Manganate(VII) is love

There's a Sherlock Holmes short story, The Five Orange Pips, which features the Ku Klux Klan. It has an interesting explanation for the origin of the name, and when I first read it, I remembered it: it suggests that perhaps "Ku Klux Klan" is an onomatopoeic representation of the sound of a person cocking a gun. Whether this is true or not, I don't know. Anyway, when I was doing GCSE History, I had to take one paper on twentieth-century American history, and the KKK came up. I told Mrs Miller about the short story I'd read, and she was interested to hear it because she said she'd never heard that explanation before. I said I'd bring it to show her, but I couldn't find it.

Well, I've found it now. I was hunting through the library for something else, and I found it hidden behind a big fat hardback. I ended up telling all of this to Mrs Barry, somewhat emotionally, because it still hasn't sunk in that Mrs Miller is dead. It took ten seconds before it dawned on me that I coudn't take that book to show her, now or ever.

Yes. Now I've thoroughly depressed myself, let's move to happier things. First of all, what I'm doing in school in the first place. I decided during half term that I wasn't getting any work done at all, what with fandom, ficathons and the Great Procrastination List of 2005, so on Monday morning I went to school. And it worked. I found myself working away, in the rhythm of an ordinary school day, stopping for lunch (never say no to a free lunch) and getting back to it afterwards, and going home at three feeling productive. So much so that I went back yesterday and today and I think I'll go again tomorrow.

Quite apart from anything, it means I'm not slowly disappearing into my own head as I generally do during study leave. I'm getting up in the morning, dressing as grungily as I can get away with (I can't be bothered, sadly) and spending the day sitting in the quiet of the library in my usual spot, waving to anyone whom I know. It's meant I've been able to commiserate with the chemgeeks on their Mechanics, and with eternalwings and quackaquacka on all of their exams. Miranda informed me today that she was having a breakdown over Bismarck. I said she wasn't allowed to have one, safe in the knowledge that she'll have to do the same thing for me on the morning of my Chemistry exams.

Talking of which, Sam has discovered PSP and has decided to make this icon for me, as a means of making the point that I am fixated. Potassium permanganate is its old name, of course; it's as manganate(VII) that it appears on all my exam papers and got stuck down the toilets on the last day.

Yes. Um. And talking of last times, I heard an interesting piece of gossip on Monday. It's now common knowledge, so I'm feeling free to share. Miss Brandreth, the overly gushy headmistress we have had for a year, has resigned in order to pursue "other educational interests." Read, she was forced out. Apparently her habit of riding roughshod over other people's opinions was not limited to her dealings with me. Mrs Moon, who was the deputy (taught me Maths in first year, is gentle as a mouse) is Acting Head even now - they didn't even wait till the end of the year to make the switch.

All of that said, the rest of the staff are wandering around trying to conceal manic, rictus grins. Ah, well, as long as they're happy. I'm uncomfortably aware that interesting as all this, it has no effect on me at all. I know that there's more than one former Merchants' girl who reads this journal to keep up with school happenings. Well, as Sam said earlier, it's going to have to be someone else's responsibility now.

I polished off genetics, physiology and transport today, and I'm on track, I think. Mr Evans appeared in the library at lunch. "Knew you were around," he said, pointing to my notes on the table. "I'd recognise that copperplate anywhere."

I told him not to mock my handwriting - I'd say it wasn't that bad, except it was that bad - and asked him for a ten minute lecture on Political Action Committees. Which he gave me with pleasure, and it segued into a bit of a pep talk in the middle, which certainly wasn't unwelcome. I'm extremely fond of all my teachers now, and it just makes the whole coming-to-an-end thing worse.

So, yes - going back in tomorrow. I never said my life was interesting.

[Translocation is the movement of sucrose and other material through the phloem tissue of a plant. Movement occurs because sugars are pumped by active transport from leaves into phloem vessels at the sources; this induces water to move into the tissues as an area of more negative water potential, and an area of high hydrostatic pressure is created. At the sinks, sugars leave the vessels by facilitated diffusion, creating an area of low hydrostatic pressure and a net result of fluid movement from where sugars are made to where they are needed.]