I have the weirdest damn habit when I'm reading journals. For no apparent reason whatsoever, I always back up to a site's main page before moving on to the next journal. That is, I'll select a journal out of my bookmarks, then click on the link that takes me to the latest entry and read it. When I'm done reading, you'd think that I would just select the next journal in my list of bookmarks, but I don't - I have to hit the Back button until I'm at the mail page before selecting another site. Every time I catch myself doing it, I think the same thing: I should write about this in my journal. I'm such a mutant. Now you know.

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This morning in the shower I was thinking about socialized medicine. (If I get too many more journal topics from my morning shower thoughts I'm going to change the name of this journal to All Wet.)

The thought was pretty basic, actually, but I guess I'll give you the setup. A few years ago, people started talking about how great it would be if the U.S. had a government-subsidized health program like Canada's, because it would be cheaper and poor people wouldn't have to worry about being able to afford it, etc. Then I started hearing about how much Canadians hated their health program, because it was so time-consuming to actually see a doctor - they apparently have to spend a much longer time waiting. I could identify with this: college health centers are essentially socialized medicine, and I never waited for less than an hour and a half.

So here's the thought I had this morning: The difference between the systems is, in essence, their deterrent. In the U.S. people avoid going to the doctor because it's so expensive. In Canada people avoid going to the doctor because it takes so long. Okay, that's a generalization and an oversimplification, but it still seems to me to be not far from the truth. But maybe it's just me. I never claimed to have good thoughts when I was in the shower.

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This weekend will be a long weekend. This is good, because I'm really ready for a break. The Star Wars party last weekend was a lot of fun, but I lost a lot of sleep. I think I'm pretty well caught up now, but it'll be nice. I'm also hoping I'll get another project at work soon. I'm tired of doing layers on layers on layers - especially when I don't really understand that bottom layer but my task lead seems to assume that I do. ::sigh::

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I downloaded a typing tutor program yesterday, out of nothing but simple curiosity - office mates are always walking by when I'm writing e-mail and telling me they've never heard anyone typing as fast as I do. According to the program, I type about 80 words per minute if what I'm typing are reasonable sentences. If it's just random words, I slow down a bit, and if it's random letters, I slow down even more. I'm pretty sure this has to do with my thinking process rather than my typing ability. But the typing program is pretty cool, so I may keep it and play with it and see if it improves my speed.