However much satisfaction I know revision will give me, I'd still rather watch cricket. And THAT is saying something.

Tonight, shockingly, I actually managed to spend a solid two hours revising. No, really. I've recently discovered that the trick is to act like it's a continuation of the school day -- get home, get changed and whip the books out before your brain has time to figure out that it's relaxation time. It starts making forceful objections after a while, but you can still get in some work, whereas if you get home and immediately switch the telly on then you're sunk. It doesn't matter how many times you promise you'll "do it later", if that telly goes on, the brain goes off and you might as well kiss goodbye to any sort of productivity.

So now, having done my revision, I feel quite smug, satisfied and thoroughly pleased with myself. And I know -- having managed it once or twice before -- that this lovely, squishy warm feeling will happen every time I have a productive evening. And I know that should I walk in, sit down and start watching rubbish/using Facebook/reaching for any non-tedious/education-related book, I will go to bed feeling lazy, miserable and stressed. So, surely, the solution is simple. (My mother certainly thinks so.)

But it just isn't though! It does not matter how many people tell me that the satisfaction makes the work worth it, or how many times I experience it firsthand -- for some infuriating reason, I still end up watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. And that's not even good telly. Last year, when GCSE revision was standing over me and glowering like I owed it something (which I usually did), I actually resorted to watching cricket. For real. Now, cricket, is the longest game in the world -- as far as I'm concerned, no-one knows how long it's actually supposed to go on for because no-one, in the history of the world, has ever had the patience to finish a game. But for some reason the selfish, short-term, somewhat idiotic portion of my brain thinks that it's preferable to sixteenth century European history. Which is only sometimes true.

I think, however, that I am now resigned to my fate. I will spend a good portion of my life wasting my time and drifting off to sleep feeling disappointed with the whole day. But the way I justify this to myself is simple; maybe, just maybe, those lazy evenings make the productive ones feel just that litle bit more satisfying. (I did say maybe.)

In a world where Kate Winslet gets dumped and Cheryl Cole is cheated on, really, what hope do we have?

I am guessing that anyone who reads newspapers will know that, last week, Kate Winslet announced that she and her second husband were splitting up, blaming that time-honoured excuse "irreconcilable differences". Now I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice that whenever "irreconcilable differences" are cited, accusations of infidelity follow faster than Katie Price can drop her knickers (ooh, that sounded even more scathing than I intended). And, sure enough, less than twenty four hours later, it emerged that Sam Mendes (Kate Winslet's soon-to-be-ex) is "just friends" with a beautiful 27 year old actress named Rebecca Hall. Now, I'm not sure who coined the term "just friends" to mean "blatantly shagging", but couples like Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie and Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart have made it quite the art form.

Anyway, that paragraph came out very bitchy, so let me try and steer towards my point. So at the moment, it's looking like Sam Mendes, an admittedly succesful, forty-something, greying, distinctly well-built geezer has spent the last few months of his marriage to the sickeningly gorgeous (and considerably younger) Kate Winslet knocking off some other woman. I'm sure I speak for the majority of the female species when I say that I consequently despise the man (unless it turns out he really is "just friends" with Rebecca Hall, at which point I may have to bite my tongue and whisper an apology, God forbid) and feel so sorry for poor Kate Winslet. Because I, personally, think she seems like a genuinely nice woman, is quite clearly an absolute stunner and was about 10 years younger than Sam Mendes anyway. So why the hell is he the one accused of cheating? Surely if someone felt that they were getting the shorter end of the stick in that particular relationship, it wouldn't be the bloke.

Another relevant point is the slightly-less-recent news that Ashley Cole cheated on his wife AGAIN and, what's more, with several different women. I'm sorry, but how selfish, thuggish and - frankly - mind-blowingly stupid do you have to be to jeopardise your marriage to the woman who was apparently voted #1 Sexiest Woman in the World last year? Every other man in the country wishes he had her, and Ashley Cole is having numerous affairs? I mean, the word 'idiot' just doesn't even approach the kind of meaning needed to label his stupidity - I'm fairly sure there isn't a word for it in the English language.

And stories like this depress me beyond all sense, for this simple reason; if goddesses like Kate Winslet and Cheryl Cole are being cheated on, what the hell chance do us poor mortal females have?!

One week in the life of an AS student...

Monday 8th March
School a strange blur of teachers trying to club their way through my fuzzy, it's-Monday-so-why-are-you-even-trying? brain and, for the most part, failing utterly. Came home and stared at a history essay for a while, quite convinced that if I continued it would realise my intentions and promptly write itself. Failing this, watched Cranford and went to bed. Completely pointless say.

Tuesday 9th March
Straight to Grandma's after school having been given the I-won't-live-forever phone call and the ensuing guilt trip. Spent the following hour being steadily forcefed Mars Bars, chocolate digestives and cups of tea. God bless Grandmas. Went for a HPV jab and regarded the girl in front of me with utter disdain when she fainted on sight of the needle - it didn't even touch her. I'm sorry, but pull yourself together love. Went babysitting almost as soon as getting home, spent several hours pretending to be entertained by Barbie and High School Musical whilst physically restraining the urge to gag. Having put the manic children to bed, was attacked by dog and left at midnight with furry jeans, mental scarring and crazy eyes.

Wednesday 10th March
Traditional Orange Wednesday cinema trip -- this week to see Alice in Wonderland. Still more evidence of teenage actors being completely useless ("Oh look, I've just fell hundreds of feet down a rabbit hole and am trapped in a tiny room with doors I can't open, but none of this bothers me because a little bottle over there is telling me to drink it!") and Johnny Depp being to the acting world what Stephen Fry is to my useless trivia knowledge. Followed by mad rush to attempt an essay before 7:00 meal for Kayley's birthday at an all-you-can-eat Japanese place. Tried sushi. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it tastes like raw fish (i.e. cold, slimy and essentially gross). Walked home amongst group of madly singing friends, blushing madly and attempting to blend into the background whenever passing some poor, bemused sod of a stranger.

Thursday 11th March
Went to see school production of Grease. Unsurprisingly fell in love - along with the female population of my school - with the guy playing Danny, despite knowing his 'rep'. Cringed through someone's murdering of 'Beauty School Dropout' and screamed blue murder at friend Tom's solo. My orders were on pain of death.

Friday 12th March
Girl's night in -- wine + ice cream + 3 for £5 films = success. Well actually, one of the films - A Life Less Ordinary - proved that if you think Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz and Danny Boyle are a winning combination, you would be so very, very wrong. Seriously.

Saturday 13th March
Grease aftershow party. That's pretty much all I can recall from the day. Oh, plus yet another unsuccessful attempt at an essay. Essay situation becoming serious.

Sunday 14th March
Mother's day -- arrived home 1.00amish and set about madly searching for wrapping paper, with lots of "Where the hell is that ****ing CARD?!?!" and whacking limbs on doorframes due to temporarily forgetting location of lightswitch. Arose in the afternoon for traditional (apparently) mother's day meal of jambolaya and tiramisu. Don't ask. Once again stared at growing pile of work like it owed me something. Grew angry at being ignored by work. Realised was fuming at inanimate objects and spent a good hour devising an excuse as to why I hadn't written my history essay. Read the fourth Percy Jackson book - mainly because it didn't involve the words "personal rule", "Charles I", "Wentworth" or "policies". Somehow seemed to travel through time and arrive at 2.03am. Collapsed into bed and tried to recall brilliant excuse for lack of history essay. Failed.

The Butterfly Effect -- the actual thing, not the film.

In search of distractions from my history notes on the Radical Reformation, you would be amazed what lengths a girl will go to. For example, I actually resorted to 'tidying' the loft. Seriously. Well, my version of 'tidying' anyway, which actually means rifling through old photo albums/diaries/generally dusty stuff that is already put away.

Anyway, I happened to find a massive old folder full details of my family tree -- I knew that my Grandad had done some research into it - well actually, quite a lot of research - and had stolen a peek when he died almost three years ago. I remember finding his 'memoirs' in the folder and finding them immensely interesting. It's only 6/7 pages of handwritten memories, but the handwriting takes quite some time to decipher (Grandad apparently had a maddening habit of inexplicably dotting his t's as opposed to crossing them) and it was this that I found gathering dust in the loft.

I brought it down and showed it to my mum (succesfully distracting her from the job I wasn't doing) and we had a read through it, which yielded some humbling and very weird results. My Grandad worked for a railway company in Sheffield when he was eighteen, and one night he had been asked to work his friend's shift (the friend was off ill) and had been 'swinging' onto the train when the driver started the engine, pulling my Grandad from the platform and crushing his foot beneath the train. There were over 30 breakages in the foot and the initial plan was to amputate below the knee but (thankfully) something got delayed and a new doctor arrived, who instead decided to amputate only 3 toes and hope gangrene didn't set in. Thankfully it didn't, and this is a somewhat more legitimate explanation as to why my Grandad only ever had seven toes (the story he had told me involved Indiana Jones-style heroics, a trip to Australia and an alligator).

Anyway, my point is that, as Grandad tells it, a day later a letter arrived calling him up into the army. Obviously he was forced to decline, having had a portion of his foot removed and been forced to take 20 months leave from his original job. Had he left, he would have been in Germany for the next two years. This was fascinating enough, but the next thing my Grandad explained was that, had he been sent away he would never have met my Nan'nan; the consequences of which would have been no marriage, no children, and no me. If my Grandad hadn't been 'swinging' onto a train at the wrong moment, he would never have met my Nan'nan, my dad would never have been born and - consequently - neither would I.

It feels utterly bizarre to think about. I am only here as a result of a freak accident that probably - though he would never have admitted it - was at least partly down to my Grandad's own reckless attitude. If my Grandad's friend hadn't been ill, if my Grandad had refused to work the extra shift, if the driver had looked before turning on the engine, if, if, if - I wouldn't be here. Neither would my brother, my father, my uncle, my cousins. The knowledge of a real-life Butterfly Effect is humbling and exceedingly difficult to wrap one's head around. The event of that one night affected that rest of my Grandad's - and his descendants - lives.

What has this taught me? That life is fragile, delicate and SO easily altered; the smallest thing can change the direction of your entire life. And, also, don't swing onto trains that are about to start moving.