Morals aside...

The fish dissection was terribly interesting. The poor creature was a sardine from Morrisons, and we began by inserting a probe through his (it had a sperm sack) alimentary canal. We were 'lucky' as the probe came out of his anus, and from here we cut up to its chin and opened it out. At first it was daunting, but soon I became accustomed to poking and pulling the corpse, so it was fine.

We then removed the sperm sack, the intestines and the heart, which was kind of pyramid-shaped. Following this were the gills which contained many red false-eyelash-like surfaces. Upon extracting these, we saw that they had a large surface area to enable gas exchange to take place adequately (this was, of course, the point of the dissection, so it paid off).

After examining the semi-inflated swim bladder which kept the fish afloat when swimming, we moved on to the eyes. At first it was a rather violent affair - we pulled the eye up using the surgical forceps and snipped the connections. After this, it was time to find the lens, and having rolled perforated eye ball around a little, out popped a perfectly spherical transparent ball. This was the fish eye lens, the origin of the eponymous camera lens. This was quite a specimen, and on hovering the lens over newspaper we could read the text, albeit with the distortion that one would expect from a fish eye lens (Google some fish eye lens images if you want to).

Finally, and most brutally of all, we cut open the sardine's head just above the eyes (or, rather, where they were before we ripped them out). Brain tissue was pulled out and we came across the hard cartilage, but then it was time for the ambitious task of removing the spinal cord. With my partner, Sara, grabbing the fish I used the surgical forceps to pull at the spinal cord with all of my supposed might, but, alas, we were cut short and forced to dispose of Lesley, our sardine.

Despite the spinal cord failure, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening experience, however I can't say I'll soon be cutting up anything outside the human food chain that has been killed specifically for dissection. After all, it's more beneficial to dissect a sardine than it is to eat it.

Odd/peculiar/strange - pick your adjective

I find it weird that I haven't tagged you in more than two posts, Sara, so here's your third (or t'ird, as the Irish would say!) Oh, and by the way, Sara, that smell that I mentioned wasn't following me; I think the tissue just smelt strange.

Appreciation

Sara, who I wrote about in an earlier post, read all the entries on my blog. Every single once since June. Over the halfterm. Wow! I'm really flattered that she took so much time out of her day to read it :) She says she wants other people to know about my blog, too. That's really lovely of her.

I think I want to go to some kind of Drama summer school next summer. Not just the ones they do at school for younger years, but those really exclusive ones with the entry requirement being impressing at auditions.

Hi Sara...

...if you're reading this. I hope you enjoy it :)

Sara's a very close friend of mine who I've known since the first day of Year 7, when we were 11. Every lesson with her is interesting and fun, though apparently when we sat next to each other in year seven I was quite the contrary - getting on with my work diligently and only looking up occasionally and nodding. Thankfully I contribute a bit more to our conversations now as I've learnt to multitask.

Anyway, Sara's constantly amusing, strongly willed (she tried to start up a business) yet laid-back in the right way at the same time. She manages to get everything done, yet rarely gets worried and takes things as they come. She's been a very good influence on me and I don't know what I'd do without her sitting next to me in Maths.

Sara's just a very entertaining and charismatic person without trying too hard to be and she's an amazing friend. I remember when we used to go to Nandos every week - that just came to mind so I thought I'd share it.

Have a good half term :)