We got an e-mail about two weeks ago. stating that next year, electronic patient tracking would be implemented and we would all have to do it. Okay. The e-mail further went on to inform us that the electronic patient tracking would only be able to be implemented on a Windows + Palm system, that Mac owners would have to use public computers to sync and that those who owned PocketPC's would be needing to purchase a Palm. Not okay.
I own a PocketPC because I felt that that was the most appropriate way to spend my money. It does what I want, it does it the way I want it, and I like it. I have no interest in a Palm, or in the Graffiti system, or in buying one. Furthermore, when we were buying PDAs last year we were told that Palm was the "preferred" platform but that PocketPC would work. I bitched. The computer goddess responded, saying they got snowballed by the committee and the developers and only found out in March.
I understood. The vast majority of PPC owning students did not.
Today's e-mail:

After months of dialogue with the student computer task force, many other student leaders, faculty, and technology staff we decided to roll out our CET program for the school but initially only for only second and third year students (2004-05). Fourth year students will be exempt this year. This decision was very much influenced by you, the students. Let me take this time to thank those who brought constructive feedback to the process and helped influence this decision. We are all appreciative of your efforts.

We bitched. It made a difference.

Left early because we were supposed to go to training. We decided we would go anyway, were told just to go home after. No training meant that at 16:15 we were ready to leave - except that Megan needed to finish up a patient. So she went back, and I went home. I feel kind of bad, but we talked it over and decided there was no point in me going back; my patient was only going to have to wait for his hangover to recede so he would talk to us.
That's what you get for coming in with a BAC of 0.567.

So I left, but I feel bad about abandoning her there, and I worry that now I look like a slacker because I've been doing my Depression in Older Adults module the whole friggin' day on the computer.

One more thing before I go in pursuit of sushi: It is the year of the cicadas, and they are the most disgusting little bugs to date. The driveway, the trees, the lightpost, and even the friggin' grass is covered with their little shells and their little wrinkled bodies. When I went out to my car this morning, there were cicada shells on the wheels. I'm afraid they'll try to eat my Shinkun.
All those little brown things? Yeah, that's them.
They're ugly, they're annoying, and the sound of cicadas buzzing brings back memories of a house without air conditioning, where I had a tiny fan that blew on my bed to cool me, where I learned to sleep naked because a nightgown was only one more piece of hot and sticky cloth to cling to my flesh in the night, to make me wake with terror at the strangling sensation of fabric tightening on skin. Cicadas remind me of the hot and humid misery that is a Midwest summer when three rivers meet in the middle of town and your house is so old it's a wonder it has central heat. I do not miss it, nor do I miss seeing friends and not wanting to touch for the leaving of sweat on each others' clothing, the damp obscurity that would gather and glue clasped hands together.
I like my air conditioning - specifically, I like the dehumidifying aspects of it - and I dislike cicadas. Call me a foe of nature, if you choose.
But, seriously, what a nightmare infestation...

(And everyone hug quinby because she needs a lotta love.)

now feeling:: annoyed