Student Health Services

As you, my dear reader, may be aware I am from Helotes Texas. In Texas the typical length of all seasons that are not summer is about two weeks (total between the other three, I wish I was joking). Because I am in no way used to the cold, I have found myself quite unprepared for the pestilence borne of freezing winds.  I was even less prepared for these winds to persist longer then a week (again if you think I’m joking it was almost 90 degrees back home this week). Because of how unready I was it is no surprise that I contracted quite an illness. It started, as all things do, with a slight cough and a bit of a headache. I believed myself to just be a little under the weather and so put off any form of treatment. Much to my (unhappy) surprise my symptoms did not vanish in a week but rather grew. Now I had a constantly stuffy nose, none stop headaches and a cough that could only be described as indefatigable and moist. Accompanying these coughing fits was the hacking up of dun and sallow colored phlegm. All of these symptoms were unpleasant but no cause for concern to me. It was not until I began to consistently blow cherry red blood from my nose and into my tissues that I grew quite worried. Well a few more days of that went bye and my eyes began to burn and constantly experience a dull pressure. Finally a week ago from the day this post will be published I succumbed to my illness. And died.

 

Not really, I finally made the choice to contact Student Health Services (hence the title of the post). I, like many a man, HATE to talk on the phone but unfortunately found this obstacle unavoidable. I want to take a moment to note that you can in fact schedule appointments on the computer, but I had failed to fill out some paper work allowing me to do this. So I called Student Health Services. Now dear reader (who I assume at this point is only the person who grades these posts) I was not in the mood to have a chitchat on the phone. Luckily this is not what I found. I told them I wanted an appointment as soon as possible, and was quickly presented several options. I chose to attend a doctors visit first thing in the morning (8:00 am) the next day. I arrived for my appointment thirty minuets early as requested and was directed to a small kiosk where I completed some digital paper work. Once all of this was done I was went to my waiting area and began to settle in for the long haul. I don’t like to wait, and part of my distastes for doctor/dentist appointments is the act of waiting in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar room with other dying people. Fortunately, I was again surprised! The doctor called my back right at my appointment and after a short talk with the nurse I was seen and diagnosed. Two counts of pink eye and one pretty bad sinus infection (oh whatever will I get for the other ten days of Christmas?) The doctor than asked me ‘Why didn’t you come to see us sooner” and ladies and gentlemen if I had known how easy working was Student Health Services was I would have.

STEM Seminar

I genuinely enjoy my STEM seminar course, which I am not just saying because these posts are graded. The class is structured in such away so as to foster an open discourse about current issues in fields related to STEM (the validity of animal experimentation, weather or not research “as it is” needs to undergo a radical change, or the value of allowing the usage of performance enhancing drugs in professional sports to name a few) as well as a discussion of recent advancements in scientific fields of research. Each student is required to give a short (Two to five minute) speech on a research paper or article they read, and explain the questions they have, what they found interesting, and why the work is significant. The topics can very widely, from what city structure would limit tornado damage to the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell technology. I intend to give my speech on the discovery of the three numbers, which when cubbed and added together give 42 as their sum. For example 3= (569,936,821,221,962,380,720)^3 + (-569,936,821,113,563,493,509)^3 +(-472,715,493,453,327,032)^3. Such a set exists for every number one to one-thousand except for 114, 390, 579, 627, 633, 732, 921 and 975 (such a set of cubes may not exist for these numbers or it may not yet be found). No spoilers for my speech but this type of number theory fascinates me and is part of what drew me to theoretical math as my second major. While I do enjoy the science themed discussions what I find most intriguing about the class are the discussions about philosophy and how it can apply to the scientific method and the role of scientists in society. Now I must offer a slight trigger warning, as we do have discussions that could dip into questions which may be considered offensive. On one such occasion we were talking about the passage of a law which reasoned “because it is illegal to beat your horse, it should be illegal to beat your wife as both are property”. When this idea was presented I posed a question to the effect of “is this law a moral good because it keeps people from beating their wife or a moral evil because it equates a wife to property?” My instructor’s reply was to consider the time at which the law was passed (circa 1600), then to consider a woman property was not a moral evil. This then prompted me to ask “isn’t considering a woman property ALWAYS a moral evil regardless of what time period you are in?” The reply surprised me but has really stuck with me; “No, you are too much like a physicists, you are looking for a universal truth. Like a Newtonian law, good and evil are not like that. They change with time.” This was an idea that had never before occurred to me, that when we weigh the actions of historical figures we must not use our current metric of good or bad but instead the scale of the time. This new revelation has caused me to re-analyze many of the philosophical views I hold and weigh my sense of morality not just against what is now acceptable but what maybe acceptable for years to come.