Business mentality

When you walk past a hospital, do you look up and see its windows? Is it a new building? Are there colours? Do you imagine to yourself what the doctors and nurses are doing inside- caring for the sick, saving lives... It's the same with a court. There are likely to be people inside, looking to improve our society by applying their knowledge and evaluating situations.

When you apply for a medical degree, it helps to want to help people. But what you mainly need is a great, maybe even morbid interest, in one area of medicine. Radiology, Paediatrics, Neurology. Why? Because it's a difficult profession in which it is likely that you will be relied upon to contribute to the health of others and to help solve medical anomalies. But what you must keep in mind is that a hospital or a general practitioner's office is not just a place for helping or condemning people. It is a business.

When you apply for a legal degree, it helps to want to help people. But what you mainly need is a driven, maybe even obsessive interest, in one area of law. Family, Criminal, Media. Why? Because it's a difficult profession in which it is likely that you will be relied upon to contribute to the predicament of others and to help solve legal anomalies. But what you must keep in mind is that a court house or a legal office is not just a place for helping or condemning people. It is a business.

While these two admittedly unrepresentative professions do happen to inflict a large amount of power over certain realms of society, we must always remember that somebody who has trained for years must have money coming from somewhere. Either these people are working for their money (and if you feel they are overpaid try being them for a couple of days), or they are already rich and simply working because they are interested in their area. These are very tricky jobs to have. A simple mistake can cost a life, whether that is literally physically true, or because you have just allowed your client to be imprisoned for life for an offence he did not commit.

My point is, there's no argument in doing something lots of people find invaluable if you're not going to have a pricetag to go with it. These professions are businesses. These businesses, however, are not governed solely by profit. They are also governed by ethics. Research and hard work goes into being a doctor or a lawyer. You are dealing with other people's lives, their liberty, their happiness, their health. If you wish to obtain a job such as one of these, then certain qualities have to be either acquired or brought to light.

- Ability to work under pressure.
- Ability to work long hours.
- Enjoyment of puzzles.
- Enjoyment of hostile and confused clients who need you to use non-technical language so they don't walk out feeling lost and confused.
- Organisation beyond compare.
- Teamwork.
- Communication skills.
- A long fuse.

In short, business mentality. If you don't know how to run a business and how to operate efficiently, then you find out how, you change things, and you carry on. Research and development. Of yourself. Of your profession. Of your goals.

Be good at something. This year, learn one new thing that will help others. Make it a goal. Find out how to achieve it. Stick to the goal. Improve. The point is, high-flyers wanted to be up there. And they got what they wanted, by managing themselves and creating opportunities. Create opportunities.

Happy reading, folks!

Fatal Considerations of the craziest kind

Aside from growing up making the majority of us taller, heavier and in many cases more immature (the gained knowledge can only work to a perverse advantage sometimes), there are other things we adolescents have to deal with. Such as Sod's Law.

This bastard of a concept mjust have been spawned by the devil. Basically, for those of you who do not know, the concept that Sod's Law summarises is "if it can go wrong, it will". So be it that I'm a negative thinker from time to time.

Back in May, we were preparing for our AS exams, perhaps working hard... perhaps hardly working. I joked to some friends that I'd probably mess up for no reason other than sheer bad luck. Well, it just transpired that I was to nearly expire the week before we started examinations. I chucked myself off my bike; onto grass, yes, so perhaps not the worst strategy, but certainly not the wisest. In the fall, I lost my glasses, some of the free movement in my neck, and also a nice purple hoodie I had come to treasure. The paramedics were lovely, though, and friendly. And they didn't slap me when I got all woozy. Anyway, I ended up with a concussion, the repercussions of which were that I had to somewhat re-learn much of my courses. Which would have been wonderful if I had not accidentally forgotten an entire half of the Politics book. I got an E.

Anyway, Sod's Law cropped up again a couple of weekends back when I was going to attend a Law course. Planning to leave the house at five a.m. on Saturday, I did a cursory check of how my laptop was working. I came to a rather downtrodden conclusion that, as it completely failed to start, and then kept coming up with error messages saying FATAL! FATAL!... It wasn't going to work too well. I spent two hours fixing it.

The next morning, my mother and I got on the train. The wrong train. Hence, we missed our train (upside: the one destined for Taunton, and not London, didn't leave with us on it). We got on a half-hour later one. That one left just fine, and arrived just fine. The PreLaw course was good; I got there with time to spare, learnt a lot, and left with interesting information to mull over.

We went for a bit of upmarket banter and had a chat in Harrods. Everything was expensive; but of course, it being London, it was awesome too. Then we went for dinner. Overnight I went from fine to absolutely fucked-up ill. Every couple of hours I would wake up and retch for a bit, and then go back to sleep. The Sunday morning was awful, I was in a terrible mood... The rest of the weekend passed without event, but the night was just crap.

Back to the present, this morning my neck and back were hurting (the result of the bike crash and a couple of car crashes I've had in the past). I left the house quickly, and walked quickly... Obviously I began to overheat a little, due to the heavy bag and the hoodie and coat I had on. I took off the coat and the bag, to put the former in the latter. It was at this point that I realised the bag wasn't my school bag. I had no books. Shit. Almost in tears from the neck pain, now standing halfway between school and home, I thought "fuck it".

Having done this, I went through lessons (only with partial success) and then broke my brace at lunch. My teeth fucking hurt. I'm tired. The two redeeming factors of today were accidentally having spare keys in this wrong bag I took to school... And the book I was given for my birthday, which I am reading at the moment. "The Vampire Lestat". AMAZING book. Anne Rice is a literary goddess and her stories provide me with much time-filling brilliance. Well-plotted, well written, with flair and general awesomeness. I might even start thinking positively!

Happy reading, folks!

Aaaaaand BACK to the future!

So basically before the holidays we were doing a lot of stuff at school to prepare us for university, for having to apply to university, for alternative options, etc. etc. (i.e. THA FYOOOTYAHHHH) and we had to fill in UCAS forms online, including where we wanted to apply and for what course (and so on and so forth). I did mine pretty early, got most of it done by July 25th (except the personal statement bit and some other stuff) and then I got the WHOOP WHOOP ONCE IN A LIFETIME invite to go to UCL (in Laaandaaan!) for a couple days, for Law, my favouritest subject in the whole wide world aside from ice skating (okay so favourite academic subject). So, I'm going there tomorrow. It's to prepare for the Law course at uni and the LNAT I'm also going to take to get into a couple of the unis who want it. Not all do. It is the National Aptitude Test for Law; obviously I'm hoping to pass with flying colours.

There is, however, a catch. Well, kind of two. A) I have to get up early tomorrow morning - so I should really reeeeally be asleep right now... five fifteen, baby. Ooh yeah. I like the smell of a painful awakening in the morning... ugh. B) it's the weekend before we go back to school- I usually spend this weekend chilling out, instead of spending lots of money to go to Laandaan (woo!) and stay in a swanky hotel with my muzzer, as she insisted upon accompanying me. C) (added erkness) I have to wear a skirt. Now, while I like my legs all that much (okay not THAT much), it's gonna be bloody freezing and I doubt there will be large quantities of cream of chicken soup to ease the pain. Mllluurrgrhhh...

So yeah. Five fifteen. It's quarter past midnight now... so I have five hours. Wh-- Oh, sod it. Goodnight folks, and happy reading!