This week has, so far, been one of those weeks where I find myself in a constant state of shock from the ignorance people are capable of. Yes, there are lots of decent people out there, but there are also a lot of people who just don't seem to give a damn. Kanye West actually symbolizes this week quite fittingly.

First, there is the annoying fact that for the first time in my four years at Guelph-Humber I decided to treat myself to a locker. This would save me the inconvenience of lugging around all my books up and down the spiral staircase. So, with my shiny new lock in hand (I even had to re-learn how to use a lock), I skipped merrily along to my registered (and paid for) locker only to find someone else had helped themselves to it! Being the nice person that I am, I left the invader an eviction notice (two, in fact). The "final notice" will be me getting security to physically cut off the lock and chuck their stuff somewhere. I don't care where. I really am nice.

But even that is just a minor blip in the week and it only translates more significantly on paper (rather, digital paper) than it does in real life.

Cut to my first magazine class of the year. I finally met the professor I've been receiving long e-mails (class related!) from over the past year. He seemed like a pretty decent guy until he shared one minor detail--he had the FLU! Not only that, but he openly joked about it saying how he didn't have a huge interest in H1N1 because it "only affects you young folks." I am so glad such a superior being will be spared the hardships of H1N1. Nevertheless, I was supposed to meet with him after class to discuss my own catch-up schedule (since I had to drop the prerequisite to his course last year), but I choose to beeline for the door instead.

Finally, today I went up to clinic to get my second Twinrix shot (not a full appt. just needed the nurse to give me the injection). I was there all of 20 minutes, but I noticed that "contacts" were at the clinic at the same time. This was at 9:30 in the morning and "contact" clinic is supposed to be at the very end of the day. For those of you who are not in the know, "contacts" are people who were exposed to the cepacia outbreak last October. Cepacia is a very dangerous bug for a person with CF to get, it makes infections more difficult to treat and transplant more difficult to survive. People with CF go through great lengths to avoid picking up cepacia. The "contacts" that were exposed to people that picked up cepacia last year do not necessarily have cepacia. Right now they have negative cultures. However, sometimes it takes up to two years to show up so many of these patients are playing the waiting game and are in a "grey area".

So right now there are (supposedly) three categories for our CF clinic:

1. Cepacia positive clinic (on Wednesdays)
2. Cepacia negative clinic (Tuesdays)
3. Contact clinic (Tuesdays)

Originally, after the outbreak occurred, cepacia negatives (that's me!) were told that contacts would go to clinic at the end of the day so as to avoid any risk. However, in the past few months I have witnessed this strict regime dwindle down to something that has become increasingly optional. Take for instance this morning, it was 9:30 am and contacts were already in clinic. As you can guess, I remain quite perturbed. I do everything in my power to stay healthy, one of my closest friends has CF but we never hang out in person because of risk, I am constantly dodging people who are sick (even my own professor) BUT the one place that should be a haven, sometimes feels like a death trap. Why bother separating the food on the plate if it is all going in the same place anyway?

Anyway, that concludes my four cents of the day.