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.

Hair

My hair. I'm sure no one cares much about my hair, but it has an interesting history.

I haven't had my hair cut since July 2007 but once I went four years without having it cut. I know this is weird, but my hair is in very good condition despite the lack of cutting. No split ends no dryness. I think this is because I never use heat on it. Ever. I let it air dry, brush it and I'm done. I love the feeling of walking out into the cold with freshly washed, slightly damp hair. And, no, it doesn't make me ill.

I wash my hair every day because I just don't feel right if I haven't. I don't know why, and obviously everyone's comfortable with different amounts of hair washing, but that's just me. As my hair is over half way down my back it takes a long time to brush on my own. My mum used to do it for me but one day my dad had to as she was ill and he really enjoyed it so we've made it a daily thing. He's surprisingly good at it and very patient with the tangles.

Some may consider a whole post dedicated to my hair superficial, but we've been through a lot together. It's seen the two most eventful, manic years of my life so far. But it's missed Lucy. A lot of Lucy. I have this vision of me just getting a drastic haircut at the end of my GCSEs to symbolise a new phase of life, leaving everything else behind. That hair will hold my problems and as it'll be gone, hopefully I can leave those problems behind too.