Hungary's tooth tourism

All of us want white and shiny teeth, also the British people are dreaming of "Hollywood teeth". Therefore this year, 25,000 Britons will take cheap flights to Budapest for bargain dental work. There you can regulate your teeth for a quarter of the price. Another few thousand will come for cut-price cosmetic surgery or lasik corrective surgery. Someone reported that he had needed a couple of fillings and a crown replaced which costs about 750 pounds in London, in Budapest it is quoted 266 pounds. With the return flights and car parking it costs about 352 pounds, which is still a bargain.

The clients come mainly from the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and Holland. In 2004 the clinic treated about 16 Britons a month, which is quite a lot in my point of view. Three years later, work-of-mouth recommendations have pushed that to more than 100, with similar numbers arriving from other northern European nations.

But the British Dental Association warns that anyone who is thinking about treatment overseas must make sure that they are aware of the potential risks and the hidden costs. There can arise difficulties if there are problems with the treatment when the patient returns home. But the Bedfordshire-based dental travel agency Perfect Profiles ensures that if things go wrong, they fly their patients back to Budapest, put them in a hotel and resolve the problems - at their expense.

I read also some personal experiences of patients and nearly all of them were fully satisfied with the treatments in Hungary. But to be honest, I am a bit skeptic and I think I don`t want to be under medical treatment in Hungary although it is much cheaper as in Austria.

What you eat is very important for exam success

As now the stressful learing period for us poor students :-) starts I have some tips for you to boost brainpower and keep stress at bay. I found an aricle during I was exploring the web which is called "What to eat for exam success". I think everyone of us know how the feeling is if you are under learning stress and how difficult it is to stay alert and to be concentrated during the long, long learning process. Sometimes we try to learn the whole night and for these times we need something which keeps us alert, the solution for this problem is COFFEE. At least we think it is but there are other things which are more useful and also healthier.

First of all one of the most important meals is breakfast. It is an old rule but a golden one. Studies have indicated that those students who eat breakfast have better recall, better problem-solving skills and improved scores in math tests, which is not so important for our studies. :-)

Wholegrain cereals such as porridge and sugar-free muesli, garnary toast or some fruit with a yoghurt or formage frais are the perfect breakfast. The milk, which you should add to your muesli, provides protein which helps to keep you full and aids concentration.
With this sort of breakfast you will have a good start and you will make an enourmus process during the morning! :-)

Secondly you have to know that lunch is as important as breakfast. You should avoid fad-laden, mayonnaise-based sandwiches, pizza and chips because otherwise you will have the feeling that the meal is sitting uncomfortably in your stomach all afternoon.

Protein, as I mentioned before, seems to help us to concentrate. Therefore you should eat tuna, turkey, lean beef or ham and eggs which make ideal basis for lunch. These things can be accompanied by small pitta bread, tortilla wrap or a slice of rye for example.

Furthermore have a plenty of citrus fruits, berries and vegetables, which are great for vitamin C. It is needed for a robust immune system as well, these fruits and vegetables may also help to reduce the risk of being laid low with a summer cold that could upset your revision and exam performance.

Finally try to replace some of your caffeine-rich, sugary drinks with sips of liquid or camomile tea.The active plant constituents can help to reduce stress.
Coffee, tea and energy drinks such as Red Bull might seem to help in staving off sleepiness but overdoing these beverages can overstimulate the nervous system, elevating blood pressure and heart rate and putting you more "on edge". Stick to no more than five or six caffeine-containing drinks each day.

Well, I hope you have read this article carefully and if you will try some of these tips you will have the best exam results ever! :-)

I wish you a good and stressful learning period and good luck for all the exams you have to sit.

A Year in the Merde

I have completely forgotten to tell you something about my second book which is called "A Year in the Merde". It is written by Stephen Clarke. I have read about 70 pages of the book now and I am really impressed by it. In this chapters Paul West describes his first impressions of France and his fellow workers. He decided to spent a year in France and is job is it to establish Tea Rooms in France for his company. At the beginning everything is quite difficult for him as most of his co-workers speak only their mother tongue, and if they speak English he could hardly understand them, becauese it sounds more like Chinese or Hungarian.

Paul West tries to learn French on his own by a CD Rom. After some difficulties with waiters, secretaries, and so on, he gets used to his new life in France and tries to make the best out of it.

It is a very interesting and entertaining novel and I really like to read it. It is fascinating, in a bad way, to see how he has to struggle when it comes to a conversation. I think it is strange that most of the French people are not able to converse in English, although it is a world language. In my view the author gives us a good inside into the French world and describes everything in a very entertaining and funny style. I just like this book

Irish teenager won abortion fight

A 17-year-old girl, known as Miss D in court, is four month pregnant with a baby who has anencephaly, which means that a major part of its brain, skull and sculp will not form. She was told two weeks ago that the baby was not excepted to survive for more than three days after the birth, the girl told a social worker that she couldn´t cope with carrying it, which is from my point of view really comprehensible.
As abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland unless the mother’s life is in danger, the girl wanted to travel to Great Britain to abort the baby.
The Irish Health Service Executive stepped in and put the 17-year-old in its care and prevented her from making the journey.
In court last week, the executive made a U-turn and dropped its opposition to her travelling to the UK, and said it would let her go on the grounds she has consent from her mother and a judge. But the process was further protracted on Saturday when a district judge refused to give consent.
But the lawyer said the cours were barred from helping someone to seek an abortion abroad. However, he agreed there were no laws restraining the teenager from going to the UK.
Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated outside the court.

I think it must be very hard if you know that your unborn child won´t survive for more than a few days and in this case there should be no debate if the girl is allowed to abort the child or not.
Of course, the baby has a right to live and I am also absolutely against abortion but in such a case it should be allowed everywhere.
As we discussed this topic in class I think it is an appropriate article for my blog.

Place for Transgendered Youth

Yesterday I read an article on the New York Times websites which dealt with the problem of the transgendered youth in New York.

The worshipers - Princess, Kelly, Michelle, Skye, Gianni and Terry are all teenagers or in their early 20s. They are slender, stylish and soft of voice and will smack anyone who questions their femininity or asserts that, biologically, they are still males.

The only place which they call home and where the term transgender is tolerated is the homeless shelter in New York specifically for transgender youth. This shelter is called Carmens´s Place and is named after the missionary Carmen Solis who started a youth outreach program at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Astoria. Father Braxton wast the pastor of this church and after its closing he rented a two-bedroom apartment and opened this for transgender people. He and a small staff of volunteers prepare the meals and try to turn the residents away from prostitution and persuade them to go to school or to find jobs. Father Braxton says that this shelter is the last hope for the transgenders because they had been kicked out of the other gay youth shelters by breaking rules and curfews. Father Braxton does have rules. No sex with customers within five blocks of the shelter. Sex with shelter workers is forbidden, and sex with other residents is strongly discouraged.

In my opinion this is a very interesting article and on the website there is also an interview with one of the people who live there and a video.

If you are interested in it, have a look on the New York Times website.

Almost French

Today I read the passage from the book "Almost French" we have to prepare for Thursday. It is about a cocktail party where Sarah and Frederic were invited to. Sarah was really shocked about the atmosphere at this so-called party. The guests were totally quiet and everyone seems strangely inhibited.
As Sarah decided to break the ice she introduced herself and tried to start a conversation but her attempt failed. Then she offered champagne to everyone but the guests seemed to be torn between a desire to accept and some sense of duty not to.
As soon as they were out the door she exclaimed that it wasn´t a party, it was another planet.
Later on Frederic told her that her action had appeared shockingly forward. Especially for a woman, because in France, apparently, serving alcohol is very much a male domain, so her champagne gaffe had been far too assertive.


Finally, Sarah talked about her difficulties to click with anyone and that she needs some friends who are around her age.

In my opinion this passage was quite easy to read although there were some new and difficult words which I want to share with you:

• 
  inhibit --> to take an action that makes (something) less likely to happen, or that discourages (someone) from doing something --> hemmen


• incredulous --> not wanting or not able to believe, and usually showing this --> unglaubhaft


• ease --> freedom from difficulty, effort, or pain --> Leichtigkeit


• scud --> move quickly and without stopping in a straight line --> eilen


• inane --> extremely silly or lacking real meaning or importance --> albern


• surreptitiously --> done secretly, without anyone seeing or knowing --> heimlich


• incongruous --> unusual or different from the surroundings or from what is generally happening --> unangebracht


• disincentive --> something that discourages people from doing something or working hard --> Abschreckmittel


• gaffe --> a remark or action that is a social mistake and not considered polite --> Ausrutscher


• intrusion --> unwanted involvement --> Einmischung


• to defy --> to refuse to obey, or to act or be against, a person, decision, law, situation --> sich einer Sache widersetzen


• to mingle --> to mix or combine, or be mixed or combined --> sich unter Leute mischen


• bumpy --> not smooth --> uneben

Kiss shocked India

Maybe many of you have heard about Richard Gere´s exaggerated gentleness. But in my opinion not only is this action exaggerated also the reaction of some groups of men is really excessive.

His kisses on the cheeks of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in an event to promote Aids awareness caused shock and sparked protests in India. Many saw the act as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and Indian culture, though Shetty dismissed the protests as an "over-reaction" that made India look silly.

Groups of men kicked and burned even effigies of Richard Geere in protests agains India. From my view this reaction is really exaggerated because the action of him was not that terrible or harassing.

Perfect day

Although winter is my favourite season I like spring as well, particularly this one. Today was the most beautiful day in these holidays. I got up at half past seven and I went snowboarding at half past eight.
With the cablecar it takes me only ten minutes from my house and I am in a quite big ski region (called Naßfeld). Today it was great there because there were nearly no skier, the sky was azure and cloudless.

In the early afternoon I was sunbathing while I was reading Jaywalking. Try to combine these two things and you will see that the book is a lot easier to read outdoors. :-)
I got sunburnt, my first one this year. Yippee, now I am a bit red instead of white, but tomorrow I will be as pallid as yesterday. :-)
Although the hotness is unseasonable, I loved this awesome day!

Enjoy the rest of your holiday and the warm spring days!

Jaywalking with the Irish

I don´t want to summarize the plot of the pages I´ve read so far, because I think it is quite boring for SUK IV students, as everyone has to read this book on their own. But I have to mention that I have some difficulties with David Monagan´s book. The vocabulary he uses is hard to understand and if I would try to understand every single word I would need at least half an hour for one page. Sometimes it is also a bit boring and I have to admit that it is easy to lose concentration.
But I will keep on reading as I have to do and I also want to do it! ;-)