Sara 's Blog

It is weird to feel some kind of strong emotion other than hatred at the end of a Michael Moore film? I just watched SiCKO. Strangely I felt like I was being forced to feel sad for Americans and their lack of an adequate socialist healthcare system. The worst part of the film involved a large university hospital which was literally just dumping people who couldn't pay their bills outside shelters. Even though I was blatantly being manipulated to feel sorry for them, I was genuinely outraged that a developed and apparently civilised nation could do that to the most vulnerable people in their society. You should always judge a nation on how they treat the poorest of the poor, and what they were doing was appalling. HMO's are not the way forward in health care. Especially when their main priority is not to help ill people get the care and attention they need, but rather to gain a profit. You'd think that in a nation so obsessed with religion, it would be able to comprehend the idea that healthcare should be an equal playing field for all and money shouldn't buy you any advantages to what is, essentially, a God given right to receive the healthcare you need to live.

I wont say this often, but thank God for the NHS. However much you might complain about it, at least you never have to worry about paying medical bills or the chance of being rejected by your insurance company while you're ill. I do have one major complaint with Moore's film however, and that was the fact that he visited Hammersmith NHS hospital - one of the richest areas of London, and obviously with a better facilitated NHS hospital. He would have been able to convey his argument for a national health service much more convincingly if he had visited an inner-city hospital (such as Guy's) and still say that the NHS can provide adequate care.

Ok, rant over. For now. I guess medical care is something I feel reasonably vocal about.

My Halloween started off good, and then just really sucked. I ended up in A & E on Thursday morning. I'll just say that there are a lot of weirdos in the casualty department at 4am. Including the obligatory drunk who had apparently broken a pin in his leg. Er...yeah. He asked if I knew his friend in Billingham who was a drug dealer. Er....yeah. I was glad when they wheeled me into a cubicle - even if it did mean I then had to wait another hour before being taken to x-ray.

Basically, I fell over while I was out for Halloween. I thought it was all ok until I had walked down the road for a bit and decided that it was as though someone had stabbed me in the ankle...and that it had swollen to about four times its normal size. Ow. Thankfully I think the alcohol was masking a lot of the pain, but the fact that it was probably the worst pain I have felt for a long time wasn't very good. So I got an ambulance. Hmm. They gave me entonox, which made me feel weird but didn't take away the pain. Ah well. I had x-rays and then they told me it wasn't broken and I got a big bandage and hobbled off feeling like a total wuss - in the mean time watching the strange people who facilitate a nhs hospital in an area voted the 'worst place to live' by T.V.'s Kirsty and Phil. There was the woman who came in with her two children with the biggest cut down her face, the woman and her two vistors who was bed bound with a oxygen mask, the man with a broken leg...quite interesting for a while until it got really quiet. I ended up coming home at 6:30am. The foot is still so sore, but I'm just glad it isn't broken - I can keep a clean slate still, not having ever broken anything.

I was at physio on Friday, and he said to just ice-pack it and use it. So that's what I'm doing.

My life has been pretty dull these past few weeks. No drama, or the like, for a change. I've mainly been doing university work (the dreaded dissertation) and going to archery lessons and the physiotherapist.  So far I've had physiotherapy, acupuncture and ultrasound on my shoulder but it isn't any better than it was 6 months ago. Ah well.

I've also been trying to sort out what I'm going to do after I leave university. The easy option would be to do a PGCE and end up a bitter old teacher, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to whether that's something I really want to do. There's also the number of graduate schemes I looked at on Wednesday during the Graduate Fair, but again, I don't really want to end up working in an office under intense pressure. Plus, I don't want to work for a supermarkert/bank/government organistion. I was thinking about applying to work for Maersk....but, I still don't think it's something I really want to do. I want an interesting job, not one I live to regret 5 years down the line. I waant to travel too, mainly to Japan and Australia..but I don't know when, or who with. It just seems that most things in my future are clouded and unclear, and that unsettles me. I don't know where I'm heading, or what the end result will be - or whether I'll be happy. And that scares me.

Have you ever been ripped off?  What happened? 
Submitted by Trudie.

Once upon a time that now seems very long, but really wasn't, I lived in Manchester. While there I use to do the usual student things, and go out and drink a lot of dubious alcohol for 50p a bottle. I especially liked going to 5th Avenue on a Wednesday night. One night, after having a particularly heavy amount of what seemed like pure anti-freeze, I left 5th Ave to be pounced on by a passing Big Issue seller. He asked if I wasnted an issue, and being slightly drunk (but ever generous) I said I did. As I held out my hand with the last reminants of my student loan, he seized the opportunity to exploit me a bit more and state it was his last copy - and could he keep the money anyway? Before I had chance to reply he sped off into the night, to helpless pounce on other wandering students, with my money...and the Big Issue.

This is why I never buy the Big Issue anymore.

At least my rip off story doesn't involve a Buddist monk, some chanting, and a disappearing £20 note though....(which is an entirely different story...)

What websites do you visit every day?
Submitted by Chez Michelle.

google.co.uk (I love the new theme selection, that changes with the time of day), facebook.com, myspace.com, digitalspy.co.uk, duo.dur.ac.uk

You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit? 
Submitted by Tina. 

I once owned, and wore, a lime green bomber jacket. Oh God, it was hideous.

What's the first image that comes up when you Google your name?

Sara

I kind of like it.

How many bones have you broken? Yours or someone else's?

I don't think I've broken any bones. This is debatable, because I may have broken my little toe a few years ago by kicking the bannister rail. No-one would take me to hospital for an x-ray, so I don't know. I have broken a girl's thumb once. It was during a hockey match. I was a violent individual.

Video: Show us a scene from your favorite movie.
Submitted by Caroline.

Monty Python and The Quest For The Holy Grail - NI!!

Will always make me laugh.

What's your favorite heartbreak song?
Submitted by esta86.

Backstreet Boys, All I Have To Give. Not because of the lyrics, or even the sentiment - but because of the situation it was played in. It was at my friend's funeral, when she was 12, and I was 11. Ever since then I can't listen to it without a little bit of my heart breaking.