  Radio 4's Midweek had the author of a fascinating book on this morning: a study of lucky and unlucky people. Apparently theres no paranormal or otherwise explanation of luck, its just the way people think. A simple test is to imagine that you're in a bank raid, and that you are shot in the arm. How do you feel? An unlucky person may think 'how awful, trust me to end up in a bank being robbed, and get shot'. But a lucky person would think 'thank goodness I wasn't shot and killed'. One person in the study even thought 'great, I've been shot in a bank raid, now I sell my story to the papers!'.
It seems that luckniss comes down to a way of thinking. Lucky people see the best in everything and see set-backs as challenges. Unlucky people are much more pessimistic. (The authors studied how frequently 'lucky' and 'unlucky' people won money on the lottery, which is a game of pure chance. It was 50/50. ) I suspect I have the 'unlucky' way of thinking. Someone like Sarah or Irene definitely have the 'lucky' way.
There's lessons in this for me. Got to get hold of that book. Was thinking about what it would be like if the course had gone smoothly. Realised that I'd be part-way through my first morning in Grango, that horrrid prison of a school. Instead I'm at home, still in bed. So maybe it's not that bad. 
