So, yesterday I told you that my supervisor wants me to be a Certified Health Professional butt-quick, so I’m working through the modules quickly in preparation for the exam. Some of it is interesting, a lot of it is not. Coming from a medical family, I have to take each one, but there are lots of things in the modules I’ve heard (and said) over the years. I was my stepmom’s assistant for two years at one point, and worked in the medical research branch at another. So right off the bat, you know the term IRB sends shivers down my back.
Everything is so precise, as it should be. If you break a HIPAA law unintentionally, the fine is still $100/incident. And in fact, fines in a civil suit can go up to 1.5 million… although that’s not per occurrence. That’s $10,000/incident not to exceed 1.5 million in a calendar year. Sufficed to say, if you are a covered entity, make sure your ass is covered as well.
I think that’s the end game of this course, that I’ll end up teaching my team what they need to know to be capable of handling protected health information. I can just see it now. “Pay attention or we’re fucked.” I’m paraphrasing.
My arm feels like it’s going to drop off from writing so much, but like I said yesterday, there’s just not the same retention of knowledge if I’m typing notes to myself. I just kept switching implements, hoping that something would get comfortable and stay there. Started with a pencil, then a ball-point pen, then a gel pen, which was the most comfortable but it was red. So I have, like, three pages of notes in red ink, and I’m not even sure I can read my handwriting under normal circumstances.
It’s already weird not having my dad here, no text to wake up to asking if I wanted breakfast at the hotel or Starbucks. No one to have dinner with, although truth be told, that is a good thing, because I eat ten times more when I’m out socially than I do when I’m alone. I think I ate half my weight in steak last night at Old Ebbitt Grill… and then we had cheesecake.
After dinner, we walked to The White House as they were shutting it down. They don’t let people just walk around it all night. I was lost imagining who might be inside and what they might be doing. Was it a quiet night, or was there a State Dinner? I am sure that the president is sleeping well, because as Napoleon once said, “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Or if he isn’t sleeping all that well, it’s not because of the election. I think Hillary has it in the bag unless Donald Trump drops out and the Republicans decide to pick someone sane and reasonable, but there aren’t too many of those Republicans left.
I would have a much harder time choosing between voting Republican and Democrat if the Republicans truly espoused the values with which they began… small government, personal freedom, etc. Now they’ve gotten into the practice of legislating morality as if you can police people’s bedrooms and public bathrooms just the same. Like, seriously. Who are you going to put in charge of checking? Wouldn’t that require MORE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES? #jackass
But the government can’t be too small. Our society is too mobile for that. We get moved for all sorts of reasons, and their has to be a modicum of things that stay the same no matter where you live.
If we can manage Starbucks and McDonald’s in every state, we should probably be able to handle gay marriage and abortion as well…. it’s possible to be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time without the two interfering, because a real Republican would say, “pro-life is my choice, but I wouldn’t presume to legislate yours.” Pro-choice does not mean pro-death. People have been beating that dead horse for years, but all pro-choice means is “I am not an expert on your life.” As it should be.
I know that we already have gay marriage and legal abortion in every state, but Trump/Pence have threatened to take away both of these things, so one has to prepare for the approaching dystopia in case the stupid fucknut vote wins out over sanity. I am so proud of the middle-of-the-road Republicans starting to come out and say, “frankly, we didn’t sign up for this.”
I remember not being too fond of Barack Obama at first, either… called him “all hat, no cattle” for a very long time. And he turned out to be the best thing since sliced bread. So to all you Bernie-or-Bust wingnuts, you’ve forgotten the cardinal fucking rule. Support your party, because it doesn’t center around one person. Donald Trump thinks it does, but it doesn’t. Apparently, his answer to everything is either “me” or “fast.” He’s his own adviser, and he’s going to get everything done fast… without learning anything about the situation beforehand… and with his conservative Christian base totally ignoring things they’d never let anyone else get away with… like a wife that’s posed for Playboy. #familyvalues
I am not slamming Melania for posing. I couldn’t care less. It’s just that the party of family values is strangely silent on this issue. I would call Donald Trump a lot of things, but upstanding citizen who puts family first is not one of them.
And that’s all I got right now. I’m so tired I’m about to fall asleep on the keys. Maybe more tomorrow if I have time to write at SBUX. When I got there this morning, I realized I’d forgotten my drugs and had to go back and get them so I didn’t have to call in crazy to work.
But they’d definitely believe it. 😛
Stories That Are All True 