I remember my first and only glass blowing attempt. It was in my high school science class. We had been given hollow glass rods and were supposed to heat the end in a bunsen burner and stub it onto our handy asbestos mat to seal it over. Then we were supposed to heat a section about three centimetres long, and blow through it to make a bulb shape.
Well, the first few minutes I wasn't getting anywhere, so I decided I'd have to heat it up really well, right in the blue bit of the flame till it started to droop, then give it a really hard blow. I can't remember what happened next. All I can remember is sitting in the classroom with the whole class staring at me, with the rod sticking out of my mouth and a million pieces of paper thin glass floating down all around to a radius of about 2 meters.
After that glassblowing experiments were banned.
Cathy