Can't believe I haven't written in my blog since August. How utterly useless of me. Time has been flying away from me lately. I can't come to terms with how fast this year has gone by. It's December already. It was my last day at work on Tuesday; I am now officially unemployed. Thankfully, unlike the vast majority of people who have found themselves unemployed this year, it was my choice.
Now I have only a few weeks in which to pack up my life and finalise my preparations before I fly off to the States and then Australia at the start of 2010. So much to do, so little time. But it's all so exciting
 

It was my birthday on Sunday. Now my age matches my WDC community recognition number. I hope the latter increases before the former...

Most of the gifts I got are travel-related, on account of my forthcoming departure for a land down under (via the Land of the Free). One of my friends bought me a 'travel journal'. It's a spiral-bound notebook containing lined paper, plain paper and checked paper (so I can write, draw and....er....make graphs). It also features some clear plastic pouches so I can put photographs in there, and some cardboard pouches to keep whatever other bits and pieces I collect along the way. So it's sort of part-notebook, part-scrapbook. I love it. Obviously I was planning on taking notebooks with me but there's something inspiring about the fact that this one is travel-themed. It's made me all the more excited about going.
Still got a lot to plan though.

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I've still not managed to get on WDC much lately due to internet uselessness — but here I am, back for another half hour on a random Thursday evening. I've checked out a few of the blogs that I used to read avidly when I was on here all the time. It's made me feel strange. Partly sad that I've missed out on so much by not reading these blogs for a while, and partly awed by the reminder of the amazing talent of some of the people here on WDC. I'm so grateful that they share their talent for all to see.

This is a truly inspiring community and I'm going to make a concerted effort to make regular visits, even when technology tries to stand in my way.
 

OK, so I was never a fan of Sarah Palin. But since her insane attacks on the British National Health Service, she has slipped even further down in my estimation.

I'm all for debate in politics. If Ms Palin has reservations about President Obama's healthcare plans, she is welcome to use reasoned arguments to back them up. But laying into the NHS and calling it "socialised healthcare" featuring "death panels" just shows her horrendous level of ignorance.

The NHS is far from perfect. Most British people moan about it a lot. (It's worth pointing out, though, that we Brits do tend to moan about everything, so that's not really saying much.) The waiting lists are usually very long, the system for booking a basic appointment with your local doctor is far more complicated than it ought to be, many hospitals do not have enough beds or enough staff or enough resources..... the list goes on.
But it's there, and it's free.

Yes, we pay higher levels of tax here in the UK than in many other countries. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Because if I fall ill or have an accident at any time, I can walk into my local doctor's surgery or any hospital or emergency clinic in this entire country and I will be treated, free of charge. And that doesn't just go for me, it goes for everyone. From babies to the elderly, from the homeless to the super rich, male/female, gay/straight, any race, any religion, any nationality (that's right: come to the UK on vacation, have an accident of some sort and you too could enjoy some free healthcare) — anyone and everyone can and does use the NHS.

Of course, we have private healthcare in the UK too. There are various companies that offer healthcare plans which are, as far as I understand, not dissimilar to the health insurance set-up in the US. So if you need an operation and don't want to join a year-long waiting list, you can pay for it to be done next month. Everyone's a winner... but not everyone can afford private healthcare.

My mother had an ankle replacement operation almost two years ago — despite being under 60 she had severe arthritis as a result of having broken her ankle twice in her younger years. It took a while for the doctors and consultants to agree on what action to take, and then she had to wait for the operation, so altogether it was about two years after the pain started getting really bad that she actually had the operation. For the nine months leading up to the procedure, she was walking with a stick and was in a lot of pain. But then she had the op, spent four days in hospital, spent the next few months in a plastercast... and now you would never know she'd ever had a problem with her foot. She's fine. And in financial terms, all this cost her absolutely nothing.
Which is just as well, or she wouldn't have been able to afford it and would probably be completely unable to walk by now.

I'm not trying to criticise the American healthcare system because I freely admit that I don't know enough about it to form any sort of judgement. But what I will say is this: I feel so privileged and lucky to live in a country that provides free healthcare to all its citizens, and I wouldn't want it any other way. The idea of not having the NHS is terrifying to me. And, like many other people in this country, I am insulted that this ignorant Republican moron Sarah Palin has said such damning things about it that have no basis in fact.
 

I'm really doing it. I'm leaving the country and going off on a great adventure. I can't believe I'm actually doing it but I have my visa and I've paid for my outbound flights. It's on.

On 5 January 2010 I will be departing from London Heathrow airport and flying to New York City. Over the following month I will be making my way around a few parts of the US that I have either never visited or not visited since I was a kid. I have barely planned this part of the trip at all but the bare skeleton I've so far come up with is NYC - Washington, DC - Cleveland - Chicago - San Francisco - San Diego - LA. The Chicago to San Francisco part of this trip will be spent on the California Zephyr, the one Amtrak journey I have always dreamed of making.
Anyway, on 2 February I will leave LAX airport and fly to Auckland, New Zealand, where I hope to catch up with some distant relatives. Then, on 9 February, I will leave Auckland and head to Melbourne, thus activating my 12-month Working Holiday Visa for Australia.
I plan to stay in Melbourne for at least a few months because I loved it there so much when I visited earlier this year, but then I'm just going to go wherever the mood takes me — Australia is a big place!

I've been thinking about doing something like this for so long that I cannot believe it's actually going to happen. I told my boss last week that I'll be leaving at the start of December after six and a half years on my magazine, and luckily she was really excited for me and doesn't begrudge my decision to leave at all.

I'm terrified and overjoyed all at once. It's so exciting. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm going to be really free to experience new things.
Bring it on
 

I don’t want to offend anyone, and I’m aware that this is a subject that some people may be sensitive about, so I’d like to begin with a sort of disclaimer. I am writing this blog in response to news of Michael Jackson’s death, but I do not wish to comment on him as a person. I do not want to get into the subject of the various allegations that have been made against him over the years. My subject is not so much Jackson himself, but the nature of fame such as his.
In addition, I do not wish to accuse anyone of anything. I am merely commenting on how the situation appears to me, through what I have seen in the media.

Many people are saying his death has come as a shock. I have to disagree. While there is undoubtedly something shocking about such a huge popular culture icon dying — for my generation, there was never a time without Michael Jackson — the obvious deterioration in his mental and physical health in recent years means I am unable to find it particularly surprising that he has passed away at such a young age.

I recognise that his death is sad; for me, however, the more poignant sadness was the last decade or so of his life, during which he seemed to slip away from everything he once was. We’ve all heard the stories of his traumatic childhood, involving a difficult relationship with a violent father, and obviously growing up in the public eye was never going to be a recipe for great mental health or emotional strength. But when he was in his prime, he was at the top of his game. A great performer, a great entertainer, his legacy will live on in pop music for many decades to come. There are very few pop stars around today who do not cite Michael Jackson as inspiration.

One of the many pitfalls of celebrity, according to those who endure it, is the difficulty of knowing whom to trust — do people care about you as a person or do they just want to be associated with you for the fame and/or wealth it may bring them? I don’t know if Michael Jackson himself suffered from such doubts, but it seems that many of the people around him did not necessarily have his best interests at heart.

I think Jackson’s fame worked against him in many ways. He seemed, particularly in the later stages of his career, to be surrounded by yes-men. And yet he was clearly a very fragile individual, who probably would have benefited hugely from having someone say no to him sometimes. People used to joke about all the plastic surgery but clearly he was suffering from some kind of body dysmorphic disorder or similar issues. For the past five to ten years, at least, he has seemed to be teetering on the edge somewhat. I have long thought that he comes across as a man who needs help. But was he able to ask for that help? And was there anyone who could or would give it to him?

I fear there may be a great many former staff, associates and ‘friends’ on the phone to publishers today, trying to secure six-figure book deals to tell their stories about Michael Jackson. I really hope I’m just being cynical and that this turns out not to be the case.

I’m sad to say that one of the first things I thought, when I heard that he had died of heart failure, was: I wonder whether, had he been a ‘normal’ person whose life was populated with friends and family rather than staff, executives and lawyers, someone might have realised the state of his health and got him some treatment before it was too late?
But I don’t know whether Michael Jackson’s life could have been saved. In many ways, I think it was lost a long time ago.

Finally, I’d like to say a word about Farrah Fawcett, who also passed away yesterday, losing her battle with cancer. I’ve heard a few people saying today that they ‘feel sorry for her’ as her death has been somewhat ‘overshadowed’ by Michael Jackson’s. I think this is a fairly bizarre opinion, but I hope at least it may mean that her loved ones will be spared the level of media intrusion to which Jackson’s family will inevitably be subjected.

Jackson and Fawcett, while both big celebrities, were two very different people who are now strangely bonded somehow by the fact that their very different deaths occurred on the same day. I hope, at least, that their respective families can find some peace in knowing that, for both of them in their very different ways, the pain is over now.

 

I've been AWOL from WDC for about a month because I've been very snowed under with real-life stuff, including some big decisions. And today I bit the bullet and made such a decision. I don't want to count my chickens before they've hatched, because the application hasn't been approved yet so I shouldn't take it for granted, but today I applied for a working holiday visa from the Australian government.
It's something I have been thinking about ever since I went on holiday to Australia in March. I've often thought about going travelling, but I'm not sure the nomadic lifestyle would suit me so I'd probably be better just settling in one place for a while. So I've decided that at the end of this year I'm going to quit the job I've had for six years, and go to spend the next 12 months in Australia. It's a scary thought, but an exciting one. I don't really know what I'm going to do — all I know is that the time has come for an adventure
 

My WDC account is officially one year old today

Coincidentally, today is also my dad's actual, real-life birthday. Unfortunately due to general stress and work-related confusion exacerbated by the bank holiday this week, I completely forgot to send him a gift or even a card. Uh-oh. I am a useless daughter. I'm off to Amazon now in a desperate attempt to find something he'll like that I can order for next-day delivery!
 

This time next week it will be exactly a year since I joined WDC.

In that time I've come across so many interesting, talented people, found some wonderful things to read, and received huge amounts of support and encouragement for my own writing.

I joined this site hoping to get some feedback for the stories I had written, but it has been far beyond my expectations. I had no idea I would find such a strong sense of community that would motivate me to get involved in numerous contests and challenges. I had no idea that I could get engrossed in blogs written by people I've never met. I had no idea how much fun such an online community could offer.
Basically, I had no idea!

I'm so pleased to be part of such a great thing. Long may it continue
 

OK, so the blue month hasn't really worked out. Truth be told, I've been so stressed at work that I just haven't had the will to blog for the past week. It's not just that I'm unmotivated; I feel more anti-motivated. There's just a lot of crap piled on top of me right now and it's leaving me with a drained feeling.

Anyway, I don't want to whinge, just thought I should explain my absence from what was supposed to be a daily blog! I've got friends coming to stay this weekend so don't know if I'll get a chance to blog every day but at least I think I'll feel a bit more relaxed and happy than I have been recently. And then I'll get back to writing
 

I got an email at work today, from Human Resources, about the action the company is taking to prevent swine flu breaking out among the staff.

I'm sorry, did I say 'action'? I meant overreaction.

Among the many hysterical points in this email was the notification that anti-bacterial soap dispensers have been installed at all the external doors of all the company's buildings, so we are now expected to clean our hands on our way in and out of the building. If I worked in a hospital, such a precaution would be fair enough. But I work for a publishing company! This is getting ridiculous.

Sorry about that...another day, another rant about swine flu. I just had to get it off my chest. The hysteria is getting to me.