(no subject)
So, I recently was tagged by Jess as not having an entry in 2 months... so I'm gonna put studying on a Friday night aside for a few and update you about my crazy and entirely geeky life.
I've lately been pretty angry at lazy people - especially the lazy people who are smart. You see, for the first time in my life I've been very politically active. Gov. Pataki, who is retarded when it comes to education policy, has proposed a ridiculous budget proposal that would justify another tuition hike for SUNY medical schools. Right now, the average debt for a med student is something close to $150,000, but for SUNY Downstate, it's more like $200,000 to $250,000 because the cost of living in NYC is so high. Pataki's intentions were noble, he was trying to increase the number of physicians in underserved communities. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that the way to get physicians in these communities is not by hiking tuition rates. The more a doc has to pay for loans, the more likely that 1) they are going to specialize and 2) they are NOT going to go in a community where they wont get paid as much. So, I was to lead a bunch of students to Albany for SUNY Lobby Day, a.k.a. State Legislative Day.
About 30 people CONFIRMED that they were coming. Because of this huge group, I had to scramble at the last minute to find transportation. I found the right people, and before I knew it I had SUNY Downstate paying for a $1000 bus to drive us to Albany and back. Everything was done last minute, and at 5pm on Monday I was literally sprinting between buildings to various offices in order to get signatures to release a check for this bus. So, the bus came Tuesday morning. How many students (out of the 30) actually showed up? Ans: 1. One freaking person did what they said they would. The other person who came (Katie) was not included in that 30 headcount because she was the other person organizing the event. So in total, we had 3 people to go rally in Albany, including myself. Obviously this did not justify paying $1000 for a bus, and we only had a check with which to pay them, so Katie and I embarrassedly turned the bus away. Now, because arrangements were made on such late notice, there was no contract signed, so we weren't even obligated by law to pay these dudes. The unfortunate thing was that the two drivers of the bus had driven from their station in Albany. So we did the least we could - we wrote and signed a statement saying that these guys came on time as planned, they were completely professional, and it was not due to any fault of theirs that we decided not to take the bus. Needless to say, the office which arranged for the bus received multiple angry phone calls that day.
But, Albany was a blast. I had so much fun that day, and I've been in an argumentative mood ever since. The State Senators and Assembly Members were very receptive to our issue and were eager to hear of our alternate proposal - to reinstate a loan forgiveness program that was withdrawn in 2001. This would be a great incentive to keep physicians in those needed areas and to lower medical school indebtedness.
So, enough with the political talk. In short, people who don't keep their commitments piss me off.
Oh! One of my last meetings was with Assemblymen Joel Miller. He had a poster for CICU, and one of the faces on the poster was Miss NattyClaire! Her beautiful face deserves to be in a State politician's office... but I'm wondering just how it got up there. : )
Despite the crazy Lobby Day preparations, I did fabulous on my GI Final Exam - which happened on Monday just before this craziness. I'm done with Anatomy Lab for the year, and I just have Endocrine and Neurology to go before the summer. After next week, things should calm down a bit because my SCUBA diving classes and my ER rotation will be done. This summer I plan on staying in Brooklyn and either doing research on dementia or teaching an anatomy class to RN, PA, and CHRP students. Matt got a new job a few weeks ago, and has been working his butt off (he's just leaving work now at midnight). I have been trying to give him as much of my time as possible, but this probably only amounts to 10 hrs/week because I have so much extra crap going on.
Deeze has been very cute. He and I took a much needed nap this afternoon after school. He wants to play fetch with his mousie right now... so on that note I'll close this up.
I've lately been pretty angry at lazy people - especially the lazy people who are smart. You see, for the first time in my life I've been very politically active. Gov. Pataki, who is retarded when it comes to education policy, has proposed a ridiculous budget proposal that would justify another tuition hike for SUNY medical schools. Right now, the average debt for a med student is something close to $150,000, but for SUNY Downstate, it's more like $200,000 to $250,000 because the cost of living in NYC is so high. Pataki's intentions were noble, he was trying to increase the number of physicians in underserved communities. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that the way to get physicians in these communities is not by hiking tuition rates. The more a doc has to pay for loans, the more likely that 1) they are going to specialize and 2) they are NOT going to go in a community where they wont get paid as much. So, I was to lead a bunch of students to Albany for SUNY Lobby Day, a.k.a. State Legislative Day.
About 30 people CONFIRMED that they were coming. Because of this huge group, I had to scramble at the last minute to find transportation. I found the right people, and before I knew it I had SUNY Downstate paying for a $1000 bus to drive us to Albany and back. Everything was done last minute, and at 5pm on Monday I was literally sprinting between buildings to various offices in order to get signatures to release a check for this bus. So, the bus came Tuesday morning. How many students (out of the 30) actually showed up? Ans: 1. One freaking person did what they said they would. The other person who came (Katie) was not included in that 30 headcount because she was the other person organizing the event. So in total, we had 3 people to go rally in Albany, including myself. Obviously this did not justify paying $1000 for a bus, and we only had a check with which to pay them, so Katie and I embarrassedly turned the bus away. Now, because arrangements were made on such late notice, there was no contract signed, so we weren't even obligated by law to pay these dudes. The unfortunate thing was that the two drivers of the bus had driven from their station in Albany. So we did the least we could - we wrote and signed a statement saying that these guys came on time as planned, they were completely professional, and it was not due to any fault of theirs that we decided not to take the bus. Needless to say, the office which arranged for the bus received multiple angry phone calls that day.
But, Albany was a blast. I had so much fun that day, and I've been in an argumentative mood ever since. The State Senators and Assembly Members were very receptive to our issue and were eager to hear of our alternate proposal - to reinstate a loan forgiveness program that was withdrawn in 2001. This would be a great incentive to keep physicians in those needed areas and to lower medical school indebtedness.
So, enough with the political talk. In short, people who don't keep their commitments piss me off.
Oh! One of my last meetings was with Assemblymen Joel Miller. He had a poster for CICU, and one of the faces on the poster was Miss NattyClaire! Her beautiful face deserves to be in a State politician's office... but I'm wondering just how it got up there. : )
Despite the crazy Lobby Day preparations, I did fabulous on my GI Final Exam - which happened on Monday just before this craziness. I'm done with Anatomy Lab for the year, and I just have Endocrine and Neurology to go before the summer. After next week, things should calm down a bit because my SCUBA diving classes and my ER rotation will be done. This summer I plan on staying in Brooklyn and either doing research on dementia or teaching an anatomy class to RN, PA, and CHRP students. Matt got a new job a few weeks ago, and has been working his butt off (he's just leaving work now at midnight). I have been trying to give him as much of my time as possible, but this probably only amounts to 10 hrs/week because I have so much extra crap going on.
Deeze has been very cute. He and I took a much needed nap this afternoon after school. He wants to play fetch with his mousie right now... so on that note I'll close this up.