OverNow.net

How is it right that the actions of the minority leave the rest of us fearful of our own safety in our own homes and our own towns?

I have to admit that despite the recent arrests in the North-West I hadn’t really considered myself or my friends or family to be at any significant risk of falling prey to acts of terrorism. However this morning I read a newspaper article that made me reconsider and really brought the events of the last few days home.

The fact is, that one of the areas that was photographed by the alleged terrorism suspects is yards from where I often work. If a bomb had been planted in that area the shop would almost certainly have been blown up killing everybody inside.

I’m extremely thankful that the plot was uncovered, and it didn’t come as a complete surprise. Myself and my family have been speculating for the last few weeks that a huge plot was about to be uncovered and had even narrowed the area down to the Trafford Centre or Manchester city centre. This was due to the emergence of posters and television adverts warning us to report any suspicious people photographing shopping centres.

Now that I’m over the initial shock however, I find myself frustrated with the position that we are in. I feel completely powerless to protect myself or the people that I love from the ignorant acts of the minority and that scares me.

I feel proud of the city that I live in and have a huge respect for the way that it has recovered from the IRA bomb. What I want, and feel that I have a right to claim is the right to enjoy it without fear or intimidation.

..or not.

We’ve reached that stage in second year medicine where the budding surgeons can hardly contain their excitement.. but many more of us are shaking in our boots because we’ve just hit the neuroscience part of our course.

If you thought the brain was just a blobby, jelly like thing - think again.. there are names for all the pokey spaces, wiggly lines and cells that make up a brain.. names that I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around. Its hard to fathom how one bit of grey brain has a completely different job to the grey bit of brain next to it. Sadly this is exactly what the next six weeks of my life will be spent finding out!

We are two days in. I turned up with some enthusiasm - ‘its the brain right? There must be lots of interesting things to learn about that’. I can feel that same enthusiasm slipping away rather quickly.. hopefully Amazon will be my friend and when my two shiny new neuroscience textbooks arrive my excitement will be ‘rekindled’…

I can live in hope!

Jenn

Bristol, like most of the country has been buried under snow for most of this week.. now forgive me, but coming from Manchester I haven’t seen a great deal of snow so when I arrived in Bristol on Monday I was a little bit excited! I’ve spent more time throwing snowballs and sliding down hills this week than since I was about five!

The only problem with all this snow is that its nearly impossible to get on with daily life.. the pavements in Bristol are a health hazard and everyone has been slipping and sliding into work for the past few days.. Our snow finally melted yesterday only to be topped up by another huge snowfall overnight. Its lovely waking up to a huge white blanket of snow but it has now turned into brown mush and the hills of Bristol are in a similar state .. today there were people out in their full snowboarding gear sliding down the hills on the mud. I don’t think the parks of Bristol will be recovering any time soon!

So after a week of waiting I phone to find out where the elusive parcel was delivered to find that it was left at a business property at the other end of the street. No card was posted through our door - I strongly suspect that the delivery man could not be bothered to work out where our flat was and ditched it at no. 16 to save himself the worry.

So I called at no. 16 this morning (which by the way is a pub) they have no recollection of having received the said parcel and their management changed just over a week ago so reckon it was probably thrown out. Great.

Who do the home delivery network employ???

I now have to wait for the parcel to be re-sent. Yes. With HDN again. So no doubt I’ll still be waiting to find out where it is after Christmas.