss Solomon doesn't believe Ruby was messing around because she points out Ruby told off another student earlier for throwing her pen around
- Ruby is too upset and ashamed to eat the orange Miss Solomon gave her

Quotes -
- "Kimberley leans over and taps me on the forearm. Her fingers are cold and so her circulation is probably not very good. Maybe she doesn't get enough exercise" (I'm sorry but this quote killed me)
- "I try to concentrate on my worksheet but her comment is not eroding quite so quickly as the Holderness Coastline"
- "They throw little pieces of scrunched up paper my way, scattering my desk surface with snowflakes, each one torn of hastily and irregular. I see little raindrops of saliva, indebted with pathogens, land amongst them as they giggle"
- "I wash my hands well and turn off the tap with my sleeve, having read about just how many germs can be found on the handle"
- "True to my word, I take a long drink from the water fountain, feeling the cold water against and down the back of my throat. My stomach feels full after a few seconds and I wonder just how much water it takes to kill a person. I make myself a note on my Post-it pad to find out"
- "I go to say something but I feel my voice breaking. It catches in the back of my throat and pulls against my epiglottis"

Still can’t believe she was 17 whilst writing this and thought to herself ‘Yep, this so great the public needs to be able to read this’. This reads like a villain origin story, purely psychotic

 

[LostGhosts]

Erimentha Parker Chapters 12 & 13:

Plot -
- Mum takes Ruby food shopping and says she can get a treat. She choses a blueberry nature bar and a carton of banana milk. Mum buys Nathan a chocolate milkshake and chocolate buttons and then comments that he will be hyper tonight. Ruby then essentially says she is full of shit because sugar doesn't trigger hyperactivity in children
- While browsing the frozen ravioli they bump into Julia, one of mum's friends, who invites them round for a BBQ as a "New School Year celebration of sorts"
- They waffle on about aerobics and yoga
- We finally find out that Julia has two daughters, and one of them is Kimberly.
- Ruby goes to visit her grandmama (yep that is the term she uses) who is fluent in 5 languages, partially fluent in another 7 and a bookworm just like Ruby
- Ruby posts a letter into her grandmama's letterbox before going in to talk to her
- Grandmama compliments Ruby's outfit and she makes sure to say she has had the skirt since she is 8 (wow she even body checks in her book!)
- They go on a walk even though it is cold and talk about books and then how last summer they swam in the river. An old man had let Ruby use his tape measure to calculate the height and width of the river so she could calculate the hydraulic radius, which Ruby then turned into a special presentation for her grandmama
- I think Grandmama is meant to give Ruby good advice by saying unkindness doesn't last forever, and that she will always have friends in books but the conclusion is basically Ruby thinks she can try change Kimberly which probably isn't the best message

Quotes -
- "I flinch at the informality of the invitation"
- "I speak French, of course, but that's only because Mum grew up in Paris"
- "I expect my cheeks are as red as cherry tomatoes in the bitter wind and I feel them with the back of my hand - my cool fingers burn against the sensitive tissue"
- "I would like to have the postman deliver my letters too but the stamp-cost is simply too high (no way could it be covered by an eleven-year-old's pocket money!)"
- "It's not that she wants to completely isolate herself from the outside world but her dissolving eyesight means that she can no longer drive and she was never a fan of buses" (Ruby please never use the word dissolve when talking about eyes)
- "Grandmama bundles herself up in a warm ski coat, the same one she wears on our annual trip to the alps"
- "Outside the wind bites at our cheeks, nipping at my nose like an excitable puppy"
- "I admit defeat and deflate like an untied balloon released from a child's sticky fingertips"
- "I was always one to meticulously stay within the lines and was even given a special certificate for it when I was in reception ... Dad framed it and hung it on the wall"