TV in America is strange… there are so many more ad beaks, and the commercials for medicinces - even laxatives and weight loss medicines like generic acomplia - have all these discalaimers about side effects and the ingredients. The person narrating or in the commercial will be all upbeat and nonchalant while telling people all these worst-case scenarios - but the med is awesome, so get it anyway!!

The ads in magazines are full-page, and on the back is an entire page of tiny, tiny fine print with the full medical details and more disclaimers, like on the leaflet you’d get in the box if you got the prescription at home. I wonder why they do this? Because they’ll get sued otherwise, or something, if someone claims they weren’t warned about a certain side-effect? It’s all very strange… But hey, better to be warned!

One of the things you can’t get through university without seeing (er - at least, I couldn’t!) is a stand, maybe at freshers’ fair or sometimes just completely randomly, with a couple of students dressed in combat gear (complete with cheek-streaks!) holding pretty impressive-looking guns.

These, it turned out, were paint ball guns, and their sole purpose was to convince you that paintballing was the best fun going! Whether as a social for a club or society, for a birthday party, whatever. Run round like a five-year-old (and believe me, you WILL run because those things can hurt!) and end up multicoloured! (Don’t forget the protective clothing, haha).

Of course, it makes sense that these reps had to get their paintball gun packages somewhere - I just never realized there was more than one kind! Check out the website for all the varieties, and HEY, actually, what a cool Chritmas gift - you’d be able to play paintball whenever you wanted, without having to book or plan and pay in advance!

I can’t believe it’s a month today until Christmas. That is slightly insane… it doesn’t feel like it! (Probably the heat :P). I need to get some shopping done, seriously! Of course, the classic problem - what to get everyone?!

I actually don’t like when decorations and stuff go up straight after hallowe’en… Christmas is such an amazing time, I think it takes away from it to have it dragged out for a sixth of the year! But, that’s just me. (Though seriously, I saw selection boxes in shops before it was even mid-October this year! That’s just extreme!).

Okay, so I have to say, this is awesome: a teen boarding school properly dedicated to underachievers. Having been a boarder myself, I know what a difference living in that environment can make. You’re forced to take responsibility for yourself, the structure helps keep you focussed. And you can see yourself doing well, so you feel good about yourself, too. Which in turn encourages you to keep working!

Woring in the field of educational/social psychology, I can see the benefits yet more clearly. Schools like these that are specifically geared towards furthering people that may instead have been overlooked or deemed a waste of time or effort by mainstream schools are so completely imperative. Everybody has something of value to contribute to society. Why should’t so-called underachievers be given a chance like this, to fulfil their potential?!

Love it!

On the boat back home, there was an announcement about a firefighter/coastguard training procedure (helicopter landing on the vessel, firemen winched down, etc. etc.), but in the end there was a technical problem with the helicopter so it didn’t happen.

This kind of exercise is really important for providing the emergency services with experience and training with fire fighting equipment so that any eventuality - even a ship in the middle of the sea catching fire! - can be dealt with. Simulators are a great way to do this without actually putting any one in danger - or without risking wasting time getting a helicopter half an hour out to sea only to turn back again!