even cds and stomachaches can't help much

dear mister burglar,

(well, you might have been a miss but we've decided no girl'll smash down a doorframe just because she can't dismantle the deadbolt with the screwdriver.)

what you did was very wrong. shame on you. santa won't be happy.

you broke into L's house, you smashed the glass in the door, you took her laptop and her brand new digicam her dad just got her. it was still gift wrapped for goodness sakes. that laptop's got all her med notes from first year til now. i hope you're happy. the police are after you and think you're a drug addict. you ransacked every cupboard in every room of her house. what were u expecting to uncover in the kitchen? it took L and her mom the whole day to clean up the mess you made.

you must be either really brave or just plain dumb to have broken in through the front door when there was a bigger pane of glass to break in the secluded back yard. to leave her tv, the stereo system and her discmans behind ~ you must be real cocky to take the most expensive things or just plain dumb. you also left her textbooks behind. the whole collection would've been worth more than her digicam that you took ~ you must've left your student years behind a long time ago to not know how much textbooks are worth.

if you have a heart, at least return L's notes. burn them on a cd if you want to keep the laptop. she's got exams in 8 weeks and has nothing now, thanks to you. you must be proud. to make a young girl barely 20 feel unsafe in her own home, uncertain of her academic future and emotionally unstable.

signed,
your conscience.

i don't know what to say... i'm just venting at how little one can do, at why it happened to L.. or why it had to happen at all in the first place. the police came and put their grubby hands all over everything so by the time the other team came to take fingerprints, there were no viable surfaces to take any from. the fact that L was supposed to be home that day but got held back by her tutor is a huge case of what if. what if she had been home? would they still have broken in? what if they still broke in while she was in the house? what would've happened then?

i find it disconcerting that everyone.. from the police to the carpenter installing the new door.. assumed that the burglars were most likey drug addicts who snitched the laptop and camera to pawn off for a few cones or something similar. if it's common knowledge, why hasn't been something been set up to help these people so that they don't turn to drugs? the only drugs and alcohol rehab specialist house shut down years ago due to lack of funding! the university spends millions on useless computer programs and roundabouts that are only one centimeter off the ground. the city's building snazzy new cafes and hotels to attract people into newcastle. yet, they're shutting down hospitals and rehab centers, shunting all these people who need the help to a weekly drug and alcohol clinic run by 5 staff who all have other roles at the mater wards.

what to do? what can be done? all that i can do is to help L get her life back to normalcy as she'd like it to be. *sigh* i gave her a cd of notes and stomachache to make her feel better for starters ^.^ the world can wait for it's turn to be fixed. besides, there are far more capable people around to do that.