The Grand National
10.04.06, 9:10 pm

I ended up watching The Grand National after all, seeing as my dad had a sweepstake on it, and spent most of the race asking him endless questions because my dad knows quite a lot about everything:

�How long�s this race? Is a furlong a quarter of a mile? Why are the hedges so tall? Surely that just means a lot of horses end up breaking their necks though? A horse lives about 30 years, doesn�t it? Why do some of them have weird patchy hair? Aintree�s in Liverpool, isn�t it? Do they go round more than once? Does that mean the hedges are a bit knackered for the second time round? How tall�s the average jockey? I want to be a jockey� except I can�t, because I�m too tall and too heavy. Are jockeys weighed to check if they�re too heavy or too light? What�s a handicap? Did the IRA really steal Red Rum? The IRA, though? Was that half-arsed tape thing really the start of the race?�

He ended up just ignoring me after a while. I then spent the actual race part wincing every time one of the horses fell, because I have a huge love of animals and some of the falls looked awful. Oh, and my dad didn�t win the sweepstake, and was all pissed off when Tom (Ciaran�s best mate) came round and announced that he�d put a fiver on the winner and won fifty-five quid.

In other news, my sister�s now gone back to Paris. She left yesterday afternoon; I went down to the airport with her and did the usual farewell thing. I spent most of the weekend either food shopping or working. Home�s actually more bearable than it was before, and my dad and I seem to be getting on better. Not a lot else has happened, to be honest. Such is life when I�m back in Manchester.

The horrible depressing mood that I�ve been in for the past week or so is still here, only it�s shifted so that I now just feel really lonely. It always happens when I have to go home for an extended period of time; my life is so very much centred in Sheffield now, and this pretty much proves it. I desperately want to spend time with people who aren�t my dad, because he (unintentionally) doesn�t listen to a word I say, and instead cuts in with conversation about his life. Lisa rang me this morning (back from Toulouse for a fortnight, thank god) and it was so good to talk to her; she temporarily cheered me up no end, especially as we were discussing house hunting for next year. God, it sounds so lame me just sitting here whining about how lonely I feel, especially as I�ll be back in Sheffield soonish. I�m also meeting Becky tomorrow in town� seriously can�t wait, as I miss my friends something chronic.

I think I�m just bored and restless and letting the memories associated with this house get the better of me, and that coupled to missing my friends makes me wind up with this mood. It sucks the ultimate big one. Anyway, sod talking about all of that: this diary has been abused enough by miserable ramblings. The exam timetable is out, and mine have wound up being on the 24th, 25th, 30th and 31st May. I�m not best pleased; consecutive exams are just devilspawn, and I wish they were spread out over the whole three weeks, instead of being over halfway through. I had the worrying realisation yesterday that I have just two weeks (give or take) left of lectures, before my whole Uni learning thing is done. I can�t believe it. Part of me wants to do another degree or do a PhD and just be a student forever. Part of me wants to get a job and start earning money so that I can buy nice food and live in a nice place and get to do more fun things. Part of me wishes that time could just stop for a while, so that I could think nice and slowly about the last three years and appreciate everything that I�ve learned and experienced and gone through. God, this all sounds a bit mushy. I can�t help it though; Uni�s been such a huge part of my world, and thinking about it soon coming to an end feels so very weird. For now, I shall ignore it all and concentrate on the LQT thing.

Oh yes, 1360 words and counting! As a special treat, I�ll let you read the last paragraph I just wrote (no cheating and just skim reading it; I�ll be doing a quiz later on):

�LQT4 displays features not consistent with other forms of Long QT, such as atrial fibrillation, sinus bradycardia and polyphasic T waves. It is for this reason that many scientists believe that it should not be technically classed as a Long QT Syndrome. However, patients do suffer from ventricular fibrillation and sudden death (due to exercise or emotional upset), though cardiac repolarization is not as severely affected as it is in other forms of Long QT (Mohler, 2004).�

I�m sure you�ll all agree that that is the most fascinating statement you�ve ever read in your entire lives. Man, I hope I get a 2:1. Okay I�m going to go for the time being, as I don�t really have a lot of news and I just feel like playing some gee-tar.

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