My pre-law fling gone bad

This is an old and out of date story but since I haven't posted in a while I'll go ahead and tell it. So to summarize, I got a citation and was towed back in January for 'parking in a crosswalk', and spent $135 on impounding and citation feeds. I appealed and after my hearing I got a letter in the mail of denial.

I appealed because when I parked there, I felt uneasy about how close I was to the intersection, but took specific note that I was not blocking the cross walk (I knew I needed to do that much). When I came back out that afternoon, my car was gone and I walked home. I was upset and flustered and rather clueless for what offense I had occured to get towed, so I spent an hour studying the parking regulation laws here: http://www.louisvilleky.gov/PARC/Parking+Regulations.htm

Eventually, I found the law that I was suspecting may have been a problem: I violated

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/PARC/parkinggenerally.htm#72.035

72.035N, "No parking within 30 feet of an intersection." But boo! Everyone parks within 10-15 feet of an intersection. It was stupid but I had definitely broken that law. It was still interesting looking up all of this because I learned about many ambiguous parking laws that not only are unheard of but unenforced as well.

When I went to go get my car, I found out that I'd gotten a citation for parking in a cross walk, violation of ordinance 72.035F. Dad came out with me to the impound lot and I told him my story of innocence and he supported me in an attempt to appeal. When I got home, I drove back to the spot where I was towed and alas, it was still there (which is strange but perhaps they towed more than one car from that spot that day). I parked my car and got out to take photos for my hearing.
















I also printed out the list of ordinances that included my real offense and the tried offense. If I would have gotten a ticket for the 30 ft law, I wouldn't have gotten towed. That was a lot of the motive, getting back at least $120 in a time where I was already pretty broke being after Christmas and all.

At the hearing, I only needed to talk to one person, and the officer who wrote the ticket was not present. We compared my pictures to the pictures taken by the officer (which were angled very poorly almost to make a perspective illusion that I may have been in the cross walk). Sure, the officer would have to take my word that my reproduction of my parking job was legit, but she didn't say anything about that. My main argument was that I felt I deserved a reimbursement mostly for the sake that I got written a false citation. She tried to argue with me a bit but ended the hearing at one of my comments saying, "well, remember in the future not to park so close." I thought I had won, I felt like my argument was legit, and sure I don't know if I put it forth as organized as I should have, but she gave me the impression that I had done the job.

Dad called me a few days later to let me know I'd received a letter of my denied appeal. He says that the government just doesn't make financial room for reimbursing citations after appeals, or something. It was too bad. I thought it was fun looking up all the ordinances and feeling like I was some pre-law type trying to get a go at fighting a case. Whatever I guess. As for me and political sciences, I'll be taking the closest thing I'll get to it next semester in an honors seminar called Environmental Law. Ooh.

Updates updates

Well it has been a while since my last post and I actually have plenty to talk about. But since I don't need to go on too long about everything and I actually need to watch 2 movies before I go to bed tonight I will try to keep my comments short.

New Orleans trip: For those of you who didn't know I went to New Orleans on Thursday the 7th until the 10th for the Phi Delta Epsilon convention. It was a great weekend. I went to the convention last year with other PhiDE people and it ended up being very similar except for the fact that I went by myself this time as the delegate. As the delegate, my trip there has been completely covered, transportation, food, hotel and everything, so it was kind of like my idea of a preview of the conferences that doctors normally attend that are all about freebies (can't wait). I might've had to pay for free time activities, but since I was on my own I was able to take the opportunity to tag along with other chapters and with doctors attending the convention. Since I was usually with at least one doctor, all the tabs were covered (awesome).

I actually spent the entire flight to NO with Dr. Katz, a Louisville surgeon who comes to our chapters events usually once or twice a semester. He happens to be on the UofL admissions committee, and the time talking with him was incredibly valuable... In general when it came to socializing with the doctors, I got an extremely high amount of regard from almost every doctor I talked to. I guess the fact that I felt incredibly friendly all weekend really helped that, so I got great positive feedback.

Last year I was uncomfortable with the aspect of the hierarchy of power in the medical community, this year I just accepted the hierarchy, relaxed and did what was expected of me to fit right in. The convention gave quite a bit of opportunity for social interaction and I got a chance to see a lot of the must-sees of NO, mostly restaurant wise. Regarding what I got out of it PhiDE-related, I benefited from the convention with a huge list of ideas and ambitions for the rest of the 07-08 school year along with the 08-09 school year, which I have been elected as of Tuesday as President. So yeah, lots of good things came out of that weekend. Here are some of the better pictures I have, all taken with my camera phone because I ignorantly forgot a real camera...

The top photo is of dried catfish hanging in a grocery store that serves a famous sandwich like thing. I really should remember of the names because it was one of those must-go-to places, but I don't remember...

The next photo is of some buildings surrounding the French quarter adjacent to the famous cathedral which was behind me.

The third photo is taken outside of the Cafe DuMonde which is famous for its coffee and donuts. The donuts were pretty much the same thing as funnel cake, as seen from the powdered sugar all over the side walk in this photo. NO weather was awesome, 70s, short sleeves, nice warm breeze, sun, palm trees, ...awesome

The last picture is just one example of the bead pollution that still reeks in NO within a week after mardi gras. This wasn't on bourbon st. or the main avenue but it looked just like those places.

Politics: I read Tony's blog about the election and the ignorance of the voting process and felt pretty moved by his points. As of right now, I still lean towards the democrats but feel reluctant to pick Obama or Clinton. So maybe most of this is just because I took some issues compatibility quiz and got matched up with Kucinich, but its also just because I know I don't know enough about either Obama or Clinton to be able to legitimately try to support one of them...

Politics has been on the minds of myself and the college students amongst me more than I can recall ever before in the past. Perhaps this should be predictable for an election year, but even more so than that are the current issues that are prominent at UofL. There have been two major issues on campus in the past few weeks: (1) crime that is serious enough to require a student-body email has been very persistent this semester (usually in the form of muggings and robbery and the most serious occasion one involving a kidnapping at gunpoint) and (2) state budget cuts are promising many issues at the University in the near future, most notably the increase in tuition by 'double-digit' figures and a decrease in KEES scholarships. There has been general discontent in the form of communication between students on campus and on facebook and the morale at UofL is in general feeling very poor lately. There was a 'march on the capitol' event Wednesday where students of the state could try to speak against the state-wide higher education budget cuts, but I didn't consider going. Many groups and emails are prompting students to write the legislators. I care but haven't been motivated enough to act myself...

Big East Championship: Jeff, Jason, and I got six tickets for the Big East championship games from March 12th to 15th yesterday. We are stoked. NYC here we come on Spring Break! Go L'VILLE! It's going to be a fun time. Hopefully we will make a good chunk of money back from the $350 package price by selling a few games online. We need to figure out the legal aspect of that first though, probably...

*Update (2/22): We got our tickets today, check out the section 404 seats. =)

Storm

Last night weatherbug had an alert about a severe thunderstorm until 9pm. Strangest storm you'd ever see, on the radar it was just a narrow strip of red surrounded by a little green stretching north to south and moving to the east. When I heard the wind announce it's arrival, I looked out the window and watched the wind grow stronger. I went to the back door and couldn't see well out the window, apparently all of the I-65 lights had gone out along with all of the buildings across the interstate, including UofL, Harley Davidson, Manual, etc. All I saw was some white flashing thing in the distance. The wind was nuts, then all of a sudden an even stronger gust came and it was like I saw all of the trees in the backyard lean themselves to the ground, then I saw a flash of light as a tree landed in the back of our yard. At this point, I could've swore I was going to see a tornado emerge from the direction of the wind, so I went to wake up Jeff. There must of been a lot of noise all at once but I was a little preoccupied with freaking out. What made it a freak storm is that we went outside less than 5 minutes later and it was hardly raining and the wind had died down back to how it had been before the weather came.


Our neighbors had an even bigger tree fall, they lost half of a garage, a boat, and an entire shed. The tree landed on half of our cars. Denise's old cavalier is crushed, my back window got smashed (funny how I've gotten two windows replaced in a month), and the tree is still resting on the hood of Jeff's for-sale uninsured Focus. It's very disappointing for him.

past due IM experience summary

long title: but before I find it months behind me I'm going to summarize some of the more prevalent things I learned the seven days I shadowed Dr. H at University. Her specialty was Internal Medicine (IM).

1. Women are better doctors than men. Dr. H was a very compassionate and sympathetic doctor. It's all about the bedside manner and daily attitude. Meeting someone like her reinforces my intentions for going into IM. I have to say it is still probably my favorite, making it my favorite specialty for 7 months now. I think its a record.

2. I'm just going to have to get used to meeting pre-meds, med students, and doctors who are there for the buck. Every time I have shadowed, I almost always spend most of my conversation time talking to the lower level residents or the medical students (simply, the people who are at least a little closer to my level). I talked to an intern at University named Zach, and he was a really nice guy, but he complained about the IM busy work a lot always seemed ready to leave the hospital. He wants to work in private practice with Anesthesiology.

3. It seems likely that it's true that there is an influx of suicide attempts around the holidays , I only saw a couple of people who came in for it though. Both were just people who had taken drug overdoses. The residents were joking about how if there going to do it they gotta do it the right way (slit their throat artery). Sounds insensitive but I mean they were kidding of course, even if it's true.

4. Pretty much the only people who go to University are patients with no insurance. They all still get treated, though there are limits to what can be done... In the seven days I was there, one of Dr. H's patients was put into Hospice and passed away a couple days later, and I stood there and watched her tell a man he had a 15% chance of being alive in 3 months. Yes, it's all very dramatic, and I might not be putting enough sympathy into telling the story of it. But the point I was working on was that the lady who died in Hospice was in her 40s and had sudden liver problems over the few weeks before she died. A liver transplant costs $300,000, but other than for not having insurance, she would not have been a candidate for 6 months, anyway... The man was also dieing of liver problems, but they were related to alcoholism.

5. Which brings me to my next point. Sure, you hear of alcoholism, but of course nobody seems to take anything seriously until they see it. I wish there was a way I could exemplify how serious it is to those who need to hear it. The man I mentioned was in his 40s and was in extreme denial all of the days I saw him, saying things like "15%, I can make that, then 6 months without alcohol? I can do that, too." He seemed like a good, just lonely, guy. But the thing is, even if he lived 3 months, he still couldn't have long to live. Sad times, which brings me to another point.

6. There are a lot of lonely patients in University hospital. Not to mention young, all of them were under 60, many in their 40s. So few of the patients I saw had guests coming in to see them. At least a few of the people I saw there were homeless, and they also seemed to be enjoying there stay, even if they were sick. The people who had the most companion support were those who had came in on overdose. Isn't that something, yeah? Relationships are important in health though, everyone can understand that connection.

7. Jeez HIV is sad. That doesn't need any explanation. My favorite patient was the youngest (27) and one of the sickest. He also probably had some of the best companionship in the hospital.

Well, I think that was a lot of it. I guess I remember most of what I had wanted say after all. I'd end on a more lighthearted note but I'm not sure what to say to do that.......lol

And Jenn, your poll's options are too extreme! Plus, I need to see more photos =)

Soul Calibur with Darth Vader and Yoda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeV30-ri-yY

Jeff wants me to show this to you Jenn, you can just skip to 3:30 to get to the part he wants you to see.

I still plan on writing about some stuff but I'll get to it later

my neurology shadowing

So now I've got a story to tell, something unfit to go in the school post.

I drove to Lexington Thursday night to go to UK with JEb to work on Friday. She's been doing Neurology Pharm service for a few weeks and she was able to set me up because the attending was younger and probably more approachable. She almost recommended me not coming because the patient load was very low; her attending that she did rounds with only had 3 patients(though 3 or 4 consults in addition to that). But of course for me, something is better than nothing, plus JEb seems to like talking about what she does at work so I knew she liked the company.

So, Neurology works mostly with stroke patients and seizure patients. Two of the three the attending was covering were stroke patients and the other was still unknown. After the chart briefing (or whatever you would call it), the rounds started. I made it to the second patient, which was the one with an unknown condition. I won't talk about it a lot but it was a younger woman who was having tremors and 'opsculopsy?' or something that made her eyes jerk around too. This is where my rounding ended.

I'm pretty sure I know what the stimulus was, the nurse came in and took tape off her arm where an IV had been and the patient, unaware of the nurse's quick action, annoyingly grunted. I may have a vivid imagination, because if I'm not careful, I find myself unintentionally imagining someone's expressed pain. I was fine, and we left the room ready to move on to the next patient, then when I was out in the hallway I felt it coming. My vision started blurring, I was thinking oh Crap... and tried to breathe deeper. When I was failing to come up with a way to cease the problem and my ears had started ringing, I went ahead and said something to JEb to the side that I needed to sit down. She took me into a little nurse station off the hallway and sat me down, and I told her my vision was going out. She was already startled because I had started sweating and going pale. She gave me a Sprite, a straw and started trying to put graham crackers in my mouth.

The black out probably took a couple minutes to happen. Apparently, I blacked out right after I took the first bite of cracker. What I remember is having a fast-paced, flashing lights type of dream. I think I was actually dreaming about something specific too but I can't remember what it was, though I tried to remember when I woke up. Over on JEb's side of the situation, she apparently yelled for help when I blacked out, and the first resident who came in the room along with JEb saw me flinch my arms out. So I woke up from my dream and confusedly saw white coats standing all around me. I realized everyone from the rounds was focused on me. How embarrassing. They were discussing what they thought happened to me, apparently because the resident and JEb seemed to think I had seized. JEb seemed to think it could've been a seizure just because J-Bergomatica had had seizures in the past. The attending suggested it was just syncope. The seizure-suggesting resident seemed to excitedly ask me, "Do you want us to check you out? We should get an EEG.(!)" JEb and him were asking plenty of questions, and I was thinking of answers but couldn't make my words come out just yet.

I was pretty ready to shake out of it, and made sure to mention for a second time that I just have problems with vasovagal... (Which actually now that I look up 'syncope' and 'vasovagal' I just feel more like a wimp cause crap, there just technical terms for fainting! dangit.) But I did recover, and once my vision was mostly back, a nurse came to take my blood pressure and everyone oohed and aahed over a bp of 82/42 or something like that. I realized around then my heart was pounding, which of course would go along with that... I got up and made sure to say that I came to shadow, not to become a patient, so I got up and tried to walk strongly. JEb kept insisting she was sorry she hadn't fed me better that morning, because I was probably 'hypoglycemic' or whatever. The Sprite did help a lot, though.

I followed the doctors to the next patient, and while we waited at a nurse station, JEb asked me one more time if I wanted to sit down in a wheel chair. I went ahead and sat down, really with just the intention of sitting for a moment. To my dismay, the resident still wanted to take an EEG, so they took me away from my shadowing for that day. The EEG was interesting, I got a nap out of it, and after it was over I discovered that they had totally killed my hair for the rest of the day with this bees wax like material that held the detectors on. I would've taken a picture but I thought I might as well relax and pretend like I was taking this seriously. I also was confirmed that I had not, or at least was not, seizing. I was pretty tired the rest of the day, and I just sat around with JEb in her office again while she confirmed Pharm orders. I'm hoping thats not the last I see of those doctors, it would really suck to be remembered that way, but I don't know if its likely I'll see them again.

So that story could have been made short and sweet, but sometimes details make things a little more interesting, I think. Gosh, how many characters was that? That could've probably passed for a damn memoir in high school.

Anyways, I'm shadowing at University hospital now with a really great Internist. I suppose I'll save all my stories about that for my next blog. It looks like I'll have 7 days worth, so perhaps I will have lots of short and sweet stories for that one. I'll tell you now that I'm looking away whenever I see a nurse messing with an IV. Screw letting that happen again.

semester over

So I'm looking at my blog wondering if I've had any comments which of course I don't because everyone forgets about me and I noticed how I made all of those last posts during finals week when I had plenty of important things to do. It's just funny reflecting on how horribly I procrastinated this semester. I hope it doesn't happen again but I will once again be very busy next semester, so its to be seen.

The horrible thing about procrastinating is that I didn't even get negative feedback for doing it. I studied for Genetics maybe 8 hrs the entire semester and I got the (by far the) top score in the class, not to mention my first real 100% ever. I think I'm pretty good at Bio, after the MCAT and the past couple semesters. The curve for P.chem was huge, so that A was no problem. I probably worked the hardest in Calc III, that A was earned. My Inorganic final was pretty easy, so that A ended up being cake... that professor totally decided to loosen up at the end of the semester or something. Oh, then that other 'class' took the least effort at all, I worked on a presentation, a paper, and some homework for maybe 10 hrs the whole semester, and learned how to canoe and the history of beargrass creek in the meantime. That was just a fun A!

But yeah, this is just me announcing I still have a perfect GPA. Only one semester to go before I get the GPA the med schools will see, how exciting!