Ouch. It has been a [i]long[/i] time since I had one of those myself... The last time I think I was ... nine? I was actually put in the hospital just because neither of my parents could stay home at the time (hurray for free medical aid, though). The most memorable part of it, however, was how utterly [i]boring[/i] hospital was. In the end, I even took off with all of the newspapers from the desk a couple of corridors away (which I'm still not fully clear on whether were meant for keeping in my room rather than being read on the couches next to them, but hey, they also anchored me to a drip for most of the day, and it was kind of annoying getting through the doors with that). Mind you "all" included not only the regular newspapers, but also the business/economy papers (the kind my grandfather read, printed on a specific kind of salmon-colored paper back in the day). Suffice to say, it wasn't until a bit over a decade later (when I had been working for a few years, and had begun to have spare money) that I took that keen an interest in the stock market again. Imagine that, a nine-year-old who was mostly interested in beasts of all kind voluntarily read about the stock market. Boredom is a powerful force indeed...